St. AUGUSTINE, OF THE CITY OF GOD: WITH THE LEARNED COMMENTS OF IO. LOD. VIVES. Englished by I. H. DISSIPABIT AUGUSTINUS. Printed by GEORGE ELD. 1610. TO THE HONOURABLEST PATRON OF MUSES AND GOOD MINDS, LORD WILLIAM Earl of Penbroke, Knight of the Honourable Order, etc. RIght gracious and graceful Lord, your late imaginary, but now actual travailer, then to most-conceited Uiraginia, now to almost-concealed Uirginia; then a light, but not lewd, now a sage and allowed translator; then of a scarce known novice, now a famous Father; then of a devised Country scarce on earth, now of a desired City sure in heaven; then of Utopia, now of Utopia; not as by testament, but as a testimony of gratitude, observance, and hearts-honour to your Honour, bequeathed at hence-parting (thereby scarce perfecting) this his translation at the imprinting to your Lordship's protecting. He, that against detraction beyond expectation, than found your sweet patronage in a matter of small moment, without distrust or disturbance in this work of more worth, more weight, as he approved his more ability, so would not but expect your Honours more acceptance. Though these be Churchmen, and this a Church-matter, he unapt, or unworthy to hold traffic with either; yet here Saint Augustine, and his Commenter Uives; most favour of the secular: and the one accordingly to Marcellinus, the other to our King Henry, directed their dedications; and as translators are only tied, to have, and give, true understanding: so are they freer than the authors to suit themselves a Patron. Which as to Scipio, the staff and stay, the type and top of that Cornelian stem, in quam, ut plura genera in unam arborem, videtur insita multorum illuminata sapientia, your 〈◊〉. in Br●…. poor Pacwius, Terence, or Ennius, (or what you list, so he be yours) thought most convenient to consecrate. Wherhfore his legacy laid at your Honour's feet, is rather here delivered to your Honours humbly thrise-kissed hands by his poor delegate. Your Lordship's true-devoted, Th. Th. HENRY King of England, to JOANNES LODOVICUS VIVES greeting. WORTHY Sir, and our very well-beloved friend, as soon as Saint AUGUSTINE de civitate Dei, enlightened with your comments came to our hands, being right welcome to us, it caused us to doubt, whom we should most congratulate; either you, by whose so learned labour so ehoise a work is finished; or Saint AUGUSTINE, who long time imperfect and obscure, is now at last brought from darkness to light, and restored to his ancient integrity, or all posterity, whom these your Commentaries shall infinitely profit. But whereas it pleased you, to dedicate these Commentaries to our name, we cannot but retain a grateful mind, and return you great thanks, in that especially your mind therein seemeth to manifest no vulgar love and observance towards us. Wherefore we would have you persuaded, that our favour and good will shall never fail in your affairs, whatsoever occasion shall be offered, that may tend to your avail. So fare you happily well. From our Court at Greenwich, the XXIIII. day of january M. D. XXIII. JOANNES LODOVICUS VIVES to the renowned Prince HENRY the Eight, King of England, Lord of Ireland, etc. Salutations. IT is so ordered by nature of men's dispositions, most famous King, as we admire them truly and heartily, whom we perceive excel in that knowledge, which pleaseth us most, and is approved amongst all: divers are given to divers studies and exercises, nature doth so ordain, as by this variety the world should consist both beautiful and wonderful: and yet, as he speaks, Every man's own is fairest to himself. Your Majesty long since hath been esteemed, yea and admired, for your opulency and large extended Empire, not conquered by arms & homicide, but lineally conveyed from your parents as, also for your strength of mind and body, and for your warlike prows. But now since you have also given good proof and essays, how able are you in strength of wit and studies of wisdom, you are grown much greater and more admirable among all learned men, not, but that they highly esteemed you before, especially for that you join mildness with majesty, goodness with government, thereby to appear a lovelier and livelier image of the Prince of Nature, who as he is greatest, so is he best, yea best before he proved greatest. But men given to learning do not so much bewonder your wealth or your power, as with exceeding love they embrace & adore, that you are good & gracious: not deeming it to be admired that you are King, since even wicked men have oft been Kings, yea and remarkable for fair endowments of the body. But when your defence of the Sacraments came forth, them which nothing can be more elegant, more pure, more religious, and in one word more christian, the reputation of your minds goodness was much more confirmed, if more it might be: for it was now infixed in the minds of all, most firm & assured by many examples as if fastened with nails, and admiration thereof arose in all men: yea even in those who think nothing more honourable, more majestical than the power of a King; & those that place riches above all things, & that ascribe exceeding much to the gifts of the body, to beauty, brawny strength, and agility, and that are students in the arts of war, as if war were the omnipotent commander of all things: wher-hence it comes to pass, that all Princes, by all means & mediations they may, do ambitiously strive to hold friendship with you, all affecting to be joined to you, or by confederacy, or which is more wished by alliance. Nor want you the studies of private men, which by the splendour of your virtues you have raised, alluring some with your beneficence, or either magnificeuce, others with your humanity and sweetness of demeanour, all with wisdom & justice, two virtues indeed for a King. You being such I do insooth confess my impudence, that oft times I did affect to be known unto you: for this is my opinion, that it is no mean praise to be but known of you. And whereas at all other times fit occasion was wanting, it now voluntary presented itself, my Commentaries upon S. AUGUSTINE'S books de civitate dei, being in a readiness: which when I bethought me to whom I might dedicate in such sort, as both I might win some favour worth the esteeming, for my labour, and he to whom they should be presented, might not think so much learning as leasing, so much study as stubble, not a book, but a burden or bundle were proffered unto him; as also I might send them to a Censor as grave as gracious, who only allowing them, they might seem approved and commended by the applause of all men, you only came to mind for many reasons and respects. First, for that such is your virtue and learning, as even to you I should have presented them, if you had been a private man: next did I see this was the next way to attain my desire, which erst I had conceived and in myself avowed. Moreover, as they tell that have tried, you are openhanded, & hearted to such kind of presents, than which scarce any may be more welcome to you. For who should offer you gold, silver or gems, garments, horses or armo●…, should power water into the sea, and bring trees to the wood. And truly as in all other things, so in this, you do most wisely, to think that glory, beseeming your virtue and deserts, is purchased with all posterity by books & monuments of learned men, if not by mine or those like me, yet surely by showing yourself affable and gracious to learned men, you shall light upon some one, by whose stile, as a most cunning pencil, the picture of that excellent and al-surmounting mind, purtraied and polished may be commended to eternity, not to be covered with the rust of oblivion, nor corrupted by injury of after ages, but that posterity an uncorrupted witness of virtues, should not be silent of what is worthy to be spoken of, both to the glory of yourself, when you are restored to heaven, though that be the best and best to be regarded, and also, which is principal and most to be aspired, to the example of them that shall then live. Besides all this, this work is most agreeable to your disposition and studies, wherein Saint AUGUSTINE hath collected (as in a treasury) the best part of those readings, which he had selected in the ancient authors; as ready to dispute with sharpest wits best furnished with choicest eloquence and learning. Whereby it is fallen out, that he intending another point, hath preserved the relics of some the best things, whose native seat and dwelling, where they used to be fet and found, was foully overturned. And therefore some great men of this later age have been much holpen by these writings of AUGUSTINE, for VARRO, SALUST, LIVY, and TULLY de republica: as HERMOLAUS, POLITIANUS, BLONDUS, BEROALDUS: all which you shall so read, not as they were new or unheard-of, but recognise them as of old. Add hereunto, that you and Saint AUGUSTINE'S point and purpose in writing, seem almost to intend & attain the same end. For as you wrote for that better Rome against Babylon, so Saint AUGUSTINE against Babylon defended that ancient, christian and holier Rome. This work, not mine, but Saint AUGUSTINES, by whom I am protected, is also suitable unto your greatness, whether the author be respected, or the matter of the work. The author is AUGUSTINE, (good GOD) how holy, how learned a man, what a light, what a lean to the christian commonwealth, on whom only it rested for many rites, many statutes, customs, holy and venerable ceremonies! and not without cause. For in that man was most plentiful study, most exact knowledge of holy writ, a sharp and clear judgement, a wit admirably quick and piercing. He was a most diligent defender of undefiled piety, of most sweet behaviour, composed and conformed to the charity of the Gospel, renowned and honoured for his integrity and holiness of life; all which a man might hardly prosecute in a full volume, much less in an Epistle. It is well, I speak of a writer known of all, and familiar to you. Now the work is not concerning the children of Niobe, or the gates of Thebes, or mending clothes, or preparing pleasures, or manuring grounds, which yet have been arguments presented even to Kings: but concerning both Cities, of the World, and GOD, wherein Angels, devils, and all men are contained, how they were borne, how bred, how grown, whether they tend, and what they shall do when they come to their work: which to unfold, he hath omitted no profane nor sacred learning, which he doth not both touch and explain; as the exploits of the Romans, their gods, and ceremonies, the Philosopher's opinions, the original of heaven and earth, of Angels, devils, and men: from what grounds God's people grew, and how thence brought along to our LORD CHRIST. Then are the Two Cities compared, of GOD and the World, and the Assyrian, Sicyonian, Argive, Attic, Latin, and Persian governments induced. Next what the Prophets, both Heathenish, and jewish, did foretell of CHRIST. Then speaking of true felicity, he refuteth and refelleth the opinions of the ancient Philosophers concerning it. Afterwards, how CHRIST shall come, the judge of quick and dead, to sentence good and evil. Moreover of the torments of the damned. Lastly of the joys and eternally felicity of Godly men. And all this with a wonderful wit, exceeding sharpness, most neat learning, a clear and polished stile, such as became an author traversed and exercised in all kind of learning and writings, and as beseemed those great and excellent matters, and fitted those with whom he disputed. Him therefore shall you read most famous and best minded King, at such hours, as you withdraw from the mighty affairs and turmoils of your kingdom to employ on learning and ornaments of the mind, and withal take a taste of our Commentaries; whereof let me say, as Ovid said of his books de Faestis, when he presented them to GERMANICUS CaeSAR. A learned Prince's judgement t' under go, As sent to read to Phoebus, our leaves go. Which if I shall find they dislike not you, I shall not fear the allowance of others, for who will be so impudent, as not to be ashamed to dissent from so exact a judgement? which if any dare do, your even silent authority, shall yet protect me. Farewell worthiest King, and reckon VIVES most devoted to you, in any place, so he be reckoned one of yours. From Louvain the seventh of july. M. D. XXII. AN ADVERTISEMENT OF JOANNES LODOVICUS VIVES Of Valentia. DECLARING WHAT Manner of people the Goths were, and how they take Rome. WHERE AS AUGUSTINE took OCcasion by the captivity of the romans to write of the City of GOD, to answer them, which injuriously slandered the Christian Religion, as the cause of those enormities and miseries, which befell them: It shall not be lost labour for us (sounding the depth of the matter) to relate from the Original, what kind of people the Goths were, how they came into Italy, and surprised the City of Rome. ¶ First it is clear and evident, that the former age named those Geteses, whom the succeeding age named Goths, because this age adulterated, and corrupted many of the ancient words. For those two Poets, to wit, RUTILUS and CLAUDIAN, when-soever they speak of the Goths, do always name Geteses. OROSIUS also in his History saith, the Geteses who now are named Goths, departing out of their Country with bag and baggage, leaving their houses empty, entered safely into the Roman Provinces with all their forces, being such a people, as ALEXANDER said were to be avoided, PYRRHUS abhorred, and CaeSAR shunned. HIEROME upon Genesis, testifieth that the Goths were named Geteses of the learned in former time. Also they were Geteses which inhabited about the River Ister, as STRABO, MELA, PLINY, and others aver: possessing the Region adjacent, a great part of it lying waste and unmanured, being intemperate through extremity of cold: also the further parts of Ister to Scythia, and the hither parts towards Thracia. Where the Town Tomus is, famous by the banishment of OVID, who often writeth, that he lived amongst the Geteses: They also inhabited the Mediterranean parts towards Germany, and the spring head of the River Ister. STRABO writeth in his seventh book, that in former time they were named DACI and DAVI, when those nearer unto Pontus were named GETESES by the Greeks, and that both those people spoke one kind of language. Although PLINY intimateth unto us, that there was no other difference between this people, but that the greeks named them Geteses, whom the romans called Daci. But we will follow STRABO in this place. The Geteses (saith he), are a barbarous and savage nation, strong and of a stout mind, contemning death, because they are persuaded that the souls do return again, as MELA writeth: or if they do not return, yet that they are not utterly extinguished, and that they remove into better places: But if neither happen, yet that death is better than life. It is reported that in later times the Geteses were named Ostrogothes, and the Daci called Visigothes after their country names: because these bordered more toward the West, and the other more toward the East. But oftentimes these names are attributed as well to the one as to the other, without any difference, both by the old and new writers. They report that this nation when the romans did flourish most, made an invasion into a Province of the people of Rome, in the war of MITHRIDATES: whom LUCULLUS being General, and managing the military affairs in Asia, with a great army expelled out of Misia. After that they departed out of their own country bounds with Baerebista their Captain after he had accustomed them to labour and military discipline, and that they brought many Nations under the yoke of subjection. And that having passed over the river Isther with a great army, they wasted and spoiled Thracia, Macedonia, Illiryum far into the countries, putting the romans in great fear of them. And that while the romans were making ready their forces to go out against them BaeREBISTA their Captain died. AUGUSTUS' sent forth almost ten Legions against them, and so wasted and diminished their forces, that he brought them from two hundred thousand to forty thousand, and sped so well against them, that he had almost subjugated the whole Nation to the Roman Empire. But a few years after they entering into the bounds of the romans, slew OPIUS SABINUS, and his army, who had borne the office of a Consul: yet CORNELIUS FUSCUS (DOMITIAN being Emperor) after many bicker at last repressed their fury. TRAIANUS the Emperor warred often against them, whereby he got himself great glory and renown. ANTONIUS' CARACALLA plagued them grievously, opportunity serving his turn, when they neither dreamt nor suspected any such matter. Also in the days of GORDIANUS they spread themselves often into the bounds of the Romans: But GORDIANUS the younger compelled them with little labour to depart out of their Province with great loss. Now this stout and mutinous people, discontented with the limits of their own abode, many times hunted after opportunity to invade the possessions of other nations. Therefore PHILIPPUS VOSTRENSIS being Emperor (who first of the Roman Princes professed Christian religion) More than three hundred thousand of them, making a great slaughter and spoil, entered forcibly into Thracia and Mysia, adjoining neaerest unto them. DECIUS was sent to drive them away, who had such bad luck in his attempts, that he gave over before he obtained his purpose, which thing he closely smothered succeeding PHILIPPUS in his government. Afterward GALLUS the father and VOLUSIANUS his son concluded a peace with them upon conditions unprofitable unto themselves, which the Goths kept not very long, bearing themselves bold upon the slothfulness and idleness of GALIENUS the Prince, and assailed not only to make an attempt against Thracia, and Mysia, but also against Asia Minor. They wasted and spoiled Bythinia, and returning 〈◊〉 Europe, they made great spoil and waste in Thracia and Macedonia: and when they were making towards Achaia, MA●…RINVS encountered them, discomfited them, a●… put them to flight, pursuing them so hard at the heels, that he drove them into their own bounds. But they did not stay long there, although now departing out of their bounds, they were to deal with a most valiant Prince, who had bone no less fortunate than he was valorous, if he had lived longer in his Princely government CLAUDI S was the man which partly destroyed, and partly took CCC thousand of them. Which is an argument that the number of this people were almost infinite. For not many years after they rose up in arms against AURELIAUS, possessing the Empire, and were vanquished at the first encounter at Danubius. 〈◊〉 COTANTINUS made such a slaughter of them, that at last he enforced them to be at quiet for many years. For the conduit on of their fight was such, that they did neither conquer without great harm done to 〈◊〉 enemies: nor were overcome without much hurt done to themselves And these things were acted by the Goths, while they had proper places of their own to inhabit. Now in the reign of Prince VALENS, the Hunns which are likewise Scythians themselves, yet more cruel, barbarous and rude, in the affairs of human Commerce, remaining near the Riphaean mountains, enclosed between Tanais and the people, named Massagetae: chased the Goths by force out of the region which they did inhabit. And although this region be not very commodious for the use of men, by reason of the extreme coldness: yet the Hunns did esteem it to be more wholesome and pleasant than all the rest, being a people bred and brought up in a soil seldom warmed with the beams of the sun. Now the Goths driven out of their country houses and dwelling places having The Goths 〈◊〉 driven out of their country by the Hunns, been accustomed before time to invade the bounds of other Nations, were now in such a narrow straight, that they must either valiantly lose their lives, or remain within the possessions of strangers, having none of their own. There are some that affirm that those Geteses (which we said were named Ostrogothes) came into the territories of the people of Rome, but that the Visigothes dismayed and amated with the adverse fortune of their associates, advised themselves to shift their dwelling, dreading to abide the like tempest, that the Ostrogothes had suffered, the forces of the Hunns overflowing all, like the swelling Sea) spoiling and destroying the neighbouring countries round about. This matter induced the Visigothes to dispatch Ambassadors with spee dy expedition to VALENS the Romame Emperor, who in the name of the whole Nation humbly entreated, that he would grant them the country of Mysia, which is on this side the River Danubius, for their habitation and dwelling, ●…arnestly pretesting and vowing in the behalf of all their Countrymen; that they would all receive the Christian Religion, and become true and faithful Tributaries to the people of Rome, manfully defending those bounds of the Romans by their sword and goods, from the violent invasions of the rest of the Scythians. VALENS pleased with their conutions, sent LVPI●…INIVS and MAVINUS unto them, as Duumuiri to divide the ground, and assign●… places of habitations to the Visigoths. But they began to lay burdens of oppression upon the necks of the people through their covetousness and cruelty: now for a while the Goths did patiently bear and lightly regarded the wrong done unto them, because they were loath, being but lately entered into the bounds of strangers to kindle any fire of sedition: supposing that those greedy Captains being glutted with wealth would make an end of their oppressions. But while these covetous wretches had little care for the distribution and provision of victuals: they caused such a grievous famine as was not only a destruction to those hungry Captains themselves, but also to the Roman prince, For the Goths being assailed with pinching famine (like hungry beasts) took up their weapons hastily, killing the Roman Captains and their Guard, and then having armed themselves, they range over all Mysia, and so from thencepasse into the nearest Thracia, which they compelled to become tributary unto them. Here VALENS encountered them, and there was a sore and bloody battle on both sides, so that the romans were scattered and put to flight, and a great many of them slaughtered. The Emperor himself being wounded was taken prisoner by the enemy, whom they burned alive, so great was their fury after the effusion of so much Valens the Emperor burned alive blood. And then being proud of their victory, they march forward to Byzantium, and no repugnant forces stopping their passage, they besiege the City, which held out for some space of time by her own strength, by the industry and council of DOMINICA, who was wife unto VALENS: for the hearts of the Citizens were fast united toward the Prince by the great bounty and liberality of DOMINICA. Afterward, the siege being razed by the valour and power of VALENTINIANUS, brother to VALENS, they retired back and departed. VALENTINIANUS adopted THEODOSIUS a Spaniard, sent for out of Spain, and made him partaker of his Empire. He vanquished and put the Goths to the worst in many battles, compelling them to be humble suitors for peace, which being granted, HALARICUS their King coming to visit THEODOSIUS being sick, fell himself also into a disease, of which he died within a few months after: Neither had they any other King, or Captain but such as the Roman Emperor elected and appointed over them. In the mean while THEODOSIUS of Milan, who was a prince without all controversy equal to the rest, and inferior to none of the most renowned, as well in war, as peaee, departed out of this life, leaving two sons behind him, named ARCHADIUS and HONORIUS, and one daughter called PLACIDIA. He made ARCHADIUS governor over Byzantium and the oriental Regiment, and HONORIUS over the Occidental, and the City of Rome. And because they were somewhat young, he assigned Tutors and Guardians over them in his Testament, for their better education: namely RUFFINUS over ARCHADIUS, and STELICO over HONORIUS, both of them being crafty and wicked wretches, and so qualified by nature, as they could easily insinuate themselves into the bosom of Princes. These two bad Protectors abusing the Minority of these Princes (being an age subject to injury) that they might increase their own riches and strengthen themselves with great power; did not bend their affects to the fruition of any private greatness: but their ambitious and treacherous thoughts aimed at the highest step of Royal dignity. RUFFINUS coveted the Empire for himself, STILICO for his son. Thus both of them busied their wits, and stretched the sinews of their strength to satisfy their aspiring thoughts: but they perceived, that they could not come to the upshotte of their desires but in the time of war: because then the peaceable state being troubled, with the tempest of war, their hateful thoughts could not so well be discovered, and might with far greater facility be effected, the minds of the Princes being perplexed with terrors of the wars, which might be an occasion to grant any thing to men nearest unto them, and such as should have the chiefest command in the administration of all affairs. For they were not ignorant that in quiet time of peace (as in a fair and calm day) the dark clouds of their black minds would soon have been discerned, and that punishment should with more expedition be inflicted upon them, the Princes and Nobles having leisure of consultation concerning that matter. Wherefore both of them solicit and incite the Goths (a people ready to blow the bellows to kindle the flame of sedition and tumults of war) that they would make war against their Prince, setting an edge upon their greedy appetit with hope of a great rich booty: the Goths supposing now that opportunity was their friend, so that they might do some great good for themselves: or at least (the war not attempted) return home again with no small prey: betook themselves to arms, and having created HALARICUS to be their King, one of their own body, and of the famous house of the BALTHI: depart out of their own bounds, not without great fear and terror of those which bordered near unto them. And within a while after RADAGAISUS The house of the Balthi. joined himself unto their King with two hundred thousand Goths: and when as no one land was able to nourrish two such hugh armies, the Generals were constrained to separate their Tents, and one of them going one way, and the other another way through Panonia, Illiricum, and Noricum, they burn, and spoil all things, that cometh in their way, and at last they come into Italy. Now RUFFINUS, foolishly executing his designments, was slain by those soldiers at Thessalonica. But STILICO more The death of the traitor Ruffinus. cra●…tilie concealed his wicked plot. And now RADAGAISUS was come to the City of Rome with his army marching through Etruria, putting all in great fear and terror, which way soever he went. The City of Rome troubled with exceeding fear sendeth mercenary captains against him at his first approach. Now RADAGAISUS v●…isedly and rashly ordering his army, threw himself, as it were, headlong into places of disadvantage. So that the multitude of his soldiers pined, & were consumed with famine, deprived of their victual, And he himself seeing things were come to this unlucky event, attempted with a small company, to escape by flight be a secret and private way, but he was intercepted, and slain by the Roman soldiers, and a great multitude of Goths The death of Radagaisus. were sold at a very low rate. After this overthrow, and slaughter of the Goths, HALARICYS entereth into Italy, affrighting every one with far greater dread, then RADAGAISUS had done before, When tidings was brought unto STILICO, which was at Byzantium, he sent some of his soldiers before him, which should set upon the rearward of the army of the Goths, and by that means hinder them from making any great slaughter, or spoil of the country. Afterward, he marched forward towards them by the coast of the upper sea, with all the forces of his horsemen and footmen. The two armies pitch their Tents near Ravenna, the Goths got that part which is named Pollentia via, who in respect of their infinite number did far exceed the Romans: but in regard of skill, and military discipline, they were in no sort comparable unto them. Now STILICO had often times got the upper hand over the Goths by his warlike policy, and had cooped them up in such a narrow place, that sitting idly at home he might have ended the wars at his pleasure, if he had been willing. But he resolved to remain with his army until the Vandals his friends and favourites were come into France. For he was persuaded without any doubt that then good occasion would be offered unto him for obtaining the Empire for EUCHLRIUS his son. Therefore he trifled away the time by making a few light skrmishes with the enemy. But when HALARICUS had ferrited out his hidden drift by secret passages, he disclosed it to HONORIUS. And when as by this good turn (as by a rich gift) he supposed he should both calm the fury, and insinuate himself into the favour of HONORIUS: he was encoraged to make petition unto him, by the same ambassadors which he sent to reveal the treason of STILICO, that he would grant part of France unto him for his people to inhabit there, promising that they should live after the laws of the Romans, to the advancement of the Roman Empire, and their wars; and that they would be inferior to none of their Provinces either in fealty, or dutiful service. The Emperor amazed with this doubtful mischief, made choice rather to admit the Goths into part of his dominion then to procure a final destruction to him and his, by the disloyalty of perfidious STILICO. But HALARICUS was not the first, that discovered to HONORIUS what villainy ST●… was forging. Nevertheless he thought it was dangerous for him at any time to put such a man to death, as was father in law unto him by his two wives, being also so potent and mighty by his riches far above the highest degree of any private person. Therefore having dispatched his letters, he sendeth them unto STILICO by the ambassadors of the Goths, willing him without delay to permit the Goths, to have free access into France. STILICO gave but cold entertainment to this news: for he saw tha●… he was defrauded of his great hope, and he likewise suspected that his secret consultations sometime hidden in his breast, were now divulged and dispersed into the air. Yet for all that, his stout, and stubborn mind made some pause upon the matter: at last making choice of that which was safest for him, he answered that he would obey the commandment of his Prince. Nevertheless being loath to give over so, and that the matter might not slip wholly out of his hands, he suborneth one named SAULUS and the soldiers of the jews to follow the Goths hard at the heels, who killing some thousands of them, opportunity being offered, might by that means exasperate the minds of the people and move them to break the league. Now this SAULUS upon the LORDS Day, which by the ancient institution of our religion we observe as sacred and holy: wherein the Goths were wholly intentive to divine services: made a sudden and violent assault against them, and in the first tumult and uproar slew some of them. The Goths being terrified with this unexpected accident, consult suddenly, as well as they might, in such a sudden and fearful case, whether they should arm themselves for their defence, or not. For they held it a heinous crime, to touch any weapons, to shed man's blood, to make any slaughter of men on the festival day of Our Saviour. But when the fury of the jews was without any mean, and measure in killing, murdering and slaying, than every private person following his own mind, armed himself for his own safety, attending no longer what council might asigne them to do. Now many of them being armed, and come together, HALARICUS having put his companies in arr 〈◊〉 so ●…ll as shortness of time would give leave easily repressed the rage and madness of this 〈◊〉 and unwar like people. For the Goths having a little conflict with them 〈◊〉 the jews, and put them to flight. Afterward having complained that they were enforced to pollute and contaminate the sacred and divine law, by the cruelty of them who had violated the laws of men: and also calling upon Christ, in whose name they took their oath when the league was confirmed between them, whose holy day they had polluted against their will, with effusion of blood, murders, and slaughter; then without 〈◊〉 inflamed with fury and rage, they march through Italy to displate their bloody colloures before the City of Rome. Now not long before STILICO had dismissed some of his soldiers, as men of small reckoning, and of no use but in time of war: but by reason of the instant terror of imminent danger, he was constrained to send to the Emperor, to have them sent back again unto him, with a new supply of other companies, that he might go with all the strength they could make to withstand the enterprises of the Goths. HONORIUS being thoroughly possessed concerning the plot of traitorous STILICO sendeth a great army of soldiers unto him: having privily given the captains in charge, that watching fit occasion they should suddenly kill STILICO and his son. Now they having consulted one with another concerning this action, and appointed a certain●… day, when they might courageously execute the commaundent of their prince: suddenly a●…dat unawares set upon STILICO and his son, some on this side some on that, and so slew them both, and some of his kindred which made resistance to rescue them. This quick dispatch The deserved death of traitorous Stil●… and his son. of these two Traitors was acted at Rome in Foro Paci, in the Market place of peace. But the improvident and carclesse Emperor, after his general was slain, had no care to place another in his room. I think he did it to prevent that any other having the like power should attempt the like practise. So that now the army being destitute of a chief commander, was pitifully discomfited by the Goths, who made such havoc, and slaughther of the soldiers, that the very name of the Goths, bred an exceeding terror and discouragement in the hearts of them all. Now the Goths having put the Romans to the foil, bring their bloody ensigns to the City of Rome, and took the same, afflicted with a long siege, and being entered into the town they begin to rifle, ransack and spoil it, being far more greedy every man to get a good booty, then to commit slaughters, rapes, adulteries, and such like odious and filthy facts as are commonly acted by the unbridled outrage of dissolute soldiers, at the sacking of Cities. For when HALARICUS was ready to enter into the City, he caused two Edicts to be proclaimed to his soldiers. The one was, that every man should abstain from slaughter, and laying violent hands upon any person: because such cruel deeds, did highly displease him. The other was, that whosoever had taken Sanctuary in the temples of the chief Apostles, should have no harm done unto them, nor those holy temples be profaned by any, and that the offendor should suffer death. The City of Rome was taken by the Goths, after it was founded Anno. M. C. L. XIIII. Cal. April. PLAVIUS, and VARRO being Consuls. But after what manner is was taken, the Historiographers make small relation. PAPT STA EGNATIUS saith, that he had the manner of the taking of it, out of the works of PROCOPIUS a Greek author: and that he did not a little marvel why the Interpreter did wittingly, and willingly over-skippe that place: or if it were so, that he lighted upon an unperfect book, that he took no better heed to mark what was wanting. I myself have not seen PROCOPIUS the Greek author, therefore the truth of the cause shall rely upon the credit of EGNATIUS: a man very industrious and learned, as far as I can judge by his works. These are his words ensuing. HALARICUS had now besieged Rome, the space of two years, when HONORIUS remaining careless at Ravenna was neither able, nor durst come to succour and relieve the City. For he regarded nothing less than the welfare and safety of the City, after the death of STILICO, having no care to place another General in his room, which might have managed the wars against the Goths. These things were motives to stir up the Goths to besiege the City, perceiving that either the Roman soldiers daily decayed, or that they went about their affairs without any courage. But when they found that they could not win it by force, having besieged it a long time in vain: then their barbarous enemies turn their thoughts to attempt what they may do by policy. And now they begin to make a false show of their departing home into their own country, wherefore they call three hundred young men, out of their whole army, excelling in activity of body and courage of mind, which they give as a present to the Noblemen of Rome, having instructed them before hand, that by their lowly carriage, and obsequious service, they should bend themselves to win the favour, and good liking of their masters; & that on a certain day concluded between them, about noone-time, when the Roman princes were either a sleep, or idly disposed, they should come speedily to the gate, which is named Asinaria Porta, & there suddenly rushing upon the keepers, murder them speedily, and then set open the gate for their countrymen to enter, being ready at hand. In the mean while the Goths prolonged their return, dissembling cunningly that sometime they wanted this thing, and sometime that. At last these three hundred young men wake●…il to take the tide of opportunity, dispatched their task courageously, which they had undertaken, &, at the appointed day set the gate wide open to their countrymen, and friends. Now the Goths having gotten entrance, rifle, ransack, spoil, and waste the whole City, procuring far greater dishonour, & shame unto the Roman Nation, than they did loss by the taking of it. There are some which think the gate was set open by the means of PROBA, a most famous, & wealthy woman, pitying the lamentable, and distressed case of the common people, who died every where, like brute beasts, pined with famine, and afflicted with grievous diseases. There are two things worthy of serious marking, first that HALARICUS made an Edict, that no violence or harm should be offered unto them, which fled into the Temples of the Saints, especially of Saint PETER and PAUL, which thing was carefully kept. Next, when it was told HONORIUS being at Ravenna, that Rome was lost: he thought it had been meant of a certain Frenchman a quarrelous, and fight fellow whose name was ROME, marveling that he was so soon gone, with whom he had so little before been most pleasant. And thus much writeth EGNAT●…VS. Now the most blasphemous and wicked people fa●…sly imputed the cause of all their miseries and enormities unto the Christian Religion: denying that ever it would have come to pass, that Rome should have been taken, if they had kept still the Religions devoutly observed by their Ancestors and commended by tradition vn●…o their Posterity. As though the Frenchmen before time had not taken, wasted, and ransacked that City, for the very same cause, namely for the breach of their oath: yea at that time when the profane ceremonies of their Heathenish Religion (as they say) were in their chiefest prime, and pride. And as though few Christian Emperors had managed their affairs well, or as though the decay of the Empire and ruin of it did not begin under the Emperors of the Gentiles. And as if HONORIUS had not lost Rome, by the same negligence, and slothfulness, that GALIENUS lost Egypt, A●…a, 〈◊〉, passing the matter over with a pleasant test when news came unto him of th●… l●…se of them. Wherefore against these slanderous persons who would have been enemies, and adversaries of the Christian Religion though no calamity had happened to them, AUGUSTINE wrote two and twenty books: defending the City of God (that is to say) the Christian Religion, against the rage, and fury of their frantic and impious calumniations. FINIS. The argument out of the second book of the Retractations of Saint Augustine. TRiumphant Rome, ruinated and dejected from her throne of Majesty, into a gulf of calamity, by the violent irruption of the barbarous Goths, managing their bloody wars under the standard of ALARICUS: the worshippers of false, and many gods, (whom we brand in the forehead with the common name of heathen●… Pagans) began to breath out more damnable and virulent blasphemies against the true GOD, than their bestial mouths had ever breathed out bef●…: labouring with might and main to lay a heap of slanders upon the neck of Christian rel●…on, as the wicked Mother of all this mischief, and murderer of their worldly happiness. Wherefore the fire and zeal of God's House, burning within my bowels, I resolved to compile these books of the City of God, to batter down the strongest hold of their bitter blasphemies, and dispel the thick clouds of their gross errors. Some years passed over my head, before I could compile and finish the whole frame of this work, by reason of many intercedent affairs, whose impatient haste of quick expedition would admit no delay. But at last this great, and laborious work of the City of God, was ended in two and twenty books: of which the first five rebate the edge of their erroneous opinions, which build the prosperity of human affairs upon such a tottering foundation, that they think it cannot stand long, unless it be shored up by the worship of many gods, whom the blinded Pagans have been accustomed to worship and adore: averring (but their truth is mere falsehood) that neglect and contempt of their unworthy adoration hath been the fountain from whence these bitter waters of adverse occurrences have streamed abundantly, and overflowed them. But the other five following are not meale-mouthed, but speak boldly against them which confess, that the spring of worldly evils is not exhausted, nor shall ever be dried up: but the current flowing sometime more, sometimes less, sometimes swiftly, some times slowly, changing their state according to the circumstance of places times and persons: yet fond are they opinionated (for verity hath not made them a warrant) that the devout adoration of many gods, in which sacrifices are offered unto their imaginary Deity, is profitable for the life which we hope for after death. Therefore in these ten books the absurdity of these two vain opinions, both deadly foes unto Christian religion, is discovered and confuted. But least some man may upbraid me that I am too forward to disprove the assertions of others, and slow enough to prove mine own: the other part of this work, which is confined within the bounds of twelve books, is directed to that purpose. Although in the first ten (where it is needful) we are not behind hand to confirm the truth of our own opinions and also to infringe the authority of contrary oppositions in the twelve books ensuring. Therefore the first four of the twelve following, contain the original of two Cities: of which one belongeth to GOD, the other to this World. The second four contain their progress. The third four, which are the last, contain their due bounds. Now though all the two and twenty books are compiled together of both Cities: yet they have taken their title from the better part, and have the name of the City of God printed on their forehead. In the tenth book it ought not to be set down for a miracle, that the fire falling Retract. 1. Chap. 8. from heaven ran between the divided sacrifices, when ABRAHAM sacrificed, because this was showed unto him in a vision. In the seventeenth book, where it is said of SAMVEL. He was not of the sons of ARON: it should rather have been said, He was not the son of the Retract. 2. Chap. 5. Priest. For it was a more lawful custom, that the sons of the Priests should succeed in the room of the deceased Priests. For the Father of SAMVEL is found in the sons of ARON, but he was not a Priest: yet not so in his sons, as if ARON had begot him, but in such sort as all of that people are said to be the sons of ISRAEL. This work beginneth thus, That most glorious society and celestial City of GOD etc. THE CONTENTS OF THE first book of the City of God. 1. Of the adversaries of the name of Christ spared by the Barbarians, in the sacking of Rome, only for Christ's sake, 2. There never was war wherein the Conquerors would spare them whom they conquered, for the gods they worshipped. 3. Of the romans fondness in thinking that those gods could help them, which could not help Troy, in her distress. 4. Of the Sanctuary of juno in Troy, which freed not any (that fled into it) from the Greeks at the cities sack; whereas the Churches of the Apostles saved all comers from the Barbarians at the sack of Rome. Caesar's opinion, touching the enemy's custom in the sack of Cities. 5. That the romans themselves never spared the Temples, of those Cities which they conquered. 6. That the cruel effects following the losses of war, did but follow the custom of war: & wherein they were moderated, it was through the power of the name of jesus Christ. 7. Of the commodities and discommodities commonly communicated both to good and ill. 8. Of the causes of such corrections as fall both upon the good and bad together. 9 That the Saints in their loss of things temporal, lose not any thing at all. 10. Of the end of this transitory life, whether it be long or short. 11. Of burial of the dead▪ that it is not prejudicial to the state of a Christian soul to be forbidden it. 12. The reasons why we should bury the bodies of the Saints. 13. Of the captivity of the Saints, and that 〈◊〉 they never wanted spiritual comfort. 14. Of Marcus Regulus, who was a famous example to animate all men to the enduring of voluntary ●…tiuity for their religion: which notwithstanding was unprofitable unto him, by reason of his Paganism. 15. Whether the taxes that the holy Virgins suffered against their wills in their captivities, could pollute the virtues of their mind. 16. Of such as choose a voluntary death, to avoid the fear of pain and dishonour. 17. Of the violent lust of the soldiers, executed upon the bodies of the captives; against their consents. 18. Of Lucretia that stabbed herself, because Tarquin's son had ravished her. 19 That their is no authority which allows christians to be their own deaths in what cause so ever. 20. Of some sort of kill men, which notwithstanding are no murders. 21. That voluntary death can never be any sign of magnanimity, or greatness of spirit. 22. Of Cato who killed himself, being not able to endure Caesar's victory. 23. That the Christians excel Regulus in that virtue, wherein he excelled most. 24. That sin is not to be avoided by sin. 25. Of some unlawful acts, done by the Saints, and by what occasion they were done. 26. Whether we ought to fly sin with voluntary death. 27. How it was a judgement of GOD, that the enemy was permitted to excercise his lust upon the Christians bodies. 28. What the servants of Christ may answer the Infidels, when they upbraid them with Christ's not delivering them in their affliction from the fury of the enemy's fury. 29. That such as complain of the Christian times, desire nothing, but to live in filthy pleasures. 30. By what degrees of corruption the Romans ambition grew to such a height. 31. Of the first inducing of stageplays. 32. Of some vices in the romans, which their cities ruin, did never reform. 33. Of the clemency of GOD, in moderating this calamity of Rome. 34. Of such of GOD'S elect as live secretly as yet amongst the Infidels, and of such as are false Christians. 35. What subjects are to be handled in the following discourse. FINIS. THE FIRST BOOK OF SAINT AUGUSTINE Bishop of Hippo, his City of God, unto MARCELLINUS. Of the adversaries of the name of Christ, spared by the Barbarians in the sacking of Rome, only for Christ's sake. CHAP. 1. THAT most glorious society and celestial City of God's faithful, which is partly seated in the course of these declining times, wherein he that liveth (a) by faith, is a Pilgrim amongst the wicked; and partly in that Habac. 2. solid estate of eternity, which as yet the other part doth patiently expect, until (b) righteousness be turned into judgement, being then by the proper excellence to obtain Rom. 8. Psal. 93. the last victory, and be crowned in perfection of peace; have I undertaken to defend in this work: which I intent unto you (my dearest (c) Marcellinus) as being your due by my promise, and exhibit it against all those that prefer their false gods before this City's founder: The work is great and difficult, but God the master of all difficulties is our helper. For I know well what strong arguments are required Psalm. 61. to make the proud know the virtue of humility, by which (not being enhanced by human glory, but endowed with divine grace) it surmounts all earthly loftiness, which totters through the own transitory instability. For the King, the builder of this City, whereof we are now to discourse, hath opened his mind to his people, in the divine law, thus: God resisteth the proud, and giveth james 4. 1. Pet. 5. grace to the humble. (d) Now this which is indeed only Gods, the swelling pride of an ambitious mind affecteth also, and loves to hear this as parcel of his praise. (e) Parcere subiectis & debellare superbos. Aenead. 6. To spare the lowly, and strike down the proud. Wherefore touching the Temporal City (which longing after domination, though it hold all the other nations under it, yet in itself is overruled by the own lust (f) after sovereignty) we may not omit to speak whatsoever the quality of our proposed subject shall require or permit, for out of this, arise the foes against whom God's City is to be guarded. Yet some of these reclaiming their impious errors have become good Citizens therein: but others burning with an extreme violence of hate against it, are so thankless to the Redeemer of it for so manifest benefits of his, that at this day they would not speak a word against it, but that in the holy places thereof, flying thither from the sword of the foe, they found that life and safety wherein now they glory. Are not these romans become persecutors of Christ, whom the very Barbarians saved for Christ's sake? yes, the Churches of the Apostles, and the Martyrs can testify this, which in that great sack were free both to their (g) own, and (h) strangers. Even thither came the rage of the bloody enemy: even there the murder's fury stopped: even thither were the distressed led by their pitiful foes (who had spared them, though finding them out of those sanctuaries) lest they should light upon some that should not extend the like pity. And even they that elsewhere raged in slaughters, coming but to those places, that forbade what law of war elsewhere allowed, all their headlong fury kerbed itself, and all their desire of conquest was conquered. And so escaped many then, that since have detracted all they can from Christianity: they can impute their cities other calamities, wholly unto Christ, but that good which was bestowed on them only for Christ's honour (namely the sparing of their lives) that they impute not unto our Christ, but unto their own fate: whereas if they had any judgement, they would rather attribute these calamities and miseries of mortality, all unto the providence of God, which useth to reform the corruptions of men's manners, by (ay) war and oppressions, and laudably to exercise the righteous in such afflictions, & having so tried them, either to transport them to a more excellent estate, or to keep them longer in the world for other ends and uses. And whereas the bloody Barbarians against all custom of war, spared them both in other places, for the honour of Christ, and in those large houses that were dedicated unto him, (made large, to contain many, for the larger extent of pity;) this ought they to ascribe to these Christian times, to give God thanks for it, and to have true recourse by this means unto God's name, thereby to avoid the (k) pains of eternal damnation: which name many of them as then falsely took up, as a sure shelter against the storms of present ruin. For even those that you may now behold most petulantly insulting over Christ's servants, most of them had never escaped the general massacre, had they not counterfeited themselves to be the servants of Christ. But now through their ungrateful pride, and ungodly madness they stand against that name (in perverseness of heart, and to their eternal captivation in darkness) to which they fled with a dissembling tongue, for the obtaining of the enjoying but of this temporal light. The Commentaries of john Lodovicus vives upon the first Chapter of the first book of Saint Augustine, of the City of God. HE that liveth (a) by faith] Habacuc. 2. 4. The just shall live by faith, so saith Paul in diverse places: for this indeed is the provision of our lives voyage. In the text it is diversly read: sometime, by my faith; sometime, by his faith: the seventy Interpreters translate it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he shall live by the faith of himself, or his faith. (b) Righteousness be turned into judgement] Psal. 19 The true Hebrew saith; Because righteousness shall be turned into judgement: It is meant of the end of the world, whereunto that also belongs that followeth: The last victory: Th●… Church upon earth warreth daily, and conquereth daily: but the end of one war is but a step into another. That shall be the last and most perfect victory, when the Church shall be wholly translated into heaven, to remain for ever in peace with the King and peacemaker, jesus Christ. (c) Marcellinus,] There are extant in Augustine's Epistles, some dedicated unto Marcellinus, and again some from him to Augustine. Their acquaintance it seems begun in Africa: for thus writeth Orosius of this Lib. 7. c. 42 Marcellinus: In those days by Honorius his command, and Constantine's assistance, there was a general peace and unity throughout the whole Church of Africa, and the body of Christ (which we indeed are) was cured by a willing or thankful consent on all sides: this holy command being put in execution by Marcellinus, a man full fraught with wisdom, industry, and endeavour of all goodness. (d) Now this which indeed is only Gods.] Either because such in their pride, The Romans the proudest nation. desire what is properly Gods, namely to resist the proud; or, because pride (in others) is of itself so hated of the proud, that the proudest nation of all (the Romans) rejoiced to have this reckoned up as parcel of their glories, that they kept down the proud: That the Romans were proud themselves, and by reason of their own pride hated it in all others, the words of Cato Censorius do prove, in his Oration to the Senate for the Rhodians: They say (quoth he) the Rhodians are proud: objecting that which I would not have spoken of my children: They are indeed proud: what is that to us? Are you grieved that any should be prouder than ourselves? Unto which words Gellius addeth this. There is nothing can be spoken either sharper or gentler Lib. 7. than this reproof unto those most proud highminded men, that love pride in themselves and reprove it in others. (e) To spare] Virgil having reckoned up diverse praises of other nations A Eneid. 6. wherein they excelled the Romans, at length turning to Rome, saith thus: Turegere imperio populos Roman memento, Haetibi erunt arts, pacique imponere morem, Parcere subiectis & debellare superbos. But (Roman) let thy study be to sway Thy realms with awe to force them peace obey, To spare the lowly, and to pull down pride, etc. To obey peace, is all one as to keep or observe it. (f) Lust after sovereignty]: It is an old Proverb: The tyrant's subjects are his slaves, and himself slave to his lusts and pleasures. So said Diogenes the Cynic of the Persian King, and Tully in his Paradoxes of Caesar. (g) Their own] that is, Christians. (h) Strangers;] namely such as did not worship Christ's Godhead: whom Augustine termeth Pagans. ay By war] This appears most plain in the Romans, who lived more orderly in the times of war, then at any time else, though in most secured peace. (k) The pain of eternal damnation] Not only those temporal and momentary punishments. There never was war wherein the conquerors would spare them whom they conquered, for the Gods they worshipped. CHAP. 2. THere hath been thus many wars chronicled, partly before Rome was At the last sack of Jerusalem the Romans themselves filled the Temple with dead bodies. builded, and partly since her founding: let them read, and find me any one City taken by a stranger foe, that would spare any that they found retired into the temples of their gods, or any Barbarian Captain, that ever commanded, that in the sack of the town none should be touched that were fled into such or such temples. (d) Did not Aeneas see Priamus slain before the Altar, and with his blood Sanguine faedantem quos ipse sacraverat ignes? Sprinkling the flames himself had hallowed? Did not (d) Diomedes & Ulysses, having slaughtered all the keepers of the high tower, — caesis summae custodibus arcis, Corripuêre sacram effigiem manibusque cruentis, Virgineas ausi divae contingere vittas. Snatch up the sacred statue, and with hands Besmeer'd in blood, durst touch the (d) Virgins vail? (e) Yet is not that true which followeth: Ex illo fluere ac retrò sublapsa referri Spes Danaûm.— From thence the Grecians hopes decline, and fail. For after all this, they conquered: after this they threw down Troy with sword and fire: after this they smote off Priam's head before the Altar that he fled unto. Neither perished Troy because it lost the Palladium: for what had the Palladium lost first, that itself should perish? perhaps the keepers? indeed it is true, they being slain, it was soon taken away: For the Image kept not the men, but the men kept the Image (f) But why then was it adored as the preserver of the country and Citizens, when it could not preserve the own keepers? L. VIVES. DId not (a) Aeneas,] so saith Virgil: There saw I Priam, Hecuba, and all their hundred daughters at the altar, etc. This happened upon that night when Troy was taken and A Eneid. 2. burned by the greeks: and Neoptolemus Pyrrhus, Achilles his son slew Priam at the altar. (b) Himself had hallowed,] Wherein he shows the greater indignity, because those gods did not assist him, which he himself had made and consecrated in that very place. I think it is meant of Vesta in whose temple perpetual fire was kept: Uirgils' Commentators do not explain it: let each man take it as he please. (c) Diomedes,] This also is from Virgil in the said book: the words are Sinon's, and meant of the Palladium, which in the Trojan war Diomedes and Ulysses stole out of the Temple of Pallas. Nor feared they sacrilege, as to the which they added murder, and yet was (their party) the Grecians, conquerors over Troy. The Palladium was an Image of Pallas, whereof there are so many relations extant, that I should think it idle to proceed in recounting all men's opinions thereof. Yet The Image of the Pallad●…. will I extract what seems most likely, out of Varro, Dionysius Halicarnasseus, Ovid, Plutarch, and Servius: Chrysas the Daughter of Pallas being married unto Dardanus, brought with her for her dowry this Palladium, and the Images of the Great gods: for which, Dardanus built a Temple in Samothracia; all which Images afterward in his Grand-childs' time, were transported from thence into Ilium, an Oracle forewarning them, that as long as the Palladium was there kept, so long the City should continue unruined. Wherefore it was placed in the most secret part of all the temple, and another Palladium made like that, was set in open sight, and carelessly respected. Now when Pyrrhus had heard of Helenus, a Prophet, one of Priam's sons, that Troy was inexpugnable, as long as the Palladium was safe, and that he had told this unto the Greek Princes, Ulysseses and Diomedes entered the town in disguise, and getting to the Tower, set upon the keepers, slew them, and took away that false Palladium. But the other, after the sack of Troy, together with the other great gods called the Troi●…ns Penates, Sycas delivered unto Aeneas, who carried them all into Italy with him. And so from Alba Louga, or (as Uarro thinks) from Lavinium, the Palladium was removed unto Rome, and set up in the house of Uesta, which being by chance set on fire, Lucius Metellus then chief Priest, with the loss of his eyes, fetched it forth of the midst of the flames. The Palladium was openly seen at the burning of the Temple of V●…sta, in the time of Heliogabalus, saith Herodian. There was another Palladium, which Nicias did dedicate, in the Tower of Athens. (d) Virgins veil,] For Pallas ever was a Virgin. (e) Yet is not that true,] For it was spoken by the liar Sinon: though it may be held for true that then the Grecians hope was overthrown. Nevertheless they got the City. (f) But why then,] an argument which the Logicians call, à minore: how can that preserve the City and the country, that cannot preserve the own keepers and guard, which is a work of less moment, and yet in nature nearer concerning it? Of the Romans fondness in thinking that those Gods could help them which could not help Troy, in her distress. CHAP. 3. BEhold unto what patrons the Romans rejoiced to commit the protection of their City! O too too piteous error! Nay, they are angry at us when we speak thus of their Gods: but never with their teachers and inventors, but pay them money for learning them such fooleries: yea and moreover have vouchsafed their Authors, both stipends from the common treasury and ample honours besides: and namely in Virgil, who was therefore taught unto their children, because that they think this great and most renowned Poet being fastened in their minds, whilst they are young, will never easily be forgotten: according to that of Horace. (a) Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem,— Testa diu. Epist. 2. The liquors that new vessels first contains, Behind them leave a taste that long remains. Even in the forenamed Poet Virgil, is juno presented as the Troyans' foe, inciting Aeolus the King of winds against them in these words▪ (b) Gens inimica mihi Tyrrhenum navigat aequor Ilium in Italiam portans, victosque penates. Aene. 1. The nation that I hate, in peace sails by, with Troy and Troyes fallen Gods to Italy. (c) Yea would any wiseman have commended the defence of Rome unto Gods already proved unable to defend themselves? but suppose (d) juno spoke this as a woman in anger, not knowing what she said: what says (the so often surnamed (e) godly) Aeneas himself? does he not say plainly- (f) Panthus Otriades, arcis, Phoebique sacerdos, Sacra manu, Victosque deos parvumque nepotem Aene. 2. Ipse trahit, cursuque, amen ad limina tendit. Panthus a Priest of Phoebus and the Tower, Burdened with his fallen gods, and in his hand His poor young nephew, flies unto the strand? Doth he not hold these Gods (which he dares call fallen) rather commended unto him, than he to them: it being said to him- (g) Sacra suosque tibi commendat Troia penates? Aene. 2. To thee doth Troy commend her Gods, her all? If Virgil then call them fallen Gods, and conquered Gods, needing man's help for their escape after their overthrow and fall, how mad are men to think that there was any wit shown in committing Rome to their keeping, or that it could not be lost, if first it lost not them? To worship conquered and cast Gods, as guardians, and defenders, what is it but to put by good deities, and adore wicked (ay) devils? Were there not more wisdom shown in believing, (not that Rome had not come to this calamity, unless it had first lost them, but) that they had long since come to nothing had not Rome been as the especially careful keeper of them? Who sees not (that will see any thing) what an idle presumption it is, to build any impossibility of being conquered, upon defenders that have been conquered? and to think that Rome therefore perished because it had lost the Gods (k) guardians; when possibly, the only cause why it perished, was, because it would set the rest upon such soon perishing guardians? Nor listed the Poets to lie when they sung thus of these subverted Gods; it was truth that enforced their vigorous spirits to confess it. But of this, more fitly in another place hereafter: At this time (as I resolved at first) I will have a little bout (as well as I can) with those ungrateful persons, whose blasphemous tongues throw those calamities upon Christ, which are only the guerdons of their own perverseness: But whereas Christ's name alone was of power to procure them their undeserved safety, that, they do scorn to acknowledge: and being mad with sacrilegious petulancy, they practise their foul terms upon his name, which like false wretches they were before glad to take upon them to save their lives by: and those filthy tongues which (when they were in Christ's houses) fear kept silent, to remain there with more safety, where even for his sake they found mercy; those selfsame, getting forth again, shoot at his deity with all their envenomed shafts of malice, and curses of hostility. L. VIVES. QVo (a) semel] Horace Epist. 2. Commonly cited to prove the power of custom in young and tender minds: such is this too, Neque amissos Colores Lana refert madefacta fuco. Wool died in grain, will not change hue, nor stain. (b) Gens inimica] Aeneads the 1. juno was foe to Troy: first, because they came from Dardanus, son of jove and Electra, one of his whores. Secondly because Ganymede, Trois son being taken up to heaven was made Jove's cupbearer and Hebe, junos' daughter put by. Thirdly because Antigone, Laomedon's daughter, scorned junos' beauty, being therefore turned into a stork: Lastly because she was cast, in the contention of beauty, by the judgement of Paris, Priam's son. (c) Yea? would any wise man] The discourse of these Penates, household or peculiar Gods, is much more intricate than that of the Palladium. I think they are called Penates, quasi Penites, because they were their penitissimi, their most inward & proper Gods. Macrobius holds with them that say they are our Penates by which we do penitùs spirare, by whom we breathe, and have our body, & by whom we possess our soul's reason. So the Penates are the keepers or Gods Guardians of particular estates. The Penates of all mankind were held to be Pallas, the highest Aether, jove the middle Aether, and juno the lowest. Heaven also hath the Penates as Martianus Capella saith in his Nuptiae. And on earth, every City and every house hath the peculiar God's Guardians. For every house is a little City: or rather every City a great house. And as these have the Gods, so hath the fire also: Dionysius Halicarnasseus writeth that Romulus ordained particular Vesta's for every Court, over all which, his successor Numa set up a common Vesta, which was the fire of the City, as Cicero saith in his 2. De legibus. But what Penates Aeneas brought into Italy, is uncertain. Some say Neptune and Apollo, who (as we read) built the walls of Troy: Other say Vesta: For Virgil having said. Sacra suosque, etc. To thee doth Troy commend her Gods, etc.— Adds presently, Sic ait, & manibus vittas, Vestamque potentem, Aeternumque adytis effert penetr alibus ignem. This said, he fetcheth forth th' eternal fire: Almighty Vesta, and her pure attire— Now I think Vesta was none of the Penates, but the fire, added to them, and therefore the Dictator, and the rest of the Roman Magistrates on the day of their installment sacrificed to Vesta and the God's guardians. Of this Vesta and these Gods thus saith Tully in his twentieth book de natura deorum. Nam vestae nomen, etc. The name of Vesta we have from the greeks: it is that which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And her power is over fires and altars: Therefore in the worship of that Goddess which is the guardian to the most inward and internal things, all the prayers and sacrifices offered are external: Nor are the Penates far different from the power aforesaid: being either derived from Penu, which is whatsoever man eateth, or of penituns, in that they What Penu is. are placed within, and therefore called of the Poets, Penetrales, chamber or closetary gods. Thus far Tully. But here is no time for further dispute of this matter. Dionysius in his first book saith he saw in a certain blind obscure temple not far from the Forum, two Images of the Trojan gods, like two young men, sitting, and having javelins in their hands (two very old pieces of work) and upon them inscribed D. Penates: and that in most of the temples were Images in fashion and habit like these old ones. I make no question these were Castor and Pollux: for in other places they are called the Romans Penates, which Prudentius testifies unto Symmachus in these words. — Gemini quoque fratres Corruptâ de matre nothi Ledeia Proles Nocturnique equites celsae duo numina Romae, Impendent etc. — And the two brothers The bastard twins of Leda and the Swan, Night-riders, as the Patron gods do watch The walls of stately Rome, etc.— But these were not the Patron Gods of Troy, for even in the beginning of the Trojan war, presently upon the rape of Helen, they died. And therefore she being ignorant of their death, looks for them amongst the other Greek Nobles from the walls of Troy. Homer. Iliad. 3. Neither were these two the Dij magni, the great Gods, for Heaven and earth (as Varro saith in his. 3. book de lingua Latina) are (as the Samothracians principles do teach) the Dii magni, the great Gods, and those whom I have named by so many names. For Who were the Dij magni. neither were the two men's shapes which Aeneas set up before the gates at▪ Samothracia, these great Gods, nor as the vulgar opinion holdeth, were the Samothracians Gods, Castor and Pollux: Thus far Varro. The Trojan Penates were those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those great gods which sat as protectors of the City and Latium. Amongst which the Palladium was one, and the Sempiternal fire another, and hereupon it is that Virgil sings this. — Vestaque matter Quae Tuscum Tyberim, & Romana palatia seruas etc. — And mother Vesta, she that looks, To Rome's fair buildings, and old Tiber's brooks etc. Though indeed they held it a wicked fact to name the peculiar god Guardian of the City, nor hold that it is Vesta. Valerius Soranus lost his life for being so bold as to name that name. But of this too much already, (d) But suppose juno spoke] For Servius and Donate say that juno called them the fallen gods to make them the more contemptible, and free Aeolus from suspecting that he went about to do aught against the gods. (e) Godly] Godly in duty Piety. unto his gods, his Father, and his Son, all whom he saved from burning. For Godliness is a dutiful worship unto God, our Country, our Parents, and our kinsfolks: briefly, a thankfulness unto all to whom we are indebted. (f) Panthus] This is our of the second of the Aeneads, beginning at this verse. Ecce autem telis Panthus delapsus. Achiwmm. Panthus Otriades etc. (g) Sacra suosque] These are Hector's words spoken to Aeneas in a dream. (h) That Rome had not come] An Argument from the event of one thing, to the event of the like: the sense is corrupted in the latin: it should have been: non Romam ad istam cladem: that it had run thus: Vt sapientius multò existimaret si non illud putaret, Romam ad hanc cladem non fuisse venturam, nisi illi periissent, sed illud potius putaret illos olim etc. ay devils] for the old writers acknowledged some of these Daemons, or Genii to be very evil▪ and slothful. For one Genius excelled another in virtue, wisdom, and power. Augustus' his Genius was more cheerful and lofty then was Mark Anthony's, as that same Egyptian magician affirmed in Plutarch in Mark Anthony's life. Nor doth our Christian religion deny that there is pre-eminence of some above others aswell amongst the Angels as the Devils, (k) Gods guardians] just such guardians as Plato in his Policy saith that drunken and luxurious Magistrates are, that need guardians for themselves. Of the sanctuary of juno in Troy which freed not any (that fled into it) from the greeks at the cities sack, where as the Churches of the Apostles saved all comers from the Barbarians, at the sack of Rome. Caesar's opinion touching the enemy's custom in the sack of Cities. CHAP. 4. NOr could Troy itself that was (as I said before) (a) the mother of the Romans progeny, in all her hallowed temples, save any one from the Grecian force and fury, though they worshipped the same gods: nay did they not in the very sanctuary of juno, — (b) Ipso junonis asylo Custodes lecti (c) Phoenix, & dirus Ulysses Praedam asseruabant. Huc undique Troia gaza Incensis erepta adytis, mensaeque deorum, Craterésque auro solidi, captivaque vestis Congerit etc. — To junos' sanctuary Comes all the prey, and what they thither carry Is kept by choice men; the Phenician And dire Ulysses: thither the whole state Of Troy's wealth swarms, the gods, their temples plate, There lies the gold in heaps, and robes of worth Snatched from the flaming coffers— etc. Behold, the place dedicated unto so great a goddess was chosen out (not to serve for a place whence they might lawfully pull prisoners, but) for a prison wherein to shut up all they took. Now compare this temple, not of any vulgar god, of the common sort, but of jupiter's sister, and Queen of all the other gods, unto the Churches built as memorials of the Apostles. To the first, all the spoils that were plucked from the gods and flaming temples were carried, not to be bestowed back to the vanquished, but to be shared amongst the vanquishers. To the second, both that which was the places own and (d) what ever was found also els-whereto belong to such places, with all religious honour and reverence was restored. There, was freedom lost, here saved: there, was bondage shut in; here, it was shut out: thither were men brought by their proud foes, for to undergo slavery: hither were men brought by their pitiful foes, to be secured from slavery. Lastly, the temple of juno was chosen by the (e) unconstant greeks to practise their proud covetousness in, whereas the Churches of Christ were by (f) the naturally cruel Barbarians, chosen to excercise their pious humility in. Perhaps the greeks in that their victory spared those that fled into the temples of the (g) Common gods, and did not dare to hurt or captivate such as escaped thither: But in that, Virgil plays the Poet indeed, and feigns it. Indeed there he describes the (h) general custom of most enemies in the sacking of cities, and conquests; which (ay) custom, Caesar himself (as Sallust, that noble, true historian recordeth) forgetteth not to avouch, in his sentence given upon the conspirators in the Senate-house: that (in these spoils) the Virgins are ravished, the Children torn from their Parents bosoms, the Matrons made the objects, of all the victor's lust, the temples, and houses all spoiled, all things turned into burning, and slaughter: and lastly all places stopped full of weapons, carcases, blood, and lamentation. If Caesar had not named temples, we might have thought it the custom of a foe to spare such places as are the habitations of their gods: but the Senators feared the ruin of their temples, not by an unknown or stranger enemy, but by (k) Catiline, and his followers, who were Senators and Citizens of Rome themselves. But these were villains though, and their country's parricides. L. VIVES. MOther (a) of the Romans] For the Trojans that came with Aeneas into Italy built Lavinium; the Lavinians, Albalonga, the Alban, Rome. But Saluste saith that the Trojans themselves that wandered about with Aeneas without dwellings, built Rome at the first. (b) junonis] They are Aeneas his words Aenead. 2. (c) Phoenix] Amintor's Son, Phoenix. and Achilles his Master, one that taught him to say well and do well: Homer. Illiad. 3. (d) What ever was] There was at this sack of Rome a huge quantity of gold taken out of the Vatican, but by Alaricus his command, it was all restored. Oros. Lib. 7 (e) Unconstant greeks] It was the Greeks character at Rome, & therefore they called them Graeculi: and some copies of Augustine's books have Graeculorun: here Cicero in his oration for Flaccus saith these words, Wherein we earnestly desire you to remember the rashness of the multitude, and the truly Greekish l●…ity. So meaneth Lucian in his Me●…ces seruientibus, and ●…mblichus calls his Grecians, light-witted. (f) even naturally cruel] This is added for more fullness to the comparison. The Barbarians are opposed to the greeks; not all Barbarians, but the naturally savage and cruel, unto those that would have all humanity to be derived from them alone. Cicero writeth thus to his brother Quintus, ruling then in Asia minor, which is Greece. Seeing we rule over those amongst whom not only humanity is in itself, but seems from thence to be derived unto all others, verily let us seek to ascribe that chiefly unto them from whom we ourselves received it. (g) common gods] For the greeks and the Trojans worshipped the s●…me gods. (h) general custom] True, lest his speech otherwise might have made reprehension seem rather peculiar unto the greeks then unto other Nations in their conquests of Cities. ay which custom] Caius Caesar being then Praetor (& afterwards Dictator) having 〈◊〉 the conspiracy of Catiline, being asked by the Consul Cicero, what he thought f●… should be done unto the conspirators; answered, as Saluste setteth down; That these 〈◊〉 which he had rehearsed, must needs have come to effect, not only in this war, by reason it was domestical, but that it is wars custom, to produce such bloody effects, which the vanquished of all sorts are sure to feel. Tully against Verres saith thus: I omit to speak of the deflowering of free Virgins, and the ravishing of the matrons, etc. which were committed in that sack of the City, not through hostile hate, nor military looseness, nor custom of war, nor right of conquest. Thus far Tully. (k) Catiline] The history is at large in Saluste: and else where I will take occasion to say somewhat of it. That the Romans themselves never spared the Temples of those Cities which they conquered. CHAP. 5. But why should we spend time in discoursing of many nations, that have waged wars together, and yet never spared the conquered habitations of one another's gods: let us go to the Romans themselves: yes; I say, let us observe the Romans themselves, whose chief glory it was, Parcere subiectis & debellare superbos. To spare the lowly, and pull down the proud. And (a) being offered injury, rather to pardon then persecute: in all their spacious conquests of Towns and Cities, in all their progress and augmentation of their domination, show us unto what one Temple they granted this privilege, that it should secure him that could fly into it from the enemy's sword? Did they ever do so, and yet their Histories not record it? Is it like that they that hunted thus for monuments of praise, would endure the suppression of this so goodly a commendation? Indeed that great Roman (b) Marcus Marcellus that took that goodly City of (c) Syracuse, is said to have wept before the ruin, and shed his own (d) tears ere he shed their blood: (e) having a care to preserve the chastity even of his foes from violation. For before he gave leave to the invasion, he made an absolute Edict, that no violence should be offered unto any free person: yet was the City in hostile manner, subverted utterly, nor find we any where recorded, that this so chaste and gentle a general ever commanded to spare such as fled for refuge to this Temple or that: which (had it been otherwise) would not have been omitted, since neither his compassion, nor his command for the captives chastity, is left unrecorded. So is (f) Fabius the conqueror of Tarentum commended for abstaining from making booty of their Images. For his (g) Secretary ask him what they should do with the Images of the gods, whereof they had as then taken a great many: he seasoned his continency with a conceit, for ask what they were, and being answered that there were many of them great ones, and some of them armed: O (said he) l●…t us leave the Tarentines their angry gods. Seeing therefore that the Roman Historiographers neither concealed Marcellus his weeping, nor Fabius his jesting, neither the chaste pity of the one, nor the merry abstinency of the other, with what reason should they omit that, if any of them had given such privilege to some men in honour of their gods, that they might save their lives by taking sanctuary in such or such a Temple, where neither rape nor slaughter should have any power or place? L. VIVES. BEing (a) offered injury,] Saluste in his conspiracy of Catiline, speaking of the ancient Increase by remission. manners of the Romans, gives them this commendation: That they increased by pardoning. (b) Marcus Marcellus,] There was two sorts of the Claudii in Rome: the one noble, arising from that Appius Claudius that upon the expulsion of the Kings came from Regillum The Claudian family. unto Rome, and there was chosen Senator, and his family made a Patriot: the other was Plebeian, or vulgar, but yet as powerful as the first, and as worthy, as Suetonius in the life of Tiberius doth testify. And of this later, this man of whom Augustine here writeth, was the first that was called Marcellus, as Plutarch writeth out of Possidonius. Now I wonder at this great error of so great an Historiographer, and one that was most exact in the Roman affairs: for there were Claudii Marcelli a hundred years before. But he of whom we speak was 〈◊〉 times Consul: for the second time he was created Consul, because the election was corrupt, he discharged it not. Now if one reckon right, he was five times Consul, first with Cornelius Scipio, in the war of France, wherein he took 〈◊〉 spoils from Vir●…domarus the French King: and those were the third and last wars which the Romans had waged with so many nations and under so many Generals. After his second Consulship he took S●…acusa. In his fourth Consulship (he and Quintus Crispinus being entrapped by the enemies) this great, valorous and judicious Captain lost his life; in the eleventh year of the second Carthaginian war, after he had fought nine and thirty set battles, as Pliny in Syracuse. his seventh book witnesseth. (c) Syracuse,] It is a city in Sicily, now ancient, and whilom wealthy: three years did this Marcellus besiege it, and at length took it; beating as much spoil from that conquest (very near) as from the conquest of Carthage, which at that time was in the greatest height, and stood as Rome's parallel in power and authority. (d) Tears] So faith Li●…) lib. 25. Marcellus entering upon the walls, and looking over all the city, standing at that time 〈◊〉 and goodly, is said to have shed tears, partly for joy of this so great a conquest, and partly for pity of the Cities ancient glory: The overthrow of the Athenian navy, the wrack of two great armies with their Captains; so many wars and rich Kings, and all that before him to be in a moment on fire, came all into his mind at once. This is also in Ualerius Maximus. de humanitate. (e) Nay he had a care,] Livy, as before. Marcellus by a general consent of the Captains, forbade the soldiers to violate any free body, leaving them all the 〈◊〉 ●…or spoil: which edict contained the assurance of the said free women from death and all other violence, as well a●… Fabius. that of their chastities. (f) Fabius the conqueror of Tarentum,] In the second Carthaginian war, Tarentum, a famous city in Calabria fell from the Romans unto Han●…bal, but 〈◊〉 Salinator the Captain of the Roman garrison, retired into the tower. This City Fab●… Maximus recovered, and gave his soldiers the spoil of it. This is that Fabius that in the said second Punic war, by his sole wisdom put life into all the Romans dying hopes, and by his cunning protraction blunted the fury of Hannibal. And of him Enius said truly. unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem, One man's wise, set delay, restored us all. I neither can nor list now to stand upon all the errors of the first Commentator of this book: it were too tedious, and too troublesome. But because in this place he goeth astray with many others, who indeed in other men's judgements are learned in such matters, but in their own judgements most learned, (nor, to say truth, are they unlearned,) I could not choose but give the reader this admonition, that this Fabius is not he that was called Maximus, but his Grandfather was called so: because he being Censor with P. Decius, divided the whole commonty of Rome into four Tribes, which he named Vrbanae: though I deny not that this Fabius of whom Augustine speaketh, deserved this name, but the world as then did not give it him. (g) Secretary] Hereof read Livy in his 27. Book. That the cruel effects following the losses of war, did but follow the custom of war: and wherein they were moderated, it was through the power of the name of jesus Christ. CHAP. 6. THerefore all the spoil, murder, burning, violence and affliction, that in this fresh call amity fell upon Rome, were nothing but the ordinary effects following the (a) custom of war. But that which was so unaccustomed, that the savage nature of the Barbarians should put on a new shape and appear so merciful, that it would make choice of great and spacious Churches, to fill with such as it meant to show pity on, from which none should be haled to slaughter or slavery, in which none should be hurt, to which many by their courteous foes should be conducted, and out of which none should be lead into bondage; This is due to the name of Christ, this is due to the Christian profession; he that seeth not this is blind, he that seeth it and praiseth it not is thankless, he that hinders him that praiseth it, is mad. God forbid that any man of sense should attribute this unto the Barbarians brutishness: It was God that struck a terror into their truculent and bloody spirits, it was he that bridled them, it was he that so wondrously restrained them, that had so long before foretold this by his Prophet. (b) I will visit their offences with the rod, and their sin with scourges: yet will I not utterly take my mercy from them. Psal. 89. 32. 33. L. VIVES. CVstome (a) of war,] Quintilian records the accidents that follow the sacking of Cities in his eight book, thus: The flames were spread through the temples, a terrible cracking A description of the sack of a city. of falling houses was heard: and one confused sound of a thousand several clamours. Some fled they knew not whether: some stuck fast in their last embraces of their friends, the children and the women howled, and the old men (unluckily spared until that fatal day): then followed the tearing away of all the goods out of house and temple, and the talk of those that had carried away one burden and ran for another, and the poor prisoners were driven in chains before their takers: and the mother endeavouring to carry her silly infant with her, and where the most gain was, there went the victors together by th'ears. Now these things came thus to pass, because the soldiers (as they are a most proud and insolent kind of men, without all mean and modesty) have no power to temper their avarice, lust or fury in their victory: and again (because taking the town by force) if they should not do thus for terror to the enemy, they might justly fear to suffer the like of the enemy. (b) I will visit] It is spoken of the sons of David, Psal. 89. If they be not good, etc. Of the commodities, and discomodities commonly communicated both to good and ill. CHAP. 7. YEa but (will (a) some say) Why doth God suffer his mercy to be extended unto the graceless and thankless? Oh! why should we judge, but because it is his work that maketh the sun to shine daily both on good and Rom. 5. 45. bad, & the rain to fall both on the just and unjust? For what though some by meditating upon this, take occasion to reform their enormities with repentance? & other some (as the Apostle saith) despising the riches of God's goodness, and long suffering, in their hardness of heart and impenitency (b) do lay up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of God's just judgement, Rom. 2. 5. who will (c) reward each man according to his works? Nevertheless God's patience still inviteth the wicked unto repentance as this scourge doth instruct the good unto patience. The mercy of God embraceth the good with love, as his severity doth correct the bad with pains. For it seemed good to the almighty providence to prepare such goods, in the world to come, as the just only should enjoy, and not the unjust: and such evils, as the wicked only should feel, and not the godly. But as for these temporal goods, of this world, he hath left them to the common use both of good and bad: that the goods of this world should not be too much desired, because even the wicked do also partake them: and that the evils of this world should not be too cowardly avoided, wherewith the good are sometimes affected. But there is great difference in the (d) use both of that estate in this world, which is called prosperous, and that which is (e) called adverse. For neither do these temporal goods extol a good man, nor do the evil deject him. But the evil man must needs be subject to the punishment of this earthly vnhappin●…sse, because he is first corrupted by this earthly happiness: Yet in the distributing of these temporal blessings God showeth his provident operation. For if all sin were presently punished: there should be nothing to do at the last judgement: and again if no sin were here openly punished, the divine providence would not be believed: And so in prosperity, if God should not give competency of worldly and apparent blessings to some that ask them, we would say he hath nothing to do with them: and should he give them to all that ask them, we should think he were not to be served but for them: and so his service should not make us godly, but rather greedy. This being thus, what ever affliction good men and bad do suffer together in this life, it doth not prove the persons undistinct, because so they both do jointly endure like pains: for as in one fire, gold shineth and chaff smoketh, and as under one (f) f●…yle the straw is bruised, and the ear cleansed; nor is the lees and the oil confused because they are both pressed in one press, so likewise one and the same violence of affliction, proveth, purifieth, and (g) melteth the good, and conde●…eth, wasteth and casteth out the bad. And thus in one and the same distress do the wicked offend God by detestation and blasphemy, and the good do glorify him by praise and prayer. So great is the difference wherein we ponder not what, but how a man suffers his affects. For one and the same motion maketh the mud smell filthily, and the unguent swell most fragrantly. L. VIVES. SOme (a) say] because the aforesaid words were spoken of the sons of David (that is, Thesaur●… what it is. the godly) How should the mercy of God be extended unto the wicked? (b) Do lay up] or heap together. For Thesaurus, is a laying together of evil things as well as good: and it is ordinary with the greeks to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the treasure of Ills, and Plautus hath Thesaurus stupri, the treasure of whoredom. (c) Willreward] * humane goods what they are. commonly it is read, Doth reward: Augustin hath it in better forme●… for the Apostle speaks of the world to come: and the greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Reddet will reward. (d) Use both of that] Terence in his Heautontimoreumenos saith: such things as are called human goods, namely our parents, country, lineage, friends and wealth: all these are but as his mind is that possesseth them: to him that can use them well, they are good; to him that useth them otherwise then well, they are evil. This Terence hath out of Plato in divers places. (〈◊〉) Is called adverse] N●…mely of the vulgar and such as are ignorant of the true natures of things. (f) Flail] Virgil in the first of his Georgikes, reckons the Flail amongst the instruments of husbandry. pliny in his eighteenth What Tribula is. book saith: The harvest corn is thrashed forth upon the floor sometime with flails, sometime with the feet of horses, and sometime with staves. So that this same Tribulum, is an instrument wherewith the corn being ripe is thrashed forth on the floor: (our fittest english is a flail.) How this is done, Varro teacheth in his first book De re rustica. (g) Melteth the good] Maketh them liquid: it is a simile taken from gold: to exclude further disputation hereof; the scripture saith the good are melted with charity: My soul melted as my beloved spoke, saith the Canticles: but if a man will follow this theme he shall never find an end. The fittest teacher in this kind is the holy scripture. Of the causes of such corrections as fall both upon the good and bad together. CHAP. 8. But tell me now in all this desolation what one thing did the Christians endure, which due and faithful consideration, might not turn unto their edificantion? For first they might with fear observe to what a mass iniquity was increased, at which the just God being displeased had sent these afflictions upon the world & that though they themselves were far from the society of the wicked, yet should they not hold themselves so purely separate from all faults, that they should think themselves too good to suffer a temporal correction for divers faults that might be found in their conversations: for to omit this, that there is no man how ever laudable in his conversation, that in some things (a) yields not unto the concupiscence of the flesh; and that though he decline not unto the gulf of reprobate offence and habitation of all brutish filthiness, yet slips now and then into some enormities, and those either seldom, or so much more ordinary as then they are less momentary: To omit all this, how hard a thing is it to find one, that makes a true use of their fellowship, for whose horrible pride, luxury, avarice, bestial iniquity and irreligiousness, the Lord (as his (b) Prophets have threatened) doth lay his heavy hand upon the whole world? How few do we find that live with them, as good men ought to live with them. For either we keep aloof, and forbear to give them due instructions, admonitions or reprehensions, or else we hold their reformation too great a labour: either we are afraid to offend them, or else we eschew their hate for our own greater temporal preferment, and fear their opposition either in those things which our greediness longeth to enjoy, or in those which our weakness is afraid to forego: so that though the lives of the wicked be still disliked of the good, and that thereby the one do avoid that damnation which in the world to come is the assured inheritance of the other, yet because they wink at their damnable exorbitances, by reason they fear by them to lose their own vain temporalities, justly do they partake with them in the punishments temporal though they shall not do so in the eternal; justly do they in these divine corrections, taste the bitterness of these transitory afflictions with them, to whom when they deserved those afflictions, they through the love of this life, forbore to show themselves better: indeed he that forbears to reprehend ill courses in some that follow them, because he will take a more fit time, or because he doubts his reprehension may rather tend to their ruin then their reformation, or because he thinks that others that are weak, may by this correction be offended in their Godly endeavours or diverted from the true faith: In this case forbearance arises not from occasion of greediness, but from the counsel of charity, (c) But theirs is the fault indeed who live a life quite contrary, wholly abhorring the courses of the wicked, yet will overpass to tax the others sins whereof they ought to be most severe reprehenders and correctors, because they fear to offend them, and so be hurt in their possession of those things whose use is lawful both unto good and bad, affecting temporalities in this kind far more greedily than is fit for such as are but pilgrims in this world, and such as expect (d) the hope of a celestial inheritance? for it is not only those of the weaker sort that live in marriage, having (or seeking to have) children, and keeping houses and families: whom the Apostle in the Church doth instruct how to live, the wives with their husbands and the husbands with their wives: children with their parents and the parents with their children: the servants with their masters and the masters with their servants: it is not these alone that get together these worldly goods with industry, and lose them with sorrow, and because of which they dare not offend such men as in their filthy and contaminate lives do extremely displease them: but it is also those of the highter sort, such as are no way chained in marriage, such as are content with poor fare and mean attire. Many of these through too much love of their good name and safety through their fear of the deceits and violence of the wicked; through frailty and weakness, forbear to reprove the wicked when they have offended. And although they do not fear them so far, as to be drawn to actual imitation of these their vicious demeanours; yet this which they will not act with them, they will not reprehend in them (though herein they might reform some of them by this reprehension:) by reason that (in case they did not reform them) their own fame and their safety might come in danger of destruction. Now herein they do at no hand consider how they are bound to see that their fame and safety be necessarily employed in the instruction of others, but they do nothing but poised it in their own infirmity, which loves to be stroked with a smooth tongue, and delighteth in the (e) day of man: fearing the censure of the vulgar, and the torture and destruction of body: that is, they forbear this duty, not through any effect of charity, but merely through the power of avarice and greedy affection. Wherefore I hold this a great cause, why the good livers do partake with the bad in their afflictions, when it is God's pleasure to correct the corruption of manners with the punishment of temporal calamities. For they both endure one scourge, not because they are both guilty of one disordered life, but because they both do too much affect this transitory life; not in like measure, but yet both together: which the good man should contemn, that the other by them being corrected and amended, might attain the life eternal: who if they would not join with them in this endeavour of attaining beatitude, they should be (f) borne with all and loved as our enemies are to be loved in Christianity: we being uncertain whilst they live here, whether ever their heart shall be turned unto better or no, which to do, the good men have (not the like, but) far greater reason, because unto them (g) the Prophet saith: He is taken away for his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand, (h) for unto Ezech. 33. this end were watchmen, that is rulers over the people placed in the churches, that they should (ay) not spare to reprehend enormities. Nor yet is any other man altogether free from this guilt, whatsoever he be, ruler or not ruler, who in that daily commerce and conversation, wherein human necessity confines him, observeth any thing blame worthy, and to reprehend it, seeking to avoid the others displeasure, being drawn here-unto by these vanities which he doth not use as he should, but affecteth much more than he should. Again, there's another reason why the righteous should endure these temporal inflictions, and was cause of holy (k) jobs sufferance, namely that hereby the soul may be proved and fully known whether it hath so much godly virtue as to love God freely, and for himself alone. These reasons being well considered, tell me whether any thing be casual unto the good, that tendeth not to their good: unless we shall hold that the Apostle talked idly when he said: (l) We know all things work together for the best unto them that love God? L. VIVES. IN something (a) yields] The lust of the flesh is so inwardly inherent in our bodies, and that affect is so inborn in us by nature (that great workman of all things living) who hath so subtly infused it into our breasts, that even when our mind is quiet upon another object we do propagate our offspring in the like affection: so that we can by no means have a thought of the performing of this desire, without being stung within with a certain secret delight: which many do make a sin, but too too venial. (b) by his Prophets] and that very often, as is plain in Esay, and jeremy. (c) But this is the fault] Cicero in his offices saith: There be some that although that which they think be very good, yet for fear of envy dare not speak it. (d) The hope] As the guide of their pilgrimage: (e) the day of man] 1. Cor. 4. I pass little to be judged of you or of the day of man: that is, the judgement of man, wherein each man is condemned or approved of men: whose contrary is the day of the Lord, which searcheth and censureth the secrets of all hearts: (f) borne with and loved] The wicked are not only to be endured, but even to be loved also, God commanding us to love even our enemies. Mat. 5. (g) The Prophet] Ezechiel, Chap. 33. But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned: and the sword come & take away any person from among them, he is taken away for his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hands. (h) For unto this end were watchmen] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek is Speculator in latin, a watchman, a discryer, an observer, and a Governor, Cicero in his seventh book of his Epistles to Atticus saith thus: Pompey would have me to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sentinel of Campania and all the sea-coastes, and one to whom the whole sum of the business should have special relation. Andromache in Homer calls Hector Troiae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the watchman or guardian of Troy. The Athenians called their Intelligencers, and such as they sent out to observe the practices of their tributary cities Episcopos, Overseers, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, watchmen; the Lacedæmonians called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Moderatores, Governors. Archadius the Lawyer calls them Episcopos that had charge of the provision for victuals. Some think the preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be here a Pleonasme (whereof Eustathius one of Homer's interpreters is one) and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is all one. 1. Not spare to reprehend] So saith saint Paul unto Titus: And so do our Bishops even in these times, whom with tears we behold haled unto martyrdom because they tell the truth in too bitter terms, and persecute vice through all, not respecting a whit their revenues nor dignities. Christ jesus glorify them (k) jobs] The history all men know; and Hierome upon the same saith: These things fell upon job, that he might show outwardly unto men the love that he held inwardly unto God. (l) UUee know] Rom. 8. 28. Adverse and prosperous fortune are both assistants in the good man's salvation: and there is nothing befalleth them but he can convert it unto the augmentation of his virtues. That the Saints in their loss of things temporal lose not any thing at all. CHAP. 9 THey lost all that they had: what? their faith? their zeal? their goods of the (a) inward man; which inritcheth the soul before God? These are a Christians riches, whereof the Apostle being possessed said: Godliness is a great gain if man be content with what he hath: for we brought nothing into this 1. Tim. 6. 6. 7. 8. world, nor can we carry any thing out: therefore when we have food and raiment, let us content ourselves therewith, for they that will be rich fall into temptation and snares, and into many foolish and hurtful desires, which drown men in perdition and destruction, for (b) covetousness of money is the root of all evil, which while some lusting after, have erred from the faith and cast themselves in many (c) sorrows. Such therefore as lost their goods in that destruction, if they held them as the aforesaid Apostle (d) (poor without, but rich within) taught them: that is, if they used the world so as if they used it not at all, then might they truly say with him that was so sore assaulted and yet never overthrown (e) Nak●…d came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither again. The Lord hath job 1. 21. given it, & the Lord hath taken it away, as it hath pleased the Lord so cometh it to pass: blessed be the name of the Lord. He held his Lords will, (as a good servant) for great possessions, and by attending that, enriched his spirit: nor grieved he at all at the loss of that in his life time, which death perforce would make him leave shortly after. But those far weaker souls, though they prefer not these worldly things before Christ, yet stick unto them with a certain exorbitant affection, they must needs feel such pain in the losing of them, as their offence deserved in loving of them: and endure the sorrows in the same measure that they cast themselves into sorrows: As I said before out of the Apostle. For it was meet for them to taste a little of the discipline of experience, seeing thy had so long neglected instruction by words: for the Apostle having said: They that will be rich fall into temptations; etc. Herein doth he reprehend the desire after riches only, not the use of them: teaching likewise 1. Tim. 6. 9 (f) elsewhere: Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded, 16. vers. 17 18. & 19 and that they trust not in their uncertain wealth, but in the living God, who giveth us plentifully all things to enjoy: That they do good and be (g) rich in good works, ready to distribute and communicate: laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may obtain the true life. They that did thus with their riches by easing small burdens, ●…eaped great gains; taking more joy in that part which by their free distribution unto others they had (h) kept more safely, than they felt sorrow for that which by their care to preserve to themselves they lost so easily. For it was likely that that perish hear on earth which they had no mind to remove into a more secure custody. For they that follow their Lord's Counsel, when he saith unto them, Lay not up treasures for yourselves upon the earth where the moth and rust corrupt, or where thieves dig through and steal, but lay up treasures for yourselves in Heaven, Math. 6, 19 20. 21. where neither rust nor moth corrupt: nor thieves dig through and steal, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also: these (I say) in the time of tribulation were sure to find how well they were advised in following that Master of all truth, and that diligent and dreadless keeper of all good treasure: For seeing there were many that rejoiced because they had hidden their treasure in a place which the foe by chance over-passed & found not: how much more certain and secure might their comfort be, that by their God's instruction had retired thither with their substance, whether they were sure the Paulinus bishop of Nola. foe could not come? And therefore one (i) Paulinus being Bishop of Nola, and having refused infinite riches for voluntary poverty (and yet was he rich in holiness) when the Barbarians sacked Nola, and held him prisoner, thus prayed he in his heart (as he told us afterward) Lord let me not be troubled for gold nor silver: for where all my treasures are, thou knowest: Even there had he laid up all his, where he had advised him to lay it who foretold these miseries to fall upon the world. And so others, in that they obeyed GOD'S instructions for the choice and preservation of the true treasure indeed, had even their worldly treasures preserved from the fury of the Barbarians: But others paid for their disobedience, and because their precedent wisdom could not do it, their sub-sequent experience taught them how to dispose of such temporal trash. Some Christians by their enemies were put unto torture, to make them discover where their goods lay: but that good whereby (k) themselves were good, they could neither lose, nor discover. But if they had rather have endured torture then discover their (l) Mammon of iniquity, than were they far from good. But those that suffered so much for gold, were to be instructed what should be endured for Christ: that they might rather learn to love him that enricheth his Martyrs with eternal felicity, than gold and silver for which it is miserable to endure any torment, whether it be concealed by lying, or discovered by telling the truth. For no man that ever confessed Christ could lose him amongst all the torments: whereas no man could ever save his gold but by denying it. Wherhfore even those very torments are more profitable, in that they teach a man to love an incoruptible good, than those goods in that they procure their owner's torture through the blind love they bear unto them, But some that had no such goods, and yet were thought to have them, were tortured also. Why? perhaps they had a desire to them though they had them not, and were poor against their wills, not of their own election: And then though their possessions did not justly deserve those afflictions, yet their affections did. But if their minds flew a loftyer pitch, beholding both the possession and the affection of riches with an eye of scorn, I make a doubt whether any such were ever tormented in this kind, or being so innocent, incurred any such imputation. But if they did, truly, they in these their tortures, confessing their sanctified poverty, confessed CHRIST himself▪ And therefore though the extorted confession of such holy poverty could not deserve to be believed of the enemy, yet should he not be put to this pain without an heavenly reward for his pains. L. VIVES. INward (a) man] The mind: being often so used in Paul's Epistles. (b) covetousness of money] The vulgar translation hath Cupiditas, but Augustine hath avaritia, a better word: for the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, love of money. (c) Many sorrows] Thus far Paul. (d) Poor without] He meaneth the Apostle Paul. (e) Naked] The words of job, comforting himself in the loss of his goods and children. (f) elsewhere] namely in the same chapter, Verse. 17. (g) Rich in good works] In these things they shall be rich indeed. (h) Kept more safely] Laying up the treasure of eternity for themselves in heaven, in that they have given freely unto the poor and needy. Which is declared by that which followeth in the same chapter of Matthew, being Christ's own works, ay And therefore one Paulinus] The Goths having sacked Rome, and overrunning all Latium, the 〈◊〉, Campania, Calabria, Salentinum, Apulia, or Aprutium; spoiling and wasting all as they went, like a general deluge, their fury extended as far as Consentia (a City in Calabria called now Cosenza) and forty years after that Genserike with the Moors and Vandals broke out again, took Rome, filling all Campania with ruin, razed the city of Nola. Of which City at that time, Paulinus was Bishop (as Paulus Diaconus writeth) a most holy and (as Saint Gregory saith) an eloquent man, exceedingly read in humane learning, and not altogether void of the spirit of prophecy, who having spent all he had in redeeming Christian captives, and seeing a widow bewailing her captive son, and pouring forth her pious lamentations mixed with tears, his piety so urged him that he could not rest until he had crossed over into Africa with the widow, where her son was prisoner: And there by exchange of himself for her son, redeemed him, and gave him free unto his mother. Now his sanctity, growing admirable in the eyes of the Barbarians, he had the freedom of all his citizens given him, and so was sent back to his country. Thereof read at large in Gregory's third book of Dialogues. But I think Augustine speaks not of this later invasion (for then was Paulinus departed this life) but of the first irruption of the Goths (k) Whereby themselves were good] Namely, their virtue which no man can deprive them off: and that only is the good which makes the possessors good. For if riches be good (as Tully saith in his Paradoxes) why do they not make them good that enjoy them? (l) Mammon] Mammon (after Hierome) is a Syriake word: signifying that unto them that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth unto the greeks, namely riches: Augustine elswere saith that Mammon in the Punic language is gain, and that the African and Hebrew tongues do accord in the signification Mammon. of many words. Serm. de verb. Dom. & quaest. evang. Of the end of this transitory life whether it be long or short. CHAP. 10. THe extremity of famine they say destroyed many Christians in these The benefit of famine. invasions. Well even of this also the faithful by enduring it patiently, have made good use. For such as the famine made an end off, it deliveuered from the evils of this life, as well as any other bodily disease could do: such as it ended not, it taught them a sparing diet, and ableness to fast. Yea, but many Christians were destroyed by the foulest variety that might be, falling by so many sorts of death: why this is not to be disliked off, since it is common to all that ever have been borne. This I know that no man is dead that should not at leng●…h have died. For the lives ending, makes the long life and the short all one▪ neither is their one better and another worse, nor one longer, than another shorter, which is not in this end, made equal. And what skills it what kind of death do dispatch our life, when he that dieth cannot be forced to die again? And seeing that every mortal man, in the daily casualties of this life is threatened continually with innumerable sorts of death, as long as he is uncertain which of them he shall taste; tell me whether it were better to (a) suffer but one in dying once for ever, or still to live in continual fear, than all those extremes of death? I know how unworthy a choice it were to choose rather to live under the awe of so many deaths, then by once dying to be freed from all their fear for ever. But it is one thing when the weak sensitive flesh doth fear it, and another when the purified reason of the soul over-comes it. A bad death never follows a good life: for there is nothing that maketh death bad but that estate which followeth death. Therefore let not their care that needs must die be employed upon the manner of their death, but upon the estate that they are eternally to inherit after death. Wherefore seeing that all Christians know that the death of the religious (b) beggar amongst the dogs licking his sores, was better than the death of the wicked rich man in all his (c) silks and purples, what power hath the horror of any kind of death to affright their souls that have led a virtuous life? L. VIVES. Suffer but one] So said Caesar; that he had rather suffer one death at once then fear it continually. (b) Religious beggar] the story is at large in Saint Luke, the 16. Chapter beginning at the 19 verse of Lazarus and the rich glutton, etc. (c) Silks.] Byssus, is a kind of most delicate line, as Pliny saith in his natural history. lib. 19 Of burial of the dead: that it is not prejudicial to the state of a Christian soul to be forbidden it. CHAP 11. OH, but in this great slaughter the dead could not be buried: Tush our holy faith regards not that, holding fast the promise: It is not so frail as to think that the ravenous beasts can deprive the body of any part to be wanting in the resurrection, where not a hair of the head shall be missing. Nor would the scripture have said: Fear not them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul: if that which the foe could do unto our dead bodies in this Mat, 10. 28. world should any way prejudice our perfection in the world to come: Unless any man will be so absurd as to contend that they that can kill the body are not to be feared before death lest they should kill it, but after death lest having killed it they should not permit it burial. Is it false than which Christ saith, Those that kill the body, after they can do no more, and that they have power to do so much hurt unto the dead carcase? God forbid that should be false which is spoken by the truth itself: Therefore it is said they do something in killing, because than they afflict the bodily sense for a while: but afterwards they can afflict it no more, because there is no sense in a dead body. So then suppose that many of the Christians bodies never came in the earth: what of that, no man hath taken any of them both from earth and heaven, have they? No: And both these doth his glorious presence replenish that knows how to restore every Atom of his work in the created. The Psalmist indeed complaineth thus: The dead (a) bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the air: and the flesh of thy Saints unto the beasts of the earth: Their Psal, 79. 2. blood have they shed like waters round about jerusalem, and there was none to bury them. But this is spoken to intimate their villainy that did it, rather than their misery that suffered it. For though that unto the eyes of man these acts seem bloody and tyrannous, yet, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints. And therefore all these ceremonies concerning the dead, the care of the burial, the fashions of the sepulchres, and the pomps of the funerals, are rather solaces to the living, than furtherances to the dead. (b) For if a goodly and rich tomb be any help to the wicked man being dead, then is the poor and mean one a hindrance unto the godly man in like case. The family of that rich (c) gorgeous glutton, prepared him a sumptuous funeral unto the eyes of men: but one far more sumptuous did the ministering Angels prepare for the poor ulcered beggar, in the sight of God: They bore him Luc. 16. 22. not into any Sepulchre of Marble, but placed him in the bosom of Abraham. This do they (d) scoff at, against whom we are to defend the city of God. And yet even (e) their own Philosophers have contemned the respect of burial: and oftentimes (f) whole armies, fight and falling for their earthly country, went stoutly to these slaughters, without ever taking thought where to be laid, in what Marble tomb, or in what beasts belly. And the (g) Poets were allowed to speak their pleasures of this theme, with applause of the vulgar, as one doth thus: Caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam. Who wants a grave, Heaven serveth for his tomb. What little reason then have these miscreants, to insult over the Christians, that lie unburied, unto whom, a new restitution of their whole bodies is promised, to be restored them (h) in a moment, not only out of the earth alone, 1. Cor. 15. 52. but even out of all the most secret Angles of all the other elements, wherein any body is or can possibly be included. L. VIVES. DEad (a) carcases, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, morticinia, the dead flesh. (b) For if a goodly.] Et eternos animam collegit in orbs, Non illuc auro positi, nec thure sepulti Perueniunt,— Lucan. lib. 9 The eternal spheres his glorious spirit do hold, sepulchres. To which come few that lie embalmed in gold, etc. (c) Gorgeous] of whom in the Chapter before. (d) Scoff at] The Romans had great care over their burials: whence arose many observances concerning the religious performance thereof: and it was indeed a penalty of the law: he that doth this or that, let him be cast forth unburied: and so in the declamations: he that forsakes his parents in their necessities, let him be cast forth unburied: he that doth not declare the causes of their death before the Senate, let him be cast forth unburied; An homicide, cast him out unburied. And so speaks Cicero to the people's humour for Milo, when he affirms Clodius his carcase to be therein the more wretched, because it wanted the solemn rites and honours of burial. (e) Philosophers] those of the Heathen: as Diogenes the Cynic for one, that bade his dead body should be cast unto the dogs and fowls of the air: & being answered by his friends, that they would rend and tear it: set a staff by me then, said he, and I will beat them away with it: tush you yourself shall be senseless quoth they: nay then quoth he what need I fear their tearing of me? This also did Menippus, & almost all the Cyniks. Cicero in his Quaestiones Tusculanae recordeth this answer of Theodorus of Cyrene unto Lysmachus that threatened him the cross: let thy courtiers fear that (quoth he) but as for me I care not whether I ●…ot on the air or in the earth: and so also saith Socrates in Plato's dialogue called Phaedo. (f) Whole armies] meaning perhaps those legions which Cato the elder speak of in his Origines, that would go thither with cheerfulness, from whence they knew they should never return. Nay, it was no custom before Hercules his time to bury the dead that fell in war●… for Aelian in his Historia varia doth affirm Hercules the first inventor of that custom. (g) Poets to speak] with the people's approbation. Lucan in his 7. book of the Pharsalian war, speaking of the dead that Caesar forbade should be burned, or buried, after he had brought forth (as his custom is) many worthy and grave sentences concerning this matter, at length he speaketh thus unto Caesar: Nil agis hac ira, tabesne Cadavera soluat, An rogus, hand refert: placido natura receptat Cuncta sinu: In this thy wrath is worthless: all is one, Whether by fire or putrefaction Their carcases dissolve: kind nature still Takes all into her bosom. And a little after: — Capit omnia tellus Quae genuit; caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam Earth's offspring still returns unto earth's womb, Who wants a grave, heaven serveth for his tomb. And so saith the Declamer in Seneca: Nature gives every man a grave; to the shipwrecked the water wherein he is lost: the bodies of the crucified drop from their crosses unto their graves: those that are burned quick their very punishment entombs them. And Virgil, who appoints a place of punishment in hell for the unburied, yet in Anchises his words, shows how small the loss of a grave is. That verse of Maecenas (Nec tumulum curo, sepelit natura relictos: I weigh no tomb: nature entombs the meanest:) Is highly commended of antiquity. The Urna, was a vessel wherein the relics and ashes of the burned body was kept. (h) In a moment,] 1. Corinth. 15. 52. The reasons why we should bury the bodies of the Saints. CHAP. 12. NOtwithstanding the bodies of the dead are not to be contemned and cast away, chiefly of the righteous and faithful, which the holy ghost used as organs and instruments unto all good works. For if the garment or ring of ones father be so much the more esteemed of his posterity, by how much they held him dearer in their affection, then is not our bodies to be despised, being we wear them more near unto ourselves then any attire whatsoever. For this is no part of external (a) ornament or assistance unto man, but of his express nature. And therefore the funerals of the righteous in the times of old were performed with a zealous care, their burials celebrated, and their monuments provided, and they themselves in their life time would lay charges upon their children concerning the burying or translating of their bodies. (b) Tobye in burying of the dead was acceptable unto God, as the Angel testifieth. T●…. 2. And the Lord himself being to arise again on the third day, commended the good work of that (c) religious woman, who powered the precious Math. 26. job. 19 42 ointment upon his head and body, and did it to bury him. And the (d) Gospel hath crowned them with eternal praise that took down his body from the cross, and gave it honest and honourable burial. But yet these authorities prove not any sense to be in the dead carcases themselves, but signify that the providence of God extendeth even unto the very bodies of the dead (for he is pleased with such good deeds) and do buildup the belief of the resurrection. Where by the way we may learn this profitable lesson, how great the reward of almsdeeds done unto the living, may be (e) since this duty & favour shown but unto the dead is not forgotten of God. There are other prophetical places of the holy (f) patriarchs concerning the intombing or the translation of their own bodies. But this is no place to handle them in, Gen. 47. etc. and of this we have already spoken sufficiently: but if the necessaries of man's life, as meat and clothing, though they be wanting in great extremity, yet cannot subvert the good man's patience, nor draw him from goodness: how much less power shall those things have which are omitted in the burying of the dead, to afflict the souls that are already at quiet in the secret receptacles of the righteous? And therefore, when as in that great overthrow of Rome, and of other Cities, the bodies of the Christians wanted these rights: it was neither fault in the living, that could not perform them, nor hurt to the dead, that could not feel them. L. VIVES. (a) ORnament] The Platonists held only the soul to be man, and the body to be but a case or cover unto it, or rather a prison. But Augustine holdeth the surer opinion, that the body is a part of the man. (b) Toby] Toby the 2. and 12. (c) The good work of that religious] meaning Mary Magdalen. Math. 26. 10. & 12. (d) Gospel] john the 19 38. etc. meant of joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. (e) Since this] a draft of cold water given in the name of the Lord shall not want reward. Math. 10. 42. (f) patriarchs] jacob at his death charged his son joseph to carry his body unto the Sepulchre of his elders, and not to leave it in Egypt, Genes. 47. 29. 30. And joseph himself commanded his brethren that they should remember, and tell their posterity that when they went away into the land of promise, they should carry his bones thither with them. Genesis the last Chapter and 25. verse. Of the captivity of the Saints, and that therein they never wanted spiritual comfort. CHAP. 13. ay, But many Christians (say they) were lead into captivity: This indeed had been a lamentable case, if they had been lead unto some place where they could not possibly have found their God. But for comforts in captivity, the scriptures have store: The (a) three children were in bondage: so was Daniel, so were (b) others of the Prophets: but they never wanted God, their comforter. Dan. 1. No more did he here abandon his faithful; being under the command of barbarous men, who forsook not his (c) Prophet being even in the belly of a beast. This now they with whom we are to deal, had rather scorn, then believe, yet of that fable in their own books they are fully persuaded, namely that that same excellent harper (d) Arion of Methymna, being cast over board, was taken up on a Dolphin's back, and so borne safe to land. Is our history of jonas more incredible than this? yes, because it is more (e) admirable; and it is more admirable, because more powerful. jonas 2. L. VIVES. THe (a) Three children] D●…. 1. 6. Ananias, Azarias and Misael together with Daeniell himself were prisoners in Babylon under Nabuchadnczzar. (b) Others of the Prophets] As jeremy, Ezechiel, and others (c) Prophet] Meaning jonas who was three days in the Whale's belly: a figure of Christ our saviours resurrection from death to life. (d) Arion] The tale of Arion and the Dolphin is common amongst authors. Herodotus was the Arion. first that wrote it? Musar. lib. 1. After him Ovid in his Fastorum, and Pliny, lib. 9 Gellius, lib. 16. Aelian in his book de animalibus and others: Arion was a harper in Nethyni●… a town of Lesbos, in the time of the seven Sages of Greece: for Periander loved him dearly. (Some say he first invented the Tragic verse and the Chorus, and sung in Dithyrambiques:) This Arion returning out of Italy with great wealth, and perceiving the sailors conspiring his destruction for his money, entreated them to take all he had and save his life, which when he could not obtain, he begged leave but to play a little upon his harp to comfort himself therewith against death, and unto the sound of his instrument they say their gathered divers Dolphins together, and Arion being skilled in the nature of this fish, with his harp and all as he was, leapt out of the ship upon one of their backs, who carried him safe and sound unto Taenarus: where yet is seen the Image of a Dolphin swimming with a man upon his back. Pliny proves by many examples that the Dolphin is a lover of man. (e) Admirable:] To be kept so long in the Whale's guts. Of Marcus Regulus, who was a famous example to animate all men to the enduring of vol●…ntary captivity for their religion: which notwithstanding, was unprofitable unto him by reason of his Paganism. CHAP. 14. YEt for all this our enemies have one worthy exmaple proposed by one of their most famous men, for the willing toleration of bondagein the cause of religion: (a) Marcus Attilius Regulus, general of the Romans forces was prisoner at Carthage: Now the Carthaginians being more desirous to exchange their prisoners then to keep them, sent Regulus with their Ambassadors to Rome to treat upon this exchange, having first sworn him, that in case he effected not what they desired he should return as captive unto Carthage, so he went unto Rome, and having a day of audience granted him, he persuaded the direct contrary unto his embassage: because he held it was not profitable for the Romans to exchange their prisoners. Nor after this persuasive speech did the romans compel him to return unto his enemies, but willingly did he go back again for saving of his oath. But his cruel foes put him to death with horrible and exquisite torments: for shutting him (b) in a narrow barrel, strucken all full of sharp nails, and so forcing him to stand upright, being not able to lean to any side without extreme pains, they killed him even with overwatching him. This virtue in him is worthy of everlasting praise, being made greater by so great infelicity. Now his oath of return, was taken (c) by those gods for the neglect of whose forbidden worship those infidels hold these plagues laid upon mankind. But if these gods (being worshipped only for the attainment of temporal prosperity) either desired, or permitted these pains to be laid upon one that kept his oath so truly, what greater plague could they in their most deserved wrath have inflicted upon a most perjured villain than they laid upon this religious worthy? but why do not I confirm mine (d) argument with a double proo●…e? If he worshipped his gods so sincerely, that for keeping the oath which he had taken by their deities, he would leave his natural country to return (not unto what place he liked, but) unto his greatest enemies, if he held that religiousness of his any way beneficial unto his temporal estate, (which he ended in such horrible pains) he was far deceived. For his example hath taught all the world that those Gods of his never further their worshippers in any prosperity of this life; since he that was so devout and dutiful a servant of theirs, for all that they could do, was conquered and led away captive: Now if the worship of these Gods return men's happiness in the life to come, why then do they callumniate the profession of the Christians, saying, that that misery fell upon the city, because it gave over the worship of the old gods, when as were it never so vowed unto their worship, yet might it taste of as much temporal misfortune as ever did Regulus: unless any man will stand in such brainless blindness against the pure truth, as to say that a whole city duly worshipping these Gods cannot be miserable, when one only man may, as though the god's power were of more ability and promptness to preserve generals, than particulars: (e) what? doth not every multitude consist of singularities? If they say that Regulus even in all that bondage and torment might nevertheless be happy in the (f) virtue of his constant mind, then let us rather follow the quest of that virtue by which an whole city may be made truly happy, for a cities happiness and a particular A City. man's do not arise from any several heads: the city being nothing but a multitude of men united in one formality of religion and estate: wherefore as yet I call not Regulus his virtue into any question. It is now sufficient that his very example is of power to enforce them to confess that the worship exhibited unto the gods, aims not any way at bodily prosperity, nor at things externally accident unto man; because that Regulus chose rather to forge all these, then to offend his gods before whom he had passed his oath. But what shall we say to these men, that dare glory that they had had one city of that quality whereof they fear to have all the rest? If they have no such fear, let them then acknowledge, that what befell Regulus, the same may befall an whole city, though their devotion may parallel his in this worship of their gods; and therefore let them cease to slander the times of Christianity. But seeing that our question arose about the captived Christians, let such as hereby take especial occasion to deride and scorn that saving religion, mark but this, & be silent: that if it were no disgrace unto their gods, that one of their most zealous worshippers, by keeping his oath made unto them, should be nevertheless deprived of his country, and have no place left him to retire to, but must perforce be returned to his enemies, amongst whom he had already endured an hard and wretched captivity, & was now lastly to taste of a tedious death, in most execrable, strange, and cruel torments: then far less cause is there to accuse the name of Christ for the captivity of his Saints, for that they, expecting the heavenly habitation in true faith, knew full well, that they were but pilgrims in their native soils and (g) habitations here upon earth, and subject to all the miseries of mortality. L. VIVES. MArcus (a) Attilius Regulus] This is a famous history, and recorded by many. This Regulus in the first Carthaginian war, was made Consul with Lucius Manlius Attilius Regulus. Uolsco: unto which two the African war was committed: being the sole war that the Romans at that time waged: Regulus was the first Roman that ever lead army over the Seas into Africa, where having foiled the Carthaginians in many battles he drove them to seek for help of Zanthippus of Lacedaemon, a singular and well practised captain, by whose means the war was renewed, and in a set fight the Roman army overcome, & Attilius Regulus taken by his enemies. Who having been kept divers years prisoner in Carthage together with his fellow captives, in the fourteenth year of the war, and the 503. after the building of Rome, was sent Ambassador to the Romans about the exchanging of their prisoners: swearing unto his enemies to return unless he attained the effect of his Embassage. Coming to Rome, and having a day of hearing appointed, the Consul desired him to ascend the Consul's seat, and thence to utter his opinion of the Embassage; which he at first refused to utter: but being commanded by the Senate to do it, he did so, and thereupon utterly dissuaded that which the Carthaginians desired; because the Carthaginian prisoners at Rome were young, and able for the wars, but the Romans at Carthage, old, past military use, and not very needful in counsel. To his opinion the whole Senate assented: Now he himself, though he were hindered by his children, kinsmen, servants, countrymen, familiars, clients, and the most part of the people, yet would not stay, but needs would go to discharge his oath which he had sworn to his enemies, although he knew that the Africans would hate him deadly, and so put him to death with some cruel torture or other. So returning unto Carthage, and declaring the effect of his embassage, he was put to death indeed with strange and intolerable torments. (b) In a narrow barrel] some relate it in another manner, but all agree that he was over-watched unto death. (c) By the gods] It had been more significantly spoken, to have said by those gods, etc. with an emphasis. (d) Argument with a double proof,] It is a Dilemma: If man receive the reward following the due worship of those gods in this life, why perished Regulus, being so devout in that kind? if he have it not until after this life, why do they as whippers expect the prosperous estate of this life from them? (e) What doth not each multitude] How then can the multitude be happy, when every particular man is miserable? (f) Virtue of his mind] So holds Tully in many places, Seneca also, and all learned and wise men, speaking of Regulus. (g) Habitations,] meaning these earthly ones. Whether the Taxes that the holy Virgins suffered against their wills in their captivities, could pollute the virtues of their mind. CHAP. 15. O But they think they give the Christians a foul blow, when they aggravate the disgrace of their captivity, by urging the rapes which were wrought not only upon married and marriageable persons, but even upon some Votaresses also: Here are we not to speak of faith, or godliness, or of the virtue of chastity, but our discourse must run a narrow course, (a) betwixt shame and reason. (b) Nor care we so much to give an answer unto strangers in this, as to minister comfort unto our fellow Christians. Be this therefore granted as our first position, that that power by which man liveth well, resting enthroned, and established in the mind, commands every member of the body, and the body is sanctified by the sanctification of the will: which sactimonie of the will, if it remain firm and inviolate, what way The will sanctifies the body. soever the body be disposed of or abused, (if the party enduring this abuse cannot avoid it (d) without an express offence) this sufferance layeth no crime upon the soul. But because every body is subject to suffer the effects both of the fury, and the lusts of him that subdueth it that which it suffereth in this latter kind, though it be not a destroyer of ones chastity, yet is it a procurer of ones shame: Because otherwise, it might be thought, that that was suffered with the consent of the mind, which it may be could not be suffered without some delight of the flesh: And therefore as for those, who to avoid this did voluntarily destroy themselves, what humane heart can choose but pity them? yet as touching such as would not do so, fearing by avoiding others villainy, to incur their own damnation, he that imputes this as a fault unto them, is not unguilty of the fault of folly. L. VIVES. Between (a) shame and reason] for shame saith that the very violation of the body is to be called evil; but Reason denies it. (b) Nor care we] This we will speak as a comforting unto our Christian women that endured these violences. (c) In the mind] The Platonists place the soul and her powers in the head, as in a Tower, sitting there, as the commander of our actions, and the overseer of our labours, as Claudian saith. (d) Without sin,] for if we can avoid it without sin, we ought to endeavour this avoidance with all our powers. Of such as choose a voluntary death, to avoid the fear of pain and dishonour. CHAP. 16. FOR if it be not lawful for a private man to kill any man, how ever guilty, unless the law have granted a special allowance for it, then surely whosoever kills himself is guilty of homicide: And so much the more guilty doth that kill of himself make himself, by how much the more guiltless he was in that cause for which he killed himself. For if judas (a) his fact be worthily detested, and yet the Truth (b) saith, that by hanging of Math. 27. himself, he did rather augment then expiate the guilt of his wicked treachery, because his despair of God's mercy in his (c) damnable repentance, left no place in his soul for saving repentance; how much more ought he to forbear from being cause of his own death, that hath no guilt in him worthy of such a punishment as death: for judas in hanging himself, hanged but a wicked man and died guilty, not only of Christ's death, but of his own also: adding the wickedness of being his own death, to that other wickedness of his, for which he died. L. VIVES. IUdas (a) his fact] which no man but hath heard out of the Gospel. (b) Truth saith] Peter in the first of the Acts affirms, that he did wickedly and vngodlyly both in betraying of his Lord, and in hanging of himself. (c) Damnable repentance] For he repented indeed, but so, as he despaired of being ever able to repent sufficiently for so great a villainy. Of the violent lust of the Soldiers, executed upon the bodies of the captives; against their consents. CHAP. 17. But why should he that hath done no man evil, do himself evil, and by destroying himself, destroy an innocent man, for fear to suffer injury by the guilt of another, and procure a sin unto himself, by avoiding the sin of another? O but his fear is, to be defiled by another's lust! tush, another's lust cannot pollute thee; if it do, it is not another's but thine own. But chastity being a virtue of the mind, and (a) accompanied with fortitude, by which it learns rather to endure all evils, then consent to any, and (b) no man of this fortitude and chastity, being able to dispose of his body as he list, but only of the consent and dissent of his mind; what man of wit will think he looseth his chastity, though his captived body be forcedly prostitute unto another's bestiality? If chastity were lost thus easily, it were no virtue of the mind; nor one of (c) those goods, whereby a man lives in goodness; but were to be reckoned amongst the goods of the body, with strength, beauty, health, and such like: (d) which if a man do decrease in, yet it doth not follow that he decreaseth in his uprightness of life: but if chastity be of (e) another kind, why should we endanger our bodies to no end, which fear to lose it? for if it be (f) a good, belonging to the mind, it is not lost though the body be violated. Moreover it is the virtue of holy continency, that when it withstands the pollution of carnal concupiscence, thereby it sanctifies even the body also: and therefore when the intention stands firm, and gives no way to vicious affects, the chastity of the body (g) is not lost, because the will remains still in the holy use, and in the power too, as far as it can. For the body is not holy in that it is whole, or untouched in every member, for it may be hurt and wounded by many other casualties: And the Physician oftentimes for the preservation of the health, doth that unto the body which the eye abhors to behold. (h) A Midwife trying a certain maids integrity of the Virginal part, (whether for malice, or by chance, it is uncertain) spoilt it. Now I think none so foolish as to think that this virgin lost any part of her bodily sanctity, though that part endured this breach of integrity. And therefore the intent of the mind standing firm, (which firmness it is that sanctifies the body) the violence of another's lust cannot deprive so much as the (ay) body of this sanctity, because the perseverance of the mind in continency ever preserveth it. But shall we say that any woman whose corrupt mind hath broken her promise unto God, and yielded herself willingly to the lust of her deceiver, (though but in purpose,) is as yet holy in her body, when she hath lost that holiness of mind which sanctified her body? God forbid. And here let us learn, that the sanctity of body is no more lost, if the sanctity of mind remain, (though the body be ravished) than it is kept, if the minds holiness be polluted, though the body itself be untouched. Wherefore if there be no reason, that a woman that hath already suffered an others villainy against her own will, should destroy herself by voluntary death, how much less ought this course to be followed before there be any cause? and why should murder be committed, when the guilt which is feared (being feared from another) is as yet in doubt of event? Dare they (against whom we defend the sanctity not only of the Christian women's minds, but even of their bodies in this last captivity) contradict this clear reason, wherein we affirm, that whilst the chaste resolution is unchanged by any evil consent, the guilt is wholly the ravishers, and no part of it imputable unto the ravished? L. VIVES. ACcompanied (a) With fortitude] For the virtues are all combined together as the Philosophers teach. But there are some more peculiarly coherent than other some. (b) No man of this fortitude] Hereupon Plutarch (as I remember) affirms out of Menander that it is not the part of a valiant and complete man to say I will not suffer this, but, I will not do this. (c) Those goods] The virtues: for the Platonistis, and the Peripatetic Philosophers divide all goods into three sorts: mental, bodily, and fortunes, or external. (d) Which if a man] This is the Platonistiss and Peripatetikes opinion as well as the stoics: who Three sorts of good. held, that bodily and external goods might have reference unto beatitude, but none at all unto a good and sanctified life. (e) Another kind] If it be but a bodily good, it is not of such worth as we should lose the whole body for it: for the body is of more worth than it, if it be but such. (f) The body be violated] So did Brutus and Collatinus comfort sorrowful Lucretia, (of whom the next Chapter treateth) by turning the guilt of the salt from her that was offended, upon the author of the fact: neither the mind sinneth (saith Livy) nor the body: and where consent wanted, guilt wanteth also. And the Nurse in Seneca's Hippolytus saith: the mind inferreth looseness, 'tis not chance. (g) Is not lost] The bodies chastity flows from that of the mind, (h) A midwife] He seems to relate a thing done, because he saith A certain maidens etc. ay So much as the body] How simply was that spoken either of Brutus, or Livy (both being wise and judicious men) speaking of the blood of Lucretia being then newly slain. I swear by this blood, most chaste before this King's villainy: as though after his villainy it were not as chaste still, if her mind were not touched with lust, as they hold it was not. Of Lucretia, that stabbed herself because Tarquin's son had ravished her. CHAP. 18. THey extol (a) Lucretia, that Noble and ancient Matron of Rome, with all the laudes of chastity. This woman, having her body forcibly abused by Sextus Tarqvinius son to Tarquin the proud, she revealed this villainy of the dissolute youth unto her husband Collatinus, and to Brutus her kinsman, (both Noble and valorous men) binding them by oath, to (b) revenge this wicked outrage. And then, loathing the foulness of the fact that had been committed upon her, she slew herself. What? shall we say she was an adulteress, or was she chaste? who will stand long in desciding this question. (c) One, declaiming singularly well and truly hereof, saith thus: O wonder! there were two, and yet but one committed the adultery: worthily and rarely spoken: Intimating in this commixtion, the spotted lust of the one, and the chaste will of the other; and gathering his position, not from their bodily conjunction, but from the diversity of their minds, There were two (saith he) yet but one committed the adultery. But what was that then which she punished so cruelly, having not committed any fault? (d) He was but chased out of his country, but she was slain: if it were no unchastenesse in her to suffer the rape unwillingly, it was no justice in her being chaste, to make away herself willingly. I appeal to you, you laws, & judges of Rome. After any offence be committed, you will not have (e) the offender put to death without his sentence of condemnation. Suppose then this case brought before you, and that your judgement was, that the slain woman was not only uncondemned, but chaste, unguilty, and innocent; would you not punish the doer of this deed with full severity? This deed did Lucretia, that so famous Lucretia: this Lucretia being innocent, chaste, and forcibly wronged, even by (f) Lucretia's self, was murdered: Now give your sentence. But if you cannot, because the offender is absent, why th●…n do you so extol the murder of so chaste and guiltless a woman? you cannot defend her before the infernal judges, at any hand, if they be such as your Poets in their verses decipher them: for according to their judgement, she is (g) to be placed amongst those. — Qui sibi lethum, Insontes peperenre manu, lacemque perosi 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. Proiecêre animas— That (guiltless) spoilt themselves through black despite: And threw their souls to hell, through hate of light: Whence if she now would gladly return— Fat●… obstant, tristique palus innabilis unda Alligat.— Fate, and deep ●…ennes forbids their passage thence, And Styx— etc. But how if she be not amongst them, as not dying guiltless, but as being privy to her own sin? what if it were so (h) which none could know but herself, that though Tarqvinius son offered her force, yet she herself gave a lustful consent, & 〈◊〉 did so grieve at that, that she held it worthy to be punished with death? Though she ought not to have done so, howsoever if she thought her repentance could be any way accepted of a sort of false gods.) If it be so, & that it be false that there were two & but one did the sin, but rather that both were guilty of it, the one by a violent enforcement, the other by a secret consent, than she died not innocent: And therefore (ay) her learned defenders may well say, that she is not in hell amongst those that destroyed themselves being guiltless. But this case is in such a straight, that if the murder be extenuated, the adultery is confirmed, and if this be cleared the other is aggravated: Nor (k) is there any way out of this argument: If she be an adulteress, why is she commended? If she be chaste why did she kill herself? But in this example of this noble woman, this is sufficient for us to confute those that being themselves far from all thought of sanctity insult over the Christian women that were forced in this last captivity: that in Lucrecia's praise, it is said that There were two, and but one committed adultery. For they then held Lucretia for one that could not stain herself with any lasciu●…ous consent. Well then in killing herself for suffering uncleanness, being herself unpolluted, she showed no love unto chastity, but only discovered the infirmity of her own shame: he shamed at the filthiness that was committed upon her, though it were (l) without her consent: and (m) being a Roman, and covetous of glory, she feared, that (n) if she lived still, that which she had endured by violence; should be thought to have been suffered with willingness. And therefore she thought good to show this punishment to the eyes of men, as a testimony of her mind, unto whom she could not show her mind indeed: Blushing to be held a partaker in the fact, which being by another committed so filthyly, she had endured so unwillingly. Now this course the Christian women did not take; they live still, howsoever violated: neither for all this revenge they the ruins of others upon themselves, lest they should make an addition of their own guilt unto the others, if they should go and murder themselves barbarously, because their enemies had forced them so beastially. For howsoever, they have the glory of their chastity still within them (o) being the testimony of their conscience, this they have before the eyes of their God, and this is all they care for (having no more to look to but to do well that they decline not from the authority of the law divine, in any finister endeavour to avoid the offence of mortal man's suspicion. L. VIVES. (a) LVcretia] This history of Lucretia is common, though Dionysius relate it somewhat differing from Livy; they agree in the sum of the matter (b) Revenge] so saith Livy in his person. But give me your right hands and faiths, to inflict just revenge upon the adulterer: and they all in order gave her their faiths. (c) One declaiming] Who this was I Virgil once pleaded. [] All this is left out of the Paris edition. have not yet read: One Gloss saith it was Virgil, as he found recorded by a great scholar and one that had read much. But Virgil never was declamer: nor ever pleaded in cause but one, and that but once: perhaps that great reader imagined that one to be this, which indeed was never extant. [Which he might the better do, becasue he had read such store of histories: and better yet, if he were Licentiat, or Doctor] (d) He was chased] Tarquin the King, and all his offspring were chased out of the City: of this in the third book: (e) The offender] The manner of judgement in matter of a Romans life and death. Cicero saith that touching a Romans life there was a decree that no judgement should pass upon it, without the assent of the whole people, in the great Comitia, or Parliaments, called Centuriata. The form and manner of which judgement he sets down in his oration for his house; and so doth Plutarch in the Gracchis. (f) Lucretia herself] which aggravats the fact: done by Lucretia, a noble and worthy matron of the City. (g) Placed amongst these] Virgil in the 6. of his Aeneads divides Hell into nine circles, and of the third he Hells nine circles. speaketh thus. Proxima deinde tenent maesti loca, qui sibi lethum Insontes peperere manu, lucemque perosi Proiecere animas; quam vellent athere in alto Nunc & pauperiem, & dur●…s perferre labores? Fata obstant, tristique palus innabilis unda Alligat & novies Styx interfusa coercet. In english thus. In the succeeding round of woe they dwell That (guiltless) spoiled themselves through black despite, And cast their souls away through hate of light: O now they wish they might return, t' abide Extremest need, and sharpest toil beside: But fate and deeps forbid their passage thence And Styx, that nine times cuts those groundless fens. (h) Which none could know] For who can tell whether she gave consent by the touch of It is a Literats●…, in the text of all editions that I find. some incited pleasure? ay Her learned defenders] * It is better to read her learned defenders, or her not unlearned defenders, than her unlearned defenders, as some copies have it. (k) Is there any way] It is a Dilemma, If she were an adulteress, why is she commended? if chaste, why murdered? The old Rethoricians used to dissolve this kind of Argument either by overthrowing one of the parts, or by retorting it, called in greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Antistrophe. conversion, or retortion: Examples there are divers in Cicero de Rethorica. Now Augustine saith, that this conclusion is inextricable & unavoidable by either way. (l) Without The Roman greedy of praise her consent] For she abhorred to consent unto this act of lust. (m) A Roman] The Roman Nation were always most greedy of glory, of whom it is said: Vincet amor patriae, laudumque immensa cupido. Their country's love & boundless this of glory . Will conquer, etc. And Ovid saith of Lucrece, in his Fasti: Succubuit famae victa puella metu: Conquered with fear to lose her fame, she fell. (n) If she lived] after this uncleanness committed upon her. (o) Being the testimony] for our glory is this (saith Saint Paul 2. Cor. I. 12.) the testimony of our consciences: And this the stoics and all the heathenish wise men have ever taught. That there is no authority which allows Christians to be their own deaths in what cause soever CHAP. 19 FOr it is not for nothing that we never find it commended in the holy canonical Scriptures (or but allowed) that either for attaining of immortality, or avoiding of calamity, we should be our own destructions: we are forbidden it in the law: Thou shalt not kill: especially because it adds not, Thy 〈◊〉. neighbour; as it doth in the pohibition of false witness. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour: Yet let no man think that he is free of this later crime, if he bear false witness against himself: because he that loves his neighbour, begins his love from himself: Seeing it is written: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Now if he be no less guiltless of false Math. 2●…. witness that testifieth falsely against himself, than he that doth so against his neighbour (since that in that commandment, wherein false witness is forbidden, it is forbidden to be practised against one's neighbour, whence misunderstanding conceits may suppose that it is not forbidden to bear false witness against ones self) how much plainer is it to be understood, that a man may not kill himself, seeing that unto the commandment (Thou shalt not kill) nothing being added, excludes all exception both of others, & of him to whom the command is given? And therefore some would extend the intent of this precept, even unto beasts and cattle, and would have it unlawful to kill any of them. But why not unto herbs also, and all things that grow and are nourished by the earth? for though these kinds cannot be said to have (a) sense or feeling, yet they are said to be living: and therefore they may die; and consequently by violent usage be killed. Wherefore the Apostle speaking of these kind of seeds, saith thus. Fool, that which thou sowest, is not quickened, except (first) it die. And the Psalmist saith: He destrored their vines with bail: but what? 1. Cor, 12. 36. Psal. 78. 47. Shall we therefore think it sin to cut up a twig, because the commandment says, thou shalt not kill, and so involve ourselves in the foul error of the Manichees? Wherhfore setting aside these dotages, when we read this precept: Thou shalt not kill; If we hold it not to be meant of fruits or trees, because they are not sensitive; nor of unreasonable creatures, either going, flying, swimming or creeping, because they have no society with us in reason, which God the Creator hath not made common both to them and us; and therefore by his just ordinance, their deaths and lives are both most serviceable and useful unto us; than it follows necessarily, that thou shalt not kill, is meant only ofmen: Thou shalt not kill, namely, Neither thyself, or another. For he that kills himself, kills no other but a man. L. VIVES. TO have (a) sense] Aristotle saith that plants are animate, and living creatures, but That plants are ani●…ate or living creatures. yet not sensitive. But Plato being of Empedocles his opinion, holds them both living and sensitive: Either may be: they may die because they do live, howsoever. Of some sort of kill men, which notwithstanding are no murders. CHAP. 20. Indeed the authority of the law divine hath set down some exceptions wherein it is lawful to kill a man. But excepting those whom God commands to be slain, either by his express law, or by some particular command unto any person by any temporal occasion (and he committeth not homicide that owes his service unto him that commandeth him, being but as the sword is a help to him that useth it. And therefore those men do not break the commandment which forbiddeth killing, who do make war by the authority of (a) Gods command, or being in some place of public magistracy, do put to death malefactors according to their laws, that is, according to the rule of justice and reason. Abraham was not only freed from being blamed as a murderer, but he was also commended as a godly man in Abraham that he would have killed his son Isaac, not in wickedness, but in obedience. And it is a doubtful question, whether it be to be held as a command from God that (b) jepthe killed his daughter that met him in his return, seeing Gen. 22. judge. 11. 30. 31. that he had vowed to sacrifice the first living thing that came out of his house to meet him, when he returned conqueror from the wars. (c) Nor could Samson be excused pulling down the house upon himself and his enemies, but that the spirit within him, which wrought miracles by him, did prompt him unto this act. Those therefore being excepted, which either the justice of the law, or the fountain of all justice, God's particular command, would have killed; he that killeth either himself, or any other, incurreth the guilt of a homicide. L. VIVES. authority (a) of God's command] As the jews did: they waged wars, but it was by God's express command. [But if they were counted godly that to please God (though [] This is left out in the edition of Paris. against natural humanity afflicted) his enemies with war and slaughter: truly then cannot we butbe held the most ungodly of the world that butcher up so many thousand Christians against the express will of God] (b) jepthe] judges the 11. Chapt. Verse 31. Whose fact was like that, which the Tragedians write of Agamemnon, who sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia unto Diana at Aulis. Many reprove this sacrifice of jephte: for his vow was to be interpreted, as meant of those things, which were accustomed to be offered with God's Agamemnon. good pleasure: and so was that of Agamemnon's to have been construed also. (c) Nor could Samson] judges the 16. chapter and the 30. verse. That voluntary death can never be any sign of magnanimity, or greatness of spirit. CHAP 21. WHo soever have committed this homicide upon themselves, may (perhaps) be commended of some for their greatness of spirit, but never for their soundness of judgement. But indeed if you look a little deeper into the matter, it cannot be rightly termed magnanimity, when a man being unable to endure either casual miseries, or others oppressions (to avoid them) destroyeth himself. For that mind discovereth itself to be of the greatest infirmity, that can neither endure hard bondage in his body, or the fond opinion of the vulgar: and worthily is that spirit entitled great, that can rather endure calamities then avoid them: And in respect of their own purity and enlightened conscience, can set at nought the trivial censures of mortal men (a) which are most commonly enclowded in a mist of ignorance and error. If we shall think it a part of magnanimity to put a man's self to death, then is (b) Cleombrotus. most worthy of this magnanimous title, who having read Plato's book of the immortality of the soul, cast himself headlong from the top of a wall, and so leaving this life, went unto another which he believed was better. For neither calamity, nor guiltiness, either true or false, urged him to avoid it by destroying himself, but his great spirit alone was sufficient to make him catch at his death, and break all the pleasing fetters of this life. Which deed notwithstanding, that it was rather great, then good, Plato himself, whom he read, might have assured him: who (be sure) would have done it, or taught it himself, if he had not discerned by the same instinct whereby he discerned the soul's eternity, that this was at no hand to be practised, but rather utterly (c) prohibited. L. VIVES. WHich (a) Are indeed] The ancient wise men were ever wont to call the people the great Master of Error. (b) Cleombrotus] This was the Ambraciot, who having The people how styled. read Plato's dialogue called Phaedo of the immortality of the soul, that he might leave this life, (which is but as a death,) and pass unto immortality, threw himself over a wall into the sea, without any other cause in the world. Of him did Callimachus make an epigram in Greek, and in Latin, I have seen it thus. Vita vale, muro praeceps delapsus ab alto, Dixisti moriens Ambraciota puer: Nullum in morte malum credens; sed scripta Platonis Non ita erant animo percipienda tuo. When Cleombrotus from the turret threw Himself to death, he cried, new life, adieu: Holding death, hurtless: But grave Plato's sense. He should have read with no such reference. There was also another Cleombrotus, King of Lacedaemon, whom Epaminondas the Theban overcame. (c) Rather utterly prohibited] For in the beginning of his Phaedo, he saith it is wickedness for a man to kill himself: and that God is angered at such a fact, like the master of a family, when any of his slaves have killed themselves: and in many other places, he saith that without God's command, no man ought to leave this life. For here we are all as in a set front of battle, every one placed, as God our Emperor and General pleaseth to appoint us: and greater is his punishment that forsaketh his life, than his that forsaketh his colours. Of Cato, who killed himself, being not able to endure Caesar's victory. CHAP. 22. But many have killed themselves for fear to fall into the hands of their foes. We dispute not here de facto, whether it hath been done or no, but de jure, whether it were to be done or no. For sound reason is before example, all authorities Reason above examples. to the contrary, as whereunto all examples do consent, being such as by their excellence in goodness are worthily imitable: neither Patriarch, Prophet nor Apostle ever did this: yet our Lord jesus Christ, when he admonished his disciples, in persecution to fly from city to city, might have willed them in such cases to make a present dispatch of themselves, and so to avoid their Math. 10. 23. persecutors (had he held it fit.) But if he never gave any such admonition, or command, that any to whom he promised a mansion of eternity at their deaths, should pass unto their deaths on this fashion; (let then the heathen that know not God produce all they can) it is plainly unlawful for any one than serveth the only true God to follow this course: But indeed besides Lu●…ia (of whom I think we have sufficiently argued before) it is hard for Cap. 19 them to find one other example, worth prescribing as a fit authority for others to follow, besides that (a) Cato only that killed himself at Utica: (b) not that he alone was his own deathsman but because he was accounted as a (c) learned, and (d) honest man, which may beget a belief, that to do as he did, were to do well. What should I say of his fact more than his friends (and (e) some of them learned men) have said? who showed far more judgement in dissuading the deed, and censuring it as the effect of a spirit rather dejected, then magnanimous. And of this (f) did Cato himself leave a testimony in his own famous Son. For if it were base to live under Caesar's victory: why did he advise his son to this, willing him to entertain a full hope of Caesar's clemency? Yea why did he not urge him to go willingly to his end with him? If it were laudable in Torquatus (g) to kill his son that had fought and foiled his enemy: (though herein he had broken the Dictator's command) why did conquered Cato spare his overthrown son, that spared not himself? Was it more vile to be a conqueror against law, then to endure a conqueror against honour? What shall we say then, but that even in the same measure that he loved his son, whom he both hoped and wished that Caesar would spare, in the same did he envy Caesar's glory, which he (h) should have gotten in sparing of him also, or else (to mollify this matter somewhat) he was ashamed to receive such courtesy at Caesar's hands. L. VIVES. THat (a) Cato] The Catoe's were of the Portian family, arising from Tusculum a town The Ca●…. of the Latins. The first of this stock that was called Cato (that is wise and wary) was Marcus Portius, a man of mean descent, but attaining to all the honours of Consul, Censor, and of Triumph. His nephews son was Marcus Portius Cato, both of them were great and (yet) innocent men. The first was called Mayor, or the Elder, the later Minor, or the younger. The younger being a Leader in the civil wars of Pompey took his (that was, the common weals and the liberties) part, against the usurparion of Caius Caesar: Now Pompey being overcome by Caesar at Pharsalia, and Scipio Metellus (Pompey his father in law) in Africa, this Cato seeing his faction subverted, and Caesar bear all down before him, being retired unto Utica (a City in Africa) and reading Platoe's Phaed●… twice over together, the same night thrust himself through with his sword. (b) Not because he alone] No, for many in other wars had slain themselves, lest they should fall into the hand of the enemy: and in this same war, so did Scipio Metellus, Afranius & King juba (c) Learned] A stoic and excellently skilled in the wisdom of the Greeks (d) Honest] the wisdom and innocency that was in both these Cato's grew into a proverb: and The in●…grity of the C●…es. hereof saith I●…all. T●…rtius 〈◊〉 Caelo cecidit Cato. Now Heaven hath given us a third Cat●…. Velleius Paterculus writing unto Uinicius, thus describeth this Cato. He was descended from Marcus Cato that head of the Porcian family (who was his great grandfather) he was a man like virtues self, and rather of divine then human capacity: he never did good that he cared should be noted: but because he could not do any thing but good, as holding that only reasonable which was just: free was he from all the corruptions of man, and evermore swayed his own fortune to his own liking, Thus far Uelleius: to omit the great testimonies of Seneca, Lucan, Tully, Saluste and others, of this worthy man. (e) some of them learned] It is recorded that Apollonides the Stoic, Demetrius the Peripatetic, and Cleanthes the Physician were then at Utica with Cato. For he loved much the company of the Greek Philosophers, and his great grandfather never hated them so much as he respected them. And upon the night that he slew himself on (saith Plutarch) at supper there arose a disputation about such things as really concern the liberty of a man: wherein, Demetrius spoke many things against Cato's constant assertions of the praise of such as killed themselves; which indeed was so vehement, that it begot a suspicion in them all, that he would follow the same course himself, (f) This did Cato himself] Plutarch writeth that when Cato Cato his son. came to Utica, he sent away his followers by shipping, and earnestly persuaded his son to go with them, but could not force him to forsake his father. This son of his, Caesar afterwards pardoned, as Livy saith lib. 114. and Caesar himself in his Commentaries of the African war. He was (as Plutarch saith in his father's life) much given to venery, but in the battle of Phillipi, fight valiantly on his cousin Brutus his side for his country's freedom he was slain, scorning to leave the fight, when the chiefest captains fled. (g) to kill his son] Titus Manlius Torquatus made his sons head be cut off for fight contrary Ma●…. Torquat●…. to the edict, though he returned with victory, But of this elsewhere. (h) should have gotten by sparing of him] Commonly known is that saying of Caesar to him that brought news of Cato's death: Cato, I envy thy glory, for thou enviedst mine, and would not have it reckoned amongst mine other famous acts, that I saved Cato. Caesar wrote two books called Anticatones, against Cato, as Cicero and Suetonius testify. The Cardinal of Liege told me that he saw them both in a certain old library at Liege, and that he would see they should be sent me, which if he do, I will not defraud the learned of their use and publication. That the Christians excel Regulus in that virtue, wherein he excelled most. CHAP. 23. But those whom we oppose will not have their Cato excelled by our job, that holy man, who choose rather to endure all them horrible torments (a) in his flesh, then by adventuring upon death to avoid all those vexations: and other Saints of high credit and undoubted faith in our scriptures, all which made choice rather to endure the tyranny of their enemies, then be their own butchers. But now we will prove out of their own records that Regulus was Cato's better in this glory. For Cato never over-came Caesar, unto whom he scorned to be subject, and chose to murder himself rather then be servant unto him: But Regulus over-came the Africans, and in his generalship, returned with divers noble victories unto the Romans, never with any notable loss of his Citizens, but always of his foes: and yet being afterwards conquered by them, he resolved rather to endure slavery under them, then by death to free himself from them. And therein he both preserved his paciency under the Carthaginians, and his constancy unto the Romans, neither depriving the enemy of his conquered body, nor his countrymen of his unconquered mind: Neither was it the love of this life, that kept him from death. This he gave good proof of, when without dread, he returned back unto his foes, to whom he had given worse cause of offence in the Senate-house with his tongue then ever he had done before in the battle with his force: & therefore this so great a conqueror and contemner of this life, who had rather that his foes should take it from him by any torments, then that he should give death to himself, howsoever, must needs hold, that it was a foul guilt for man to be his own murderer. Rome amongst all her worthies, and eternised spirits, cannot show one better than he was, for he, for all his great victories, continued (b) most poor: nor could mishap amate him: for with a fixed resolve and an undaunted courage returned he unto his deadliest enemies. Now, if those magnanimous and heroical defenders of their earthly habitacles, and those true and sound servants of their (indeed false gods (who had power to cut down their conquered foes by law of arms) seeing themselves afterwards to be conquered of their foes, nevertheless would not be their own butchers, but although they feared not death at all, yet would rather endure to be slaves to their foe's superiority, then to be their own executioners: How much more than should the Christians, that adore the true God, and aim wholly at the eternal dwellings, restrain themselves from this foul wickedness, whensoever it pleaseth God to expose them for a time to taste of temporal extremities, either for their trial, or for correction sake, seeing that he never forsaketh them in their humiliation, for whom he being most high, humbled himself so low: (e) especially being that they are persons whom no laws of arms or military power can allow to destroy the conquered enemies? L. VIVES. IN (a) his flesh] For he was afflicted with a sore kind of ulcere. (b) Most poor] Livy in his eighteen book, and Valerius in his examples of poverty write this: When Attilius knew that his generalship was prolonged another year more, he wrote to the Senate to have Attilius his poverty. them send one to supply his place: His chief reason why he would resign his charge was, because his seven acres of ground (being all the land he had) was spoiled by the hired soldiers: which if it continued so, his wife and children could not have whereon to live. So the Senate (giving the charge of this unto the Aediles) looked better ever after unto Attilius his patrimony. (c) Especially being that they] He makes fight as far from Christian piety, as religious humanity is from barbarous inhumanity. That sin is not to be avoided by sin. CHAP. 24. WHat a pernicious error than is here crept into the world, that a man should kill himself, because either his enemy had injured him, or means to injure him? whereas he may not kill his enemy, whether he have offended him, or be about to offend him? This is rather to be feared indeed, that the body, being subject unto the enemy's lust, with touch of some enticing delight do not allure the will to consent to this impurity: And therefore (say they) it is not because of another's guilt, but for fear of ones own, that such men ought to kill themselves before sin be committed upon them. Nay, the mind that is more truly subject unto God and his wisdom, then unto carnal concupiscence will never be brought to yield unto the lust of the own flesh be it never so provoked by the lust of another's: But if it be a damnable fact, and a detestable wickedness to kill one's self at all, (as the truth in plain terms saith it is) what man will be so fond as to say, let us sin now, lest we sin hereafter? let us commit murder now, lest we fall into adultery hereafter? If wickedness be so predominant in such an one, as he or she will not choose rather to suffer in innocence than to escape by guilt: is it not better to adventure on the uncertainty of the future adultery, than the certainty of the present murder? is it not better to commit such a sin as repentance may purge, than such an one as leaves no place at all for repentance? This I speak for such as for avoiding of guilt (not in others but in themselves) and fearing to consent to the lust in themselves which another's lust inciteth, do imagine that they ought rather to endure the violence of death: But far be it from a Christian soul that trusteth in his God, that hopeth in him and resteth on him; far be it (I say) from such to yield unto the delights of the flesh in any consent unto uncleanness. But if that (a) concupiscential disobedience which dwelleth as yet in our (b) dying flesh, do stir itself by the own licence against the law of our will; how can it be but faltlesse in the body of him or her that never consenteth, when it stirs without guilt in the body that sleepeth. L. VIVES. Concupiscential (a) Disobedience] The lust of the body is moved of itself even against all resistance and contradiction of the will: and then the will being overcome by the flesh, from hence ariseth shame, as we will show more at large hereafter. (b) Dying flesh] Our members being subject unto death do die every day, and yet seem to have in them a life distinct from the life of the soul: if then the lustful motions that betid us in sleep, be faltlesse, because the will doth not consent, but nature effects them without it; how much more faltlesse shall those be, wherein the will is so so far from resting only, that it resists and strives against them? Of some unlawful acts, done by the Saints, and by what occasion they were done. CHAP. 25. But there were (a) some holy women (say they) in these times of persecution, who flying from the spoilers of their chastities, threw themselves headlong into a swift river which drowned them and so they died, and yet their martirdomes are continually honoured with religious memorials in the Catholic Church. Well, of these I dare not judge rashly in any thing. Whether the Church have any sufficient testimonies that the divine will advised it to honour these persons memories, I cannot tell, it may be that Particular vocation, it hath. For what if they did not this through mortal fear, but through heavenly instinct? not in error, but in obedience? as we must not believe but that Samson did. And if God command, and this command be clearly and doubtlessly discerned to be his, who dares call this obedience into question? Who dare callumniate the duty of holy love? But every one that shall resolve to sacrifice his son unto God shall not be cleared of guilt in such a resolution, because Abraham was praised for it. For the soldier, that in his order and obeisance to his governor (under whom he fighteth lawfully) killeth a man, the city nevermakes him guilty of homicide: nay it makes him guilty offalshood and contempt, if he do not labour in all that he can to do it. But if he had killed the man of his own voluntary pleasure, than had he been guilty of shedding humane blood, And so he is punished for doing of that unbidden, for the not doing of which being bid he should also have been punished. If this be thus at the generals command, then why not at the creators? He therefore that heareth it said, Thou shalt not kill thyself, must kill himself if he command him, whom we may no way gainsay: Only he is to mark whether this divine command be not involued in any uncertainty. By (b) the ear we do make conjecture of the conscience, but our judgement cannot penetrate into the secrets of hearts: No man knows the things of a man, but the spirit of a man which is in him. This we say, this we affirm, this we 1. Cor. 2. 11. universally approve, that no man ought to procure his own death for fear of temporal miseries; because in doing this he falleth into eternal: Neither may he do it to avoid the sins of others, for in this he maketh himself guilty of a deadly guilt, whom others wickedness could not make guilty: nor for his own sins past, for which he had more need to wish for life, that he might repent himself of them: nor for any desire of a better life to be hoped for after death: Because such as are guilty of the loss of their own life, never enjoy any better life after their death. L. VIVES. But there were (a) some holy women] Ambrose lib. 3. de virginibus, writeth that Pelagia with his mother & sisters cast themselves headlong into a river, for fear to be ravished Pelagia. of the soldiers that pursued them: and yet the Church (saith he) hath placed her amongst the number of the martyrs: And Sophronia likewise who killed herself to avoid the lust of Maxentius Caesar as Eusebins recordeth in his Ecclesiastical history. (b) by the ear] We judge by appearances of what is within: for our eye cannot pierce into the secrets of man. Sempronia. Whether we ought to fly sin with voluntary death. CHAP. 26. THere is one reason of this proposition as yet to handle, which seems to prove it commodious for a man to suffer a voluntary death: namely lest either alluring pleasures or tormenting pains should enforce him to sin afterwards. Which reason if we will give scope unto, it will run out so far, that one would think that men should be exhorted to this voluntary butchery, even then, when by the fount of regeneration they are purified from all their sins. For than is the time to beware of all sins to come, when all that is passed is pardoned. And if voluntary death do this, why is it not fittest then? Why doth he that is newly baptised forbear his own throat? Why doth he thrust his head freed again into all these imminent dangers of this life, seeing he may so easily avoid them all by his death: and it is written, He that lou●…th danger shall fall therein? Why then doth he love those innumerable dangers? or if he do not love them, why undertakes he them? Is any man so fond Eccl. 3. 27 perverse and so great a contemner of truth, that if he think one should kill himself to eschew the violence of one oppressor lest it draw him unto sin, will nevertheless a●…ouch that one should live still, and endure this whole world at all times, full of all temptations, both such as may be expected from one oppressor, and thousands besides without which no man doth nor can live? What is the reason then, why we do spend so much time in our exhortations, endeavouring to animate (a) those whom we have baptised, (b) either unto virginity, or chaste widowhood, or honest and honourable marriage; seeing we have both far shorter and far better ways to abandon all contagion and danger of sin; namely in persuading every one presently after that remission of his sins which he hath newly obtained in baptism, to betake him presently to a speedy death, and so send him presently away unto GOD, both fresh and fair? If any man think that this is fit to be persuaded, I say not he dotes, but I say he is plain mad: with what face can he say unto a man, kill thyself, least unto thy small sins thou add a greater by living in slavery unto a barbarous unchaste master? how can he (but with guilty shame) say unto a man: kill thyself now that thy sins are forgiven thee, lest thou fall into the like again or worse, by living in this world, so fraught with manifold temptation, so alluring with unclean delights, so furious with bloody sacrileges, so hateful (c) with errors and terrors? it is a shame and a sin to say the one, and therefore is it so likewise to do the other. For (d) if there were any reason of just force to authorize this fact, it must needs be that which is fore-alleged. But it is not that, therefore there is none. Loath not your lives then (you faithful of Christ) though the foe hath made ha●…ock of your chastities. You have a great and true consolation, if your conscience bear you faithful witness that you never consented unto their sins who were suffered to commit such outrages upon you. L. VIVES. THose (a) whom we have baptised] [Least any man should mistake this place, understand that in times of old, no man was brought unto baptism, but he was of sufficient years The old manner of baptizing. to know what that mystical water meant, and to require his baptism, yea and that sundry times. Which we see resembled in our baptising of infants unto this day. For the infant is asked (be it borne on that day, or a day before) whether it willbe baptised? Thrice is this [] all this is left out of the Paris edition. question propounded unto it: unto which the Godfathers answer, it will: I hear that in some Cities of Italy they do for the most part observe the ancient custom as yet. This I have related only to explain the meaning of Augustine more fully.] (b) Either to virginity] He toucheth the three estates of such as live well in the Church. (c) With so many errors and terrors] Of the seventh chance, (d) For if there were any reason] A fit kind of argument, by repugnance: which taking away the adjunct, takes the subject away also. Tully mentions it in his Topikes. How it was a judgement of God that the enemy was permitted to excercise his lust upon the Christian bodies. CHAP. 27. IF you ask me now why these outrages were thus permitted, I answer the providence of the creator & governor of the world, is high, and his judgements are unsearchable (a) and his ways past finding out: But ask your own Rom. 11. 33. hearts sincerely whether you have boasted in this good of continency and chastity, or no? whether you have not affected human commendations for it, and so thereby have envied it in others? I do not accuse you of that whereof I am ignorant, nor do I know what answer your hearts will return you unto this question. But if they answer affirmatively, and say you have done so, then wonder not at all (b) that you have now lost that, whereby you did but seek and (c) rejoice to please the eyes of mortal men: and that you lost not that which could not be showed unto men. If you consented not unto the others luxury, your souls had the help of God's grace to keep them from loss, and likewise felt the disgrace of human glory, to deter them from the love of it. But your faint hearts are comforted on both sides: on this side being approved, and on that side chastised: justified on this, and reform on the other. But their hearts that give them answer that they never gloried in the gift of virginity, vidual chastity, or continence in marriage: but (d) sorting themselves with the meanest, did (e) with a reverend fear Rom. 12. 1●…. Psal. 2. 1●… rejoice in this gift of God; nor ever repined at the like excellence of sanctity and purity in others; but neglecting the air of human fame, (which always is wont to accrue according to the rarity of the virtue that deserves it) did wish rather to have their number multiplied, then by reason of their fewness to become more eminent. Let not those that are such, (if the Barbarians Just have seized upon some of them) (f) allege that this is (merely) permitted: nor let them think that God neglecteth these things because he sometimes permitteth that which no man ever committeth unpunished: for some, as weights of sin and evil desires, are let down by a pr●…sent and secret judgement, and some are reserved to that public and universal last judgement. And perhaps those, who knew themselves vngu●…e, and that never had their hearts puffed up with the good of this chastity, (and yet had their bodies thus abused by the enemy) had (notwithstanding) some infirmity lurking within them which (g) if they had escaped; this humiliation by the wars fury might have increased unto a fastidious pride. Wherefore (h) as some were taken away by death, lest wickedness should alter their understandings, so these here were forced to forego (ay) something, lest excess of prosperity should have depraved their virtuous modesty. And therefore, from neither sort, either of those that were proud, in that their bodies were pure from all unclean touch of others, or that might have grown proud, if they had escaped the rape done by their foes, from neither of these is their chastity taken away, but unto them both is humility perwaded. The vainglory which is (k) immanent in the one, and imminent over the other, was excluded in them both. Though this is not to be over-passed with silence, that some that endured these violences, might perhaps think, that continency is but a bodily good, remaining as long as the body remains untouched▪ but that it is not solely placed in the strength of the grace-assisted will, which sanctifies both body and soul: nor that it is a good that cannot be lost against one's will: which error, this affliction brought them to understand: for it they consider with what conscience they honour God, and do with an unmoved faith believe this of him, that he will not, nay cannot any way forsake such as thus and thus do serve him, and invocate his name, and do not doubt of the great acceptation which he vouchsafeth unto chastity, Then must they need perceive that it follows necessarily, that he would never suffer this to fall upon his Saints, if that by this means they should be despoiled of that sanctimony which he so much affecteth in them, and infuseth into them. L. VIVES. ANd (a) his ways] the vulgar (Rom. 12. 35.) reads investigabiles for the direct contrary, minimè investigabiles. Inuestigabilis, is that which is found, investigando, with searching out. But the ways of the Lord cannot be found out by humane understanding. The Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, imperuestigabiles, unsearchable. (b) That you lost that] that you lost your fame, and fair report, and yet lost not your chastity. (c) Rejoiced to please,] that is lovingly desired. (d) But sorting themselves with the meanest] Rom. 12. 16. Be not high minded, but make yourselves equal with them of the lower sort: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the original, verbally translated: humilibus abducti. (e) With reverend fear] Psalm. 2. 11. Serve the Lord with fear, or rejoice with trembling. (f) Allege] we interpret not causari as the Philosophers do in the Schools, in causa esse, to be the cause, but causam proffer, to allege as cause, as Virgil doth, saying: Causando nostros in longum ducis amores. With allegations thou prolongs our loves. (g) If they had escaped this humiliation] Augustine here useth humilitas for humiliatio, (I think) which is, a dejecting of a man by some calamity: Unless that some will read it thus: Which if they had escaped, the humility of this wars fury, might have blown them up into fastidious pride. (h) As some were taken away] The words are in the fourth of the book of Wisdom, the eleventh verse, and are spoken of Henoch: but they are not here to be understood as spoken of him: (for he was taken up in his life unto the Lord:) but of others who after their death were taken up to God for the same cause that Henoch was, before his death. ay Some thing] what that something was, modest shame prohibiteth to speak. (k) Immanent in the one] not as the Grammarians take it, namely for uncontinuing or transitory, but immanens, quasi intùs manens, inherent, engrafted, or staying within. Augustine useth it for to express the figure of Agnomination, or Paranamasia, which is in Paranomasia. the two words immanent & imminent; which figure he useth in many other places. What the servants of Christ may answer the In●…dels, when they upbraid them with Christ's not delivering them (in their afflictions) from the fury of their enemy's fury. CHAP. 28. WHerefore all the servants of the great and true God have a comfort that's firm and fixed, not placed upon frail foundations of momentary and transitory things: and so they pass this temporal life in such manner, as they never need repent them of enjoying it: because that herein they are prepared for that which is eternal, using the goods of this world but as in a pilgrimage, being no way entrapped in them, and so making use of the evils of this world, as they make them serve always either to their approbation, or their reformation. Those that insult upon this their uprightness, and (when they see them fallen into some of these temporal inconveniences) say unto them (a) where is thy God? Let them tell us, where their Gods are when they are afflicted Psal. 42. 3. with the like oppressions? their gods, which either they worship, or desire to worship only, for the avoiding of such inconveniences. The family of Christ can answer, my God is every where present, in all places, whole and powerful, no space includes him: he can be present, un-perceived, and depart away again, unmoved. And he, when he afflicts us with these adversities, doth it either for trial of our perfections or reforming of our imperfections, still reserving an eternal reward for our patient sufferance of temporal distresses. But who are you, that I should vouchsafe to speak unto you, especially of your gods, but most especially of mine own God (b) who is terrible and to be feared above all Gods? for all the gods of the Heathen are Devils, but the Lord made the heavens. Psal. 96. 4. 5 L. VIVES. WHere (a) is thy God?] Psal. 42. My tears have been my bread day and night, whilst they daily said unto me: where is now thy God? (b) Who is terrible and to be feared,] Psal. 95. 4. 5. That such as complain of the Christian times desire nothing but to live in filthy pleasures. CHAP. 29. IF that (a) your Scipio Nasica were now alive, he that was once your high Priest, who (when in the fearful terror of the Carthaginian wars, the most perfect man of all the city was sought for, to undertake the entertainment of the Phrygian goddess) was chosen by the whole Senate, he whose face perhaps you now durst not look on, he would shame you from this gross impud●…nce of yours. For what cause is there for you to exclaim at the prosperity of the Christian faith in these times, but only because you would follow your luxury uncontrolled, and having removed the impediments of all troublesome oppositions, swim on in your dishonest and unhallowed dissolution? Your affections do not stand up for peace, nor for universal plenty and prosperity, to the end that you might use them when you havethen, as honest men should do: that is, modestly, soberly, temperately, and religiously: No: but that hence you might keep up your unreasonable expense, in seeking out such infinite variety of pleasures, and so give birth unto those exorbitances in your prosperities, which would heap more mischiefs upon you then ever befell you by your enemies. (b) But Scipio your high Priest, he whom the whole Senate judged the best man amongst you, fearing that this calamity would fall upon you (that I speak of) would not have Carthage in those days the sole parallel of the Roman Empire utterly subverted, but contradicted Cato, that spoke for the destruction of it, because he feared the foe of all weak spirits, Security: and held that Carthage would be unto his fellow Citizens (c) as if they were young punies) both a convenient tutor, and a necessary terror. Nor did his judgement delude him: the event itself gave sufficient proof whether he spoke true or no: for afterwards when Carthage was razed down, and the greatest curber and terror of the Roman weal-public utterly extinguished and brought to nothing; Presently such an innumerable swarm of inconveniences arose out of this prosperous estate, that the bonds of concord being all rent asunder and broken, first with barbarous and (e) bloody seditions, and next (f) by continual giving of worse and worse causes by civil wars, such slaughters were effected, so much blood was shed by civil wars, and so much inhumanity was practised in proscribings, riots and rapines, that those romans that in the good time of their lives feared no hurt but from their enemies, now in the corrupt time of their lives endured far worse of their own fellows: and that lust after sovereignty, which among all other sins of the world, was most appropriate unto the romans, and most immoderate in them all, at length getting head and happy success in a few of the more powerful, it overpressed all the rest, wearing them out and crushing their necks with the yoke of wild and slavish bondage. L. VIVES. IF that your Scipio (a) Nasica] This man was the son of Cnius Cornelius Scipio, who was slain together with his brother Publius, by the Carthaginians in Spain, in the second Scipio Nasica. war of Africa. In the 14. year of which war the Decemuiri found a verse amongst the rest of the Prophecies in the books of the Sibyls, which foretold that the enemy should be chased out of Italy if that the mother of the gods were transported from Pessinuns, a city of Phrygia, unto Rome. Here-upon an embassage was sent to Attalus, who as then was King of that country, to demand the mother of the gods of him, in the name of the Senate and people of Rome. The Ambassadors as they went, took the Oracle of Delphos in their way, to know what hope there was of attaining this mother of the gods of the stranger King Attalus. The Oracle bad them be of good courage, Attalus would not be against the fulfilling of their request for the Image: but withal willed them to have an especial care that when she came into Italy, the best man of the whole City of Rome should give her entertainment, and receive her into his custody. So the ship returning unto Ostia with the Image of the goddess, Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica was by the Senators (which were sworn to give their opinions of the best man of the City) adjudged as the best man, he being then but a youth and not out of his questorship, which was his first step unto dignity; and so he by the decree of the Senate, received the Phrygian goddess: Livy in his 29. book and many others. (b) But Scipio] In the 600. The original of the Carthaginian wars. year after the building of Rome, when the Roman Ambassadors that had been at Carthage, reported that there they had found a huge deal of furniture for shipping, and all things fit for a Naval war, the Senate held a consultation about the beginning of a war with the Carthaginians. Now Marcus Portius Cato being Censor, to assure the Romans their estate at length, gave counsel not only to begin this war, but utterly to extirpate and demolish (this terror of theirs) Carthage. But Nasica Scipio (of whom we spoke but now) would not see the people of Rome exposed to the inconveniences of too much Idleness, nor that they should swim in too much security: and therefore would have something to remain as a bridle to curb the headstrong appetite of a powerful multitude: Whereupon he gave them the counsel not only not to destroy Carthage, but even not to begin a war with the Carthaginians without a lawful and sufficient cause. Livy and others. (c) As if they were young punies [Ualerius writeth that Appius Claudius used often to say that employment did far more ext●…l the people of Rome then quiet: that excess of leisure and rest melted them into Labour better vn●…o Rome then quiet. slothfulness, but the rough name of business, kept the manners of the city in their pristine state, undeformed: when the sweet sound of quiet ever led in great store of corruption. (d) When Carthage was razed] Sallust in his war of jugurth saith thus: for before Carthage was razed, the Senate and People of Rome governed the weal-public well, quietly and modestly betwixt th●…-selues: nor was there any contention for glory or domination amongst them: the fear of the foes kept all the City in good arts & orders: but that fear being once removed and abolished, than the attendants of prosperous estates, pride and luxury, thrust in unrestrained. (e) And bloody sedi●…. As first that of Tiberius Gracchus, then that of Caius his brother, in which two was the first civil effusion of citizens blood beheld: the first of these happened ten years after Carthage was destroyed. (f) By continual giving of worse and worse causes]. For through the sedition of Caius Gracchus was the office of the Tribuneship invented, and bestowed on Li●… The 〈◊〉 W●…res. Drusus, whom the Senators opposed against the Gentlemen, who stood for the law that Gracchus had made. Hence arose the war called Sociale Bellum, because Drusus reform not the city as he promised: and hence arose the war of Mithridates, who taking advantage of this discord of Italy, made many thousands of the Italians that trafficked in his dominions to be slain: and hence arose the civil war of Marius who sought to get the undertaking of this Province and war of Mithridates from Sylla. And from the seeds of this war, sprung the wars of Sertorius, Lepidus, the conspiracy of Catiline, and lastly the war of Pompey. And from that sprung the Empire of Caesar, and after his death the civil wars of Anthony, of Brutus and Cassius at the Philippi: of Sextus Pompeius in Sicilia, and that of Acti●…. And lastly the commonweals freedom turned into a tiriannical monarchy. By what degrees of corruption the romans ambition grew to such a height. CHAP 30. FOr when 〈◊〉 e●…er this lust of sovereignty cease in proud minds, until it 〈◊〉 by co●… of honours attained unto the dignity of regal domination? And if their ambition did not prevail, they then had no mean to continue their honours: Now ambition would not prevail but amongst a people 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. wholly corrupted with covetousness and luxury. And the people is alw●…s infected with these two contagions, by the means of affluent prosperity, which Nasica did wisely hold fit to be foreseen and prevented, by not condescending to the abolishing of so strong, so powerful, and so rich a city of their enemies: thereby to keep luxury in awful fear: that so it might not become exorbitant, and by that means also covetousness might be repressed. Which two vices once chained up, virtue (the cities supporter) might flourish, and a liberty befitting this virtue might stand strong. And hence it was, out of this most circumspect zeal unto his country, that your said high Priest, who was chosen by the Senate of those times for the best man, without any difference of voices, (a thing worthy of often repetition) when the Senate would have built (a) a Theatre, dissuaded them from this vain resolution: and in a most grave oration, persuaded them not to suffer the (b) luxury of the greeks to creep into their old conditions, nor to consent unto the entry of foreign corruption, to the subversion and extirpation of their native Roman perfection, working so much by his own only authority, that the whole bench of the judicious Senate being moved by his reasons, expressly prohibited the use of (c) those movable seats which the romans began as then to use in the beholding of Plays. How earnest would he have been to have cleansed the city of Nasica abolished the sitting at Plays. Rome of the (d) Plays themselves, if he durst have opposed their authority whom he held for Gods, being ignorant that they were malicious Devils: or if he knew it, than it seems he held that they were rather to be pleased, then despised. For as yet, that heavenly doctrine was not delivered unto the world, which purifying the heart by faith, changes the affect, with a zealous piety to desire and aim at the blessings of heaven, or those which are above the heavens, and freeth men absolutely from the slavery of those proud and ungracious Devils. L. VIVES. BVilt a (a) Theatre.] Livy in his 48. book, and Valerius Maximus de Instit. antiq. write that Ualerius Messala, and Cassius being Censors, had given order for a Theatre to be The Roman I heater, when first erected. built, wherein the people of Rome might sit and see plays. But Nasica laboured so with the Senate, that it was held a thing unfit, as prejudicial to the manners of the people. So by a decree of the Senate, all that preparation for the Theatre was laid aside, and it was decreed that no man should place any seats, or sit to behold any plays within the city, or within a mile of the walls. And so from a little while after the third African war, until the sack of Corinthe, the people beheld all their plays standing, but as then Lucius Memmius set up a Theatre for the Plays at his Triumph, but it stood but for the time that this triumph lasted. The first standing Theatre Pompey the Great built at Rome of square stone (as Cornelius Tacitus writeth, lib. 14.) the model whereof he had at Mytilene, in the Mithridatique war. Cavea here in the text, signifieth the middle front of the Theatre, Cavea what it is in the Theatre. which afterward was divided into seats for the Gentlemen, severed into ranks and galleries. Sometimes it is taken for the whole audience, as Servius noteth upon the eight of the Aeneads. (b) The luxury of the greeks,] the Grecians had theatres before the romans many ages, and the very Greek name proves that they came first from Greece. For Theatre is derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is, spectare, to behold. (c) Those movable seats] standing but for a time. For such theatres were first in use at Rome before the standing, the continuing theatres came in and were made with movable seats, as Tacitus saith, and the stage built for the present time. (d) The Plays themselves] Such as were presented upon the Stage: whereof, in the next book we shall discourse more at large. Of the first inducing of stage-plays. CHAP. 31. But know, (you that know not this) and mark (you that make show as if you knew it not, and murmur at him that hath set you free from such Lords) that your stage-plays, those (a) spectacles of uncleanness, those licentious vanities, were not first brought up at Rome by the corruptions of the men, but by the direct commands of your Gods: (b) It were far more tolerable for you to give divine honours unto the forenamed Scipio, then unto such kind of deities, for they were not so good as their Priest was: And now do but The Priest better than his Gods. observe, whether your minds being drunk with this continual ingurgitation of error, will suffer you to taste a sip of any true consideration: Your Gods, for the assuaging of the infection of the Pestilence that seized on their bodies, commanded an institution of Stage Plays presently to be effected in their honours: but your Priest, for avoiding the pestilence of your minds, forbade that any stage should be built for any such action. If you have so much wit as to prefer the mind before the body, then choose which of the two said parties to 〈◊〉 your God of: for (c) the bodily pestilence did not yet cease, because that the delicate vanity of stage-plays entered into the ears of this people (being then wholly given unto wars, and accustomed only to the (d) Circen●… The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. plays) but the wily Devils foreseeing (by natural reason) that this plague of the bodies should cease, by this means took occasion to thrust one far worse, not into their bodies, but into their manners, in corrupting of which, 〈◊〉 their joy; and such a plague, as blinded the minds of that wretched peop●… with such impenetrable clouds of darkness, and bespotted them with such foul stains of deformity, that even now (though this may seem incredible to Plague of 〈◊〉 fol●…ing the plague of 〈◊〉. succeeding ages) when this great Rome was destroyed, such as were p●…ssed with this pestilence, flying from that sack, could come even unto Carthage, and here contend who should run maddest (e) after stage playing. L. VIVES. THose (a) Sp●…ctacles of uncleanness,] for there was both most beastly shows presented, and most filthy words spoken. (b) It were far more tolerable,] Tertullian in his Apologeticus saith: It were better to make Socrates the God of Wisdom, Aristides of justice. Themistocies os war, Tully of eloquence, Sylla of prosperity, Craffus of riches, Pompey of Magnificence, and Cato of gravity, for these men excel the gods in these specialties. And 〈…〉 ●…ny of the ancient writers never denied, that their good men were better than their gods: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for one, De vitae tranquillitate, lib. 2. affirmeth, that Cato of Utica was a better ex●… of a wise man then either Hercules or Ulysses. Lucan calls him the true Father of his 〈◊〉 worthy the Roman Altars. (c) The bodily pestilence] Livy in his 7. book, faith, 〈◊〉 did the first institution of Plays for augmentation of Religion, either augment religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or diminish the pestilence of their bodies. (d) Circensian Plays] Those did Ro●… 〈…〉 institute at Rome, in the fourth month after he had built the City (as Fabius Pictor 〈◊〉) the same day that he forced away the Sabine Virgins. Some say it was not until 〈◊〉 ●…fore-said time a great while, whom●… had rather believe in this. Circenses they 〈◊〉 (faith S●…s) because they were encompassed with swords: of Circa and 〈◊〉 the (n●… as yet ●…ice) antiquity, having not as yet built any places fit for such ex●…●…ctifed th●… between a river side, and a rank of swords, that the idle might see 〈◊〉 on both sides. Afterwards Tarqvinius Priscus appointed a ring for them, which 〈…〉 〈◊〉 ●…rward called Circus Max●…: and every year once, as Livy saith, were these games 〈◊〉 being diversly named, as Magni, & Romani, & Circenses. They were consecrated 〈◊〉 God C●…sus, whom the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, Neptune the Horserider, to whom evander (as Dionysuus saith) erected a temple in Latium, and ordained a feast day for him which the greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and the Latins Consualia, on which day all the horses and mules were exempted from labour and were decked with garlands. Now that the Romans at that time, and until the foresaid command, used only the Circensian plays, Livy, lib. 7. & valerius de institut are witnesses. (e) after stage playing] not that they played themselves, Augustine doth not mean so, but that they ran a madding with the desire to see these strange plays. Of some vices in the romans, which their cities ruin did never reform. CHAP. 32. O You senseless men, how are you bewitched, not with error but furor, that when all the nations of the East (as we hear) bewail your cities ruin, and all the most remote regions bemoan your misery with public sorrow, you yourselves run headlong unto the theatres, seeking them, entering them, filling them, & playing far madder parts now then ever you did before? This your plague of mind, this your wrack of honesty, was that, which your Scipio so feared when he would not have any theatres built for you: when he saw how quickly your virtues would be abolished by prosperity, when he would not have you utterly quitted from all fear of foreign invasions. He was not of opinion that that commonweal or city was in a happy estate, where the walls stood firm, and the good manners lay ruined. But the seducements of the damned spirits prevailed more with you, than the providence of circumspect men. And hence comes it, that the mischiefs that your seles commit, you are so loath should be imputed to yourselves, but the mischiefs that yourselves suffer, you are ever ready to cast upon the Christian profession, for you in your security do not seek the peace of the commonweal, but freedom for your practices of luxury: you are depraved by prosperity, and you cannot be reform by adversity. Your Scipio would have had you to fear your foes, and so to suppress your lusts: but (a) you, though you feel your foes, & are crushed down by them, yet will not restrain your inordinate affects: (b) you have lost the benefit of affliction, & though you be made most miserable, yet remain you most irreformable. And yet it is God's mercy that you have your lives still: his very sparing of your lives, summons you unto repentance: he it was, that (though you be ungrateful) showed you that favour as to escape your enemy's swords by calling of yourselves his servants, or flying into the Churches of his Martyrs. L. VIVES. THough (a) you feel your foes] Because you beheld the Plays at Carthage, with such a dissolute, intemperate affection. (b) You have lost the benefit of affliction,] whereby men are reform, and by correction grow instructed: it being imputed unto them for merit, to tolerate adverse fortune with patience. Plato in his Gorgias saith, that calamities The benefit of affliction and afflictions are useful both to the sufferers, and the beholders, bettering them both, one by their pain, the other by example. Of the clemency of God in moderating this calamity of Rome. CHAP. 33. IT is said that Romulus and Remus built (a) a Sanctuary, whereunto who so Of sanctu aries or Asyla. could escape, should be free from all assault or hurt: their endeavour in this being to increase the number of their citizens. An example making way for a wonderful honour unto Christ: The same thing, that the founders of the city did decree, the same do the destroyers of it: And what if the one did it to increase the multitude of their citizens, when the other did it to preserve the multitude of their foes? Let this then, (and what soever besides fitly may be so used) be used as an answer of our Lord jesus Christ his flock, and that pilgrim-citty of God, unto all their wicked enemies. L. VIVES. A (a) Sanctuary,] It is a sacred place, from whence it is not lawful to draw any man: for thence is the name derived, coming of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, rapio, to draw or pull, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the primi●… letter. And so by a figure called Lambdacismus, is made asylum for asyrum. Serui●… 〈◊〉 8. Aenead. Though indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is tollere, to take away, as Homer useth it: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. He took away the goodly arms. After that Hercules was dead, his nephews and post●…itie, fearing the oppression of such as their grandfather had injured, built the first sanctuary at Athens, naming it the temple of Mercy, out of which no man could be taken, And this Statius testifieth also. Now Romulus and Remus built one between the tower and the Capitol, calling the place where it stood Inter-montium; intending hereby that the multitude of offenders flocking hither for hope of pardon, would be a mean to ●…ent the number of inhabitants in this new City. To what God or Goddess it was 〈◊〉, it is unknown: Dionysius saith he cannot tell. Some say, unto Veiovis: But the gr●…e of the Sa●…tie is honoured upon the fourth of the Nones of February, as Ovid writ●… Pastorum 2. In Greece and Asia have been many sanctuaries. Tiberius Caesar being out of liking with their too much licence, took from them almost all their liberties and privileges, as Tacitus and Suetonius do report. Of such of God's elest as live secretly as yet amongst the Infidels, and of such as are false Christians. CHAP. 34. AND let this City of Gods remember, that even amongst her enemies, there are some concealed, that shall one day be her Citizens: nor let her think it a fruitless labour to bear their hate (a) until she hear their confession, as she hath also (as long as she is in this pilgrimage of this world) some that are partaker of the same sacraments with her, (b) that shall not be partakers of the Saints glories with her, who are partly known, and partly unknown. Yea such there are, that spare not amongst God's enemies to murmur against his glory, whose character they bear upon them: going now unto Plays with them, and by and by, unto the Church with us. But let us not despair of the reformation of some of these, we have little reason, seeing 〈◊〉 we have many secret and predestinated friends, even amongst our most 〈◊〉 adversaries, and such, as yet know not themselves to be ordained for 〈◊〉 ●…dship. For the two cities (of the predestinate and the reprobate) are 〈…〉. in this world, confused together, and commixed, until the general judgement make a separation: of the original progress and due limits of both which cities, what I think fit to speak, by God's help and furtherance, I will now be●… to the glory of the City of God, which being (d) compared with her 〈◊〉, will spread her glories to a more full aspect. L. VIVES. Until (a) she hear their confession.] At the last discovery, where every man shall confess himself, which shall be then, when the books of men's consciences are opened, that is in the world to come. (b) That shall not be partakers,] According to the words of Christ, Many are called but few are chosen. (c) Until the general judgement] So it is in the Gospel. The Angels shall separate the evil from the midst of the just in the end of the world. (d) Compared with her contrary,] So Aristotle saith, Contraries placed together, show both the fuller. What subjects are to be handled in the following discourse. CHAP. 35. But we have a little more to say unto those that lay the afflictions of the Roman estate upon the profession of Christianity, which forbiddeth men to sacrifice unto those Idols. For we must cast up a sum of all the miseries (or of as many as shall suffice) which that City, or the provinces under her subjection, endured before those sacrifices were forbidden. All which they would have imputed unto our religion, had it been then preached and taught against these sacrifices, when these miseries befell. Secondly, we must show what customs and conditions the true God vouchsafed to teach them for the increasing of their Empire, (a that God, in whose hand are all the kingdoms of the earth: and how their false Gods never helped them a jot, but rather did them infinite hurt by deceit and inducement. And lastly, we will disprove those who though they be confuted with most manifest proofs, yet will needs affirm still that their gods are to be worshipped, and that not for the benefits of this life, but for those which are belonging to the life to come. Which question (unless I be deceived) will be (b) far more laborious, and worthier of deeper consideration, in the which we must dispute against the Philosophers, (c) not against each one, but even the most excellent and glorious of them all, and such as in many points hold as we hold, and namely of the immortality of the soul, and of the world's creation by the true God, and of his providence, whereby he swayeth the whole creation. But because even these also are to be confuted, in what they hold opposite unto us, we thought it our duty not to be slack in this work, but convincing all the contradictions of the wicked, as God shall give us power and strength to advance the verity of the City of God, the true zeal and worship of God, which is the only way to attain true and eternal felicity. This therefore shall be the method of our work: and now from this second exordium we will take each thing in due order. L. VIVES. THat God (a) in whose hand] for Christ saith, Math. 28. 18. All power is given unto me in heaven and earth. (b) Moore laborious] Operosior, harder, of more toil. (c) Not against each one] not against every common Philosopher or smatterer, for so is quilibet, taken sometimes, as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is often in the Greek. In this Chapter, Augustine shows briefly both what he hath done already, and how he means to proceed. Finis Libri primi. THE CONTENTS OF THE SECND BOOK OF THE City of God. 1. Of the method that must of necessity be used in this disputation. 2. A repetition of the contents of the first book. 3. Of the choice of an history that will show the miseries that the romans endured when they worshipped their Idols, before the increase of Christian religion. 4. That the worshippers of Pagan gods never received honest instruction from them, but vs●…d all filthiness in their sacri●…es. 5. Of the obscaenaties used in the sacrifices offered unto the mother of the gods. 6. That the Pagan gods did never establish the doctrine of living well. 7. That the Philosopher's instructions are weak and bootless, in that they bear no divine authority, because that the examples of the Gods are greater confirmation of vices in men, than the wise men's disputations are on the contrary. 8. Of the Roman stage-plays, wherein the publishing of their foulest impurities did not any way offend, but rather delight them. 9 What the romans opinion was touching the restraint of the liberty of Poefie, which the greeks (by the council of their Gods) would not have restrained at all. 10. That the Devils, through their settled desire to do men mischief, were willing to have any villainy reported of them, whether true or false. 11. That the Greeks admitted the Players to bear office in their commonweals, lest they should seem unjust, in despising such men as were the pacifiers of their 〈◊〉. 12. That the romans in abridging th●…r liberty which their Poets would have upon men, and allowing them to use it upon their Gods, did herein show, that they prised themselves above the Gods. 13. That the romans might have ●…serued their God's unworthiness, by the 〈◊〉 of such obscane solemniti●…. 14. That Plato, who would not allow Poets to dwell in a well governed City, showed herein that his sole worth was better than all the Gods, who desire to be honoured with stage-plays. 15. That flattery (and not Reason) created some of the Roman Gods. 16. That if the Roman Gods had had any care of justice, the City should have had her form of government from them, rather than to borrow it of other nations. 17. Of the rape of the Sabine women, and diverse other wicked facts, done in Rome's most ancient & honourable times. 18. What the history of Sallust reports of the Romans conditions, both in their times of danger and those of security. 19 Of the corruptions ruling in the Roman state before that Christ abolished the worship of their Idols. 20. Of what kind of happiness, and of what conditions the accusers of Christianity desire to partake. 21. Tully's opinion of the Roman commonweal. 22. That the Roman Gods never respected whether the City were corrupted, and so brought to destruction, or no. 23. That the variety of temporal estates dependeth not upon the pleasure or displeasure of those Devils, but upon the judgements of God Almighty. 24. Of the acts of Sylla, wherein the Devils showed themselves his main helpers and furtherers. 25. How powerfully the Devils incite men to villainies, by laying before them examples of divine authority (as it were) for them to follow in their villainous acts. 26. Of certain obscure instructions concerning good manners, which the Devils are said to have given in secret, whereas all wickedness was taught in their public solemnities. 27. What a great means of the subversion of the Roman estate the induction of those Plays was, which they surmised to be propitiatory unto the Gods. 28. Of the salvation attained by the Christian religion. 29. An exhortation to the romans to renounce their Paganism. THE SECOND BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of the method which must of necessity be used in this disputation. CHAP. 1. IF the weak custom of humane sense durst not be so bold, as to oppose itself against the reasons of apparent truth, but would yield this languid infirmity unto wholesome instruction, as unto a medicine which were fittest to apply, until by Gods good assistance, and faith's operation it were thoroughly cured; then those that can both judge well, and instruct sufficiently, should not need many words to confute any erroneous opinion, or to make it fully apparent unto such, as their desires would truly inform. But now, because there is so great and inveterate a d●…sease rooted in the minds of the ignorant, that they will (out of their extreme blindness, whereby they see not what is most plain, or out of their obstinate perverseness whereby they will not brook what they see) defend their irrational and brutish opinions, after that the truth hath beenetaught them as plain as one man can teach another: hence it is, that (a) there ariseth a necessity, that bindeth us to dilate more fully of what is already most plain, and to give the truth, not unto their eyes to see, but even into their heads, as it were to touch and feel. Yet notwithstanding this by the way: What end shall we make of alteration, if we hold that the answerers are continually to be answered? For, as for those that either cannot comprehend what is said unto them, or else are so obstinate in their vain opinions, that though they do understand the truth, yet will not give it place in their minds, but reply against it, as it is written of them: like spectators of iniquity, those are eternally frivolous: And if we should bind ourselves to give an answer to every contradiction that their impudency will thrust forth, (how falsely they care not, so they do but make a show of opposition unto our assertions) you see what a trouble it would be, how endless, and how fruitless. And therefore (son Marcelline) I would neither have you, nor any other (to whom this our work may yield any benefit in jesus Christ) to read this volume with any surmise, that I am bound to answer whatsoever you or they shall hear objected against it: lest you become like unto the women of whom the Apostle saith, that they were always learning, and never able to come 2. Tim. 3. unto the knowledge of the truth. L. VIVES. H●… 〈◊〉 i●… that (a) there ariseth a necessity] The latin text is, fit necessitus, spoken by a G●…e figure, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Demosthenes: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, necessitas, for necesse: and it is an ordinary phrase with them, though the Latynes say, est necessitas, as Quintilian hath it. Arepetition of the Contents of the first book. CHAP. 2. THerefore in the former book, wherein I began to speak of the City of God, to which purpose all the whole work (by God's assistance) shall have reserence, I did first of all take in hand to give them their answer, that are so shameless as to impute the calamities inflicted upon the world, (and in particular upon Rome in her last desolation wrought-by the Vandals) unto the religion of Christ, which forbids men to offer service or sacrifice unto devils: whereas they are rather bound to ascribe this as a glory to Christ, that for his name's sake alone, the barbarous nations (beyond all practice and custom of wars) allowed many and spacious places of religion for those (ingrateful men) to escape into; and gave such honour unto the servants of Christ, (not only to the true ones but even to the counterfeit), that what the law of arms made lawful to do unto all men, they held it utterly unlawful to offer unto them. And hence arose these questions: How and wherefore these gracious mercies of God were extended unto such ungodly and ungrateful wretches as well as to his true servants, and why the afflictions of this siege fell upon the godly (in part) as well 〈◊〉 on the reprobate? For the better dissolving (a) of which doubts, I stayed somew●… long in a discourse of the daily gifts of God, and the miseries of man, ●…ing out in the whole tract of this transitory life, (both which, by reason that they often light confusedly together, alike, and undistinguished both upon good ●…ers and impious, are very powerful in moving the hearts of many): and mine especial intent herein was to give some comfort unto the sanctified and chaste women, who had their chastities offended by some incontinent acts of the foldiours: and to show them, that if those accidents had not wracked their c●… resolutions, they ought not to be ashamed of life, having no guilt in them whereof to be ashamed, and then I took occasion to speak somewhat against those that in such villainous and impudent manner do insult over the poor Christians in their adversities; and chiefly over the deflowered women; these fellows themselves being most unmanly and depraved wretches, altogether degenerate from the true Romans, unto whose honours (being many, and much recorded) these base creatures are so directly opposite. For it was these, that made Rome (which was first founded, and after increased by the care 〈◊〉 industry of her old worthies) to show more filthy and corrupted in her prosper●…y, than she was now in her ruin: for in this, there fell but stones, walls & houses; but in the lives of such villains as these, all the monuments, all the ornaments, (not of their walls, but) of their manners were utterly demolished: as then did ●…se fire burn in their affections, than this was now that did but 〈◊〉 their hoves: with the close of this, I gave an end unto the first book, and now (as I r●…ed) will proceed, to cast up a reckoning of the sundry mischienes that this City of Rome hath suffered since she was first founded, either in herself or in some of the Provinces under her command: all which those vile persons would have pinned upon the back of Christianity, if the doctrine of the gospel against their false & deceitful gods had in those times been revealed and preached. L. VIVES. DI●…ing (a) of which d●…bs] The first of these, was the chief question of those Philosophers that denied the world to be governed by the providence of God. Plut. de placit. Philosoph. lib. 1 Of the choice of an history which will show the miseries that the Romans endured, when they worshipped their Idols, before the increase of Christian Religion CHAP. 3 But remember this, that when I handled those points, I had to do with the ignorant, out of whose blockish heads this proverb was first borne: (a) It will not rain because of the Christian. For there are some others amongst them that are learned, & love that very history that makes these things plain to their understanding: but because they love to set the blind & erroneous vulgar at enmity and dissension with us Christians, they dissemble & conceal this understanding of theirs, labouring to persuade the people this, that the whole process of calamities, which at divers times and in several places (b) fell and were still to fall upon all the world, had the original, and have had, only and merely from the profession of Christ, grieving that it spreadeth so far and shineth so gloriously against all other their gods and religions. But let these malicious men read but with us, with what excess of affliction the Roman estate was wrung & plagued, & that on every side, before that ever this name (which they so much do envy) did spread the glory to such note: and then if they can, let them defend their god's goodnesses showed unto them in these extremities, and if that as their servants they honour them for protection from these extremities, which if they do but suffer now in any part, they are ready to lay all the blame upon our necks, for why did their gods permit their servants to be plagued with these great afflictions (which I am now to recount) before that the publishing of the name of Christ gave them cause of offence, by prohibiting their sacrifices. L. VIVES. IT (a) will not rain] He rehearseth this, as a common speech of the wicked infidels, who How hateful the name of Christians was once at Rome. would impute all the evils that happened them unto the Christian cause. Tertullian, Pretending for the defence of their hatefulness, this vanity besides, that they held the Christians the only causers of all the mischiefs and harms that fall upon the state and city. If Tiber overflow his banks, if Nilus do not water the fields, if the heavens stand, or the earth shake; if there arise either famine or plague, strait to the Lions with a Christian cries the whole crew. Cypryan against Demetrianus. If whereas you say that many complain that it is imputed unto us that there is so often wars, pestilences, famines, inondations, and droughts, than we must be no longer silent, etc. (b) Fell, and were still to fall] Through the ever-changing estate of humanity, and that Fate which is indeed the will of almighty God. That the worshippers of Pagan gods never received honest instruction from them; but used all filled hinesse in their sacrifices: CHAP. 4. FIrst, why would not their gods have a care to see their servants well mannered: the true God doth worthily neglect those that neglect his just worship: but as for those gods whom this wicked & ungrateful crew complain that they are forbidden to worship, why do they not help to better the lives of their worshippers by giving them some good laws? It was very requisite that as they carefully attended their god's sacrifices, so their gods should have graciously amended their imperfections. I (but will some say) every man may be vicious at his own The gods never taught. their worship's good manners. will and pleasure. True; who denies that? yet notwithstanding, it was the part of these great gods guardians, not to conceal the forms and rudiments of good & honest life from their suppliants; but to to teach them plain, and fully, and by theirs Prop●… to correct & restrain the offenders: to testrain evil doers with public punishments, & to encourage good livers with full rewards: what Temple of of 〈◊〉 this multitude of gods, was ever accessary to any such sound? we ourselves (once in our youth) went to view these spectacles, their (a) sacrilegious mockeries: there we saw the (b) Enthusiastikes, persons rapt with fury; there we heard the (c) pipers, and took (d) great delight in the filthy sports that they B●…hia Mother of the Gods. acted before their gods and goddesses: even before Berecynthia (surnamed the Celestial virgin, and mother to all the gods) even before her litter, (e) upon the feast day of her very purification, their (f) beastly stageplayers acted such ribaldry, as was a shame (not only for the mother of the gods, but) for the mother of any senator of any honest man, nay even for the mothers of the players themselves to give care too: Natural shame hath bound us with some respect unto our parents, which vice itself cannot abolish. But that beastliness of ob●… speeches and actions, which the Players acted in public, before the mother of all the gods, and in sight and hearing of an huge multitude of both sexes, they would be ashamed to act at home in private before their mothers (g) were it but for repetition sake. And as for that company that were their spec●…, though they might easily be drawn thither by curiosity, yet beholding c●…ity so foully injured, me thinks they should have been driven from thence by the meet shame that immodesty can offend honesty withal. What can ●…dges be, it those were sacrifices? or what can be pollution, if this were a The 〈◊〉 offered to the Gods. purification? and these were called (h) juncates, as if they made a feast where all the v●…eane d●… of hell might fill their bellies. For who knows not what 〈◊〉 of spirit 〈◊〉 are that take pleasure in these obscurities? unless he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there be any such unclean spirits that thus illude men under the names of gods: or else, unless he be such an one as wisheth the pleasure, and fears the displeasure of those damned powers more than he doth the love and wrath of the true and everliving God. L. VIVES. Sacrilegious (a) mockories] Inverting this, the holy plays, a phrase used much by the Pagans. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (b) The Enthusiastikes persons rapt] This place requireth some speech of the mother of the gods: Diodorus Siculus (Biblioth lib. 4.) tells the story of this Mother of the gods divers ways. For first he writeth thus. Caelus had by his wife Titaea five & forty children, two of which were women, called Regina, and Ops: Regina being the elder, and miser of the two, brought up all her other brethren (to do her mother a pleasure) and therefore she was called the mother of the gods, and was married to her brother Hyperion, to whom she 〈◊〉 Sol and Luna; who being both murdered by their uncles wicked practices, she fell mad, ranging up and down the Kingdom with a noise of drums and cymbals, and that this grew to a custom after she was dead. Then he adds another fable: that one Menoes' an ancient King of Phry●… had by his wife Dindimene, a daughter whom he caused to be cast forth upon mount Cy●…, 〈◊〉 that the infant being nourished up by wild beasts; grew to be of admirable beauty, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a ●…pheardesse, was by her brought up as her own child, and named Cibele 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was found: that she innented many arts of her own head, and taught 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on pipes, danncing, drums and cymbals, also farying of horses & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ wherein she was so fortunate that they named her The great mother. A●…. G●…ing up unto years she fell in love with a youth of that country called Atis, & being with child●… by 〈◊〉 was s●… for back by her father Menoes' for a Virgin: but the guilt being known, 〈◊〉 and the Nurses were put to death: and Cibele being extremely in love with Atis fell mad, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 her father's house along with a Timbrel and a cymbal, she came to Nisa to Dioni●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) where s●… few years after she died: And soon after a great famine toge●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 all P●…gia, the inhabitants were commanded by Oracle to give divine worship to Atis and Cibele: and hence arose the first canonisation of the Mother of the gods. Thus far Diodorus, who no doubt hath declared the true original of it as it was. But some do guess that she was the mother of jupiter, juno, Neptune and Pluto, and therefore was called Rhea, and in latin Ops: and Cibele, and Vesta, as all one. Nor make I any question but that this history is confounded, as is usual in every fable of the gods: that she was a virgin, and therefore named Vesta, and that therefore Atys was feigned to be a goodly young man, whom she loving, and commanding that she should never meddle with any other woman, he neglecting her command, fell in love with a Nymph called Sangritis, which Cybele deprived him of those parts whereby he was man, and for that reason ever since will have her Priests defective in that fashion. And because that she was most ordinarily worshipped of the Phrygians upon Mount Ida, there upon she got the name of the Idean mother, and of Berecynthia, as also of the Phrygian goddess: Hie Priests were called The Priests called Galli. Galli, of the river Gallus in Phrigia, the water whereof being drunk, maketh men mad. And these Galli themselves, do whirl their heads about in their madness, slashing their faces and bodies with knives, and tearing themselves with their teeth when they are either mad in show, or mad indeed. Their goddess, (which was nothing but a great stone upon Mount Ida) the Romans transported into Italy, the day before the Ides of April, which day they dedicated unto her honours, and the plays called Megalesia as on that day were acted. Livy lib. 29. speaking of the Mother of the gods hath these words. They brought the goddess into the Temple of Victory which is on the Mount Palatine, the day before the Ides of April. So that was made her feast day. And all the people brought gifts unto the goddess, unto the Mount Palatine, and the Temples were spread for banquets, and the Plays were named Megalesia, this is also in his sixteenth book. About the same time a Temple was dedicated unto the great Idean mother, which P. Cornelius received, being brought out of Asia by sea, P. Cornelius Scipio (afterward surnamed Africane) and P. Licinius being consuls. M. Livius, and C. Claudius being censors, gave order for the building of the Temple: And thirteen years after, it was dedicated, or consecrated by M. junius Brutus; M. Cornelius, and T. Sempronius being Consuls; and the Plays that were made for the dedication thereof, (being the first plays that ever came on stage;) Antias Valerius affirmeth were named Megalesia: Thus far Livy: To whom Varro agreeth also liber. 3. de lingua Latina. Enthusiastiques, or persons rapt] Were men distraught, taken with madness, as Bertcynthia's Galli were. Saint Augustine upon Genesis calls them, men taken with spirits possessed. (c) Pipers] Or the singers, Symphoniacos, it cometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is Harmony, or consort. In the feasts of Cybele, was much of this numeral music, with Pipes and Tymbrells. Hereof Ovid singeth thus (in his fastorum, lib, 4.) Protinus inflexo Berecynthia tybia cornu, Flabit & Idaeae festa parentis erunt: Ibunt Semimares, & inania tympana tundent; Aera●… tinnitus are repulsa dabunt. Then Berecynthias crooked pipes shall blow, Th' Idaan mother's feast approacheth now, Whose gelded Priests along the streets do pass, With Timbrels, and the tinkling sounds of brass. And a little after: Tibia dat Phrygios ut dedit ante, modos: The Phrygian Pipe sounds now, as late before. Diodorus saith the pipe was Cybele's invention, and that she taught Marsiat; him, that contended with Apollo. (d) We were delighted:] Some read they were delighted but erroneously: we read it, with more reason, in the first person, We were delighted with the filthy plays etc. Now though this Berecynthia was mother to so many gods yet they held that she was a Virgin, as being Vesta as well as Berecynthia, as also because he would have her father Menoes' to take her for such an one, and so to believe. (e) The feast day of her purification] The day before the Ides of April, the Galli, her Priests used to carry the Image of this great Mother in as great pomp, unto the river Almon (which The ablution of the mother of the gods. falleth into Tiber not far from Rome) and there (according to the order of an old custom) to wash it in the meeting of both the rivers: I say by an old custom. For the first day that it was brought from Asia, the Priest washed it there, whereupon, that order was kept every year. Hereof sings Lucan. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p●… r●… Al●… Cibelen, etc. lib. 1. Cibele washed in Almon they fetch back etc. But Ovid more p●…nely: Est lo●… 〈◊〉 Tib●… quo lubricus in fluit Almon E●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per dit in amne minor. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum vest Sacerdos, 〈◊〉 Al●… sacraque lovit aquis. Fastorum. 4. There is a place were Almonds current flows To Tiber's streams, and so his name doth lose: There washed the aged priest (in purple clad) The Goddess, and the relics which he had, And Prudentius, writing of Saint Romanus his martyrdom, saith thus: N●…dare plant●… ante carpentum sci●… Pr●…ceres togatos in atris Idaeae sacris Lapis nig●…llus eue●…endus essedo, M●…ebris o●…s clausus arge●…to sedet, Quem ad laua●…rum pr●…do ducitis, Ped●… re●… atterentes ●…eis. Almonis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 riv●…. I know when Cibels feasts are honoured, Your Lords all barefoot march before the throne, Whereon, in a rich chariot, the black stone Sits in a woman's shape o'er silvered, Which when to purifying you do lead, You walk before it, in strange uncouth shoes, Until you reach the place where Almon flows. (f) Beastly Stage-players] The first stage-plays every year were the Megalesian, wherein the Players coming forth to this new task, spoke most filthy and abominable lafcivious The Megalesian plays words upon Cibel and Atis: and at that time divers of the most civil romans, disguising themselves from being known, went wandering about the streets in all licentiousness. No speech, to act of unclean luxury was left unpractised, as Herodian affirmeth in the life of Co●…dus. (g) Even for repetition sake] though they spoke it but for exercising their memories, for learning of it by heart. (h) juncates] The text is fercula a ferendo, of carrying, because in solemnities either of religion or triumph they carry pictures and statues with reverence, Fercula what they were. as the Images of the gods and worthies were in the sacrifices: and in their triumphs they carried the pictures of such cities as they had conquered, and such arms as they had despoiled their foes off, the money that they had taken, and the rest of the pillage whatsoever, So saith Tully, Su●…tonius and others. And such meats also as were set on the table at sacr●…, were called Fercula, because they were brought in upon chargers very statefully, and with a kind of religious reverence. Of the obscaenities used in these sacrifices offered unto the mother of the gods. CHAP. 5. NOr will I stand to the judgement of those whom I know do rather delight in the vicious custom of enormities than decline from it: I will have Scipio Nasica himself to be judge, and he whom the whole Senate proclaimed for their best man, one whose only hands were thought fit to receive and bring in this devils picture: let him but tell us first whether that he desire that his mother's deserts were such that the Senate should appoint him Di●… ho●…r 〈◊〉 to be●…factors. divine honours: (as we read that both the greeks and other Roman nations, also have ordained for some particular men whose worth they held in high esteem, and whose persons they thought were made immortal, and admitted amongst the gods.) Truly he would gladly wish his mother this felicity, if that such a thing could be. But if we ask him then further, whether he would have such ●…thy pres●…tations as Cibeius enacted as parts of his mother's honours; would he not a●…ow (think you) that he had rather have his mother lie dead and soncelesse, then to live a goddess, to hear and allow such ribaldry? Yes: far be it 〈◊〉 such a worthy Senator of Rome, as would forbid the building of a Theatre in a state maintained by valour, to wish his mother that worship 〈◊〉 please her goddesse-shippe, which could not but offend all womanhood. 〈◊〉 it possible that he could be persuaded, that divinity could so far alter the laudable modesty of a woman, as to make her allow her servants to call upon her in such immodest terms, as being spoken in the hearing of any living woman, if she stop not her ears and get her gone, the whole kindred of her father, husband, children and all would blush, and be ashamed at her shamefulness. And therefore such a mother of the gods as this, (whom even the worst man would shame to have his mother a like unto) did never seek the best man of Rome (in her entrance into the people's affections) to make him better by her counsels and admonitions, but rather worse, by her deceits and illusions: (like her of whom (a) it is written. A woman hunteth for the precious life of a man:) that his great spirit being elevated by this (as it were divine) testimony Pro. 6. 26 of the Senate he holding himself solely the best, might be thus withdrawn from the truth of religion, and godliness: without which, the worthiest wit is ever overthrown and extinguished in pride and vain glory, what intent then (save deceit) had she in selecting the best and most honests man, seeing she useth and desireth such things in her sacrifices as honest men abhor to use, were it but even in their sports, and recreations? L. VIVES. OF whom (a) it is witten] Proverbs 6. 26. Hierome readeth it, Capit, taketh: Saint Augustine readeth Captat, as the Septuagints do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Venatur, hunteth: more aptly. That the Pagan's gods did never establish the doctrine of living well. CHAP. 6. HEnce it proceedeth that those gods never had care of the lives and manners of such Cities and nations as gave them divine honours: but chose gave free permission to such horrible & abominable evils, to enter, not upon their lands, vines, houses, or treasures, no nor upon the body (which serves the mind) but upon the mind itself, the ruler of all the flesh, and of all the rest: this they ever allowed without any prohibition at all. If they did prohibit it, lest it be proved that they did. I know their followers will talk of certain secret traditions and I know not what, some closely muttred instructions, tending to the bettering of man's life, but let them show where ever they had any public places ordained for to hear such lectures: (wherein the Players did not present their filthy gesture and speeches: nor where the (a) Fugulia were kept with all licentiousness of lust, fitly called Fugalia, as the Chasers away of all chastity and honesty:) but where the people might come and hear their god's doctrine concerning the restraint of covetousness, the suppression of ambition, and the bridling of luxury and riot: where wretches might learn that which (b) Persius thunders unto them, saying. Discitique 〈◊〉 miscri, & causas cognoscite r●…rum, Quid sunus, aut quidnam victuri gignimu●…●…or do Quis ●…tus, aut metoe quam mollis flexus, & Unde●… Quis modus orgenti, quid fas optare, quid aspe●… V●… nu●…mus b●…et: patriae charisque propinquis Quantum elargiri decet, quem te Deus esse 〈◊〉, & humana qua part locatuses in re. Learn wretches, and conceive the course of things ᵇ What man is, and why nature forth him brings: Satyra 3. His settled ᶜ bounds, from whence how soon he strays: ᵈ What welths mean, & ᵉ that for which the good man prays ᶠ How to use money: how to give to friends, What we in earth, ᵍ and God in us, intends, etc. Let them show where these lessons of their instructing Gods were ever read or rehearsed: whether ever their worshippers were used to hear of any such matters, as we use to do continually in our Churches, erected for this purpose in all places wheresoever the religion of Christ is diffused. L. VIVES. NOr (a) where the fugalia] Of these feasts I do not remember that I ever read any thing save here. I would not let to set down somewhat out of my conjecture that the reader might admit another word for it, but that Augustine himself addeth, truly called The Fugalia. fugalia, viz of chastity and honesty. And though I know many conjectures which indeed whilst the truth is unknown are but truth, being once discovered are ridiculous, yet I will see what good may be done unto others understandings in this respect: that if I reveal not the truth I may stir up others to seek it. First Uarro (de lingua latina lib. 5.) writeth that one day of the month of june was named Fugia, because the people on that day fled into Rome in a tumult: for it was not long after the Galls, who had chased them out, were departed: Fugia, a goddess. and then the Countries that lay about Rome, as the Ficulneates, and the Fidenates, conspired all against them: some significations of the flight of this day do as yet remain in the monuments: whereof in our books of Antiquities you may read at large; thus far varro. This was the feast of the goddess fugia, so called because they chased away their enemies: For the next day after, the Romans conquered all their foes about them, and thereupon these feasts were kept with great mirth & solemnity; for they were in a great fear lest the remainder of the Roman nation left by the Galls should have been utterly destroyed by the rest. (Hilus in his book of the gods calls this goddess Vitula, (now Philo saith that Uictoria was called Uitula, as Macrobius testifieth in his Saturnalia.) wherefore these fugalia, Vitula. or fugialia were feasts kept with all mirth and revels unto the goddess Laetitia, the second of the Nones of june. In which feast, it is likely that the people let themselves loose to all riot and licentiousness. This I speak not intending to prejudice any other man's assertion, but only to excite others to look farther into the matter if they hold it a matter worth looking into * The Fugalia wear feasts in Rome instituted for the expulsing of Ta●…quin and the Kings: a Fugando, saith Censorinus. (b) Persius.] In his third satire, upon an old sentence Nosce teipsum, that had wont to be written upon the door of Apollo his Temple, dilateth as aforesaid. (c) Bounds from which how soon] In the Hippodromi, or horseraces there were seven bounders: Domitian in certain games ordained that they should run but unto the fifth: because he would have the sports sooner performed. Seven times they touched all these bounds, saith Suetonius in his life. And there was great care and cunning in turning of their horses and chariots from bound to bond, lest he that was behind by his quicker turn should get before him that led— Propertius. Aut prius infecto deposcit premia cursu, Septima quam metam triverit ante rota. Or claims his guerdon ere the course be done, Before his wheels past the seventh mark have run. And hereto belongs that of Horace: Od. I. Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum, Collegisseiwat, metaque feruidis — Euitata rotis etc. Some love to see th' Olympic dust to lie, About their chariot, and to thunder by — The mark, with heated wheels etc. In the courses amongst the Grecians, there were some where it was not sufficient to run unto the mark, but they must run back again to the start: their turn at the halfecourse, they called the Diaulodrom●…s, for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the going about of a certain space (as vitrvuius saith lib. 5.) which those that compassed six times were called Dolichodromi, and this is properly the signification of Meta, and Flexus in the text. Persius' either thinketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. that it is easy to turn out of a virtuous course into a vicious, or chose that it is hard to turn from the later to the first, when custom once hath rooted it in our affections & given it power to tyrannize: wherefore he wills us to restrain that use betimes, because it is not in our power to thrust the yoke of it from our necks, when & where we would. Or he may mean of the variation of our age, as when we pass from childhood unto man's estate, wherein it is fit we alter our conditions, (as he in Terence saith) or when we leave our lusty and active part of life, our man's state, for a more settled and retired age. Whereof Cicero (in his first book de Oratore) saith thus. If the infinite toil of law businesses and the eployments of ambition should have concurred with the ebb of honours and the decay of our bodily vigour through age etc. But more plainly in his Oration for Marcus Caelius: and in the same Metaphor. In this declining age, (for I will hide nothing from you; my trust of your humanity and wisdom is so great) indeed the young man's fame stuck a little at the bound, by reason of his unhappy neighbourhood and knowledge of that woman, etc. We must not look to these turns in the horseraces only, but in our lives also, and within ourselves, saith Seneca (de tranquillit. Uitae lib. 1.) There were bounds also in their water-games, or sea-sights, when and where to turn. Hic viridem Aeneas frondenti ex illice metam, Constituit signum nautis pater undereverti Scirent, & longos ubi circumflectere cursus. Saith Virgil. Here did Aencas set upon an oak A signal, which informed the sailors plain, How far to row, and where to turn again. Aevead. 〈◊〉 I have seen this place of the text read thus in an old copy, Quâ mollis flexus et unde, which indeed is not much amiss: Anthony of Lebrixa, our industrious grammarian, readeth it so. (d) Wealths mean] Out of Plato, whence Persius hath all his morality. In the dialogue called Phaedo, Socrates prayeth thus: O my dear Pan, and all you other gods give me that eternal beauty: grant that all my external adjuncts may be confined to my affects within: let me think him only wealthy that is wise. Let me have but so much of riches, as no man but he that is temperate can sway, or dispose off. Thus prayed Socrates: and indeed moderate wealth is better worth wishing, than excess. (e) And that for which] This he hath from Alcibiades in Plato (lib. 2. de voto) Wherein Plato teacheth him what to pray for. The said sentence of Socrates, Valerius rehearseth also. (Lib. 7.) Of prayers Iwenall saith thus: Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. Pray for a sound soul, in as sound a breast. Perhaps this limitation of Persius hath reference to that which followeth. How to use money. (f) How to use money] Asper in the text joined with Nummus, signifieth the roughness of the coin being newly stamped, and which is worn smooth by passing from hand to hand. So Pliny calls carved vessels, which are graced with any bosses or branches standing out, Aspera, Rough Silver. rough. Suetonius saith that Nero sought for tried gold, and rough or new coined money, with exceeding greediness. Whether it be taken here for newlly coined, or because rough pieces were better than the smooth, or what they were I know not. But that the same vneuened pieces were called rough, the definition of roughness in Plato his Timaeus doth show. Roughness) Roughness defined. (saith he) is hardness commixed with unevenness. (g) God in us intends] This is out of Plato also, who maketh God the commander of all mankind, assigning every one his particular station, as in a pitched field, from whence he may not depart without his command. And it is a good help unto the instruction of our life, that each of us know, in what rank of mankind he is placed, so to adapt his life to his estate, and discharge his function duly: be he a husbadman or a citizen, a free man or a servant; a craftsman, a scholar, a minister, a soldier, an officer, 〈◊〉 Prince, or a private man. That the Philosopher's instructions are weak and bootless, in that they bear no divine authority: because that the examples of the gods are greater confirmations of vices in men, than the wisemen's disputations are on the contrary part. CHAP. 7. DO you think they will mention their Philosophy schools unto us? as for them first of all they are derived from Greece, and not from Rome: or if you say they are now Roman because Greece is become a Province of the romans, I answer again that the instructions given there are not of the documents of your gods, but the inventions of man, whose quick wits especial endeavour was to find by disputation (a) what secrets were hid in the treasury of nature: (b) what was to Philosophies precepts. be desired, and what to be avoided in our Morality (c) And what was coherent by the Laws of disputation, or not following the induction, or quite repugnant unto it. And some of these gave light to great inventions, as the grace of God assisted them, but yet they evermore erred, as the frailty of man possessed them; the The Philosophers more worthy of divine honour then the Gods. divine providence justly opposing (d) their vain glory to show the tract of piety to rise from humbleness unto height, by their comparrison: Which we shall hereafter take an occasion to search into further by the will of the true and everlasting God. But if it were true that these Philosophers invented any means sufficient to direct one to the attaining of a happy course of life, is there not far greater reason to give them (d) divine honours; then the other? How much more honest were it for to hear Plato's books read in a Temple of his, than the Galli gelded in the devils? To view the (e) effeminate consecrated; the lunatic gashed with cuts, and each thing else either cruel or bestial, or bestially cruel, or cruelly bestial, so commonly celebrated in the solemnities of such gods? Were it not far more worthy to have some good laws of the gods rehearsed unto the youth for their instruction in integrity, then to pass the time in vain commendations of the labours of illuded antiquity; but indeed (f) all the worshippers of such gods, as soon as they are initiate unto those luxurious and venomous adorations, (g) As Persius saith, do look more after jupiter's deeds, than either Plato's doctrine, or Cato's opinions. (h) And here-upon it is that Terence brings in the lustful youth gazing upon a table picture wherein was drawn how jove sent down a shower of gold into the lap of Danae: and this was a fit precedent for this youth to follow in his lust, with a boast that he did but imitate a god. But what god (saith he): Even he that shakes the Temples with his thunder: since he aid thus, shall I (a mean wretch to him) make bones of it? No; I did it with all mine heart. L. VIVES. WHat (a) secrets were hid] He touches the three kinds of Philosophy: in this place the Natural. (b) what was to be desired] Here the Moral. (c) What was coherent] Hear the Rational or Logical. Of these hereafter. (d) Their vain glory] Because all that they invented they ascribed unto their own wits sharpness, and not a whit unto god's influence. Of this Lactantius disputeth at large. (e) Effeminate consecrated.] All these Galli were all of them beastly villains, Sodomites given to all filthiness in the world. Of whom Apuleyus relates most abominable things, in the eighth and ninth book of his Ass: So doth Lucian also, whence Appuleyus had his argument. (f) All the worships] The examples of those whom we reverence do move us much: for we endeavour to imitate them in all things, be they gods or men: the people affects the fashion of the Prince, the scholars of the master they honour, and all mortal men their conditions whom they hold immortal. And hereuppon is our Saviour Christ and his Saints set before all of our religion, to be observed and imitated. Plato lib. de Repub. 2. amongst divers reasons why he will not tolerate Poets in his commonwealth, brings this for one, because their fictions of the gods, give examples, very prejudicial unto the honesty of the readers, as their wars, thefts, seditions, adulteries and such like. Out of which Lucian hath the words he gives to Menippus in his Necromantia. I saith he being a boy and hearing Hesiod and Homer singing of seditions and wars, not only those of Heroes and demigods, but even of the gods themselves, their adulteries, rapines, tyrannies, chasings out of parents, and marriages of brethren and sisters, truly I thought all these things both lawful and laudable, and affected them very zealously. For I thought the gods would never have been lechers, nor have gone together by th'ears amongst themselves, unlee they had allowed all these for good and decent. Thus far Lucian. We have rehearsed it in the words of Thomas Moor: whom to praise negligently, or as if we were otherwise employed, were Sir Thomas Moor. grossness. His due commendations are sufficient to exceed great volumes. For what is he that can worthily limb forth his sharpness of wit, his depth of judgement, his excellence and variety of learning, his eloquence of Phrase, his plausibility and integrity of manners, his judicious foresight, his exact execution, his gentle modesty and uprightness, and his unmoved loyalty? unless in one word he will say they are all perfect, entirely absolute, & exact in all their full proportions? unless he will call them (as they are indeed) the patterns and lustres, each of his kind? I speak much, and many that have not known Moor, will wonder at me: but such as have, will know I speak but truth: so will such as shall either read his works, or but hear or look upon his actions: but another time shall be more fit to spread our sails in this man's praises, as in a spacious Ocean, wherein we will take this full and prosperous wind & write both much in substance, and much in value of his worthy honours: and that unto favourable readers. (g) As Persius saith] Satyrd. 3. — Cum dir●… 〈◊〉 bids Mou●… ingen●… fer●…ti ●…cta 〈◊〉. — When the black lust of sin. Dipped in hot poison burns the mind within. It is meant indeed of any galls; which is hot poison: But Augustine useth it hear for the generative sperm, which some call Virus. (h) Hereuppon it is that Terence brings] In his Eunuchus: Chaerea who was carried disguised for an Eunuch by Parmeno unto Thais, being enamoured on a wench, that Thraso the soldior had given to her, and telling his fellow Antipho how he had enjoyed her, re●…ates it thus: While they prepare to wash, the wench sat in the Parlour, looking upon a picture wherein was painted how 〈◊〉 sent down the shower of gold into Danae's lap: I fell a looking at it with her: and because he had played the same play before me, my mind gave me greater cause of joy, seeing a God had turned himself into a man, and stolen unto a woman through another man's chimney, and what God? Even he that shaketh Temples with his thunder: should I (being but a wretch to him) make bones of it? No I did it even withal my heart. Thus far Terence. Danae being a fair Virgin, her father Acrisius Danne. kept her in a Tower that no man should have access unto her. Now jupiter being in love with her, in a shower of gold dropped through the chimney into the Tower, and so enjoyed ●…er: that is, with golden gifts (against which no lock, no guard is strong enough) he corrupted both the keepers and the maid herself. Of the Roma●…s Stage plays, wherein the publishing of their gods foulest imparities, did not any way offend, but rather delight them. CHAP. 8. ay But (will some say) these things are not taught in the institutions of the gods, but in the inventions of the Poets. I will not say that the gods mysteries are more obicaene than the theatres presentations: but this I say (& will bring history sufficient to convince all those that shall deny it) that those plays which are form according to these poetical fictions, were not exhibited by the romans unto their gods in their solemnities through any ignorant devotion of their own, but only by reason that the gods themselves did so strictly command, yea and even in some sort extort from them the public presenting and dedication of those plays unto their honours. This I handled briefly in the first book. For (a) when the city was first of all infected with the pestilence, than were stages first ordained at Rome by the authorization of the chief Priest. And what is he, that in ordering of his courses, will not rather choose to follow the rudiments which are to be fetched out of plays, or whatsoever being instituted by his gods, rather than the weaker ordinances of mortal men? If the Poets did falsely record jupiter for an adulterer than these gods being so chaste, should be the more offended, and punish the world, for thrusting such a deal of villainy into their ceremonies, and not for omitting them. (b) Of these stageplays the best and most tolerable are Tragedy and Comedy: being Poetical fables made to be acted at these shows: wherein notwithstanding was much dishonest matter, in actions, but none at all of words: and these the old men do cause to be taught to their children, amongst their most honest and liberal studies. L. VIVES. FOr (a) when the city was] Because in this book and in the other following, Saint Augustine doth often make mention of stageplays, it seemeth a fit place here to speak somewhat thereof: and what should have been scattered abroad upon many chapters, I will here lay all into one, for the better understanding of the rest. And first of their Original, amongst the greeks first, and the romans afterwards: for imitation brought them from Greece to Rome. The old husbandmen of Greece using every year to sacrifice to Liber Pater for their fruits, The invention of Plays. first used to sing something at the putting of the fire on the altars, in stead of prayers: and then to please him the better, they sung over all his victories, wars, conquests, triumphs, and his captivation of Kings. For reward of which pains of theirs, a Goat was first appointed, or the Skin of an offered Goat, full of wine. So these rewards partly, and partly ostentation, set many good wits work amongst these plain countrymen, to make verses of this theme; mean and few at first, but as all things else, in process of time they grew more elegant and conceited: and because the Kings that Liber had conquered, afforded not matter enough for their yearly songs they fell in hand with the calamities of other Kings, like to the former, and sung much of them And this song was called a tragedy either of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Goat, the reward of the conqueror in this Tragedy. contention, or of the wine-leese wherewith they anointed their faces; called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now some will have the Comedy to have had the Original from these sacrifices also: others from the solemnities of Apollo Nomius, that is the guardian of shepherds and villages, some say that Comedy. both these sacrifices were celebrated at once. I will set down the most common opinion. When the Athenians lived as yet in dispersed cottages (Theseus having not yet reduced them to a City) The husbandmen used after their sacrifices to break jests, both upon such as were at the sacrifices and such as travailed by chance that way: and by these mirthful scoffs, delighted all the company. Now after that the city was builded, the husbandmen at the times appointed for the solemnities, came into the town in carts, and jested one while at their fellows, and another while at the citizens, chiefly such as had offended them. And this was called a Comedy, either of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Village, because they lived in such, or of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 away, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be saucy, or to revel; because they were profuse and spared no man in the way with their petulant quips. (And this is rather the true derivation, because the Athenians as then did not call the villages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.) This custom pleased the citizens, and made them animate those of the prontest wits, to write more exactly in this kind of verse. And so by little and little, the country fellows were thrust out, whose quips were simple, and how ever envious, yet not bloody: now the city Poets taxing at first the vices of the citizens with bitterness, did some good in reclaiming particulars from folly, through fear of being personated: but afterwards when they began to follow their own affects and their friends, exercising their grudges with sharpness, and using their pens for their weapons, they would sometimes traduce Princes that never had deserved any such matter, and even name them. Which trick when Eupol●…s had played with Alcibiades Eupolis. in his Comedy called Baptis, he caused him to be taken and thrown into the sea: being then General of the Athenian forces, and having a Navy in the Haven Pireus: when he was thrown in, it was said Alcibiades rehearsed these words often times over: thou hast often drowned me upon the stage Eupolis, I will once drown thee in the sea. By this example Alcibiades the rest of the Poets were so terrified, that Alcibiades got a law past, that no man should dare to name any man upon the Stage. So that kind of Comedy called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the old Three kinds of Comedies. Old. Mean. New. Comedy, was abolished. Then came in the second, wherein many were girded at privily suppressing of names under colours, and this the Nobility fell in dislike withal, lest their facts should be glanced at under hand. So that was taken quite away: and a new kind invented, which treated of mean persons under change of names, the argument whereof was ever so different from the facts of the Nobility, as each man might perceive that they were farthest from the drift of these taxations. And besides there was such moderation used in all the effects, that no man could justly complain of them, though they had spoken of him by name. Of this kind Menander was the chief Poet, who lived with Alexander the great, beieng somewhat younger than he was. The old kind flourished in the wars of Peloponesus, and in that kind Aristophanes was most excellent, by report some say that he was very good at the second sort also. But doubtless Antiphanes of Larissa was the best in this kind that ever wrote. And these kinds were all in Greece. But in the four hundredth year after Rome was builded, T. Sulpitius Potitus, and C. Licinius Stolon being Consuls, when the City was (both the year before, and that year also) grievously infected with the plague, by an Oracle out of the books of the Sibyls were stage-plays called thither (a new accustomed thing to such a warlike nation.) Their players they had out of Hetruria, and they named them Histriones:, in the language of that country: And these did dance unto the flute, without speaking any thing, but not without such conceited gestures as then were in use elsewhere. And then the Country people of Italy after the fashion of the greeks, having sacrificed after their harvest, and given their god's thanks for their years good increase, after all, in their mirth, used to jest one upon another for sports sake, sparing not now and then to cast forth a sluttish phrase, and sometime a bitter quip. And this they did interchangeably, in verses called Fescenini, of such a City in Hetruria These the Roman Players began to imitate, but never named for that was expressly forbidden before by a law in the twelve Tables. But these Fescenine uses 〈◊〉. wore out of the plays by a little and little, and were left only unto marriages and triumphs: And such plays began to be invented as were delightful and yet not offensive, which Horace touches at in his Epistle to Augustus. So it being not allowable to traduce any man by his name upon the stage, there sprung up divers sorts of these playing fables in Italy, after the manner of the greeks, as the New Comedy, and the Satire: Not that which taxeth vices and is bound unto that one kind of verse, which Horace, Persius, and Iwenall wrote in: for that was first invented by Lucilius (who served under Scipio Aemilianus in the wars of Numance.) But that wherein the satires were brought in, in a sluttish satires. and approbrious manner, as in hairy coats, heavy paced, and altogether ●…nsome and slovenly. Their Stage was strewed with flowers, leaves and grass, to resemble the The satires. Mountains, Woods and Caves; even like as the tragic Stage resembleth the state of kingly Palaces, and the comical, the fashion of meaner men's houses, as vitrvuius writeth, (Lib. 5.) After these Satyrs went out of use; The first True omedie in latin verse was The first new ●…omedy at Rome. written by Livius Andronicus, Salinators freed servant, after Rome was builded, just five hundred and forty years, in the Consulshippes of Appius Claudius Son to Caecus, and Sempronius Tuditanus, the first Carthaginian war being ended some few years before, as Atticus doth account the time. And this man seconded By Noevius, Plautus Ennius, Terence, and many other Comedians after them: what remaineth of this subject, shall be spoken in the fittest place. (b) Of these stageplays the best] In these revels, sometimes there were plays presented worth the hearing: and sometimes again, the players would act most filthy gestures in silence, and sometimes speak somewhat for the feast they kept. Of these Comedies some were called Palliatae, their argument being Greek and their actors in Greekish cloaks: such Pallia●…. are all Terence's and Plautus' his: Others Togatae, their argument concerning the Roman affairs, and their actors presenting it in Roman gowns: such are those of Afranius. And Togata. these Togatae are of two sorts, either Pretextatae, the plot being of the deeds of some Praetextata. Kings or Emperors of Rome, wherein the Pretexta, the Nobleman's habit must needs be used; (from which kind I cannot see that the Trabeatae do differ much, those which C. Melius Trabcata. of Spoleto, Maecenas his freeman invented: I know not whether they were a●… one or Tabernaria. not, having hereof no certain notice:) or Tabernariae, wherein the actions of the vulgar were deciphered. where are Tragedies, Comedies, satires, and there are Mimikes, which are called otherwise, Plaine-feetes, plani-pedes, wearing neither shoes nor buskins, but coming The Mimikes. barefoot upon the Stage: The satires notwithstanding and the Mi●…kes are both included under the Comedy. And some say so is the Tragedy too. But the Tragedy discourseth of lamentable fortunes, extreme affects, and horrible villainies, but far from turpitude. The Comedy treats of the Knaveries and tricks of love, being brought into it by Menander to please the Macedonians that stood affected to such passages. The Satire containeth the loser Fauns, and Sylvans whose rustical jests delighted much, and sometimes they would lament. But as they were v●…lceanely and slovenly gods, so were their speeches often times foul, and dishonest to hear. But the Mimikes forbore no beastliness, but used extreme licentiousness And yet these were more tolerable than other things which were acted in the solemnities of Bacchus: (which for their incredible filthiness were expelled out of Italy by a decree of the Senate.) Also in the Saturnalia, and Floralia, which two feasts were celebrated by common Floralia. strumpets, and the most rascally sort of all men. The actors of the Floralia, though they reverenced not their own goddess, yet when Cato came, they reverenced him, and would not act Cato. them in his presence. What the Komaines opinion was touching the restraint of the liberty of Poesy, which the greeks, by the counsel of their Goads, would not have restrained at all. CHAP. 9 WHat the romans held concerning this point, (a) Cicero recordeth in his books which he wrote of the Common wealth, where Scipio is brought in saying thus: If that the priutledge of an old custom had not allowed them, Comedies could never have given such proofs of their v●…esse upon theatres. And some of the ancient greeks pretended a convenince in their vicious opinion, and made it a law that (c) the Comedian might speak what he would, of any man, by his name. Wherefore (as Africanus saith well in the same book) Whom did not the Poet touch, nay whom did he not vex, whom spared he? perhaphs so, saith one, he quipt a sort of wicked, seditious, vulgar fellows, as (d) Cleo (e) Clytophon, and (f) Hyperbolus: to that we assent (quoth he again) though it were fitter for such faults to be taxed by the (g) Censor then by a Poet, but it was no more decent that (h) Pericles should be snuffed at, having so many years governed the City so well both in war and peace, than it were for ay our Plautus, or Naevius to deride (k) Publius or Cneius Scipio, or for (l) Caecilius to mock (m) Marcus Cato. And again, a little after, Our twelve Tables (quoth he) having decreed the observation but of a very few things (n) upon pain of death, yet thought it good to establish this for one of that few, that none should (o) write or act any verse, derogatory from the good name of any man, or prejudicial unto manners. Excellently well! for our lives ought not to be the objects for Poets to play upon, but for lawful magistracy, and thoroughly informed justice to judge upon, nor is it fit that men should here themselves reproached, but in such places as they may answer and defend their own cause in. Thus much out of Cicero in his fourth book of The Common wealth: (which I thought good to rehearse word for word, only I was forced to leave out somewhat, and somewhat to transpose it, for the easier understanding. For it gives great light unto the proposition which I (if so be I can) must prove and make apparent.) He proceedeth further in this discourse, and in the end concludeth thus, that the ancient Romans utterly disliked, that any man should be either praised or dispraised upon the stage. But as I said before, the greeks in this, though they used less modesty, yet they followed more convenience, seeing they saw their gods so well to approve of the represented disgraces, not only of men, but even of themselves, when they came upon the stage: whether the plays were fictions of Poetry, or true histories of their deeds. (and I wish their worshippers had held them only worth the laughing at; and not worth imitation!) for it were too much pride in a Prince to seek to have his own fame preserved, when he sees his gods before him set theirs at six and seven. For where as it is said in their defence, that these tales of their gods were not true, but merely poetical inventions, and false fictions, why this doth make it more abominable, if you respect the purity of your religion: and if you observe the malice of the devil, what cunninger or more deceitful fetch can there be? For when an honest & worthy ruler of a country is slandered, is not the slander so much more wicked & impardonable, as this party's life that is slandered is clearer and sounder from touch of any such matter? what punishment then can be sufficient for those that offer their gods such foul and impious injury? L. VIVES. CIcero (a) recordeth in his] If of all the ancient monuments of learning which are either Tullyes' books de republica. wholly perished, or yet unpublished, if I should desire any one extant, it should be Cicero his six books de Republica. For I doubt not but the work is admirable, and guess but by the fragments which are extant. I do hear that there are some that have these books but they keep them as charily as gold apples; but until they come forth to light let us make use of the conjectures, recorded in other places of Cicero his works. (b) where Scipio] The Cornelian family amongst other sur-names, got up that of Scipio. from one of their blood that was as a staff (Scipionis Vicè) to his kind and sickly Father. Of this family The Sci●…. were many famous men, of whom we mean to speak somewhat in their due places. This whom Tully brings in, speaking in his work De Republica, was son unto L. Aemilius Paulus, that conquered Perseus' King of Macedon. Scipio the son of the greater Scipio African adopted him for his son, and so he was called Aemilianus, of the stock of whence he was descended. He razed Carthage and Numance. (c) The Comedian,] this was the old Comedy, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: and of this we said before, that the citizens for fear of being brought upon the stage, would either begin to live well (if so they intended) or at least forbear to be seen do evil. Old comedies. Socrates said it was meet to expose one's self freely to the Comic Pen; for if they write true of our vices, they are a mean to reform us: if they write false, it concerns not us. Yet even Socrates himself that innocent hurtless man was mocked by Aristophanes in his Nebulae, a knavish comedy, set forth only to that end. And this was one of the greatest proofs, that the Aristophanes' ●…is Nebu●…ae. Poets of this Old kind of Comedy, at that time had mercenary Pens, and followed perverse and malevolent affects. (c) Cleon,] he was a Letherseller, a seditious fellow, enemy to Nicias, Demosthenes, Cleon. and almost unto all honest men: yet no evil soldier, if we may trust Thucydides and Aristophan●…s his ●…quites. Plutarch: against him, did Aristophanes make a comedy, and he called it Equites, the Knights: and when the Poet would have presented this view of Cleon's extortion and tyrannous rapine to the people, the workman durst not make a visar like Cleon's face, for fear of his power: So the Poet was feign to daub the actors faces with wine lees: and yet they being afraid to enter upon the Stage, Aristophanes himself came forth alone and acted Cleon, so great was his rancour against him. For which afterwards he was accused of Cleon, and fined at five talents as himself complaineth in his comedy called Acharnenses, that is, he cast up as much as he had taken in, for perhaps Demosthenes and Nicias had hired him to write it, as Melitus & Anitus, Socrates his enemies got him with money to pen that comedy called Nephelis. He was a man that wrote much when he was drunk. This Cleon, Plutarch mentioneth in his politics also. (e) Cleophon] This fellow (saith Plutarch) was such another as Cleon. (f) Hyperbolus,] Cleophon. Hiperbolus Thucydides and Plutarch, and Lucian also in his Misanthropus, do mention this fellow with the additions of a wicked Citizen, and affirm that he was banished the City by the law, of Ostracism, (a kind of suffrage-giving) not for any fear of his power & dignity, as others were, but as the common shame and scandal of the whole town. Cicero in his Brutus speaking of Glaucias saith: He was a man most like Hyperbolus of Athens, whose vile conditions the old Athenian Comedies gave such bitter notes of. That he was taxed by Eupolis, Quintilian intima●…es in his first book of his Institutions, speaking of Music. And Caelius Rhodoginus hath a whole Chapter of him. Lection. Antiqu●…r. lib. 9 (g) Of the Censor,] Every fifth year the romans elected two, to oversee the Census, that is, to estimate and judge of the wealth, manners, and The Censor. esteem of every particular citizen. And hereupon they were called Censors, (for as Festus saith, every one held himself worth so much as they rated him at,) and the Masters of the manners. So saith Cicero unto Appius Pulcher. (h) Pericles] This man, by his eloquence and other civil Pericles. institutions, did so win the hearts of the Athenians to him, that he was made the governor of that commonweal for many years together, being ever both wise and fortunate, in wars abroad, and in peace at home. Eupolis an old Comedian saith, that On his lips sat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is, the Goddess of persuasion, whom fully (de oratore lib. 3) calleth Lepor, Eanius Suada, and Horace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (by the diminutive) Suadela: of the matter of those verses, Cicero and Quintilian make very often use in Greek fragments: for the whole Comedies of Eupolis, and many more, are now lost. These verses are extant in the first Book of Plinius ●…ecilius his Epistles, and part of them also in Suidas. I much marvel that Politian mentions neither of them in his Chapter of his Centaurs, where he speaketh of this. The verses he hath out of one of Aristides his interpreters, whom he nameth not. Indeed I deny not but that there are more of his verses, then are either in Suidas or Pliny. Aristophanes also, the ancient Comedian said that Pericles cast lightning and thunder from his lips, and confounded all Greece. And this both Eupolis and he spoke in the pouring out of their calumnies against him, as Tully (de orat. lib. 3. & de perfecto oratore.) and Quintilian (liber. 12.) do both affirm. The Comedian scoffed also at his long shaped head, and therefore he was always pictured in his Helmitte. ay For our Plautus,] Livy was the first Latin Poet, as I have said before, and next after him, Naevius, who served as a soldier in the first war of Africa: Then, Plautus, almost of the same time with Naevius: he left many comedies, the most part whereof we have, and there was no part of Plautus. all that, or the following age that pleased better than he. Scipio calleth him Our Plautus, not that he ever knew him, but because he was a latin Poet, and he had spoken of the greeks before (k) P. or C. Scipio] These were brethren and as Servius saith twins. Publius was father to the Greater Scipio African, Cneius unto Nasica that good man, of whom we spoke before. They were both slain in Spain by the Africanes in the second Carthaginian war, Scipio's the brethren. which began in the Consulship of Publius. Tully in his Oration for Cornelius Gallus, calls these two brethren the two Thunderbolts of the Empire: and some say that that verse of Virgil is meant of them. — Geminos duo fulmina belli, Scipiadas—. Aenaed 6. Scipiades belli ●…ulmen, Carthaginis horror— etc. — two thunderbolts of war, The Scipio's— taking it out of Lucretius. wars thunder Scipio, Carthages dread fear etc. So that these Poets lived in their times. (l) Or Caecilius] Caecilius Statius lived in the Macedonian, Caecilius. and Asian war, and was chamber-fellow with Ennius. Volcatius Sedigitus gives him the prick and praise for Comedy, and Horace approves his gravity. We have nothing Cato the elder. of his now extant. Tully seems not to like of his phrase. (m) Marcus Cato] The Elder, he that first made the Portian family honourable: he was borne at Tusculum, and attained the honour of Consul, Triumph, and Censor. Being but of mean descent, the nobility envied him wholly: but his authority with the Commonalty was very great: he lived in the times of Ennius and Caecilius. (n) Few things upon pain of death] There were very few crimes with the old Romans punished with death, and far fewer in the times that followed: for the Portian The Portian law. law forbade the death of any condemned Citizen, allowing only his banishment. So that it being held death-worthy to deprave any man by writing, proves that the Romans were extremely afraid of infamy. But here let the Reader observe the meaning of this law, out of Festus: Capite dimiavi, what. who speaking of this Capitis Diminutio, this Capital Punishment writeth thus, He is said to be capite diminutus, capitally punished, that is banished, that of a free man is made a bondslave to another, that is forbidden fire and water, and this the Lawyers call, Maxima capitis diminutio, the most capital punishment of all. For there are three kinds of it: the greatest, the mean, and the smallest. This I thought good to set down, not out of mine own judgement: Horace writeth thus unto Augustus. — Quin etiam lex Paenaque dicta, malo quae nollet carmine quenquam Describi: vertêre modum formidine fustis, etc. — besides a penal law Frobidding all such verse as shame provokes: So changed they their notes for fear of strokes etc. Porphiry upon this place saith he that wrote infamous verses upon any man, was judged to be beaten with clubs: But Acron maketh Horace to speak metaphorically, (o) Act] The old book hath occenàsset, should sing out, and I think better than otherwise: the ancient Latinists (saith Festus) used occentare, for the same for which we use convitium facere, to mock, Occentare what it is. or reproach: which was done aloud, and as it were sung out unto others hearing a far off, and this was held dishonest. That the devils through their settled desire to do men mischief were willing to have any villainies reported of them, whither true or false. CHAP. 10. But those wicked spirits, whom these men take to be gods, were desirous to have such beastly stories spread abroad of them, (though they themselves had never acted any such thing) only to keep men's minds inveigled in such bestial opinions, as it were in snares, or nets, and by that means to draw them to predestinate damation for company: whether it be true that such men as those that love to live in errors, do select for gods, did themselves commit any such things (for which the devils set themselves out to be adored, by a thousand several tricks of hurtful deceit:) or that there were no such things done at all, but only, those malicious and subtle devils do cause them to be feigned of the gods, to the end that there might be sufficient authority, derived as it were from heaven to earth, for men to commit all filthiness by. Therefore the Grecians, seeing that they had such gods as these to serve, thought it not fit to take away any liberty from the Poets in using these stage-mockes and shames: ●…dt is they did either for fear least their gods should be provoked to anger against them, in case they went about to make themselves into more honest moulds than they were, and so seem to prefer themselves before them; or else for desire to be made like their gods, even in these greatest enormities. And from this imagined convenience came it, that they hold the very (a) actors of such plays, to be worthy of honours in their Cities. For in the same book Of the Commonwealth; (b) Aeschines, of Athens, an (c) eloquent man, having been an Actor of Tragedies in his youth, is said to have borne office in the Commonwealth. And Aristodemus (d) another actor of Tragedies was sent by the Athenians upon an Embassage to Philip, about especial and weighty affairs of war and peace. For they held it an unmeet thing (seeing they saw their gods approve of those actions, and arts of playing,) to repute those worthy of any note of infamy, that were but the actors of them. L. VIVES. THe very (a) actors] Aemilus Probus speaking of the Greekish fashions saith. In those countries it was no disgrace for any man to come upon the stage, and set himself as a spectacle to the people: which we hold for partly infamous, and partly base and unworthy of an honest man. (b) Aeschines] An ●…rator of Athens, enemy to Demosthenes he acted Tragedies upon the stage. And therefore Demosthenes in his Oration de Corona calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, An apish tragedian, Aschines. or a tragical ape. Quintilian saith he was Hypocrita, that is Histrio, a stage-player. plutarch (in 10. Rhetoribus) saith he was an Actor of Tragedies: So saith Philostratus also in his book De sophistis, and that he did not leave his country through constraint, or banishment, but being judged to be overcome in a contention by ●…tesiphon, he went away unto Alexander, who as then was Emperor of Asia: but hearing that he was dead before he came at him, he bent his course for Rhodes, and liking the sweet aptness unto study that that soil afforded, he settled himself there. Aeschines himself in an Epistle he wrote to the Athenians, seems to affirm, that he had given over his stage-playing before he bore any place in the Commonwealth (c) an eloquent man] That he was most eloquent, is most plain: as also that his voice was sweet, and full: and some there are that asigne him next dignity unto Demosthenes: nature gave him more worth than industry: Some say he was scholar unto no man: but of a sudden from a scribe he became an orator, and that his first oration was against Philip of Macedon: and hereby he got such favour and credit amongst the people, that they sent him Ambassador to the same King. Others asigne him Plato, and Isocrates for his Masters, and some Leodamas: This Rhodian Rhetorik●…; was a certain mean, between the Asian and the Athenian. Aeschines invented and taught it in his school at Rhodes after his retirement thither (d) Aristodemus another actor] This man as Demosthenes writeth, went Ambassador to King Philippe with Demosthenes himself, and Aeschines. This Aristodemus. is he, who, when Demosthenes asked him what fee he had for pleading, answered, a talon: I but (quoth Demosthenes) I had more for holding of my tongue. Critolaus reporteth this. That the Grecians admitted their Players to bear office in their Commonwealths, lest they should seem unjust in despising such men as were the pacifiers of their Gods. CHAP. 11. THis was the Grecians practice: absurd enough howsoever, but yet most fitly applied unto the nature of their gods: (a) they durst not exempt the lives of their citizens from the lashes of poetical pens and players tongues, because they saw their gods delighted at the traducing of themselves: and they thought surely, that those men that acted such things upon the stage, as pleased the gods, ought not to be disliked at any hand by them that were but servants to those gods: Nay not only, that, but that they ought to be absolutely and highly honoured by their fellow Citizens: for what reason could they find, for the honouring of the Priests that offered the sacrifices which the gods accepted well of, and yet allow the actors to be disgracefully thought of, who had learned their profession by the special appointment of the self same gods, that exact these celebrations of them, and are displeased if they be not sollemnized? Especially seeing that (b) Labeo, (who they say was most exact in these matters) distinguisheth the good spirits from the bad by this diversity of their worships, that (c) the bad ones are delighted with Slaughters, and tragical invocations, and the good with mirthful revels, and sportful honours, such as Plays (quoth he) banquets, and (d) reveling on beds are; of which hereafter (so God be pleased) we will discourse more at large. But to our present purpose: whether it be so that all kinds of honours be given unto all the gods mixed and confused, as unto only good ones: (for it is not fit to say there are any evil gods, although indeed they are all evil, being all unclean spirits) or that according as Labeo saith, there must be a All unclean spirits are wicked devils. discretion used, and that these must have such and such particular rites of observances asigned, and those other, others; howsoever, the greeks did most conveniently to hold both Priests and Players worthy of honourable dignities, the Priests for offering of their sacrifices, and the Players for acting of their interludes: lest otherwise, they should be guilty of offering injury either to all their gods, if they all love plays, or (which is worse) to those whom they account as the good ones, if they only affect them. L. VIVES. THey (a) durst not exempt] Sisitheus presenting a Comedy wherein he scoffed at Cleanthes the Stoic, whereas others were offended at it, they say the Philosopher himself replied that it were a shame for a man to fret at such things, seeing that Hercules, and Dionysius being gods, are daily mocked thus, and yet are not displeased. (b) Labeo] There were three Labeo's; all of great skill in the civil law: But the most learned of them all was Antistius Labeo who The Lab●…s. lived in Augustus his time: he was scholar to Trebatius Testa, and was cunning not only in the law, but in all antiquity and knowledge, being (as Gellius reports) an exact historian. But Augustus did not much affect him by reason of his great freedom of speech, and largeness of wit: This opinion of his he seems to derive from Platonisme, and Stoicism, though with some alteration. For the Platonists held that all the gods were good: but that amongst the Daemons and Heroes, some were good and some were bad. Porphiry, in his book of sacrifices saith, that a true worshipper must never sacrifice any living creature unto the gods, but only unto those Daemons. And the same author in his book De via intelligibilium, explains more fully which are good Daemons, and which are evil. But of this, in another place. (c) the bad ones] The worse that these gods are, and the more infernal, the sadder kind of invocations do they desire to be used to them: so do the Hell-gods; Pluto, Proserpina, and others: Sad sacrifices. Lucan brings in Erichtho invocating the infernal Deities thus: — Sivos satis ore nefando, Pollu●…óque voco: si nunquam haec carmina fibris, humanis ieiuna ●…ano: si pectora pl●…na Saepe de●…i, & lavi calido prosecta cerebro: si quis, qui vestris caput extáque lancibus infant Imposuit, victurus crat.— — If ●…uer I ●…uok'd In well blacked phrase: if ere my charms lacked guilt of mangling human breasts: if I have spilled Blood in such plenty: brought your quarters washed, in their own brains: if ●…re the members gashed, I served you in, were to revive.— d. reveling upon beds] Hereof in the third book. That the romans in abridging that liberty (with the Poets would have used upon men,) and in allowing them to use it upon their gods, did herein show, that they prized themselves above their gods. CHAP. 12. But the romans (as Scipio glorieth in that book of the common wealth) would by no means have the good names and manners of their citizens liable to the quips and censures of the Poets, but inflicted a capital punishment upon all such as durst offend in that kind: which indeed (in respect of themselves) was honestly and well instituted, but in respect of their gods most proudly and irreligiously, for though they knew that their gods were not only patient, but even well pleased at the representing of their reproaches and exorbitances, yet would they hold themselves more unworthy to suffer such injuries than their gods, thrusting such things into their solemnities, as they avoided from themselves by all rigour of laws. Yea Scipio; dost thou commend the restraint of this poetical liberty in taxing your persons, when thou seest it hath been ever free to callumniate your gods? Dost thou value the (a) Court alone so much more than the Capitol, than all Rome, nay then all heaven, that the Poets must be kerbed by an express law, from flowering at the Citizens, and yet without all control of Senator, Censor, Prince, or Priest, have free leave to throw what slander they please upon the gods? what? was it so unseemly for Plautus, or Naevius to traduce P. or Cneius Scipio; or for Caecilius to jest upon M. Cato? and was it seemly for (b) your Terence to animate a youth to uncleanness, by the example of the deed of high and mighty jupiter. L. VIVES. YOur (a) Court] The Court, was the place where the senate sat: here it is used for the Senators: curia what, Terence. the Capitol, for the gods themselves, (b) your Terence] for indeed he was very familiar with Scipio and Laelius, and many think that they helped him in writing of his comedies, which he himself glanceth at in his prologue to his Adelphy. Memmius thinks he means of Scipio, (in that Oration which he made for himself.) Quintilian lib, 10. Institut. Of Laelius, Cornelius Nepos maketh mention, and Tully also in one of his epistles unto Atticus: but from other men's reports. That the romans might have observed their god's unworthiness, by their desires of such obscene solemnities. CHAP. 13. IT might be, Scipio (were he alive again) would answer me thus; How can we possibly set any penalty upon such things as our gods themselves do make sacred, by their own express induction of those plays into our customs, and by annexing them to the celebration of their sacrifices and honours, wherein such things are ever to be acted and celebrated? But why then (say I again) do not you discern them by this impurity to be no true gods, nor worthy of any divine honours at all: for if it be altogether unmeet for you to honour such men as love to see and set forth Plays that are stuffed with the reproach of the romans, how then can you judge them to be gods, how then can you but hold them for unclean spirits, that through desire to deceive others, require it as part of their greatest honours to be cast in the teeth with their own filthinesses? Indeed the romans, though they were locked in those chains of hurtful superstition, and served such gods as they saw required such dishonest spectacles at their hands, yet had they such a care of their own honesty and dignity, that they would never vouchsafe the actors of such vile things, any honour in their commonwealth, as the greeks did: but according to Scipio his words in Cicero: Seeing that (a) they held the art of stage-playing as base and unmanly, therefore they did not only detain all the honours of the City from such kind of men, but appointed the (b) Censors in their views, to remove them from being part of any tribe, and would not vouchsafe them to be counted as members of the City. A worthy decree, and well beseeming the Roman wisdom; yet this wisdom would I have to imitate and follow itself: Rightly hath the council of the city in this well desiring and deserving commendations, (showing itself to be in this, (c) truly Roman,) appointed that whosoever will choose of a Citizen of Rome to become a Player, he should not only live secluded from all honours, but by the Censors censure should be made utterly uncapable of living as a member of his proper tribe. But now tell me but this, why the Players should be branded with inability to bear honours, and yet the Plays they act, inserted into the celebration of the gods honours? The Roman (d) valour flourished a long time, unacquainted with these theater-tricks: suppose then that men's vain affections gave them their first induction, and that they crept in by the errors of man's decayed members, doth it hence follow that the gods must take delight in them, or desire them? if so, why then is the Player debased, by whom the god is pleased? and with what face can you scandalise the actors and instruments of such stage-guilt, and yet adore the exacters and commanders of these actions? This now is the controversy between the greeks and the romans. The greeks think that they have good reason to honour these Players, seeing that they must honour them that require these plays: the romans on the other side, are so far from gracing them, that they will not allow them place in a (e) Plebeian tribe, much less in the court or Senate, but holds them disgraceful to all callings: Now in this disputation, this only argument gives the upshot of all the controversy. (f) The greeks propound; If such gods be to be worshipped, than such actors are also to be held as honourable: The romans assume: But such actors are no way to be held as honourable: The Christians conclude, Therefore such gods are no way to be worshipped. L. VIVES. seeing that (a) they held the art,] It must of force be granted that the Players were the most pernicious men of conditions that could be, and the vilest in their villainies: because The infamy of Stage. players. they could not be allowed for Citizens of that City, which harboured so many thousands of wicked and ungracious fellows, all as Citizens. That Players were excluded from being of any tribe, and exempt from paying any tax, Livy and Ualerius do both testify: unless Decimus Laberius. authority made them such; for that seems as a constraint: as befell to Decimus Laberius, whom Nero requested to act a Mimike of his upon the stage: and yet he nevertheless was The Attellan comedies. after that, a gentleman of Rome. For he that is forced to offend the law, is held not to offend it. But from this decree of players exclusion, the Actors of the Comedies called Attelanae were exempted, for their comedies were more grave, and their jests came nearer to the old The Censors view of the city. Italian form of discipline: Liu: and Valer. And therefore they used no Visars on the stage, as the rest did. Festus (b) The Censors in their view] Which went over the estate and conditions of every man, every fifth year (c) truly Roman] The text is Germané Romanum. The Latins use Germané, for truly, natively, expressly, and naturally: So doth Cicero (to shut up all examples in one) in his fifth oration against Verres: As then (quoth he) I said much, and this amongst the rest to show plainly the great difference between him, and that same Numidicum Verum & Germanum, that true and expressly Numidian, Metellus: So say we Germanè Romanum, The orders of the romans. truly Roman. Roman is here used by Augustine for Generous, and honestly bend. (d) the Roman valour flourished a long time] Very near four hundred years. (e) Plebeian] There were three orders of Roman Citizens: the Senatorians, the Patricians, and the plebeians; which were the lowest: of these hereafter. He doth not say, a Plebeian tribe, as though there were any such distinct one, but because there were plebeians, men of the base and common sort, in every tribe. (f) the greeks propound thus:] The Logicians, and the Rhetoricians following them, divide a perfect argument (called by the greeks Syllogismus, by the Latins, Ratiocinatio) into The parts of a Syllogism. three parts: the first that includes and declares the sum of the argument: this is called the proposition, or exposition, the second which assuming from the proposition, selects an especial thing which we are to know more fully: and this is called the Assumption: The third, shuts up the argument, and is called the Conclusion. How these are placed in discourse, it maketh no matter: the conclusion is sometimes before, and the assumption oftentimes the second, or the last [And here our false Logicians spoil all; out of their ignorance of all good arts: and Paris copy defective. think that change of place doth alter the nature of things: lying as fast as they can invent: and seeming in the schools more than men, in civil conversation abroad are less than children.] That Plato, who would not allow Poets to dwell in a well governed City, showed that his sole worth was better than those gods, that desire to be honoured with stageplays. CHAP. 14. Again, we ask another question: why the Poets that make those Comedies, (and being prohibited by a law of the twelve tables to defame the Citizens, yet do dishonour the gods with such foul imputations,) are not reputed as dishonest and disgraceful as the players? what reason can be produced, why the (a) actors of such poetical figments, being so ignominious to the gods, should be deputed infamous, and yet the authors be vouchsafed honours? Is not (b) Plato more praiseworthy than you all, who disputing of the true perfection of a city would have Poets banished from that society, as enemies to the cities full perfection? he had both a grief to see his gods so injured, and a care to keep out these fictions whereby the citizens minds might be abused: Now make but a comparison of his (c) humanity in expelling of Poets from his city, lest they should delude it with the gods divinity that desired such Plays and Revels in their honours; by which the city might be deluded: He, though he did not (d) induce or persuade them to it, yet advised and counseled the light and luxurious greeks in his disputation, to restrain the writing of such things: But these gods, by command, and constraint, even forced the modest and stayed Romans to present them with such things: nay not only to present them, but even to dedicate and consecrate them in all solemnity unto their honours. Now to which of these may the city with most honesty ascribe divine worship? whether to Plato that would forbid these filthy obscaenities, or to these devils that exult in deluding of those men whom Plato could not persuade to truth? This man did (e) Labeo think meet to be reckoned amongst the Demigods, as he did Hercules also, & Romulus: & he prefers the Demigods before the Heroës, but notwithstanding (f) makes deities Plato held a Demi-god. of them both: But howsoever, I hold this man whom he calls a Demigod, worthy to be preferred not only before the Heroës, but even before all their other gods themselves: And in this the Roman laws do come somewhat near his disputations: for where as he condemns all allowance of Poets, they deprive them of their liberty to rail at any man. He (g) excludeth Poets from dwelling in his city: they deprive the actors of poetical fables from the privileges of citizens: and it may be (if they durst do aught against gods that require such stage-games) they would thrust them forth for altogether. Wherefore the Romans can neither receive nor expect any moral instructions, either for correcting of faults, or increasing verues, from those gods, whom their own laws already do subvert and convince. The gods require plays for increase of their honours: the Romans exclude players from partaking of theirs: the gods require their own faults to be celebrated by poets inventions: the romans restrain the Poet's looseness from touching any of the romans imperfections. But Plato, that Demigod, he both resists this impure affection of the gods, and shows what ought to be perfected by the (h) towardliness of the romans: denying Poets all place in a well ordered Commonwealth, howsoever, whether they presented the figments of their own lusts and fancies, or related aught else as the guilt of the gods, & therefore of imitable examples: But we Christians make Plato neither whole God nor Demi-god: nor do we vouchsafe to compare him with any of God's Angels, or his Prophets, not with any of Christ's Apostles or his Martyrs, no not with any Christian man, and why we will not, by God's help, in the due place we will declare. But notwithstanding, seeing they will needs have him a Demigod, we think him worthy to be preferred, (if not before Romulus or Hercules though there was never (i) historian, nor (k) Poet (l) affirmed, or (m) feigned, (n) that he ever killed his brother, (o) or committed any other mischievous act, yet at least) before (p) Priapus or any (q) Cynocephalus, or lastly any (r) Febris, all which the romans either had as (s) Gods from strangers, or set them up as their (t) own in peculiar. How then could such gods as these by any counsel they could give, prevent or cure such great corruption of minds and manner (whether imminent, or already infused) seeing they regarded nothing else but to diffuse and augment this contagion of wickedness, & to have it instilled into the people's notices from the stage, as their own acts, or acts which they approve, to the end, that man's lust might ru●…he course of wickedness freely, after the gods examples? Tully exclaimeth all in vain upon it (u) who being to speak of Poets, when he came to them saith: The clamour and approbation of the people, when it is joined with these poetical fictions, as the testimony of some great and learned Master, oh what darkness doth it involve a man in? what fears it inflicts, what lusts it inflames? L. VIVES. THe (a) actors] There are actors, ab agendo, of acting: players upon the stage, & Authores, the Authors, the Poets that write these fables: though the name of Author is taken many ways; Actor, Author, Player. What Poets Plato expels. but this is a Grammar question. (b) Is not Plato] Plato (de rep. lib. 2.) expels all Poets out of a well ordered city, for the wickedness which they sing of the gods: & (in the tenth book of the same work) Socrates having spoken much against them, concludeth all in this, that he holds that poetry only fit to be excluded, which gives life to unmanly affections: & that to be allowed, ' which is manly, & honest: So that he condemns not all poetry, for sometimes he calls Poets, a divine kind of men, namely when they sing hymns to the Deities: moreover he saith that if the Poets do sing of any good man, though he be poor, he is happy: & again that an evil man though he be rich their songs will make him miserable: if they exceed not in looseness, nor yield to rancour nor consent unto flattery, nor in their songs sow seeds of corruption, such poets are profitable Humanity. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. members in Plato's commonwealth. (c) His humanity] Humanity is not taken here for any natural gentleness or courtesy of the mind, or man's good will, called in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not for any knowledge of the liberal arts which the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but for that nature, by which we are men: as goodness is that by with we are good: the sense following proves it, for it is compared unto divinity & in this signification it is also used elsewhere as in Tully (de orat lib. I.) (d) Though he did not induce] Imaruaile much that our Philosophers & Divines could not out of this place learn Suadere. Persuadere. the difference of Suadeo, & Persuadeo. But they (which is very near a miracle) understand latin without knowing the latin tongue, and are very perfect Grecians, and can read never a word of Greek: indeed in Greek, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both suadere, to advise or counsel, and persuadere to persuade or induce. (e) This man did Labeo] Here will I deliver the orders of the gods; first out of Uarro, and next out of other books of the Platonists. The Romans call some of their gods Summi, the highest: others Medioxumi middlemost: others Heroes infimi, or earthly ones: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which the ancients (as Capella affirmeth) called Earth. The Medioxumi were such Medioxumi. Heroes. as were taken up to heaven by their deserts: as Tulli saith: (in his book De legibus:) that is Semigods, or as it were a kind of Mongrels begot of mortality and immortality; such were Romulus, Hercules, Aesculapius, Castor and Pollux, with others. The Heroes were born of mortal parents on both sides, but by their merits got a more advanced state in destiny then the residue of the vulgar. Some to add unto these another kind, called Semones: but of them elsewhere. (f) Makes Deities of them both] Such as here in this world lived well and holily, the old Romans did still put into the number of the gods when they were dead, and assigned them feasts called Necya. Cicero de legibus lib. 2. (g) He excludeth Poets] In the old copy of Bruges, and Nesci●… Coleigne, the verb repellit, is left out, and for Poeticarum here, is talium in them. (h) Frowardness of] By their begun virtue, their proof and demonstration of goodness, though sometimes towardliness stands for full virtue itself: but here it is as I said, and is declared by towardliness. that which goes before; What was to be performed. ay Historian.] As there are that do of Romulus. (k) Poet.] As do of Hercules. (l) Affirmed.] The Historian did not. (m) Feigned.] The Poet did not. (n) That he ever killed his brother] Which Romulus did, in killing of Remus. (o) Or committed any other mischievous act, as is true of Hercules, who defiled the whole world with whoredoms, rapines, robberies and slaughters: yet they thought that the world was purged of such guilts by him. (p) Before Priapus] Diodorus saith that Priapus was made a god Priapus. upon this occasion: Osiris King of Egypt being murdered by the wicked villainy of his brother Typhoon, the conspirators cut all his body in pieces, and every one took a share, and because no man would take the privy members, they threw them into the River Nilus. Afterwards Isis the wife of Osiris having overcome Typhoon, she found all the parts of her husband's body, but the forenamed, which being lost, she consecrated them, and instituted their divine worship with many ceremonies, and such as were admitted to be Priests in Egypt, offered their first sacrifices unto this: calling it Priapus by an unknown name, which to cover the dishonesty of the thing ment, the honest ancients used. The Greeks call this God Phallus, Phallus, seu Ihyphallus. and Ihtyphallus. Of this these verses are extant in Collumella: lib. 11. — Sed truncm forte dolatum Arboris antiquae nun on Uencrare Ityphally, Terriblis membri, medio qui semper in horto, Inguinibus puero, praedoni falce minetur. — That piece of ancient tree. Adore, as Ityphallus Deity, That ugly thing: which in the garden stands 'Gainst bo●…es & thieves, with armed gro●…ne and hands. For he was the Keeper of gardens: Diodorus saith he was also called Typhoon, and makes him the son of Venus and Dionysius: borne (as Servius and Ualerius Flaccus say) at Lampsacium, a city in Hellespont and that therefore was named Lampsasenus, and Hellespontiacus. Virgil Georgi●…. Et custo furum etque●…uium, cum falce saligna Hellespontiaci seruit tutela Priapi. And Priap us of Hellespont, with his hook, Of Willow, well to birds and the eves will look, And in the Lusus in Priapum, Priapus speaketh thus. — Patria m●…ctaber, et olim Ille ●…uus civis Gallus●…o ●…o. I'll lose my country: Lampsacus even he That was borne thine, now Cibels Priest will be. Some say he was borne in the city Priapus, not far from Lampsacus, near unto the vineyeards. Strabo thinks his deification was first from Hellespont. But a new God he is, for Hesiod knew no such in his time: Fulgentius makes him one of the Semones, & saith he is not yet taken up Cynocephaelus. into heaven, his deserts are so slender. (q) Cynocephalus] that is indeed, Dogshead. Diodorus (lib. 4.) saith that the Cynocephali were a people of human shape and voice, but headed like Dogs: a Barbarous and cruel kind of creatures, and many of them lived in the islands of Nilus. Osiris had a Son called Anubis, who following his father in his travels, bore the Dog for his arms: and hence it came that he was worshipped in Egypt in the shape of this creature, Anubis. and called (by Virgil Aenead. 8) Latrator, the barker, as also because he was held the keeper of the bodies of Osiris and Isis. Some think that this was Mercurius, and called thus for his quick capacity and apprehension. (r) Febris] The romans erected many altars unto Febris: Cicero maketh mention of one ancient one that stood in the mount Palatine (de legib. lib. 2.) Febris a goddess. and of the same Valerius also (in Antiquanstitut.) and pliny lib. 2. do speak: as also of another that was placed in the Court of Marius his monuments, and a third at the upper end of the long street (s) Gods from strangers] Lucan speaketh to Egypt. Nosin templa tuam Romana accepimus Isim, sc●…icanesque Deos & sistra moventia luctum, We in Rome's temples now thine ●…is place. thy Halfe-dog Gods, and horns that woes do raise. (t) There own in peculiar as Febris] (u) who being to speak of Poets] in some books, the words of Tully begins at Accessisset, and not at Clamour. The whole sentence I take it is out of the book of his commonwealth, in the third of his Tusculane questions, speaking of the causes which corrupt the seeds of virtue, which are naturally sown within us; he saith: Hereunto also may Poets be added, who pretending a great deal of doctrine and wisdom, are learned, read, heard, and borne away in the mind of every man. But when that great master, the multitude is added also, and the whole company swarming on every side unto vices, then chiefly are we infected with depraved opinion, and drawn from our very express nature. Like unto this also he hath in his second and fourth book, and that at large: which we but touch at, to avoid the overcharging of the reader, or the book, with tediousness. That flattery and not reason created some of the Roman Gods. CHAP. 15. But what other reason in the world (besides flattery) have they to make choice of these so false and feigned gods? Not voutsafinge Plato any little temple, whom notwithstanding they will have to be a demigod, (and one who took such pains in dissuading the corruption of manners through the (a) depravation of opinions:) and yet preferring Romulus before divers of the gods, whom their most secret and exact doctrine doth but make (b) a semi-god, and not The Flamines. an entire deity; yet for him they appointed a (c) Flamine, (d) a kind of Priesthood so far above the rest as (e) their crests did testify that they had only (f) three of those Flamines for three of their chiefest deities, the Dial or jovial for jupiter; the martial, for Mars; and the quirinal, for Romulus: for (g) the love of his citizens having (as it were) hoist him up into heaven, he was then called (h) Quirinus, & kept that name ever after: and so by this you see Romulus here is preferred before Neptune & Pluto jupiter's brother nay even before Saturn, father of them all: so that to make him great, they give him the same Priesthood that jupiter was honoured by, & likewise they give one to Mars, his pretended father, it may be rather for his sake then any other devotion. L. VIVES. THrough (a) the depravation of opinions] some read animi, some animis, some leaves it out, but the best, is animae (b) A semigod] Let them worship (saith Cicero in his the leg) such as have been and are held gods, and such as their merits have made celestial and instawled in heaven, as Hercules, Liber Pater, Aesculapius, Castor, Pollux, Quirinus. (c) A Flamine] what I mean to speak of the Flamine, shall be out of Varro, Dionysius, Festus, Plutarch, Gellius, and Servius. Amongst the orders of Priests were Some of Numa Pompilius his institution, and called by the name of Flamines: their habit of their head was a hat, as the high Priest had also: but upon the top of it, they wore a tuft of white woollen thread: therefore were called Flamines quasi Pilamines hairy, or tufted crowns: some derive it of Pileus, a hat, but that cannot be, for so had the high Priests Some again say their name came of Filum, a thread, because in the heat of Summer when it was to hot to wear their hats, they wrapped their heads about with thread of linen cloth: for to go bare headed-abroade, their religion forbade them: but upon feast days they were bound to wear their hats in the ceremonies, Appian of Alexandria saith that the jovial Flamine wore his hat and vail both upon feast and no feast days. Others say that they were called Flamines a Flamineo, which was a kind of yellow head-tire, but more proper The jovial to women then them. These kind of Priests Numa first ordained, and that three of them: one for jupiter, called the Dial of Dios, jove or jovial: one to Mars, the martial; and one to Quirinus, the quirinal. Other gods might have no Flamines, nor might one of those Gods have more than one, but in process of time the number increased, and became fifteen: besides those which flattery consecrated to the dead Caesar's, as one to C. Caesar, by Antony's law, (which Cicero reproveth (Phillippic 2.) one to Augustus, and so to divers others. But those that Numa made were the principal always, and the principal of them was Jove's Flamen the Dial: he only of all the rest went in a white Hat, and was held the most reverend: His ceremonies and laws are recounted both by Plutarch in his Problems and also by Gellius (lib. 10.) out of Fabius Pictor, Massurius Sabinus, Varro, and others. The lowst in degree of all the Flamines, Pomona Goddess. was the Pomonall Flamine, because Pomona, the goddess of Apples, was of the least esteem. Others there were of mean dignity, as Vulcan's, Furidàs, Father Falacers, The Goddesses that pretected mount Palatine, and mother Floràs. (d) which kind of Priesthood] Though the Flamines were of great authority yet were all obedient unto the chief Priest: for so the people commanded it should be, when in the second war of Africa: L. Mettellus, being chief Priest withheld the consul Posthumus, being Mars his Flamine, and would not let him leave his order, nor his sacrifices: and likewise in the first war of Asia, P. Licinius, high Priest, stayed Q. Fabius Pictor then Praetor and quirinal Flamine from going into Sardinia (e) as their crests they wore] Apèx, is any thing that is added to the top, or highest part of a thing: The Flamines Apex or crest. here it is that which the Flamine bore upon his head, his cap, or his tuft of will. Lucan. Et tollens opicem generoso vertice Flamen: The Flamine with his cap, and lofty crest: Sulpitius lost his Priesthood because his crest fell of whilst he was a sacrificing, saith Valerius, (lib. 1.) The romans gave not this crest but unto their greatest men in religion: as now we give Mitres, they called it Apex (saith Servius upon the eight Aenead) ab apendo, which is, to overcome: and hence comes Aptus, & Apiculum filum, that was the small tufted thread which the Flamines folded their Crests in: Fabius speaketh of these Crests and Virgil. Hin●… exultantes Sal●…os, nudosque Laper eos, lanigerosque apices,— Here Salii danced naked Lupe●…ci there, and there the tufted crowns. Aenead. 8. (f) Only three of those their chief and true Flamines, inheritors of the ancient Flaminshippe (g) the love of his citizens] Romulus being dead, the people began to suspect that the Senate had butchered him secretly amongst themselves. So julius Proculus, appeased the rage of the Romulus is a God. multitude by affirming that he saw Romulus ascending up into heaven. Livye in his first book. Ennius brings in the people of Rome lamenting for Romulus in these words. O Romule, Romule, dic, qualem te patriae custodem Dij genuerunt, Tu proauxisti nos intra lvmi●…s oras, O Pater, O genitor patriae, O sanguine diso●…iunde. O Romulus, O Romulus, show us, how they, thy country's guard, the gods begat, Thou brought us first to light, O thou our father, thy country's father borne of heavenly seed. (h) called Quirinus'] many of such men's names have been changed after their deyfying, to make them more venerable, having cast of their styles of mortality, for so was Leda (so called Quirinus. when she was alive) after her death and deification styled Nemesis: and Circe, Marica: and Ino, Matuta; And Aeneas, jupiter Indiges, Romulus was called Quirinus to gratify the Sabines; In which respect also the romans were called Quirites of Cures a town of the Sabines, or else as Ovid saith. Sive quòd Hasta, Quiris priscis est dicta Sabinis, Bellicus a 〈◊〉 ve●…t in Astra deus: Sive su●… Reginomenposu●…re Quirites Seu q●…a Romanis iunxerat ille Cures. Or, for the Sabines, spears Quirites call: His weapons name made him celestial, Or else they so enstil●… him hereupon because he made them, and the Cures, one. That if the Roman gods had had any care of justice, the City should have had their forms of good government from them, rather than to go and borrow it of other nations. CHAP. 16. IF the romans could have received any good instructions of morality from their gods, they would never have been (a) beholding to the Athenians for The Athens law followed by Rome. Solon's laws, as they were, some years after Rome was built: which laws notwithstanding, they did not observe as they received them, but endeavoured to better them and make them more exact; and though (b) Lycurgus feigned that he gave the Lacedæmonians their laws by the authorization of Apollo, yet the Romans very wisely would not give credence to him, (c) & therefore gave no admission to these laws. Indeed (d) Numa Pompilius, Romulus his sucessor is said to have given them some laws: but (e) all too insufficient for the government of a City. He taught them many points of their religion (f) but it is not reported that he had these institutions from the gods: Those corruptions therefore of mind, conversation, and conditions, which were so great, that the (g) most learned men durst affirm that these were the cankers by which all Commonweals perished, though their walls stood never so firm; those did these gods never endeavour to withhold from them that worshipped them, but as we have proved before, did rather strive to enlarge and augment them, with all their care and fullest diligence. L. VIVES. BEholding (a) to the Athenians] In the 300. year after Rome's building: when there had been many contentions between the Patricians & the plebeians, they sent three Ambassadors to Athens, to copy out Solon's laws, and to learn the policy and civility of the rest The laws of the 12. 〈◊〉. of the greeks: that the Roman estate might be conformed and settled after the manner of the Grecians. Chaerephanes was then governor of Athens, it being the 82. olympiad. The Ambassadors dispatched their affairs with all diligence, and returned the next year after, and then were the Decemuiri elected to decree laws, and those wrote the first ten tables of the Romans civil law, and afterwards they added two more, all which were approved in the great Parliament called Comitia Centuriata. And these were their noblest laws, which were written in the twelve Tables. (Livy lib. 3. Dionys. lib. 10 & others also) (b) Lycurgus] The laws which Lycurgus gave (as ●…e feigned, by Apollo's oracle) to the Lacedæmonians, are very famous. The Greek and Latin authors are full of this man's honours, and of the hard laws which he gave the Spartans There is a work of Xenophons' extant, only of these laws, and many of them are recorded in plutarch, I need not trouble the Reader in so plain a matter. Lycurgus' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (c) therefore gave no admission] And also, because Solon's laws were more accommodate and appliable to 〈◊〉 education, and mansuetude, than the rough severe ones of Lycurgus, as Plato and Aristotle do very well observe. For his laws aimed at no other end but to make the Spartanis warriors. (d) Numa Pompilius] He was borne at Cures in the country of the Sabines, and was the bestman of his time in the world. Of this man read Livy lib. 1. Dionysius, and Plutarch, of his whole life, besides divers others. (e) all to insufficient] This is plain, for they fetched laws from others. (f) it is not reported] Yes, he feigned that he conferred with Aegeria; but she was rather a Nymph then a goddess, & besides, this is known to be a fable (g) the most learned] Here I cannot choose but add a very conceited saying out of Plautus his comedy called Persa. Sagaristio the servant asks a Virgin, how strong dost thou think this town is? If the townsmen (quoth she again) be well mannered, I think it is very strong: if treachery, covetousness, and extortion, be chased out, and then envy, than ambition, than detraction, than perjury, than flattery, than injury, then and lastly, (which is hardest of all to get out) villainy: if these be not all thrust forth, an hundred walls are all too weak to keep out ruin. Of the rape of the Sabine women, and divers other wicked facts, done in Rome's most ancient and honourable times. CHAP. 17. PErhaps the gods would not give the romans any laws, because as Sallust (a) saith: justice and honesty prevailed as much with them by nature as by law: very good: (b) out of this justice and honesty came it (I think) that the (c) Sabine virgins were ravished. What juster or honester part can be played, then to force away other men's daughters with all violence possible, rather than to receive them at the hand of their parents? But if it were unjustly done of the Sabines to deny the romans their daughters, was it not far more unjustly done of them to force them away after that denial? There were more equity shown in making wars upon those that would not give their daughters to beget alliance with their neighbours and countrymen, then with those that did but require back their own, which were injuriously forced from them. Therefore Mars should rather have helped his warlike son, in revenging the injury of this rejected proffer of marriage, that so he might have won the Virgin that he desired, by force of arms. For there might have been some pretence of warlike law, for the conqueror justly to bear away those whom the conquered had unjustly denied him before. But he, against all law of peace, violently forced them from such as denied him them, and then began an unjust war with their parents, to whom he had given so just a cause of anger. (d) Herein indeed he had good and happy success: And albeit the (e) Circensian plays were continued to preserve the memory of this fraudulent act, yet neither the City nor the Empire did approve such a precedent: and the romans were more willing to err in making Romulus a deity after this deed of iniquity, then to allow by any law or practice, this fact of his in forcing of women thus, to stand as an example for others to follow. Out of this justice and honesty likewise proceeded this, that (g) after Tarquin and his children Tarquin Collatine deprived of office, and put out of Rome. were expulsed Rome, (because his son Sextus had ravished Lucrece.) junius Brutus being consul, compelled (h) L. Tarqvinius Collatine, husband to that Lucrece, his fellow officer, a good man, and wholly guiltless, to give over his place, and abandon the City, which vile deed of his, was done by the approbation (or at least omission) of the people, who made Collatine Consul, aswell as Brutus himself. Out of this justice and honesty came this also, that (h) Marcus Camillus that most Camillus' exiled by his country's monstrous ingratitude. illustrious worthy of his time, that with such ease sudued the warlike Veientes, the greatest foes of the romans, and took their chief city from them: after that they had held the Romans in ten years war, and foiled their armies so often, that Rome herself began to tremble, and suspected her own safety: that this man by the malice of his backe-biting enemies, and the insupportable pride of the Tribunes, being accused of guilt, & perceiving the city (which he had preserved) so ungrateful, that he needs must be condemned, was glad to betake himself to willing banishment: and yet (ay) in his absence was fined at ten thousand Asses (k) Being soon after to be called home again to free his thankless country the second time from the Gauls. It irks me to recapitulate the multitude of foul enormities which that city hath given act unto: (l) The great ones seeking to bring the people under their subjection: the people again on the other side scorning to be Seditions betwixt the great men and the people. subject to them, and the ringleaders on both sides aiming wholly rather at superiority and conquest, than ever giving room to a thought of justice or honesty. L. VIVES. SAlust (a) saith] In his war of Catiline, speaking of the ancient romans, he saith thus: The law is a civil equity either established in literal laws, or instilled into the manners by verbal Law. instructions. Good, is the fount, moderator and reformer of all law: all which is done by the judges Good. prudence, adapting itself to the nature of the cause, and laying the law to the cause, not the cause to the law. As Aristotle to this purpose speaketh of the Lesbian rule, (Ethic. 4.) This is also Right and reason: aquum & bonum. termed right & reason; as Sallust again saith in his jugurth Bomilchar is guilty rather by right and reason, than any national law. Crassus (saith Tully in his Brutus) spoke much at that time against that writing, and yet but in right and reason, It is also called equity '. That place (saith Cicero for Caecinna) you fear, and fly, and seek (as I may say) to draw me out of this plain field of equity, into the strait of words, and into all the literal corners: in this notwithstanding (saith Quintilian) the judges nature is to be observed, whether it be rather opposed to the law, then unto equity, or no. Hereof we have spoken something in our Temple of the laws: But the most copious and exact reading hereof is in Budaeus his notes upon the Pandects: explaining that place which the Lawyers did not so well understand: Ius est ars aequi & boni. This man's sharpness of wit, quickness of judgement, fullness of diligence, and Budaeus his praises. greatness of learning, no Frenchman ever paralleled, nor in these times any Italian. There is nothing extant in Greek or Latin, but he hath read it, and read it over, and discussed it thoroughly: In both these tongues he is a like, and that excellently perfect. He speaks them both as familiarly as he doth French, his natural tongue: nay I make doubt whether he speak them no better: he will read out a Greek book in Latin words extempore, and out of a Latin book, in Greek. And yet this which we see so exactly and excellently written by him, is nothing but his extemporal birth. He writes with less pains both Greek and Latin, than very good scholars in both these tongues can understand them. There is no crank, no secret, in all these tongues, but he hath searched it out, looked into it, and brought it forth like Cerberus from darkness into light. Infinite are the significations of words, and the proprieties of phrase which only Budaeus hath fetched out of deepest oblivion and exposed them to men's understandings. And yet all these singular and admirable gifts hath he attained to by his own industry alone, without help of any master. O happy fertile wit! that in itself alone found both master and scholar, and method of instruction! That whose tenth part others can hardly le●…of great and cunning masters, he alone without help of others drawn wholly from himself. I have not yet said any thing of his knowledge in the law, which he alone hath begun to restore from ruin: nor of his Philosophy, whereof in his books De Ass, he hath given such proof, as no man possibly could but such an one as had daily conversation with such reading of all the Philosophers, and deep instruction in those studies. To all this may be added that which indeed excels all things else; an honesty congruent to all this learning, so rare, and so admirable, that being but considered without the other graces of wit and learning, it might seem the world's miracle: his honesty no more than his learning acknowledgeth none his superior. A man that in all the diverse actions of his life, gives his religion always the first place: A man that having wife and many children, was never drawn from his true square with any profit or study to augment his estate: but evermore swayed both himself and his fortunes, and directed both: Fortune could never lead him away, though she promised never so fair: he had her always in his power. A man continually in court, in Embassages, yet never followed Princes favours, nor nuzzled them with flatteries. He never augmented his patrimony, because he would never depart an haires-breadth from honesty: he was always a severer censor of his own conditions then of any others: and having undergone offices which were objects of the greatest envy, he never found calumny from any tongue, nor incurred suspicion of any error, though he had to do with a free nation, and a people as ready to accuse as froward to suspect. I see I have forgot brevities bounds, being whirled beyond them with the love I have to relate the virtues of mine honoured friend: now to our purpose. Salusts' meaning therefore is, that as well this civil equity which they call law, as that natural equity which nature produceth in the minds of the judicious, (and than which nothing is better, it being therefore called good); were no more powerful with the romans in their decretal laws, then in the natural discretions of understanding men. (b) Out of this justice] A most bitter Irony: a 〈…〉. 〈◊〉 quip. (c) That the Sabine Virgins] When as Romulus could not obtain women of 〈◊〉 neighbouring nations, for his citizens to marry with, by the advise of his grandfather Numitor and the Senate, he gave it out that he would celebrate some games in honour of Neptune the horserider, or Hippoposeidon: so the women, their neighbours, coming to see the sports, the Romans took them all away by force, (especially the Sabines) out of the midst of the exercises. For so had Romulus and his companions resolved: the fourth month after the building of Rome as Dionysius relateth out of Fabius Pictor. Plutarch saith it was the 14. of the Calends of September, and both agreed: for the city was begun to be built the 12. of the Calends of May on the feast day called Palilia. Though Gellius (not Aulus with the Attican nights, but) another ancient writer affirms it was in the 4. year that this was done: which is the likelier to be true. They took away (as Dionysius saith) six hundred and eighty: which I do hold for the more likely than that which other talk, of three hundred: from whence the names of the Curiae, or the wards: juba addeth three more to the number before. Antias Valerius Thalassus. names but five hundred twenty and seven. Some say that Thalassus was not a man, but only the sign given to show them when to begin their rape. Festus, out of Varro saith it was so taken about spinning of will: as a man would say, a panier or a basket. (d) herein indeed] B, those nations, of whence the women were, whom they forced away, as also others whom the The confederation against Romulus. rest by their lamentable entreaties, and the fear of their own dangers moved, took up arms against the Romans: the Sabines, the Ceninenses, the Crustumerians, and the Atennates, all combined against them: Romulus seeing so dangerous a war likely to ensue upon him, confederateth with the Etrurians, whose power at that time was very great: & Caelius Vibennus prince Mount Caelius. of Hetruria gave Romulus' aid, of whom this Mount Caelius in Rome took the name. His grandfather also sent him succours. So that with small ado he overthrew the forces of the Ceninenses, the Crustumerians, and the Attenuates: and contending with the Sabines in a doubtful and dangerous war, upon a sudden by the entreaty of the women themselves the war ceased, and both the parties joined in league and amity together. (e) the Circensian plays] Every year was there plays, or games celebrated unto Neptune Equéster, and they were diversly called: the Circensian plays, the Great plays, the Roman plays: and amongst the ancients, Consualia, Consus a god. of Consus a God to whom they offered sacrifice, and believed him to govern all Counsels: and of him Romulus asked instruction in all his perils, & in the doubts of those marriages. His altar was hidden in the earth: because as Plato saith, counsel ought not only to be held ●…oly, but secret also. (f) after Tarquin] Another Ironical taunt. (g) L. Tarquin Collatine] The Kings being cashiered out of Rome by the great Centuriall Parliament (which Servius Tullus The first Consuls. had before instituted) L junius Brutus, and L. Tarquin Collatine, Lucraetias' husband were elected Consuls: the later of which, was son to Egerius, Tarqvinius Priscus his brother, as Livy saith But Nephew to him saith Dionysius: Brutus being desirous not only to expel the King himself, but all his name with him, disannulled the magistracy of his fellow, because his name was Tarquin, and so he willingly took his goods, and departed the city, going to Collatium to dwell. Now Tully (Offic. lib. 3.) confesseth that this was no very honest part of Brutus: but because it was most profitable to the assurance of the commonwealth, therefore it past for an act of honesty. It hath been observed (saith julius Obsequens) that no man that ever abrogated his fellows magistracy lived his year to an end; the first that did so was this Brutus, the next Tiberius Gracchus, the third P. Tarqvinius. (h) Marcus Camillus] This was he that took the City Veii, Camillus. after ten years continual siege: At that time began the Romans first to lodge in tents, & under beast skins in winter, because they hated this people so deadly that they would not depart thence until the wars were ended: for ever since the reign of Romulus for three hundred years together held they almost continual war with the Veientes: Livius lib. 5. plutarch in Camillus his life. This Camillus being said to have dealt unjustly in sharing the Veientane spoils amongst the people, L. Apuleius cited him to a day of hearing: But he to avoid their envy (though innocent of that he was charged with,) got him away to live at Ardea, in exile. This fell out two years before the Galls took Rome. ay ten thousand] Livy saith he was fined in his absence at 15000. Assis gravis. Plutarch, at 15000. Assium. Aes And Assis grave was all one as Ass & Aes grave, all one. my Budeus proves (k) being soon after] The Galls having taken Rome, Camillus having gathered an army together of the remainder of the Allian overthrow was released of his exile, & in a counsel Curiaté, made Dictator by them that were besieged in the Capitol. At first he expelled the Galls out of the City, and afterwards in the road way to Gabii, eight miles from the City, he gave them a sore overthrow. (Liu. lib. 5) Thus this worthy man choose rather to remember his country's affliction then his own private wrong: being therefore styled another Romulus. (l) the great ones] These mischiefs were still on foot, for very near five hundred years after the expelling of their kings, the patricians, and the plebeians were in continual seditions and hatreds one against another, and both contending for sovereignty: which ambition was kindled in the people by a few turbulent Tribunes, and in the nobles by a sort of ambitious Senators, and hereof doth Lucan sing that which followeth. Et 〈◊〉 consulibu●… turbantes iura Tribuni. Tribunes and Consuls troubling right at once. What the history of Saluste reports of the Romans conditions, both in their times of danger and those of security. CHAP. 18. THerefore I will keep a mean, and stand rather unto the testimony of Sallust himself, who spoke this in the romans Praise (whereof we but now discoursed) that justice and honesty prevailed as much with them by nature, as by law: extolling those times wherein the city (after the casting out of her kings) grew, up to such a height in so small a space. Notwithstanding all this, this same author confesseth in (a) the very beginning of the first book of his history, that when the sway of the state was taken from the Kings and given to the Consuls, (b) within a very little while after, the city grew to be greatly troubled with the oppressing power of the great ones; and (c) the division of the people from the fathers upon that cause, and divers other dangerous dissensions; for having recorded how honestly, and in what good concord the romans lived together (d) betwixt the second war of Africa, and the last; and having showed that it was not the love of goodness, but the fear and distrust of the Carthaginians might, and per●…ideousnesse, that was cause of this good order, and therefore that upon this Nasica would have Carthage stand still undemolished, as a fit mean to debar the entrance of iniquity into Rome, and to keep in integrity by fear; he addeth presently upon this, these words (e) But discord, avarice, ambition, and all such mischiefs as prosperity is midwife unto, grew unto their full light after the destruction of Charthage, intimating herein, that they were sown, & continued amongst the Romans before: which he proves in his following reason. For as for the violent offensivenesse of the greater persons (saith he) and the division betwixt the Patricians and the Plebeians thence arising, those were mischiefs amongst us from the beginning: nor was there any longer respect of equity or moderation amongst us, then whilst the kings were in expelling and the city and state quit of Tarquin, and the (f) great war of Hetruria. Thus you see, how that even in that little space wherein after the expulsion of their Kings they embraced integrity, it was only fear that forced them to do so, because they stood in dread of the wars, which Tarquin, upon his expulsion being combined with the Etrurians waged against them. Now observe what Sallust addeth, for after that (quoth he) the Senators bgan to make slaves of the people, to judge of heads &, (g) shoulders, as bloodily & imperiously (h) as the ●…ings did to chase men from their possessions: & only they, of the whole crew of factions, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…rial sway of all, With which outrages (& chiefly with their extreme taxes and ●…tions) the people being sore oppressed, maintaining both soldiers in continual arms, and paying tribute also besides, at length they stepped out, took up arms, and drew to 〈◊〉 head upon Mount Aventine and Mount Sacer. And then they elected them 〈◊〉, and set down other laws; but the second war of Africa gave end to these 〈◊〉 on both sides. Thus you see in how little a while, so soon after the expelling of their Kings, the romans were become such as he hath described them: of whom (notwithstanding) he had affirmed, that justice and honesty prevailed as much with them by nature as by law. Now if those times were found to have been so depraved, wherein the Roman estate is reported to have been most uncorrupt and absolute, what shall we imagine may then be spoken or thought of the succeeding ages, which by a gradual alteration (to use the authors own words) of an honest and honourable city, became most dishonest and dishonourable, namely after the dissolution of Carthage, as he himself relateth? How he discourseth and describeth these times, you may at full behold in his history, and what progress this corruption of manners made through the midst of the City's prosperity, even (k) until the time of the civil wars. But from that time forward, as he reporteth, the manners of the better sort did no more fall to decay by little and little, but ran headlong to ruin, like a swift torrent, such excess of luxury and avarice entering upon the manners of the youth, that it was fitly said of Rome, that she brought forth such (l) as would neither keep goods themselves nor suffer others to keep theirs. Then Sallust proceeds, in a discourse of Sylla's villainies, and of other barbarous blemishes in the commonwealth: and to his relation in this do all other writers agree in substance, though (m) they be all far behind him in phrase. But here you see (and so I hope The common corruption before Christ's coming. do all men) that whosoever will observe but this, shall easily discover the large gulf of damnable viciousness into which this City was fallen, long before the coming of our heavenly King. For these things came to pass, not only before that ever Christ our Saviour taught in the flesh, but even before he was borne of the Virgin, or took flesh at all: Seeing therefore that they dare not impute unto their own gods those so many and so great mischiefs, either the tolerable ones which they suffered before, or the fouler ones which they incurred after the destruction of Carthage, (howsoever their gods are the engraffers of such malign opinions in men's minds, (n) as must needs bud forth such vices,) why then do they blame Christ for the evils present, who forbids them to adore such false and devilish gods, by his sweet and saving doctrine, which do condemn all these Christ the founder of a new city. harmful and ungodly affections of man by his divine authority, and from all those miseries, withdraws his flock and family by little and little out of all places of the declining world, to make of their company an eternal and celestial city, not by the applause of vanity, but by the election of verity. L. VIVES. THis same author (a) confesseth,] This history of Saluste concerning the civil wars of Rome, we have lost. Only some few Orations there are remaining. (b) Within a very little while,] But fifteen years. (Liu. lib. 2.) Appius Claudius, and P. Servilius were made Consuls for that year: And this year was made famous by the death of Tarquin the proud. The death of Tarquin the proud. He died at Cumae, whether after his wracked estate he retired unto Aristodemus the Tyrant. The news of his death stirred both Patricians and Populars to joy and mirth: but the Patricians revels were too saucy: for than they began to offer injury to the people, whom till that day they had obeyed. (c) The division.] the people divided themselves from the Patricians, The divisions of the people from the Patriots because of the sesse laid upon them the seventeenth year after the obtaining of their liberty: and again because of the tyranny of the Decemuiri in making cruel laws, Anno. 303. after the building of Rome. Thirdly by reason of their debts, and the long dissensions between the tribunes and the Senators, some few years before Pyrrhus his war. (d) Betwixt the second] There were three several wars begun and ended between the romans and the Carthagenians: The first in Sicily 22. years together, and afterwards in Africa: it began the 390. The 〈◊〉 of Africa. year after the building of Rome. Appius Clandius Caudax, and Qu. Fuluius Flaccus being Consuls. So many are the years in Pliny's 33. book, wherein I think for 585. must be read Plinius corrected 485. Livy and Eutropius count not so much by thirteen years. The second of these wars began some 23. years after, P. Scipio, and T. Sempronius being Consuls: it went through Spain, Sicily, Italy and Africa, and there it was ended by Scipio African the elder, seventeen years after the first beginning of it. The third arose 49. years after that, Manlius, and Martius Censorinus being Consuls, it was finished three years after in Africa (where it wholly continued) by Scipio African the younger: and the end of this was the subversion of Carthage. Of these wars more at large elsewhere. (e) But discord] Saluste in his Bellum jugurthinum. (f) The great war of Hetruria] With Porsenna the mighty King of Hetruria, Porsenna his 〈◊〉. who would have Tarquin restored to his kingdom: and begird the City of Rome with a hard and dangerous siege: and had taken it, but that the valour of Scaevola terrified him from persisting. Liu. lib. 1. (g) Of the heads and shoulders] Of death, and other punishments. Those that the romans adjudged to death, they first scourged with rods, and then killed them. Sometimes, if the fact were not very wicked, they did but only scourge them with rods. Besides, How offenders were punished at Rome. The Portian & Sempronian laws. Act. 22. those that were sued by their creditors and brought before the judge, were most villainously and miserably abused, their creditors being allowed to chain them, and beat them like their slaves: against which foul enormity the Portian and the Sempronian laws were promulgated, which forbid that the body of any free Roman should be beaten either with rods or any scourges. (h) To chase men from their possessions] For, such fields as were won by the valour of the people of Rome, the rich men would first undertake by the appointment of the Senate, to till and make fruitful, as if they were hired by the Senate: marry afterwards, (their fellows winking at it) they would thrust the people from their right, and make themselves absolute lords of all: And hereupon were the Agrarian laws so often put to be passed, concerning the dividing The Agrarian laws. of the lands amongst the people: but were never mentioned without great anger in the Patriots, and huge hurly-burlies in all the City. ay Mount Sacer] The people first encamped The first departure of the people. on Mount Sacer, or the Holy Hill, a little beyond the river Anien, (now called Teverone) or as Piso saith on Aventine a part of the City. There were the Tribunes Plebeian first elected, as Tutors of the Populars: who should stand as watches over the people's good, and step between The Tribunes. all injuries that the Patriots should offer them, and be accounted as sacred men: whom if any man wronged, his head should be given to jupiter for sacrifice, and his goods sold all at the temple of Ceres. The second encamping was upon Aventine, and from thence to fill the City with grearer desolation, they departed unto Mount Sacer. And then having agreed with the The second departure. Senate, they returned to Aventine again, and there recovered their Tribunes: and from Aventine they went up to the capitol, where in a great Parliament held by the chief Priest, the tribunes election was assigned and confirmed. Cic. pro Cornel. de Maiestate. (k) Unto the civil wars] First betwixt the Senators and the Gracchis, Tiberius first, and then Caius: and so unto the civil wars betwixt Sylla and Marius. (l) As would neither keep goods themselves] For such excessive prodigals, and spending whatsoever they could seize on, they must needs force means from other men's estates to maintain this their luxurious riot: and so they laboured to fill a barrel full of holes. (m) They are all far behind him,] The pithy and succinct stile Saluste phrase. of Saluste was delightsome to all ages: our Critics have paralelld him with the Greek Thucydides; as Quintilian doth, lib. 10. (n) Must needs bud] as branches and woods use to do: it Sy●…scere, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. is a word much used in the writers of husbandry, Cato and Columella: The Grecians call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Sy●…scere, to grow into woods and bushes, which in herbs is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Luxuriare, to grow rank. Of the corruptions ruling in the Roman state, before that Christ abolished the worship of their Idols. CHAP. 19 BEhold now this commonwealth of Rome, which I am not the first that affirm, but their own writers, out of whom I speak, do aver, to have declined from good by degrees, and of an honest and honourable state, to have fallen into the greatest dishonesty and dishonour possible. Behold, before ever Christ was come, how that Carthage being once out of the way, than the Patricians manners decayed no more by degrees, but ran headlong into corruption like a swift torrent, the youth of the city was still so defiled with luxury and avarice. Now let them read us the good counsel that their gods gave them against this luxury and avarice: I wish they had only been silent in the instructions of modesty and chastity, and had not exacted such abominations of their worshippers, unto which by their false divinity they gave such pernicious authority. But let them read our laws, and they shall hear them, thundering out of divine oracles and Gods clouds (as it were) against avarice and luxury, by the mouths of the Prophets, by the Gospel, the Apostles, their acts and their Epistles, so divinely, and so excellently, all the people flocking together to hear them; not as to a vain and jangling Philosophical disputation but as to an admonition from Heaven. And yet these wretches will not blame their gods, for letting their weal-public be so foully bespotted with enormous impieties, before the coming of Christ: but whatsoever misery or affliction their effeminate and unmanlie pride hath tasted of since this coming, that the Christian Religion is sure to have in their teeth withal. The good rules and precepts whereof, concerning honesty and integrity of manners, if all the Kings of the earth, and all people, Princes and all the judges of the earth, young men and Virgins, old men, Children, all ages and sexes capable of reason, and even the very soldiers, and (a) taxe-takers themselves (to whom john Baptist speaketh) would hear and regard well; their commonwealths would not only adorn this earth below with present honesty, but would ascend up to Heaven, there to sit on the highest point of eternal glory. But because this man doth but hear, and that man doth not regard, and the third doth despise it, and far more do love the (b) stroking hand of viciousness, than the rougher touch of virtue, Christ's children are commanded to endure with patience the calamities that fall upon them by the ministers of a wicked commonwealth: be they Kings, Princes, judges, Soldiers and Governors, rich or poor, bound or free, of what sex or sort soever, they must bear all with patience: being by their sufferance here, to attain a most glorious place in that Royal In the City of God his will is all the law. and (c) Imperial City of Angels above, and in that Heavenly commonwealth, where the will of Almighty GOD is their only law, and his law their will. L. VIVES. Soldiers and (a) taxe-takers] Luke 3. 12. 13. Then came there Publicans to be baptised, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Require no more Exactors or taxe-takers. than that which is appointed unto you. Require in this place, in the vulgar Latin is Facite: in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: which as Erasmus first of all noted, is to be translated Exigite, exact, or require, and hence it is that Saint Augustine doth rightly name the Exactores, taxe-takers, which were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Publicans. (b) The stroking hand of viciousness] He allu death unto Hesiods two ways to vice and virtue: which Virgil or as (some say) Ausonius imitated in that same poem of Pythagoras his letter. (c) Imperial] Augustissima The verses of the letter Y. it must needs be, and not Angustissima, most strait or narrow: But withal take a certain Friars note with you, I had almost told his name, who affirmed that heavens court is called Augusta here, because the way is strait (as Christ our Saviour saith) that leadeth unto life: and few thera are that enter in thereat. And that his auditors might bear it the better away, [] No word of this in the edition of Paris. he shut it up in this fine verse: Arcta est via verè, quae ducit ad gaudia vitae. The way is strait and quickly missed, that leads us up to glories blessed. He showed plainly that he cared not greatly for true position, or quantity of syllables, so that he made it go roundly off, and sound well.] Of what kind of happiness, and of what conditions the accusers of Christianity desire to partake. CHAP. 20. But such worshippers, and such lovers of those vicious gods, whom they rejoice to follow and imitate in all villainies and mischiefs, those do never respect the goodness, or the integrity of the commonwealth. No, say they, let it but stand, let it but be rich and victorious; or (which is best of all) let it but enjoy security and peace, and what care we? Yes marry, it doth beelong to our care, that every one might have means to increase his wealth, to nourish the expense of his continual riot, and wherewithal the greater might still keep under the meaner. Let the poor obey the rich, for their bellies sakes; and that they may live at ease under their protections: Let the rich abuse the poor in their huge attendaunces, and ministering to their sumptuousness. Let the people applaud such as afford them delights, not such as proffer them good counsels. Let nought that is hard be enjoined, nought that is impure be prohibited. Let not the Kings care be how good, but how subject his people be. Let not subdued Provinces serve their Kings as reformers of their manners, but as the Lords of their Estates, and the procurers of their pleasures: Not honouring them sincerely, but fearing them servilely. Let the laws look to him that looks after another man's possessions, rather than him that looks not after his own life. Let no man be brought before the judges, but such as have offered violence unto others Estates, houses, or persons. But for a man's own, let it be free for him to use it as he list, and so of other men's, if they consent. Let their Bee good store of Common harlots, either for all that please to use them, or for those that cannot A description of the public corruption. keep private ones. Let stately and sumptuous houses be erected, banquets and feasts sollemnized, let a man drink, eat, game and revel day and night, where he may or will: (a) let dancing be ordinary in all places: let luxurious and bloody delights fill the Theatre, with dishonest words, and shows, freely, and uncontroulled. And let him be held an enemy to the public good, that is an opposite unto this felicity. Let the people turn away their ears from all such as shall assay to dissuade or alter them, let them banish them, let them kill them. Let them be eternised for gods, that shall procure the people this happiness, and preserve what they have procured. Let them have what glory or worship they will, what plays they will, or can exact of their worshippers: only let them work so that this felicity stand secure from enemy, pestilence, and all other inconveniences. Now tell me, what reasonable creature would wish such a state, (not unto Rome, but even) to the house of (b) Sardanapalus? which whilom King, was so far given over to his pleasures, that he caused it to be written upon his grave, that he only as then possessed that, which his luxury in his life time had wasted: Now if those fellows had but a King like this, that would nuzzle them in these impurities, and never control nor correct them in any such courses, they would be readier to erect a Temple to him, and give him a Flamine, then ever were the old romans to do so unto Romulus. L. VIVES. LEt (a) Dance] Saltationes; in the Bruges copy it is Salutationes, in Coleynes it was Salutiones, but the letter v. is razed out. Surely the love of Saluting one another was The salutations at Rome. great in Rome. Highly was he honoured that was saluted, and well was he mannered, that did salute, but great plausibility attended on both: both were very popular, and great steps to powrefulnesse. Sallust, in jugurth. Truly some are very industrious in saluting the people. All the Latins writings are full of salutations. (b) Sardanapalus] The Grecians called Sardanapalus. Sardanapalus, Thonos Concoloros. He was the last King of the Assyrians: a man thrown headlong into all kind of pleasures. Who knowing that Arbaces the Median prepared to make wars against him, resolved to try the fortune of war in this affair. But being conquered (as he was an effeminate fellow, and unfit for all martial exercises) he fled unto his house, and set it on fire with himself and all his riches in it. Long before this, when he was in his fullest madness, after pleasures, he causes this epitaph to be engraven upon his tomb. Sardanapalus his epitaph. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. Tully translates it thus. Haec habeò, quae edi, quaeque exaturata voluptas Hausit: at illa jacent multa et preclara relicta What I consumed, and what my guts engrossed, I have: but all the wealth I left, I lost. What else could any man have written (saith Aristotle in Cicero) upon the grave of an Ox rather than of a King? he saith he hath that being dead, which he never had whilst he lived but only while he was a wasting of it. Chrysippus applies the verses unto his Stoicism: hereof read Athenaeus lib. 5. Tully his opinion of the Roman Commonwealth. CHAP. 21. But if he be scorned that said their commonwealth was most dishonest and dishonourable, and that these fellows regard not what contagion and corruption of manners do rage amongst them, so that their state may stand and continue, now shall they hear that it is not true that Sallust saith, that their commonwealth is but become vile and so wicked, but as Cicero saith, it is absolutely gone, it is lost, and nothing of it remains. For he brings in Scipio (him that destroyed Carthage) disputing of the weal-public, at such time as it was (a) presaged that it would perish by that corruption which Saluste describeth. For this disputation was (b) at that time when one of the Gracchis was slain, from which point Sallust affirmeth all the great seditions to have had their original, (for in those books there is mention made of his death.) Now Scipio having said (in the end of the second book) that as in instruments that go with strings, or wind, or as in voices consorted, there is one certain proportion of discrepant notes, unto one harmony, the least alteration whereof is harsh in the care of the skilful hearer: and that this concord, doth ●…onsist of a number of contrary sounds, and yet all combined into one perfect musical melody: so in a city that is governed by reason, of all the highest, mean and lowest estates, as The harmony of the common wealth. of sounds, there is one true concord made out of discordant natures: and that which is harmony in music, is unity in a city: that this is the firmest, and surest bond of safety unto the commonweal, and that a commonweal can never stand without equity: when he had dilated at large of the benefit that equity brings to any government, and of the inconvenience following the absence thereof: then (c) Pilus, one of the company, begins to speak, and entreated him to handle this question more fully, and make a larger discourse of justice, because it was then become a common report (d) that a commonwealth could not be governed without injustice and injury: hereupon Scipio agreed, that this theme was to be handled more exactly, and replied: that what was as yet spoken of the commonwealth was nothing; and that they could not proceed any farther, until it were proved not only that it is false, that a weal public cannot stand without injury, but also that it is true that it cannot stand without exact justice. So the disputation concerning this point being deferred until the next day following, in the third book, it is handled with great controversy. For Pilus, he undertakes the defence of their opinion, that hold that a state cannot be governed without injustice, but with this provision, that they should not think him to be of that opinion himself. And he argued very diligently for this injustice against justice, endevoring by likely reasons and examples, to show that the part he defended was useful in the weal public, and that the contrary was altogether needless Then (e) Laelius being entreated on all sides, stepped up, and took the defence of justice in hand, and withal his knowledge, laboured to prove that nothing wracked a city sooner than unjustice, and that no state could stand without perfect justice which when he had concluded, and the question seemed to be thoroughly discussed, Scipio betook himself again to his intermitted discourse, and first he rehearseth and approveth his definition of a commonwealth, wherein he said it A common wealth. was the estate of the commonty, than he determineth this, that this commonty is not meant of every rabblement of the multitude, but that it is a society, gathered together in one consent of law, and in one participation of profit. Then he teacheth, (f) the profit of definitions in all disputations: and out of his definitions he gathereth, that only there is a commonwealth, that is, only there is a good estate of the commonty, where justice and honesty hath free execution, whether it be by (g) a King, by nobles, or by the whole people. But when the King becomes An estate governed without ●…tice is no common weal. unjust, (whom he calleth (h) Tyrant as the greeks do) or the nobles be unjust, (whose combination he termeth ay faction) or the people themselves be unjust, for which he cannot find a fit name, unless he should call the whole company as he called the King, a Tyrant) then that this is not a vicious commonwealth, (aswas affirmed the day before) but, as the reasons depending upon those definitions proved most directly, it is just no commonwealth at all, for it is no Estate of the people, when the Tyrant usurpeth on it by Faction, nor is the commonty, a commonty, when it is not a society gathered together in one consent of law and one participation of commodities, as he had defined a commonty before. Wherhfore, seeing the Roman Estate was such as Saluste doth decipher it to be, it was now no dishonest or dishonourable Commonwealth (as he affirmed) but it was directly no commonwealth at all: according unto the reasons proposed in that discourse of a commonwealth (k) before so many great Princes and heads thereof: and as Tully himself, not speaking by Scipio or any other, but in his own person doth demonstrate in the beginning of his fifth book: where having first rehearsed that verse of (l) Ennius where he saith. Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque. Old manners, and old men upholden Rome. Which verse (quoth Tully) whether you respect the brevity, or the verity) me seemeth he (m) spoke out as an oracle: for neither the men (unless the city had had such manners, nor the manners, unless the city, had had such men) could either have founded, or preserved a commonwealth of that magnitude of justice, and Empire. And therefore before these our days, the predecessors conditions, did still make the successors excel, and the worthy men still kept up the ordinances of honourable antiquity: But now, our age receiving the commonwealth as an excellent picture, but almost worn out with age, hath not only no care to renew it with such colours as it presented at first, but never regarded it so much, as to preserve but the bare draft (n) and lineament of it: For what remainder is there now of those old manners which this Poet saith supported Rome! do we not see them so clearly worn out of use, and now so far from being followed, that they are quite forgotten? what need I speak of them men? The manners perished (o) for want of men, the cause whereof in justice, we should not only be bound to give an account of, but even to answer it, as a capital offence: It is not any misfortune, it is not any chance, but it is our own viciousness that hath taken away the whole essence of our commonwealth from us, and left us only the bare name. This was Cicero's own confession, (p) long after Africanus his death, whom he induceth as a disputant in this work of his of the Commonwealth, but yet (q) somewhat before the coming of Christ. Which mischiefs had they not been (r) divulged until the increase of Christian Religion, which of all those wretches would not have been ready to callumniate Christ for them? But why did their gods look to this no better, nor help to save the state of this weal-public, whose loss and ruin Cicero bewaileth with such pitiful phrase, long afore Christ came in the flesh? Nay, let the commenders thereof observe but in what case it was even then when it consisted of the ancient men and their manners, whether then it nourished true justice or no; and whether at that time it were honest indeed, or but glossed over in show! which Cicero not conceiving what he said, confesseth, in his relation thereof. But, by God's grace, we will consider that more fully elsewhere: for in the due place, I will do what I can to make a plain demonstration out of Cicero's own definitions of the commonwealth and the people (spoken by Scipio and justified by many reasons, either of Scipio's own, or such as Tully gives him in this discourse) that the estate of Rome was never any true commonwealth, because it never was guided by true justice: Indeed according to some other probable definitions, and after a sort, it was a kind of commonwealth: but far better governed by the antiquity of the romans, then by their posterity. But there is not any true justice in any commonwealth whatsoever, but in that whereof Christ is the founder, and the ruler, if you please to call that a commonweal which we cannot deny is the weal of the commonty. (s) But if this name being elsewhere so common, seem too discrepant for our subject and phrase, truly then there is true justice, but in that City whereof that holy scripture saith: Glorious things are spoken of thee, thou City of God. Psal. 87. 3. L. VIVES. IT was (a) presaged] I do read praesentiebat, he foresaw, for praesciebater it was presaged. (b) at that time when one of the Gracchi] When as Tiberius Gracchus had promullgated the Tiberius Gracchus. law Agraria, to the great grief and amazement of the Patriotts, and would have his tribuneshippe continued still, thereby to have been more secure against their injuries, and had effected that no one man should possess above five hundred acres of ground, Scipio Nasica, being followed by the Senate killed him: (Scipio Africane being at the sametime in wars at Numance) His body was thrown into Tiber. This Affricanus, is he, whom Tully bringeth in disputing in his garden with Laelius and Furius of the commonwealth, The death of A●…ilian Scipio. alittle before his death. He was murdered (as it is thought) by the means of Cayus Gracchus, Tiberius his brother, and Sempronia sister to the Gracchis, and wife to Scipio. (c) Then Pylus] When as between the second and last African war, the Athenians sent Ambassadors to Rome, Carneades the Academic, Critolaus the Peripatetic, and Diogenes The three learned Athenian Ambassadors. the Stoik the most excellent Philosophers of that age, Carneades, either to exercise his faculty or to show his wit, made an elegant and excellent oration for justice, in the presence of Cato the elder, Galba, and divers other great men: and the next day after, he made another for injustice unto the same audience, wherein he confuted all the arguments for justice which he brought the day before, and alleged more strong ones for injustice: this he did, to show his sect which teacheth never to affirm any thing, but only to confute what others affirm. Out of the later of these orations hath L. Furius Pylus his proofs: who was held for a cunning latinist, and went about his subject of injustice with far more dexterity L. Furius Pylus. of learning then the rest, to stir up Laelius his invention in commendations of his contrary. As Glauco did in Plato's 2. book de Republ. praising injustice to make Socrates show his cunning in praise of justice. (d) That a commonwealth could not] It is an old saying: without justice jupiter himself cannot play the King: Plut. de doc. Princ. And seeing that the weale-publicke for the general good of itself and liberty, is often compelled to use extremity against the Citizens private, and also oftentimes in augmenting the own power, A commonwealth not governed without injustice. breaketh the laws of equity in encroaching upon others: both which notwithstanding fell still very well out; the romans altered the old saying, and made it: A weal-public cannot be governed without injustice. This Carneades touched, as Lactantius affirmeth, and told the romans themselves, who possessed all the world, that if they would be just, that is, restore every man his own they must ever return to their cottages, and lead their lives in all poverty and necessity. (e) Than Laelius] This controversy doth Cicero speak of in his Laelius also. (f) The benefit of a definition] Plato, Aristotle, and all the old Philosophers both held and taught that the course of all disputation ought to be derived first ●…om the definition. For you cannot make a plain discourse of any thing, unless you first lay down what it is. The use of a definition. Rodolphus Agricola in his first book de Dialectae inuentione, saith; That this manner of defining is very useful, both for the understanding of the matter, which being opened in the definition, it is marvelous to see how it doth as it were point out the limmite of knowledge to which all our notions must bend; and also for the authority of the disputer, for no man can be held to understand a thing more perfectly, than he that can express it in a pithy and succinct definition. Thus far Agricola, whom ' Erasmus in his proverbs doth justly praise: and he it is alone Rod. Agricola. that may be an example to us that fortune ruleth in all things, (as Sallust saith) and lighteneth or obscureth all, rather according to her pleasure then the merit and worth of the men themselves. I know not two authors in all our time nor our fathers, worthier of reading, & observing them Rodolphus Agricola the Phrysian: There is such abundance of wit, art, gravity, judgement, sweetness, eloquence & learning in all his works: and yet so few there are y● do know him. The three forms of Rule. He is as worthy of public note, as either Politian or Hermolaus Barbarus, both which truly in my conceit he doth not only equalize, but exceedeth in Majesty, and elegance of stile. (g) Whether it be by a King] He touches at the forms of Rule. For a Commonwealth is either swayed by the people alone: and that the greeks call a democratical rule: or by a certain few: and that they call Oligarchical under with is also contained the rule of the choicest of the commonwealth which is called Aristocracy: or the rule of the best: (They call the Nobility the best: but indeed such as were most powerful in the State in countenance or wealth, such Optimates. were the right Ooptimates.) And therefore there is not much difference betwixt Oligarchy and Aristocracy as Tully showed, when he said the second part of the few Nobles: now the third Tyrannus. what and whence. kind of Rule is that of one called Monarchy: (h) A Tyrant] In ancient times they called all King's tyrants, as well the best as the worst: as Virgil and Horace do in their Poems, for the name in Greek, signifieth only Dominion. Plato who was the only man that laid down the right form of government for a City, is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: A Tyrant and a King. Festus thinketh (Lib. 15.) That the word was derived from the notorious cruelty of the Tyrrhenes: But I think rather that when the Athenians had brought in the Democratical government, and other Cities through emulation followed their example, that was the cause that first brought the word Tyrannus into hatred and contempt: and so they called their King's tyrants, because they governed their own wealth, but not the Commonwealth: besides that the Romans used it in that manner also, because they hated the name of a King deadly: and in Greece also, whosoever bore rule in a City that had before been free, was called a Tyrant, but not a King. ay Faction] Memmius (in Sallust) speaking of the Seniors, saith: They have transferred the fear Friendship & faction. that their own guilt surprised them with, unto your slothfulness: it is that which hath combined them in one hate, one affect and one fear: this in good men were friendship, but in evillmen it is rightly termed faction. (k) Before so many great Princes] For it is imagined that at that discourse there were present, Scipio African, Caius Laelius, surnamed the wise, Lucius Furius: three, who (at that time, as Porcius saith) led the Nobility as they would: and of the younger sort C. Fanius, Q. Scaevola the soothsayer, Laelius his son in law; & Quintus Tubero, all of worthy families. Ennius'] There is nothing of this man's extant but a few fragments, which I intent to gather out of the Writers through which they are dispersed and set them forth together in one volume. He Ennius. was borne at Rudiae (as Mela and Silius affirm) a City of the Salentines, and lived first at Tarentum, and afterwards at Rome. being very familiar with Cato, Galba, Flaminius, and other great men: and was made free Dennizen of the City by Flaminius. (m) Gave out] Effatus, the proper word of the religion. (n) And Lineaments] A simile taken from painters; who first do only delineate, and line forth the figure they will draw: which is called a Monogramme: and then with their colours they do as it were give spirit and life unto the dead picture. (o) Want of men] So Sallust saith in Catiline that the times are now barren, and bring not forth a good man. (p) Long after.] About seventy years. (q) Before the coming of Christ] Threescore years: For it is just so long from Tully's Consulship, at which time he wrote his books De repub. unto the 24. year of Augustus his Empire, at which time Christ was borne. (r) divulged] Diffamarê how used. So Diffamata is here reported abroad or divulged: and so likewise other authors use it. And warning the City to look to their safety, (Diffamavit) he reported or cried out: (saith Apuleius (Asini lib. 4.) That his house was a fire upon a sudden: [But it is pretty truly, that Remigius an interpreter of Saint Paul's Epistles saith upon that place with the translator had turned A vobis 〈◊〉. diffamatus est sermo domini. Thess. 1. 1. 8. For from you sounded out the Word of the Lord: This Not a word of this in our Paris print. Commentator saith, that saint Paul being not curious in choosing of his words put Diffamatus, for Divulgatus, or Manifestus. What shall we do with these School-doctors, that as yet cannot tell whether Paul wrote in Greek or in Latin? Nay, to mark but the arrogant foolery of these simple fellows: in such manner as this they will talk and prate so often about the signification of words, as continually they do in their Logic and Philosophy lectures: and yet they would not be held for professed grammarians: but are very easily put out of patience if any man begin but to discuss their words of art a little more learnedly] (s) But if this name] It may be he speaketh this because a Commonwealth is a popular government, but Christ's Kingdom is but his alone. That the Roman Gods never respected whether the City were corrupted, and so brought to destruction, or no. CHAP. 22. But to our present purpose: this commonwealth which they say was so good and so laudable, before ever that Christ came, was by the judgement of their own most learned writers, acknowledged to be changed into a most dishonest and dishonourable one: nay it was become no commonwealth at all, but was fallen into absolute destruction by their own polluted conditions. Wherefore to have prevented this ruin, the gods that were the patrons thereof, should (me thinks) have taken the pains to have given the people that honoured them some precepts for reformation of life & manners, seeing that they had bestowed so many temples, so many priests, such variety of ceremonious sacrifices, so many festival solemnities; so many & so great celebrations of plays & interludes upon them. But these devils minded nothing but their own affairs: they respected not how their worshippers lived: nay their care was to see them live like devils, only they bound them through fear to afford them these honours. If they did give them any good counsel, why then let it be produced to light and read, what laws, of what gods giving were they, that the (a) Gracchi condemned, to follow their turmoils and seditions in the City: show which precept of the gods, (b) Marius or (c) Cinna, or (d) Carbo violated, in their giving action unto the civil wars: which they began (e) upon such unjust causes, followed with such cruelty and injuries, and ended in more injurious cruelties: or what divine authorities (f) Sylla himself broke, whose life, deeds, and conditions, to hear Sallust describe (and other true Historians) whose hair would not stand up right? What is he now that will not confess that (g) then the weal public fell absolutely? What is he now that will dare to produce that sentence of Virgil for this corruption of manners, in the defence of their gods? (h) Discéssere omnes adytis arisque relictis, Dij, quibus imperium hoc steterat.— Aen 2. The gods by whom this Empire stood, left all The temples and the Altars bare.—. But admit that this were true: then have they no reason to rail upon Christianity, or to say that the gods being offended at that, did forsake them: because it was their predecessors manners, that long ago chased all their great multitude of little gods from the city altars, like so many flies. But where was all this nest of Deities, when the ay Galls sacked the city, long before the ancient manners were contaminate? were they present and yet fast a sleep? the whole city was all subdued at that time, only the Capitol remained: and that had been surprised too, if (k) the Geese had not shown themselves better than the gods, and waked when they were all a sleep. And here-upon did Rome fall almost into the (l) superstition of the Egyptians that worship birds and beasts, for they henceforth kept a holy day, which they called the (m) goose's feast. But this is but by the way: I come not yet to dispute of those accidental evils, which are rather corporal then mental and inflicted by foes, or misfortunes. I am now in discourse of the stains of the mind, and manners, and how they first decayed by degrees, and afterward fell headlong into perdition: so that thence ensued so great a destruction to the weal-public (though their city walls stood still unbattered) that their chiefest authors doubted not to proclaim it lost and gone. Good reason was it that the gods should abandon their Temples and Altars, and leave the Evil manners chase ●…vay the gods. town to just destruction, if it had contemned their advices of reformation. But what might one think (I pray ye) of those gods, that would abide with the people that worshipped them, and yet would they never teach them any means to leave their vices, and follow what was good? L. VIVES. THE (a) Gracchi:] These were sons unto Titus Gracchus (who was twice Consul, triumphed twice, and held the offices of Censor, and Augur) and Cornelia, younger daughter The Gracchis. to African the elder: they were young men of great and admirable towardness: both which defending the Agrarian law, concerning the division of lands, were murdered by the offended Senate, in their Tribuneships: Tiberius by Nasica a private man, Caius by L. Opimius' the Consul, nine years after: the first with clubs, and stools feet: the latter with swords: and this was the first civil dissension that ever came to weapons: Anno P. R. C. DCXXVII. Marius. (b) Marius] Arpinas was his place of birth; a man ignoble by descent: but came to be seven times Consul. He first conquered jugurth, than the Cymbrians, and Teutishmen, and triumphed of all these: at last envying and hating Sylla, who was his legate in the war of jugurthe, he fell to civil wars with him, wherein Marius was put to the worst, and forced to fly into Africa. (c) Cinna] Marius being overcome, Sylla going to war upon Mithridates, left C. Cornelius Cynna, and Octavius Consuls in the city. Cynna, desirous of innovation, severed Cinna. himself from his fellow, and was chased out of the City by him and the good faction, which injury Cynna endeavouring by all means possible to revenge, calleth back Marius out of Africa, and so made war upon his country, and entering it with mighty powers, he butchered up numbers, and made himself the second time, and Marius the seventh time Consul, without the voices of the people, in which Magistracy Marius died, after many bloody massacres, and foul acts committed. (d) Carbo,] There were many of the Carbo's, as Tully Carbo. writes to Papyrius Paetus, of the Papyrian family, but not of that of the Patriotts: This of whom Saint Augustine speaketh, was Cneus Papyrius Carbo, one of Marius his faction, who being overcome by Sylla, fled into Sicily, & there at Lylibaeum was slain by Pompey the great. (e) Unjust cause L. Sylla, and Q. pompeius being Consuls, the Province of Asia, and the war of Mitrhidates fell unto Sylla. This Marius stomocked because of his old grudge at P. Sulpitius, The original of the civil war between Sylla and Marius. Tribune, a most seditious and wicked fellow, to get the people to make election of him for the war against Mithridates. The people, though in a huge tumult, yet took notice of what the Tribune propounded, and commanded it should be so. Sylla not brooking this disgrace, demanded help of his army, and offered force to Marius his Ambassadors, who went to take up legions at Capua: and so brought his angry powers to the City, with intent to wreak this injury by fraud, or force. Hence arose the seeds of all the civil wars: for Marius with his faction met him in the City at Port Esquiline, and there fought a deadly set battle with him. (f) Sylla,] This man was a Patriot, of the Cornelian family: and having done worthy service in arms, he was made Consul; In which Magistracy, having conquered Mithridates, chased out the civil wars, overthrown Marius the younger, Carbo, Sylla. Norbanus, Sertorius, Domitius, Scipio, and the rest of the Marian faction, he took upon him perpetual Dictatorship by the law Valerian, wherein he proscribed many thousands of the Roman Citizens with outrageous cruelty. He was a most bloody fellow, and given over unto all kind of lust and intemperance. (g) Then the weal public] Lucan by the mouth of Cato: Olim vera fidei, Sylla Marioque receptis, Libertatis obijt.—. Whilom, when Marius and fierce Sylla strove, True liberty fell dead.— (h) Discessere omnes adytis,] The verse is in the second book of Uirgils' Aeneads, which Servius and Macrobius do think belongeth unto the calling out of the gods: for when as a The calling out of the gods. city was besieged, & the enemy had an intent to raze it to the ground, lest they should seem to fight against the gods, and force them from their habitations against their wills (which they held as a wicked deed) they used to call them out of the besieged city, by the general that did besiege it, that they would please to come and dwell amongst the conquerors. So did Camillus at the Veii, Scipio at Carthage and Numance, & Mummius at Corinth. ay The Galls sacked] The The Galls take Rome. Transalpine Galls burst often into Italy in huge multitudes. The last of them were the Senones, who first sacked Clusium, & afterwards Rome: Anno P. R. C. CCCLX. whether there were only these, or some Cisalpine Galls amongst them, is uncertain. (k) The Geese] It is a very common story, that when the Galls had found a way up to the Capitol, and were climbing up in the night when all the keepers were a sleep, they were descried by the noise that the geese did make which they kept in the capitol as consecrated unto juno. And thereupon Manlius The Capitols Geese. snatching up his weapons, met a Gall upon the very top of the battlement, and tumbled him down with his bucklar: whose fall struck down the rest that were a coming up, and in the mean time, the romans got them into arms, and so repulsed the Galls with much ado. (l) Superstition of the Egyptians] They had certain beasts, which because of their usefulness they consecrated as gods: Tully de nat. dear. lib. 1. of them at large in Diodorus, Biblioth. lib. 2. Egypt's beast gods. Such were the Dog, the Cat, the bird Ibis, the Ox, the Crocodile, the Hawk. etc. (m) The goose's feast,] Because of that good turn which the Geese did them, the romans did every year use this ceremony: (Plut. de Fortuna Romanor.) I will relate it in Budaeus his words, for I cannot use a more excellent phrase. A Dog was hanged upon a gallows, and a Goose was placed The gods honours at Rome. very decently in a gallant bed or panier, for all men to visit as that day. For the same cause (saith Pliny lib. 29.) there were Dogs hanged up every year upon a gallows between the Temples of juventus, and Summanus, the gallows was of an eldern tree: and the first thing that the Censor doth after his institution, is to serve the holy geese with meat. That the variety of temporal estates dependeth not upon the pleasure or displeasure of these devils, but upon the judgements of God almighty. CHAP. 23. NAy what say you to this, that these their gods do seem to assist them in fulfilling their desires, and yet are not able to restrain them from brooding up such desires: for they that helped (a) Marius, an unworthy base borne fellow, to run through the inducement and managing of such barbarous civil wars, The happy success of wicked Marius. to be made seven times Consul, to die an old man in his seventh Consulship, and to escape the hands of Sylla, that immediately after bore down all before him, why did not these gods keep Marius from affecting any such bloody deeds, or excessive cruelty? If his gods did not further him in these acts at all, then have we good advantage given us by their confession, that this temporal felicity which they so greatly thirst after, may befall a man without the gods furtherance: and that other men may be as Marius was, enguirt with health, power, riches, honours, friends, and long life, and enjoy all these, maugre the gods beards: and again, that other men may be as Regulus was, tortured in chains, slavery, misery, overwatching, and torments, and perish in these extremities, do all the gods what they can to the contrary: which if our adversaries do acknowledge, then must they needs confess that they do nothing benefit their worshippers (b) commodity, and consequently that all the honour given them as out of superfluity: for if they did rather teach the people the direct contraries to virtue and piety, the rewards whereof are to be expected after men's deaths, than any thing that way furthering them: and if in these transitory and temporal benefits, they can neither hinder those they hate, nor further those they love: why then are they followed with such zeal and fervency? why do you mutter that they are departed, as from a course of turbulent and lamentable times, and hence take occasion to throw calumnious reproaches upon the religious christians? If that your gods have any power to hurt or profit men in these worldly affairs, why did they stick to that accursed Marius, and shrink from that honest Regulus? doth not this convince them of injustice and villainy? Do you think that there was any want of their worship on the wretch's party? think not so: for you never read that Regulus was slacker in the worship of the gods than Marius was. Nor may you persuade yourselves, that a corrupted course of life is the rather to be followed, because the gods were held more friendly to Marius then to Regulus: for (c) Metellus, the honestest man of all the romans, (d) had five Consuls to his sons, and lived happy in all temporal estate: and (e) Catiline, that villainous wretch, was oppressed with misery and brought to nought in the war which his own guilt had hatched: good men that worship that God who alone can give felicity, do shine, and are mighty in the true and surest happiness: wherefore, when as the contaminate conditions of that weal-public, did subvert it, the gods never put to their helping hands to stop this inundation of corruption into their manners, but rather made it more way, and gave the Commonwealth a larger pass unto destruction. Nor let them shadow themselves under goodness, or pretend that the cities wickedness drove them away. No, no, they were all there, they are produced, they are convicted, they could neither help the City by their instructions, nor conceal themselves by their silence. I omit to relate how (f) Marius was commended unto the goddess Marica by the pitiful Minturnians in her Wood, & how they made their prayers to her that she would prosper all his enterprises, and how he having shaken of his heavy desperation, returned with a bloody army even unto Rome itself: Where what a barbarous, cruel, and more than most inhuman victory he obtained, let them that list to read it, look in those that have recorded it: This as I said I omit: nor do I impute his murderous felicity unto any Marica's, or I cannot tell whom, but unto the most secret judgement of the most mighty God to shut the mouths of our adversaries, and to free those from error that do observe this with a discreet judgement and not with a prejudicate affect. For if the devils have any power or can do any thing at all in these affairs, it is no more than what they are permitted to do by the secret providence of the almighty: and in this case, they may be allowed to effect somewhat to the end that we should neither take too much pleasure in this earthly felicity, in that we see that wicked men like Marius may enjoy it, neither hold it as an evil, & therefore to be utterly refused, seeing that many good honest men, and servants of the true & living God have possessed it in spite of all the devils in hell: and that we should not be so fond as to think that these unclean spirits are either to be feared for any hurt, nor honoured for any profit they can bring upon man's fortunes. For they are in power, but even as wicked men upon earth are, so that they cannot do what they please, but are mere ministers to his ordinance, whose judgements no man can either comprehendfully, or reprehend justly. L. VIVES. THey that helped Marius] Ater he returned out of Africa, he called all the slaves to his standard, and gave them their freedom: and with all cruelty spoiled the Colonies of Ostiae, Marius' his cruelty. Antium, Lavinium, and Aritia. Entering the City, he gave his soldiers charge that to whomsoever he returned not the salute, they should immediately dispatch him. It is unspeakable to consider the innumerable multitude of all sorts, Noble and ignoble, that were slaughtered by this means. His cruelty Lucan in few words doth excellently describe. Vir ferus & fat●…●…vpienti perdere Romam. Sufficiens,— Cruel & fittest instrument for fate. To wrack Rome by.— And yet this bloody man (as I said before) in his seventh Consulship, died quietly in his bed, as Lucan saith: Folix ●…uersa consul moritarus in vrb●…. Happy dead Consul in his ruin'd town. Soon after his death, came Sylla out of Asia, and rooted out Marius his son and all the whole faction of them utterly. (b) Commodity] Saint Augustine plays with these Antitheses, Compendio & Superfluo: Compendio Briefly, or Compendio to their commodity, whose contrary is Dispendium, Excess or Superfluity. (c) Metellus.] Ualerius, lib. 7. and Pliny lib. 7. Q. Metellis Macedonicus was judged of all men the most happy, as a man endowed Metellus, his felicity with all good qualities of body and mind. He was Consul, he was Censor, he managed great wars with happy success, he attained the glory of a triumph: he left four sons, three of them were Consuls, two of which triumphed: one of which was Censor: his fourth was Praetor, & pricked for the Consulship, and (as Uelleius saith) he attained it: Besides he had three daughters all married to Noble and mighty houses, whose children he himself lived to see; and by this illustrious company, all sprung from his own loins (being of exceeding age) he was borne forth to his funeral. (d) Five Consuls to his sons] [This history is depraved by some smattering fellow: For I do not think that Saint Augustine left it so. Unless you will take Quinque filios Consulares, for Five sons worthy to be Consuls: as my fine Commentator observed most acutely: which he had not done unless his skill in Logic had been so excellent [] Paris' copy ●…eanes 〈◊〉 this. as it was: so he finds it to be Consulares quasi Consulabiles, or Consulificabiles, that is (in the magisterial phrase) in potentia to become Consuls.] (e) And Catiline] The life and conditions of L. Sergius Catiline, are well known because Sallust himself the author that reporteth them, is so well known. It is said that amongst other reasons, poverty was one of the chief, Catiline. ( that set him into the conspiracy against his country, for he was one whose excessive spending exceeded all sufficient means for a man of his rank. In Sulla's time he got much by rapine, and gave Sylla many gifts; who used his help in the murder of M. Marius, & many others. (f) I omit to relate that Marius] C. Marius having escaped alone out of the first battle of the civil wars, fled to Minturnae a town of Campania. The Minturnians to do Sylla a pleasure sent a fellow to cut his throat: but the fellow being terrified by the words, and majesty of the man, and Marius' his fligt. running away as one-wholy affrighted, the Minturnians turned their malice to reverence, and began to think now that Marius was one whom the gods had a meseriall care of: so that they brought him into the holy Wood which was consecrated to Marica, a little without the town, and then they set him free to go whether he would: Plutarch in the life of Marius. Velleius saith they brought him to the marish of Marica: She that was first called Circe (saith Lactantius) after her deifying, was enstiled Marica. Servius (in Aenaeid. lib. 8.) saith, Marica Marica. was the wife of Faunus, and that she was goddess of the Minturnians shores, near the river Ly●…: H●…race: 〈◊〉 Maricae litterribus tenuisse Lyrim, Held Lyris swimming near Maricas, shores. But if we make her the wife of Faunus, it cannot be so: for the Topical Gods, that is, the local gods of such and such places, do never change their habitations, nor go they into other countries: But Poetical licence might call her Marica of Laurentum, when indeed she was Marica of Minturnum. Some say that by Marica should be understood Venus: who had a Chapel near unto Marica wherein was written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Temple of Venus. Hesiod saith that Latinus was the son of Ulysses and Cyrce: which Virgil toucheth, when he calls him His grandsire's form, the sons: Solis avi specimen. But because the times do not agree, therefore we must take the opinion of Iginius touching this point, who affirms that there were many that were called by the names of Latinus: and that therefore the Poet wresteth the concordance of the name, to his own purpose. Thus much saith Servius. Of the Acts of Sylla, wherein the Devils showed themselves his main helpers and furtherers. CHAP. 24. NOw as for (a) Sylla himself, who brought all to such a pass, as that the times before (whereof he professed himself a reformer) in respect of those that he brought forth, were wished for again and again; when he first of all set forward against Marius towards Rome, Livy writes that the entrails in the sacrifices were so fortunate, that (b) Posthumius the Soothsayer would needs have himself to be kept under guard, with an urgent and willing proffer to lose his head, if all Sulla's intents sorted not (by the assistance of the gods) unto his head, if all Sulla's intents sorted not (by the assistants of the gods) unto most wished and happy effect. Behold now, the gods were not yet gone: they had not as yet forsaken their altars, when they did so plainly foreshew the event of Sulla's purposes: and yet they never endeavoured to mend Sylla's manners. They stuck not to promise him wished happiness; but never proffered to suppress his wicked affections. Again, when he had under-taken the Asian war against Mithridates, L. Titius was sent to him on a message, even from jupiter himself, who sent him word that he should not fail to (c) overcome Mithridates: no more he did indeed. And afterwards, when he endeavoured to re-enter the city, and to revenge himself, and his injured friends, upon the lives of the Citizens, he was certified that a certain soldier of the sixth legion, brought him another message from jove, how that he had foretold him of his victory against Mithridates before, and how he promised him now the second time, that he would give him power to recover the rule of the weal-public from all his enemies, but not with out much bloodshed. Then Sylla ask of what favour the soldier was: when they had showed him, he remembered that it was he that brought him the other message in the war of Mithridates, and that he was the same man that now brought him this: What can be said to this now, that the gods should have such care to acquaint Sylla with the good events of these his wishes: and yet none of them have power to reform his fowl conditions, being then about to set abroach such mischiefs by these domestic arms, as should not pollute, but even utterly abolish the state of the weal-public? By this very act do they prove themselves (as I said heretofore) directly to be devils. And we do know, our scripture shows it us, and their own actions confirm it, that their whole care is to make themselves be reputed for gods, to be worshipped as divine powers, and to have such honours given them, as shall put the givers and the receivers both into one desperate case, at that great day of the Lord. Besides, when Sylla came to Tarentum, and had sacrificed there, he descried in the chief lap The form of a crown●… of gold in the liver of a Calf. of the calves liver, a figure just like a crown of gold: and then Posthumius the Soothsayer answered him again, that it portended him a glorious victory, and commanded that he alone should eat of these entrails. And within a little while after, (d) a servant of one Lucius Pontius came running in, crying out in Prophetic manner, I bring news from Bellona, the victory is thine Sylla: and then added, That the Capitol should be fired. Which when he had said, presently going forth of the rents, he returned the next day in greater haste than before, and said that the Capitol was now burned: and burned it was indeed. This now might quickly be done by the devil, both for ease in the knowledge of it, and speed in the relation. But now to speak to the purpose, mark but well what kind of gods these men would have, that blaspheme Christ, for delivering the hearts of the believers from the tyranny of the devil. The fellow cried out in his prophetic rapture: The victory is thine, O Sylla, and to assure them that he spoke by a divine instinct, he told them of a sudden event that should fall out soon after, in a place from whence he in whom this spirit spoke, was a great way distant. But he never cried, Forbear thy Villainies O Sylla: those were left free to be executed by him with such horror, and committed with such outrage, as is unspeakable, after that victory which the bright sign of the Crown in the calves liver did prognosticate unto him. Now if they were good and just gods, and not wicked fiends, that had given such signs, then truly these entrails should have expressed the great mischiefs that should fall upon Sylla himself, rather than any thing else: for that victory did not benefit his dignity so much, but it hurt his affections twice as much: for by it was his spirit elevated in vain glory, and he induced to abuse his prosperity without all moderation, so that these things made a greater massacre of his manners, than he made of the citizens bodies. But as for these horrid and lamentable events, the gods would never foretell him of them, either by entrails, Prophecies, Dreams, or Sooth-saying: for their fear was least his enormities should be reform, not lest his fortunes should be subverted. No, their (e) endeavour was, that this glorious conqueror of his Citizens, might be captivated and conquered by the rankest shapes of viciousness, and by these, be more strictly bound and enchained unto the subjection of the devils themselves. L. VIVES. SYlla (a) himself. The Marian faction (during their superiority) governed the commonwealth with such cruelty and insolence, that all the desires and hearts of the people longed for Sylla, and called him home, to come and revenge those tyrannies. But his good beginnings Sylla his cruelty. lifted him up unto such intolerable pride, and blood-thirst, that afterwards they all acknowledged Marius as a meek lamb in respect of him. Lucan. Sylla quo●… immensis accessit cladibus ultor, Ille, quod ●…xiguum restabat sanguinis urbis Ha●…it.— Then Sylla came to wreak the woes sustained, And that small quantity that yet remained, Of Roman blood he drew.— And a little after: T●…●…ta libert●… odijs, resoluta●… legum Franis i●… a ●…uit: non uni cuncta dabantur, Sed fecit sibi quisquenefas, semel omnia victor 〈◊〉.— Then hate broke freely forth, and (laws rains gone) Wrath mounted: not lay all the guilt on one, But each wrought his own stain: the victor's tongue licensed all acts at once.— (b) Posthumius] Cicero (De divinatione lib. 1.) saith that he was also a Soothsayer with Sylla in the war called Sociale, of the Associates or confederates. In which war, Cicero P●…sthumius. himself was a soldier. Ualerius also affirms this to be true (de prodigiis.) (c) Mithridates] This was a most valiant King of Pontus, against whom the people of Rome denounced Mithridaces. wars, first of all because he chased Nicomedes out of Bythinia. But afterwards, broke the war out beyond all bounds, because that upon one set day, all the Roman Citizens that were found trafficking in his dominions, were murdered every man, by the command of Mithridates himself. This King's fortunes did Sylla first of all shake, than did Lucullus break them, and last of all Pompey did utterly extinguish them, subjecting his whole kingdom unto the Roman Empire, the King having killed himself. Plutarch in the lives of Pompey, Lucullus, etc. Appian Alex. in Mithridatico. Florus, and others. (d) A servant of one] So saith Plutarch in his life of Sylla. The Capitol was built on mount Tarpeius by Tarquin the Proud: and a Temple, the fairest of all them on the Capitol, was dedicated unto jupiter by Horatius Puluillus then Consul, the first year of the cities liberty. It was burned in the Marian war: Cn: Carbo, and L. Scipio being Consuls. Anno P. R. C. DCLXXI. Repaired by Sylla, finished and consecrated by Q. Ca●…ulus: only in this (as Sylla said) did fate detract from his felicity. Some think it was burnt by Sylla's means, others by Carbo's the Consuls: Appian saith, that it was fired by mere chance, no man knew how. (e) Endeavoured] Satis agebant, had a diligent and a●…xione-care to effect it. How powerfully the Devils incite men to villainies, by laying before them examples of divine authority (as it were) for them to follow in their villainous acts. CHAP. 25. WHo is he then (unless he be one of those that loveth to imitate such gods) that by this which is already laid open, doth not see, how great a grace of God it is to be separated from the society of those devils? and how strong they are in working mischief, by presenting their own examples, as a divine privilege and authority, whereby men are licenced to work wickedness. Nay, they The devils together by the cares amongst themselves. were seen in a (a) certain large plain of Campania, to fight a set battle amongst themselves, a little before that the citizens fought that bloody conflict in the same place. For at first there were strange & terrible noises heard; & afterwards it was affirmed by many, that for certain days together, one might see two armies in continual fight one against the other. And after that the fight was ceased, they found the ground all trampled with the steps of men, and horses, as if they had been made in that battle. If the deities were truly and really at wars amongst themselves, why then indeed their example may give a sufficient privilege unto humane conflicts: (but by the way, let this be considered, that these deities in the mean space must either be very malicious, or very miserable:) but if they did not fight, but only illuded the eyes of men with such a show, what intended they in this, but only that the romans should think that they might lawfully wage civil wars, as having the practices of the gods themselves for their privileges? for presently upon this apparition, the civil dissensions began to be kindled, and some bloody massacres had been effected before. (b) And already were the hearts of many grieved at that lamentable act of a certain soldier, who (c) in taking of the spoils of his slain foe, and discovering him by his face, to be his own brother, with a thund●…r of curses upon those domestic quarrels, he stabbed himself to the heart, and fell down dead by his brother's side. To enuelop and overshadow the irksomeness of such events, and to aggravate the ardent thirst after more blood and destruction, did those devils (those false reputed gods) appear unto the romans eyes in such fight figures, to animate the city not to be any whit in doubt to imitate such actions, as having the example of the gods for a lawful privilege for the villainies of men. And out of this subtlety did these malevolent powers give command for the induction of those stage-plays, whereof we have spoken at large already, and wherein such dishonest courses of the gods were portraited forth unto the world's eye, upon their stages, and in the theatres; that all men (both those that believe that their gods did such acts, and those that do not believe it, but see how pleasing it is to them to behold such impurities) may hence be bold to take a free licence to imitate them, and practise to become like them in their lives. Lest that any man therefore should imagine, that the Poets have rather done it as a reproach to the gods, then as a thing by them deserved, (d) when they have written of their fightings The God's examples furthered the wars. and brabblings one with another, to clear this misconstruction, they themselves have confirmed these Poesies, to deceive others: and have presented their combats, and contentions, not only upon the Stage by players, but even in the plain fields by themselves. This was I enforced to lay down; because their own authors have made no doubt to affirm and record, that the corrupt and rotten manners of the Citizens, had consumed the state of the weal-public of Rome unto nothing, long before that Christ jesus came into the world: for which subversion of their state they will not call their gods into any question at all, but all the transitory miseries of mortality (which notwithstanding cannot make a goodman perish whether he live or die) they are ready to heap on the shoulders of our Saviour Christ. Our Christ, that hath so often powered his all-curing precepts upon the incurable ulcers of their damned conditions, when their false gods never put to an helping hand, never up-held this their religious commonweal from ruining, but cankering the virtues that upheld it with their vile acts and examples, rather did all that they could to thrust it on unto destruction. No man (I think) will affirm that it perished because that Discessere omnes adytis arisque relictis,— Dij— The gods were gone, and left their Altars bare.— As though their love to virtue, and their offence taken at the wicked vices of the city had made them depart: no, no, there are too many presages from entrails, sooth-saying, and prophecies, (whereby they confirmed and animated their servants, and extolled themselves as rulers of the fates, and furtherers of the wars) that prove and convince them to have been present: for had they been absent, the romans in these wars would never have been so far transported with their own affections, as they were with their God's instigations. L. VIVES. IN (a) a certain plain of Campania] L. Scipio and C. Norbanus being Consuls, between Capua and Uulturnum was heard a huge clashing of arms, and sounding of martial instruments, with an horrible noise and crying, as if two battles had been there fight in their greatest fury. This was heard for many days together. julius Obsequens. Now this Scipio and this Norbanus were the two first Consuls with whom the great Sylla had the first conflict, after Prodigious sounds of battles heard. his return into Italy, for they were both of Marius his faction. (b) And already] for when friends and acquaintance meet, and know one another in contrary fronts of battle: then know they well what kind of war they are fallen into; and have a full view of the fruits of civil hate: So saith Lucan in his Tharsalia, lib. 4. — Postquam spacio languentia nullo Mutua conspicuush ab verunt lumina vultus. Et fratres, nat●…sque sicos videre patrésque, Deprehensum est civil n●…as.— — when they from their confronting places, Gazed a good while in each others faces, And fathers met their sons, and brethren there, Then show'd the war true evil— (c) Taking of the spoils] Livy lib. 79. This fell out when Cynna and Marius sought that desperate battle with Cn. Pompey, father to Pompey the great. Ualerius (lib. 5.) saith that one of Pompey's soldiers killed his own brother that served Sertorius in his wars. Livy Brethren killing one another. putteth Cynna for Sertorius; but both might come to pass: for all the armies were of Cynna's raising, which notwithstanding were divided into four. Cynna led one, Marius another, Q. Sertorius the third, Cn. Carbo the fourth. Orosius writeth that Pompey fought a battle with Sertorius, wherein this tragedy of the two brethren fell out. (d) When they have written of their fightings, and their] Homer in the wars of Troy, makes the gods to be at great variance, even unto strokes amongst themselves: Mars, Venus, and Apollo, against Pallas, juno, and Neptune. Of certain obscure instructions concerning good manners which the Devils are said to have given in secret, whereas all wickedness was taught in their public solemnities. CHAP. 26. WHerefore seeing that this is so, seeing that all filthiness confounded with cruelties, all the gods foulest facts and shames, whether true or imaginary, by their own commandments, and upon pain of their displeasures, if it were otherwise, were set forth to open view, and dedicated unto themselves, in the most holy and set solemnities, and produced as imitable spectacles to all men's eyes: towhat end is it then, (a) that seeing these devils, who acknowledge their own uncleanness, by taking pleasure in such obscaenities, by being delighted with their own villainies and wickednesses, as well performed as invented; & by their exacting these celebrations of modest men in such impudent manner, do confess themselves the authors of all pernicious and abhorred courses; yet would seem (forsooth) and are reported to have given certain secret instructions against evil manners, in their most private habitacles, and unto some of their most selected servants? If it be so, take here then an excellent observation of the craft and maliciousness of these unclean spirits. The force of honesty, and chastity, is so great and powerful upon man's nature, that all men, or almost all men, are moved with the excellency of it, nor is there any man so wholly abandoned to turpitude, but he hath some feeling of honesty left him. Now for the devils depraved nature, we must note, that unless he sometime change himself into an angel of light, (as we read in our scriptures that he will do) he cannot fully 2. Cor. 11. effect his intention of deceit. Wherefore he spreads the blasting breath of all impurity abroad, and in the mean time, whispers a little air of dissembled chastity within. He gives light unto the vilest things, and keeps the best in the dark, honesty lieth hid, and shame flies about the streets: Filthiness must not be acted, but before a great multitude of spectators: but when goodness is to be taught, the auditory, is little or none at all: as though purity were to be blushed at, and uncleanness to be boasted of: But where are these rules given, but in the devils temples? where, but in the very Inns, or exchanges of deceit? And the reason is, because that such as are honest (being but few) should hereby be enueighled, and such as are dishonest, (which are multitudes) remain unreformed. But as for us, we cannot yet tell when these good precepts of celestial chastity were given: but this we are sure of, that before (b) the very temple gates, where the Idol stood, we beheld an innumerable multitude of people drawn together, and there saw a large train of Strumpets on one side, and a (c) virgin goddess on the other; here humble adorations unto her; and there, foul and immodest things acted before her. We could not see one modest mimike, not one shamefast actor amongst them all: but all was full of actions of abominable obscaenitie. They knew well what that virgin deity liked, and pronounced it for the nations to learn by looking on, and to carry home in their minds. Some there were of the chaster sort, that turned away their eyes from beholding the filthy gestures of the players, and yet though they blushed to look upon this artificial beastliness, they gave scope unto their affections to learn it. For they durst not behold the impudent gestures of the actors boldly, for being shamed by the men: and less durst they condemn the ceremonies of that deity whom they so zealously adored. But this was that presented in the temples, and in public which none will commit in their own private houses, but in secret. It were too great a wonder if there were any shame left in those men of power, to restrain them from acting that, which their very gods do teach them, even in their principles of religion; and tell them that they shall incur their displeasures if they do not present them such shows. What spirit can that be, which doth inflame bad minds with a worse instinct, which doth urge on the committing of adultery, and fats itself upon The devils incite men to mischief by wicked instigations the sin committed, but such an one as is delighted with such representations, filling the temples with diabolical Images, exacting the presenting of loathsome iniquity in Plays, muttering in secret, I know not what good Counsels, to deceive and delude the poor remainders of honesty, and professing in public all incitements to perdition, to gather up whole harvests of men given over unto ruin? L. VIVES. TO what end is it (a) that] A diversity of reading. We follow the best copy. (b) before the temple] He speaketh of the solemnities of the Goddess Flora; which were kept by all the strumpets and ribalds in the City, as Plutarch, Ovid, and others do report. For Flora herself was an whore: Lactantius lib. 1. The plays of Flora are celebrated with all lasciviousness The Goddess Flora. befitting well the memory of such a whore. For besides the bawdry of speeches, (which they stuck not to spew forth in all uncleanness) the whores (at the people's earnest entreaty) put off all their apparel (those I mean that were the actors did this) and there they acted their immodest gestures before the people, until their lustful eyes were fully satisfied with gazing on them. (c) The virgin goddess] That was Vesta. Upon the day before the Calends of May, they kept the feasts of Flora, Vesta, Apollo, and Augustus, upon Mount Palatine. ovid. Fastorum. 4. Exit & in Maia's festum Florale Calendas, Tune repetam, nunc me grandius urget opus: Aufert Vesta diem, cògnati, Vesta recepta est Limine: sic justi constituere Patres. Phoebus' habet partem: Vestae pars altera cessit: Quod superest illis tertius ipse tenet. State Palatinae Laurus, pretextaque quercus Stet: domus aeternos tres habet una deos. Let Flora's feasts, that in May's kalends are, Rest till they come: now, to a greater fair: This day is Vesta's: she is entertained, In her sons house: our fathers so ordained. Phoebus hath part, Vesta hath part assigned The third's Augustus share that's left behind. Live green thou noble oak, and Palatine Keep green thy days, three gods possess one shrine. What a great means of the subversion of the Roman estate, the induction of those scurrilous plays, was, which the surmised to be propitiatory unto their gods. CHAP. 27. TErtullius (a) a grave man, and a good Philosopher, being to be made Aedile, cried out in the ears of the whole City, that amongst the other duties of his magistracy, he must needs go pacify mother Flora, with the celebration of some solemn plays: (b) which plays, the more foully they were presented, the more devotion was held to be shown. And (c) in another place (being then Consul, he saith that when the City was in great extremity of ruin, they were feign to present plays continually for ten days together; and nothing was omitted which might help to pacify the gods, as though it were not fitter to anger them with temperance, then to please them with luxury: and to procure their hate by honesty, rather than to flatter them with such deformity. For the barbarous inhumanity of those (d) men, for whose villainous acts the gods were to be appeased were it never so great, could not possibly do more hurt, than that filthiness which was acted as tending to their appeasing, because that in this, the gods will not be reconciled unto them, but by such means as must needs produce a destruction of the goodness of men's minds, in am of their preventing the dangers imminent only over their bodies: nor will these Deities defend the cities walls, until they have first destroyed all goodness within the walls. This pacification of the gods, so obscene, so impure, so wicked, so impudent, so unclean, whose actors the romans diss-enabled from all magistracy, (e) and freedom of City, making them as infamous as they knew them dishonest: this pacification (I say) so beastly, and so directly opposite unto all truth of Religion, and modesty, these fabulous inventions of their god's filthiness, these ignominious facts of the gods themselves (either foully feigned, or fowlier effected) the whole city learned both by seeing and hearing: observing plainly, that their gods were well pleased with such presentations, and therefore they did both exhibit them unto their Idols, and did imitate them themselves: But as for that (I know not indeed well what) honest instruction, and good counsel, which was taught in such secret, and unto so few, that I am sure was not followed, if it be true, that it were taught belike it was rather feared, that too many would know it, then suspected that any few would follow it. L. VIVES. TErtullius (a) a grave man] it should surely be Tullius: for this that Saint Augustine quoteth is out of his orations: Wherefore it must either be: Tullius that grave man, and that smatterer in Philosophy: (Saint Augustine so deriding his speculation, that could not free him from such gross errors,) or Tullius that grave man and thrice worthy Philosopher: to show, that the greatest Princes were infected with this superstition, and not the vulgar only, nor the Princes only but the gravest princes, and those that were Philosophers, not mean ones, but of chief note: adding this, to amplify the equity of his Philosophy, as Ter maximus, the thrice mighty. Now (saith Tully in verrem, Actio. 6. that I am made Aedile, let me reckon up the charge The office of the Aedile. that the city hath imposed upon me. I must first present the most sacred Plays and ceremonial solemnities unto Ceres, Liber and Proserpina: then, I must reconcile mother Flora unto the City and people of Rome, with the celebration of her interludes, etc. (b) Which plays] They were such that the actors would not play them as long as Cato the elder was present. Seneca, Valerius, Plutarch and Martial do all report this. (c) In another place] In Catilinam. Actio. 3, (d) Men for whose] he meaneth Catiline and his conspirators, (e) Freedom of City] some copies read Tributa amovit, but the ancient ones do read it Tribu movit, with more reason. Of the salvation attained by the Christian religion. CHAP. 28. WHy then do these men complain think you? because that by the name of Christ, they see so many discharged of these hellish bands that such unclean spirits held them in, and of the participation of the same punishment with them. Their ingrateful iniquity hath bound them so strongly in these devilish enormities, that they murmur and eat their galls, when they see the people flock unto the Church, to these pure solemnities of Christ, where both sexes are so honestly distinguished by their several places; where they may learn how well to lead their temporal lives here, to become worthy of the eternal hereafter: where the holy doctrine of God's word is read from an eminent place, that all may hear it assure a reward to those that follow it, and a judgement to those that neglect it. Into which place if there chance to come any such as scoff at such precepts, they are presently either converted by a sudden power, or cured by a sacred fear: for there is no filthy sights set forth there, nor any obscaenities to be seen, or to be followed; but there, either the commandments of the true God are propounded, his miracles related, his gifts commended, or his graces implored. An exhortation to the romans to renounce their Paganism. CHAP. 29. LEt these rather be the objects of thy desires, thou courageous nation of the romans, thou progeny of the Reguli, Scaevolae, Scipio's, and (a) Fabricii. long after these, discern but the difference between these, and that luxurious, filthy shameless malevolence of the devils. (b) If nature have given thee any laudable eminence, it must be true piety that must purge and perfect it: impiety contaminates and consumes it. Now then, choose which of these to follow, that thy praises may arise, not from thyself that may be misled, but from the true God, who is without all error. Long ago, wast thou great in popular glory: but as then (as it pleased the providence of the high God), was the true Religion wanting, for thee to choose and embrace. But now, awake, and rouse thyself (c) it is now day, thou art already awake in some of thy children, of whose full virtue, and constant sufferings for the truth we do justly glory: they even these who fight at all hands against the powers of iniquity, and conquering them all by dying undaunted, have purchased this * He meaneth they have been a great enlargement of the true Church of God, upon earth, by suffering so constantly. possession for us with the price of their blood. To partake of which possession we do now invite and exhort thee, that thou wouldst become a Citizen, with the rest, in that city wherein true remission of sins standeth as a glorious sanctuary. Give no ear unto that degenerate brood of thine, which barketh at the goodness of Christ and Christianity, accusing these times of badness, and yet desiring such as should be worse, by denying tranquillity to virtue, & giving security unto all iniquity: these times didst thou never approve, nor ever desiredst to secure they temporal estate by them. Now then reach up at the heavenly ones, for which, take but a little pains, and thou shalt reap the possession of them, unto all eternity. There shalt thou find no vestal fire, nor (e) stone of the capitol, but one true God, (f) who will neither limit thee blessedness in quality, nor time, but give thee an Empire, both universal, perfect, & eternal. Be no longer led in blindness by these thy illuding and erroneous gods; reject them from the, and taking up thy true liberty, shake of their damnable subjection. They are no gods, but wicked fiends; and all the Empire they can give them is but possession of everlasting pain. (g) juno The happiness that the devils can bestow on men. did never grieve so much that the Trojans (of whom thou descendest) should arise again to the state of Rome, as these damned devils (whom as yet thou holdest for gods) do envy and repine, that mortal men should ever enjoy the glories of eternity. And thou thyself hast censured them with no obscure note, in affording them such plays, whose actors thou hast branded with express infamy. Suffer us then to plead thy freedom against all those Impure devils that imposed the dedication and celebration of their own shame & filthiness upon thy neck and honour. Thou couldst remove and dis-inable the players of those uncleanesses, from all honours: pray likewise unto the true God, to quit thee from those vile spirits that delight in beholding their own spots, whither they be true, (which is most ignominious) or feigned, (which is most malicious). Thou didst well in clearing the state of thy City from all such scurrilous off-scummes as stageplayers: look a little further into it: God's Majesty can never delight in that which polluteth man's dignity. How then canst thou hold these powers, that loved such unclean plays, as members of the heavenly society, when thou holdest the men that only acted them, as unworthy to be counted in the worst rank of the members of thy City? The heavenly City is far above thine, where truth is the victory; holiness the dignity; happiness the peace, and eternity the continuance. far is it from giving place to such gods, if thy city do cast out such men. Wherefore if thou wilt come to this city, shun all fellowship with the devil. Unworthy are they of honest men's service, that must be pleased with dishonesty. Let christian reformation sever thee from having any commerce with those gods, even as the Censors view separated such men from partaking of thy dignities. But as concerning temporal felicity, which is all that the wicked desire to enjoy; and temporal affliction, which is all they seek to avoid, hereafter we mean to show, that the devils neither have nor can have any such power of either, as they are held to have, (though if they had, we are bound rather to contemn them all, then to worship them, for these benefits, which seeing that thereby we should utterly debar ourselves of that, which they repine that we should ever attain:) hereafter (I say) shall it be proved, that they have no such power of those things, as these think they have, that affirm that they are to be worshipped for such ends. And here shall this book end. L. VIVES. ANd (a) Fabricii.] Fabricius was Consul in Pyrrhus his war at which time the romans Fabucius. virtue was at the height: he was, valorous, poor, continent, and a stranger to all pleasure, and ambition. (b) If nature have given thee] The stoics held that nature gave every man virtues seeds. some gifts: some greater some lesser: and that they were graced, increased, and perfitted by discipline, education, and excercise. (c) it is now day] Alluding unto Paul. Rom. 13. 12. The night is past, and the day is at hand. The day, is the clear understanding of goodness, in whose Day, how used. power the Sun is, as the Psalmist faith. The night is dark and obscure. (d) in some of thy Children] Meaning, that some of the romans were already converted unto Christ. (e) no stone of the Capitol] Jove's Idol, upon the capitol was of stone: and the romans used to swear by Per jove unlapidem. jove, that most holy stone: which oath became afterwards a proverb. (f) who will neither limit] They are the words of jove in Virgil, Aeneid. 1. promising the raising up of the Roman Empire. But with far more wisdom did Saluste (orat. ad Caium Caesarem senen) affirm, that the Roman estate should have a fall: And African the younger seeing Carthage burn, with the tears in his eyes, recited a certain verse out of Homer, which intimated that Rome one day should come to the like ruin. (g) juno did not] Aeneides the first. Finis Lib. 2. THE CONTENTS OF THE third book of the City of God. 1. Of the adverse casualties which only the wicked do fear, and which the world hath always been subject unto, whilst it remained in Paganism. chapter 1. 2. Whether the Gods to whom the romans and the greeks exhibited like worship, had sufficient cause given them to let Troy be destroyed. chap. 2. 3. That the gods could not justly be offended at the adultery of Paris using it so freely and frequently themselves. chap. 3. 4. Of Varro's opinion, that it is meet in policy that some men should feign themselves to be begotten of the gods. chap. 4. 5. That it is alltogither unlikely that the gods revenged Paris his fornication, since they permitted Rhea's to pass unpunished. chap. 5. 6. Of Romulus his murdering of his brother which the gods never revenged. chap. 6. 7. Of the subversion of Ilium by Fimbria a captain of Marius his faction. chap. 7. 8. Whether it was convenient to commit Rome to the custody of the Trojan gods. chap. 8. 9 Whether it be credible, that the gods procured the peace that lasted all Numa's reign. chap. 9 10. Whether the romans might desire justly that their cities estate should arise to pre-eminence by such furious wars, when it might have rested firm and quiet, in such a peace as Numa procured. chap. 10. 11. Of the statue of Apollo at Cumae, that shed tears (as men thought) for the Grecians miseries, though he could not help them. cap. 11. 12. How fruitless their multitude of gods was unto the romans, who induced them beyond the institution of Numa. chap. 12 13. By what right the romans attained their first wives. chap. 13 14. How impious that war was which the romans began with the Albans, and of the nature of those victories which ambition seeks to obtain. chap. 14 15. Of the lives and deaths of the Roman Kings. chap. 15 16. Of the first Roman consuls, how the one expelled the other out of his country: and he himself after many bloody murders, fell by a wound given him by his wounded foe. chap. 16 17. Of the vexations of the Roman estate after the first beginning of the consuls rule: And of the little good that their gods all this while did them. chap. 17 18. The miseries of the romans in the African wars, and the small stead their gods stood them there in. chap. 18 19 Of the sad accidents that befell in the second African war, wherein the powers on both sides, were wholly consumed. chap. 19 20. Of the ruin of the Saguntines, who perished for their confederacy with Rome, the Romainen gods never helping them. chap. 20 21. Of Rome's ingratitude to Scipio, that freed it from imminent danger, and of the conditions of the citizens in those times that Saluste commendeth to have been so virtuous. chap. 21 22. Of the edict of Mythridates, commanding every Roman that was to be found in Asia, to be put to death. chap. 22 23. Of the more private and interior mischiefs that Rome endured, which were presaged by that prodigious madness of all the creatures that served the use of man. chap. 23 24. Of the civil discord that arose from the seditions of the Gracchis. chap. 24 25. Of the temple of Concord built by the Senate in the place, where these seditions and slaughters were effected. chap 25 26. Of the divers wars that followed afther the building of Concord's temple. chap. 26 27. Of Silla and Marius. chap. 27 28. How Silla revenged Marius his murders. chap. 28 29. A comparison of the Goths irrupsions, with the calamities that the romans endured by the Gauls, or by the authors of their civil wars. chap. 29 30. Of the great and pernicious multitude of the romans wars a little before the coming of Christ. chap. 30 31. That those men that are not suffered as now to worship Idols show themselves fools in imputing their present miseries unto Christ, seeing that they endured the like when they did worship the devils. chap. 31. FINIS. THE THIRD BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of the adverse casualties which only the wicked do fear: and which the world hath always been subject unto, whilst it remained in paganism. CHAP. 1. WHat we have already spoken I think is sufficient, concerning the depraved state of men's minds and manners, which is principally to be avoided: that in these cases these false imaginary gods did never endeavour to lighten their servants of any of these inconveniences, but rather added unto their loads and furthered their deprivations. Now, I see it is time to take those evils in hand, which are the only things that these men are so loath to endure, above and beyond all others, as famine, sickness, war, invasion, thraldom, slaughter, and such other like, as we have recited in our first book: for these things alone are they, which evil men account for evils, that do not, nor are not of power to make men any way evil: nor are these wretches ashamed to give goods things their due praise, and yet keep evil still themselves that are the praisers of good: being far more offended at the (a) badness of their lands, then of their lives; as if man were made to enjoy all things except himself: But notwithstanding all this, their gods (for all their dutiful observance) never did go about to restrain the effects of those evils, which their servants are so sore afraid of, nor ever withheld them from lighting upon them, for the world was oppressed with divers extreme & sore calamities at several times, long before the redemption; & yet (as touching those times) what other gods but those Idols were there worshipped in any part of the world except only amongst the jews (b) and by some other peculiar people whom it pleased the unsearchable wisdom of the great God to illuminate. But because I study to be brief, I will not stand upon the world's miseries in general: only what is Rome's peculiars, or the Roman Empires, I mean to relate: that is, such inflictions as before the coming of Christ, fell either upon the city itself, or upon such provinces as belonged unto it, either by conquest or society, as members of the body of that commonweal, of those I mean to speak somewhat in particular. L. VIVES. AT the (a) badness of their lands] Some read it, si illa mala, others, (and the more ancient) si villam malam, better, and more acutely by a figure called Denomination (b) some other peculiar] As job, and some other gentiles, that proportioned their lives by the laws of nature, of whom hereafter: Whether the gods, to whom the romans and the greeks exhibited like worship, had sufficient cause given them to let Troy be destroyed. CHAP. 2. FIrst therefore of Troy, or Ilium, whence the romans claim the descent (for we may not omit nor neglect what we touched at in the 1. book:) why was Troy besieged, & destroyed by the greeks that adored the same gods that it did; The privity of (a) Laomedon: the father (say some) was wreaked in this sack, upon Priam the son. Well then it is true that (b) Apollo & Neptune served as workmen under the Apollo and Neptune work the building of Troy. same Laomedon, for otherwise the tale is not true that saith that he promised them pay and broke his oath unto them afterwards. Now cannot I but marvel that such a great fore-knower, as Apollo was, would work for Laomedon, and could not foretell that he would deceive him: nor is it decent to affirm that Neptune his uncle jupiter's brother & king of all the sea, should have no foresight at all in things to come. For (c) Homer brings him in foretelling great matters of the progeny of Aeneas, whose successors built Rome (yet is Homer (d) reported to have lived before Iliad 2. the building of Rome) nay more, he saveth Aeneas from Achilles by a cloud, desiring to raze this perjured city of Troy though it were his own handiwork as (e) Virgil declareth of him. Thus than these two gods, Neptune and Apollo, were Aeneid. 5. utterly ignorant of Laomedon's intention to delude them, and builded the walls of Troy (f) for thanks and for thankless persons. Look now, whether it be a worse matter to put confidence in such gods, or to consume them. But Homer himself (it seems) did hardly believe this tale, for he maketh (g) Neptune to fight against Troy, and Apollo for it; whereas the fable giveth them both one cause of being offended, namely Laomedon's perjury. Let those therefore that believe such reports be ashamed to acknowledge such deities: and those that believe them not, let them never draw cavils from the Troyans' perjuries, nor marvel that the gods should hate perjuries at Troy, and love them at Rome. For otherwise, how could it come to pass, that besides the abundance of all other corruption in the city of Rome, there should be such a great company in Catiline's conspiracy that lived only by their tongues practise in perjury and their hands in murder? what other thing did the senators by taking bribes so plentifully and by so many false judgements? what other thing did thee (ay) people by selling of their voices, & playing double in all things wherein they dealt, but (k) heap up the sin of perjury? for even in this universal corruption, the old custom of giving & taking oaths was still observed, but that was not for the restraint of wickedness by awe of religion, but to add perjury also unto the rest of their monstrous exorbitances. L. VIVES. THe perjury (a) of Laomedon] Virgil in the first of his Georgikes: — Sat is iampridem sanguine nostro, Laomedont●…ae luimus periuria Troi●…. — Our blood hath long agone, Paid for the faith-breach of Laomedon. (a) Than it is true] Apollo and Neptune seeing Laomedon the King of Phrygia, laying the foundations of the walls of Troy, and marking the hugeness of the work he went about, agreed for a great sum of gold, to make an end of this work for him, which having done, he denied that he promised them any thing (c) Homer brings] Aeneas upon a certain time being in fight with Achilles, and being put to the worst, in so much that he was almost slain, Neptune speaketh thus: Homer Iliad. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. etc. as followeth in English thus. But let us save him yet ere he be slain, Lest great Achilles' fury if again It burst into effect, we help too late: Whilst it is time, let us deceive his fate: Lest all the stock be quite abolished Of Dardanus whom I so valued: Whom jove his father prised above all His sons, whose mothers were terrestrial. But seeing jove doth now detest his line, This man, in birth and valour near divine, Shall rule the Phrygians: and through him, their King, There to an endless nation shall they spring, Neptune's Prophecy. Because of these verses in Homer, Dionysius Halicarnasseus writeth that many have affirmed, that Aeneas leaving his fellows in Italy, returned into Phrigia, and there having repaired Troy, reigned as King, and left the crown to his posterity after him. But Homer speaketh of the Italian Troy, and the kingdom which arose from that Phygian Troy, namely of the Albians & the Lavinians; both which nations descended from the Troyans' that accompanied Aeneas (d) Homer reported] at what time Rome was built, or at what time Homer lived the ancient writers do not justly and uniformly define: though the first be less dubitable than the latter. Plutarch in the life of Romulus saith that he and Remus first founded the walls in the third year of the sixth Olimpiad on which day was an eclipse of the moon: Dionysius and Eusebius say. the 1. year of the 7. olympiad: after the destruction of Troy CCCCXXXII. years. Solin. in Polihist. Cincius will have it built in the twelfth Olympiad: Pictor in the eighth: Nepos, and Luctatius, (to whom Eratosthenes and Apollodorus agree) the seventh olympiad, the second year. Pomponius Atticus and Tully, the seventh and the third year, therefore by all correspondency of the Greek computations to ours, it was built in the beginning of the seventh Olympiad CCCCXXXIII. years after the ruin of Troy. About Homer's time of living, his country, and his parentage, the Greek writers keep a great ado: Some say he was present at the wars of Troy: Indeed he himself brings in his Phemius singing in the banquet of the wooers (Odissi.) But whether he do it through an ambitious desire to grace his Mr. in beyond the reach of the time or no, it is doubtful. Others say he lived not until an hundred years after this war of Phrigia: and some there be that ad fifty more unto the number. Aristarchus gives him to those times about which there was a Colonye planted in jonia, sixty years after the subversion of the Heraclidae: CXXX. years after the Troyans' wars. Crates thinketh that there was not fourscore years between the demolishing of Troy and the birth of Homer: Some affirm him to have been son to Telemachus, Ulysses his son, and Tolycasta, daughter to Nestor. In the chronicle of Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea we find this recorded: We find (saith he) in the latin history, that Agrippa reigning amongst the Latins, Homer flourished amongst the greeks, as Appollodorus the Grammarian, and Euphorbeus the Historiographer do both testify, CXXIIII years before the building of Rome, and as Cornelius Nepos saith before the fi●…st olympiad an C. years. Howsoever than it fall out Homer was before the building of Rome: which Tully also doth bear witness of in his Quaestiones Tusculanae. (e) Virgil declareth.] Aeneid. 5. — Pelidae tunc ego f●…rti, Congressum Aeneam, nec diis nec viribus aequis, Nube cava eripui: cuperem cum vertere ab imo, Structa meis ma●…ibus periturae maenia Troiae etc. — Then in an hollow cloud, I saved him, when he combated that Greek, Though having neither fate, nor force alike. Then when mine own●… work Troy, I sought to raze etc. (f) for thanks and thankless] Gratis, & ingratis: that, an adverb, this an adjective, (g) Neptune] Apollo favoureth the Troyans'. Neptune after that Laomedon had thus cheated him, was always a heavy enemy of the Trojans: But Apollo, being more gentle, and remiss, was as good friends with them as before. Virgil, Aeneid. 6. Phoebe graves Troiae semper miscrate lab●…res. Dardana qui Paridis direxti ●…ela manusque, Corpus in Acacidae etc. Phoebus, that always pitied Troy's distress, And g●…ue the hand of Paris good success. Against Achilles' life. etc. (h) the senators] by the Semprnoian law which Caius Gracchus preferred, the Gentlemen of Rome had the judging all causes twenty years together without any note of infamy and then by the law Plautian were selected fifteen out of every tribe, by the suffrages of the people The law Sempronian of judgements. The Plautian The Cornelian, The Aurelian. to be judges for that year, this was done in the second year of the Italian war. Cn. Pompeius, son to Sextus, and L. Cato being consuls, Afterwards the law Cornelian which Silla instituted, the authority was reduced to the senate: who judged ten years together most partially, and most corruptedly When the greater sort judged saith Tully against Verres) there was great complaining of unjust judgements. Last of all by the law Aurelian, preferred by M Aurelius Cotta being praetor, both senate and people combined, had the hearing and censuring of causes ay the people] Lucan in his first book. Hinc raptifasces precio, sectorque favoris, Ipse sui populus, lethalisque ambitus urbi: Annua venali referens certamima campo. Hence, coin Fought consulships, through this dejection The people sold their voices: this infection, Filled Mars his field with strife at each election. (k) But heaped up] for the judges were sworn to judge truly, and the people before they gave their voices were sworn at a sacrifice, not to hold any reward, or favour of the worth of the commonwealths estate and safety. That the gods could not justly be offended at the adultery of Paris, using it so freely and frequently themselves. CHAP. 3. WHerefore there is no reason to say that these gods who supported the empire of Troy were offended with the Troyans' perjury, when the greeks did prevail against all their protections. Nor is it, as some say, in their defence, that the anger at Paris his (a) adultery made them give over Troy's defence, for it is their custom to practise sin themselves, and not to punish it in others. (b) The Troyans' (saith Sallust) as I have heard, were the first founders & inhabitants of Rome: those were they that came away with Aeneas, and wandered without any certain abode. If Paris his fact were then to be punished by the gods judgements, it was either to fall upon the Troyans', or else upon the romans, because (c) Aeneas his mother was chief agent therein. But how should they hate it in Paris, when as they hated it not in Venus, one of their company, who (to omit her other pranks) committed adultery with Anchiseses and by him was begotten (d) Aeneas. Or why should his fault anger Menelus, and hers (e) please Vulcan? I do not think the gods such abasers of their wives, or of themselves, as to vouchsafe mortal men to partake with them in their loves. Some perhaps will say I scoff at these fables: and handle not so grave a cause with sufficient gravity: why then if you please let us not believe that Aeneas is son to Venus I am content, so (f) that Romulus likewise be not held to be Mars his son. (g) If the one be so, why is not the other so also, Is it lawful for the gods to meddle carnally with women, and yet unlawful for the men to meddle carnally with Goddesses: a hard, or rather an incredible condition, that what was lawful for Mars (h) by Venus her law should not be lawful for Venus by her own law. But they are both confirmed by the Roman authority, for ay Caesar of late, believed no less that (k) Venus was his grandmother then (l) Romulus of old believed that Mars was his father. L. VIVES. Parish his (a) adultery] This I think is known to all, both blind men and barbers (as they say) that the wars of Troy arose about Alexander Paris his rape of Helen, wife unto Menelaus (b) the Troyans'] at what time, and by whom Rome was built, Dionysius, Solinus, Plutarch, and divers others, discourse with great diversity: he that will know further, let him look in them. (c) Aeneas his mother] for Paris used Venus as his bawd, in the rape of Helen, and Ue●… in the contention of the goddesses for beauty, corrupted the judgement of Paris with promise of Helen, (d) Aeneas] he was son to Anchises and Venus. Virgil. Tunc ille Aeneas quem Dàrdanio Anchisa Alma Venus Phryg as g●…nuit Sy●…oēntis odd vn●…s? Art thou that man whom bea●…teous Venus bore, got by 〈◊〉 on smooth Simois shore? And Lucretius. Aeneadum genitrix hominum, diwmque vol●…ptas, Alma Venus.— Mother t' A●…eas live, the gods delight Fair Venus— (e) Vulcan] Husband unto Venus, (f) Romulus not be] Dionysius. Ilia, a Vestal Virgin, going to Mars his wood to fetch some water, was ravished in the Church (some say) by some of her suitors, Romulus' his ●…atner. some, by her uncle Amulius being armed, others by the Genius of the place. But I think rather that Romulus was the son of some soldier, and Aeneas of some whore: and because the soldiers are under Mars, and the whores under Venus, therefore were they fathered upon them. Aeneas his mother. Who was Aeneas his true mother, is one of the sound questions that the grammarians stand upon in the four thousand books of Dydimus, as Seneca writeth. (g) If the one be so] Illud, and illud, for hoc and illud, a figure rather Poetical then Rhetorical. (h) By Venus her law] A close, but a conceited quip. Mars committed adultery with Venus. This was lawful for Mars by Venus' law, that is by the law of lust, which Venus governeth: then why should not the same privilege in lust be allowed to Venus herself, being goddess thereof: that which is lawful to others by the benefit of Venus, why should it not be permitted to Venus to use herself freely in her own dominion of lust, seeing she herself alloweth it such free use in others. ay Caesar] This man was of the julian family, who was derived from julus, Aeneas his son, and so by him to Venus. This family was brought by King Tullus from Alba Caesar's family. longa to Rome, and made a Patrician family. Wherefore Caesar being dictator built a temple to Venus, which he called the temple of mother Venus: my Aunt julia (saith Caesar in Suetonius) on the mother's side is descended from Kings, and on the fathers, from gods. For from An●…us Martius, a King, the Martii descended, of which name her mother was: and from Venus came the julii, of which stock our family is sprung. (k) His grandmother] Set for any progenitrix, as it is often used. (l) Romulus of old] And Caesar of lat●…, because of the times wherein they lived, being at least six hundred years distant. Of Varro's opinion, that it is meet in policy that some men should feign themselves to be begotten of the gods. CHAP. 4. But do you believe this will some say? not I truly. For Varro, one of their most learned men, doth (though faintly, yet almost plainly) confess that they all are false. But that it is (a) profitable for the cities (saith he) to have their greatest men their generals and governors, believe that they are begotten of gods, though it be never so false: that their minds being as illustrate, with part of their parent's deity, may be the more daring to undertake, more servant to act, and so more fortunate to perform affairs of value. Which opinion of Varro, (by me here laid down) you see how it opens a broad way to the falsehood of this belief: and teacheth us to know, that many such fictions may be inserted into religion, whensoever it shall seem useful unto the state of the city, to invent such fables of the gods. But whether Venus could bear Aeneas by Anchises, or Mars beget Romulus of Syluta, (b) Numitors daughter▪ that we leave as we find it, undiscussed. For there is almost such a question ariseth in our Scriptures. Whether the wicked angels did commit fornication with the daughters of men, and Gen. 6. whether that thereupon came Giants, that is, huge and powerful men, who increased and filled all the earth? L. VIVES. IT is (a) profitable] It is generally more profitable unto the great men themselves, who hereby have the people's love more happily obliged to them. This made Scipio that he would never The benefit of being held divine. seek to change that opinion of the people, who held, that he was begot by some god: and Alexander in Lucian saith it furthered him in many great designs, to be counted the son of jupiter Hamon. For hereby he was feared, and none durst oppose him that they held a god. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (saith he) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The Barbarians observed me with reverence and amazement, and none durst withstand me, thinking they should war against the gods, whose confirmed son they held me. (b) Numitors daughter,] Numitor was son to Procas the Albion King, and elder brother to Amulius, But Numitor & his children being thrust by his brother from his crown, he lived privately, Amulius enjoying the crown by force and fraud. Numitor had Lausus to his son, and Rhea or Ilia Syluia to his daughter: the boy was killed, the daughter made Abbess of the Vestals by Amulius, meaning by colour of religion to keep her from children-bearing: who notwithstanding had two sons, Romulus and Remus, by an unknown father as is aforesaid. That it is altogether unlikely that the gods revenged Paris his fornication, since they permitted Rhea's to pass unpunished. CHAP. 5. WHerefore now let us argue both the causes in one. If it be certain that we read of Aeneas and Romulus their mothers, how can it be that the gods should disallow of the adulteries of mortal men, tolerating it so fully and freely in these particulars? If it be not certain, howsoever, yet cannot they distaste the dishonesties of men, that are truly acted, seeing they take pleasure in their own, though they be but feigned: Besides, if that of Mars with Rhea be of no credit, why then no more is this of Venus with Anchises. Then let not Rhea's cause be covered with any pretence of the like in the gods. She was a virgin Priest of Vesta, and therefore with far more justice should the gods have scourged the romans for her offence, than the Troyans' for that of Paris: for the (a) ancient Romans' themselves did punish such vestals as they took in this offence, by burying them quick: (b) never censuring others that were faulty in this kind with death, (but ever with some smaller penalty,) so great was their study to correct the offences of persons appertaining to religion, with all severity above others. L. VIVES. THE (a) ancient] If a virgin vestal offended but lightly, the high Priest did beat her: but being convicted of neglect of chastity, or whoredom, she was carried in a coffin to The punishment of the offending vestal. the gate Collina, as if she went to burial, all her friends and kinsfolks bewailing her, the Priests and other religious following the hearse with a sad silence. near to the gate was a cave, to which they went down by a ladder, there they let down the guilty person, alone, took away the ladder, and shut the cave close up: and lest she should starve to death, they set by her, bread, milk, and oil, of each a quantity, together with a lighted lamp: all this finished, the Priests departed: and on that day was no cause heard in law; but it was as a vacation, mixed with great sorrow and fear: all men thinking that some great mischief was presaged to befall the weal public by this punishment of the Vestal. The vows and duties of those Vestals, Gellius (amongst others) relateth at large. (Noct. Atticarum lib. 1.) (b) Never censuring others] Before Augustus, there was no law made against adulterers, nor was ever No law against adultery before Augustus. cause heard (that I know of) concerning this offence. Clodius indeed was accused for polluting the sacrifices of Bona Dea, but not for adultery, which his foes would not have omitted, had it lain within the compass of law. Augustus' first of all instituted the law julian against men adulterers, it contained somewhat against unchaste women also, but with no capital punishment: though afterwards they were censured more sharply, as we read in the Caesar's answers The law juliana. in justintans' Code, and the 47. of the Pandects. Dionysius writeth, that at Rome's first original Romulus made a law against adultery, but I think he speaks it Graecanicè, as he doth prettily well in many others matters. Of Romulus his murder of his brother, which the gods never revenged. CHAP. 6. NOw I will say more: If those Deities took such grievous and heinous displeasure at the enormities of men, that for Paris his misdemeanour they would needs utterly subvert the city of Troy by fire and sword: much more than ought the murder of Romulus his brother to incense their furies against the romans, than the rape of Menelaus his wife against the Troyans': Parricide (a) in the first original of a City, is far more odious than adultery in the wealth and height of it. Nor is it at all pertinent unto our purpose (b) whether this murder were commanded or committed by Romulus, which many impudently deny, many do doubt, and many do dissemble. We will not entangle ourselves in the Labyrinth of History, upon so laborious a quest: Once, sure it is, Romulus his brother was murdered: and that neither by open enemies, nor by strangers. If Romulus either willed it, or wrought it, so it is: Romulus was rather the chief of Rome then Paris of Troy. Why should the one than set all his gods against his country for but ravishing another man's wife, and the other obtain the protection of (c) the same gods for murdering of his own brother? If Romulus be clear of this imputation, then is the whole city guilty of the same crime howsoever, in giving so total an assent unto such a supposition: and in steed of killing a brother, hath done worse in killing a father. For both the brethren were fathers and founders to it alike, though villainy barred the one from dominion. There is small reason to be shown (in mine opinion) why the Troyans' deserved so ill, that their gods should leave them to destruction, and the romans so well, that they would stay with them to their augmentation; unless it be this, that being so overthrown and ruined in one place, they were glad to fly away to practise their illusions in another; nay they were cunninger than so; they both stayed still at Troy to deceive (after their old custom) such as afterwards were to inhabit there; and likewise departed unto Rome that having a greater scope to use their impostures there they might have more glorious honours assigned them to feed their vainglorious desires. L. VIVES. PArricide (a) in] Parricide is not only the murder of the parent, but of any other equal: Parricide. some say ‛ Parricidium, quasi patratio caedis, committing of slaughter. It is an old law of Nums: He that willingly doth to death a freeman shall be counted a Parricide (b) Whether this murder] Numa's. ●…aw Remus his death. There be that affirm, that Remus being in contention for the Kingdom, when both the factions had saluted the leaders with the name of King, was slain in the by●…kerng between them: but whether by Romulus or some other, none can certainly affirm. Others and more in number, say that he was slain by Fabius, Tribune of the light horsemen of Romulus, because he leapt in scorn over the newly founded walls of Rome; and that Fabius did this by Romulus his charge: Which fact Cicero terms wicked and inhuman. For thus in his fourth book of Offices he discourseth of it. But in that King that built the city it was not so. The gloss of commodity dazzled his spirits: and since it seemed fitter for his profit to rule without a partner then with one, he murdered his own brother. Here did he leap over piety, nay and humanity also: to reach the end he aimed at, profit: though his pretence and colour, about the wall, was neither probale, nor sufficient wherefore be it spoken with reverence to Quirinus or to Romulus Romulus in this did well. (c) The same gods] Which were first brought to Aeneas to I aviniun, & from thence to Alba by Ascanius, and from Alba the romans had them by Romulus, with the Assent of Num●…tor: and so lastly were by Tullus transported all unto Rome. Of the subversion of Ilium by Fimbria, a Captain of Marius his faction. CHAP. 7. IN the first (a) heat of the (b) civil wars, what had poor Ilium done that (c) Fimbria, they veriest villain of all (d) Marius his set, should raze it down with more fury and (e) cruelty than ever the Grecians had showed upon it before? For in their conquest, many escaped captivity by flight, and many avoided death by captivity: But Fimbria charged in an express edict, that not a life should be spared: and made one fire of the City and all the creatures within it. Thus was Ilium requited, not by the greeks whom her wrongs had provoked, but by the romans whom her ruins had propagated: their gods in this case (a like adored of both sides) doing just nothing; or rather being able to do just nothing: what, were the gods gone from their shrines, that protected this town since the repairing of it after the Grecian victory? If they were, show me why? but still the better citizens I find, the worse gods. They shut out Fimbria, to keep all for Sylla; he set the town and them on fire, and burned them both into dust and ashes. And yet in meantime (f) Sylla's side was stronger, and even now was he working out his power by force of arms: his good beginnings as yet felt no crosses. How then could the Ilians have dealt more honestly Sylla's side stronger than Marius' his. or justly? or more worthy of the protection of Rome? then to save a city of Rome's, for better ends, and to keep out a Parricide of his country's common good? But how they sped, let the defenders of these gods observe. They forsook the Ilians being adulterers, and left their city to the fires of the greeks: that from her ashes, Chaster Room might arise: But why did they leave her the second time, being Rome's allied, not rebelling against her Noble daughter, but keeping her faith sincerely unto Rome's best parts and powers? why did they let her be demolished so utterly, not by the valorous Grecians, but by a barbarous Roman? Or, if the gods favoured not Sylla's endeavours, for whom this city kept herself, why did they attend his fortunes with such happy success elsewhere? doth not this prove them rather flatterers of the fortunate, than favourers of the wretched? And therefore they had not forsaken Ilium utterly when it was utterly destroyed: no, no, the devils will still keep a watchful eye for advantage to deceive. For (g) when all the Images were burned together with the The devils car●… to deceive. town, only Mineruàs was found under all the ruins of her Temple, as Livy writeth, untouched: not that it should be said, You Patron gods that always Troy protect: but that it should not be said. The gods were gone and left their altars bare: in their defence they were permitted to save that Image, not that they might thereby prove themselves powerful, but that we might thereby prove them to have been present. L. VIVES. IN the (a) first] Marius' dying in his seventh Consulship, Cinna joined Valerius Flaccus with him in office, committing Asia to his rule, (which Sylla then governed) and strengthening him with two legions. This Flaccus by his covetise (the souldiour-hated vice) and other crimes growing very odious, was killed by C. Fimbria, Ambassador at Nicomedia: which Fimbria by the soldiers assent, entered upon his place, and warred against Mithridates with good fortune: having almost taken him prisoner in the siege of Pergamus: leading his army into Phrygia, and hearing that the Ilians were of Sylla's faction, he entered the city cunningly (saith Appian) forcibly (saith Livy) and killed all the Citizens, man, woman, and child, without all mercy, sparing nothing neither hallowed nor profane: after the greeks had destroyed it before M. L. years. (b) civil wars] After the first Marian war, before Sylla came into Italy to the utter subversion of that faction, this fell out. (c) Fimbria] This was a most audacious and impudent fellow, most prompt unto all villainy. He killed Crassus, and in the funeral of Marius, made Q. Scaevola a noble and honest man to be sore hurt. But seeing that the wound was not C. Fimbria. mortal, he cited him to answer an accusation. The whole city wondering that the chief priest should accuse the most honest man of the whole state, and flocking to hear the crime: he said he accused him for not taking the thrust of the weapon deep enough into his body. This Tully relateth in his Oration for Roscius Amerinus. (d) Marius his] Rather Cynna's but all the faction against Sylla was called Marian. (e) cruelty.] Appianus in Mithridato, saith that the day after the burning of Ilium, Fimbria himself went all over the ruins, prying and searching whether aught was left standing, intending to raze that down also, so that he left no house, no temple, no nor no statue standing in all Ilium. (f) Sylla's side] Saluste. Sylla of late, being victor, when he commanded Damasippus and others that had patched up their estate by the miseries of the weal-public to be slain who did not applaud him? every man said that such wicked creatures as had kept the fires of sedition still burning in the commonwealth, were now well rewarded. But indeed this was the root whence sprung a wood of miseries. Thus far Saluste in his Catiline's conspiracy: and a little before, Lucius Sylla having recovered the sway of the state by arms, began well, but ended badly enough: Which saying, S. Augustine here toucheth. (g) when all the Images] Appian, and julius Obsequens also say that the Palladium remained still unburnt. Servius (in 2. The Palladium. Aeneid.) saith that Fimbria showed it, and brought it unto Rome. Truly I wonder if that were the old Palladium that Aeneas (they say) brought from Troy into Italy, with the other Great Gods, which was placed by Hostilius in the Temple of Vesta after Alba was destroyed: which Temple being fired, Metellus the Priest fetched the Palladium from forth the greatest flames, for which deed the romans assigned him ample honours: which fell out soon after the peace concluded betwixt Rome and Carthage, after the end of the first African war, before Fimbrias time, C. L. years. Some think that Aeneas leaving the Latin Kingdom to his fellows, returned unto Phrigia with the Palladium: but this we have elsewhere disallowed of. The Lacaedemonians indeed believed that they had the Trojan Palladium, near the temple of the Leucippidae: which one Temon stole from Ergiaeus a kinsman of Diomedes at Argos, and brought it to Lacedaemon. Whose Citizens being warned by oracle to keep it, they erected it unto Ulysses, one of the Heroes. But that is the Palladium which Ulysses and Diomedes bore away as we said before in the Trojan war. Servius saith that Mamurrius the Smith made many figures of this Palladium, lest the true one indeed should be known. Wherein no doubt but Servius forgot himself and took the Palladium for the Ancylia. Whether it was convenient to commit Rome to the custody of the Trojan gods. CHAP. 8. WHerefore seeing Troy had left so plain a lesson for all posterity to observe; what discretion was there shown in the commending of Rome to the protection of the Trojan gods? O but, will some say, they were settled at Rome when Fimbria spoilt Ilium: were they so? whence comes the Image of Minera then? But well: it may be they were at Rome when Fimbria razed Ilium, and at Ilium when the Galls sacked Rome. And being quick of hearing, and swift in motion, as soon as ever the geese called them, they came all on a cluster, to defend what was left, the Capitol. But they were not called soon enough to look to the rest, or else it should not have been as it was. Whether it be credible, that the gods procured the peace that lasted all Numa's reign. CHAP. 9 IT is thought also that these are they that helped Numa Pompilius, Romulus his successor, to preserve that continual peace that lasted all the time of his reign, and to shut the gates of janus his (a) temple; and that because he deserved it at their hands, in instituting so many sacrifices for the romans to offer unto their honour. In earnest, the peace that this Prince procured was thankworthy, could he have applied it accordingly, and (by avoiding so penicious a curiosity,) have taken more pains in enquitie after the true divinity. But being as it was, the gods never gave him that quiet leisure: but it may be they had not deluded him so foully, had they not found him so idle. For the less that his business was, the more time had they to entrap him: for Varro recordeth all his courses, and endeavours to associate himself and his City with those imaginary gods: all which (if it please God) shall be rehearsed in their due place. But now, since we are to speak of the benefits which are pretended to come from those feigned deities: peace is a good benefit: but it is a benefit given by the (b) true God only, as the rain, the sun and all other helps of man's transitory life are; which are common even to the Peace bestowed on the unworthy. ungracious, and ungrateful persons as well as the most thankful. But if these Roman gods had any power to bestow such a benefit as peace is upon Numa, or upon Rome, why did they never do it after, when the Roman Empire was in greater majesty and magnificence? was their sacrifices more powerful at their first institution, then at any time after? Nay, many of them then were not as yet instituted, but remained unspoaken of until afterwards, and then they were instituted indeed, and kept for commodity sake. How cometh it then to pass that Numa's 43. Or as some say 39 years were passed in such full peace? and yet those sacrifices being neither instituted nor celebrated until afterwards; Numa's peace of 43. or 39 years. and the gods whom these solemnities invited, being but now become the guardians and patrons of the state, after so many hundred years from Rome's foundation until the reign of Augustus, there is but (c) one year reckoned, and that is held as wholly miraculous, which falling after the first African war, gave the romans just leave to shut up the gates of wars Temple? L. VIVES. janus (a) his temple] janus was a god, whose temple-dore being opened, was a sign of wars, and being shut, of peace unto Rome on all parts. This was erected by Numa, near Argiletus janus. his Sepulchre, as a monument of the fight against the Sabines, wherein a great deal of water bursting in at that gate, gave the romans much furtherance to the victory. And thereupon, it was decreed that that gate should be opened as it were to give assistance in all designs of war. He (that is, Numa) was the first that shut the gate that he builded, as saith Macrobius, Saturnal. 1.) and Manlius the second time, after the first Punic war. Augustus' thirdly. Liu. lib. 1. (b) true God] Therefore Christ our Saviour gave his disciples that peace which the world cannot give (c) One year reckoned] T. Manlius Torquatus etc. C. Attilius were Consuls this year, if we shall believe Eutropius, who is no bad historian. These Consuls having triumphed over the Sardes, and having procured a settled peace both by sea and land, shut the gates of janus Quirinus, which not many months after was opened again: A. L Posthumus Albinus, and Cn. Fuluius Centimalus being Consuls: or as others say, Sparke: Carbilius was in Fuluius his place: In the Illirian war: Whether the romans might justly desire that their cities estate should arise to pre-eminence by such furious wars, when it might have rested firm, and quiet, in such a peace as Numa procured. CHAP. 10. WIll they reply (think you) that the Imperial state of Rome had no other means of augmentation but by continuance of wars, nor any fitter course to diffuse the honour thereof then this? A fit course surely! why should any Empire make disquiet the scale unto greatness? In this little world of man's body, is it not better to have a mean stature with an unmoved health, than a huge bigness with intolerable sickness? to take no rest at the point where thou shouldst rest, the end? but still to confound the greater growth with the greater grief? what evil had there been, nay what good had there not been if those times had lasted that Sallust so applawded, saying: Kings in the beginning (for this (a) was first Imperial name on earth) were divers in their goodness: some exercised The first King's practices. their corporal powers, some their spiritual, and men's lives in those times were without all exorbitance of habit or affect, each one keeping in his own compass: why should the Empire be advanced by those practices that Virgil so detesteth? saying. Deterior donec paulatim & d●…color aetas Et belli rabi●…s, & amor successit habendi. (b) Until perverse declining times succeed: World-frighting wars, and ●…ll-pretended need. But indeed the romans as yet had a just defence for their so continued contentions and wars: because, their foes engirting them with such universal invasions, it was very necessity to save themselves, and not their endeavour to become powerful over others that put weapons into their hands. Well be it so. For, (as Saluste writeth) when they had well settled their estate by laws, customs and possessions, and seemed sufficiently potent, then, as it is in most affairs of mortality, out of their eminence arose envy in others, which armed many of their neighbour Kings against them, and withheld most of their reputed friends from assisting them; they rest standing afraid, and a far off. But the romans themselves, sticking to wars tackling, cheered up one another, to encounter the foe with courage, standing in their arms as the bulwarks of their freedom, their country, and their kindred. And having made their virtue break through all mists of opposed dangers, they aided those that affected them, returning more gain of friendship to their estate by being the agents of bounty than the objects, rather by doing good turns to others, then by receiving such of others. In these forms of augmenting herself, Rome kept a good Decorum. But now, in Numa's reign, was there any injuries of enemy or invasions, concurring to disturb this peace of his time, or was there not? If Rome were as then molested with wars, & yet did not oppose hostility with hostility; then those means that kept the foe from being overthrown in fight, and yet without strokes compelled them to composition; those very means alone should be still of power to shut janus his gates, and keep this peace continually in Rome. Which if it were not in their power to do, then verily the romans had not their peace as long as it pleased the gods to allow it them, but as long as the neighbour Princes listed not to invade and trouble them; (c) unless those gods had farmed that which lieth not in theirs but others power, unto each one at their pleasure, as it it were by the letter patent. There is much difference truly in these devils working upon men's proper infirmities, whether they work with terrors, or with incitations. But howsoever, were they of this power always, and were not controlled by a superior sovereignty, they would still be practising their authorities in wars and slaughters: which (as they fall out in truth) ordinarily, are rather the effects of mortal men's peculiar passions and affections, then direct practices of the damned spirits. L. VIVES. FOr this (a) was] So saith justine lib. 1. Herodotus, and Pliny. This institution derived from Egypt, where they say that Menes was the first King: though Diodorus affirm that Osiris, The first Kings. Horus, and divers others of the gods reigned before him. Our scriptures say that Nembroth was the first King, and reigned at Babylon. (b) Until perverse] Hesiod in his Opera & Dies, saigneth five ages of mortality, which place he beginneth thus. — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. — The gods did first of all Make men in golden moulds: celestial Their habitations were: In Saturn's reign Five ages of men. The world afforded such.— This, Virgil, Ovid, and others did imitate. The first age the Golden one, they say was under Saturn: without wars, or will to wars, humanity was locked in unity; neither were men contentious nor clamorous. These were called Saturnian days. The next age Silver, under jove, than war began to buffle: so did her daughter, care, hate, and deceit. The third, Brazen war hurls all upon heaps, and quasseth lives and blood. The fourth of the Halfgods, Heroes, who thought they loved justice, yet their bosoms harboured an eager thirst of wars. The first, Iron, wherein mischief goeth beyond bound and limit, and all miseries, breaking their prisons, assault man's fortunes; open deceit, open hate, open wars, slaughters, vastations, burnings, rapes, and rapines, all open violent and common (e) unless] unless the gods be so impudent, that they will sell that unto men, as a benefit from them, which hath the original from another man's will, and so require thanks of them as though it were there gift when it is rather the gift of another. [One interpreter understanding not the figure, rappeth [Paris copy leaves out this entirely.] out what came first on his tongue's end, and upon that, as upon a marble foundation, Lord what a goodly building he raiseth, concerning selling, and the powers of devils, man's affects, and many good morrows: even such like as this in foundation is much of our Philosophers and Schoole-divines trattle for all the world, what wonderful matters do they wring out of such or such places of Aristotle or the scriptures, as (indeed) they never could truly understand. O happy builders, that upon no foundation but only a mere smoke, can raise such goodly buildings, as are held absolutely sky-towring, so elegant, and so durable!] Of the statue of Apollo at Cumae, that shed tears (as men thought) for the Grecians miseries though he could not help them. CHAP. 11. NOtwithstanding, that there are many of these wars and conquests that fall out quite against those god's like, the Roman history itself (to omit those fables that do not tell one truth for a thousand lies) shall give clear proof, for therein we read that the statue of Apollo (a) Cumane, in the time of the Romans wars again the Achaians and (b) King Aristonicus, did persist four days together in contiunall weeping: which prodigy amazing the Soothsayers, they held it fit to cast the statue into the sea, but the ancients of Cumae dissuaded it, and showed them that it had done so likewise in the wars both against (c) Antiochus, and (d) Pers●…us, testifying also, that both these wars succeeding fortunarly unto Rome, the senate sent their gifts and oblations unto the statue of Apollo And then, the Soothsayers having learned wit, answered, that the weeping of Apollo was lucky to the romans, because that (e) Cuma was a Greek colony, and that the statues tears did but portend mishap unto the country from whence it came, namely unto Greece. And soon after, they heard how Aristonicus was taken prisoner, and this was the cause of Apollo's woes, shown in his tears. And as touching this point, not unfitly, though fabulously, are the devils tricks plainly discovered in the fictions of the Poets: Diana was sorry for Camilla in Virgil: And Hercules wept for the death of Pallas. And it may be that upon this ground Numa in his great peace given him, he neither knew nor sought to know by whom, bethinking himself in his idleness unto what gods he should commit the preservation of the romans fortunes, (never dreaming that it is only the great and almighty God that hath regard of these inferior things) and remembering himself, that the gods that Aeneas brought from Troy, could neither preserve the estate of the Troyans', nor that of the Lavinians erected by Aeneas, into any good continuance, he thought fit to seek out some others, to join with the former were gone with Romulus to Rome and that were afterwards to go, at the destruction of Alba either to keep them from running away, or to help them when they saw them too weak. L. VIVES. APollo (a) Cumane] King Attalus at his death, made the people of Rome heirs to his Kingdom: of which, Aristonicus his brother's bastard son, got possession before them: Aristonicus. hence grew there wars, in which, Licinius Consul and Priest, was sent as General, whom Aristonicus over-came. M. Perpenna the next years Consul hearing of Crassus his fortune, came with speed into Asia, and having overthrown Aristonicus, and forced him into Stratonica, through famine he forced him to yield, and so sent him to Rome. In this war Nicomedes, Mithridates, Ariarathes and Pylemanes, Kings of Bythinia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Paphlagonia favoured the romans: Achaia only, assisted Aristonicus. (b) King Aristonicus] Cra●…us death. This weeping of Apollo happened in the consulship of Appius Claudius, and M. Perpenna, as julius Obsequens (Fragm lib. de prodigiis) in these words affirmeth App. Claudius and M. Perpenna being Consuls, P. Crassus was slain in battle against Aristonicus. Apollo's statue wept four days. The prophets presaged the destruction of Greece, from whence it came. The romans The gods in a sweat. offered it sacrifice and brought gifts unto the temple. Thus far Obsequens. The weeping of a statue portended misfortune to those that it favoured, as upon the weeping of juno Sospita at Lavinium (Consuls, L. Aemilius Paulus, & Cn. Bebius Pamphilus:) followed a great pestilence. So saith Lucan of the prodigies in the civil wars. Indig●…tes fl●…uisse d●…os, v●…bisque laborem Testatos sudore Lares:— The Patron gods did weep: the cities pains, The swea●…ng Lar recorded.— (c) Antiochus] King of Syria, conquered by L. Cornelius Scipio, brother to Africanus: Livy Antiochu●…. at large Decad. 4. (d) Perseus] Some write Xerxes, but it is better, Perseus, son to Philip King of Macedon, whom. L: Aemilius Paulus conquered in a few hours, in the second Macedonian war. Plutarch in Aemilius his life: and others. (e) Cumae] The Chalcidians, and the Cumaeans (Strabo. lib. 5:) being people of Greece, sailed into Italy with a great navy, and landing in Campania there built a city: The Cumaeans captain was Hippocles, the Chalcidians Megasthenes: these agreed amongst themselves that the one people should inhabit the town, and the others should name it: and so they did: It was called Cumae, and the inhabitants were Chalcidians. Of this Cumae, Virgil hath this verse. Aenead. 6. Cumae. Chalcidicaque levis tandem superastitit ar●…: And light at last on the Chalcidian tower. This City (saith Strabo) is the most ancient City both of all Italy and Sicily. How fruitless their multitude of gods was unto the romans, who induced them, beyond the institution of Numa. CHAP. 12. NOr could Rome be content with those sacrifices which Numa had in such plentiful measure prescribed, for it had not as yet the great temple of jupiter. For it was Tarquin that (a) built the Capitol a good while after. And (b) Aesculapius came afterwards from Epidaurus unto Rome: because he being a (c) most expert Physician, might practise in so famous a City with the greater credit. The Mother of the gods also (of (d) whence, who can tell) came thither from (e) Pessinuns, It being a thing unmeet for the son to be the chief God of the Capitol, and the mother to lie obscured I know not where: But if she be the mother of all the gods, she did not follow all her children unto Rome, but left some to follow her thither. I wonder whether she were dam unto Cynocephalus, that (f) came out of Egypt long after or no. Whether the goddess. (g) Febris be one of her Children or no, (h) let Aesculapius, (ay) her Nephew look to that. But wheresoever she was borne, I hope the stranger gods dare not call a goddess base, that is (k) a Roman Citizen. Well, Rome being placed under the protection of so many gods (as who can reckon up?) both of Italians, and Foreigners, both of Heaven, Earth, Hell, Seas, Fountains, and Rivers, & as Varro saith, both (l) certain & uncertain, and as it is in creatures, both male & female of all these several kinds: me thinks that Rome having all these to be her Tutors, should never have tasted of such intolerable troubles as I mean to relate briefly out of their huger multitude. The great (m) smoke she sent'vp was like (n) a beacon, and called to many gods to her defence: unto all which the Priests erecting several monuments, and several mysteries, inflamed the fury of the true God in far greater measure, to whom only all these institutions & rights were belonging. Truly, Rome thrived a great deal better, when she had far fewer protectors: But growing greater, like as a ship calleth in more sailors, so called she in more gods: doubting (I think) that those few, (under whom she had passed a peaceable revolution before, in comparison of that that followed) were not now of sufficiency to defend her greatness, it was so much augmented. For at first, under the Kings themselves, (excepting Numa, of whom we spoke before) what a mischievous beginning of dissension was that, wherein Romulus killed his own and only brother? L. VIVES. TArquin (a) built] The proud. (Livi. lib. 1.) (b) Aesculapius] In the war of the Samnites he was brought from Epidaurus to Rome, by Ogolnius the Legate, in the shape of a Aesculapius. tame Snake, and he swam over into the I'll of Tiber, where his temple was built, and a feast instituted to him in the Calends of january. Epidaurus (once called Epitaurus: Strab.) is a town in Achaia, above Corinthe, on the Eastern shore, which Pliny called Saronium, and is named at this day Golfo di Engia: it was famous for the Temple of Aesculapius which stood in that territory, some five miles from the City. (c) A most expert Physician] Cicero holds there were three Aesculapii. First Apollo's son, worshipped in Arcadia. Second brother to the second Mercury, who was son to Valens and Phoronis: he was struck with thunder, and it is said he is buried at Cynosurae. The third, son to Arsippus and Arsinoe, first inventor of purging, and tooth-drawing: his sepulchre and his grave is to be seen in Arcadia, not far from the river Lusius. Tarqvinius speaking of the famous men (this we have from Lactantius) saith that Aesculapius was borne of unknown parents, and being cast out, and found by hunters, was fed with bitch's milk, and afterwards committed to Chiron, of whom he learned Physic: that by birth he was a Messenian, but dwelled at Epidaurus. Hypocrates saith, that he wrote the book called Navicula (as we have said in our principles of Philosophy) Corn. Celsus saith, he was numbered amongst the gods, for giving excellence and lustre unto Physic, which before was but rude and unpolished. (d) Of whence,] She was of ignoble and obscure descent, as Saturn her brother also was. For she they say was Ops: and therefore they held them as the children of Caelus, knowing not indeed of whence they were, who notwithstanding proved so famous and admired. Such as these were, the people thought to come But best of all by Livy h●… leave to say with the text, Pessinus, for Pessinus was a town in in Phrygia, where Cybel had a temple, before she had any at Rome. down from heaven. (e) Pessinus,] Some write Mount Prenestine: this place is faulty in all the copies that ever I could find. Others write Mount Pessinunt, but it were better to say, Mount Palatine, for there was the mother of the gods placed, at her first coming to Rome. (Liu. lib. 36.) and Victor de Regionibus urbis. (f) Came out of Egypt] Apuleius in his Ass saith, that the Deities of Egypt were brought thence unto Rome about Sylla's time, that is, above an hundred years after the mother of the gods came to Rome. But L. Piso, and A. Gabinius being Consuls, decreed by edict, that they should not come in the Capitol, though afterwards they did. Tertull. Apologetic. (g) Febris,] Some read, the god Februus, which cannot be good: for Februus is Pluto, unto whom they sacrificed in February, called so because of Purgation: this is not doubted of. But that it must be Febris here, that which followeth of Aesculapius, doth approve, and other subsequences. (h) Let Aesculapius,] Wittily applied, because he is a Physician. ay Nephew] Or grandchild: he was son to Apollo, he to jupiter, and he unto Ops. (k) A Roman Citizen] This is conceited also: for the romans made Febris a goddess. (l) Certain and uncertain,] For some of their Deities were doubtful: as Pans, the Sylvans, and the Nymphs. Ovid brings in jupiter speaking thus: Sunt mihi semidei, sunt rustica Nomina, Faumi, Et Nymphae, Satyrîque & monticolae Syluani, Quos quoniam caeli nondum dignamur honore, Quas dedimus certè terras habitare sinamus. Metamorph. We have of Semy-gods, and Sylvans, store: Nymphs, Fawns, and satires, and many more: Whom since as yet we have debarred the skies, We needs must guard on earth from injuries. Such also are Corybantes, Hippolytus, Atys and Sabbazius, whom Lucian calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, aliens and doubtful gods, (m) Smoke] Of the sacrifices: or meaning their vanity, is an allusion unto smoke, for smoke is often taken for a vain and frivolous thing, as to sell smoke. (n) As a Beacon] In time of war, or suspicion, the watchmen Sellers of smoke. placed bundles of dry small sticks, upon their high watch-stands, that when the enemy approached on a sudden, they might fire the sticks, and so give notice unto their own soldiers and the neighbouring towns: The greeks called those bundles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and by these fires within less than half an hour, notice might be given unto the country an hundred mile about, to come betimes to the preventing of their danger. It may also be understood of the sign given in battles. By what right the romans attained their first wives. CHAP. 13. IN like manner, neither juno (for all that she was now as her husband was, good friends with the romans) nor Venus, could help her sons progeny to honest and honourable marriages, but suffered this want to grow so hurtful unto them, that they were driven to get them wives by force, and soon after were compelled to go into the field against their wives own fathers, and the wretched women being yet scarcely reconciled to their husbands for this wrong offered them, were now endowed with their father's murders and kindred's blood: but in this conflict the romans had the luck to be conquerors. But O what worlds of wounds, what numbers of funerals, what Oceans of bloodshed did those victories cost! for one only father (a) in law Caesar, and for one only son in law Pompey; (the wife of Pompey, and daughter to Caesar being dead) with what true feeling, and just cause of sorrow doth Lucan cry out. Bella per Emathios plus quam civilia campos, ●…usque datum sceleri canimus:— Wars worse than civil in th' (b) Emathian plains, And right left spoil to rage we sing:— Thus then the romans conquered, that they might now return and embrace the daughters with arms imbrued in the blood of the fathers: nor du●…st the poor creatures weep for their slaughtered parents, for fear to offend their conquering husbands: but all the time of the battle, stood with their vows in their mouths (c) and knew not for which side to offer them. Such marriages Bellona, (and not Venus) bestowed upon the romans: or perhaps (d) Allecto that filthy hellish fury, now that juno was agreed with them, had more power upon their bosoms now, than she had then, when juno entreated her help against Aeneas. Truly (e) Andromacha's captivity was far more tolerable than these Roman marriages; for though she lived servile, yet Pyrrhus after he had once embraced her, would never kill Trojan more. But the romans slaughtered their own step fathers in the field, whose daughters they had already enjoyed in their beds. Andromacha's estate secured her from further fears, though it freed her not from precedent sorrows: But these poor souls being matched to these stern warriors, could not but fear at their husbands going to battle, and wept, at their return, having no way to freedom either by their fears or tears. For they must either (in piety) bewail the death of their friends and kinsfolks, or (in cruelty) rejoice at the victories of their husbands. Besides, (as wars chance is variable) some lost their husbands by their father's swords; and some lost both, by the hand of each other. For it was no small war that Rome at that time waged. It came to the besieging of the city itself, and the romans were forced to rely upon the strength of their walls and gates which (f) being gotten open by a wile, and the foe being entered within the walls (g) even in the very marketplace was there a most woeful and wicked battle, struck betwixt the fathers in law and the sons. And here were the ravishers conquered maugre their beards, and driven to fly into their own houses, to the great stain of all their precedent (though badly and bloodily gotten) (h) conquests: for here Romulus himself despairing of his soldiers valours, (ay) prayed unto jupiter to make them stand, and (k) here-upon got jupiter his surname of Stator) (l) Nor would these butcheries have ever been brought unto any end, but that the silly ravished women came running forth, with torn and dishevelled hair, and falling at their parents feet, with passionate entreaties, instead of hostile arms, appeased their justly enraged valours. And then was Romulus that could not endure to share with his brother, compelled to divide his Kingdom with Tatius, the King of the Sabines: but (m) how long would he away with him, that misliked the fellowship of his own twin-born brother? So Tatius being slain, he to become the greater Deity, took possession of the whole kingdom. O what rights of marriage were these, what firebrands of war; what leagues of brotherhood, affinity, union, or Deity! And ah what (n) lives the citizens lastly led, under so huge a beadroll of gods Guardians! You see what copious matter this place affordeth, but that our intention bids us remember what is to follow, and falls on discourse to other particulars. L. VIVES. FAther in law (a) Caesar] julia the only daughter of C. Caesar was married unto Cn. Pompeius the great. She died in childbed, whilst her father warred in France. And after that Aemathia. he and his son in law waged civils' wars one against another: (b) Emathian] That which is called Macedonia now, was called once Emathia. (Plin. lib. 4.) There did Pompey and Caesar fight a set field. (c) And knew not.] Ovid (Faster. 3.) hath these words of the Sabine women when the romans battle and theirs were to join: Mars speaketh. Conueniunt nuptae dictam junonis in aedem, Quas inter mea sic est nurus ausa loqui: O pariter raptae, quoniam hoc commune tenemus, Non ultra lentae possumus essepiae. Stant acies: sed utradij sunt pro part rogandi? Eligite, hinc coniunx, hinc pater arma tenet. Querendum est, viduae fieri malitis, an orbae? etc. The wives in juno's church a meeting make, Where met, my daughter thus them all be spoke: Poor ravished souls, since all our plights are one, Our zeal has now no mean to think upon. The battles join: whom shall we pray for rather? Choose: here a husband fights, and there a father: Would you be spouselesse (wives) or fatherless. etc. (e) Or perhaps Allecto] The 3. furies, Allecto, Magera, & Tisiphone, are called the daughters of night & Acheron. Allecto affects the hart with ire, hate, tumult, sedition, clamours, war, slaughters. T●… p●…es una●…s ar●…re in pr●…lia ●…ratres, 〈◊〉 ●…is ver●…re d●…s— 'tis thou can make sworn brethren mortal foes, Confounding hate with hate— Saith juno to Allecto, stirring her up against the Troyans'. Aeneid. 7. (e) Andromache] Hector's Andromache. wife, daughter to Tetion King of Thebes in Cilicia: Pyrrhus married her after the destruction of Troy. (f) Being got open] Sp. Tarpeius was Lieutenant of the Tower, whose daughter Tarpeia, Tatius the Sabine King with great promises alured to let in his soldiers when she went out to fetch water. She assented, upon condition that she might have that which each of his soldiers wore upon his left arm. Tatius agreed, and being let in, the Soldiers Tarpeia. smothered the maid to death with their bucklers: for them they wore on their left arms also, whereas she dreamt only of their golden bracelets which they bore on that arm. Plutarch (out of Aristides Milesius) saith, that this happened to the Albans, not to the Sabines. In Parallelis. But I do rather agree with Livy, Fabius, Piso, and Cincius, of the Latin writers, and Dionysius of the greeks. (g) In the very market place] Between the Capitol and Mount Palatine. (h) Conquests] Not of the Sabines, but of the Ceninensians, the Crustumerians, and the Attennates. ay Prayed unto jupiter] In these words: But O thou father of Gods and men, keep but the foes from hence, take away the Romans terror, and stay their flight. Unto thee O jupiter Stator, do I vow to build a temple in this place, as a monument unto all posterity, that by thine only help the city was saved. Livius lib. 1. (k) Hereupon] stato â sistendo, of staying, or à stando, of stablishing, that is, erecting the Roman spirits that were dejected. Cicero calleth this jupiter, the preserver of the Empire, in many places. I think it is because his Stator. house was near this temple. Saint Hierome saith, that this jupiter was form standing: not that he thinketh he was called Stator, because he standeth so upright, but because jupiter Tonans (as Hermolaus Barbarus hath noted) was always stamped and engraven upon ancient coins sitting: and Stator, standing, as being in readiness to help and assist men: Seneca gives a deeper reason of his name. He is not called stator (saith he) because (as history reporteth) he stayed the Roman army after the vow of Romulus, but because by his benefits all things consist, and are established. De benefic. lib. 4. And Tully likewise: When we call jupiter, Almighty, Salutaris, Hospitalis, & Stator, we mean, that all men's health, and stability is consisting of him and from him, being under his protection. But both these authors do here speak Stoically. For Tully maketh Cato the Stoic speak these fore-alleged words. De finib. lib. 3. For all these assertions of the gods the stoics reduced to a more Metaphysical or Theological sense. (l) Nor would these Butcheries] In the midst of the fight the women gave in betwixt the battles all bareheaded and loose haired: and calling on their parents on this side, and their husbands on that, with tears besought them both to fall to agreement. So the battle ceased, a league was made, the Sabines became citizens, and Tatius was joined King with Romulus. (m) But how long] The Laurentians of Lavinium slew Tatius the fifth year of his reign with Romulus, because his friends had injured their Ambassadors. Hereof was Romulus very glad. (n) lives] some read jura, laws. But in the old manuscripts, some have vita, and some vitae, lives, both better than jura. How impious that war was, which the romans began with the Alban, and of the nature of those victories which ambition seeks to obtain. CHAP. 14. BUT when Numa was gone, what did the succeeding Kings? O how tragical (as well on the romans side as on the Albans) was that war between Rome and Alba? Because (forsooth) the peace of Numa was grown loathsome, therefore must the romans and the Albans begin alternate massacres, to so great an endamaging of both their estates: And Alba (a) the daughter of Ascanius, Aeneas his son, (a more appropiate mother unto Rome then Troy) must by Tullus Hostilius his provocation, be compelled to fight with Rome itself, her own daughter. And fight with her, was afflicted, and did afflict, until the continual conflicts had utterly tired both the parties. And then they were feign to put the final ending of the whole war (b) to six brethren, three Horatij on Rome's sides, and three Curiatij on Albas'. So two of the Horatij fell by the three other: and the three other fell by the third only of the Horatij. Thus got Rome the upper hand, yet so hardly, as of six combatants, only one survived. Now who were they that lost on both sides? who were they that lamented but Aeneas his progeny, Ascanius his posterity, Venus of spring, and jupiter's children? for this war was worse than civil, where the daughter city bore arms against the mother. (c) Besides, this brethren's fight was closed with an horrid and an abominable mischief. For in the time of the league between both cities, a sister of the Horatij, was espoused to one of the Curiatij, who seeing her brother return with the spoils of her dead spouse, and bursting into tears at this heavy sight, was run thorough the body by her own brother in his heat and fury. There was more true affection in this one poor woman (in my judgement) then in all the whole Roman nation besides. She did not deserve to be blamed for bewailing that he was slain to whom she ought her faith (or that her brother had slain him to whom he himself perhaps had promised her his sister.) For Pious Aeneas is commended in Virgil for bewailing (d) him whom he had slain as an enemy. And Marcellus, viewing the fair city Syracuse, being then to be made a prey to ruin by the arms of his conduct, revolving the inconstancy of mortal affairs, pitied it, and bewailed it: I pray you then give thus much leave to a poor woman, in tender affection, faultlesly to bewail her spouse, slain by her brother, since that warlike men have been praised for deploring their enemy's estate in their own conquests. But when this one wretched soul lamented thus, that her love had lost his life by her brother's hand, contrariwise did all Rome rejoice, that she had given their mother so mighty a foil, and exulted in the plenty of the allied blood that she had drawn. What face then have you to talk of your victories and your glories hereby gotten? Cast but aside the mask of mad opinion, and all these villainies will appear naked, to view, peruse, and censure: weigh but Alba's cause and Troy's together, and you shall find a full difference. Tullus began these wars, only to renew the discontinued Rome had no just cause of war against Alba. valours and triumphs of his countrymen. From this ground, arose these horrid wars, between kindred & kindred, which notwithstanding Saluste doth but overrun, sicco pede: for having briefly recollected the precedent times, when men lived, without aspiring or other affects, each man contenting himself with his own. But after that (e) Cyrus (quoth he) in Asia, and the Lacedæmonians and Athenians in Greece, began to subdue the countries & cities within their reaches, th●…n desire of sovereignty grew a common cause of war, and opinion placed the greatest glory in the largest Empire, etc. Thus far he. This desire of sovereignty is a deadly corrosive to humane spirits. This made the romans triumph over Alba, and gave the happy success of their mischiefs, the stile of glories. Because, as out Scripture saith; The wicked maketh boast of his hearts desire, and the unjust dealer blesseth himself. Take off then these deluding veils from things, and let them Psal. 10. 3. appear as they are indeed Let none tell me, He, or He is great, because he hath coped with and conquered such and such an one. Fencer's can fight & conquer, & those bloody acts of theirs in their combat (f) do never pass ungraced. But I hold it rather fit to expose a man's name to all taint of idleness, then to purchase renown from such bad employment. But if two Fencers or sword-plaiers should come upon the stage, one being the father, & another the son, who could endure As they did in Rome to fight for ●…heir lines. such a spectacle? how then can glory attend the arms of the daughter city against the mother? do ye make a difference in that their field was larger than the fencer's stage, & that they fought not in view of the theatre but the whole world, presenting a spectacle of eternal impiety both to the present times, and to all posterity? But your great guardian-gods bore all this unmoved, sitting as spectators of this tragedy, whilst for the three Curiatij that were slain, the sister of the Horatij must be stabbed by the hand of her own brother, to make even the number with her two other brethren, that Rome's conquest might cost no less blood than Alba's loss did: which, as the fruit of the victory (h) was utterly subverted: even this place, which the gods (after Ilium, which the greeks destroyed, and Lavinium, where Latinus placed fugitive Aeneas as King) had chosen to be their third place of habitation. But it may be they were gone hence also, and so it came to be razed: yes sure, all they that kept the state of it up, were departed from their shrines. Then they left Alba where Amulius had reigned, having thrust out his brother, and went to dwell at Rome, where Romulus had reigned, having killed his brother. Nay, but before this demolition (say they) the people of Alba were all transported unto Rome, to make one City of both. Well be it so, yet the City, that was the seat Royal of Ascanius, and the third habitacle of the Trojan gods, was utterly demolished. And much blood was spilled, before they came to make this miserable confusion of both these peoples together. Why should I particularise the often renovation of these wars under so many several kings; which when they seemed to be ended in victory, began so often again in slaughters, and after combination and league, broke out so fresh between kindred and kindred, both in the predecessors and their posterity? No vain Emblem of their misery was that continual standing open of janus his gate: so that for all the help of these gods-guardians, there was not one King of them that continued his reign in peace. L. VIVES. (a) ALba,] There were many Alba's: one in Spain, called also Virgao. Another in that part of France called Provence, a town of the Heluii. A third in Italy, by the Lake Alba. Fucinus, now called Lago di Marso, or Lago di Celaeno, etc. A fourth in Lombardy called Pompeia. The fifth upon Mount Albanus, called Alba Longa. And Rome (not only that which Romulus built) was a colony of the Albans brought out by Romulus and Remus: but many think that the old Rome also, that was long before, was built by Romulus, Aeneas his son: which being at length through pestilence and often invasion left desolate, was by the Albans (pitying the inhabitants cases) restored, and diverse of them sent to repair and people it. (b) Three brethren,] (Liu lib. 1.) It is commonly known that Metius Suffetius the Dictator of Alba, counseled and agreed with Tullus the King of Rome, to take a course to save the lives of so many innocent people on both sides, and to have the controversy decided by a few only: so making a league, six men were appointed to fight for both the states sovereignties. Now there were three brethren in either army, these were turned together into the lists, and whose side conquered, that people should be sovereign. (c) Besides,] Saint Augustine may be his own comment herein, he tells it so plain. (d) Bewailing him] Lau●…us, Mezentius his son, Aeneid 10. (e) Cyrus] There were two Cyri the greater, meant here, Conqueror of Asiae, Scythia, and all the East, reigning in the time of Tarquin the proud. He took Croesus' The two Cyri. the rich King of Lydia: but by Tomiris Queen of Scythia, himself was taken, beheaded, and his head soused in a tub of blood, to satisfy his cruel thirst. Plutarch, Strabo, Trogus, Herodotus, etc. Herodotus calleth him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the great King. And thereupon the other Persian Kings are usually so styled. The other was Cyrus the lesser, son to Darius, brother Magnus Rex. to Artaxerxes, whose journey into Persia, Xenophon wrote. (f) Do never pass] With crowns hung all with labels and pendants. (g) Amphitheatre] The Theatre was like half a circle, the Amphitheatre like a full circle: it was strewed with Sand, and there the Fencers The Theatre & Amphitheatre. fought. (h) Was utterly] Liu. In the first Veian war, when Metius of Alba stood as neuter with his army, and would not help Tullus according to the conditions of the league, Tullus made him be drawn in pieces with horses, destroyed Alba, & removed all the Alban to Rome. Of the lives and deaths of the Roman Kings. CHAP. 15. But how ended their Kings still? for Romulus, let that flattering fable look to him, which hath sent him up into heaven. Let'some of their own (a) writers judge, that affirm him torn in pieces by the Senate for his pride, and that (b) I know not whom, one julius Proculus, was suborned to say, that he appeared unto him, commanding him to bid Rome give him divine honour, and so was the fury The suns natural Eclipse at Romulus his death. of the people surprised. Besides, an Eclipse of the sun falling out at the same time, wrought so upon the (c) ignorance of the rude vulgar, that they ascribed all this unto Romulus his worth and glories. As though that if the sun had mourned, as they thought it did, (d) they should not rather imagine that it was because Romulus was murdered, and therefore that the sun turned his light from such a villainy; as it did indeed when our Lord and Saviour was crucified by the bloody & reprobate jews. (e) That the Eclipse which befell at our saviours death, was quite against the regular course of the stars, is hence most plain, Luc. 13. because it was the jews Easter: which is continually kept at the full of the Moon. But (f) the regular eclipse of the Sun never happeneth but in the changing of the Moon. Now Cicero intimates plainly that this admission of Romulus into heaven, was rather imagined then performed; there where in Scipio's words (De repub.) speaking of his praises, He attained so much (saith he) that being not to be found after the suns Eclipse, he was accounted as admitted into the number of the gods: which opinion, there is no man without admirable merit of virtue can purchase. Now whereas he saith, that he was not to be found, he glanceth doubtless either at the secrecy of the murder, or intimateth the violence of the tempest. For other writers (g) add unto this Eclipse a sudden storm, which either was the agent or the occasion of Romulus his murder. Now Tully in the same books, speaking of (h) Hostilius (third King after Romulus) who was stricken to death with thunder, saith, that he was not reckoned amongst the gods, because that which was proved true (that is, that which they believed was so) in Romulus the romans would not (i) embase, by making it too common, in giving it to the one as well as the other. And in his invectives he saith plainly. It is our goodwill and fame, that hath made Romulus (this cities founder) a God. To show that it was not so indeed, but only spread into a report by their goodwill to him for his worth and virtues. But in his Dialogue called (k) Hortensius, disputing of regular Eclipses, he saith more plainly: To produce such a darkness as was made by the Eclipse of the Sun at Romulus his death. Here he feared not to say directly his death, by reason he sus●…ained the person of a disputant, rather than a panegyric. But now for the other Kings of Rome, excepting Numa, and Ancus Martius, that died of infirmities, what horrible ends did they all come to? Hostilius, the subverter of Alba, as I said, was consumed, together with his whole house by lightning. (l) Tarqvinius Priscus was murdered by his predecessors sons: And Servius Tullius, by the villainy of his son in law Tarquin the proud, who succeeded him in his kingdom. Nor yet were any of the gods gone from their shrines, for all this so heinous a parricide, committed upon this so good a King, though it be affirmed that they served wretched Troy in worse manner, in leaving it to the licentious fury of the greeks, only for Paris his adultery. Nay, Tarquin having shed his father in laws blood, seized on his estate himself. This parricide got his crown by his step father's murder, and afterwards glorying in monstrous wars and massacres, and even building the Capitol up, with hence-got spoils: This wicked man, the gods were so far from forsaking, that they sat and looked on him, nay and would have jupiter their principal to sit, and sway all things in that stately temple, namely in that black monument of parricide, for Tarquin was not innocent, when he built (m) the Capitol, and for his after-guilt, incurred expulsion: No, foul and inhuman murder was his very ladder to that state whereby he had his means to build the Capitol. And (n) whereas the Romans expelled him the state and City afterwards, the cause of that (namely Lucreces rape) grew from his son and not from him, who was both ignorant and absent when that was done: for than was he at the siege of Ardea, and a fight for the romans good: nor know we what he would have done had he known of this fact of his son, yet without all trial or judgement, the people expelled him from his Empire: and having charged his army to abandon him, took them in at the gates, & shut him out. But he himself after he had plagued the romans (by their borderers means) with eztreame wars, and yet at length being not able to recover his estate, by reason his friends failed him: retired himself (as it is reported) unto (o) Tusculum, a town fourteen miles from Rome, and there enjoying a quiet and private estate, lived peaceably with his wife, and died far more happily than his Father in law did, who fell so bloodily by his means, and (p) his own daughter's consent, as it is credibly affirmed, and yet this Taquin was never surnamed cruel nor wicked by the romans, but the Proud; it may be (q) because their own pride would not let them bear with his: As for the crime of killing that good King his Stepfather, they showed how light they made of that, in making him murder the King, wherein I make a question whether the gods were not guilty in a deeper manner than he, by rewarding so highly a guilt so horrid, and not leaving their shrines all at that instant when it was done, unless some will say for them, that they stayed still at Rome, to take a deeper revenge upon the romans, rather than to assist them, seducing them with vain victories, and tossing them in unceasing turmoils. Thus lived the romans in those so happy times, under their Kings, even until the expelling of Tarquin the proud, which was about two hundred forty and three years together, paying so much blood, and so many lives for every victory they got, and yet hardly enlarging their Empire the distance of (r) twenty miles' compass without the walls: How far then have they to conquer, and what store of strokes to share, until they come to conquer a City of the (s) Getulians? L. VIVES. THeir own (a) writers] Dionysius (lib. 2) saith that the senators tore him in pieces and every Romulu his dea●…. one bore away a piece wrapped in his gown: keeping it by this means from the notice of the vulgar (b) I know not whom] this he addeth either because the author is obscure, or because the lie that Proculus told was vile & perjured. (c) Ignorance] Before that their Philosophers showed men the causes of eclipses, men when they saw them, feared indeed either some great mischief, or the death of the planets themselves, nor was this fear only vulgar, even the learned shared in it, as Stefichorus, and Pindarus, two lyric Poets (d) They should not rather] not Eclipses. is put into the reformed copies otherwise the sense is inverted, (e) that that eclipse] the partly meeting of the Sun and Moon deprives us of the Sun's light, and this is the Eclipse of the Sun but the shade of the earth falling from the suns place lineally upon the moon, makes the moons eclipse. So that neither can the Sun be Eclipsed but in the moons change, and partile conjunction with him; neither can the Moon be eclipsed but at her full, and in her farthest posture from the sun: then is she prostitute to obnubilation. (f) The regular] Regular and Canonical is all one: of Canon the Greek word: well was this weighed of the Augustine Monks, who holding the one insufficient, would be called by them both. (g) Add unto this] Livy, A tempest suddenly arose, with great thunder and lightning: (h) Of Hostilius] Some write that he and his whole house was burnt with lightning. Some, that it was fired by Martius Tullus Hostilius. Ancus his successor. ay Embase] Vilefacere saith Saint Augustine, but this is not well, nor learnedly: no, if any of our fine Ciceronians correct it, it must be Uilificare: for this is their usual phrase: Hominificare, animalificare, accidentificare, asinificare. (k) Hortensius] We have lost it: that which some take to be it, is the fourth of the Tusculans. Marcellus. (l) Tarqvinius Priscus] The fifth Roman King, Demaratus his son of Corinth, he was Tarqvinius Priscus. slain by shepherds suborned by the sons of Martius Ancus. After him came Servius Tullus his stepsonne, powerful in peace, and war: who adorned his City with many good institutions. He was slain by the means of Tarquin the proud. This Tarquin was brutish and cruel to his people: but exceeding valorous in war and peace. (m) The Capitol] On The Capitol. the hill Saturnius, afterwards called Tarpeius, did he dedicate the Capitol to almighty jove. (n) And whereas] The seventh and last King of the romans, he was expelled by Brutus, Collatinus, Lucretius, Valerius, Horatius etc. Partly because of many old injuries, but chiefly for his son Sextus his Rape of Lucrece. He was besieging Ardea when the people began this deprivation, and when he came to the City, Brutus, that came into the camp another way, withdrew all his army from him. (o) Tusculum] It is more commonly believed that he died at Cumae with King Aristodemus, living near at the age of 90. years: I do not deny his stay some years at Tusculum with Octavius Mamilius his son in law, until at that memorable filled at Lake Regillus (now called Lago. di. S. Prassede) Mamilius was slain by T. Herminius, Legate of Rome. Which perhaps is cause of Saint Augustine's forgetfulness in a matter of so small a moment, caring not whether it be reported thus or thus, (p) His own daughter's consent] Nay, furtherance it is said, and continual urging her husband to the fact. (q) There own pride] A pithy and elegant saying. (r) twenty miles'] Eighteen, saith Ruffus, won by Ancus from Rome to Ostia by the sea. Eutropius hath but sixteen. (s) Getulians] Getulia is a part of Africa, near the inhabitable Zone, as Mela saith. Sallust writeth thus of Getulia. them. The rude and barbarous Getulians dwelled at first in Africa: the flesh of wild beasts & grass was their meat, as beasts, have also their apparel. Law had they none, nor government, nor place of abode. This and more hath Sallust of the Getulians. Mela saith they are a great and populous country. Of the first Roman consuls; how the one expelled the other out of his country, and he himself, after many bloody murders, fell by a wound, given him by his wounded foe. CHAP. 16. Unto these times, add the other, wherein (as Sallust saith) things were modestly and justly carried, until the fear of Tarquin and the Hetrurian war were both ended. For whilst the Etrurians assisted Tarquin's endeavours of reinstallment, Rome quaked under so burdenous a war. And therefore (saith Sallust) were things carried modestly and justly, fear being the cause here of by restraint, not justice, by persuasion. In which short space, O how cruel a course had the year of the two first Consuls! The time being yet unexpired, Brutus debased Collatine, and banished him the City: And soon after, perished he himself, having (a) interchanged a many wounds with his foe, (b) having first slain his own sons, and his wives brothers, because he found them actors in a plot to recall Tarquin. Which deed, Virgil having laudably recited, presently doth in gentle manner deplore it: for having said. — Natosque Pater mala bella moventes Ad panam pulcra pro libertate vocabit. His sons, convict of turbulent transgression He kills, to quit his country from oppression. Presently in lamenting manner he addeth. Infaelix, utcunque ferent ea fact a minores Hapless, how ere succeeding times shall ring. Howsoever his posterity shall ring of the praise of such an act, yet hapless is he, that gives deaths summons to his own sons: But to give some solace to his sorrows, he addeth after all. Vi●…t amor patriae laudumque immensa cupido, Conquered by country's love, and lawds high thirst. Now in Brutus his killing of his own sons, and (c) in being killed by Tarquin's son, whom he had hurt, and Tarquin himself surviving him, is not (d) Collatine's wrong well revenged, who being so good a citizen was banished (only because his name was but Tarq●…n) as well as Tarquin the tyrant: (e) It was the name (you say) that was the cause of this: well, he should have been For it is said Brutus was ●…arquins ki●…man. made to change his name then and not to abandon his country. Again (f) this word would have been but little miss in his name, if he had been called L. Collatine only: This therefore was no sufficient cause, why he, being one of the first Consuls, should be forced to abjure both his honours and his City. But is this unjustice being so detestable, and so useless to the state fit to be the foundation of Brutus his glory? Did he these things, being Conqu●…r'a by our country's loves, and laudes high thirst? Tarquin being expelled, Lucraetia's-husband was joined Consul with junius Brutus: how justly did the people respect the conditions of the man a●…d not the name? But how unjustly did Brutus (having power to deprive him only of the cause of the offence, his name) in depriving him both of his country, and place of honour? Thus these evils, thus these thwart effects fell out even then when things were said to be carried so modestly and so justly. And (g) Lucraetius, that had Br●…tus his place, died ere this year ended: So that P. Valerius that succeeded Collatine, and M. Horatius that had Lucraetius his place, ended that Hellish and murderous year, which saw itself pass by five Consuls. This was the year, wherein Rome devised her platform of new government, their fears now beginning to surcease, not because they had no wars, but because those they had were but light ones: But the time being expired wherein things were modestly and justly carried, then followed those which Sallust doth thus briefly delineate. Then b●…ganne the Patriots to oppress the p●…ople with servile conditions, to judge of life and death as Imperiously as the Kings had done before, to thrust men from their possessions, to put by all others, and to s●…are all themselves; with which outrages, and chiefly with their extorted taxes, the people being to much vexed, (being bound both to maintain an army and also to par contributions besid●…s) they rushed up to arms, and entrenched themselves upon Mount Sacer, and Aventine: and there they made them Tribunes, and divers laws; but these discords and tumultuous contentions ended not till the second African war. L. VIVES. Having (a) ent●…rchanged] With Arnus, King Tarqvinius sonne●… being slain, the matrons mourned a whole year for him, and his Coll●…ague, Valerius made an oration in his praise, the first of that kind in Rome. (b) Having first slain] The Vite●…, Brutus his wives brethren, conspired with certain secret messengers of Tarquin, to bring him secretly in again, and made Titus and Tiberius, Brutus the Consul sons, privy and partakers in this affair. Brutus discovering the plot, put them all to death (c) In being killed] The manuscripts have this diversly: we have it the best. (d) Collatine's wrong] I noted before, That those that deprived their fellows in Consulship lived not a year after. (e) For it is said] He was son to M. junius, and Tarquin's sister. (f) This name would] Some hereof transpose the word if, but erroneously. (g) Lucraetius] This first year had five Consuls: first Brutus and Collatine: then P. Valerius Poplicola in Collatine's place, Then Sp: Lucraetius (after the death of Brutus in war,) had Brutus his place: and he dying ere the end of the year, M. Horatius Puluillu: succeeded him. Of the Vexations of the Roman estate, after the first beginning of the the consuls rule: And of the little good that their gods all this while did them CHAP. 17. But why should I spend so much time in writing of these things, or make others spend it in reading them? How miserable the state of Rome stood all that long time until the second Punic war, how sorely shaken by foreign wars, and intestine discord, Sallust hath already made a succinct demonstration. So that their victories never brought any true felicity to the good, but only vain solaces to the wretched, and inductions & enticements to the turbulent, to continue disquiets progress. Let no wise Roman then be angry with us for saying this: but we need not entreat, we are already assured, they will not. For we use but the words of their own writers, and that with far less gall, than themselves meant it, and in less gloss than they spoke it. Yet those do they learn, and those they make their children learn: Then why stomach they me for saying as Sallust says: Many troubles, seditions, and lastly civil wars burst out, whilst a few (a) of the greatest, under the honest stile of fathers, used the licence of tyrants, nor did the Citizens attain the titles of good and bad, according to their (b) deserts in the state (all being fowl a like) but he that had most wealth and power to injure, because he defended the present government (as fittest for his turn) he was the only good man. If these writers now held it as pertinent to an honest man's liberty to be so free tongued against their own cities corruptions, which otherwise they have been often enforced to commend, in that they had no knowledge of any better state, wherein they might become denizens eternal; what then shall we do, whose trust in God by how much it is firmer, so much aught our tongues to be the freer, in repelling the scandal they cast upon our Saviour Christ, with intent to seduce unsettled and unsound minds from that city, where happiness is man's possession unto all eternity? Neither do we load their gods with any more horrid guilt, than their own writers do, whom they read and reverence: what we say, we say it from them, being unable to recite all, or all that they have of this kind. (c) where then were these gods, (which men hold so venerable for the attaining of worldly vanities) when the romans, whose services they angled for so cunningly, were afflicted so extremely? where were they when Consul Valerius was slain in defence of the Capitol, when it (d) was scalled by slaves and exiles? It was rather in his power to protect the temple of jupiter, then in the powers of all that kennel of gods, and their great King, to yield him any help at all. Where were they when the city being so over-borne with seditions, was feign to send to Athens to borrow laws, and in that little expectation of quietness, was unpeopled by such a sore famine and pestilence? Where were they besides, when the people in this great famine, elected their first Praefect of the provision, and when that in the increase of this dearth, (e) Sp: Aemilius, for distributing of corn over bountifully amongst the starved people, was brought in suspicion of affecting Monarchy, and at the instance of the said praefect, by the means of L Quintius, Dictator, an aged weak man, he was slain by the hand of Q. Servilius the General of the horsemen, not without a most dreadful and dangerous tumult in the whole City. where were they when at the beginning of a wasteful pestilence, the people being wholly tired with frustrate invocations, thought it fit to appease them with new (f) Bed-spreadings, a thing never done before? Then were there beds brought into the Temples and spread in honour of the gods, and hence this sacrifice (nay sacrilege) took the name. Where were they when for ten full years together the romans never fought against the Veians but they had the worse, until Furius Camillus was feign to help them, whom they kindly banished afterwards for his good service? Where were they when the Galls took Rome, sacked it, spoiled it, burned it, and made a very shambles of it? Where were they when that great plague destroyed almost all the City, and Camillus amongst the rest, who had saved his thankless country from the Veians and after from the Galls? In this pestilence they first brought up their stage-plays, a greater plague than the other, to their conditions though not to their carcases. Where were they, when (g) another sad contagion arose (as it is said) from the poisoning tricks of the Matrons, yea of the most and Noblest, whose conditions herein proved worse than all those pestilent airs? Or when the two Consuls with their army being shut in the Caudine straits by the Samnites, were glad to make a base composition with them? And delivering six hundred Gentlemen for hostages, went away with all the rest, without arms, without baggage, without any thing but their very upper garments? Or when the army perished almost wholly, part by the plague, and part by thunders? Or when in another great mortality the City was forced to fetch Aesculapius (as a Physician for her) from Epidaurus, because jupiter the King of the Capitol, had ever been so employed in his youth in rapes and adulteries, that these exercises gave him no time to learn Physic. Or when the Brutians, Lucan's, Samnites, Etrurians and Senonian Galls, conspiring altogether, first flew their Ambassadors, and then a whole army with the Praetor, ten tribunes, and thirteen thousand soldiers? Or then when the long and fatal sedition in the City, wherein the people at last encamped themselves on janiculus, having booty-haled all the whole City? Which mischief grew to such a lamentable pass, that they were glad (for the last refuge in all desperate cases) to create a Dictator: Hortensus, who having reunited the people, and recalled them, died in his office, as no Dictator had done before, which was a great shame to the gods, now that Aesculapius was come to make one. And (h) then grew wars so fast upon them, that their Proletarii their Brood-men, those that they always forbore for getting of children, being so needy they could not follow the wars themselves, were now for want of soldiers, compelled to serve themselves? For now did ay Pyrrhus that famous and warlike Epirot (being called in by the Tarentines) become Rome's heavy foe: (k) And ask the Oracle of his success, truly Apollo answered him very neatly, in such ambiguous manner, that which way so ere it happened, his deity might stand unblemished: Aio te Aeacida Romanos vincere posse: saith he: So that whether Pyrrhus or the romans had the upper hand, the Oracle need not care, for Apollo speaks true how ever. After this, followed a sore and bloody fight, wherein notwithstanding (l) Pyrrhus was conqueror, so that now he might justly esteem Phoebus a true fore-teller, as he understood him; but that in the next conflict the romans had the better (m) and in this great hostility, arose as great a plague amongst the women: For, ere they could be delivered, being big with child, still they died. Now here Aesculapus had an excuse, he professed himself (n) the Prince of Physic and not of Mid-wifery. cattle died also so sore, that one would have thought the worlds utter vastation was entered. And then there was a winter how strangely unseasonable! The snow lying in the Marketplace forty days together in a monstrous depth; all Tiber being frozen quite over: If this had happened in our times, Lord how it would have been scanned upon. And then for that (o) great pestilence, how many thousand took it hence: (which maugre all Aesculapius his drugs) lasting till the next year, they were feign to betake themselves to the books of the Sibyls: (p) In which kind of Oracles (as Tully saith well in his book De divinat.) the expounders of them are oftener trusted, then otherwise; guess they never so unlikely: and then it was said that the pestilence raged so because that (q) many of the Temples were put unto private men's uses: Hereby freeing Aesculapius either from great ignorance, or negligence. But why were these Temples turned unto private habitations without prohibition, but only because they saw they had lost too much labour in praying to such a crew of gods so long: and so becoming wiser by degrees, had left haunting of those places by little and little, and at length abandoned them wholly, for the private uses of such as would inhabit them. For those houses that as then, for avoiding of this pestilence, were so diligently repaired if they were not afterwards utterly neglected, and so encroached upon by private men as before; Varro should be too blame to say (speaking of Temples) that many of them were unknown. But in the mean time this fetch was a pretty excuse for the gods, but no cure at all for the Pestilence. L. VIVES. A Few (a) of the greatest] The Plebeians, either through hate to the Nobles, or ambition in themselves, disturbed the common state exceedingly, to assure and augment their own: pretending the defence of the people's freedom, notwithstanding in all their courses the Patriots opposed them, abstracting from the people's means to share amongst themselves, pretending the defence of the Senate's dignity, which the state would have most eminent: but indeed they did nothing but contend & bandy factions, each with other, according to his power. (b) deserts] Some books put in incesserant, but it hurteth the sense. (c) Where then were] All this relation of Augustine's is out of Livy: read it in him lest our repetition become both tedious and troublesome. (d) It was scaled] Incensum scaled, and not incensum fired: (e) SP. Aemilius] This must be Melius assuredly, by the history. (f) Bed-spreadings] It was an old fashion to banquet upon beds. But in their appeasive, and sacrifical banquets, in the Temples, and in the night orgies, they made beds in the place, for the gods to lie and revel upon, and this was called Lectisterium, Bed-spreading. the City being sore infected with the plague (saith Livy lib. 5.) a few years ere it was taken by the Galls, the Sibyl's books directed the first Bed-spreading, Bed-spreading. to last eight days: three beds were fitted: one for Apollo and Latona, one for Diana and Hercules, one for Mercury and Neptune. But how this can be the first Bed-spreading I cannot see, seeing that in the secular games that Poplicola, Brutus his Colleague ordained, there were three nights Bed-spreadings: Valeria lib. 2. Censorin de die natal. (g) Another] In the Consulship of C L. Marcellus & T. Ualerius, was a great question in the Court about poisons because many great men had been killed by their wives using such means. (h) Then grew wars] Against 〈◊〉 used at Rome. the Samnites, Galls, Tarentines, Lucan's, Brutians, and Etrurians: after all which, followed Pyrrhus the King of Epirus his war. But now a word or two of the Proletarij, the Brood-men here named: Servius Tullus the sixth King of Rome, divided the people into six companies or forms, in the first was those that were censured worth C. M. Asses; or more, but under that King the greatest Censure was but C X M. (Plin: lib. 33.) the second contained all of an estate between C. and LXXV Asses. the third, them under L. the fourth them under XXXV. the fifth, them under XI. the last was a Century of men freed from warrefare, Proletarii or Brood-men, and Capiti-censi. A Brood-man was he that was rated ML. Asses in the Censors book more or A Brood-man. less, and such were ever forborn from all offices and uses in the City, being reserved only to beget children, and therefore were styled Proletarii, of Proles, brood or offspring. The Capite Censi were poorer and valued but at CCCLXXV. asses. Who because they were not censured by their states, were counted by the poll, as augmenting the number of the Citizens. These two last sorts did Seru. Tullius exempt from all service in war, not that they were unfit themselves, or had not pledges to leave for their fealty, but because they could not bear the charges of war; for the soldiers in those days maintained themselves. It may be this old custom remained after the institution of tribute, and the people of Rome thought it not fit that such men should go to war, because that they accounted all by the purse. This reason is given by Valerius and Gellius. But these Brood-men were divers times led forth to the wars Capitae censi afterward, marry the Capite Censi never, until Marius his time, and the war of jugurthe: Sallust. Valer. Quintilian also toucheth this In milite mariano. And hereuppon Marius their General was called Capite Census. ay Pyrrhus] Descended by his mother from Achilles, by his father from Hercules, by both from jove: This man dreaming on the world's Monarchy, went Pyrrhus. with speed at the Tarentines entreaty against the romans: hence hoping to subdue Italy, and then the whole world, as Alexander had done a while before him. (k) Who ask] Cicero de divinat. (lib. 2) saith that it is a verse in Ennius: Aio and as in the text. Which the Poet affirmeth that the Oracle returned as answer to Pyrrhus in his inquiry hereof. Whence Tully writeth thus. But now to thee Apollo, thou that sittest upon the earth's navel, from whence this cruel and superstitious voice first brake. Chrysippus filled a book with thine Oracles, but partly feigned (I think) and partly casual, as is often seen in ordinary discourses: and partly equivocal, that the interpreter shall need an interpreter, and the lot must abide the try all by lot: and partly doubtful, & requiring the skill of Logic. Thus far he: seeming to tax Poet's verse with falsehood: Pyrrhus is called Aeacides, for Achilles was son to Peleus, and Peleus unto Aacus. Virgil. ipsumque Aeacidem etc. meaning Pyrrhus. (l) Pyrrhus was conqueror] Pyrrhus at Heraclea He●…aclear. victory. overthrew Valerius, Consul, but got a bloody victory: whence the Heraclean victory grew to a proverb; but after Sulpitius and Decius foiled him, and Curius Dentatus at length overthrew him and chased him out of Italy. (m) And in this] This is out of Orosius (lib. 4.) happening in the Consulship of Gurges and Genutiu●…, in Pyrrhus his war. (n) Prince of physic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: jatros is a Physician, Obstetrix, a midwife: and Archiatri were also the Prince's Physicians: justin. Archiatri. Codic. Of the Comites, and Archiatri which the Spaniards call Protomedici, etc. (o) Great pestilence] (Oros. lib. 4.) In the entrance of the first African war. (p) In which] Cice. the divini: (lib. 2) at large, of the Sibyls and their books. (q) Many of the temples] The Sooth saiers answer in Tully's time concerning the prodigies, was the very same. Cic. Orat. de Aruspic. respons. The miseries of the romans in the African wars and the small stead their gods stood them therein. CHAP. 18. But now in the wars of Africa, victory still hovering doubtfully betwixt both sides, and two mighty and powerful nations using all their might & power to reciprocrall ruin, how many petty Kingdoms perished herein? How many fair cities were demolished, or afflicted, or utterly lost? How far did this disastrous contention spread, to the ruin of so many Realms and great Estates? How often were the conquerors on either side conquered? What store of men (armed and naked) was there that perished? How many ships were sunk at ●…eas by fight and tempest? Should we particularise, we should become a direct Historiographer. Then Rome being in these deep plunges, ran headlong under those vain and ridiculous remedies: for then (a) were the Secular plays renewed by the admonition of the Sibyls books: which institution had been ordained an hundred years before, but was now worn out of all memory, in those so happy times. The high priests also (b) renewed the sacred plays to the hel-gods with the better times had in like manner abolished before: nor was it any wonder to see them now revenged, for the hel-gods desired now to become revellers, being enriched by this continual uncesing world of men: who (like wretches) in following those bloody & unrelenting wars, did nothing but act the devils revels, and prepare banquets for the infernal spirits. Nor was there a more laudable accident in all this whole war, then that Regulus should be taken prisoner: a worthy man, and before that mishap a scourge to the Carthaginians: who had ended the African war long before, but that he would have bound the Carthaginians to stricter conditions than they could bear. The most sudden captivity, & the most faithful oath of this man, and his most cruel death, if the gods do not blush at (c) surely they are brazen-faced, and have no blood in them. Nay for all this, Rome's walls stood not safe, but tasted of some mischief, and all those within them, for the river Tiber (d) overflowing, drowned almost all the level parts Tiber's inundation. of the city: turning some places as it were into torrents, and other some into fens or lakes: this plague ushered in a worse of fire, (e) which beginning in the marketplace, burned all the higher buildings thereabouts, sparing not the own (f) harbour Fire in the City. and temple of Vesta, where it was so duly kept in, by those (g) not so honourable as damnable Votaresses. Now it did not only continue here burning but raging: with the fury whereof the virgins being amazed (h) Metcllus the high Priest ran into the fire, and was half burned in fetching out of those fatal relics which had been the ruin of (ay) three cities, where they had been resident. (k) The fire never spared him for all he was the Priest. Or else the true Deity was not there, but was fled before though the fire were there still: but here you see how a mortal man could do Vests more good than she could do him: for if these gods could not guard themselves from the fire, how could they guard their city which they were thought to guard from burnings and inundations? Truly not a whit, as the thing showed itself: Herein we would not object these calamities against the Romans, if they would affirm that all these their sacred observations only aim at eternity, and not at the goods of this transitory world; and that therefore when those corporal things perished, there was yet no loss by that, unto the ends for which they were ordained, because that they might soon be made fit for the same uses again. But now such is their miserable blindness, that they think that those idols that might have perished in this fiery extremity, had power to preserve the temporal happiness of the city: but now seeing that they remained vnconsumed, and yet were able to show how such ruins of their safeties and such great mischiefs hath befallen the city, this makes them ashamed to change that opinion which they see they cannot possibly defend. L. VIVES. THen were (a) the secular plays] I think it will not be amiss if I say somewhat of those plays, from their first original. Ualesius Sabinus, a rustic, as the best were then, praying for his three sick children, heard a voice the said they should recover, if he would carry them over Tiber The secular plays. to Terentum, & there recreate them with the warm water of Dis and Proserpina. Valesius dreaming of the city Terentum, though it were far off, and no such river as Tiber near it, yet hiring a ship, sailed with his sons to Ostia, & setting them on shore to refresh themselves in Mars his field, he asked the shipmaster where he might have some fire: he replied at the adjoining Terentum, for there he saw some that the shepherds had made: (it was called Terentum of Tero to wear, because the river ware away the shore: or because This his altar was there inhumed) Ualesius hearing the name commanded the ship to put over thither, thinking this was the place mean●… by the Oracle: and departing to the city, to buy an altar, he bade his servants mean while to dig a place for it. They digged 20. foot deep, and there they found an old altar inscribed, To Dis and Proserpina. (This the romans had inhumed after their infernal sacrifices, being to fight with the Albasnes, for so the devil bade them do ere they joined battle.) Ualesius returns, and finding the altar, offers black offerings to Dis and Proserp. and spreading beds for the gods, stayed there three nights (for so long after were they sick) with revels and dances, that these children had escaped this sickness. This custom. P. V. Poplicola, one of Valesius his progeny brought into the City, in the first year of the freedom. Three days and nights the people watched at the altars of jove and Apollo, offering a white bull, and certain children whose parents were living sung a song to Apollo. Then watched they at Juno's: offering a white Heifer; this was in the day time: on the night at Diana's, Proserpina's, Terras and the Destinies, offering black creatures, and burning of tapers: and then were stageplays presented to Apollo, and Diana, and the Circian Games: and those stately and famous spectacles were called the Secular plays, because they were acted once every age, taking an age here for the longest space of man's life: Some give it more years, some less, as it is in Censorinus. The romans called an C years, an age: as Valerius, Antias, Varro, & Livy lib. 136. An Age. do report. But by the Quindecimvirs commentaries, and Augustus his Edict, together with Horace his verse, it includes a space of ten years more, and every C. X. year, those plays were kept. Though this verse of Horace, Certus undenos deciès per annos, which Censorinus and others trust to, I cannot see but may be read Certus ut denos decies per annos, and so divers do read it. But there is another Greek verse cited by Zosimus, cut of the Sibyls books, he saith, wherein is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without point or accent. Besides, the crier called the people inthese words Come to those plays that none of you ever saw, nor hereafter ever shall see. Hence came Vitellius flattery to Claudius, presenting those plays: May you do it often. Poplicola, as we said, first presented them: Ab urbe cond. CCXLIIII. years: they were renewed Ab. ur. Con. D. I. Consuls, P. CL. Pulcher and L. juni. Brutus, the XI. year of the first African war: acted again, the third year of the second Punic war: Consuls, M. Manlius M. Censorinus. Fourthly, before their time, L. Aem. Lepidus, and L. Aurel. Orestes, Consuls, the fifth: Augustus and Arippa presented, having brought them to the just time: Consuls, Furnius and Sillanus: the sixth, C L. Caesar, too soon for the time: Himself and L. Vitellius, the third Consuls. The seventh, Domitian, after a true computation, Himself and L. Minutius Ruffus being Consuls: the eight Septimius Severus, at their just time: Conss. Chilo, and Vibo. the ninth Philip Vostrensis ab urbe Conned. a M. years: Aemilianus and Aquilinus being Conss. Cassiodore. Thus much of the Secular plays from Varro, Valer. Horat. L. Florus, Festus, The Tau●…ian games. Zosimus, Herodian, Suetonius, Censorinus, Cassiodorus, Porphiry, Aeron, and Politian, now to the rest. (b) Renewed] Here seems a difference between the plays of Dis and Proserpina, and the Secular plays, but indeed there is none, unless Augustine divide the infernal Orgies, from the sacrifices offered at the same time to other gods: and truly the Infernal Orgies and the Secular plays seem to differ in their original: for Festus saith thus: The Tauri were games made in honour of the infernal gods, upon this occasion. In the reign of Tarquin the proud, there falling a great death amongst the childbearing women, arising out of the too great plenty of bulls-flesh, that was sold to the people, hereupon they ordained games in honour of the Infernals, calling them Tauri. Thus far Festus. Besides, the Secular plays were kept unto Apollo on the day, and Diana on the night, but the Tauri were kept to the Infernal powers. (c) Surely brass] Some put Aerei, airy, for arei, brazen, and more fitting to Augustine's opinion: for the Platonists say the devils are airy creatures, whose doctrine Augustine doth often approve in some things, as we will show hereafter. In blushing the blood adorns the face with redness. (d) Overflowing] Oros. L. 4. (e) Fire] Ib. Liu. lib. 19 ovid. Fast. 6. Sencca's declamers dispute whether Metellus should be deprived of his Priesthood or no being blind; the law commanding them to have a perfect man to their Priest. (f) Harbour and temple] Because there was the fire worshipped as is immediately declared. (g) Honoured] Their honour was universal great, their very Magistrates gave the way unto V●…stas Priests. (h) Metellus] L. Caecilius Metellus was High Priest, twice Consul, Dictator, Master of the Horse, Quindecemvir in the sharing of the lands, and he was the first that led Elephants in. Triumph in the first African war, of whom Q. Metellus his son left recorded Mettellus. in his funeral oration, that he attained the ten things so powerful and so admirable that the wisest have spent all their time in their quest. That is, to be a singular warrior, an excellent orator, a dreadless commander, a fortunate undertaker, a especial advancer of honour, an absolute man of wisdom, a worthy commonwealths man, a man of a great estate well gotten, a father to a fair progeny, and the most illustrious of the whole city. Plin. lib. 7. cap. 4. ay Three cities] Ilium, Lavinium, Alba. (k) The fire never] This place is extremely depraved, we have given it the best sense befitting it. Of the sad accidents that befell in the second African war, wherein the powers on both sides were wholly consumed. CHAP. 19 But all too tedious were it to relate the slaughters of both nations in the second African war, they had so many fights both far and near, that by (a) their own confessions who were rather Rome's commenders then true Chroniclers, the conquerors were ever more like to the conquered then otherwise. For when Hannibal arose out of Spain, and broke over the Pirenean hills, all France, and the very Alpes, gathering huge powers, and doing horrible mischiefs in all this long tract, rushing like an inondation into the face of Italy, O what bloody fields were there pitched, what battles struck! how often did the romans abandon the field, how man's cities fell to the foe, how many were taken, how many were razed? what victories did that Hannibal win, and what glories did he build himself upon the ruined romans. In vain should I speak of (b) Cannae horrible overthrow, where Hannibal's own excessive thirst of blood was so fully glutted upon his foes, that he (c) himself bade hold: (a) whence he sent three bushels of rings unto Carthage, to show how huge a company had fallen at that fight, that, they were easier to be measured than numbered: and hence might they conjecture, what a massacre there was of the meaner sort, that had no rings to wear, and that the poorer they were the more of them perished. Finally, such a defect of soldiers followed this overthrow, that the romans were feign to get (e) malefactors to go to war for quittance of their guilt; (f) to set all their slaves free, and out of this graceless crew, not to supply their defective regiments, but even to (g) make up a whole army. Nay these slaves, (O (h) let us not wrong them, they are free men now) wanted even weapons to fight for Rome withal: that they were feign to fetch them out of the temples, as if they should say to their gods, come, pray let these weapons go, you have kept them long enough to no end: we will see whether our bondslaves can do more good for us with them, than your gods could yet do: And then the treasury failing, the private estate of each man became public, so that each one giving what he was able, their rings, nay their very Bosses, (the wretched marks of their dignities) being all bestowed, the senate themselves (much more the other companies & (i) Tribes) left not themselves any money in the world: who could have endured the rages of those men, if they had been driven to this poverty in these our times? seeing we can very hardly endure them as the world goeth now, although they have store now to bestow upon stageplayers, which as then, they were full feign of, for their uttermost means of safety, to spend upon the soldiers? L. VIVES. BY (a) their own] Liu. Proaem. 3. Decad. The victors were the nearer unto ruin, continually. Sil. Ital. 1. This Poet, and Livy, the first in verse, and later in prose, have recorded these wars at large. Besides others, read them. (b) Cannae] There Hannibal gave the romans a●…ore overthrow in the third year of the war. L. Aem. Paulus, and L. Terent. Varro, The mas●…cre of C●…. Consuls. Liu. lib. 12. Cannae is not the town Canusium, but a town in Apulia, near the river Aufidus now Cannella. Sabbellic. Annot. (c) Himself bad hold] Perhaps Augustine meaneth of the words that Hannibal said to Maharball, that willed him to march strait unto Rome: no saith he, Let our foes lead the way, all is well, we will follow them at leisure. For I read not that Hannibal ever spared the romans, either in the fight or after it. Unless it be their that Livy saith, that after the fight at Cannae, Hannibal called the romans to him (which he never did before) and gently told them, that it was not for blood, but for Empire and dignity that he warred with them, allowing them leave to redeem the prisoners, rating an horseman's ransom at five hundred pieces, a footman's at three hundred, a servants at a hundred. (d) Three bushels] some add half a bushel, some diminish two bushels, which Livy saith is most likely. The Ring was the Gentleman's The Ring. mark or cognisance, distinguishing them from the common sort: the Senate also and the Nobility wore them. But they were generally used about this time. (Plin. lib. 33.) Else (saith he) they could not have sent three bushels of them to Carthage. A bushel what it is Budaeus declares, in his book De Ass, amongst other measures the discourse is long, look it there. (e) Malefactors] junius Bubulcus his device, in imitation of Romulus, that made his city populus by allowing sanctuary to male factors. Oros. lib. 4. junius (saith Livy) alighted from his horse and proclaimed, that all such as were capital offenders, or desperate oebters, should go with him to war, upon condition to be freed of all their aff●…ctions. (f) To set all the slaves] eight thousand of slaves were freed, imbanded, and called Volones: because being asked if t●…ey The volons would fight, each one said Volo, I will. Livy. (g) Make a whole] For there were eight thousand of these, and six thousand of them Malefactors, whom they armed with French spoils of C Flaminius his triumph. (h) Nay let us not] Though they were not free until they had overthrown Hanno at Beneventum, and were therefore freed by the General Gracchus, under whom they fought most stoutly. ay And tribes] Whether this word be added by some other or no, I I●…s. know not. Truly the Senate themselves were of the tribes, which were three in the whole, as Romulus appointed them at first, but in time increased to thirty five. The Senators, Gentlemen and plebeians were parts of each of these: nor was there any Roman citizen but he was of some tribe. Is there any of you (saith Cicero Antonian. 6. ad Pop. Rom.) that hath no tribe? none. They have made him Patron of thirty five tribes. Wherefore what should this mean? The Senate was as well divided from the tribes, as it was from the Gentlemen and plebeians; or it may be spoken as this is: The Senate and people of Rome, or, the Senate People and commonty of Rome: both, or all three, being all included one in another: This hold 〈◊〉 the most likely. Of the ruin of the Saguntines, who perished for their confederacy with Rome; the Roman gods never helping them. CHAP. 20. But in all the disasters of the second African war, there was none more lamentable than the dissolution of the (a) Saguntines: these inhabiting in a city in Spain being sworn friends to the romans, were destroyed for keeping their faith to them. For Hannibal breaking the league with Rome, gave here the first occasion of war, inguirting the city of Saguntum with a cruel and strait siege: Whereof the romans having intelligence, sent an embassage to wish Hannibal to raze his siege: but the Legates being despised by him, went to Carthage, whence (having done nothing) they returned without any redress for the breach of the league, and in the mean time, this city (whilom so stately) was now brought to that misery, that about eight or nine months after the beginning of the siege, the Africans took it and razed it to the very ground. To read how it perished were a horror; much more to write it: yet I will run over it briefly, seeing it is very pertinent to the argument we prosecute: first it was eaten down with famine: for some say it was driven to feed upon the carcases which it harboured. And then being in this labyrinth of languors, yet rather than it would take in Hannibal as a conqueror, the citizens made a huge fire in the Marketplace, and therein entombed all their parents, wives, children and friends (after they had slain them first) and last themselves (b) Here now these gluttonous, treacherous, wasteful, cozening, dancing gods should have done somewhat: here they should have done somewhat to help these distressed faithful friends of the romans, and to save them from perishing, for their loyalties sake. They were called as witnesses between both, when the league was made between Rome and these poor men; who keeping that faith which they had willingly passed, solemnly sworn, and sacredly observed, under their protections, were besieged, afflicted, and subverted by one that had broken all faith, all religion. (c) If the gods with thunder and lightning could fright Hannibal from Rome's walls, and make him keep aloof from them, they should first have practised this here: For I dare aver, that with far more honesty might they have helped the romans friends, being in extremes, for keeping their faith to them, and having then no means nor power, than they did the romans themselves, that fought for themselves, and had very good forces, and purses able to repel Hannibal's powers. If they had been careful guardians of Rome's glory, they would never have left it stained with the sufferance of this sad calamity of the Saguntines. But now how sottish is their belief that think these gods kept Rome from perishing by the hand of victorious Hannibal and the Carthaginians, that could not save Saguntum from perishing for keeping her faith sworn so solemnly to the romans? If Saguntum had been Christian and had suffered such an extremity for the Gospel, (though it ought not as then to have wracked itself by fire nor sword) yet had it endured such for the Gospel, it would have borne it stoutly, by reason of that hope which it would have held in Christ to have been after all crowned by him with an eternal guerdon. But as for these false gods, that desire to be and are worshipped only for the assurance of this transitory term of our mortality, what can their Atturneys, their Orators, say for them in this ruin of the Saguntines, more than they said in that of Regulus? only he was one man, this a whole city, but perseverance in faith was cause of both calamities. For this faith would he return to his foes, and for this would not they turn to their foes. Doth loyalty then grieve the gods? Or may ungrateful cities (as well as men) be destroyed, and yet stand in their gods liking still? Let them choose whether they like: If the gods be angry at men's keeping of their faith, let them seek faithless wretches to serve them. But if they that serve them and have their favours, be nevertheless afflicted and spoiled; then to what end are they adored? Wherefore let them hold their tongues that think they lost their City because they lost their gods: for though they had them all, they might nevertheless not only complain of misery, but feel it at full, as Regulus and the Saguntines did. L. VIVES. THe dissolution (a) of the Saguntines] (Liu. lib 21.) Saguntum is a city of that part of Spain Saguntus. which is called Arragon. a mile from our sea, built and inhabited by the Zacynthi and the Ardeates (saith Silius) people that came into Spain before the destruction of Troy. It was made famous by the fall, and true faith kept to the romans. The ruins at this day do show the models of divers ancient, and most magnifical houses and divers inscriptions & monuments are to be seen there as yet. It is called now in Spanish Moruedre; the old wall, belonging to the County & jurisdiction of Valencia. There is a piece of the Tower yet standing upon the mountain that divides almost all Spain. Polib. (lib. 3.) saith that it excelled all the cities in Spain, both for plenty, populousness, & arts military. Hannibal hated it, for sticking so to the Romans: for it had done much hurt to the Carthaginian consederats in Spain: so he made war upon it, both to revenge the wrongs it had done others, and also to turn the whole aim of the war upon the romans, which he had desired most fervently ever since he was 9 years old. (b) Here now] some copies want Dii, gods, but they are imperfect. Glutton is used by Tully in an honest sense, calling Cato a Glutton of Books. (De fin. lib 3.) (c) If the gods] Livy, lib. 26. Hannibal standing before the walls of Rome, being now to throw wars dice at the city itself, a great tempest arose, and parted the armies, who were no sooner retired, the one to their tents, and the other into the City, but immediately it grew admirably fair and clear: And this happened the second day also, both armies being in the field, and staying but for the signal to join battles. Which Hannibal observing, grew superstitious, doubting the god's displeasure with him for staying there, and so commanded the camp to remove from thence. Of Rome's ingratitude to Scipio, that freed it from imminent danger, and of the conditions of the Citizens in those times that Saluste commendeth to have been so virtuous. CHAP. 21. furthermore, in the space between the first and second Carthaginian war when as Saluste saith the romans lived in all concord and content (the remembrance of my theme makes me omit much): In those times of concord and content, Scipio, (a) that protector and raiser of his country, the rare, admirable ender of that so extreme, so dangerous and so fatal a war as that of Carthage was, the conqueror of Hannibal, the tamer of Carthage, whose very youth is graced with all praises of (b) religiousness, and divine conversation: this man so great and so gracious, was forced to give place to the (e) accusations of his enemies, to leave his country, which but for him had been left to destruction, and after his high heroical triumph, to bequeath the remainder of his days to the poor town of (d) Linternum: banishing all affect of his country so far from him, that it is said that he (e) gave express charge at his death, that his body should not in any case be buried in that so ungrateful soil of Rome. (f) Afterwards, in the triumph of Cn. Manlius (vice-consul) over the Gallogrecians, the (g) luxury of Asia entered, the worst foe Rome ever felt. Guilded beds, and precious coverings got then their first ingress. Then began they to have wenches to sing at their banquets, and many other licentious disorders. But I am to speak of the calamities that they suffered so unwillingly, not of the offences that they committed so lavishly. And therefore what I spo●…e of Scipio, that left his country for his enemies (having first preserved it from utter ruin) and died a willing exile, that was to our purpose, to show that the Roman gods, from whose temples he d●…aue Hannibal, did never require him with any the least touch of temporal felicity, for which only they are adored. But because Saluste saith that Rome was so well mannered in those days, I thought good to touch at this Asian luxury, that you might understand that Saluste spoke in comparison of the aftertimes, wherein discord was at the highest flood, and good manners at their lowest ebb. For then, (that is between the second and last African war, the (h) Voconian law was promulgate, that none should make a woman his heir, no were she his (ay) only daughter; than which decree, I can see nothing more barbarous and unjust. But indeed the mischiefs that the city suffered were not so many nor so violent in the space betwixt the two Punic wars, as they were at other times: for though they felt the smart of war abroad, yet they enjoyed the sweet of victory; and at home they agreed better than they did in the times of security. But in the last African war, by the only valour of that Scipio, that therefore was surnamed African, that City, that compared and contended with Rome, was utterly razed to dust and ruined; And then broke in such an inundation of depraved conditions drawn into the state by security and prosperity, that Carthage might justly be said to have been a more dangerous enemy to Rome in her dissolution, than she was in her opposition. And this continued until Augustus his time, who (me thinks) did not abridge the romans of their liberty, as of a thing which they loved and prised, but as though they had utterly despised it, and left it for the taking: Then reduced be all things unto an imperial command, renewing and repairing the commonweal, that was become all motheaten and rusty with age, vice and negligence. I omit the diverse and diversly arising contentions and battles of all this whole time: that league of (k) Numance, stained with so foul an ignominy, where the (l) chickens flew out of their cages, as presaging some great ill luck (they say) unto Mancinus then Consul: so tha●… it seemed (m) that little city that had plagued the Roman army that besieged it so many years, did now begin to be a (n) terror to the romans whole estate, and boded misfortune unto those her powers that came against it. L. VIVES. SCipio (a) that protector] P. Cornelius Scipio African, who passing over into Africa, fetched Hannibal out of Italy, sixteen years after his first entry, overthrew him in ●…frick, Scipio. African. chased him thence, and gave end to this most dangerous war. (b) religiousness] Liu. lib. ●…6. Besides from the time that he took on his gown of man-slate, he would never meddle in any matter public or private, before he had been in the temple, in the Capitol, and had meditated there awhile alone. This he used all his life time. (c) Accusations] Liu. lib. 38. Plut. in his life. (d) Linternum] It is in Campania, called now Torre della Patria. (e) Gave charge] Livy reciteth diverse opinions of the place of his death. For it is uncertain whether he died at Rome, or no. (f) Afterwards] Liu. lib. 39 The Gallogrecians were a people of the lesser The Gallogrecians. Asia, called in Greek Galatae, of the Galls that went thither under Brenne, and inhabited there. (g) Luxury of As●…] the lesser: whereof hereafter. (h) Voconian] preferred by Q. Voconius Saxa, tribune. Approved by Cato the elder, a little before Perseus' war. Liu. lib. 41. The law Uoconian. where Volumnius is read for Uoconius. ay Only daughter] Though he had no other children but her. (k) League of Numance] Hostilius Mancinus Consul with an army of 30000. was overthrown by the Numantines, being but 4000 and forced to make a shameful peace with them. (l) Chickens flew] The romans in their wars used to carry chickens about with them in Cages, and he that kept them was called Pullarius, the chickin-keeper. If they feed greedily it was a good sign, if so greedily that part of their victuales fell to the earth, it was the best of all. For that was called Tripudium Solistimum, and once it was called Terripanium, Tripudium Solistimum. à paviendo, of striking the earth in the fall of it. And Solistimum of Solum, the ground. For thus it was written in the Augurs books, that if any of the Chickens meat fell from them, it was Tripudium. But an unluckily sign it was, if they fed not, as happened to P. Claudius, Caecus his son. But a worse if they flew out of their cages. The soothsayers (as Festus saith) observed the signs of five several things: the heavens, birds, these Tripudia, beasts, and curses. (m) Little city,] Without walls or Forts, keeping but an army of 4000 men. The war began, because they received the Sedigenses (people that the romans hated, and had overthrown) into their city and houses. (n) Terror] Cicero calls Carthage and Numance, the two terrors of the Roman Empire. Pro Muraena. Of the Edict of Mithridates, commanding every Roman that was to be found in Asia, to be put to death. CHAP. 22. But as I said, these shall pass: marry not that of Mithridates, (a) King of Asia who gave direct command, that what ever Roman was to be found trafficking or traveling any where in all Asia, upon one certain day he should be immediately slain: and it was effected. How dolorous a sight was this, to see men slain in such numbers, wheresoever they were taken, in field, way, town, house, street, court, temple, bed or table, or wheresoever, so suddenly and so wickedly? what sorrows would possess the standers by, and perhaps the very doers of the deeds themselves, to hear the sad groans of the dying men? unto what extremity were the hosts of lodgings brought now, when they must not only behold those murders committed in their houses, but even help to perform them themselves. To turn so suddenly from gentle humanity unto barbarous cruelty? to do the act of an enemy in peace, and that on his friend, interchanging indeed wounds with the murdered, the murdered being stricken in the body, & the murderer in the mind? & did all these that were thus slain, neglect Auguries? Had they no gods public nor private to ask counsel of ere they betook them unto this travel from whence they were never to return? If this be true, then have they of our times no cause to complain of us, for the neglect of those things, the romans of old contemned them as vanities. But if they did not, but used to ask counsel of them, then tell me (I pray) to what end was it when other men's powers fell so heavy upon these wretches without all prohibition, or means to avoid them? L. VIVES. MIthridates (a) King.] The first Mithridates was of the blood of the seven Persians that diverse Mithridates took the kingdom from the Magi. Antigonus' King of Syria was his foe and chased him into Cappadocia, where he was afterwards King: and so left his crown to his son, he to his, and so down to the sixth of his descent, the sixth was the Mithridates that warred with the romans, a man of a strong body, and of as stout a spirit, he guided six horses in his chariot, he spoke two and twenty several languages, and was surnamed the great. First he was friend to Rome, for he sent Crassus' aid against Aristonicus, but by reason of the war he had with Nicomedes King of Bythynia, he fell from affecting the romans; invaded the Roman Provinces in Phrigia, expelled the legate Aquilius, and soon after imprisoned both him and Q. Opius, viceconsuls' together: and sent his letters forth through out all Asia, that upon one set day, what ever Roman were resident, in all his dominions, should be forthwith slain without all respect of dignity, age, sex or place that he should fly into. And it was done as he commanded. Of the more private and interior mischiefs, that Rome endured, which were presaged by that prodigious madness of all the creatures that served the use of man. CHAP. 23. But now let us do what we can to recite those evils which the more domestic they were to Rome, the more miserable they made it: I mean the civil or rather uncivil discords, being now no more seditions but plain wars, and those in the very bowels of the City, wherein so much blood was spilled: where the Senators powers were now no more bend to altercations (a) and wranglings, but directly to arms and weapons. O what rivers of romans blood flowed from the social, Servile, and Civil wars? how sore a waist fell upon the breast of all Italy from hence? For before that (b) Latium, (being associate and confederate with the rest) arose against Rome (c) all the creatures that were useful unto Man, dogs, horses, asses, oxen, and all others besides, that served human occasions, Prodigies in the catle. growing suddenly stark mad, and losing all their meekness, run wild out of the towns into the deserts, fields and forests, flying the company not only of all others, but even of their own masters, and endangering any man that offered to come near them. What (d) a prodigious sign was hear? but if this, being so great a mischief of itself, were but the presage of another, what a mischief must that be then, that was ushered in by such a mischievous presage. If this had befallen in our times, we should be sure to have had these faithless miscreants a great deal madder than the others dogs were. L. VIVES. ALtercations (a) and [For before, they did but wrangle, revile, and rail, their fights were only in words, no weapons. (b) Latium being associate] when as the Senate had set up M. Livius drusus tribune against the power of the Gentlemen, who had as then the judging of all causes, through Gracchus his law, Drusus to strengthen the senates part the more, drew all the several nations of Italy to take part with him, upon hope of the possessing the city, which hope the Italians catching hold upon, and being frustrate of it by Drusus his sudden death, first the Picenians took arms, and after them the Vestines, Marsians, Latins, Pelignians, Marucians' Lucanes, and Samnites Sext. jul. Caesar, & L. Marcius Philippus being consuls: in the year of the city, DCLXII. They fought often with divers fortunes. At last, by several generals, The confederates ●…rre. the people of Italy were all subdued. The history is written by Livy, Florus, Plutarch, Orosius, Velleius, Appian (b) asociats] the Latins begun the stir resolving to kill the consuls, Caesar and Philip upon the Latin feast days, (c) all the creatures] Orosi. lib. 5. The herds about this time fell into such a madness that the hostility following was here-upon conjectured, and many with tears foretold the ensuing calamities. (d) a prodigious sign▪ Here the text is diversly written in copies, but all to one purpose. Of the civil discord that arose from the seditions of the Gracchis. CHAP. 24. THe sedition (a) of the Gracchis about the law Agrarian, gave the first vent unto all the civil wars; for the lands that the nobility wrongfully possessed, they would needs have shared amongst the people, but it was a dangerous thing for them to undertake the righting of a wrong of such continuance, and in the end, it proved indeed their destruction: what a slaughter was there, when Tiberius Gracchus was slain? and when his brother followed him within a while after? the noble and the base were butchered together in tumults and uproars of the people, not in formal justice nor by order of law but all in huggermugger. After the latter Gracchus his slaughter, followed that of L. Opimius' consul, who taking arms in the City agaist this Gracchus and killing him and all his fellows, had made a huge slaughter of Citizens, by this means having caused three thousand to be executed, that he had condemned by law. By which one may guess, what a massacre there was of all in that tumultuous conflict, sith that 3. thousand were marked out by the law, as orderly condemned, and justly slain. He that (b) killed Gracchus, had the weight of his head in gold, for that was his bargain before And in this fray was (c) M. Fuluius slain, and all his children. L. VIVES. THe (a) Gracchi] we have spoken of them before, Tiberius was the elder and Caius the younger, Tiberius was slain nine year before Caius: read of them in Plutarch, Appian. Ualerius, Cicero, Orosius, Saluste, Pliny and others (b) killed Gracchus] C. Gracchus seeing his band expelled by the Consul and the Senate, he fled into the wood of Furnia, Opimius proclaiming the weight of his head in gold, for a reward for him that brought it. So Septimuleius Anagninus a familiar friend of Gracchus his, came into the wood quietly, and having talked a Septimuleius Anagninus. while friendly with him, on a sudden stabbeth him to the heart, cuts off his head, and to make it weigh heavier, takes out the brains and fills the place with lead. Opimius' was Consul with Q. Fabius Maximus, nephew to Paulus, and kinsman to Gracchus. (c) M. Fuluius] one that had been Consul with Marcus Tlautius but five years before. Of the temple of Concord, built by the Senate in the place where these seditions and slaughters were effected. CHAP. 25. A Fine decree surely was it of the Senate, to give charge for the building of Concord's (a) temple, just (b) in the place where those outrages were acted: that the monument of Gracchus his punishment might be still in the eye of the (c) pleaders, and stand fresh in their memory. But what was this but a direct scoffing of their gods? They built a goddess a temple, who had she been amongst them, would never have suffered such gross breaches of her laws as these were; unless Concord being guilty of this crime, by leaving the hearts of the citizens, deserved therefore to be imprisoned in this temple. Otherwise, to keep formality with their deeds, they should have built Discord a Temple in that place. Is there any reason that Concord should be a goddess and not Discord? or that (according to Labeo his division) she should not be a good goddess and Discord an evil one? He spoke upon grounds, because he saw that Fever had a Temple built her, as well as Health. By the same reason should Discord have Discord a goddess. had one as well as Concord. Wherefore the romans were not wise, to live in the displeasure of so shrewd a goddess: they have forgotten that (d) she was the destruction of Troy, by setting the three goddesses together by the ears for the golden Apple because she was not bidden to their feast: whereupon the goddesses fell a scolding; Venus she got the Apple, Paris, Helen and Troy utter destruction. Wherefore if it were through her anger because she had no Temple there with the rest, that she set the romans at such variance, how much more angry would she be to see her chiefest enemy have a Temple built in that place, where she had shown such absolute power? Now their greatest Scholars do stomach us, for deriding these vanities, and yet worshipping those promiscuall gods, they cannot for their lives clear themselves of this question of Concord and Discord, whether they let them alone unworshipped, and prefer Febris and Bellona before them (to whom their most ancient Temples were dedicated) or that they do worship them both as well as the rest. How-so-ever, they are in the briars, seeing that Concord got her gone, and left Discord to play havoc amongst them by herself. L. VIVES. Concord's (a) Temple] There were many Temples of Concord in Rome: the most ancient, Concord's Temple. built by Camillus, for the acquittance of the Galls from Rome. I know not whether it was that which Flavius dedicated in Vulcan's court, which the Nobles did so envy him for, P. Sulpitius and P. Sempronius being Consuls. I think it is not that. Another was vowed by L. Manlius' Praetor, for the ending of the soldiers sedition in France. It was let forth to be built by the Duum-viri Gn. Puppius Caeso, and Quintius Flaminius were for this end made Duum-virs. It was dedicated in the tower by M. and Gn. Attilii. Liu. lib. 22. and 23. A third was in the Roman court near to the Greek monuments, built by Opimius' Consul, having dissolved Gracchi his faction, and there also is the Opimian Palace. Varro. de Ling. Lat. lib. 3. The building of this temple vexed the romans extremely: and at the building, there was written in it, Opus vecordiae: the work of sloth. A fourth was built by Livia Augusta, unless it were but Camillus his old one which she repaired. ovid. fast. 1. Concord's feasts were in Februaries Calends the xviii. (b) In the place] Appian saith in the pleading place, and so doth Varro and Victor de region. urb. puts it in the eight Region, that is, in the Roman court, the fight ending in aventinus though it began in the Capitol. (c) Pleaders] Tribunes, and such as spoke to the people in Conventicles: that they should speak nothing but well of the Senate, taking example by Gracchus, whose memory that monument still remembered. (d) She was] Discord alone being not bidden to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis being angry hereat, sent a golden ball into the feasters, with this inscription, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, let the The cause of Troy's destruction fairest have it. Hereupon grew a strife between Pallas, juno, and Venus. So they came to Paris to have judgement, whence arose all that deluge of destruction that overwhelmed Troy. Of the diverse wars that followed after the building of Concord's temple. CHAP. 26. NOw they all thought that this new temple of Concord, and testimony of Gracchus, would be an excellent restraint unto all seditious spirits. But how far they shot wide, let the subsequent times give aim. For from that time forth, the Pleaders never went about to avoid the examples of the Gracchis, but laboured to exceed them in their pretences. L. (a) Saturninus Tribune, (b) C. Caesar, Seruillius Praetor, and (c) not long after that, (d) M. Drusus, all these began more bloody seditions, whence there arose not only civil slaughters, but at last they broke openly out into the Confederates war, which brought all Italy unto most miserable and desperate extremities. Then followed the (e) Slaves war, and other civil wars, wherein it is strange to record what fields were pitched, what bloodshed and what murder stuck upon the face of all Italy, as far as the romans had any power or signory. And how small a company, less than seventy Fencers, began this Slaves war, which mounted to that terror and danger. What multitudes of Generals did this rascal crew overthrow? what numbers of Roman cities and Provinces they destroyed, it is more than work enough for a professed Historian to declare? For the war held out not only in Italy, but these slaves overranne all Macedonia, Sicily, and the sea coasts. And then what outrageous robberies at first, and what terrible wars afterwards were managed by the (f) Pirates, what pen is them sufficient to recapitulate? L. VIVES. L. (a) Saturninus,] This man being Tribune, and troubling the state with the Agrarian law, was killed by C. Marius, and L. Ualer. Flaccus, Consuls, to whom the Senate had committed the protection of the state: yet did Saturninus prefer this law to do Marius a pleasure. (b) C. Caesar.] This name is not in the old copies, but only C. Servilius Glaucia, Praetor, of Saturninus his faction: Of the Seditious, Lucius Apuleius Saturninus came nearest the Gracchis in eloquence, for he attracted all men's affections by his gesture and apparel, more than by his tongue or discourse. But C. Sext●…lius Glaucia was the most wicked villain that ever was, and yet most subtle and quick witted, but yet he was very ridiculous. He had been Consul for all his filthiness of means and manners, if it had been held fit he should have stood for it: For he had the people sure for him, and had won the Gentlemen by pleasuring them. But being Praetor he was publicly slain on the same day with Saturnine, Marius and Flaccus being Consuls. All this is out of Tully's Orator But if some will have it Caesar, they are not much amiss; excepting for the times: marry he that was L. Caesar's brother, moved the romans against Sulpitius the Tribune, which contention gave beginning to the war of Marius, as Pedianus hath recorded. This Caesar saith Tully, being Aedile, made every day an Oration. In Bruto. (c) Not long after▪ Seven years passed just between the Tribuneships of Saturnine and Drusus: and from the Consulships of Marius and Flaccus, to Flaccus and Herennius. (d) M Drusus] he was of good birth but the proudest man in Rome: quick to speak: and being called to the Senate, he sent the Senate word to come to him: and so they did. The Senate called his father their Patron (e) Slaves war.] It began in Cicilie before the Confederates war, by one Eunus a Syrrian that feigned himself to be inspired with the Cibels spirit. He got together sixty thousand The slaves war. men: overthrew four Praetors and took their tents. At length Perpenna besieged and conquered them. A little after Cleon a Cicilian, began such another war in the same Island, getting huge powers, overthrowing the Praetors as before, and spoiling the Tents. This war M. Aequilius ended. In Italy Spartacus and Chrysus began it, who broke out of the school of Lentulus, when he was at Capua, and got forth to the number of seaventy-foure, to whom a great many slaves adjoined themselves soon after. P. Varenus Praetor, and Claudius Pulcher Legate, that met them first in arms, they overcame. Afterward Chrysus and his bands were defeated by Q. Uarius Praetor. Spartacus continued the war with great good fortune, against Lentullus the Consul first, and then against L. Gellius and Q. Arius Praetor, and afterward with Cassius' vice-consul, and Cn. Manlius Praetor. Lastly M. Crassus being Praetor overcame him, and put his army to the sword. (f) Pirates.] The Cilician Pirates troubling the sea P. Servilius Vice-Consul was sent against them, who took Isaurum and The pirate war. divers of their Cities: but he retiring home, they rose with greater powers, and boote-haled all the Coast unto Caieta, Missenum and Ostia, to the great terror and reproach of the Roman name. At length Cn. Pompey being made Admiral by the Gabinian Law, quit the sea of them in forty days. (Liu. lib. 99) Cicero pro leg. Manil. L. Florus, and others. Of the civil wars between Sylla and Marius CHAP. 27. WHen Marius being now imbrued with his countrymen's blood, and having slain many of his adversaries, was at length foiled and forced to fly the city, that now got time to take a little breath; presently (to use (a) Tully's words) upon the sudden Cinna and Marius began to be conquerors again. And then out went the heart bloods of the most worthy men, and the lights of all the city. But soon after came (b) Sylla, and revenged this barbarous massacre; but with what damage to the state and city, it is not my purpose to utter; For that this revenge was worse, then if all the offences that were punished, had been left unpunished. Let Lucan testify: (c) in these words. Excessit medicina modum, nimiumque secuta est Qua morbi duxêre manus: periêre nocentes Sed cum iam soli possent superesse nocentes Tunc data libertas odijs resolutàque legum Frenis ira ruit— The medicine wrought too sore, making the cure Too cruel for the patient to endure: The guilty fell: but none yet such remaining, Hate riseth at full height, and wrath disdaining Laws reins broke out— For in that war of Sylla and Marius, (besides those that fell in the field,) the whole city, streets, Market-places, theatres, and Temples were filled with dead bodies: that it was a question whether the conquerors slaughtered so many to attain the conquest, or because they had already attained it. In Marius his first victory, at his return from exile, besides infinite other slaughters, Octavius his head (the Consuls) was polled up in the pleading-place: Caesar and (d) Fimbra were slain in their houses, the two (e) Crassis, father and son, killed in one another's sight, (f) Bebius and Numitorius trailed about upon hooks till death: (g) Catulus poisoned himself to escape his enemies, and (h) Menula the jovial Flamine cut his own veins and so bled himself out of their danger, Marius having given order for the kill of all them whom he did not (i) resalute, or proffer his hand unto. L. VIVES. TO use (a) Tully's words] For the following words are Tullyes' in his 3. invective against Catiline: Where men were slain by Cinna and Marius (saith he) we have already rehearsed in our third Oration for Sylla: namely the two brethren C. and L. julij, Caesar's, Attillius Soranus, P. Lentulus, L. Crassus, M. Anthony the Orator, Gn. Octavius, L. Cornelius, Merula the Dial Flamine: Consuls, L. Catulus, Q. Arcarius, M. Bebius, Numitorius, Sext. Licinius. (b) ●…ylla, and revenged] Tullyes' words also ibid. (c) In these words] Lib. 2. Nobles slain. by Cynna & Marius. Sylla quoque immensis acce●…sit cladibus ultor, Ille quod exiguum restabat sanguinis urbi Hausit: damque minis iam putrida membra recidit, Excessit medicina modum— Then Sylla came to avenge the worthis slain And that small Roman blood that did remain He drew: but clean sing still the parts impure The medicine wrought to sure— (d) Fimbria] There was one C. Fimbria, whom Velleius calls Flavius, he was a Marian, and the razor of Ilium. There was an other C. Fimbria, sur-named Licinius, who lived with the C. Fimbria Licinius. Gracchis, and entering inro the civil wars, was slain in his own house, as Caesar was: of this Fimbria speaks Tully de clar. orator. And he it was (I think) that would not give his iudgemet in the contention about a good man. (Cic. office. lib 3. Valer. lib. 7.) e) Crassis.] The son fell by the hands of the soldiers of Fimbria, Cinna's Lieutenant: the father stabbed himself. (f) Bebius] He was torn in pieces by the executioners like a beast, without any use of iron upon him. (Lucan. lib. 2.) Bebius. — Vix te sparsum per viscera Bebi Innumeras inter carpentis membra coronae, Discerpsisse manus— — Nor thee poor Bebius, torn, And scattered through a thousand bloody hands, Renting them in a ring— (g) Catulus] L. Luctatius Catulus was joint Consul with Marius in his 4. Consulship in the Cimbrian war, and triumphed with him over them: The whole Senate entreating Mar●… Catulus. for him, he answered he must die, which Catulus hearing of, stifled himself with coals: whether swallowing them as Portia did, or enclosing the smoke close in his chamber, having newly limed it so he died, it is not certain: (for this later is a present way to death, unless remedies be forthwith gotten) Some think he died of poison, as Augustine saith here. (h) Merula] He cut his veins in Jove's shrine. ay Resalute] That was the sign that Marius gave for life and death. How Sylla revenged Marius his murders. CHAP. 28. NOw as for Sylla's victory, the revenger of all this cruelty, it was not got with●… much store of citizens blood, and yet the wars only having ended and n●… the grudges: this victory broke out into a far more cruel waist, in the midst of all the peace. For after the butcheries that the elder Marius had made (being yet b●… fresh and bleeding, there followed worse by the hands of the younger Marius & Carbo, both of the old faction of Marius. These two perceiving Sylla to come upon them, being desperate both of safety and victory, filled all with slaughters, both of themselves and others: For besides the massacre they made elsewhere in the city, they besieged the Senate in the very Court, and from thence as from a prison, dragged them out by the heads to execution. (b) Mutius Seaevola, the Priest was slain just as he had hold of the altar of Vesta, the most reverend relic of all the city (c) almost quenching that fire with his blood, which the Virgins care kept always burning. Then entered victorious Sylla into the city (d) and in the common street, (wars cruelty now done, and pieces beginning) put seven thousand unarmed men to the sword, not in fight, but by an express command. And after that he put even whom he list to death, throughout the whole city, in so much that the slaughters grew so innumerable (e) that one was glad to put Sylla in mind that he must either let some live, or else he should have none to be Lord over. And then indeed this ravenous murderer began to be restrained by degrees; and a (f) table was set up (with great applause) with proscribed but 2000 of the Patriots and Gentlemen, appointing them all to be presently killed. The number made all men sad, but the manner cheered them again: nor were they so sad, that so many should perish, as they rejoiced, that the rest should escape. Nevertheless, this cruel carelessness of theirs groaned at the exquisite torments, that some of the condemned persons suffered in their deaths. For (g) one of them was torn in pieces by men's hands without touch of iron, where the executioners showed far more cruelly in rending this living man thus, than they use ordinarily upon a dead beast. (h) Another having first his eyes plucked out, and then all the parts of his body cut away joint by joint, was forced to live, or rather to die, thus long in such intolerable torment. Many also of the noblest cities and towns were put unto the sack: and as one guilty man is used to be led out to death, so was one whole City as then laid out and appointed for execution. These were the fruits of their peace after their wars, wherein they hasted not to get the conquest, but were swift to abuse it being got. Thus this peace bandied in blood with that war, and quite exceeded it. for then war killed but the armed, but this peace never spared the naked. In the war he that was stricken, if he could might strike again: but in this peace, he that escaped the war, must not live, but took his death with patience perforce. L. VIVES. Marius' his Son. THe younger (a) Marius] Son to the elder: joined Consul with Carbo ere he were 25. years old by forced means. He commanded his man Damasippus to kill all the Patriots in the city, who (being military Praetor) like a good servant did all that his master bade him, & under show of calling a Senate, killed them every one. (b) Mutius Scaevola] (Liu. lib. 87.) But Lucan (lib 2.) seems to hold that Scaevola was slain by the elder Marius: marry so do not the Historiagrahers; but by the younger. (c) Almost quenshing] In imitation of Lucan. — Parum sed fessa senectus Scaevola. Sanguinis effudit iugulo; flammisque pepercit. — Nor did the aged sire Bleed much: but spared the profaned fire. (d) In the common street] Livy saith, eight thousand, and the author of the book De viris illustribus, saith nine thousand. (e) One was] This Eutropius and Oros. think was Q. Catulus. Others say that C. Metellus trusting to his kindred with Sylla spoke this in a youthful forwardness: Plutarch and Florus say it was Fusidius (though Plutarch call him Offidius that is but a fault as a great many more are in him either through himself, his translators, or the copiers.) Orosius saith Fursidus. This Fusidius, Sallust remembers in his oration of Lepidus the Consul. (f) A table] The table of proscription, showing the certain number of such as should be slain, that each might know what should become of him. Such as were proscribed it Tables of proscription. was lawful to kill, their goods were shared, part to Sylla, part to the executioner. Their children were deprived of honours and forbidden by Sylla's law to sue for any. This was the first proscription table, that Rome ever saw. (g) One] This was Bebius, a Marian, the other was for Sylla: and they died both one death. For the Syllans' returning like cruelty for like upon the Marian's, used their Bebius after the same sort as the other was used by them. Florus names The Bebii. them both. (h) Another] M. Marius Gratidianus, Caius his kinsman. This deed was Catiline's, at the Grave of L. Caculus, upon this Marius, a most gracious and honest man, having been twice tribune, and twice Praetor. Q. Cicero in Paraenes. ad. M. Fratr. He first cut off his arms and legs, than his ears, tongue, and nose: then pulled out his eyes, and lastly cut off Marius Gra●…idianus his death. his head. ay Put to the sack] Subhastatae, doth Laurinus read it, most congruently to the history. The fairest holds of Italy (saith Florus) Subhastatae sunt, came to the soldiers spoiling: Spoletum, Interamna, Praeneste, Fluentia. But Sulmo, an ancient friend of Rome's, (Oh unworthy deed) being unbesieged, even as wars pledges being condemned to die, are led forth to execution, so was this City by Sylla, singled out and appointed for a direct spoil and slaughter. Flor. lib. 3. Livy lib. 88 Saith that Sylla commanded all the Prenestines, being disarmed to be slain, Sulmo. Subhastate was a word of use in Augustine's time, for Theodosius, and Archadius Emperors do both use it. C. de rescind. vend. A comparison of the Goths coruptions, with the calamities that the romans endured either by the Galls, or by the authors of their civil wars. CHAP. 29. WHat barbarousness of other foreign nations, what cruelty of strangers is comparable to this conquest of one of their Citizens? What foe did Rome ever feel, more fatal, inhuman and outrageous? Whether in the eruptions first of the Galls, and since of the Goths, or the inundations that Sylla, Marius, and other great romans made with the blood of their own citizens, more horrible, or more detestable? The Galls indeed killed the Senate, and spoiled all but the Capitol, that was defended against them. But they notwithstanding sold the besieged their freedom for gold, where as they might have extorted it from them by famine, though not by force. But as for the Goths, they spared so many of the Senate, that it was a marvel that they killed any. But (a) Sylla, when as Marius was yet alive, sat on the very Capitol, (which the Galls entered not) to behold from thence, the slaughters which he commanded to be performed. And Marius, being but fled, to return with more power and fury, he, keeping still in the Capitol, deprived numbers of their lives and states, colouring all this villainy by the decrees of the Senate. And when he was gone, what did the Marian faction respect or spare, when they would not forbear to kill old Seaevola, a citizen, a Senator, the chief Priest, embracing that very alter, where on they say the fate of Rome itself was adored? And for that (b) last table of Sylla's, (to omit the innumerable deaths besides) it cut the throats of more Senators, than the Goths whole army could find in their hearts but to offer, ransack, or spoil. L. VIVES. But (a) Sylla] In his first victory against Marius, proclaiming Sulpitius, the Marii, and divers others his foes, enemies to the state by a decree of the Senate. (b) Last table] Plutarch saith, th●… as then in a little space, were divers proscription tables hung up. Of the great and pernicious multitude of the romans wars a little before the coming of Christ, CHAP. 30. WIth what face then, with what heart, with what impudence, folly, nay madness, do they impute these later calamities unto our Saviour, and yet will not impose the former upon their Idols? Their civil discords by their own writers confessions have been ever more extremely bloody than their foreign wars. The means which did not afflict, but utterly subvert: their state arose long before Christ, by the combination of these wicked causes arising from the war of Sylla and Marius, unto that of (a) Sertorius and (b) Catiline, the one of whom, Sylla proscribed, and the other he nourished: and then downwards to the wars of (c) Lepidus and Catulus, whereof the one would confirm Sulla's ordinances, and the other would disannul them: Then to the war of (d) Pompey and Caesar: whereof Pompey was a follower of Sylla, and either equalled, or at least exceeded him in state and power; And (e) Caesar was one that could not bear the greatness of Pompey because he lacked it himself: which notwithstanding, after he had overthrown him and made him away, he went far beyond. From hence they come down to the other Caesar, called (f) Augustus, in whose reign our Saviour Christ was born. This Augustus had much civil wars, wherein were lost (g) many excellent men, & (h) Tully that excellent commonwealths-man was one amongst the rest For C. ay Caesar, the conqueror of Pompey though he used his victory with mercy, restoring the states and dignities to all his adversaries: notwirstanding all this, by a conspiracy of the noblest Senators he was stabbed to death in the court, for the defence of thei●… liberty, who held him to affect a Monarchy. After this (k) Antony (a man neither like him in means, nor manners, but given over to all sensuality) seemed to affect his power: Whom Tully did stoutly with. stand in defence of the said liberty. And then (l) stepped up that younger Caesar, the other Caesar's adopted son, afterwards styled (as I said) Augustus: Him did Tully favour and confirm against Anthony, hoping that he would be the man, who having demolished Anthony's pretences and powers, would re-erect the liberty of his country. But (m) far mistaken was he and mole-eid in this matter, for his young man whose power he had augmented, first of all suffered Anthony to cut of Cicero's head, as if it had been a bargain between them, and then brought that liberty which the other wrought so for, unto his own sole command, and under his own particular subjection. L. VIVES. OF (a) Sertorius] Q. Sertorius Mirsinius, seeing the faction of Marius (which he favoured) to go down the wind, by the leaders follies, got away with the forces he led, through Sertorius. all the ragged and difficult passages into Spain, and there warred valiantly against the Syllans. At last being put to the worst by Pompey, he was stabbed at supper by the treason of Perpenna, Antonius, and others his fellows: A worthy Captain he was, had he had a worthier mean to have showed himself in. (b) Catiline] He was for Sylla, and cut many throats at his command. Afterward rebelling and taking arms against his country, he was overthrown Catiline. and slain by Cicero and C. Antony Consuls. (c) Lepidus] In his, and Q. Luctatius Lepidus. Catulus. Catulus his Consulship Sylla died and was buried in Mars his field. At his burial the two Consuls were at great words about the reformation of the state, Lepidus desiring to recall Sylla's proscripts, and to restore them their gods, and Catulus contradicting him together with the Senate: not that it was not just, but because it would be the original of a new tumult, the most dangerous of all in that little breathing time of the state. from words they fell to weapons. G. Pompey and Q. Catulus joined battle with Lepidus, overthrew him with ease, and despoiling him of his whole strength returned to Rome without any more stir or other subsequence of war. The victory was moderately used, and arms presently laid aside. (d) Pompey.] Cn. Pompey the great, C. Pompey Strabo's son met Sylla Cn. Pompey. coming out of Asia, with three legions which he had taken up amongst the Pisenes: hereby furthering Sylla greatly in his victory, who used him as one of his chief friends, and surest Captains in ending the civil war in Cicilie, Africa, Italy and Spain. He triumphed twice being but agent of Rome, no Senator. He had great good fortune in subduing the Pirates. He conquered Mithridates and all the East, getting great and glorious triumph thereby, and wondrous wealth. He was of mighty power and authority in the State, all which I have more at large recorded in my Pompeius fugiens. Lastly, warring against Caesar for the Commonwealth he was foiled, fled away to Ptolomey the young King of Egypt, where to do Caesar a pleasure, he was murdered. (e) Caesar.] This man was son to L. Caesar, whose Aunt julia was wife unto Marius; being Consul, by Pompey's means, jul. Caesar. he got the Province of France for five years: and those expired, for five more, of the Consuls, Pompey and Crassus. In which ten years he conquered all France: and fretting that Pompey could do more in the state than he, pretending other causes, he brought his forces against his country. Lucan. Nec quenquam iam ferre potest Caesarue priorem Pompeiusue parem— Caesar endureth no superior, Pompey no equal— Suetonius in Caesar's life writes a Chapter of the causes of these wars. But Pompey being dead, Caesar got to be perpetual Dictator and then governed all the state like a King. Of this civil war wrote he himself, Plutarch, Appian, Florus, Eutropius, and Cicero who was present, and partaker in the whole business. (h) Augustus] C. Octavius, Cneius his son (a Praetorian) and Actia's, the daughter of Actius Balbus and julia, Caesar's sister. C. Octavius. Caesar made him heir of the ninth part of his estate, and called him by his name. Sueton. Many of the old soldiers after Caesar's death came unto him for his uncles sake, by whose means (as Tully saith) he defended the causes of the Senate against Anthony when he was but a youth: overthrew him, chased him into France unto Lepidus: at whose return, he made a league trium-virate with them, which was the direct ruin of the Commonwealth. The Trium-viri were Anthony, Lepidus and he himself. The conditions were, that Anthony should suffer his Uncle Sext. jul. Caesar to be proscribed: Lepidus his brother Lucius, and The Triumvirs. Octavius, Cicero; whom he held as a father. This was Anthony's request, because Cicero in his Orations had proclaimed him an enemy to the Commonweal: Of these three, Tully was killed by Anthony's men, the other two escaped. The Octavians warred with Brutus and Cassius, and at Phillippi by Anthony's help overthrew them. Then he warred with L. Anthony, the Tryumvirs brother, and at Perusia made him yield the Town himself: Afterward with Pompey the greats son, and took the Navy from him: and then with Lepidus depriving him of the Triumvirship: Lastly with Mark Anthony the Tryumvir whom he conquered, and so remained sole Emperor of Rome, having ended all the civil wars, and being saluted Augustus by Ualerius Messala in the name of the whole Senate and people of Rome. In the four and fortieth year of his reign ab V. C. DCCLI. an happy peace breathing on the bosom of all the earth both by Sea and Land, mankind being in absolute quiet from contention, THE PRINCE OF NATURE, THE CREATOR, THE KING OF KINGS, AND THE LORD OF LORDS, JESUS CHRIST was borne in Bethelem Christ borne. Luc. 2. a city in juda. (g) Many excellent] The Triumvirs proscribed far more of every sort than Sylla did. Those three Iun●…nal calls (bitterly) Sylla's Shollers, and faith they excelled their men in the art of proscription. (h) Cicero] He was slain being 63. years of age: After the reckoning of Livy and Aufidius Cicero's death. Bassus The divers opinions of his death are to be read in Seneca. (Suasor. lib. 1.) Augustine calls him an excellent Commonwealths-man, because his tongue (like a stern) did turn the Ship of the State which way he would: which he knowing, used this verse to the great vexation of his enemies. Cedant arma togae, concedat laurea lingua. That arms should yield to arts 'tis fit: Stoop then the wreath, unto the wit. Pliny the elder meeting him, Hail thou (quoth he) that first deserved a triumph by the gown, and a garland by thy tongue. ay C. Caesar] Brutus, Cassius, and sixty Senators more Caesar's death. conspired against Caesar, and in Pompey's court killed him with daggers the Ides of March. (k) Anthony] He and Dolabella were then Consuls. Anthony having the command of the armies, affected the Sovereignty of the state exceedingly, which at first Tully by his Orations M. Antony. suppressed: but then (as I said) he became Triumvir. The story of his war is as well recorded in Tullyes' Philipques as can be. (l) Kept up.] Tully by his eloquence armed him and Hircius and Pansa the Consuls against Anthony. (m) Far mistaken] Brutus had given Tully Brutus. sufficient warning of Octavius, not to make him too powerful, nor trust him too much: that his wit was childish, though good, and better fortunes might make him insolent. And here are yet two most grave Epistles of Brutus upon his theme, one to Tully and another to Atticus: wherein Brutus his manliness and judgement is clearly apparent. I think not Tully so foolish, though that he could not foresee this as well as he did many other events not so apparent: which he showed in his frequent use of these words, Octavius Caesar is to be commended, adorned, extolled, Velleius and Brutus in an Epistle to Cicero do both make mention of this. That those men that are not suffered as now to worship Idols, do show themselves fools, in imputing their present miseries unto Christ, seeing that they endured the like when they did worship the Devils. CHAP. 31. BVut let them blame their own gods for such mischiefs, that will not thank our Saviour Christ for any of his benefits. For when-soever they befell them before their god's altar steamed with Sabaean perfumes, and fresh flowers, their Priests were gallant, their Temples shined, plays, sacrifices and furies were all on foot amongst them. Yea even when there was such an effusion of civil blood, that the altars of the very gods were besprinkled with it. (b) Tully choose no Temple for refuge, because he saw it availed not Scaevola. But those that are now so ready with their saucy insultations against Christianity, of late either fled themselves into such places as were dedicated to Christ, or else were brought thither by the Barbarians. This I know, and every unpartial judge may know as well as I, that if mankind had received Christianity before the African wars (to omit the other that I have rehearsed, and that is too long to rehearse) and withal that such a desolation should have happened, as fell upon Europe and Africa in the said wars; there is none of those Infidels that oppose us now, but would have laid only the cause of it all upon the back of Christendom. But much more intolerable would their railings be, if that either the irruption of the Galls, or the inundation of Tiber, and that great spoil by fire had immediately followed, upon the first preaching and receiving of Christian religion: but worst of all, if the civil wars, that exceeded all, had followed thereupon. And those evils which fell out so incredibly, so far beyond all belief, that the world reputed them as prodigies, had they come to pass in Christian times, who should have borne the blame thereof, but the Christians? for those things which were rather strange, then pernicious, as the (c) speaking of the ox, the exclamations of children in their mother's wombs, the (d) flying of serpen●…s, and the (e) alteration of female creatures, both hens, and women into masculine forms, and such as these I willingly omit, those things are recorded in their histories, not in their fables, but be they true or false, they do not bring so much affliction unto man as admiration. But when (f) it reigned earth, and (g) chalk, and (h) stones, (not concrescences, that might be called hail, but (ay) direct stones) this verily might greatly endamage the earth's inhabitants. In the said authors we read, that the fires of (k) Aetna broke out so far, that the sea boiled therewith, the rocks were burned, & the pitch dropped of the ships. This was no light hurt, but a large wonder. Again, (l) Sicily was so overwhelmed another time with the ashes thereof, that the houses of (m) Catina were all turned over into the dust: whereupon the romans pitying their calamity, released them of (n) that years tribute. It is recorded also, that the number of the (o) Locusts in Africa was most wonderful, Locusts in Africa. and prodigious, it being as then a province of the romans: and that having consumed all the fruits & leaves of the trees, they fell all into the sea like a most huge & unmeasurable cloud. And being dead, and cast upon the shore again, arose such a pestilence of their stink that thereof died (p) 80000. men (q) only in Massi●…ssa Pestilence. his kingdom, and (r) many more in other countries thereabouts, and of the (s) 30000. Roman soldiers that remained at Utica, there were but only ten that survived. So that this foolery of theirs, which we must both endure and answer, what wrong would it not offer to the profession of the gospel, had it been preached before the birth of these prodigious accidents? yet it will not call the meanest of their gods to account, for any of these misfortunes whatsoever, and yet (t) these fools will worship them still in hope to be protected by them from these inconveniences, when they see nevertheless, how those that worshipped the same gods before have been oppressed, and over-borne with the same burdens of calamity, nay with loads of miseries, far more ponderous and intolerable then ever these latter times produced. L. VIVES. SAbaean (a) perfumes] Saba is the mother of Frankincense lying between Syria, and Arabia. India mitit ebur, molles sua thura Sabaei, saith Virgil: Ebon from Ind, from java, Frankincense, Sabaea. Servius says they are so called of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to worship: because frankincense is an expiation, (b) Tully chose.] He died in his farm Formianum, being kept by tempest from crossing the sea to Prodigies. Brutus. (c) speaking of] often falling out, once in the second Punic war, in the consulships of Fabius Maximus and Marcellus, the fourth of the firsts consulship and the third of the laters, and in the same year, a woman became a man at Spoletum and an infant in the mother's womb at Marusia, cried out Io triumphé. Liu. lib. 24.) another time, in the war of Anticchus an Ox cried Rome look to thyself: and in Antony's civil war, the Master whipping his Ox to work, the beast told him. There would want no corn but there would want men to eat 〈◊〉. And often besides. (d) flying.] The South-west wind brings many of those flying Serpents out of Lybia into Egypt, to the great annoyance of the inhabitants. And therefore Tully saith, they adore the Ibis, for driving away these pestilent creatures from them. So saith Herodotus P●…ying ser●…. in his Euterpe. (e) Of females] Changing of sexes, women into men and hens into cocks. There is no fault in the text: [Our interpreter knew not the force of the conjunction: and thought that Female, Faemina, had belonged only unto man, and that homo was only lbis whv worshipped in Egypt. of the masculine gender. See what sort of men the age before us respected and reverenced: they would take upon them the interpretation of worthy authors, and yet knew not that ●…mo might belong to a woman, nor faemina to a beast. We do wonder how we have our [] Paris' copy doth leave out this between these marks.] liberal arts so corrupted, but considering that these men have had the meddling with them, we have more reason to wonder how we have any spark of them left us at all.] This alteration, Pliny saith, is possible: bringing confirmation of divers examples, and his own credit, saying he had seen it verified himself: But considering the several natures of the sexes, it is hard for a male, to become a female: but not so hard for the other change. For the masculine member to be drawn in, and dilated into the feminine receptacles, is exceeding hard, marry for the female parts to be excrescent, and coagulate into the masculine form, may be somewhat, but not near so difficult as is thought, though it be seldom seen. (f) It reigned] Often, say authors. Livius jul. Obsequ. etc. (g) chalk] consuls Q. Metellus, and Tul. Didius. Obsequ. (h) Stones] This is not rare. First it did so in Tullus Hostilius his time, and then it was strange. But after it grew ordinary, to perticularize in this were idle. ay Direct stones] Some read, directly earth, etc. (k) Aetna] Aetna is a hill in Sicily, sacred to Vulcan, cas●…ing out fire in the night by a vent, ten furlongs about; the vent is called the cauld●…on. Solinus saith it hath two of them. Aetna, Briareus Cyclops his son, or Aetna, son to Caelus and Terra otherwise called Thalia, gave it the name. Servius. Virgil describes it in a large Poem, which some say is Ovid's: but Seneca saith, Ovid durst not deal with it, because Virgil had done it before him. Others say Cornelius Severus did it. The fire doth much harm to the bordering parts of the Island. This that Augustine declareth, happened in the Consulships Aetna. of Cn. Servile. Scipio, and C. Laelius: and in M. Aemilius and L. Aurelius their Consulships, the flames burst forth with an earthquake, and the sea was heated therewith, as far as the Island Liparae, so that divers ships were burnt, and divers of the sailors stifled with the sulphurous vapour. It killed an innumerable company of fish which the Liparians feeding upon, got a pestilent disease in their bellies, which unpeopled almost all the whole Island. Obseq. This was a little before Gracchus his sedition, and it was such, that many were driven to fly from their dwellings into other places. Oros. (l) Sicily] Oros. lib. 5. and 12. (m) Catina] Or Catana, it is called by both names, though their be one Catina in Spain, and another in Arcadia. This that Augustine relateth of is recorded by Pliny lib. 3. (n) That years] And nine years more, saith Orosius. (o) Locusts] This was in the Consulships of P. Plautius' 〈◊〉 M. Fulu. Flaccus, before C. Gracchus his sedition. Liu. lib. 9 Oros. Eutrop. jul. Obseq. (p) 80000.] So saith Orosius, but of Micipsa his Kingdom. Of this sickness in all, died 800000. men, saith Obsequens. 900000. saith Eutropius (who is indeed no good computator) in Numidia, Catina. about Carthage, 200000. of the Roman soldiers that kept the legion there, 30000. so saith Orosius, putting only 80. for 90. (q) Only in Masinyssa's] Or rather Micipsa's his son. For Masinissa himself was dead. But it might be called his, because Rome gave it him, for his worthy deserts. (r) Many more] Our historians write not so; perhaps Augustine followed others, or else like an Orator, applied the history to his own use and purpose, which Cicero doth allow in his Brutus, and hath practised sometimes himself, as we have observed in his Orations, and as Pedianus hath noted therein also. (s) 30000.] Being left at Utica as the Guarison of Africa. (t) a difference of reading: we have given it the truest sense. Finis lib. 3. THE CONTENTS OF THE fourth book of the City of God. 1. Of the contents of the first book. 2. Of the contents of the second & third book. 3. Whether happy and wise men should account it as part of their felicities, to possess an Empire that is enlarged by no means but war. 4. Kingdoms without justice, how like they are unto thievish purchases. 5. Of those fugitive sword-plaiers whose power grew paralleled with a royal dignity. 6. Of the covetise of Ninus, who made the first war upon his neighbours, through the greedy desire he had to increase his kingdom. 7. Whether the Pagan gods have any power either to further or hinder the progress, increase or defects of earthly kingdoms. 8. What precious gods those were by whose power the romans held their empire to be enlarged and preserved, seeing that they durst not trust them with the defence of mean and particular matters. 9 Whether it was jove, whom the romans held the chiefest GOD, that was their protector and enlarger of their empire. 10. What opinions they followed that set divers gods to rule in diverse parts of the world. 11. Of the multitude of gods which the Pagan Doctors avouch to be but one and the same jupiter. 12. Of their opinion that held God to be soul and the world the body. 13. Of such as hold that the reasonable creatures, only are parts of the divine. 14. That the augmentations of kingdoms are unfitly ascribed to jove. victory (whom they call a goddess) being sufficient of herself to give a full dispatch to all such buisinesses. 15. Whether an honest man ought to entertain any desire to enlarge his empire. 16. The reason why the romans in their appointments of several gods for every thing, and every action, would needs place the Temple of Rest or Quiet without the gates. 17. Whether if jove be the chief God of all victory, & to be accounted as one of the number. 18. Why Fortune and Felicity were made Goddesses. 19 Of a Goddess, called Fortuna muliebris. 20. Of the Deification of Virtue and Faith by the Pagans: and of their omission of the worship that was due to divers other Gods, if it be true that these were gods. 21. That such as knew not the true and only God had better have been contented with Virtue and Felicity. 22. Of the knowledge of these Pagan Gods which Varro boasteth he taught the romans. 23. Of the absolute sufficiency of Felicity alone, whom the romans (who worshipped so many Gods) did for a great while neglect, and gave no divine honours unto. 24. What reason the Pagans bring for their worshipping of God's gifts for Gods themselves. 25. Of the worship of one God only, whose name although they knew not, yet the took him for the giver of Felicity. 26. Of the stage plays which the gods exacted of their servants. 27. Of the three kinds of gods whereof Scavola disputed. 28. Whether the romans diligence in this worship of those gods did their empire any good at all. 29. Of the falseness of that augury that presaged courage and stability to the state of Rome. 30. The confessions of such as do worship those Pagan Gods, from their own mouths. 31. Of Varros rejecting the popular opinion, and of his belief of one God, though he knew not the true God. 32. What reasons the kings of the world had for the permitting of those false religions in such places as they conquered. 33. That God hath appointed a time for the continuance of every state on earth. 34. Of the jews Kingdom, which one god alone kept unmoved as long as they kept the truth of religion. FINIS. THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of the Contents of the first Book. CHAP. 1. AT my first entrance upon this Discourse of the City of God, I held it convenient, first of all to stop their mouths, who in their extreme desire of only temporal bliss and greediness after worldly vanities, do make their exclaim upon Christianity (the Christian Religion. true and only mean of salvation) whensoever it pleases God in his mercy to correct and admonish them, (rather than in his justice, to punish or afflict them) with any temporal inconvenience. And because the unlearned, and vulgar sort of those persons, are incited against us the more, by the endeavours and examples of those whom they hold learned, thinking (upon their assertions) that such calamities as have befallen them of late, never befell in times past: and being confirmed in this error, by such as know it for an error, and yet dissemble their knowledge; we thought it fi●…e to show, how far this their opinion swerved from the truth, out of such books as their own authors have left unto posterity, for the better understanding of the estates of precedent ages: and to make it plain & apparent, that those imaginary gods, which they either did worship as then in public, or as now in secret, are nothing but most foul, unclean spirits, and most deceitful and malignant False gods. devils: so that their only delight was to have most bestial & abominable practices, either published as their true exploits, or feigned of them by poe●…icall muentions; these they commanded to be publicly presented in plays & at solemn feasts: to the end, that man's infirmity presuming upon these patterns, as upon divine authorities might never be withdrawn from acting the like wickedness. This we confirmed, not by mere conjectures, but partly by what of late times ourself hath beheld in the celebration exhibited unto such gods: and partly by their own writings, that left those reports recorded, not as in disgrace, but as in the honour of the gods: So that Varro, (a man of the greatest learning and authority amongst them of any writing of divinity and humanity, and giving each varro. object his proper attribute according to the worth & due respect thereof) sticketh not to affirm, that those stage plays are not matters of humane invention, but merely divine things, whereas if the city were quit of all but honest men, stageplayers should have no room in mere humanity. Nor did Varro affirm this of himself, but set it down as he had seen the use of these plays in Rome, being there borne and brought up. L. VIVES. NOw must we pass from the historical acts of the romans, unto their religion, sacrifices & ceremonies: In the first books we asked no pardon, because for the Roman acts, though they could not be fully gathered out of one author (a great part of them being lost with the writings of eloquent Livy) yet out of many they might. But in the four books following we must needs entreat pardon, if the reader find us weak, either in diligence or ability. For there is no author now extant, that wrote of this theme. Varro's Antiquities are lost, Varro's antiquities. with a many more: if we had but them, we might have satisfied Saint Augustine, that had his assertions thence. But now we must pick y● up from several places, which we here produce, least coming without any thing we should seem both to want ornaments, & bare necessaries. If it have not that grace that is expected, we are content, in that our want is not wholly to be shamed at, and our endeavours are to be pardoned in this respect, that many learned and great Scholars (to omit the vulgar sort) have been willingly ignorant in a matter of such intricate study, and so little benefit; which makes our diligence the less faulty. This Varro testifies. Iwenall seems to be ignorant whether Money were worshipped in Rome for a goddess or no. Satyra. 1. — Et si funesta pecunia templo Lady Pecunia. Nondum habitas, nullas nummorum ereximus arras. — Though fatal money doth not sit Adored in shrine, nor hath an altar yet. Notwithstanding Varro reckoneth up her with God Gold, and God Silver, amongst the deities. Who wonders then if we be not so exact (in a thing that the goodness of Christ hath already abolished out of humane businesses) as some of those idolators were, or as Varro himself was, who notwithstanding did truly object unto the Priests, that there was much in their deities which they understood not, he being the best read of all that age? Besides, humane learning should sustain no loss, if the memory, as well as the use of those fooleries were utterly exterminate. For what is one the better scholar, for knowing Jove's tricks of lust, or Venus' hers? what their sacrifices are? what prodigies they send? which God owes this ceremony, and which that? I myself know as much of these dotages as another: yet will I maintain that the ignorance of these things is more profitable, then in any other kind: and therefore I have had the less care to particularise of the deities, kinds, temples, altars, feasts, and ceremonies of every God and Goddess, though I would not send the reader empty away that desireth to have some instruction herein. The contents of the second and third book. CHAP. 2. AND having propounded a method of our discourse in the end of the first book, whereof we have prosecuted some parcels in the books following, now we know that we are to proceed in these things, which our order obligeth us to relate. We promised therefore to say somewhat against those that impute the romans calamities unto Christianity: and to make a peculiar relation of the evils that we should find their city, or the provinces thereof, to have endured ere their sacrifices were prohibited: all which questionless they would have blamed us for, had they befallen them in the times of our religious lustre and authority: This we performed sufficiently (I think) in the two last books, in the former of them, reciting the evils which were either the only ones, or the sorest Ill manners. and most extreme; I mean those corruptions of manners: In this last of those which these fools have so main a fear to suffer, as afflictions (a) of body and goods, which the best men oftentimes partake of, as well as the worst. But for the things that make them evil, and deprave their souls, those they detain, with more than patience, with extremity of desire. Then I touched a little at the city, and so came down speedily to Augustus. But if I would have dilated (not upon these reciprocal hurts, that one man doth to another, as was desolations, etc. but) upon the things that befall them by the very elements, and from nature, which (b) Apuleius briefly speaks of in one place of his book De Mundo, saying: that all earthly things have their changes, (c) revolutions, and dissolutions: for (he saith) that by an exceeding earthquake, the ground opened at a certain time, and swallowed up whole cities, and all that were in them: showers and inundation●… overwhelmed whole countries: continents were cut into the main by strange ●…ides, and made islands; and the sea elsewhere cast up large grounds and left them bare: Storms and tempests over-turned whole cities: lightning consumed many of the Eastern countries, and deluges as many of the West. Fire sprang from the cauldrons of Aetna, as from a torrent, and ran down the hills: if I should have collected all of this kind that I could, which happened long before that the name of Christ beat down those ruins of salvation, what end should I ever make? I promised also to make demonstration of the romans conditions, and why the true God did vouchsafe them that increase of their Empire, even he, in whose hand are all kingdoms, when their own puppetries never did them a pennyworth of good, but cozened them in all that ever they could. Now then am I to discourse of their cozenage, but chiefly of the Empire's increase. For, as for their devils deceits, the second book opened them reasonable fully. And in all the three books past, as occasion served, we noted how much aid and comfort the great God did vouchsafe both the good and bad, in these afflictions of war, only by the name of CHRIST, which the Barbarians so highly reverenced, beyond all use and custom of hostility. Even he did this, that maketh the sun to shine both upon good and bad, raineth both upon Mat. 5. the just and the unjust. L. VIVES. AFflictions (a) of body] Bodily goods are threefold, and so are their contraries. (b) Apuleius] Apuleius 〈◊〉 Platonist. He was of Madaura, a Platonist, a great lover and follower of antiquity, both in learning and language. His Ass he had from Lucian, but added much to the translation: His book de Mundo, from Aristotle, cunningly dissembling his author (which I much admire off) though he profess to follow Aristotle and Theophrastus in this work in a new and civil phrase; for stealing an imitation is all one herein with him, which is more civil, then to call flying, giving place: these are new significations, given the words to grace the stile, justine Martyr and Themistius (to omit the later writers) say directly that the work d●… mundo is Aristotle's Euphradae though the phrase seem to excel his in elegance. But this is no fit argument for this place. Surely it is either Aristotle's, or Theophrastus-his, or some of the Aristotelians of those times: being (as justine faith) a compendium of the Perpatetiques, physiology. Augustine's quotation of him here, is not in the Florentine copy, which Pietro Aegidio, a great scholar and my most kind and honest friend lent me: nor in the elder Venice copy, which I saw at Saint Pietro Apostolio's, nor in the new one which Asulanus, Aldus his father in law Printed: for in all them it is thus. All earthly things have their changes, revolutions, and dissolutions. Lastly, that which the governor is in the ship, etc. Yet that Apuleius wrote the rest, which Augustine relateth, appeareth by the very stile and phrase, both truly Apuley●…: as also because it is in Aristotle's work itself, beginning at these words, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. etc. as followeth, which Apuleius hath translated, there where he saith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The Eastern regions were consumed and burned. The burning of Phaeton, Aristotle describeth plainly, that he was Apollo's son, and through want of skill Phaeton. set heaven and hell on fire. But the burning of Aetna, (both mentioned in the said words of Aristotle) was the first eruption of fire from that mountain, happening in the second Aetna's burning. year of the 88 olympiad, three years before Plato's birth, if Eusebius his account be true: which is never otherwise, unless the copiers of him be in fault. In this fire certain godly men were saved from burning by a miracle, which Aristotle toucheth at in this his Book de Mundo, and more at large in his Physics, but I make a question whether these be his or no. (c) Revolutions,] [mine interpreter had been undone, had he not put in Intensiones & remissiones, that he might make Augustine talk of his forms and formalities: [This note is left ou●… in Paris copy.] about which these fellows keep a greater ado, than ever did the greeks and the Troya●…s about Helen's fair form, for they think their forms are as worthy to be wrangled for, ●…s hers was. But in the old manuscripts are not guilty of any two such words as intensiones et remissiones, nor Aristotle neither, in this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he hath reuolutione●… & ●…ritus, so that the first must be changes, and not subversions.] Whether happy and wise men should account it as part of their felicity, to possess an Empire that is enlarged by no means but war. CHAP. 3. NOw then let us examine the nature of this spaciousness, and continuance of Empire, which these men give their gods such great thanks for: to whom also they say they exhibited those plays (that were so filthy both in actors and the action) without any offence of honesty. But first, I would make a little inquiry, seeing you cannot show such estates to be any way happy, as are in continual wars, being still in terror, trouble, and guilt of shedding humane blood, though it be their foes: what reason then, or what wisdom shall any man show, in glorying in the largeness of Empire, all their joy being but as a glass, bright and brittle, and evermore in fear and danger of breaking: To dive the deeper into this matter, let us not give the ●…ailes of our souls to every air of humane breath, nor suffer our understandings eye to be smoked up with the fumes of vain words, concerning kingdoms, provinces, nations, or so: No, let us take two men, (for every particular man is a part of the greatest city and kingdom The comparison of poor quiet and rich trouble. of the world, as a letter is a part of a word) and of these two men, let us imagine the one to be poor, or but of a mean estate, the otherpotent and wealthy: but withal, let my wealthy man take with him, fears, sorrows, covetise, suspect, disquiet, contentions, let these be the hooks for him to hale in the augmentation of his estate, and withal the increase of those cares, together with his estate: and let my poor man take with him, sufficiency with little, love of kindred, neighbours, friends, joyous peace, peaceful religion, soundness of body, sincereness of heart, abstinence of diet, chastity of carriage, and security of conscience: where should a man find any one so sottish, as would make a doubt which of these to prefer in his choice? Well then, even as we have done with these two men, so let us do with two families, two nations, or two kingdoms: Say them both to the line of equity: which done, and duly considered, when it is done, here doth vanity lie bare to the view, and there shines felicity. Wherefore it is more convenient, that such as fear and follow the law of the true God, should have the swaying of such Empires: not so much for themselves, as for those over whom they are Emperors. For themselves, their piety, and their honesty (gods admired gifts) will suffice them, both to the enjoying of true felicity in this life, and the attaining of that eternal and true felicity in the next. So that here upon earth, the rule, and regality that is given to the good man, doth not return him so much good, as it doth to those that are under this his rule and regality. But chose, the government of the wicked, harms themselves far more than their subjects: for it giveth themselves the greater liberty to exercise their lusts: but for their subjects, they have none but their own iniquities to answer for: for what injury soever the unrighteous master doth to the righteous servant, it is no scourge for his guilt, but a trial of his virtue. And therefore he that is (a) good, is free, though he be a slave: and he that is evil, a slave though he be a King: Nor is he slave to one man; but that which is worst of all, unto as many masters as he affecteth vices: according to the Scripture speaking thus hereof: Of whatsoever a man is overcome, to that he is in bondage. 〈◊〉. P●…. 2. 19 L. VIVES. HE that is (a) good] A Stoical paradox mentioned by Tully. In Paradox, & pro Muren. Stoicism like to Christianity. Wherefore Hierome thinks that Stoicism cometh nearer to Christianity, than any of the Sects besides it. Kingdoms without justice, how like they are unto thievish purchases. CHAP. 4. SET justice aside then, and what are kingdoms but fair thievish purchases? because what (a) are thieves purchases but little kingdoms? for in thefts, the hands of the underlings are directed by the commander, the confederacy of them is sworn together, and the pillage is shared by the law amongst them. And if those ragamiuffin's grow but up to be able enough to keep forts, build habitations, possess cities, and conquer adjoining nations, than their government is no more called thievish, but graced with the eminent name of a kingdom, given and gotten, not because they have left their practices, but because that now they may use them without danger of law: for elegant and excellent was (b) that Pirates answer to the Great Macedonian Alexander, who had taken him: the king ask him how he durst molest the seas so, he replied with a free spirit, How darest thou molest the whole world? But because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief: thou doing it with a great Navy, art called an Emperor. L. VIVES. WHat are (a) thieves] The world (saith Cyprian very elegantly to Donatus) is bathed in floods of mutual blood: when one alone kills a man, it is called a crime, but when a many together do it, it is called a virtue. Thus, not respect of innocence, but the greatness of the fact sets it free from penalty. And truly, fight belongs neither to good men, nor thieves, nor to any that are men at all, but is a right bestial fury, and therefore was it named Bellum, of Bellua, a beast. Cic. office Fest. (b) The Pirates] out of Tully de Rep. lib. 〈◊〉. as Nonninus Marcellus saith. The King ask him what wickedness moved him to trouble the Bellum, war: of whence. whole sea with one only galley-foist? the same (saith he) that makes thee trouble the whole earth. Lucan calls Alexander a happy thief of earth, and Terrarum fatale malum, fulmenque quod omnes A pirate's words to Alexander. Percuteret populos, pariterque & sydus iniquum Gentibus,— Earth's fatal mischief, and a cloud of thunder Rending the world: a star that struck in sunder The Nations— Of those fugitive Sword-players, whose power grew parallel with a regal dignity. CHAP. 5. I Will therefore omit to review the crew that Romulus called together, by proclaiming freedom from fear of punishment to all such as would inhabit Rome; hereby both augmenting his city, and getting a sort of fellows about him that were fit for any villainous or desperate act whatsoever. But this I say, that the very Empire of Rome, albe it was now grown so great and so powerful by subduing of so many nations, and so become sole terror of all the rest, was never thelesse extremely daunted, and driven into a terrible fear of an invasion very hardly to be avoided, by a small crew of rascally sword-players, that had fled from the fence school into Campania, and were now grown to such a mighty army, that under the conduct of three (a) Captains they had made a most lamentable and cruel waste and spoil of the most part of the country. Let them tell me now, what God it was that raised up these men from a few poor contemptible thieves, to a government so terrible to the state and strength of Rome itself: will it be answered that they had no help at all from the Gods, because they continued (b) but a while? As though that every man's life must of necessity be of long continuance: why then the Gods help no King to his kingdom, because that most kings die very soon: nor is that to be accounted as a benefit which every man looseth in so little a time, and which vanisheth (like a vapour) so soon after it is given: for what is it unto them that worshipped these gods under Romulus, and are now dead, though the Roman Empire be never so much increased since, seeing they are now pleading their own particular causes in hell: of what kind, and in what fashion they are there, belongs not to this place to dispute. And this may be understood likewise of all that have ended their lives in few years, and bear the burdens of their deeds with them, how-so-ever their Empire be afterwards augmented, and continued through the lives and deaths of many successors. But if this be not so, but that those benefits (though of so short space) be to be ascribed to the gods goodnesses, then assuredly the Sword-players had much to thank them for, who by their help did cast of their bonds of slavery, and fled and escaped, and got an army of that strength and good discipline together, that Rome itself began to be terribly afraid of them, and lost diverse fields against them. They got the upper hand of diverse generals, they used what pleasures they would; they did even what they lusted; and vn●…ill their last overthrow, which was given them with extreme difficulty, they lived in all pomp and regality. But now unto matter of more consequence. L. VIVES. THree (a) Captains] Spartacus, Chrysus, and Oenomaus: worthy of memory is that of The leaders of the fugitives. Pliny, lib. 3. & 30. that Spartacus forbade the use of gold and silver in his Tents; so that I wonder not that he became so powerful. That law in the tents of those fugitives, was better than all the other Midas laws in the Cities of mighty Kings. (h) But a while] In the third year of their rebellion, M. Licinius Crassus utterly dispersed and killed them. Of the covetousness of Ninus, who made the first warred upon his neighbours, through the greedy desire he had to increase his kingdom. CHAP. 6. IVstine, that wrote the (a) Greek (or rather universal) history after Torgus pompeius, not only in Latin (for so did he) but in a more succinct manner, beginneth his book thus. (b) The sway and rule of nations at the first was in the hands of Kings, who got their heights of Majesty, not by popular ambition, Just form of kingdom but by their own moderate carriage, approved by good men. The people had no law but (c) the Kings will. Their care and custom was the keeping, not the augmenting of their dominions limmittes. Every man's kingdom was bounded within his own country. (d) Ninus of Assyria was the first th●…t followed the lust of Sovereignty in breaking the old hereditary law of Nations. (e) He first warred on the adjoining countries, subduing the people (as yet unacquainted with Arts military) as far as Lybia. And a little after: Ninus confirmed his conquest by continuing possession of it. And having subdued the neighbouring nations, from them he 〈◊〉 stronger powers, and set farther footing into the world, until by making one victory the continual means of another, he had made an entire conquest of all the East. (f) How truly soever he or Trogus wrote this (for I have found them both elsewhere erroneous by true proofs): yet it is certain by the record of other writers, that Ninus enlarged the Assyrians Monarchy exceedingly: And that it continued longer than the (g) Romans' hath done as yet. For as the Chroniclers do deliver up account, it was MCCXL. years from Ninus his reign, to the translation of this Monarchy to the Medians. Now to war upon ones neighbours, and to proceed to the hurt of such as hurts not you, for greedy desire of rule and sovereignty, what is this but flat the every in a greater excess and quantity then ordinary? L. VIVES. THE (a) Greek] Tro●…s pompeius wrote an universal history from the beginning of the nations unto his own times. This great work did justine contract into an Epitome, calling it so: as Florus did Livies works: though more at large. I would Florus had not been Florus. so brief. justine is now read for Trogus. I have heard some say they have seen Trogus whole in Italy: it may be so, in a dream. (b) The sway] Every family at first had a King, either The first Kings. the eldest, wisest, or most just of the household: Afterwards, one king began to rule many families, and sometimes many Kings over one, whom the people were compelled to receive as guides and governors, or watchmen over the weal-public: nor did this election follow chance, nobility, nor ambition; every man's own private good, and the common good withal, which each man duly respected, made him choose the best and fittest man. (c) The King's will] for if he be good, his will is better than a law, Arist. de Rep. (d) Ninus] Son to Ninus. Belus, of him elsewhere. (e) He first] There were wars before him: the Egyptians and the Africans warred with staves hardened with fire, which they called Phalanges, Pliny saith, The f●…rst war. that the Phaenicians were the first fighters. lib. 5. Vexores the Egyptian King, and Tanais the Scythian, saith justine, did first invade the adjoining nations, for desire of glory. And Ninus first, for desire of Sovereignty. (f) How truly,] The greeks either through desire to flourish in The Greek ly●…s. their styles, or for their country's admiration, or for delighting their readers, or by some natural gift, have not failed to lie wonderfully in all their Histories. And the Latins that meddled with their affairs, being forced to follow them, fell into the same defect, as Trogus and Curtius Ruffus did. (g) Romans' hath] Of the continuance of the Assyrian Monarchy, The Assyrian Monarchy. there is no certainty. It lasted MCCXL. years saith Eusebius. MCCCLX. saith Diodorus Siculus. Thirty less saith Ctesias, whose computation justine follows in the Asian affairs: nor is the number of the Kings known. They were thirty saith Diodorus, thirty six saith Eusebius, thirty three Velleius, successively the son to the father, from Ninus to Sardanapalus. When Augustine wrote this work. Augustine wrote this work in the beginning of the reign of Honorius and Theodosius the younger, about MCLXX. year after Rome was built. Whether the Pagan Gods have any power either to further or hinder the progress, increase, or defects of earthly kingdoms. CHAP. 7. IF this kingdom continued so long, and so spacious, without the assistance of any of those gods, why are they reputed as the enlargers and preservers of Rome's Monarchy? There is the like reason for both. But if Assyria were bound to thank the gods, I demand which gods? for the nations that Ninus conquered had none. And if the Assyrians had any peculiar ones, that were better state-wrights, what, were they dead then when the Monarchy was translated to the Medes? Or were they unpaid, or had the (a) Medians promised them better wages, that they would needs thither & (b) from them again into Persia at the invitation of Cyrus, as promising them somewhat that better liked them? The (c) Persians ever since, a little after the short (though spacious) Monarchy of Alexander the great, confirmed their estate in that large country of the East, and are a Kingdom at this day. If this be so, then either the gods have no faith, in that they keep this flitting from the friend to the foe (which Camillus would not do, though Rome were most unthankful to him for his most available conquest of the Veii, but burying the wrong, freed it the second time from the Galls) Or else they are not so valiant as gods should be: but may be conquered and chased away by humane strength and cunning. Or when they do fight, it is the gods on the one side that beat the gods on the tother, and not the men. Oh then, belike they are foes amongst themselves aswell as humane creatures. Good: the city should never give them any more worship than it held to be due to any other people or nation whatsoever that helpeth them. But howsoever this flight, or this remoovall, or this kill of these gods fell out, the name of Christ was not yet known in those times and places, when and wherein these changes of states did thus follow the effects of war. For if that (d) after those MCC. years, and the overplus, when the Aslyrian Monarchy was removed, christian religion had come in, and preached of another, an eternal Monarchy, and condemned all their gods for false and feigned, and their sacrifices for sacrilegious fooleries. What would the vain men of that nation have replied, but that the Kingdom was overthrown because they had left their old religion, and received this of ours? In which foolish answer, let these our later Antagonists behold themselves as in a glass: and blush (if they be not past grace) to follow so fond a precedent. (e) Though indeed the Roman Empire be rather afflicted then altered or translated, as it was often before Christ's coming: and as it recovered from those afflictions before, so may it from these, there is no cause of despair. Who knows the will of God herein. L. VIVES. THe (a) Medians] By Arbaces praefect of Media who killed Sardanapalus, as scorning that so many thousand men should obey a beast. justin. Oros. Plutar. Euseb. etc. (b) From them] The Monarchy of Asia remained with the Medians from Arbaces to Cyrus, Cambyses son, CCCL. years. Astyages was the last King, whose daughter Mandane, Cambyses wife, was mother to Cyrus. Cyrus' being borne, his grandsire (through a dream he had) caused him to be Astyages. cast out to the wild beasts in the woods. But by chance he was saved. And being become a lusty youth, entering into Persepolis, he commanded the people to make ready their axes, and cut down a great wood: next day he made them a delicate banquet, and in the midst thereof asked them whether they liked this day better than the other. They all replied, this day: well saith he, as long as you serve the Medians, the world shallbe as yesterday to you, but be your own Lords yourselves, and it willbe this day. Hereupon, levying an army, he overthrew his uncle, and transferred the Monarchy unto Persia. (c) Persians'] Their Kingdom continued from Cyrus to Alexander, Philip's son, CCXXX. years. Alexander ruled Asia. VI years. his successors after him unto Seleucus and Antiochus the two brethren, that is from the 104 olympiad unto the 134. at which time Arsaces, a mean but a valorous fellow, set his country free, by means of the two brethren's discord, and reigned King himself. Thence arose the The Persian Monarchy. Parthian Kingdom, lasting unto Alex. Severus Caesar's time, at which time Xerxes the Persian subdued them and annexed them to the Persian crown, and this Kingdom was during in Augustine's time. Whereof read Herodian in Antoninus. (d) After those] The text of some copies, follows Eusebius, but the old books do leave out et quadraginta. So that Augustine did not set down his opinion amongst this diversity of accounts, but only the overplus, to show only, that it was more than MCC. years, but how much more he knoweth not; surely it was not an C. (e) Though] The name of it remaineth as yet in the ancient dignity, but with no power. What precious gods those were by whose power the romans hela their Empire to be enlarged and preserved, seeing that they durst not trust them with the defence of mean and particular matters. CHAP. 8. LEt us now make inquiry, if you will, which God (or gods) of all this swarm that Rome worshipped, was it that did enlarge and protect this their Empire. In a world of such worth, and dignity, they durst not secretly commit any dealing to the goddess Cloacina (a), nor to the goddess (b) Volupia, the lady of pleasure, nor to (c) Libentina, the goddess of lust, nor to (d) Vaticanus the god of children's crying, nor to (e) Cunina the goddess of their cradles. But how can this one little book possibly have room to contain the names of all their gods and goddesses, when as their great volumes will not do it, seeing they have a several god to see to every particular act they take in hand? Durst they trust one god with their lands think you? No, Rusina must look to the country, jugatinus to the hill-toppes: Collatina to the whole hills besides, and Vallonia to the valleys. Nor could (f) Segetia alone be sufficient to protect the corn: but while it was in the ground, Seia must look to it: when it was up, and ready to mow, Segetia: when it was mown and laid up, then (g) Tutilina took charge of it, who did not like that Segetia alone should have charge of it all the while before it came dried unto her hand: nor was it sufficient for those wretches, that their poor seduced souls, that scorned to embrace one true god, should become prostitute unto this meaner multitude of devils, they must have more: so they made (h) Proserpina goddess of the corns first leaves, and buds: the (ay) knots Nodotus looked unto: Volutina to the blades, and when the ear began to look out, it was Patelena's charge: when the ear began to be even bearded (because (k) Hostire was taken of old for to make even) Hostilinas work came in; when the flowers bloomed, (l) Flora was called forth: when they grew (m) white, Lacturtia; being ripe (n) Matuca, being cut down (o) Runcina. O let them pass, that which they shame not at, I loathe at. These few I have reckoned, to show that they durst at no hand affirm, that these gods were the ordainers, adorners, augmenters or preservers of the Empire of Rome, having each one such peculiar charges assigned them, as they had no leisure in the world to deal in any other matter. How should Segetia guard the Empire, that must not meddle but with the corn? or Cunina look to the wars, that must deal with nought but children's cradles? or Nodotus give his aid in the battle, that cannot help so much as the blade of the corn, but is bound to look to the knot only? Every (p) house hath a porter to the door: and though he be but a single man, yet he is sufficient for that office: but they must have their three gods, Forculus for the door, (q) Cardea for the hinge, and Limentius for the threshold. Belike Forculus could not possibly keep both door, hinges, and threshold. L. VIVES. CLoacina (a)] Some read Cluacina, and some Lavacina, but Cloacina is the best: her statue was found by Tatius (who reigned with Romulus,) in a great Privy or jakes of Rome Cloacina. and knowing not whose it was, named it after the place, Cloacina, of Cloaca. Lactant. Cipria●… calls it Cluacina, but it is faulty, I think. There was Venus surnamed Cluacina, or the fighter: for Cluo is to fight. Her statue stood where the romans and Sabines agreed, and ended Venus Cloacina. the fight for the women. Plin. lib. 15. (b) Uolupia] She had a chapel at the Theatre Naval near the gate Romanula. Varro de Ling. Lat. lib. 3. Macrob. Saturn. The 12. Cal. of january is Angeronia's feast kept by the Priests in Volupia's chapel: Verrius Flaccus saith she was so Volupia. called, for easing the angers and troubles of the mind. Masurius saith her statue stood on Volupia's altar, with the mouth sealed up, to show that by the patient suppressing of grief, is Angeronia pleasure attained. (c) Libentina] Varro. lib. 3. of Libet, it lusteth, there was Venus Libentina, and Venus Libitina, but Libithina is another. (d) Vaticanus] Not Uagitarius as some read. Gell. Libentina. Vaticanus. lib. 16. out of Varro. As under whom (saith he) the child's first cry is, which is va, the firstsyllable of Vaticanus, whence Vagire also is derived; and in old books it is Uatiganus not Uagitanus. (e) Cunina] The cradle-keeper and wich-chaser. (f) Segetia] Or Segesta. Plin. lib. Cunina. 18. for those gods were then best known. Seia to be the goddess of Sowing and Segetia of the corn; their statues were in the Theatre. (g) Tutilina] And Tutanus, he and she, guarders Tutanus. Tutilina. of all things. Non. Marcell. They were called upon, in sudden charms; as Hercules was, surnamed Alexicacus, the evill-driver. Varro. It was a sin to invocate Tutilina in an unfortunate thing. (h) Proserpina] Daughter to Ceres and jove, ravished by Pluto her uncle. Cicero Proserpina. de nat. dear. lib. 2. She is Proserpina, which the greeks call Persephone, and will have her to be nothing but the seed of harvest, which being hid in the earth, was sought by her mother. Varro will have her the moon, with Ennius and Epicharmus. ay The knots] Plin. lib. 18. Some grain begins to put forth the ear at the third joint, and some at the fourth, wheat hath 4. joints, rye six, barley eight: but they that have those, never bud the ear, until all the joints be grown out. Varr, de re rust. lib. 1. The husk of the ear, ere it open is called vagina, in the care, is the grain, and the ear is in the husk: the awne, or beard, is as a rough needle, sticking forth from the ear, which ere it be died is called Mutica. (k) Because Hostire] Hostire, is to suppress, and so give back, and hereof comes Hostis. Non. or to strike: Festus, also to Hostire. do justice, to recompense, whereof comes redostire, and hostimentum: both used by Plautus. Flora. Chloris. (l) Flora] Some take her for Acca Laurentia, the Courtesan, some for Melibaea, Niobes daughter, called Chloris, for changing her colour through fear of Apollo and Diana. Hence she was called Flora, whom with her sister Amicla, Niobe having preserved, and pleased Latona, she bore Nestor unto Neleus, Neptune's son. Homer, Odyss. 11. who saith that the other perished with her brethren. Ovid makes her wife to Zephyrus, because she is goddess of flowers. (m) White] Some read Lacticina. There was also Lactans, the god that whitened the corn with milk. Seru. Geor 1. (n) Matuta] Daughter to Cadmus, wife to Athamas; casting her Lacturcia. self down headlong from a rock into the sea, she changed her name from Ino, into Leu●…thé, Matuca. the white goddess, called by the Latins Mother Matuta, who say she is Aurora, whereof comes tempus matutinam, the morning time. Melecerta her son was also made a sea-god, and called Palaemon. ovid. Lact. etc. her temple was in the eight region of Rome. (o) Runcina] Varro de ling. lat. Runcare is to pull up. Auerruncus, the god that pulls away evils from men. (p) Every one] One man sufficeth, when three gods cannot. (q) Cardea] Carna rather: first Runcina. called Carne, janus lay with her, and then made her the goddess of hinges. She rules in man's vital parts, her feast is in junes Calends. ovid. Fast. 5. Brutus having expelled Tarquin, kept Carna. her feast at the foresaid time, with beane-flowre, and bacon. Macrob. Satur. Whether it was jove, whom the romans held the chiefest god, that was this protector and enlarger of their Empire. CHAR. 9 WHerefore setting aside this nest of inferior gods (for a while) let us look into the offices of the greater; and which of them brought Rome to such a pre-eminence over the other nations. This same surely was Jove's work. For, him they made the King over all their gods besides, as his sceptre, and his seat on the highest (a) part of all the Capitol do sufficiently testify. And of him, they have a very convenient saying (though it be from a Poet) (b) All is full of jove. And Varro (c) is of opinion, that those that worship but one God, and that without any statue, do mean this jove, though they call him by another name. Which being so, why is he so evil used at Rome, and by others also in other places, as to have a statue made him? This evil use so disliked Varro, that although he were over-borne with the custom of so great a city, yet he doubted not both to affirm, and record, that in making those statues, they both banished all fear, and brought in much error? L. VIVES. HIghest (a) part] On Tarpeius. (b) All is full of jove] Virgil out of Aratus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Lucan in his eight book. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deisedes v●… i terra, ubi Pontus, & acr, Et Caelum & virtus: Superos quid quaerimus vl●…rà: Io●…e sits where earth, where ai●…e, wher●… sea and shore Where heaven, and virtue is, why ask we more. (c) Is of opinion] The greeks call jove, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, both of Living, because he was held to give all things life. Orpheus in Cratere. Plato derives them both of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to live by himself. jupiter why so called. In Cratylo. The romans called him jove, a junando of helping. The old Philosophers called that same men's that Intellect that created all things, jove. And therefore the wise men worshipped this, who otherwise held no mortal creature for any God, but only that immortal, almighty Prince of nature, having divers names, one amongst the greeks, another with the Persians, a third with the Phaenicians, a fourth in Egypt etc. Plutarch. Saturn's son of Crete was called Z●…, because he was the first of Saturn's male children that lived. Lactantius. What opinion they followed, that set divers gods to rule in di●…ers parts of the world. CHAP. 10. But why had he juno added to him, both as his sister and wife? because (a) we place jupiter in the sky (say they) and juno in the air, and these two are contiguall, one immediately next above the other. Very well, than all is not full of jove as you said but now, if juno do fill a part. Doth the one fill the other, (being man and wise) and are they distinct in their several elements, and yet conjoined in them both? why then hath jove the sky assigned him and juno the air? Again, if only these two sufficed for all, what should (b) Neptune do with the sea, and Pluto with the earth? Nay, and for fear of want of brood's Neptune must have a (c) Salacia, and Pluto (d) a Proscrpina for wives to breed upon. For as juno possesseth the heavens inmost part the air (say they:) so doth Salacia the inner parts of the sea▪ and Proserpina the bowels of the earth. Alas good men, they would feign stitch up their lies hand-somely, and cannot find which way. For if this were true, the world should have but three elements, (and not (e) 4. as their ancient writers have recorded) if every couple of gods should have their element. But they themselves have there affirmed, that the (f) sky is one thing & the air another. But the water, within and without is all but water, (there may be some diversity to the diet, but never any alteration of the essential form:) and earth is earth, how ever it be severally qualified: Now the world being complete in these four, where's (g) Minerua's share? she hath a share (h) in the Capitol though she be not daughter to jove and juno both. If she dwell in the highest part of the sky, & that therefore the Poets feigned her to be the birth of Jove's own brain, why is not she then made the absolute Empress of heaven, seeing that she sitteth above jove? Because it is not meet to make the child Lord over the parent? why then was not that equity kept between Saturn & jupiter? because Saturn was conquered? why then belike they fought! no the gods forbid, say they; that is but a poetical fiction, a fable: well, thus you see they will trust no fables, they do think better of their gods then so, but how chanceth it then that Saturn (seeing he might not sit above his son I●…ue) had not a seat equal with him? Because ay Saturn (say they) is nothing but the length of time, well then, they that worship Saturn, worship Time and jove, the King of all the gods is said to be borne of Time, and what wrong do we to jove and juno in saying they are borne of Time seeing that by the Pagans own confessions they signify Heaven and Earth, both which were created in time, for this the greatest scholars and (k) wisest of them all commend to our memory, nor did Virgil speak out of fiction, but out of Philosophy, when he said. Tum pater ommi●…otens saecundis imbribus Aether Coniugis in gremium lae●…ae descendit.— Almighty Aether in a fattening shower. Dropped in the lap of his glad spouse— That was, the Earth. In which they make a difference also, for herein (l) Terra, and Tellus and Tellumon are all several things, they say. And all these they have as gods, juno and Terra the ea●…th all one Va●…, de ling la●…. distinct in name, office, and ceremonial rites. Terra (m) is also called the mother of the Gods besides, that the poets may now feign with far more toleration, seeing that their very books of religion affirm, that juno is not only wife and sister but (〈◊〉) mother also unto jove. The same Earth they style both (o) Ceres, & Vesta, yet (p) Vesta they say most commonly is the fire, and guardeth that which the city cannot want? And therefore the Virgins kept it, because fire, and Virginity do never bring forth any thing. All which vanity, it was fit he only should abolish that was borne of a Virgin. But who can endure to hear them ascribe so much honour and chastity to the fire, and yet not shame to call (q) Vesta, Venus, that her Virgins might have the less care of the honour of virginity for if Venus were Vesta (r) how should the Virgins do her good service in abstaining from venery? or (s) are there two Ven●…sses, the one a Virgin, the other a wanton? or three rather, one of the virgins (Vesta) one of the wives, & one of the whores, to such an one as this last is, the (t) Phaenicans consecrated the prostitution of their daughters, before that they married them: now which of these, is Vulcan's wife? not the Virgin, she never had husband, not the whore, oh no, not (v) junos' son, & (x) Minerva's forge●…, be wronged. Well then, it was Venus the wife: yet we would have her to stand as a pattern to be imitated for her tricks that she played with Mars, oh now (say they) you run to the fables again, why what reason is there that you should grieve to here those things at our tongues and yet explaud them on your own stages? why doth it vex you that we should say (a thing utterly incredible but that it is so fully proved) that those foul and open crimes of their gods instituted and celebrated in their public honours, and by their own commands. L. VIVES. BEcause (a) we place.] Cir. 2. de not, dear. The Sky as Ennius, Euripides, the Soothsayers and the whole world affirm, is jove: the Air, between that and the Sea, (as the Stoics hold) is juno sister and wife to jove by reason of the airs likeness, and dearness to Heaven, now they made the air a woman, because it is the softest thing that (b) is. Neptune Saturn's three sons shared the world: jove had Heaven, Neptune the Sea: Pluto the Earth. juno Sa●…es So●…ne. married jove, and was made Lady of the Air, this fable arose from thence, because that in the dividing of the father's kingdom, jove got the East, resembling Heaven, (wherein also mount Olympus stood, whose likelihood of name added to the fiction.) Neptune had the navy: Dis or Pluto the west part of the realm feigned to be hell: Saturn was said to be banished into Hell because he fled from the East, into Italy, lying in the West: (c) Salacia of Salum 〈◊〉. the salt foam, varro: the water old of (faith fest.) was called Salacia, a salum ciendo, of moving the froth, so the Poet Pacwius useth it. Neptune was a cunning seaman, and made Admiral by jove, for which posterity deified him. (d) Proserpina. Of her, before. Her mother finding her in Hell, begged and obtained of jove that she might be half the year with her on earth and half a year with Pluto. She had her name A proserpendo, because she crept some while this way and some while that, being all one with the Moon and the earth. Uarro: you may read of her rape almost every where. (e) four] First fire, than air, than water and lastly earth. (f sky] Heaven itself and the upper region of the air, they called Ethaer or the sky. the lower parts, air only, though the Poets confound them. (g) Minerva] daughter of jove and Themis, saith Euhemerus, Hist. sacr.. There were five Minerva's, but the Poets confound them all. Tull. de not dear. One was borne (they say) of Jove's brain and is the Goddess of all wisdom, and therefore was held so borne and a Virgin: and her throne was counted the highest in heaven. Martian, Nupt. lib. 6. Virgo armata deceas rerum sapientia Pallas, Aetherius foams, men's & solertia f●…ti, Ingenium mundi, prudentia sacra tonantis, A●…dor doctificus, nostraeque industria sortis. Quae fa●…is arbi●…ium sapientis praevia curae, A●… rationis apex, diwmque hom númque sacer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Vl●…a terga means rapidi ac splendentis Olympi, Celsior una jove flammantis circulus aet●…rae. Paslas, thou armed Virgin, wisdoms wonder, Fate judging fair, fount of ethereal light: World's understanding, and arbritre●…e of thunder, Ar●…s ardour, spring, wherein man clears his sight, Discretions arch, which reason reigneth under, Essence, in gods, and men, su●… mounting bright: Towr●…ng beyond the Spheres, and all in fire, Throned above jove, far brighter, and far higher. (h) in the capitol] Now jove almighty (saith Tully) that rulest all, and then juno his fellow, and thou Pallas Minerva, and all you gods that inhabit the capitol. etc. Pro equit in exil. Tarqui●… Priscus in the Sabine war vowed a temple to jove, juno, and Minerva, and plained the top of Mount Tarpeius to make a place for it to stand in, but was slain ●…e he had laid the foundation, so it was renewed and finished by Tarquin the proud, and called the capitol because of a man's head that was found in digging the foundation. Before this, there was a temple to jove, juno, and Minerva, on Flora's cliff. Diodor. Sicul. ay Because.] Saturn was son to Caelus and Terra, a most ungracious flellow, but quitted by his Son jove, who expelled him, as he Saturn. had expelled his father, and so made the proverb true. Do as as you would be done unto. Hereafter he was called the god of time. Hesiod, Euhem, Diod, Cicero. Saturn, is he (they say) that divides and distinguishes the times: and therefore the greeks call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. sp●…ce of time. He was called Saturnus, quasi Satur annis, full of years, and was feigned by the Poets to devour his children, because time devours all things. He was imprisoned by jove, that is limited by the stars from running too wild a course. (k) their wisest] Uarro de ling. lat. lib. 3. calls juno both Terra and Tellus. Plutarch interpreteth juno the earth, and the nuptial conjunction of man and wife. Euseb, de prep. evang, Servius saith that jove is put for the Terra Tellus, sky, and the air; juno for earth and water (l) ●…Herein Terra] Terra, is the earth itself Tellus, a diminutive, the goddess of the earth, though the Poets confound them, yet they always said Tellus her temple and not Terras. Pluto also and Proserp, were called Tellumo, and Tellus, also Altor, and Runsor were both his names, and he had charge of all earth's business: so that some say he was Ceres' Son Diodor. lib. 6. Porpheryus calls one part of the earth, Uizy the fat and fertile, Ceres, and the craggy, hilly and stony, Ops, or Rhea. Euseb. de praep evang, where he saith much of these things. lib. 3. (m) is also] namely Rhea. (n) Mother] for as she was juno she was his wife and sister; and as she was Ops his mother. (o) Ceres] the earth is called Ceres, a Gerendo, of bearing corn, or of Ceres. Cereo to create. Varro! Tully. out of Chrisppus, for the earth is mother to all. Pluto in Cratyl. She was daughter unto Saturn and Ops, Sister to Uesta and juno, all these sisters and mothers they say is but only earth. ovid. Fast. 6. Ves●… eadem est, & terra subest, subit ignis utrique, Significat sed●… terra socusque suam, Vaesta is earth, and fire: earth undergorth, The name, and so doth fire: Vaesta's both. And a little after. Sta●… v●… 〈◊〉 sud, vi stando Vesta vocatur: Earth stands alone, and therefore Vesta height. To this doth Orpheus and Plato both assent (p) yet Vesta] Cic. de not dear. for Uesta is derived Vesta. from the greeks being called with them Hestia; her power is over fires and altars. de legib. 2 Vesta is a●… the cities fire, in Greek, which word we use almost unchanged. Ovid East. 6. Nec in 〈◊〉 Uestam quam vivam intellige flammam, Nataque de flamma corp●…ra nulla vides, Think Vesta is the fire that burneth still, That near brought creature forth, nor ever will, And being a fire, and called a Virgin, therefore did virgins attend it, and all virginity was sacred unto it, first for the congruence of society and then of nature which was alike in both: this custom arose in Egypt, and spread far, through the greeks, and the Barbarian countries. Diodor. It was kept so at Athens, and at Delphos, Plutar. Strabo, Uaestas' sacrifices and rites came from Ilium to Latium, and so to Rome by Romulus his means, and therefore Virgil calls her often times, the Phrygian vesta. Sic ait et manibus vittas, vestamque potenten, Aeternumque adytis effert penetralibus ignem. This said, he bringeth forth eternal Fire, Almighty Vaesta, and her pure attire: Speaking of Panthus the Trojan Priest. There was then for every Curia, a Vaesta, Dionis. but Numa built the temple of the first public Vesta, In the year of the city, X L. as Ovid accounteth. (q) Uesta Venus] naturally, for the naturalists call the upper hemisphere of the earth Venus, and Vesta also: the nether, Proserpina, Plotinus calleth the earth's virtue, arising from the influence of Venus, Uesta. Besides, Vesta being the world's fire, and the fatness coming from Venns, there is little difference, in respect of the benefit of the universe, so that Vesta was every where worshipped, not as barren, but as fruitful and augmentative, making the cities and nations happy in eternal and continual increase. (r) How should.] The punishment of an unchaste Vestal was great: but after thirty years, they might leave the profession and Two 〈◊〉. marry. (s) is there two] so saith Plato In Conuivio. Heavenly, procuring excellence of conditions, earthly, provoking unto lust; the first, daughter to Caelus, the later to jove and Dione, much younger than the first. There was also a Venus that stirred up chaste thoughts. And therefore when the Roman women ran almost mad with lust, they consecrated a statue of Venus' verticordia, out of the Sibyls books, which might turn the hearts from that soul heat unto honesty. The Cyprian virgins custom. Ualer. lib. 8. ovid. Fast, 4. (t) Phaenicians] This justin reporteth of the Cipprians, lib. 18. It was their custom (saith he) at certain set days to bring their daughters to the sea shore ere they were married, and there to prostitute them for getting of their dowries, offering to Venus for the willing loss of their chastities. I think this was Venus her law left unto the Cyprian's whom she taught first to play the mercenary whores. Lactant. The Armenians had such another custom Strabo. and the babylonians being poor, did so, with their daughters for gain. The Phoenicians honoured Venus much for Adonis his sake who was their countryman, they kept her feasts with tears, and presented her mourning for him, Macrob. She had a Statue on Mount Libanus, which leaned the head upon the hand and was of a very sad aspect: so that one would have thought that true tears had fallen from her eyes. That the devils brought mankind to this, willbe more apparent (saith Eusebius) if you consider but the adulteries of the Phaenicians, at this day in Heliopolis and elsewhere they offer those filthy acts as first fruits unto their gods. Euseb. de. praeparat. Euang: which I have set down that men might see what his opinion was hereof, though my copy of this work of his be exceeding falsely transcribed. This custom of prostitution, the Augilares of Africa did also use, that married in the night. Herodot. Solin. Mela. The Sicae also (of the same country ') practised the same in the Temple of Venus the matron, Ualer. The Locrians being to fight, vowed if they conquered, to prostitute all their daughters Mars. at Venus' feast. (v) junos' Son.] It may be Mars that lay with Venus, and begot Harmonias, (for he was junos' son, borne (they feigned) without a father, because they knew not who was his father) It may be Mars, by that which follows, cooperarius Mineru●…, Vulcan. for both are gods of war: but, It is rather meant of Vulcan, son to jove and juno, (though usually called junos' son and Apator) who was a Smith in Lemnos, and husband unto Venus that lay with Mars. So it were Vulcan's wrong to call her whore, for to be a cuckold is a disgraceful thing. (x) Minerua's forger] Or fellow workers, for they both have charge of Jove's thunder, and sometimes through his bolts. Virgil Ipsa iovis rapidum iaculata é nubibus ignem. Quite through the cloud she threw Jove's thundering fire. Which there are but three may do (saith Servius) jupiter, Minerva and Vulcan, though Pliny be of another mind. De discipline. Etrusc. & Rome (lib. 2.) Minerva looketh unto I●…ues Aegis, which was indeed his apparel; made by Minerua's wisdom and Vulcan's labour: And though Jove's bonnet be fire, yet Pallas made it. Mart. Nupt. Or is Vulcan her fellow forger, because he begat Apollo on her, that hath the tuition of Athens? Cic. de not. (lib. 3.) But Augustine's mind I think rather is this, that Vulcan is Minerua's fellow forger. Because she is called the goddess of all arts, even the mechanical: and he is godde of the Instruments used in all these mechanical arts. Fire is the instrument of all arts (saith Plutarch) if one knew how to use it. De utilit. inimic. Besides Vulcan is said to govern arts himself. The warlike arts (saith Eusebius) were Minerua's charge, the pyrotecknical, or such as work in fire, Vulcan's: Theodoret saith that the greeks used the word Vulcan for arts, because few arts can be practised without fire. Phurnutus saith that all arts are under Minerva and Vulcan, because she is the Theory, and he the Instrument of practice. And therefore Homer saith of a workman thus: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Whom Vulcan taught and Minerva. Of the multitude of Gods which the Pagan Doctors avouch to be but one and the same jupiter CHAP. 11. WHerefore let them flourish with their physics as long as they like. Let jupiter be one while the (a) soul of this terrene world, filling the whole fabric of the four Elements, more, or less, as they please; and another while but a quarter-ruler with his brethren and sisters: let him be the sky now, embracing juno which is the air under him, and let him by and by be sky and air both, filling the lap of the earth, his wife and mother with fertile showers and seeds; (b) This is no absurdity in their Divinity; And (to omit the long and tedious catalogue of his removes and strange transmutations) let him forthwith be but one, and that only God, of whom the famous Poet was thought to say: — Deumque namque ire per omnes, Terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum. — (c) For God his spirit imparts, To th'earth's, the seas, and heavens profoundest parts. (d) Let him be jupiter in the sky, juno in the Air, Neptune in the Sea, Salacia in the seas depth, Pluto in the earth, Proserpina in the earth's lowest part, Vesta in the households fire, Vulcan in the Smith's shop, Sol, Luna and the stars in the spheres, (e) Apollo in divination (f) Mercury in traffic, in (g) janus (h) the Porter, in the Bounds Terminus, in time Saturn, in war, Mars and ay Bellona, in the vineyards, Bacchus, in the Corn, Ceres, in the Woods, (k) Diana, in men's wits, Minerva, let him rule the (l) seed of man as Liber, and of women, as Libera, as he is father of the day, let him be (m) Diespiter, as ruler of the monthly disease of women, let him be the goddess Mena: and (n) Lucina that helps in their childbirth. And helping the fruits which increase, let him take the name of Ops. Let him be (o) Vaticanus, that opens the child's mouth first, to cry, and Levana, that takes up from the mother: and Cunina, that guards the Cradle. Let none but him sing the destinies of the new-born child, and be called (p) Carmentes, let him sway chance, and be styled Fortune, or women's dugs, and be called (q) Rumina, (because the ancients called a dug Rum●…) let him be (r) Potina and suckle the hog-babes: or Educa and feed them: Or Paventia, for frighting them, or (t) Venilia for sudden hope: Volupia for pleasure, Agenoria for action, Stimula for provocation, Strenua for confirming man's courage, Numeria for teaching children to tell twenty (u) and Camaena for singing. Nay let us make him (x) Consus, for his counsel, (y) Sentia for his sententious inspirations, (z) Inuentas for the guiding of our (a) egress from youth, to fuller age. For our chins sake (which if he love us, he clothes in hair) let him be (b) Fortuna Barbata: Nay free, because he is a male-Godde, let him either be Barbatus, as Nodotus is, or because he hath a beard, let him not be Fortuna, but Fortunius. Well, on, let him be jugatine, to look to the Hills, and at the losing of a virgins nuptial guirdle let him be invoked by the name of Virginensis: let him be (c) Mutinus: which amongst the greeks was Priapus, but that (it may be) he will be ashamed off. Let jupiter alone be all these that I have reckoned, and that I have not reckoned (for I have thought fit to omit a great many,) or as those hold, which make him the soul of the world (many of whom are learned men) let all these be but as parts and virtues of him: If it be so, as I do not yet inquire how it is, what should they lose if they took a shorter course, and adore but one God? what one thing belonging unto his power were despised, if himself entirely were duly worshipped? If they fear that some of his parts would be angry for being neglected, why then it is not as they say, that all this is but as the life of one soul, containing all those gods as the parts, powers, virtues and faculties thereof: but every part hath a life, really and distinctly separate from the other: This must needs be true, if one of them may be offended, and another be pleased, and both with one act. And to say that whole jove would be offended, if all his parts were not severally worshipped, this were foolish? for there were not one of them left out, if the person were adored in whom they are all jointly included. For to permit the rest, (being innumerable) whereas they say that the stars are all & every one real parts of jove, and live, have reasonable souls, and therefore are absolute gods; they say they know not what, and see not how many of them they leave without Altars & without worship, both which notwithstanding they have exhibited themselves and commanded others to exhibit unto a certain small number of them: Wherefore if they doubt the anger of the rest, why are not they afraid to live in the displeasure of the most part of heaven, having given content but unto so few? Now if they worshipped all the stars inclusively in jupiter's particular person, they might satisfy them all by this means in the adoration of him alone: for so, none of them would think much, seeing they all were worshipped in him: nor should any have cause to think they were contemned: Whereas otherwise the greater part may conceive just anger for being thus omitted by those that give all the honour unto a very few: And their anger may well be the greater in that they shine above as un-regarded, and behold filthy Priapus stand naked below, in great respect and credit. L. VIVES. THe soul (a) of this] The opinion of Thales, and Democritus. The Stoics held with Pl●… that God was a spirit, but that ●…ee used not the World as a body. That the World was: GOD, and had a soul, and an intellect, but that it was not the foresaid GOD. The old writers, (as Tully and Pliny, following Homer) thought that the Sun was the soul 〈◊〉 the world. Phurnutus saith the world hath a soul called jupiter, that rules it even as our jupiter. soul doth us. (b) This is no] Earth (saith Hesiod) bore Caelus and then lay with him, and bore him eleven children whereof Saturn was one. (c) For God] Most of the old writers held God to be a power diffused through the universe. (d) Let him] The wisest Gentiles held that there was but one God, diversly styled, by his divers qualities. Arist. de mundo. Plut. de placit. Philos. Macrobius puts the son for all the gods. Saturnal. (e) Apollo] Holding him to be the Apollo. worlds eye, they might easily think he could see all things, past, present and future. So was he sought unto, far and near, but gave answers especially at Delphos. Diodor. Which Oracle had this original. There was a deep and obscure cave, there where the shrine in Delphos was first: whereunto a Goat coming by chance to feed, was inspired with an extraordinary spirit, The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. and began to leap and dance beyond measure. Which the shepherd wondering at, and coming to the mouth of the Cave, he grew rapt himself, and began to prophecy. And others upon trial, did so also: where-upon it grew to that pass that such as would know things to come, would but bring one to lean his head into the Cave and he should answer them the truth to all that they would ask. Which afterwards they finding to be dangerous (for it had been the death of divers) they built a Temple there unto Apollo, and ordained a Virgin to receive the inspiration, upon a frame a good height from the Cave, and so to give answers to the inquirers, which frame they named a Tripos, of three feet, having the same shape that the brazen The Tripos. The Pythia. Tripodes had afterwards. This Virgin Priest was called the Pythia, at first a Virgin, like Diana's Priest. Afterward Echechratus lying with the Pythia, they ordained that the Priest should be under 50. years of age: meddling no more with Virgins at any hand: only she went virginlike, to keep some memory of the ancient custom. Diodor. (f) Mercury] Accounted the God of Mercury. eloquence, of bargains and contracts, because words do all these. The merchants feast was in the Ides of May, that day that Mercury's Temple was dedicated: The greeks called him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a Market-man, and he had a statue in the marketplace: Plautus describeth his office in his Amphitruo: whereof hereafter. (g) In janus] being the eldest god of all, he ruled the beginning of things. He was indeed King of Latium in Saturn's time. Some (as Ovid and Festus) took him for the the old Chaos, and that his name janus was thence derived. Others ab eundo, of going. Cic. de Nat. de. whereof comes janua gates. Cornificius saith that Tully called janus. him Eanus, and not janus. The hill janiculus bare his name, some say because he was buried there, others because they went over it into Hetruria, He had two faces, as the lord of beginnings janiculus. and ends, of him read Ovid's Fastorum, and Macrobius. (h) Proter] To look to the gate, for which janus is put in the text. ay Bellona] Of Bellum war, and Duellona also. She was thought to be Pallas, because Pallas ruled war also. The greeks called him Ennuo, Hesich: her face was full of terror and contention. Homer calls her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; as he doth Mars, and the Poets feigned her to be Mars his mother, and therefore calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. She was called Ennuo, quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Of putting spirit and fury into those that were to fight, or of being furious herself. Her Temple stood in the ninth region, and before it a pillar, from which the sign of war was ever given, by putting forth a spear. ovid. (k) Diana] The Moon had many names: Lucina, Proserpina Hecate and Diana. She was feigned to be a virgin, given all to hunt much in the Woods, and shooting. Whereupon Aeneas meeting his mother in the Woods thought it had been Diana, Aeneid. 1. I have read these two verses of the Moon, but I know not where. Terret, Lustrat, agit, Proscrpina, Luna, Diana, Ima, superua, feras, sceptro, fulgore, sagita. Diana, Luna, Proserpina, doth strike, doth spread, doth fight, The beasts, the Deities and devils, with sceptre, shafts & light. They are none of the grossest: Prudentius in his third book against Symmachus, hath these verses. — Terque suas eadem variare figuras. De●…ique dum Luna est, sublustri splendet Amictu, 〈◊〉 succ●…cta iacit calamos, Latonia virg●… est. 〈◊〉 Subni●…a sedet solio Plutonia coninx I●…peritat ●…ijs & dictat ●…ura Megae●…ae. — Three times she turns her shape, She is the Moon, when bright her sphere doth show▪ Laton as daughter when she hunts below But throned in hell, shee●… ' Pluto●…s wife, and awes The furies, giving stern Megaera laws. (l) Seed of] Liber and Libera were Ceres' children, saith Tully de nat. dear. (lib. 2.) Many think they are Sol and Luna, who have power over generation. Liber of the men and therefore the satires were said to accompany him, and Pyrapus was worshipped in his Temple: Libera Diespiter. Lucina. for the women. (m) Diespiter] Quasi Dios Pater, or the father of the day. Varro. (n) Lucina.] This was Luna, Diana or juno, Cicero. juno Lucina help me, cries Glycerium in Terence's Andria. She was also called Opigena, of her help in the women's travels, and worshipped at Rome of the Matrons. F●…stus. Tym●…us saith that the night that Alexander the great was Opigena. borne, Diana's Temple at Ephesus was burned, because she would not be absent from Olympi●…s his mother in her labour, and so was far from her Temple when it was fired. The romans worshipped Ilythia also for this end, who was a fate or fairy (saith Pausanias') and came from Ilythia. the North to Delos to help Latona in her travel: and was placed at Athens amongst her Gen●…tullides, the gods that looked unto nativities: They used to place kneeling Images before them, because Nauplius his daughter was born in that manner. Such also were the three Nexid●… in the Capitol before Minerua's shrine, whereunto the Matrons offered, as the protectors of Childbirth. M. Attill. Glabrio brought them from the conquest of Antiochus. They were kneeling statues. (o) Vaticanus] Of him before. (p) Carmentes] Called first Nicostratae, daughter Carmentes. to jonis the King of Arcadia, who had evander by Mercury, and had the spirit of prophecy: She was called in Greek Thespiodon, in Latin, Carment:. Dionys. Of her Ovid saith Ipsa Moon, quae nom●…n habes de carmine dictum, Qu●… simul ●…thereos animo conc●…perat ignes▪ Ore dab●… pleno carmina vera Dei. And thou that from the verse derives thy name. And again And being filled with aeth●…iall fire, She spoke, as Phoebus did her breast inspire. There was the gate Carmentall in Rome, called afterwards Scelerata, and near to it an Altar in the Capitol, where she was placed. There were also the Carmenae which told the destivies of Port Scelera●…a. new borne children, whence Nicostrata had her name. Varro. They were also called 〈◊〉, and Camaenae without S. and they that honoured them were called Prophets, of their prophecies. There was also Faunus and Fauna, brother and sister, he-mens' fortune-teller▪ and she-womens': (q) Rumina] goddess of dugs. Plin. Fest. Therewas the figtree Ruminall, where the Rumina. she-wolfe gave Romulus and Remus suck. They offered milk and sprinkled the sacrifices with milk that were offered to this goddess. (r) Potina] Or Potica. Donat. in Terentii Phormio. The children were consecrated to Educa, Potica, and Cuba, goddesses of meat, drink, and Educa and Potina. sleep. Virg. Nec Deus hunc M●…nsa, dea nec dignata cubili est. Nor would the god give meat, nor goddess sleep. (s) Educa] Not Edulica. (t) Venilia] Turnus his mother, sister to Latinus his wife Amat●…. Venilia of Ventus, wind, or of Venio to come. Varro. (u) Cumanae] Cumanae were the Muses, of Venilia. Canon, to sing. Seru. or Cumaenae, of Casta mens, a chaste mind saith Festus. Their Temple was at Port Capena in the first ward or region of the city. Camaena in Latin, is Musa in Greek. They ruled humanity, and learning as well as song: (Cic. Tus. quaest. 1.) They were called Cumaena. Muses, of enquiring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and of Philosophy. (x) Consus] This was Hippoposeidon. Li●…. The Muses Dion. Plut. The Arcadians built him a Temple before Romulus and Remus, calling him the god Consu●…. of Counsels. Wherefore his Altar never came out of the earth where it lay hid, but only at his feast. He directed Romulus in the rape of the Sabines: the greeks say he struck the earth with his mase, and it brought forth the first horse, and thence hath he his name. True it is that he first tamed horses in those parts, add made them fit for man's use. (y) Sentia] Or Senta, or Fauna, o●… Fatua sister and wife to Faunus, daughter to Picus. So called à Fando, because she helped children to speak: Senta, because we speak our thoughts: But this is but conjectural: we leave it with the rest. (z) Iwaentas] Of her hereafter. (a) Degrees from youth▪ The text is, Post praetexta●…▪ Pr●…texta was a vesture of dignity and magistracy brought from Hetruria to Rome: not wo●…e S●…a. The pretexta. by boys until Tarqvinius Priscus his son had the wearing of that, and the golden Boss, for being valorous in the wars: from that time all free children wore it: marry the Boss was only theirs whose fathers had been Head-Officers, Curules. Macrob. At fourteen years they laid it by an●… took the man's gown, Toga virilis, & the Senators sons, the Latus claws, which some say Augustus' first put on at the age: the Latus Claws was a purple coat, but not a gown. (b) Fortuna ba●…bata] The men of old offered the first shavings of their chins unto Apollo: as Theseus did for one going to Delos. Plutarch▪ (c) Mutinus] Some ad Tutinus, but it hath been the fault of some copier 〈◊〉 La●…s 〈◊〉 ●…hat. old; & so he hath passed unobserued. I do not think it was Augustins: for in his 6. book, he vs●… but Priapus for both these: Lactantius readeth it well, Mutinus, though some of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have Futinus. (d) One soul.] Plato, Cicero and the Stoics held the world to be but one creature: and to live one life, as a man liveth. Of their opinion that held God to be the soul. and the world to be the body. CHAP. 12. WHat of this? Ought not this to move the sharpest wits, nay all in general? For indeed there is no great sharpness of wit required to the laying aside of all wrangling, and to attend but whether God be the world's soul or no and whether the world his body or no, both making one creature, whether he be natures (a) storehouse containing all things in himself? whether that out of his (b) soul, that animateth all this whole mass▪ the lives and beings of all living creatures be taken or no, each one according to their natures? and whether that there be nothing on earth which is not part of God? If this were true, mark but the irreligious consequence hereof: A man, if it were so, should not tread, but still he treads part of God under his feet; and in every creature that he killed he should kill a part of the Deity. I will not relate what others may think upon. I cannot speak it without exceeding shame. L. VIVES. Nature's Storehouse] Lucan. Placido natura receptat. Cuncta finu. (b) Soul] A Pythagorical sentence which Virgil expresseth. Principio calum & terras composque liquentes, Lucen●…●…bum lunae, Titaniaque astra, Spiritus ●…lit, totamque infu●…a per artus, M●…s agitat ●…olem, & magno se corpore miscet. Heaven, Earth and Sea, each in his proper bound, The moons bright globe, and all the spangled round, A spirit within doth feed, doth move, and pass, Through every parcel of this spacious mass Aeneid. 6. And likewise in his Georgikes, lib. 4. His quidam signis, atque haec exempla secu●…i, Esse apibus partem divinae mentis & ha●…stus Ethereo●… dixére: Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque 〈◊〉 maris, Caelumque profundum. Hinc pecud●…s, armenta, viros, genus omne serarum, Quem que sibi tenu●…s nascentem arescere vitas, Scilicet huc reddi deinde & resoluta referri, Omni●…●…orti esse locum, sed vi●…a volare Cider is i●… numerum, atque alto succedere caelo, etc. These signs made some affirm that in a Bee, Was part of that celestial Deity▪ For Gods diffused essence doth appear, Regent, in earth, air, sea, and every sphere, To which for life, beasts, birds, and men do run, And when their slender vital threed●…s are spun, To this they all return, death hath no right, To aught of this, but to the starry height They t●…wre, and there sit ranked in heavens high frame, etc. (c) According to] Some more, some less, and some lesser: The nearer him, the more, the farther the less. This is the opinion of many, and amongst others of Aristotle de mundo. Of such as hold that the reasonable creatures only are parts of the divine essence. CHAP. 13. IF they say indeed, that all things in the whole world do not participate essence with God, but yet all reasonable creatures do truly, I cannot see how that can stand. Then all the world is not God; for otherwise how can they keep brute beasts from being part of him? But what needs all this? Let us go but unto this reasonable creature, man; can there be a more damnable absurdity, then to believe that part of God's essence is beaten, when an offending childiss beaten? To make the subsistence of almighty God, be so lascivious, unjust, wicked and damnable, as divers men are: What man can endure to hear it but he that is absolutely mad: lastly how can God be justly angry with those that do not worship him, when as they are parts of his own self that are guilty? So then, they are forced to say that every particular god hath his life and subsistence by himself, and that they are not pieces of one another, but each one that is particularly known, must have his peculiar worship: that is known I say, because they cannot all be known. Over all whom, jupiter being King, thence it comes (as I imagine) that they believe him to be the sole erecter and protector of Rome's Monarchy. For if it were not he that did it, whom should they think able to perform so great a work? each one having his peculiar task already so distinctty assigned, that one must by no means meddle with that which was under the charge of another. So then the conclusion is, it must needs be only the King of gods, that erected and preserved this Kingdom of men. That the augmentations of Kingdoms are unfitly ascribed to jove. Victory (whom they call a goddess) being sufficient of herself to give a full dispatch to all such businesses. CHAP. 14. NOw heree is a question; why may not Sovereignty itself be a God? What should hinder it more than (a) hinders Victory? Or what need men trouble I●…e, if Victory be but favourable enough, and will stay with such as she meaneth to make conquerors? If she be but propitious, let jove mind his own business, the nations shall come under. (b) Yea but it may be they are good men and loath to wrong their neighbours that wrong not them, or to provoke them to war, witho●…t a juster cause then mere desire to enlarge their Kingdom. Nay be they of that mind, I commend them with all mine heart. L. VIVES. THen (a) Victory] Cato the elder built her a little Temple by the Market place. She had also a greater Temple by that little one: which P Posth. Megellus being Aedile built with Victoria a Goddess, the mulot-money he had gathered; and dedicated it in his Consulship, with M. Attill. Regulns, in the Samnites war. Sylla ordained plays for her in the civil wars. Ascon. P●…d. Cicer. in Verr. Actio. 1. She was daughter to Styx and Pallas. (Hesiod.) and had Zeal, Power and Force to her brethren, which always sit by jove, nor reigneth he nor any King without them. (b) It may be] There are some copies that differ from us here, but they are corrupted. Whether an honest man ought to entertain any desire to enlarge his Empire. CHAP. 15. WWherefore let them observe, whether it befitte a good and upright man to rejoice in the enlarging of his dominions. For it was the badness of those against whom just wars were whilom under-taken, that hath advanced earthly sovereignties to that port they now hold: which would have been little still, if no enemy had given cause nor provocation to war by offering his neighbour wrong. If men had always been thus conditioned, the Kingdoms of the earth would have continued little in quantity, and peaceful in neighbourly agreement. And then a many Kingdoms would have been in the world, as a many families are now in a city. So that the waging war, and the augmentation of dominions by conquest may seem to the bad as a great felicity, but the good must needs hold it a mere necessity. But because it would be worse if the bad should get all the Sovereignty, and so overrule the good, therefore in that respect, the honest men may esteem their own soveraingty a felicity. But doubtless, he is far more happy that hath a good neighbour by him in quiet, than he that must be forced to subdue an evil neighbour by contention. It is an evil wish, to wish for one that thou hatest, or fearest, or for one to trouble thee that thou mightst have one to conquer. Wherefore if the romans attained to so great an Empire by honest, upright & just wars, why should they not reverence their enemy's iniquity, & take itfor their goddesses good? For we see that Iniquity hath given good assistance to the increase of this Empire by setting on others upon unjust provocation to just war, that so the romans might have just cause to subdue them, and so consequently to enlarge their own dominions. And why should not Iniquity be a goddess (at least among foreign Nations) as well as Fear and Paleness and Fever was at Rome? So that by these two Deities, Iniquity and Victory, the first beginning the wars, and the latter ending them with the conquest, Rome's Empire was enlarged infinitely, whilst jove kept holiday in the Capitol. For what hath jupiter to do here wh●…e those (which they may say are but merely his benefits) are worshipped, i●…ed and accounted for direct deities and parts of his essence? Indeed 〈◊〉 should have had a fair good hand in this business, if that he were called ●…eraignty as well as she is called Victory. But if that (a) Sovereignty be but a mere gift of Jove's, then why may not Victory be so too? Both would be 〈◊〉 to be so if the romans did not worship a dead stone in the Capitol, b●… the true King of Kings and Lord of all domination both in earth and Heaven. L. VIVES. I●… (a) Kingdom] So saith Homer in divers places. The reason why the romans, in their appointments of several Gods for every thing and every action, would needs place the Temple of Rest or Quiet without the Gates. CHAP. 16. But I wonder much that the romans appointing particular gods over every thing, and almost every motion, Agenoria, that stirred men to action, Stimula (a) that forced them forward, (b) Murcia that never went out of her pace: And as (c) Pomponius saith, made men slothful, and disabled them from action, Strenua that made men resolute: Unto all which gods and goddesses they offered public sacrifices, and kept solemn feasts, Being to dispose (d) of Quiet, the goddess of Rest, her they only vouchsafed a Temple without Port Collina, but allowed her no public honours at all in the city. Whether was this a sign of their unquiet and turbulent spirits, or that those who had such a rabble of divell-gods. No worship and reverence, should never come to enjoy that Rest, whereunto the true Phsition inviteth us, Saying: Learn of me that I am meek, Math. 11. 29. and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls. Math. 11. 29. L. VIVES. STimula (a) This may be Horta, that in her lifetime was called Hersilia, Romulus his wife; called Horta of exhorting men to action. Labeo. Her Temple was never shut, to signify Stimula. that she would never have men idle: She was after called Hora, goddess of Providence, of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to enforce. Plut. Of this goddess, Ovid, Gellius and divers others do speak. Murcia.] Hereof read Hermolaus Barbarus his note upon Pliny's 15. book. Pliny. There was an old altar unto Venus Myrta, now called Myrtia. (c) Hermolaus] I read it Murcia, Hora. out of Festus, Livy, Plutarch, Varro and Cornelius Nepos. For Murcia is the goddess of sloth as Agenorea, Strenua and Stimula are of industry: Pomponius, Augustinus & Apuleius speaking of the Murcian bounds, mean those that were dedicated unto Venus. Some say that Aventine was ●…urcia. called Murtius, because it was like a wall, Murus, not of Murcia the goddess, nor the potters. Ammianus saith, there was some in Italy, that because they would not go to the war, cut of their thumbs, and were called Murci. Murcide, saith Plautus to a sluggish fellow. Thus far Hermolaus, the most diligent Author of our times. So that whereas Festus saith there was a Chapel at Auentines foot sacred unto Murcia, it is better to read Murciae. (Liu. lib. 1.) Then many thousand of the Latins were received into the city and for the joining of the two hills Palatine and Aventine, were appointed to build them houses by Murcias' Chapel, Venus Murcia: there was also one called Myrtea. Plut. Problem. (c) Pompeius] Hermolaus, Beroaldus, and others cite Pomponius herein, but show not plainly which Pomponius it is, for there were many of that name, that were writers; as namely Atticus, and the Author of Atelanae, and the Orator (all of Tully's time) Mel●…, and julius the Tragedian, whom Quintilian names, and the Lawyer, all Pompon●…. (d) Quiet] I think this Quiet belonged to the dead, for Hell of old was called Quietalis, and therefore was this godde disworshipped without the city. Her Temple was in the way to Labicana. (Livy in his 4. book.) Whether if jove being the chief god of all, Victory be to be accounted as one of the number. CHAP. 17. WIll they say (think you) that jupiter sendeth this goddess Victory, whether she pleaseth, and she obeying him, setteth up her rest on that side that he commandeth? It is trueindeed: but not of that jove which their fondness dreameth is King of the gods; but of him that is the true King of all times and all things, that can send (not victory, which is no substance, but) his Angels, and make them conquer whom he pleaseth; whose counsels may be unknown, but never unjust. For if Victory be a goddess, why is not Triumph a God and husband unto her, or her brother, or son, or somewhat? For they believe such absurdities of the gods, as if the Poets should but feign, or we but cast (a) them in the teeth with, they would presently answer, it were a ridiculousfigment, not to be attributed to the true gods: and yet they laugh not at themselves, who did more than read those dotages in the Poets, when they adored them in their Temples. Wherefore they should worship and adore only jupiter indeed and let all this multitude pass. For if (b) Victory be a goddess and subject unto that King, she dares not resist him, but must be ready to fulfil his pleasure whither-soever he send her. L. VIVES. CAst (a) them in the] Some read Epaggerarentur, but not so well. (b) Victory be] Porphyry saith that jove was pictured holding a sceptre in his left hand, and in his right, sometimes an Eagle, sometimes Victory. The Eagle to show that he was King of all, as she was of the birds: Victory to show all things to be subject unto him. Or as Phurnutus saith, because none could conquer him. Porph. Rat. nature. dear. Why Fortune and Faelicity were made Goddesses. CHAP. 18. NAy Felicity (a) is a goddess also now: She hath got her an Altar, a Temple, sacrifices, and every thing fit: Why should not she have all the worship to herself? Where-soever she is, there should all good be. But why is Fortune preferred to the honour of a Deity? Is Faelicity one thing and Fortune another? Yes, Fortune may be both good and bad, but if Faelicity once grow bad, she looseth her name. Truly I think we should have all Faelicity always good but Fortune not so. the gods, of both sexes (if they have sexes) to be still good ones: and so thought Plato and divers other excellent Philosophers and Statesmen. How then can the goddess Fortune be now good and now evil? Is she no goddess when she is not good, but is turned immediately into a Devil? Why then how many goddesses are there? Even as many as there be fortunate men, that is good fortunes. For many bad fortunes and many good, that is, at one time falling together; Fortune should be both good and evil at once, if she be all these: good to these and bad to the other. But she that is the goddess is always good: Well, suppose, is she Felicity herself: Why changeth she her name then? Yes, that may be tolerated. For many things have two or three names. But why then hath she (d) divers Temples, Altars, and ceremonies? Because (say they) that is Faelicity that doth follow a man's deserts: That good Fortune which lights casually upon good and evil, (c) Fortune. without any respect of deserts: and is therefore called Fortune. How can she then be good, coming with no discretion as well to evil men as good? And why is she adored, being so (e) blind that she commonly over-runnes those that honour her, and stays with those that scorn her? If her servants obtain grace at her hands, and get her to stay with them, than she follows merits, and is Fortune no more. Where is her definition then? How then doth all go by chance? If she be Fortune, in vain is all her worship: but if she discern, and help her servants, than she is Fortune no more. But doth not jupiter (e) send her also whether his pleasure is? Well if he do, then let him have all the worship to himself: for she cannot gainsay him, if he bid her depart to such or such a man. Or it may be that the evil do honour her, to get themselves some merit whereby they may purchase felicity, and so enjoy her company in steed of Fortunes. L. VIVES. FAelicity (a) is a] Pliny nameth her Temple often. Archelaus the Statuary sold her Image to Lucullus for LX. HS. Plin. lib. 53. (b) divers Temples] Evil Fortune had a Temple at Port Esquiline. Valiant Fortune had one upon Tiber's bank: Riding Fortune by the Theatre. There was also the Temple of Little Fortune, and Fortune the Virgin: another of Fortuna Primogenia, another of Oqsequens, at Port Capena, and there was also Fortuna privata, Uiscata, Publica, Uirilis, and Conuertens, all on Mount Palatine: there was also Hopeful fortune, Saving fortune, Smooth and doubtful fortune in Aventine, and Fortuna Mammosa in the 12. region of the City: as also Barbata, and Muliebris, unto all which Servius Tullus gave Original, partly because that from a slave he was preferred to the Kingdom, & partly because he saw that Fortune had an especial hand in the occasions of human affairs. Plut. Prob. (c) Without any respect] As far as we know: and therefore she is said to come without cause, because we cannot perceive them, as Aristotle and Plato saith. Speusippus saith that fortune is a motion from one secret cause unto another: Hereof read Aristotle's Physics (lib. & de bono Fortunae. lib.) being a part of his moralty. (d) Blind] This Aristophanes reciteth very conceitedly of Plutus, who is godde of gain. Lucian hath used the argument in his Misanthropus. (e) Send her] So saith Aristophanes, and that Plutus being sent by jove unto good men, goeth lamely: but unto the bad, Plutus lame and sound. with speed. Of a Goddess called Fortuna Muliebris CHAP. 19 NAy they are in such dotage upon this same Fortune, that they do steadfastly affirm that the Image (a) which the Matrons dedicated and named Fortuna Muliebris, the woman's fortune, did speak particular words; and that not once but often, saying that they had (b) dedicated her in a very good order and respect: which if it were true, we ought not to wonder at. For the Devils can use Fortune's Image did speak by the devils means. this cozenage with ease; which was the more discoverable, in that it was she that spoke, who followeth chance, and not desert. Fortune spoke, but felicity was silent: unto what other end was this, but only to make men neglect lining well, seeing that without any desert this Lady Fortune might make them fortunate? But yet if Fortune did speak, the (c) man's fortune (me thinks) should have spoken, and not the woman's, because otherwise, (d) the women that consecrated the statue might be thought to feign that the Image spoke, because they love so well to be heard speak themselves. L. VIVES. THe Image (a) which] After Rome's freedom from the Kings, 18. years, Coriolanus warring inexorably against his country, neither departing for threats nor tears, the women's lamentations turned him away: and here-upon they erected a Temple to Fortuna Muliebris, in Fortuna Muliebris. the Latin Road, four miles from Rome: In which dedication the Image spoke twice. First thus, Matrons well have you seen me and dedicated me. Liu. Valer. Plut. Lactantius saith that she foretold a danger to ensue: Which were questionless the words that she spoke the second time. It was sacrilege for any but such as had once been married to touch this Image. Festus. (b) Dedicated.] Propter in the Latin is superfluous. (c) Man's fortune] Whose Temple was on Tiber's bank: and her feast in April's Calends. Ovid fast. 4. (d) Women [For men would be sooner trusted then women. Of the Deifiaction of Virtue and Faith by the Pagans, and of their omission of the worship that was due to divers other gods, if it be true that these were gods. CHAP. 20. THey made a goddess also of (a) Virtue: which if she were such should take place of a great many of the rest. But being no goddess, but a gift of God, let it be obtained of him, that alone hath power of the gift of it, and farewell all the buried roll of these counterfeit gods. But why is Faith made a goddess, and graced with a Temple and an Altar? Who-soever knows faith well, maketh his own bosom her Temple. But how know they what Faith is, when her chief office is to believe in the true God? And why may not Virtue suffice? is not Faith Faith. there where Virtue is? They divide (b) Virtue but into four parts, Prudence, virtues Parts. justice, Fortitude, and Temperance; and because every one of these hath several subdivisions, therefore falleth (c) Faith to be a part of justice, and is of Habuc. 3. chief power with us, that know that the just shall live by faith: But I wonder of these men that do so thirst after store of gods, that having made Faith a goddess, they will so neglect a great many goddesses more of her nature, to whom they should afford Temples and Altars as well as to her? Why is not Temperance made a goddess, having given such lustre to divers (d) Roman Princes? Nor Fortitude that held (e) Scaevolas hand in the fire; and went with (f) Curtius into the spacious gulf for the love of his country: And stood by the two Deccis (g) the father and (h) the son, when they vowed their lives to their nation? (ay) If by the way, this were true valour in them, as it is a question, (but not disputable here?) Why are not Prudence and Wisdom made Deities as well as the rest? Because they are all worshipped under the general name of Virtue? So might all the supposed parts of one GOD be intyrely worshipped in his sole and particular worship. But in Virtue, there is Faith, and (k) Chastity, as parts indeed, and yet those must have peculiar Altars and Sacrifices. But it is vanity and not verity that turns such qualities into Deities. L. VIVES. OF (a) Virtue] Mancellus in his first consulship vowed a Temple to her in Gallia: And his son built it at Port Capena. (Liu. lib. 29.) The next Marius built to Virtue Virtues. Temple. and Honour, lower than the other, lest the Augurs should pull it down for hindering of them in beholding the Birds flight. (Cic. de leg. lib. 2.) Let them worship those things that help men to Heaven: Faith, Wisdom, Piety and Virtue. faiths Temple was in the Capitol, (Plin. lib. XXXV. Cic. office 3.) near unto Jove's, and was his oath as Tully saith out of Ennius, and Cicero de nat. deo. 2. It is said that Attillius Calatine consecrated her: Some say Aneas did long before Romulus. Festus. Liu. Then were two Diumuirs elected, for dedicating the Temples. Q. Fab. Maxim. and Attilius Crassus. The Temples were dedicated to men's, and Venus Erycina: both in the Capitol, and but a men's a Goddess. gutter between them. Dionysius. Plut. say that Numa dedicated the Image of Faith, and made her name the greatest oath of all. (b) Virtue but] Plato, Aristotle etc. (c) Faith to be] Faith is the foundation of justice: Cic. office 1. Piety is justice towards the gods, whereof Faith is a Faith. part. (De nat. deo. lib. 1.) So saith Speusippus. (d) Roman Princes] Here were a place for Valerius his examples of moderation, profit by foes, abstinence, continence, necessity, and shamefastness: for all these (saith Tully) depend on Temperance. (e) Scaeuola's] Porsenna besieging Rome, Sc●…uola went disguised into his Tents, and got so near, that he killed the King's Secretary Scaevola. in stead of the King: and when Porsenna bade torture him, he put his hand boldly into the fire of sacrifice, being at hand, and held it there, till the King and all about him were amazed with fear and admiration. (f) Curtius] They say there was a lake in the Marketplace of Rome, which afterwards dried up: it was called Curtius his lake: some say of Metius Curtius Curtius. the Sabine, that swam over it with his horse: Others of M. Curtius' the Gentleman of Rome, that upon the Oracles bidding the romans cast the thing of best worth they had into it, cast himself in thereat. (Liu. lib. 1.) But Cornelius & Luctatius write that it came by thunder, and that Curtius the Consul payled it about; he with whom M. Gentius was Consul: Hence it was named Cursius his lake, saith Varro. (g) Father] He was a Plebeian, but a tall soldior, and Decius. a dear lover of his country: Being Consul with T. Manl. Torquatus in the Latin war, and seeing in a vision that the life of one of the Generals must be lost for the wars conclusion, and the whole army of the other (they being two Generals for Rome) agreed that on that part of the Romain army with first gave back the General should give up himself to death for the safeguard of his country. The battles join, the romans left-wing gave back, and Decius seeing that, solemnly vowed himself to death for the soldiers, and putting spurs to his horse broke forth into the thickest of the adverse troops, & there was slain. (h) Son] He was the 4. time Consul with Fabius his 5. time, he that in the Galls wars was first called Maximus, of any Roman. In one of the battles, Decius his troops shrinking, he follows his father's example, and into the midst of his foes he spurreth, dying, a sacrifice to honour & his country. Liu. (lib. 10.) (i) If by the way] Valla in a declamation of his upon the pleasures of an Epicure, extols this bravery of the Roman valour highly, and with arguments both witty and worthy. The book is common: read it. (k) Chastity] Her shrine was in the Beast-market, near to Hercules his round Temple. (Liu. lib. 10.) Some took her statue for Fortunes. Fest. There was also a little Temple Chastities Chapels. in Long-street, dedicated to Chastity Plebeian by Virgins, but it wore out of use and memory afterwards. Livy. That such as knew not the true and only God had better have been contented with Virtue and Felicity. CHAP. 21. FOr these are the gifts of God, not gods themselves. But where Virtue and Felicity is, what needeth any more? What will satisfy him whom these two cannot satisfy? Virtue confineth all good acts, and Faelicity all good (a) desires. If it were for these that jupiter was worshipped, (and what is the extent & continuance of dominion, but an appurtenance of felicity) why perceived they not that these were but his gifts, and not deities themselves? But if they were deities, what needs any beside them? For let them cast over all the sum of their gods and goddesses functions, as their inventions have distributed them, and find if they can, that he that hath Virtue and Felicity, needeth any of their helps, or hath any use of them? What need he trouble: (b) Mercury or Minerva for learning Virtue what it is. virtue, including it all in herself? For virtue is but (c) an art of living well and justly, as all the old writers do define it. And therefore some say that the word art (d) comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in greek which is Virtue. But (e) if none but witty men could be virtuous, what use then is there of father (f) Catius, a god that maketh men acute, when as Faelicity can do all this? For to be born witty, is a felicity. Wherefore, though the child being yet unborn could not merit this felicity; yet she be stows wit upon the child as a benefit unto the parents that honoured her. But what need the women in Travel call on Lucina, Faelicity being able with her presence both to make their labour easy, and their offspring happy? What need Ops be troubled with the children when they are new borne, Vaticanus when they cry? Cunina when they sleep, Rumina when they suck, Statilius when they learn to stand; Adeona and Abeona when they go, (g) men's for a good mind for them, Volumnus and Volumna for a good will for them? The (h) nuptial gods for their marriage, the field gods for their harvest, and chiefly ay Fructesia; Mars and Bellona for their fights, Victoria for their victories, Honour for their honours, (k) Pecunia for their riches, Aesculanus and his son Argentus for coin enough both of brass and silver: the (first is the (l) father, because (m) brass money was in use before silver) I wonder that Argentinus begot not Aurinus, for gold followed soon after. If they had had Aurinus, sure as death he should have had place of father & grandfather, as well as jove had above Saturn: what need men run unto so many for this good or that; (to such a crew as neither I can reckon nor themselves dis●…, having a god for every little act and accident of men) when as felicity would have bestowed all, in far less time and with far less toil; nor need any other be troubled, either for bestowing of good, or diverting of bad. Why should ●…ssonia be called unto the weary, Pellonio to chase away the foe, Apollo or ●…pius to the sick, or both, and few enough in a disease of danger? Nor needed Spi●…ensis meddle with the thorns, nor any entreaty to keep away (n) 〈◊〉: Only Felicities present aid would keep all mischiefs away, and repulse them at their first approach. But now to shut up this discourse of these two, Virtue and Felicity; if Felicity be the reward of Virtue, then is it no goddess, but a gift of GOD, but if it be a goddess, it must needs be the producer of V●…, seeing that to attain to Virtue, is the greatest Felicity. L. VIVES. GOod (a) desires] Optanda, not Obtinenda. (b) Mercury] He is Lord of eloquence, she, of 〈◊〉 and wits. (c) Virtue is but] The old writers called all the virtues, arts and sciences Virtue. of li●… well: and (which is all one) prudences; Plato in Memnon. The habit of living well and justly is an art, as well as that whereby we play on Instruments, wrestle, or make sword, apparel, or any thing. [But our fellows conceive nothing but in schoole-tearmes, [] He lovanists like not this but leave it.] Art whence. Cato. men's her temple. them they are beaten to, come with others (though better) and then you gravel them, than they are to seek, and think all that is spoken is absurdity] (d) Comes off] Donat. in Andr. Terentii. ●…comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by contraction. (e) If none] I deny not but a grosse-brained fellow may be 〈◊〉 man: more such are so, then otherwise, but the excellent perfection of virtue, is 〈◊〉 ●…itty alone. Virtue is seldom well laid up in dull brains (saith Tully) Tusc. quest. (f) 〈◊〉 Cautius. The ancients used Catus for wise, politic and industrious: and therefore 〈◊〉 Portius was sur-named Cato. (g) men's] Her temple was vowed at the fight by 〈◊〉 ●…ake. Liu. lib. 22. dedicated three years after by Attilius, being made Duumuir 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉. It stood in the Capitol next to Venus Ericina's, as I said before: and was conse●…●…y ●…milius Scaurus also, in the Cymbrian war. Her feast was on the seventh of junes' 〈◊〉) Nuptial gods] They that were to marry, offered to five gods: to jupiter adultus, The nuptial gods. 〈◊〉, Venus, Lepor, and to Diana chiefly: Hereupon they lighted but five toarches at wedd●…gs, neither more nor less: Leporius not an Epithet of Venus, as Acron thought it was of S●…le, but a goddess by herself, called Peitho, the goddess of persuasion. Quintil. Hyme●… Peitho. Hymenaeus. ●…so was a chief god invoked at marriages, as in Catullus is plain. Servius (in 1. 〈◊〉 saith he was an Athenian, that delivered the Virgins in a most extreme war: and therefore was invoked at marriages, as the discharger of Virginity. Martian calls him the 〈◊〉 of Bacchus and Calliopeia. ay Fructesia] Not Fruges. (k) Pecunia] Iwenall. Sat. 〈◊〉 ●…esta pecunia templo 〈◊〉, nullas nummoru ereximus arras. — Though fatal money doth not ●…it, Adored in shrine, nor hath an Altar yet. Seeing to say she had neither Temple nor Altar. It may be he knew not that she was a godd●…●…or Varro saith that many points of the romans religion was unknown even unto the learned. (l) Father] This is diversly read, but all to one sense. (m) Brass money] Plin. lib. 33. The first stamp was set upon silver in the year after Rome was built, D. LXXXV. Silver when first coined. Q. Fabius being Consul, five years before the first African war: where for D. You must 〈◊〉 but CCCC. For that war began in the Consulshippes of Ap. Claudius; brother to 〈◊〉, and Q. Fuluius, CCCCXC. years after Rome was founded. Eutropius saith it was ●…ed 〈◊〉 that war: but he mistaketh the time herein, as he doth in many things besides. But 〈◊〉 ●…ee have spoken sufficiently already. The stamp was two horses in a yoke, and four 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and thereafter were they named. For the stamp of Victory came not up until a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Confederates war, being set upon silver, mixed with Copper. The golden Gold coin first. pieces were coined in the second African war: LXII. years after the silver came up. (n) Rubigo] Rubigo, is the putrefied dew, eating and cankring the young plants: in the morning Rubigo. (saith Pliny) and in quiet weather doth this fall upon corn, and on clear nights in va lies and places where the air is not moved: nor is it perceived until it be done. High hills and windy places are never troubled with this inconvenience. This feast Numa ordained to be kept on the seventh of Maies Calends, for than doth this canker the most mischief. This time Varro doth appoint to be when the sun is in the tenth degree of Taurus, as the course went then: but indeed the true cause is, that 29. days after the equinoctial of the spring, for the space of four days, on the 4. of Maies calends, the vehement star called the dog-star setteth: to which it is necessary to offer a dog. This from Varro. A dog indeed was sacrificed unto this Rubigo. ovid. Fast. 4. Varro talketh of a god called Robigus also, that is joined with Flora. (Rer. rustic. lib. 1.) making them one of the six pair of gods that he calls upon, Robigus. quasi. Rodigus, of Rodo, to gnaw or eat away. Rubigo is properly a sore or ulcer gotten by filthy lust. Rust upon Iron also is called rubigo, growing upon it (as upon corn) for want of motion. Of the knowledge of these Pagan gods, which Varro boasteth he taught the romans. CHAP. 22. WHat great good turn than doth Varro boast that he hath done unto his Citizens, in the particularizing of the gods, and their worships that the romans must observe? For what booteth it (saith he) to know a Physician by name and by face, and yet to be ignorant what a Physician is? so likewise it booteth not (saith he) to know Aesculapius unless you know that he cures diseases: otherwise you know not what to pray to him for. And this he confirms in another simyly saying: A man cannot live well, nay he cannot live at all, if he know not the Smith the Painter, the Carpenter etc. distinctly, where to have this necessary, where that, where to be taught this or that. So it is plain, that to know what power every god hath, and upon what object, is wonderful useful. For thence may we gather whom to sue unto for every need we have, and not follow the (a) Mimics, in begging water of Bacchus, and wine of the (b) Nymphs. Who would not give this man thanks now, if his doctrine were true, and did show the worship of the true GOD, of whom alone we are to ask all things? L. VIVES. THe (a) Mimikes] To make sport. (b) The Nymphs] Or Lymphes. Lympha is all moisture, and over all moisture do the Nymphs rule: The Nereids in the sea, The Naiads in The sorts of the Nymphs. fountains, the Napeaes in the moisture of flowers and herbs: The Druids and Hamadryades over the sap of trees: The Oreades over the humid hills. The Nymphs are in number 3000. all daughters of Oceanus and Tethis. Hesiod. Theog. Of the absolute sufficiency of Felicity alone, whom the romans (who worshipped so many gods) did for a great while neglect, and gave no divine honours unto. CHAP. 23. But if their books be true, and that Felicity be a goddess, how comes it to pass that she hath not all the worship unto herself, being of herself sufficient for all needs? Who wisheth any thing bu●… happiness? And why was it so (a) late, before (b) Lucullus, the first of all the romans, thought it fit to erect her a Temple? Why did not Romulus, that wished the city so well, provide a place for her, seeing that her presence might have saved him all his labour in praying to the other gods? he had never been King, nor ever come to have been a god, had not she stuck to him. Why then did he clog the romans with such a noise of gods, janus, jove Mars (c) Picus (d) Faunus (e) Tiberinus, Hercules; and all the rest. And what did Tatius bringing in Saturn, Ops, Sol, Luna, Vulcan, (f) Lux, and to close up all, sweet Cloacina, leaving Felicity in the dust? And what was Numa's mind to gather such an host of he gods, and she gods, and leave her out? Could he not find her for the multitude? Verily (g) Hostilius would never have brought Fear, and Pallor to be templified, if he had had any knowledge of this Felicity. For had she come there, Fear and Pallor must needs have been a packing. Again, in all the increase of the Empire, she was not thought of, no man served her, what was the reason of this? Was the Empire more great then happy? Perhaps so: For how can true Felicity be their where true Piety is not? And (h) Piety is the true worship of the Pity. true GOD, not the adoration of those multitude of false gods, or devils, whether you will. But afterwards, when Felicity was entertained, and had got a place with the rest, the great infelicity of the civil wars followed presently upon it. Was not Felicity angry (think you) that she was let pass so long, and then taken in at last, not to her honour but to her disgrace, being ranked with Priapus, and Cloacina, and Fear, and Pallor, and Fever, and a sort that were no gods to be worshipped, but defects in the worshippers? Lastly, seeing she must be feign to share honours with so unworthy a rabble, at least why had she not a better part of honours then the others? Who could endure that the goddess Felicity should stand by, and neither be reckoned amongst the gods ay Consentes, that were of Jove's Council, nor the Select gods neither? Nor had not a Temple that should have excelled all the rest in height of posture? and magnificence of fabric? why should she not have a better than jupiter? For she herself gave him his Kingdom, if ever he were a happy King, that happiness is of better worth than Sovereignty, is most plain. For many men doubtless may be found, that would not be Kings, but none that would not be happy. So that if the gods were asked their minds, by augury, or otherwise, whether they would give place to Felicity or no, I will undertake, that if all the room besides were filled with other gods Altars, that Felicity could not have a ●…itte place built, jupiter himself would give place, and let Felicity have his own seat upon the top of the Tarpeian hill. Nor is there one of them that would not do as much, unless (which is impossible) some of them would ●…ee so mad as to lose her favour and grow miserable. jupiter would never ●…se her, as (k) he was used by Mars, (l) Terminus and (m) Iwentas, who by ●…o means could be persuaded to give their King place. For (as they write) ●…arquin being desirous to build the Capitol, and seeing the place he thought ●…ttest, already taken up by other strange gods, durst not control them, ●…ut thought that good manners would teach them to give place unto their ●…ing: and being that there was a great sort there, where he meant to build, 〈◊〉 asked them by augury whether they were willing to resign the place to ●…ir King or no? All were content, except Mars, Terminus and Iwentas: And 〈◊〉 the Capitol was built, and they for their sauciness had such small monuments The Capitol. left, that the Romans' greatest divines did scarcely know where they stood. But jove would never deal so uncivilly with Faelicity, as Mars, Terminus and Iwentas dealt with him. And then those that would not yield to him, assuredly would yield to her, that made him their King. Or if they would not; why then it were because they had rather abide in obscurity in Faelicities house, then to sit in eminence without her company, so that had she but the highest place, the Citizens would soon learn where to pray for good gifts, and in time, by the very persuasion of nature: Put away that swarm of gods, and pray only to Faelicity, offer only to her, and frequent her Temple only, if they desired to be happy, as all would do; and so all men would come and beg herself of herself, for who would beg any thing but Faelicity, of any god? so that Felicity having power to be abiding with whom she list (as she may if she be a goddess) what man were so foolish to go and entreat her company of another god, when he may obtain it of herself? So that the dignity of place also should of right be hers from all the other gods. For they write that the ancient romans did worship one Summanus, one that ruled the thunder of the night, above jupiter that ruled the day thunder. But after that jupiter had gotten him such a sumptuous Summanus. house, the company came in so fast unto him, that one could (o) scarce find one within a while, that had heard, nay more, that had read so much as the name of Summanus. But now if Felicity be no goddess, being (in truth) but a gift of GOD, Then is it fit to find out that GOD that can beestowe it, and to throw aside this dangerous roll of counterfeit deities, which a skull of fools do run thus headlong after, taking GOD'S gifts, for GOD himself, and by their obstinacy giving him continual cause of offence, whose gifts they are; for so shall he never want infelicity that honours Felicity as a goddess, and neglects him that is the giver of all felicity: even as he shall never want hunger that licketh the picture of a crust, and never asketh bread of him that hath it to give him. L. VIVES. SO (a) Late] Lucullus was Consul with Cotta in the cities DCLXVI. year. (b) L●…cullus] He warred against Mithridates, and Pompey entered (upon his place, contrary to Lucullus. the minds of the Nobles. Having sped well in the war with this King and Tigranes, he built this goddess a Temple. (c) Picus] Saturn's son. Aenei. 7. He reigned in La●… Picus. in the time of the Aborigines, and was turned by his wife Circe into a pie, for loving of Pomona: and therefore the romans held the pie for an holy bird. (d) Faunus] Son to Faunu●…. Picus, father to the Fawns and the satires and Field-gods, Virg. ibid. Plutarch calleth him Mercury's son. Parallel. He reigned in Latium in the Aborigines time, and brought his people from barbarism to a civil manner of life: and was the first that gave names to places, and dedicated certain Temples and Groves to the gods, from whom they were called Fana; his Oracle was in Albunea, a wood of the Laurentes: some offered to him yearly, some monthly, Val. Probus in 1. Georg. his feast was kept at Rome in the Nones of December. Horat. Car. 〈◊〉. (e) Tiberius] Son to Capetus, King of the Albans, a notable thief, and being drowned in Tiber, gave it that name by his death, being ●…fore Tiberinus. called Albula. (f) Lux] The romans worshipped jupiter Luceius, as 〈◊〉 Salii sung, because he was held Lord of the light, and the cause thereof. Fest. Ta●… ●…la. brought into Rome these gods: Ops or Flora, Diioué, Saturn, sol, Luna, Vulcan, S●…manus, Larunda, Terminus, Curinus, Vorrundus, the Lar, Diana, and Lucina. Varro de 〈◊〉 lat. 4. (g) Hostilius] In the war between the romans and the Veii, Host●… being told that the Albans were fallen from him, and seeing the romans pale and amazed hereat, in this turbulent state vowed a Temple to Fear and Pallor. (h) Piety is] Piety is justice Fears and Pallors temple. towards the gods. Cic. de nat. dear. ay Piety is also reverence unto our elders, and kindred, when it hath reference to the gods, it is called religion. There was in Rome a chapel of Piety dedicated by Acilius, there where she dwelled; that fed her mother being in prison, with the milk of her breasts. Festus. There was also a statue erected that represented this. Valer. lib. Piety's chapel. 5. Obsequens mentioneth a temple of Piety that stood in Flaminius his Theatre. ay Consentes] Twelve of those there were, six of either sex. Their Images stood gullded in the marketplace. Varrorer. rust. lib. 1. Those were juno. Vesta, Minerva, Ceres. Diana, Venus, Mars, Mercury, jupiter, Vulcan, Neptune, Apollo. Enn. They were called Consentes because they all consented what was to be done. jupiter using them as counsellors in his greatest affairs as Augustine saith here, and Seneca more plainly Natur. quaest. lib. 2. Pomponius Laetus, an excellent and diligent antiquary observed (they say) and wrote to Lorenzo Medici, that each of these gods had a peculiar month dedicated to them. juno had januarie, Neptune February, Minerva March, Venus April, Apollo May, Mercury june, jupiter julie, Ceres August, Vulcan September, Mars October, Diana November, Uesta December. Diodor saith that the Chaldees called two and thirty stars the gods consulters, and the twelve signs of the Zodiac which rule over each month, they called the principal gods. The Egyptians had also their twelve chief gods, but not them that the romans had. (k) He was used] Numa dividing the romans lands both into private possessions and Commons, set bounders at each one: and thereupon erected a chapel to god Terminus on the hill ●…arpeius: to whom they offered Terminus. no living thing, but only fourmenty, and the first of the fruits, though afterwards this use was left, with others. This god was a stone, and all the bounders were stones: which if any man removed out of the place, it was lawful to kill him forthwith. But ●…arquinius Priscus, having vowed to build a temple to jove, juno and Minerva, upon the hill Tapeius, and laying the foundations of this magnificent work, he found many Altars inhumed there, which were dedicated by Tatius, and divers other Kings: which when he would have removed thence that the place might be free for jove, he asked the opinion of Actius Naevius the augur, who having beheld the birds of each particular god, all signified willingness of departure, except the birds of Terminus, and Iwentas. So Tarquin the proud his Nephew, building the Capitol after him, was feign to leave them two there where they were found before. It was a good sign Accius said and portended stability unto the confines of the Roman Empire, and that their youth should be invincible. Plut. Dionys. Livy and Florus say that this remoovall fell out in Tarquin the Prouds' time: though their words may be reduced unto this we have already said. If not, I had rather trust them in this matter then the greeks, that Mars was a third in this obstinacy of the gods, I have not read: that the other two were, I have. (l) Terminus] Saturn and his brother Titan agreeing in a league upon the condition that Saturn should bring up no manchild of his own, and Saturn being again foretold by Oracle that his son should thrust him from his throne, he resolved presently to devour and make an end of all his male-childrens: jupiter being borne, and he coming to dispatch him, they had laid a great stone in the child's place: which stone jupiter (having attained the Kingdom) consecrated upon Mount Parnassus, and it was called in greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hesiod. Hesychius. Whereupon it grew a proverb upon Gluttons. Thou wouldst swallow the stone Batylus. Batylus Batylus. (saith Euseb. out of Sanchoniaton) was son to Caelus and Rhea, brother to Saturn. He was after called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in latin Terminus, and would not yield to great jupiter, perhaps (saith Lactant.) because he had saved him from his father's chaps. He stood always openly at Rome and so was worshipped. Fest. Lactant. (m) Iwentas] There is Iwentas and Iwenta, but Iwentas saith Acron is the true name. Horace. et parum comis sinéte Iwentas Mercuriusque. Iwentas and Mercury are both rustich without thee. In Horace it standeth for youth itself Iwentas. elsewhere. Olim Iwentas & Patruus Vigour, Once youth and Pristine valour: and again fugit Iwentas, & verecundus Color, the youth, and modest red a●…e vanished now, and fled: This goddess is called Hebe in Greek, daughter to juno alone, without a father, as Mars was her son: Though the greeks make jove her father, she was Hercules wife, and Jove's cupbearer till Ganymede had her place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly is vigour of youth. She had a temple in the Great circuit, dedicated by Lucullus the Duumvir. M. Livius being Consul had vowed it, 16. years before for the conquest of Asdrubal. And being Censor, put it to M. Cornelius and T. Sempronius Consuls to build, and had plays at the dedication of it. Liu. lib. 36. she had a little oratory in the marketplace also. (n) Summanus] Plato, quasi summus manium, the Prince of spirits. His temple was near to that of Iwentas. Plin. His sacrifice was round cakes, Fest. He ruled the night thunder, and jove the days, which was therefore called Dia. The thunder that was doubtful, happining at twilight or so, they called Proversa: and offerings was brought unto both the gods, at those times. So the romans had but these two gods to rule all their thunder, but the Tuscans had nine and eleven kinds of thunder. Plin. lib. 2. Festus, and the common doctrine of Rome held three kinds of thunder, the Postularian, requiring some sacrifices. The Perentalian signifying the other to be well and sufficiently expiated. The Manubian, which were the strokes of the thunderbolts. Seneca also sets down as many: the first of Thunders of how many sorts. jupiter alone, giving men warning: the 2. from the Consentes, warning, but not without hurt: the third, from the decree of the superior gods, wholly mischievous and hurtful. Thus much of thunder out of Cecinna, Volaterranus, Araldus, Seneca Nat. quaest. lib. 2. and some out of Pliny, but briefly and scattered here & there in him as many other things besides are. (o) Scarce find] This god was very base, and few knew him. They knew he was one of the gods that ruled the night, but his name was unknown. Ovid Fast. 6. Reddita, quisquis is es, Sunmmano templa feruntur, Tunc cum Romanis Pirrhe timendus eras. Summanus house (what ere he be) was reared, When Pyrrhus of great Rome so much was feared. His feast was the 13. Cal. of july: his temple near the great Circuit, and his chapel in the Capitol. What reasons the Pagans bring, for their worshipping of gods gifts for gods themselves. CHAP. 24. LEt us examine their reasons. Do you think (say they) our ancestors were such fools that they knew not those to be gods gifts, and not gods? no truly: but because they knew that they could not have them but from some god, they called their gods which they thought had the gift of them, by the names of the things themselves: sometimes deriving words from thence; (as Bellona of Bellum, war, not Bellum itself, and Cunina of Cunae, needles, not Cuna. Segetia of Sedges corn, not Sedges itself, Pomona of Pomum an apple, not Pomum: and Bubona of Bos an ox, not Bos) and sometimes never altering the word at all, but calling them just as the thing is called: As Pecunia the goddess, that gives money, (not holding money itself for a goddess) and virtus, that giveth virtue, (a) Honour for honour, victoria for victory, Concordia for Concord, and so Felicity being called a goddess, is not meant of the thing given, but of the power that giveth it. Well, out of this reason will we find an easy way to persuade all such as have not hardened their hearts, to be of our opinion. L. VIVES. HOnour (a) for] You see (saith Tully) Marcellus hath renewed the Temple of Honour, the which Qu. Maximus built long before in the Ligurian war. De nat. de. lib. 2. Honour's temple. There was one temple in Rome both to Virtue and Honour, which C. Marius built: but it was in divers pertitions: for one room might not serve them both, as the College of Priests answered Marcellus in his eight consulship. The old romans sacrificed bareheaded unto Honour, but covered to all besides. Plut. Prob. Of the worship of one God only, whose name although they knew not, yet they took him for the giver of felicity. CHAP. 25. FOr if man's weakness observed thus much, that felicity could not come but from some god, and that this was perceived by those that worshipped so many gods, who therefore would call him that they thought could give it, by the name of the thing itself, knowing no other name he had; this proveth sufficiently that jupiter could not give felicity, whom they worshipped already, but only he whom they worshipped under the name of Felicity. So then, is it confirmed that they thought Felicity could not be given but by a God that they knew not well, seek but him out then and give him his due worship and it sufficeth. Cashier this return of innumerable and as unnecessary gods, nay devils: let not that god suffice the worship, whose gift is not sufficient: hold not (I say) that God for a sufficient giver of felicity whose felicity is wholly insufficient. But in whom is it sufficient? in the true and only GOD, the giver of all felicity: serve him. It is not he that they call jove. For if it were he, they would never stand seeking this gift of another, who goeth under the name of Felicity: besides they would not do Jove's honour that wrong, as for to count him as jove is counted; an adulterer (a) with other men's wives, and an unchaste lover, and ravisher of (b) fair boys. L. VIVES. AN adulterer (a) which] Jove's foul adultery are the Poets common songs: as which Alcmene, Jove's adulteries. Leda etc. (b) Fair boys] As of Ganymede; of whom hereafter. Of the stageplays which the gods exacted of their servants. CHAP. 26. But these were fictions (a) of Homer (quoth Tully,) transferring humane affects unto the gods. I had rather they had transferred divine affects unto us. This grave man indeed was much displeased with the unseasonable fictions of those times. ay but why then did the wisest and most learned men of all the romans, present stageplays, writing them, and acting them to the honour of their gods, and as parts and points of their religion? Here Tully exclaimeth not against poetike fictions but against the old ordinances. And would not the ordainers exclaim too, and say, why what do we? our gods entreated us, nay forced us upon pain of destruction to exhibit them such things as honours: punishing the neglect thereof with severity, and showing themselves pleased in the amendment of that neglect. That which I will now relate, is reckoned as one of their most virtuous, and memorable deeds. (b) Titus Latinus, a rustic Titus Latinus history. housekeeper was warned in a dream to bid the Roman Senate restore the stageplays, because upon their first day of presentation an offender carried out and whipped to death before all the people, had sore displeased the gods that do not love such sad spectacles, but are all for mirth and jollity: Well, he neglected to tell the Senate this, but was warned again the next night. Neglecting it again, suddenly his son died. And the third night he was warned again upon pain of a greater mischief. He not daring as yet to reveal it, fell into a sore and horrible disease. And then having imparted it to his friends, they counseled him to open it to the senate, so he was carried to them in his coach, and having told his dream, grew wel●…●…an instant, and went home on his feet. The senate being amazed with his miracle renewed the plays with treble charges, who seeth not now (that seeth at all) how villenously these devils abuse those men that are their slaves, in forcing these things from them, as honours, which an upright judgement would easily discern to be obscaenities. (c) From this slavery can nothing deliver man but the grace of God through jesus Christ our Lord: In those plays, the gods crimes, that the Poets feign, are presented: yet by the gods express charge, were they by the Senate renewed. And there did the stageplayers, act, produce and present jove, for the veriest whoremaster in the world, had this been false, he should have been offended at it: but taking deligh (as he did) to have villains invented upon him, who would serve him that would not serve the devil? Is this the founder, enlarger, and establisher of the Roman Empire? and is he not more base and abject than any Roman that beheld him thus presented? can he give happiness that loved this unhappy worship, and would be more unhappily angry if it were not afforded him? L. VIVES. FIctions (a) of Homer saith Tully] I approve not Homer for saying that jove did take up Ganymed for his form and person, this was not a just cause to anger Laomedon. But Homer feigned, transferring human affects unto the gods: I had rather he had transfered theirs to us: which of theirs? to flourish, to be wise, witty, and memorative. A most grave Sentence, taxing their impious superstition that proportion gods attributes unto our frailty, supposing him as testy, crabbed, cruel, envious, proud, contentious, arrogant, inconstant, finally as wicked as ourselves, were it not better to elevate ourselves unto the height of his divine virtue. Cic. Tusc. quest. (b) Titus Latinus] This history is mentioned by Cicero, De divinat. out of Fabius, Gellius, & Caelius. It is also in Livy. lib. 2. Val. Max. lib. 4. Aul. Gell. Macrob. Lactantius. It fell out in the year of the city, CCLII. Consuls, M. Minutius, and A Sempronius. Some call the man Larinus: Lactantus calls him Tiberius Arinus (c) from this slavery] Alluding unto that exclamation of Paul Rom. 7. Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? the grace of GOD through jesus Christ. Of the three Kind's of Gods whereof Scaevola disputed. CHAP. 27. IT is left in memory that Scaevola, (a) their learned high Priest, disputed of three kinds of gods that were taught by authors; one by the Poets, one by the Philosophers; one by the Princes of the City. (b) The first sort, he saith, were but fooleries, much of their doctrine being fictious: the second, disagreeing from a politic state, having much superfluity, and divers inconveniences, for the superfluity: it is no great matter, for it is a saying amongst men: superfluity hurteth not, but what are the inconveniences; to deny openly that Hercules, Aesculapius, Castor, and Pollux are gods; for the Philosophers teach that they were men, and died as other men do. To what end is this, but that the cities should be filled with statues of such as are no true gods, the true god having neither sex, age nor body; But this, Se●…uola would not have the people to know, because he did not think it was false himself. So that he holds it fit cities should be deluded in religion, which indeed Varro sticks not plainly to affirm. De. re. vin. A godly religion, whereto when weak minds going for refuge, and seeking to be freed by the truth, must be told, that it is fit that they be illuded. Nor doth the same book conceal the cause why Scaevola rejecteth the Poet's gods. It is because they do so deform them with their stories, that they are not fit to keep good men company, (c) one being described to steal, and another to commit adultery: as also to do and say so filthily and fond, as that the (d) three goddesses, striving for eminence of beauty, the other two being cast by Venus, destroyed Troy: That jove was turned to (e) a Bull, or a (f) Swan, to have the company of some wench or other: that (g) a goddess married a man, and that Saturn eat up his sons. No wonder! No vice, but there you have it set down, quite against the natures of the deities. O Scaevola, abolish those plays if it be in thy power! tell the people what absurd honours they offer the gods, gazing on their guilt, and remembering their pranks, as a licence for their own practice! If they say, you Priests brought them us, entreat the gods that commanded them, to suffer their abolishment: If they be bad, and therefore at no hand credible, with reverence to the God's Majesties, than the greater is the injury that is offered unto them, of whom they are so freely invented. But they are Devils (Scaevola) teaching guiltiness, and joying in filthiness, they will not hear thee. They think it no injury to have such black crimes imputed unto them, but rather hold themselves wronged if they be not imputed, and exhibited. Now if thou callest on jove against them, were there no other cause for it, but the most frequent presenting of his (h) enormities, (though you call him the God and King of the world) would he not think himself highly wronged by you, in ranking him in worship with such filthy companions, and making him governor of them? L. VIVES. Scaevola (a) their] There were many of this name▪ but this man was priest in Marius his civil war, and killed by Marius the younger. Tully saith he went often to hear him dispute, after Scaevola the Augur was dead. (b) The first] Dionysius writeth that the romans rejected all the factions of the gods fights, wranglings, adulteries, etc. which were neither to be spoken of gods, nor good men: and that Romulus made his Quirites use to speak well of the gods, Antiqu. Rom. lib. 2. Euseb. de praep. evang. (c) One,] Mercury, that stole Tiresias Oxen, Mars his sword, Vulcan's tongues, Neptune's Mace, Apollo's bow and shafts, Venus her Mercury. girdle, and Jove's Sceptre. (d) Three] every child knows this. (e) A Bull] for Europa. (f) A Swan] for Leda, of these read ovid. lib. 6. Metamorph. (g) A goddess married] Ceres to jasius, Harmonia to Cadmus, Callirrhoe to Chrysaoras, Aurora to Tithon, Thetis to Peleus, Venus to Anchises, Circe and Callipso to Ulysses. Read Hesiods Theognia. (h) Enormities,] of lechery, cruelty, and such like. Whether the romans diligence in this worship of those gods, did their Empire any good at all. CHAP. 28. BY no means than could these gods preserve the Roman Empire, being so criminous in their own filthy desiring of such honours as these are, which rather serve to condemn them, then appease them. For if they could have done that, the greeks should have had their helps before, who afforded them far better store of such sacrifices as these, with far more stage-plays and shows. For they, seeing the Poets tax their gods so freely, never thought shame to let them tax themselves, but allowed them free leave to traduce whom they pleased, and held the Stage-players worthy of the best honours of their state. But even as Rome might have had golden coins, yet never worshipped Aurinus for it, so might they have had silver and brass ones without Argentinus or his father Aesculanus, and so of all other necessaries. But so could they not possess their kingdom, against the will of the true God, but in despite of all the other, let them do what they list, that one unkowne God being well and duly worshipped, would have kept their kingdom on earth in better estate than ever, and afterward have bestowed a kingdom on each of them in heaven (had they a kingdom before or had they none) that should endure for ever. Of the falseness of that Augury that presaged courage and stability to the state of Rome. CHAP. 29. FOr what a goodly presage was that which I spoke of but now, of the obstinacy of Mars, Terminus and Iwentas, that it should signify that Mars (a) his nation, the romans, should yield the place to no man: that no man should remove the limits of their Empire, because of Terminus, and that their youth should yield to none, because of Iwentas. Now mark but how these gods misused their King, daring to give these Auguries as in his defiance, and as glorying in the keeping of their places: though if these antiquities were true, they need fear nothing. For they confessed not that they must give place to Christ that would not give place to jove: and they might give Christ place without prejudice to the Empire's limits, both out of the temples, and the hearts that they held. But this we write was long before Christ came, or that Augury was recorded: notwithstanding after that presage in Tarquin's time, the romans lost many a battle, and proved Iwentas a liar in her prophesy, and Mars his nation was cut in pieces within the very walls, by the conquering Galls; and the limits of the Empire were brought to a narrow compass in Hannibal's time, when most of the cities of Italy fell from Rome to him. Thus was this fine Augury fulfilled, and the obstinacy of the presages remained to prove them rebellious devils. For it is one thing not to give place, and another to give place and regain it afterwards. Though afterwards the bounds of the Empire were altered in the East by (b) Hadrianus means, who lost Armenia, Mesopotamia and Syria unto the Persians, to show god Terminus that would not give place to jove himself, but The re●…all of the Roman Empires 〈◊〉. guarded the Roman limits against all men, to let him see, that Hadrian a King of men, could do more than jove the King of gods. (c) The said Provinces being recovered afterward, now almost in our times, god Terminus hath given ground again, (d) julian (that was given so to the Oracles) desperately commanding all the ships to be burned that brought the army victuals, so that the soldiers fainting, and he himself being slain by his foes hands, there was no means for one man to escape, but by yielding to the foe so much of the Empire as now to this day they possess: making a bargain not altogether so bad as Hadrians was, but taking a (e) middle course between two extremes. So that Terminus his standing out with jove was but an unlucky sign and foolish augury, seeing that Hadrians will, julian's rashness, and (f) jovians necessity, all made him give room to them. The romans that were of discretion, observed this well, but they could not overturn the inveterate idolatry wherein the Devils had bound the city so fast: and they themselves, though holding these things vain, thought notwithstanding Nature should have that divine worship allowed her, which indeed is the true gods only peculiar, under whom she is at command. These served the creature, rather than the Creator (as the Apostle saith) who is blessed for evermore. This God's help was needed, to send Rom. 1. some godly men to suffer death for the true religion, and thereby to take away these erroneous illusions from the world. L. VIVES. Mar (a) his nation] The romans, both for their valours, and their original from Mars his son. So many of the writers call diverse romans, Martial m●…nded. (b) Hadria●…s] Hadrian. Fourteenth Emperor of Rome, adopted by trajan, whom he succeeded. But envying his father's glory amongst others, he gave the Persians back Armenia, Mesopotamia and Assyria (which Tr●…an had won from them by conquest) setting Euphrates as bounder to the Empire, and calling home the army. Eutrop. lib. 8. The reason I think was because it was an old saying, that that general that led an army beyond Euphrates and the city Ctesiphon, should never have good fortune: which happened to Crassus; and trajan himself never came into Italy from the Parthian conquest. (c) The said] Eutrop. Assyria by the Antoni●… 〈◊〉, brethren, Mesopotamia by Galienus, under the conduct of Odenatus: Armenia for Diocletia●… under Galerius. (d) julian] He began his reign in the Cities MCXVI year: Consuls, Mamertinus and Ne●…tta: A great foe to Christianity, being overthrown by the Parthians at Ctesiphon, julian. by his death he left the whole army and state in a desperate case. (e) Middle] So that the bounds were not removed by force, but by condition of peace. (f) jovianus] A Pannonian, being made Emperor by the soldiers, in this extremity of julian's procuring, he was feign to jovian. conclude a disgraceful peace with the Parthians; but necessity hath no law. He gave them the town Nisibides, and part of the upper Mesopotamia, and so came the Empire's bounds to be removed. The confessions of such as do worship those Pagan gods, from their own mouths. CHAP. 30. CI●…ro (a) being Augur, derideth the Auguries, and (b) blames men for letting their actions rely upon the voice of a Crow or a Daw. O but this (c) Academic saith, that all things are uncertain; he is not worthy to be trusted in any of these mysteries. (d) Q. Lucil. Balbus in Tully's second book, De ●…t. ●…eor. disputeth hereof, and having proved these superstitions to be Physical in nature, yet condemneth the institution of Images and their fables, in these words. Perceive you not then that from the useful observation of these things Tully's dislike of images and fables of the gods. in nature, the tract was found to bring in those imaginary and forged gods? hence came all the false opinions, errors and old wives tales: for now are we acquainted with the shapes, ages, apparel, kinds, marriages, kindreds, and all are squared out by ●…aine fancies: nay they have turbulence of effects also. We have heard of their des●…res, sorrows and passions. Nor wanted they wars, if all tales be true: They fought in (c) parties, not only in Homer, but all on a side also against the (f) Ti●…ans, The gods war●…es. and Giants: and hence ariseth a sottish belief of their vanity, and ex●…ame (g) inconstancy. Behold now what they themselves say that worship these forgeries; he affirmeth that these things belonged to superstition, but he teacheth of religion as the stoics do. For (quoth he) not only the Philosophers, but all our ancestors made a difference between religion and superstition. For (h) such as prayed whole days together, and offered for their children's lives, 〈◊〉 were called Superstitious. Who perceiue●…h not now that he, standing (i) in awe of this cities custom, did notwithstanding commend the religion of his ancestors and would feign have severed it from superstition, but that he cannot tell how? for if the ancients called those Superstitious, that prayed and sacrificed whole days together, were not they worthy of that name also, whom he reprehendeth for inventing so many distinct ages, images, and sexes. etc. for the whole number of the gods? if the institutors of those be culpable, it implieth guilt also unto these ancients that invented and adored such idle fooleries: and unto him also (for all his eloquent evasions) that must be tied by necessiity to this absurd worship: and dare not speak in a public oration what he delivereth here in a private disputation. Thanks therefore be given to our Lord jesus Christ, from all us Christians, not to (k) Heaven and Earth (as he would have it) but unto him that made Heaven and Earth, who hath overturned and abolished those superstitions (which Balbus durst scarcely mutter at) by his heavenly humility, his Apostles preaching and his martyrs faith, that died for the truth and lived in the truth, having by these means rooted all errors not only out of the hearts of the religious, but even out of the Temples of the superstitious. L. VIVES. CIcero being (a) Augur.] And of their College: elected by Q. Hortensius the Orator. (b) Blameth.] De divinat. lib. 2. (c) Academike.] That sect would affirm nothing, but confute the assertions of others, which Cicero useth in many of his dialogues, professing himself a defender An accade●…. of that sect, d●… na. de. li. 2. (d) Balbus.] An excellent Stoic. (e) On sides.] On the one side I●… Pallas, Neptune: against them, Apollo Venus and Mars in the Trojan wars. (f) Titans.] Son to Earth and Titan, Saturn's brother: they claimed the Kingdom of jupiter, by the agreement The Titan●… of their fathers, first they did but wrangle, but afterwards to arms. It was a great war, yet the Titans were subdued. Buu than followed a greater, the rest of the Titans reneving th●… forces and chase jove and all his friends into Egypt. The first was called the Titans war, thi●… the Giants. (g) Inconstancy.] Thus far Tully. (h) Such as] Lactantius disliketh this derivation of Superstitious and Religious, deriving religious of religo to bind, because they are bound to God▪ superstitious of superstes, alive, because they were of the false religion, which was professed in the lives of their ancestors. lib. 4. of Religions, and read Gellus. lib. 4. But Tully doth not confine the name to those praying fellows, but saith it was of large use afterwards in other Religious Superstitio●…. respects ay in awe.] In the books. De nat. dear, and De divinat, it is plain that Tully durst n●… speak his mind freely of those gods, because of the inveterat custom of his country. (k) heaven and] whom Tully with the Stoics maketh the chief of the gods. Of Varros rejecting the popular opinion, and of his belief of one God, though he knew not the true God. CHAP. 31. ANd what say you to Varro (whom we are sorry should make plays as an honour to true gods in religion, though not in judgement, seeing he exhorteth men to the adoration of the gods so religiously) doth not he confess, that he is not of the opinion of those that left the romans their religion, and that if he were to leave the city any institutions, he would rather give them their gods after the prescript of nature? But seeing that the former hath been of so long a continuance, he saith that it was but his duty to prosecute his discourse hereof from the eldest antiquities, to the end that the people should ●…t be induced rather to honour then to contemn them, wherein this judicious writer showeth that the things whereof he writeth would be contemptible to the people as well as to himself, if they were not kept in silence. I should have thought one might but have conjectured this, but that himself saith in many places that there is much truth, which the people ought not to know: nay and if it were all falsehood, yet it were fit the people should nevertheless think that it were truth▪ and therefore the Grecians shut up their (a) Teletae, and their (b) most secret mysteries in walls. Here he hath made a discovery of all the politic government of the world. But the Devils take great delight in this playing double: making themselves the masters both over the deceivers and the deceived, from whose dominion nothing freeth us but the grace of God, through jesus Christ our Lord. This acute and learned man saith further, that he thinketh only those to discern God, who teach that he is a soul, moving, and swaying the whole world: and hereby, though he yet have no firm hold of the truth (for God no soul but the soul's maker. God is no soul, but the soul's maker) yet if the cities custom had permitted him, assuredly he would have taught them the worship of one only God, and the governor of the world: so that we should but have this only controversy w●…th him, whether God were a soul, or the soul's maker. He saith also that the old romans were a hundred threescore and ten years without Idols: and had they been so still (quoth he) religion had been kept the purer; to prove which, he produceth (amongst others) the jews, and concludeth, that who-so-ever they were that first invented Images, they freed the city from all awe and added unto error: being well advised that the senselessness of the Idols would make the gods themselves seem contemptible. But whereas he ●…aith they added unto error, that proves, that there was some error there, before that Images came in. And therefore his saying, that these only discerned God which called him a soul governing the world; and his opinion that the gods honours would have been purer without Images, these positions declare how near the truth he draws. For could he have done any good against such an overgrown error, he would have showed them how that one only God should have been adored, even he that governeth the world, and th●… he is not to be pictured: and the youth of the City being set in so ne●…e a path to the truth, might easily have been persuaded afterwards, that God was an unchangeable nature, creating the soul also. These things being thus, what ever fooleries those men have discovered of their gods in their Books, they have been laid open by the immediate hand of God, (compelling them to confess them) rather then by their own desire to dissuade them: Wherefore that we allege from them, is to control those that will not see from what a damned slavery to the Devil, that same singular sacrifice of so holy blood, and the voutchsafing of the spirit hath delivered us. L. VIVES. THE (a) Teletae] A sacrifice most secret and most sumptuous: so called, because it consumed The Telet●… so much, of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to end, or to consume, that some think they had their name from the●… perfection. They belonged to the Sun and Moon, as Porphyry writeth: and were besides, expiations to Bacchus, recorded in Orpheus and Mus●…us (Plat. de Rep. lib. 2.) that t●…ght how to purge the sins of the Cities, the living, the dead, and every private man by sacrifices, plays, and all delights, and the whole form of it all was called ●…eletae. Though Pla●… saith the Teletae belonged only to the dead, and freed men from all the evils in hell. (b) S●…cret] Of Ceres and others. (c) The old] Numa forbade the romans to think that God had 〈◊〉 shape of man or woman (Plut. in vit. Num.) Nor had they any picture at all o●… any God for the first hundred three score and te●…e years: they built only temples and little Oratories, but never an Image in them, for they held it a sin to liken the better to the worse, or to conceive GOD in any form but their intelligence: Euseb, Dyonies. also saith, that Numa built the gods temples but no Images came in them, because he believed that God had no shape. Tarqvinius Priscus following the greeks foolery and the Tuscans, Who first brought Images to Rome. first taught the erection of statues, which Tertullian intimateth, saying; Go to, now religion hath profited. For though Numa invented a great deal of curious superstition, yet neither was there temples nor statues as yet entered into the romans religion, but a few poor thrifty ceremonies: no skie-towring Capitols, but a sort of little altars made of Sods, earthen dishes, the perfumes out of them, and the God in no place. For the Greek and Tuscan arts in Sculpture were not yet entered the City. What reason the Kings of the world had, for the permitting of those false religions in such places as they conquered. CHAP. 32. HE faith also, that in the gods genealogies, the people followed the Poets more than the Philosophers, and thence the old romans their ancestors, had their belief of so many sexes, marriages, and lineages of the gods. The reason of this (I suppose) was, because the politic and wise men did especially endeavour to nuzzle their people in this illusive manner, and to make them not only worshippers, but even imitators of the devils that delighted to delude them. For even as the Devils cannot possess any, but such as they have deceived, so unjust and Devil-like Princes persuaded their people to their own vain inventions, under the name of religion, thereby to bind their affections the firmer to their service, and so to keep them under their sovereignties. And what ignorant and weak man can avoid both the charms of Princes and Devils? That God hath appointed a time for the continuance of every state on earth. CHAP. 33. WHerefore GOD, that only and true author of felicity, he giveth king domes to good and to bad; not rashly, nor casually, but as the time is appointed, which is well known to him, though hidden for us, unto which appointment notwithstanding he doth not serve, but as a Lord swayeth it, never giving true felicity but to the good. For this, both (a) subjects and Kings may either have or want, and yet be as they are, servants and governors. The fullness indeed of it shall be in that life where (b) no man shall serve. And therefore here on earth, he giveth kingdoms to the bad as well as to the good, lest his servants, that are but yet proselytes should affect them as great ma●…ters. And this is the mystery of his old Testament, wherein the new was included: that (c) there, all the gifts and promises were of this world, and of the world to come also, to those that understood them, though the eternal good that was meant by those temporal ones, were not as yet manifested: nor in wh●… gifts of God the true felicity was resident. L. VIVES. Subjects (a) and] Stoicism: A slave wise, is a free man: a King foolish, a 〈◊〉 (b) No man shall serve,] Some books want the whole sentence which followe●… And therefore. etc. (c) There all.] The rewards promised to the k●…pers of the law in the old Testament were all temporal, how be it they were mystical types of the Celestial. Of the jews kingdom, which one God alone kept unmoved as long as they kept the truth of religion. CHAP. 34. TO show therefore that all those temporal goods which those men gape after, that can dream of no better, are in God's hands alone, and in none of their Idols, therefore multiplied he his people in Egypt, from (a) a very few and then delivered them from thence by miraculous wounders. Their women never called upon Lucina when their children multiplied upon them incredibly; and when he preserved them from the (b) Egyptians that persecuted them, and would have killed all their children. They sucked without Ruminas help; slept without Cunina, eat and drank without Educa and Potica, and were brought up without any of these puppy-gods helps: married without the Nuptial gods, begot children Gen 46. without Priapus, crossed through the divided sea without calling upon Neptune, and left all their foes drowned behind them. They dedicated no Goddess Mannia, when heaven had reigned Manna for them: nor worshipped the Nymphs when the rock was cleft and the waters flowed out? they used no Mars nor Bellona in their wars, and conquered, not without Victory, but without making Victory a goddess. They had corn, oxen, honey, apples, without Segetia, Bobona, Mella or Pomona. And to conclude, all things that the romans begged of so many false gods, they received of one true God in far happier measure: & had they not persisted 〈◊〉 their impious curiosity in running after strange gods, as if they had been enchanted, and lastly in killing of Christ, in the same kingdom had they lived happily still, if not in a larger. And that they are now dispersed over the whole earth, is gods especial providence, that what altars, Groves, Woods, and The dipe●…sion of the jews. Temples of the false gods he reproveth, and what sacrifices he forbiddeth, might all be discerned by their books as their fall itself was foretold them, by their p●…phets: And this least the Pagans reading them with ours, might think we had f●…igned them. But now to our next book, to make an end of this tedious one L. VIVES. FRom a very few] The Sons of Israel that went into Egypt, were 70. Gen. 49. (b) Egyptians.] Here is a diversity of reading but all one sense: and so is there often elsewhere, which I forbear to particularise, or to note all such occurrences. Finis, lib. 4. THE CONTENTS OF THE fifth book of the City of God. 1. That neither the Roman Empire, nor any other Kingdom had any establishment from the power of Fortune, nor from the stars. chapter 1. 2. Of the mutual Sympathy, and dssimillitude of the health of body, and many other accidents in twins of one birth. 3. Of Nigidius the astrologians argument, in this question of the twins drawn from the potter's wheel. 4. Of Esau and jacob two twins, and of the diversity of their conditions and qualities. 5. How the Mathematicians may be convicted of professing direct vanity. 6. Of twins of different sexes. 7. Of the election of days of marriage, of planting, and of sowing. 8. Of their opinion that give not the name of Fate the position of the stars, but unto the dependence of causes upon the will of God. 9 Of God's foreknowledge and man's freedom of election against the opinion of Cicero. 10. Whether Necessity have any dominion over the will of man. 11. Of God's universal providence, ruling all, and comprising all. 12. How the ancient romans obtained this increase of their Kingdom at the true God's hand, being that they never worshipped him. 13. Of ambition, which being a vice, is notwithstanding herein held a virtue, that it doth restrain vices of worse natures. 14. That we are to avoid this desire of humane honour, the glory of the righteous being wholly in God. 15. Of the tempor all rewards that God bestowed upon the romans virtues, and good conditions. 16. Of the reward of the eternal Citizens of heaven, to whom the examples of the romans virtues were of good use. 17. The fruits of the romans wars, both to themselves, and to those with whom they warred. 18. How far the Christians should be from boasting of their deeds, for their eternal country, the romans having done so much for their temporal city, and for humane glory. 19 The difference between the desire of glory and the desire of rule. 20. That virtue is as much disgraced in serving humane glory, as in obeying the pleasures of the body. 21. That the true God in whose hand and providence all the state of the world consisteth, did order and dispose of the Monarchy of the romans. 22. That the Originals and conclusions of wars are all at God's dispose. 23. Of the battle wherein Radagaisus an idolatrous King of the Goths was slain with all his army. 24. The state and truth of a christian Emperors felicity. 25. Of the prosperous estate that God bestowed upon Constantine a christian Emperor. 26. Of the faith and devotion of Theodosius Emperor. 27. Augustine's invective against such as wrote against the books already published. FINIS. THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. That neither the Roman Empire nor any other Kingdom had any establishment from the power of fortune or from the stars. CHAP. 1. WHereas it is apparent to all men's discretion, that felicity is the hope of all human desires, and that she is no goddess, but merely the gift of a god, and consequently that there is no god worthy of worship, but he in whose power it lieth to bestow this felicity upon men; so that if she were a goddess herself, the worship of all the rest should be entirely hers; now let us look in to the reasons why that God that can give those earthly goods, aswell to the good as the evil, (and consequently to such as are not happy) should vouchsafe the Roman empire so large a dilatation, and so long a contiunance: for we have already partly proved, and hereafter in convenient place will prove more fully, that it was not their rabble of false gods that kept it in the state it was in, wherefore the cause of this was neither (a) Fortune, nor Fate, as they call them, holding Fortune Fortune & Fate what. to be an event of things beyond all reason and cause: and Fate, an event from some necessity of order, excluding the will of god and man. But the god of Heaven; by his only providence, disposeth of the kingdoms of Earth, which if any man will say is swayed by fate, and mean by that fate (b) the will of God, he may hold his opinion still, but yet he must amend his phrase of speech, for why did he not learn this of him that taught him what fate was. The ordinary custom of this hath made men imagine fate to be (c) a power of the stars, so or so placed, in nativities or conceptions; which (d) some do separate from the determination What the vulgar hold fate. of God, and other some do affirm to depend wholly thereupon. But those that hold that the stars do manage our actions, or our passions, good, or ill, without god's appointment, are to be silenced and not to be heard, be they of the true religion, or be they bondslaves to Idolatry, of what sort soever; for what doth this opinion, but flattly exclude all deity? Against this error, we profess not any disputation, but only against those that calumniat Christian religion, in defence of their imaginary gods. As for those that make these operations of the stars in good or bad to depend upon God's will, if they say that they have this power given them from him, to use according to their own wills they do Heaven much wrong, in imagining that any wicked acts, or injuries are decreed in so glorious a senate, and such as if any earthly city had but instituted, the whole generation of man would have conspired the subversion of it. And what part hath GOD left him in this disposing of humane affairs, if they be swayed by a necessity from the stars, whereas he is Lord both of stars and men? If they do not say that the stars are causes of these wicked arts, The Astrologian●… necessity of the stars. through a power that god hath given them, but that they effect them by his express command; is this fit to be imagined for true of God, that is unworthy to be held true of the stars; (e) But if the stars be said to portend this only And not to procure it, and that their positions be but signs, not causes of such effects (for so hold many great scholars, though the Astrologians use not to say (f) Mars in such an house signifieth this, or that: no, but maketh the child-borne an homicide, to (g) grant them this error of speech, which they must lear●…e to reform of the Philosophers in all their presages derived from the stars positions:) how cometh it to pass that they could never show the reason of that diversity of life, actions, fortune, profession, art, honour, and such humane accidents, that hath befallne two twins; nor of such a great difference, both in those aforesaid courses, and in their death, that in this case, many strangers have come nearer them in their courses of life, than the one hath done the other, being notwithstanding borne both within a little space of time the one of the other, and conceived both in one instant and from one act of generation? L. VIVES. FOrtune (a) Nor fate] Seeing Augustine disputeth at large in this place concerning fate, will dive a littlle deeper into the diversity of old opinions herein, to make the ●…est more plain. Plato affirmed there was one GOD, the Prince and Father of all the rest, at whose beck all the gods, and the whole world were obedient: that all the other gods, & celestial virtues, were but ministers to this Creator of the universe: and that they governed the whole world in places and orders by his appointment: that the laws of this great God were unalterable, Fate what it is. and inevitable, and called by the name of Necessities: No force, art, or reason, can stop, o●… hinder any of their effects: whereof the proverb ariseth: The gods themselves must serve necessity: But for the stars, some of their effects may be avoided by wisdom, labour or industry, wherein fortune consisteth: which, if they followed certain causes, and were unchangeable, should be called fate, and yet infer no necessity of election. For it is in our power to choose, begin, or wish, what we will: but having begun, fate manageth the rest that followeth. It was free for Laius (saith Euripides) to have begotten a son, or not: but having begotten him, than Apollo's Oracle must have the events prove true which it presaged. Th●… and much more doth Plato dispute obscurely upon, in his last de repub. For there he puts The destinies 3. the three fatal sisters; Necessities daughters, in heaven: and saith that Lachesis telleth the souls that are to come to live on earth, that the devil shall not possess them, but they shall rather possess the devil: But the blame lieth wholly upon the choice, if the choice be nought, GOD is acquit of all blame: and then Lachesis casteth the lots. Epicurus derideth all this, and affirms all to be casual, without any cause at all why it should be Epicurus. thus or thus, or if there be any causes, they are as easy to be avoided, as a moth is to be swept by. The Platonists place Fortune in things ambiguous, and such as may fall out diversely: also in obscure things, whose true causes, why they are so o●… otherwise, are unknown: so that Fortune dealeth not in things that follow their efficient cause, but either such as may be changed, or are undiscovered. Now Aristotle (Phys. 2.) and all the Peripatetikes Fortunes. Casualties what they are as Aphrodyse●… thinketh. after him (Alex. Aphrodisiensis being one) is more plain. Those things (saith he) are casual, whose act is not premeditated by any agent: as if any man dig his ground up, to make it fat, find a deal of treasure hidden; this is Fortune, for he came not to dig for that treasure, but to fatten his earth: and in this, the casual event, followed the not casuáll intent. So in things of fortune, the agent intendeth not the end that they obtain, but it falleth out beyond expectation. The vulgar call fortune, blind, rash, uncertain, mad, and brutish as Pacwius saith: and join Fate and Necessity together, holding it to have 〈◊〉 power both over all the other gods and jove their King himself. Which is verified by the Poet, that said, What must be, passeth jove to hold from being, Quod fore paratum 〈◊〉, id summum exuperat iovem. For in Homer, jove lamenteth that he could not save his son Sarpedon from death, the fate's constraining him to die: and Neptune grieves that he coul●… not hinder Ulysses his return home, and revenge the blindness of his son Cyclops, Fate having decreed the contrary: and jupiter in Ovid saith. — Tu sola insuperabile satum Nate movere putas.— — Daughter'tis only thou Canst move relentless fate.— Saith he: And a little after. Quae ●…que con●…ursum caeli, nec fulmini●… iram, Nec ●…tuunt ullas tuta atque aeterna ruinas. Which fear nor thunders, gods, nor powers infernal, But stand vnawed, unmoved, and eternal. There were some that held nothing casual, but all fixed, certain and immutable: Democritus, Empedocles, and Heraclitus, were all of this opinion, which many others maintained after them, as others did the positions of Epicurus. Lucan Phars. lib. 2. declareth both the opinions in these words. Sive parens rerum primùm informia regna, Materiamque rudem flammâ cedente recepit, Fi●…xit in aeternum causas, quà cuncta co●… cet. Se quoque lege tenens, & secula jussa ●…rentem, Fatorum immoto divisit limit mundum, Sive nihil positum est, sed sors incerta vagatur, Fértque refertque vices, & habent mortalia casum, etc. Or nature's God (when first he bound the fire, And wrought this ma●…e into one form entire) Forged eternal causes, all effecting, Him●…elfe, and all the world's estate subjecting To destinies inchangeable directing: O●… been our states in fortune's governance, To rise, or fall, and all by only chance. Fortune is often used for destiny, and the events of things: which when they fall out as we desire, that we call Felicity: if contrary, Infelicity: Thus much here, more elsewhere. (b) The will of God] Of this by and by. (c) A power of the starrrs] wherein the Stoics, Plato, and almost all the other Philosophers do place Fate: following the Chaldees and Egyptians, to whom all the Mathematicians also do give their voices. (d) Some do separate] Some say, the operation of the stars is a distinct power from the will of God: and in attributing this universal power to them, exclude God's providence from humane affairs. Besides, there are that affirm, that although God do look to the state of the world, yet the stars have their peculiar dominion in us nevertheless. So hold Manilius and Firmicus, and the Poets most The Stars dominion. commonly. Others subject them all unto the will of GOD omnipotent, as Plato and the stoics do, affirming all their operations to be but the prescript laws of him. (e) But if the stars] Origen upon that place of Genesis. Let them be for signs, Chapt. 1. verse. 14. Saith that the stars do signify, but effect nothing. They are (saith he) as a book opened, wherein may be read all things to come, which may be proved by this, that they have often signified things past. But this book cannot be read by any wit of man. Plotine was of origen's opinion also, denying the Plotine. stars any act in those things, but only signification. Seneca, speaking of the Stars, saith, they either cause or signify the effects of all things, but if they do cause them, what availeth Seneca. it us to know, that we cannot alter? and if they but signify them, what good doth it thee, to foresee that thou canst not avoid? (f) Mars in such] Mars is a star, bloody, fiery, and violent. Being in the seventh house (saith Firmicus, lib. 3.) in a partise aspect with the Horoscope Mars a Sta●… (that is, in the West) he portendeth huge mischiefs, staining the nativities with murders, and many other villainies. (g) To grant them] He alludeth unto Tully's Chrysippus (de Fato) that would teach the Mathematicians, how to speak in their art. Of the mutual sympathy and dissimilitude of health of body, and many other accidents in twins of one birth. CHAP. 2. CIcero (a) saith, that Hypocrates that excellent Physician wrote, that two children that were brethren, falling sick, and the sickness waxing and waning in both alike, were here-upon suspected to be twins. (b) And Posidonius a Stoic, and one much affected to Astrology, laboureth to prove them to have been borne both under one constellation, and (c) conceived both under one. So that which the Physician ascribeth to the similitude of their temperatures of body, the Astrologian attributes to the power and position of the stars in their nativities. But truly in this question, the physicians conjecture standeth upon more probability, because their parent's temperature might be easily transfused into them both alike at their conception: and their first growth might participate equally of their mother's disposition of body, & then being nourished both in one house, with one nourishment, in one air, country, and other things correspondent, this now might have much power in the proportionating of both their natures alike, as Physic will testify. Besides, use of one exercise equally in both, might form their bodies into a similitude, which might very well admit all alterations of health alike, and equally in both. But to draw the figure of heaven, and the stars unto this purity of passions (it being likely that a great company of the greatest diversity of affects that could be might have original in diverse parts of the world, at one and the same time) were a presumption unpardonable. For (d) we have known two twins, that have had both diverse fortunes, and different sicknesses, both in time, and nature: whereof (me thinks) Hipocrates giveth a very good reason, from the (e) diversity of nourishment, and exercise, which might be cause of different health in them: yet that diversity was effected by their wills and elections at first, and not by their temperature of body. But neither Posidonius, nor any patron of this fate in the stars, can tell what to say in this case, and do not illude the single and ignorant with a discourse of that they know not, for that they talk of the space of time, between that point which they call the (f) Horoscope, in both the twins nativities: it is either not so significant as the diversity of will, act, manners, and fortune of the twins borne doth require, or else it is more significant, than their difference of honours, state, nobility, or meanness will permit: both which diversities they place only in the figure of the nativity. But if they should be both borne ere the Horoscope were fully varied, then would I require an unity in each particular of their fortunes, which (g) cannot be found in any two twins that ever yet were borne. But if the Horoscope be changed ere both be borne, then for this diversity I will require a (h) difference of parents, which twins cannot possibly have. L. VIVES. CIcero (a) saith] I cannot remember where: I believe in his book De fato: which is wonderfully mutilate, and defective as we have it now, and so shall any one find that will observe it. (b) Whom Posidonius] A Rhodian, and a teacher of Rhodes. He was also at Rome Possidonius a follower of Panaetius. Cicero (c) conceived both] for the conception is of as much moment as the nativity. (d) We have known] Such were Procles and Cyresteus, Kings of Lacedaemon, Cic. de divinat. lib. 2. (e) Diversity of] This is one of the cau●…es why an Astrologian cannot judge perfectly of nativities, Ptol. Apoteleusmaton. lib. 1. (f) Horoscope] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the looking Horoscope, what. upon an hour: and is that part of the Zodiac, which ascendeth our Hemisphere, at any event. For the revolution of this Zodiac is perpetual, and still one part of it ariseth in our Horizon, and the part directly opposite, setteth: all the other are divided amongst the other houses of heaven. (g) Cannot be found] Nature never bound any one thing to another in such propriety, but she set some differencs between them: what skilleth it whether those two had original from one feed? Every man is framed and borne to his own fortune, and be they two or three brethren borne at once, their destinies promise no fraternity, but each one must undergo his particular fate. Quintil. In Geminis Languentibus. (h) Difference of parents] why should not the rivers be like that flow both from one head? Of Nigidius the Astrologians argument, in this question of the twins, drawn from the potter's wheel. CHAP. 3. FRustrate therefore is that notable fiction of the Potter's wheel, which Nigidius (a) (they say) answered to one that plunged him in this controversy, whereupon he was called (b) Potter. Turning a potter's wheel twice or thrice about as fast as he could, he took ink, & in the turning made two marks (as it seemed) in one place of the wheels egde: and then, staying the wheel, the marks were found far a sunder one from another upon the edge of the wheel, (c) even so (saith he) in the swift course of heaven, though one child be borne after another in as short a time as I gave these two marks, yet in the heavens will be passed a great space. And that (quoth he) is the cause of the diversity of conditions, and fortunes betwixt two twins. (d) Here is a figment now far more brittle than the Pots that were made by that wheel, for if there be thu●… much power in Heaven (and yet cannot be comprehended by the constellations) that one of the twins may be an heir and inherit, and not the other, how dare those Astrologians give such presages unto others that are not twins, when as they are included in those secret points in nativities which none can comprehend? But if they say they do prognosticate this to others, because they know that it belongeth unto the known and discerned spaces that pass in nativities, and that those moments that may come between the birth of two twins do but concern slight things, and such as the Astrologian useth not to be troubled with; for no man will ask the calculator when he should sit, walk, or dine? How can this be said when we show such diversity in the manners, states, actions, and fortunes of two twins. L. VIVES. NIgidius (a) they say] P. Nigidius figulus was borne of a very honest family, and came to be Praetor: he was of great wit, and excellent both in many other worthy sciences (so that he Nigidius Figulus. was compared with Uarro, in whose time, or thereabouts, he lived) and especially in the Mathematics. Tully nameth him often. Suetonius saith that out of Octavius his figure of nativity, he presaged that he should be Lord of all the world. Lucan. lib. 1. At Figulus e●…i ●…ra deos Secretaque caeli, N●…sse fuit, quem non stellarum Aegiptia Memphis, 〈◊〉 ●…isu numerisque moventibus as●…a. etc. But Figulus whose study was to scan, heavens high presage, whom no Egyptian, In Mathematique skill could parallel. etc. (b) Called Potter.] In latin Figulus. This man was of the Nigidian family; there were other Figuli of a more honoured house, namely the Martians, whereof one was conful with L. jul. Caesar, two years before Cicero's consulship. Another, with Nasica, but was put from his place, because the auguries were against his election. (c) So (quoth he.)] How much time think you (saith Quintilian) was between the first birth, and the second? but a little truly in mortal men's judgement, but if you will consider the immensity of this universe, you shall find much passed between their two productions. In geminis langu. (d) Here is a figment.] This one answer of Nigidius (which the Mathematicians think was most acute) doth utterly subvert all their presages, positions and calculations in nativities, for if so little a space of time be capable not only of diversities but even of contraries, who can prognosticate any thing of any child borne, when as the moment both of his conception and his nativity is so hard to be known? So that were it granted, that the stars have power in us, yet unto man it is incomprehensible: the moments whereto the figure must be erected being impossible to be found, and the swift course of the Heavens overrunning our slow consideration. julius firmicus, a man idly eloquent, having objected this reason against himself and his art, and promising to dissolve it, after he hath tumbled himself sufficiently in a multitude of common places, lets it The stars out run ou●… slack thoughts. alone with silence, and thinks he hath done very well, supposing that this whirlwind of his eloquence had cast dust enough into the reader's eyes to make him forget the adverse argument. But it is neither he, nor any Chalde of them all that can answer it. Thomas Aquinas in like manner entangleth himself exceedingly in circumstances of times, and minutes, and places; for in his book De fato, he saith that twins are of divers dispositions, because the seed of generation was not received into the place of conception all at one time, so that the centre of the heart, being not one in both, they must needs have different egresses and Horizous. But how small a space is their spent in the full receiving of the ●…eede? how little a time passeth between the coagulation of the hearts, that this should be sufficient to t●…asmute the whole nature of man? So that hereby it is not sufficient to tell the Mathematician that such an one was borne at Pari●… or Ualencia, but he must know in which street, in which chamber, nay in what part of the chamber, But in another work, I will handle this theme of another fashion, and prove, that there is no trust to be put in those vain superstitions, but that all dependeth upon our Lord and Saviour jesus Christ, whom we are to entreat for them all. Of Esau and jacob two twins, and of the diversity of their conditions and qualities. CHAP. 4. IN the memory of our forefathers (to speak of men of note) there were two (a) twins borne, so near to gether, that the second held the first by the heel, yet Gen. 25. in their lives, manners and actions, was such a main disparity, that that very difference made them enemies one to another. I mean not this, that the one sat, when the other stood, nor that the one slept, when the other waked, these belong to those first marks and moments which they cannot comprehend who erect those figures of nativity for the Astrologers to judge upon: (b) one of them bound himself to serve for wages: the other served not at all: the one was loved by his mother, so was not the other: the one lost his honour and inheritance (a matter of great moment amongst them) and the other obtained it: And how great a diversity was there in their marriages, wives, children and goods? exceeding much. L. VIVES. TWo (a) Twin borne] jacob and Esau, of Isaac and Rebecca Gene. 25. 25. 26. (b) One of] jacob he served Laban his father in law, for Rachel: he was dearly beloved of his mother Rebecca, and got Esau his patrimony from him, which was a thing in those days of most honour, and use, of all things besides. How the Mathematicians may be convicted of professing vanity. CHAP. 5. WHerefore if these things belong to those spaces of time that pass betwixt the births of twins, and are not wrought upon by the constellations, why then are they presaged out of the Horoscopes of others. But if they be presaged as pertinent unto the larger spaces of time that fall under the notice of Artists, & not Hipocrates his guess. under these momentary minutes that are indistinguible, than what use is there of the potters wheel, but only to turn leaden heads about till they become brainsick, and past discerning those Mathematicians vanities? And those whose diseases (so simpathizing in all circumstances) made Hypocrates out of the rules of Physic, judge them to be twines, do not they sufficietnly put down those that will needs make that proceed from the stars which ariseth out of the temperature of their bodies? For why did they not sicken as they were borne, one after an other? (for borne together they could not be) or if their different times of birth be no cause of different times of sickness, why do they allege it to be the cause of other accidents? why should they travel, marry, beget children, and do such like at divers times, only because they were borne at divers times, and yet not be sick at divers times by the same reason? If their difference of birth changed their Horoscope, and all other matters thereon depending, why then did that equality remain with the times of their sickness, that remained in the time of their conception: or if they say that the course of sickness only followeth the conception, and all the rest the nativity, then ought they not to prognosticate any thing concerning sickness at nativities, unless they have the hour of conception, but if the Astrologian presage sickness without seeing the figure of the conception because the said presage is included in those interposed moments of the birth, how would he tell either of those twins when he should be sick, who having each a divers Horoscope, yet must nevertheless fall sick both at one time? Finally, I ask again, if the intermission in the birth of two twins be so much, that it altars their whole fortunes, because of their Horoscopes: and in altering of the (a) four angles, (wherein they put all the power,) altereth also their whole destinies, how can this come to pass, when as the time of their conceptions was both at one instant? Or if two that are both conceived at one point of time, may fortune to be borne the one before the other, why may not two that are borne both in one moment of time, have fortune to die the one before the other? for if that one & the same moment of their conception hindered not the succession of their birth, why should the same moment that is one in both the births, hinder the successive time of their death? If their conception, being in one minute, permit them to have divers fortunes in their mother's womb, why should not their nativity being of the same state, permit them to have divers fortunes while they live upon earth? & to take away all the fictions of this art, (or rather vanity) of theirs, in this one question, what is the cause, that such as are conceived both in one moment of time, both under one constellation, should nevertheless have their destinies in their mother's womb, to be borne at several times? and yet, that two being borne of two mothers, both in one moment of time, cannot have divers destinies, whereby the one may die before the other, or outlive the other? did not their destiny enter upon their conception, or could they not have it unless they were first borne? why is it said then that if the hour of conception be known, they can presage many things most oraculously? And here upon it is said of some, that a certain wise man did make choice of an hour of copulation with his wife, whereby to beget a son whose after worth should be admired? And lastly, whereof cometh it, that Posidonius the Astrologian gave this reason for the two brethren's perticipated sickness, that it was because they were borne, and conceived both together? he added, Conceived, because it should not be objected to him that it was not certain that such as were conceived together should be borne both at the same instant: and that he might draw this mutual affect of theirs, not from their parity of temperatures, but from the power of the stars. But if there be such a power of equallizing the destiny of twins in their conception, then verily the diversity of time in their birth ought not to alter it. If the destinies of twins be changed by their several times of birth, why may we not rather conceive that before their birth, they were appointed by destiny to several births? Shall not then the will of the man living, change the Fate ofhi nativity, when as his order of birth doth change the fate of his conception? L. VIVES. THe 4. (a) Angle's] Four chief angles the Astrologers put in every nativity. 1. the Horoscope, the sign of the orient; ascending 2. The opposite to which is the sign of the West The Angles of heaven. falling: diametrally distant from the Horoscope 180. degrees. 3. Mid-heaven, the point between the Horoscope and the west angle. 4. the opposite mid-heaven under the earth. The greeks call these four: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there are four other angles also, in the 2. 6. 8. and 12. sign from the Horoscope: the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The God the goddess, the good fortune, the good Genius. These angles are nothing but the signs of heaven, which they consider in their judgements, counting the Horoscope first and the rest success●…ly. The angle of the Horoscope concerneth the life: the 2. money or hope: the 3. brethren, the 4. parents: the 5. children, the 6. health: the 7. marriage, the 8. death etc. This Manilius. lib. 2. relateth out of the fooleries of Maternus. But we have angled long enough for any good we have gotten: forward. Of twins of different sexes. CHAP. 6. IT often falleth out notwithstanding, that in these concurrences and unions of time, conception and constellation, the children conceived are the one a male the other a femalle. I know two twins of divers sexes, both of them alive, and lusty at this day. They are as like in favour, one to another as their difference of sex can permit: but in their fashion, and order of life, so unlike that (besides the actions which must of necessity distinguish between men and women) he is continually in war in the office of a (a) Count and never cometh home: she continually in her country where she was borne, and never goeth abroad. Nay which is more incredible (respecting the powers of the stars and not the wills of God and men) he is a married man, and she is a holy Virgin; he hath many children, & she was never married. O but their Horoscopes had a great sway in all those things: tush, I have shown the power of that to be just nothing, already: 〈◊〉 but Man is not conceived after the first conception, until the birth. whatsoever it doth, it is there, in the nativity, that it must do it. What, and not in the conception, wherein it is manifest that there was but one generative act concurrent? (for (b) natures power is such that a woman having once conceived, cannot second any conception, until she be delivered of the first. and therefore it is necessary that the twins conceptions fall both in one moment: were their divers Horoscopes (think you) the cause that in their birth, he became a manchild, and she a woman? wherefore since it is no such absurdity to say, that there are some planetary influences that have effect only upon diversity of forms in bodies, as we see the alteration of the year, by the suns access and departure, & divers things to increase, and decrease, just as the moon doth: (crabs for example and all shel-fishes: besides the wonderful (c) coarse of the sea:) but that the mind of man is not subject unto any of these powers of the stars: those artists now desiring to bind our acts unto this that we see them free from, do show us plainly, that the effects of the stars have not power so much as upon our bodies. (d) For what is so pertinent unto the body, as the sex thereof: and yet we see, that two twins of divers sexes may be conceived both under one constellation. Wherefore what fonder affection can there be, then to say that that figure of Heaven which was one in the conception of them both had not power to keep the sister from differing in sex from her brother, with whom she had one constellation, and yet that that figure of heaven which ruled at their nativity had power to make her differ so far from him in her Virgin's sanctimony. L. VIVES. OFfice of a (a) Count] A Count is a name of dignity, used but of these modern times▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Marcellinus▪ nameth it in his 14. book calling Nebridius Count of the Orient, and Geron●…s count of Magnentia, and in his sixteeneth book Ursulus, Count of the benevolences, and twenty one Philagrius Count of the Orient. I know not whether these counts were those that were called in Greek Acolithi, and were always at the Emperor's elbow, (b) Natures]. Of all Creatures superfaetan●… that is breedi●…g upon blood. creatures, only the Hare and the Coney do conceive double, upon the first conception, and having young in their bellies, will conceive a fresh. Arist. Plin. A woman (saith Aristotle: Hist. animal. lib. 7. seldom conceiveth upon her first young: but sometimes she may: if there pass but a 〈◊〉 space between the conceptions, as Hercules and Iphyclus (by report) were conceived. There was an adulteress also, that bore two children at a birth, one like her husband, and another like her leman. This out of Aristotle and Plini. lib. 7. but they are rare examples. And if a man would expose them, he could not be brought by reason to confess that those children were conceived one after another: though I know that Erasistratus, a worthy Physician hòldeth, that all twins are conceived one after another, and so do divers Stoical Philosophers also hold of many twins but not of all. But Hippon and Empedocles held that of one act Twins both be gotten and borne. of generation by reason of the abundance of seed, were all twins conceived, Asclepiades ascribeth it to the virtue not the abundance of seed. (c) Wonderful course of the sea.] Worthily wonderful, whereof the true cause is not fully known unto this day, neither of the double flowing daily, nor double flowing monthly, which the Sailors call the spring●…des, falling out The tide of the sea. at the moons full and the change, (d) for what.] The male and female in all creatures are correspondente in all things but generation, but in that he is the male that generateth in another What male & female is and of himself: she the female that can generate of an other and in herself, therefore they talk of many women that have been chang●…d into men. Of the election of days of marriage of planting and of sowing. CHAP. 7. But (a) who can endure this foolery of theirs, to invent a new destiny for every action a man undertaketh; That wise man aforesaid it seems, was not born●… to have an admirable son, but rather a contemptible one, and therefore elected ●…e his hour, wherein to beget a worthy one. So thus did he work himself a destiny, more than his stars portended, and made that a part of his fate, which was not signified in his nativity. O ●…ondnesse most fatal! A day must now be chosen for marriage: because otherwise one might light of an unlucky day, and so make an ill marriage. But (b) where then is the destiny of your nativity? can a man change what his fate hath appointed, by choosing this day or that and cannot the the fate of that day which he chooseth be altered by another fate? again, if men alone of all the creatures of earth be under this starry power, why do they (c) choose days to plant, and days to sow, and so forth; days tame cattle, days to put to the males for increase of oxen, or horses, and such like? If the election of those days be good, because the stars have dominion in all earthly bodies, living creatures and plants, according as the times do change; let them but consider how many creatures have original from one and the same instant, and yet have such divers ends, as he that but noteth will deride those observations as children's toys, for what sot will say that all herbs, trees, beasts, birds, serpents, worms, and fishes, have each one a particular moment of time to be brought forth in? yet men do use for trying of the mathematicians skill, to bring them the figures of the births of beasts, which they have for this end diligently observed at home, and him they hold the most ●…kild Mathematician, that can say by the figure, this protendeth the birth of a beast and not of a man, nay they dare go unto what beast it is whether fit for bearing will, for carrages, for the plough, or the custody of the house, for the are often asked counsel of the destinies of dogs, and give answers breeding great admiration. Nay men are now grown to that grossness of brain, that they think when a man is borne, creation is tied to such an order, that not so much as a fly is brought forth in that region at that time, for if they give us but birth-rome for a fly, we will draw them by gradation till we come to an elephant. Nor have they wit to consider this, that in their selected day of sowing corn, it springeth and groweth up altogether, and being grown to the height i●…ipens altogether, and yet the canker spoileth one piece and the birds another, and men cut up the third, of all this corn, that nevertheless grew up altogether. How will they do with the constellation of this, that hath partaken so many kinds of ending? Or doth it not repent them of electing days for these things, denying them to belong to heavens disposing, and putting only men under the stars, to whom only of all the creatures upon earth God hath giving free and unconstrained wills. These being considered, it is no evil belief to think that the Astrologers (d) do presage many things wonderfully and truly, but that is, by a (e) secret instinct of evil spirits, (whose care it is, to infect, nuzzle, and confirm men's Astrologers how true presages. minds in this false and dangerous opinion of fate in the stars) and not by any art of discerning of the Horoscope, for such is there none. L. VIVES. WHo can (a) endure.] The Astrologers, Haly, Abenragel, Messahalach, and others write of these elections. Haly, Ptolemy's interpreter as Picus Mirandula writeth, saith, this part of Astrology is frivolous and fruitless. (b) Where then.] If your nativities destiny be against your enterprise, it shall never have good end, as Ptolemy holdeth: Picus writeth much against Astrologers. lib. 2. and of this matter also. But Augustine hath the sum of all here. (c) Choose days.] Hesiod was the first that distinguished the days of the moon, and the year, for country Hesiod. businesses: and him did all the writers of husbandry follow, greeks Latines and others: Democritus, and Virgil, Cato Senior, Uarro, Columella, Palladius, Pliny. etc. (d). Do presage.] ●…riters of husbandry. He that often shooteth must needs hit sometimes, few of the Mathematicians false answers are observed, but all their true ones are, as miraculous. (e) Secret instinct.] The presages from the stars (saith Augustine else where) are, as by bargain from the devils, and instincts of theirs, which Sup Gen ad. lit. et. 2. de. doct. Chr. the minds of men feel, but perceive not and he presageth best, that is in greatest credit with his devil. Of their opinion that give not the name of Fate the position of the stars, but unto the dependence of causes upon the will of God. CHAP. 8. AS for those that do not give the position of the stars in nativities and conceptions the name of fate, but reserve it only to that connexion of (a) causes, whereby all things come to pass, we need not use many words to them: because they conform this coherence of causes to the will of God, who is well and justly believed, both to foreknow all things before the event, and to leave no event undisposed of ere it be an event: from whom are all powers, though from God●… foreknowledge. him arise not all wills, for that it is the will of that great and all-disposing God, which they call Fate, these verses (. (b) of Anneus Senecas I think) will prove. Du●… m●…summe pater, ●…ltique dominator poli, 〈◊〉 placuerit, nulla parenda mora est. 〈◊〉 impiger: 〈◊〉 ●…olle, comitab●…r gemens: Malusque patiar facere quod licuit bono. 〈◊〉 vol●…ntem fat●…, volentem tr●…unt. Le●…d me, Great Lord, King of eternity, Even where thou wilt, I'll not resist these. Change thou my will yet still I vow subjection, Being led, to that tha●…'s in the good election. " Fate leads the willing, hales the obstinate. Thus in the last verse, he directly calleth that Fate, which in the former he called the will of the great Lord, to whom he promiseth obedience, and to be le●… willingly, lest he be drawn on by force, because, Fate leads the willing, hales the obstin●…te. And (c) Homer's verses translated into Latin by Tully are as these are. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hominum 〈◊〉 qualis ●…ater ips●…, ●…upiter a●…fferas 〈◊〉 lum●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the minds of men as lou●… the great Vouchsafe, that fills the earth wi●…h light, and 〈◊〉. We would not bring Poetic sentences for confirmation of this question, but because that Tully saith, that the stoics, standing for this power of Fate, use to quote this place of Homer, we now allege them, not as his opinion, but as theirs, who by these verses of Fate showed in their disputations what they thought of Fate, because they call upon jove, whom they held to be that great God; upon whose directions these causes did depend. L. VIVES. COnnexion (a) of causes] (Cic. de divin. lib. 2.) Reason therefore compels us to confess that all The Stoics fate. things come to pass by fate: by fate I mean the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, an order or course of things & causes, arising one from another: that is the everlasting truth flowing from a●…eternity. Chrysippus in Gellius saith, that Fate is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. A natural composition of causes and things arising one from another▪ from aeleternity being an immutable combination of them all. (b) Anneas Senecas] Epist. lib. 18.) The verses were Cleanthes his, Seneca but translated them: they are all Senarian. But the first of them is not perfectly read: it were better to read it. Duc me parens celsique dominator Poli: Coleyne copy hath it, Duc sum Pater altique dominator Poli. Indifferent well. The said thing hath Seneca in his book de beneficijs, speaking of God: if you call him Fate (saith he) it is not amiss: for he is the first cause whence all the rest have original: and fate is nothing but a coherence of causes This is the common opinion of the Stoi●…s, to hold one God, calling him Fate, and men's, and jupiter, and many other names. These are the four ancient opinions of Fate, which Picus (Contra Astrolog. lib. 4.) rehearseth. The firstheld Fate to be nature, Four opinions of Fate. so that the things which fell out by election, or chance, they excluded from Fate, as Virgil saith of Dido, that killed herself, and died not by Fate: and Cicero: If any thing had befallen me, as many things hung over man's head besides nature and besides fate: This opinion is Phsiologicall, and embraced by Alexander, one of Aristotle's interpreters. The second held fate to be an eternal order and form of causes, as aforesaid. Third put all in the stars. The fourth held fate to be only the execution of the will of God. (c) Homer's] Odyss. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Such are the minds of men, etc. Ulysses speaketh them to Phemius, affirming a mutablity of men's minds, and that they are not God the changer of the Will, of power to keep themselves fixed, but alter continually as it pleaseth the great jupiter to inspire and transform them. The later of the latin verses in the text dot●… not express Homer's mind But I suspect it to be wronged in copying. Of God's foreknowledge and man's freedom of election; again●…t the opinion of Cicero. CHAP. 9 AGainst those men, Tully thinketh he cannot hold argument, unless he overthrow divination, & therefore he laboureth to prove that there is no prescience, nor foreknowledge of things to come, (a) either in God or man; there is directly no such matter. Thus denieth he God's foreknowledge, & idly seeketh to subvert the radiant lustre of true prophecies, by propounding a sort of ambiguous and fallible oracles, whose truth notwithstanding he doth not confute. But those conjectures of the Mathematics he layeth flat, for indeed they are the ordinance to batter themselves. But for all that, their opinion is more tolerable, that ascribe a fate (b) unto the stars, than his, that rejects all foreknowledge of things to come: For to acknowledge a God, & yet to deny that, is monstrous madness: which he observing, went about to prove even that with the fool hath said in his heart: there Psal. 14. 1 is no God: Marry not in his own person, he saw the danger of malice too well; and therefore making Cotta dispute handsmooth against the stoics upon this theme, in his books De natura Deorum: there he seems more willing to hold with (c) Lucilius Balbus, that stood for the stoics, then with Cotta, that argued against the divine essence. But in his books Of divination, he directly opposeth the foreknowledge of things, (d) of himself and in his own person: all which it seemeth he did lest he should yield unto fate, and so loose the freedom of election: For he supposed that in yielding to this fore-know-ledge, fate would follow necessarily thereupon, without all denial. But howsoever the Philosophers wind themselves in webs of disputations, we, as we confess the great and true GOD, so do we acknowledge his high will, power, and foreknowledge: Nor let us fear that we do not perform all our actions by our own will, because he, whose foreknowledge cannot err, knew before that we should do thus or thus: which Tully feared, and therefore denied foreknowledge; and the Stoics that held not all things to be done by necessity, thought that they were done by fate. What then did Tully fe re in this prescience, that he framed such detestable arguments against it? Verily this, that if all events were known ere they came to pass, they should come to pass according to that foreknowledge. And if they come so to pass, than God knoweth the certain order of things before hand: and consequently the certain order of the causes; and if he know a certain order of causes in all events, then a●…e all events disposed by fate: which if it be so, we have nothing left in our power, nothing in our will: which granted (saith he) the whole course of humanity is overturned: law, correction, praise, disgrace, exhortation, prohibition, all are to no end: nor is there any justice in punishing the bad, and rewarding the good. For avoiding of which inconveniences (so absurd and so pernicious) he utterly reiecte●…h this foreknowledge of things, and draweth the religious mind into this straight, that either there must be somewhat in the power of our will, or else that there is a foreknowledge of things to come, but the granting of the one is the subversion of the other: choosing of the foreknowledge, we must lose the freedom of election, and choosing this, we must deny the other. Now this learned and provident man, of the two maketh choice of freedom of election: and to confirm it denieth the foreknowledge utterly. And so instead of making men free, maketh them blasphemous. But the religious mind chooseth them both, confesseth & confirmeth them both. How (saith he?) For granting this foreknowledge, there followeth so many consequents that they quite subvert all power of our will: and holding thus by the same degrees we ascend, till we find there is no prescience of future things at all, for thus we retire through them. If there be any freedom of the will, all things do not follow destiny: If all things follow not destiny, then is there no set order in the causes of things: Now if there be 〈◊〉 set order in the causes of all things, then is there no set order of the things themselves, in God's foreknowledge, since they come from their causes. If there be not a set order of all things in GOD'S foreknowledge, than all things fall not out according to the said knowledge. Now if all things fall not out as he had his foreknowledge of them, than is there in God no foreknowledge of things to come. To these sacrilegious and wicked opposers, thus we reply: GOD doth both know all things ere they come to pass, and we do all things willingly, which we do F●…te of no f●…rce. not feel ourselves and know ourselves directly enforced to. We hold not that all things, but rather that nothing followeth fate: and whereas Fate useth to be taken for a position of the stars in nativities and conceptions, we hold this a vain and frivolous assumption: we neither deny an order of causes wherein the will of God is all in all, neither do we call it by the name of Fate. (g) unless Fate be derived of fari to speak, for we cannot deny that the scripture saith, God spoke onc●… these two things: I have heard, that power belongeth unto God, & to thee O Lord mercy for thou wilt reward every man according to his works. For whereas he saith, God spoke once, it is meant that he spoke unmooveably, and unchangeably, that all things should fall out as he spoke, and meant to have them. In this respect we may derive fate from fari to speak, but we must needs say withal that it is used in another sense than we would have men to think upon. But it doth not follow that nothing should be left free to our will, because God knoweth the certain and set order of all events. For Our very wills are in that order of causes, which God knoweth so surely, and hath in his prescience, human wills, being the cause of humane actions: So that he that keepeth a knowledge of the causes of all things, cannot leave men's wills out of that knowledge, knowing them to be the causes of their actions. (g) For Tully's own words (Nothing cometh to pass without an efficient cause) is sufficient alone to sway down this matter quite against himself: for what avails the subsequence: Nothing is without a cause, but every cause is not fatal, because there are causes of chance, nature and will? It is sufficient that nothing is done but by precedent cause. For those causes that are casual, giving original to the name of Fortune, we deny them not: we say they are secret, and ascribe them either to the will of the true God, or of any other spirit: The (h) natural causes we do never divide from his will, who is nature's Creator: But the causes voluntary, God, Angels, Men, and divers other creatures have often in their will and power: (ay) If we may Voluntary causes. call that power a will by which the brute beasts fly their own hurt, and desire their good by Nature's instinct. That there is a will in Angels, I do absolutely affirm; be they good whom we call Gods Angels, or evil whom we call the devils Angels, fiends, or devils themselves. So men good and bad have all their wills: and hereby it is apparent, that the efficient causes of all effects, are nothing but the decrees of that nature, which is The spirit of life: Air or wind is Genes. 1. Spirit of life. called a Spirit: But because it is a body, it is not the spirit of life. But the spirit of life, that quickeneth all things, is the Creator of all bodies and all created spirits: this is God a spirit from eternity uncreated: in his will there is that height of power, which assisteth the wills of the good spirits, judgeth the bad, disposeth of all, giving power to whom he pleaseth, and holding it from whom he list. For as he is a Creator of all natures, so is he of all powers: but not the giver of all wills: for wicked wills are not of him, being against that nature which is of him. So the Evil wills not from God. bodies are all subject unto divers wills: some to our own wills (that is the wills rather of men then of beasts) some to the Angels, but all to the will of God: unto whom all wills are subject, because they have no power but what he giveth them. The cause then that maketh all, and is not made itself is God. The other causes do both effect and are effected: such are all created spirits, chiefly the reasonable ones. The corporal causes, which are rather effects then▪ otherwise, are not to be counted as efficient causes, because they came but to do that which the will of the spirit within them doth enjoin them: how then can that set order of causes in God's foreknowledge deprive our wills of power, seeing they bear such a sway amongst the very causes themselves? But (k) let Cicero wrangle, & his fellows, that say this Our wills causes. order is fatal, or rather fate itself; which we abhor, because of the word; chiefly being used in a false belief: but whereas he denieth that God knoweth assuredly the set order of those causes, we detest his assertion, worse than the Stoics do: for he either denieth God (which he endeavoureth under a false person in his books De Deny gods prae●…cience, and deny God. n●…t. de.) Or if he do acknowledge him, yet in denying him this foreknowledge, he saith but as the fool said in his heart, There is no God: for if God want the prescience of all future events he is not God. And therefore (l) our wills are of as much power as God would have them, and knew before that they should be and the power that they have is theirs free, to do what they shall do truly and freely: because he foreknew that they should have this power, and do these acts, whose foreknowledge cannot be deceived: wherefore if I list to use the (m) word fate in any thing, I would rather say that it belonged to the weaker, and that will belonged to the higher, who hath the other in his power, rather than grant that our liberty of will were taken away by that set order, which the stoics (after a peculiar phrase of their own) call fate. L. VIVES. EIther (a) in God] De divinat. lib 2. where in a disputation with his brother Quintus, he indeauoureth to overthrow divination, for which Q. had stood in the book before. For he saith that. There is nothing so contrary to reason and constancy as fortune is, so that (me thinks) God himself should have no foreknowledge of those casual events. For if he have, it must come so to pass, as he knoweth, and then it is not casual: but casual events there are, and therefore there is no foreknowledge of them. This in the said place, and much more pertaining to the explaining of this chapter, which it sufficeth us to have pointed out. (b) A fate to the Stars] They all do so, but some give fate the original from them, excluding God. (c) Lucilius Balbus] In the end of the book thus he concludeth: This said we departed, Velleius holding Cotta's disputation for the truer, and I being rather inclined to Balbus suit. (d) Of himself] For in his 2. book he speaketh himself, and confuteth his brother's assertions for divination. (e) stoics] Of this in the next chapter. (f) Unless fate.] (Var. de Ling. lat. l. 8.) The destinies give a fortune to the child at the birth, and this is called fate, of fari to speak. Lucan. lib. 9 — Non vocibus ullis, Numen eget: dixitquesem●…l nascentibus auctor, Quicquid scire licet— — The Deities never need, Much language: fate but once (no more) doth read, The fortune of each birth— It seems he borrowed this out of the Psalm here cited, or out of job. chap. 33. v. 14. He hath spoke once and hath not repeated it again. Both which places demonstrat the constancy of Gods revealed knowledge by that his once speaking: as the common interpretation is: the which followeth in the Psalm, these two things etc. some refer to them which followeth: That power belongeth, etc. Others, to the two testaments. The Thargum of the Chaldees cometh near this later opinion: saying, God hath spoken one law, and we have heard it twice out of the mouth of Moses the great scribe & virtue is before our God, and thou Lord that thou wouldst be bountiful unto the just (g) For Tully's] In his book de fato following Carneades, he setteth down three kinds of causes; natural arising from nature, as for a stone to fall downward, for the fire to burn: Voluntary consisting in the free wills of men, (wherein it is necessary there 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 kind●…. be no precedent causes, but that they be left free:) and Casual, which are hidden and unknown in divers events: Herein he is of the N●…turalists opinion, that will have nothing come to pass without a cause. (h) Natural] Fire hath no other cause of heat, a stone of heaviness, a man of reason, procreation of like, etc. then the will of nature's Creator: who, had he pleased, might 〈◊〉. have made the fire cool, the stone mount upwards, the man a brute beast, or dead or unable to beget his like. ay If we may call] Arist, de anima. l. 3.) Putteth will only in reasonable creatures, and appetite (being that instinct whereby they desire, or refuse any thing) in beasts. Will in creatures of reason, is led by reason, and accompanied by election, or rather is election itself. (k) But Cicero] With the stoics. (l) Our wills are] God created our wills free: and that because it was his will: so they may make choice of contraries, yet cannot go against God's predestination: not questionless ever would although they could: for sure it is, that much might be done, which 〈◊〉 God 〈◊〉. never shall: so that the events of things to come proceed not from God's knowledge, but this from them with notwithstanding in him are not to come, but already present, (wherein a great many are deceived) wherefore he is not rightly said to foreknow, but only in respect of ou●… actions, but already to know, see and discern them. But is it seen unfit that this eternal knowledge should derive from so transitory an object, than we may say that God's knowledge ariseth from his providence and will, that his will decreeth what shall be, and his knowledge conceiveth what his will hath appointed. That which is to come (saith Origen upon Genesis) is the cause that God knoweth it shall come: so it cometh not to pass because God knoweth it shall come so to pass; but God fore-knoweth it, because it shall come so to pass. (m) Use the word] So do most of the latins, Poets, Chroniclers and Orators: referring fate to men, and will to God: and the same difference that is here between fate & will, Boethius puts between fate and providence. Apuleius saith, that providence is the divine thought, preserving hi●… for whose cause such a thing is undertaken: that fate is a divine law fulfilling the unchangeable decrees of the great God. so that if ought be done by providence, it is done also by fate: and if Fate perform aught, Providence worketh with it. But Fortu●… hath something to do about us, whose causes we utterly are ignorant of: for the events run so uncertain, that they mixing themselves with that which is premeditated and (we think) well consulted of, never let it come to our expected end: and when it endeth beyond our expectation so well, and yet these impediments have intermeddled, that we call happiness: But when they pe●…uert it unto the worst, it is called misfortune or unhappiness. In Dogmata Platonis. Whether necessity have any dominion over the will of man. CHAP. X. NOr need we fear that (a) Necessity which the stoics were so afraid off, that in their distinctions of causes, they put some under Necessity and some not under it, and in those that did not subject unto it, they g●… our wills also, that they might be free though they were urged by necessity. But if that be necessity in us, which is not in our power, but will be done do what we can against it, as the necessity of death; then is it plain, that our wills are subject to no such necessity, use we them howsoever, well or badly: For we do many things which we could not do, against our wills. And first of all to will itself: if we will a thing, there is our will; If we will not, it is not. For we cannot will against our wills. Now if necessity be defined to be, that whereby such a thing musts needs fall out thus, or thus, I see no reason we should fear, that it could hinder the freedom of our wills in any thing. (b) For we neither subject Gods being, nor his praesciences unto necessity, when we say God must needs live eternally, and God must needs foreknow all things; no more than his honour is diminished, in saying he cannot err, he cannot die; He cannot do this, why? because his power were less, if he could do it, than now it is in that he cannot. justly is he called almighty, yet may he not God almighty indeed. die nor err: He is called almighty because he can do all that is in his will, not because he can suffer what is not his will; which if he could he were not almighty. So that he cannot do some things, because he can do all things. So when we say that if we will any thing of necessity, we must will it with a freedom of will, tis●… true: yet put we not our will under any such necessity as deprives it of the freedom. So that our wills are ours, willing what●…we will, and if we will it not, neither do they will it: and if any man suffer any thing by the will of another against his own will, his will hath the own power still, & his sufferance cometh rather from the power of God then from his own will: for if he willed that it should be other wise, and yet could not have it so, his will must needs be hindered by a greater power: yet his will should be free still, & not in any others power, but his that willed it, though he could not have his will performeds: wherefore whatsoever a man suffereth against his will he ought not attribute it unto the wills of Angels, Men, or any other created spirits, but even to his who gave their wills this power. So then, (c) our wills are not useless, because that God foreseeth what will be in them: he that foresaw it whatever it be, foresaw somewhat: and if he did fore know somewhat, then by his foreknowledge there is something in our wills: Wherefore we are neither compelled to leave our freedom of will by retaining God's foreknowledge, nor by holding our wills freedom to deny GOD'S foreknowledge; GOD forbid we should: we believe and affirm them both constantly and truly, ●…raescience & freedom of will also. the later as a part of our good faith, the former as a rule for our good life: and badly doth he live that believeth not aright of GOD. So Godforbid that we should deny his foreknowledge to be free, by whose help we either are or shall be free. (d) Therefore law, correction, praise, disgrace, exhortation, and prohibition are not in vain: because he foreknew that there should be such: They have that power which he foreknew they should have: and prayers are powerful●…●…o attain those things, which he fore-knoweth that he will give to such as pray for them. Good deeds hath he predestinated to reward, and evil to punishment. (e) Nor doth man sin because God foreknew that he would sin: nay, therefore it is doubtless that he sinneth, when he doth sin, How man s●…neth. because that God, whose knowledge cannot be mistaken, foresaw that neither fate nor fortune, nor any thing else, but the man himself would sin, who if he had not been willing, he had not sinned: but whether he should be unwilling to sin, or no, that also did God foreknow. L. VIVES. THa●… (a) a necessity] Me thinketh (saith Tully) that in the two opinions of the Philosopher's th●… 〈◊〉 holding fa●…e the doer of all things, by a very law of necessity (of which opinion Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Aristotle were) and the other exempting the motions of the will from this law: Chrysippus professing to step into a mean, as an honourable arbitrator between them, inclineth rather to those that stand for the minds freedom. De fato. lib. Therefore did Oenomaus the Cynic say, that Democritus had made our minds slaves, and Chrysippus half slaves, Euseb. the Democritus. Chrysippus. praep. evang. l. 6. Therein is a great disputation about Fate: The stoics bringing all under fate, yet bind not our minds to any necessity, nor let them compel us to any action. For all things come to pass in fate by causes precedent, and subsequent, but not principal and perfect: the first of which do bu●… assist us in things beyond our power, but the later do effect that with is in our 〈◊〉. Plutarch relating the stoics opinion, saith that they hold the events 〈◊〉 thin●… to have a diverse original: some, from that great necessity; some from fate, some from liberty of will some from fortune, and chance particular. They follow Plato indeed in all their doctrine of fate. Which ●…lutarch both witnesseth, and the thing itself showeth. But whereas they say that all things comes of fate, and that in fate there is a necessity, than they speak of the providence and will of God. For as we have shown they called jove fate, and that said Pron●…, that providence, whereby he ruleth all fate likewise. (b) We neither subject] The Platonists say the gods must needs be as they are, and that not by adding any external necessity, but that natural one; because they cannot be otherwise; being also voluntary, because they would be no otherwise. Wherefore I wonder at Plinius Secundus his cavillation against God's omnipotency, that he cannot do all things, because he cannot die, nor give himself, that he can give a man, death. It is unworthy so learned a man. Nay he held it a great comfort in the troubles of this life, to think that the gods sometimes were so afflicted, that like men, they would wish fo●… death and could not have it: he was illuded (belike with the fables that maketh Pluto grieve at his delay of death as Lucian saith: Et rector terrae quem longa saecula torquet. Mors dilata deum Pluto. — Earth's god that grieved sore, his welcome Death should be so long delayed.— (c) O●… will ar●… not] A hard question, and of divers diversly handled: Whether God's fore-knowlede impose a necessity upon things? In the last chapter I touched at somethings correspondent: Many come out of the new schools, prepared fully to disputation with their fine art of combinations, that if you assume, they will not want a piece to defend, and if you have this, they will have that, so long till the question be left in greater clouds than it was found in at first: as this p●… case, God knoweth I will run to morrow, suppose I will not run, put case that, suppose the othe●… And what use is there of these goose-traps? To speak plainly with Augustine here, a man sinneth not because God knoweth that he will sin: for he need not sin unless he list: and if he do not, God fore-knoweth that also: or as chrysostom saith upon the Corinthians. Christ indeed saith, 〈◊〉 is necessary that scandal should be, but herein he neither violateth the will, nor enforceth the life, 〈◊〉 foretelleth what man's badness would effect: which cometh not so to pass because God foresaw 〈◊〉 but because man's will was so bad: for God's prescience did not cause those effects, but the corrupti●… Go●… p●…science no c●… o●… 〈◊〉. of humane minds caused his prescience. Thus far chrysostom interpreted by learned Donat●… And truly God's prescience furthereth the event of any thing, no more than a man's looking o●… furthereth any act: I see you write, but you may choose whether to write or no; so is it in him: furthermore all future things are more present unto God, than those things which we call present are to us for the more capable the soul is, it comprehendeth more time present. So God's essence being infinite, so is the time present before him: he, the only eternity being only infinite. The supposition of some future things, in respect of God's knowledge, as well as ours, hath made this question more intricate than otherwise it were. (d) Therefore law] This was objected unto them that held fate to be manager of all events: since that some must needs be good, and some bad, why should these be punished and those rewarded, seeing that their actions (being necessities and fates) could neither merit praise nor dispraise? Again should any be animated to good, or dissuaded from vice, when as the fate being bad, or howsoever, must needs be followed? This Manilius held also in these words. Ast hominum mentitanto sit gloria maior, Quod c●…lo gaudente venit, rursusque nocentes, Odcrimus magis, in cul●…am, penasque creatos. Nec resert scel●…s unde cadat, scelus esse fatendum est H●…c q●…que est sic ipsum expendere fa●…um: etc. Man's goodness shines more bright, because glad fate, And heaven inspires it: So the bad we hate Far worse, 'cause ●…ate hath bend their deeds amiss. Nor skills it whence guilt comes, when guilt it is Fates deed it is, to hear itself thus sca●…. etc. But we hold that the good have their reward, and the bad their reproach, each one for his free actions, which he hath done by God's permission, but not by his direction. (e) Nor doth man] His sin ariseth not from God's foreknowledge, but rather our knowledge ●…iseth from this sin, For as our will floweth from God's will, so doth our knowledge from his knowledge. Thus much concerning fate, out of their opinions, to make Augustine's the Plainer. Of God's universal providence, ruling all, and comprising all. CHAP. 11. WHerefore the great and mighty GOD with his Word and his holy Spirit (which three are one) God only omnipotent, maker and Creator of every soul●… 〈◊〉 of every body, in participation of whom, all such are happy that follow his 〈◊〉 and reject vanities: he that made man a reasonable creature of soul and body ●…d he that did neither let him pass unpunished for his sin, nor yet excluded him ●…om mercy: he that gave both unto good and bad essence with the stones, power of production with the trees, senses with the beasts of the field, a●…d understanding with the Angels; he, from whom is all being, beauty, form and order, number, weight and measure; he, from whom all nature, mean & excellent, all seeds of form, all forms of seed, all motion, both of forms and seeds derive and have being▪ He that gave flesh the original, beauty, strength, propagation, form and shape, health and symmetry: He that gave the unreasonable soul, sense, memory and appetite, the reasonable besides these, fantasy, understanding and will: He (I say) having left neither heaven, nor earth, nor Angel, nor man, no nor the most base and contemptible creature, neither the birds feather, nor the herbs flower, nor the trees leaf, without the true harmony of their parts, and peaceful concord of composition; It is no way credible, that he would leave the kingdoms of men, and their bondages and freedoms loose and uncomprized in the laws of his eternal providence. How the ancient romans obtained this increase of their Kingdom, at the true God's hand, being that they never worshipped him. CHAP. 12. NOw let us look what desert of the Romans moved the true God to augment their dominion, he in whose power all the Kingdoms of the earth are. For the 〈◊〉 performance of with we wrote our last book before, to prove that their gods whom they worshipped in such ridiculous manner, had no such power; & thus f●…r have we proceeded in this book, to take away the question of destiny & fate, lest some man being persuaded that it was not the deed of the gods, should rather ascribe it unto fate then to gods will, so mighty & so omnipotent. The ancient Romans therefore (as their histories report) though like to all other nations (exceping the Hebrews) they worshipped Idols and false gods, offering their sacrifices to the devils, not to the true Deity; yet their desire of praise made them bountiful of their purses, they loved glory & wealth honestly gotten: honour they dearly affected & Love of glory. honestly, offering willingly both their lives, and their states for them The zealous desire of this one thing suppressed all other inordinate affects: and hence they desired to keep their country in freedom, and then in soveraingty, because the saw how baseness went with servitude, and glory with dominion. whereupon they Kings. rejected the imperiousness of their Kings, and set down a yearly government between two heads, called Consuls à Consulendo, of providing; not Kings, nor Lords of reig●… and rule: (though Rex do seem rather to come à Regendo, of governing, & Consul's regnum; the Kingdom, of Rex, then otherwise:) but they held the state of a King to consist more in this imperious domination, then either in his discipline of governance, or his benevolent providence: so having expelled Tarquin, and instituted Consuls, than (as (a) Sallust saith well in their praise) the city getting their freedom thus memorably, grew up in glory, as much as it did in power: the desire of with glory wrought all these world-admired acts which they performed: Sallust praiseth also M. Cato and C. Caesar, both worthy men of his time, saying the Commonwealth had not had a famous man of a long time before, but that then it had a couple of illustrious virtue, though of divers conditions: he praiseth Caesar, for his desire of Empire, arms and war, whereby to exemplify his valour: trusting so in the fortune of a great spirit, that he rolled up the poor Barbarians to war, tossing Bellona's bloody en●…igne about, that the romans might thereby give proof of their vigours. This wrought he for desire of praise and glory. Even so in the precedent ages, their love, first of liberty, and afterward of sovereignty and glory, whetted them to all hard attem●…. Their famous Poet gives testimony for both: saying: Nec non Tarquinium ei●…ctum Porsenna i●…bebat Accipere, inge●…tique urbem obsidiore premeba●… Aenead 〈◊〉 in serrum pro libertat●… r●…bant, etc. Porsenn●… gui●…ts them with a world of men, Commands that T●…rquin be restored. But then To arms the romans for their freedom run. For than was it honour to die bravely, or to live freely, but having got their freedom, than succeeded such a greediness of glory in them, that freedom alone seemed nothing, without domination, hammering upon that, which the same Poet maketh jove to speak in prophetique-wise. — Quin aspera Tuno Qua ●…re nunc, terrasque metu, c●…lumque satigat, 〈◊〉 in melius reseret, mecumque fovebit 〈◊〉, rerum dominos gentemque togatum. S●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lustris labentibus ●…tas, C●… d●… A●…raci Phithiam, charasque Mycenae 〈◊〉 pr●…et, ac victis dominabitur argis. — ●…nd juno though she yet Fill heaven and earth with her disquiet fit, Shall turn her mind at length, and join with me, To guard the romans (c) go●…ned progeny, It stands, succeeding times shall see the day, That old (d) Assaracus his stock shall sway (e) Phithia, Micena and all Argos round etc. Which Virgil maketh jupiter speak, as prophetically, being fallen out true before he wrote these verses: But this by the way to show that the romans affection of liberty and domination, was a parcel of their most principal glory and lustre. Hence it is, that the same Poet in distributing the arts amongst the Nations, gives the Romans the art of Domination & sovereignty over others saying. Ex●… 〈◊〉 sp●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cr●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…re 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…elius, c●…lique meatus 〈◊〉 r●…dio & surgentia sydera dicent, T●…ere imperio populos, Roman, memento, 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 ●…es, pacique imponere morem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & debellare superbos. Others c●… better c●… in brass perhaps, (f) 'tis ●…ue; or cut the ●…one to humane shapes: Others can better practise laws loud jars, Or teach the motions of the fulgid stars. But (Romans) be your arts, to rule, in wars, To make all knees to sacred peace be bowed, To spare the lowly and pull down the proud. Th●…se arts they were the more perfect in, through their abstinence from pleasur●…, 〈◊〉 covetousness after riches, (the corrupters both of body and mind) from 〈◊〉 from the poor citizen, bestowing on beastly players. So that in th●… dominion of those corruptions which befell afterwards, when Virgil and Sa●… did both write, the romans used not the foresaid arts, but deceits and ●…es, ●…o raise their glories. And therefore Sallust saith, At first men's hearts gave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…bition, rather than covetousness, because that was more near to virtue: for 〈◊〉 ●…rious and the slothful have both one desire of honour, glory and sovereignty. But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (saith he) goeth the true way to work, the later by craft & false means, because he h●…●…t the true course. The true, are these, to come to honour by virtue, not by ambiti●… 〈◊〉 honour, Empire, and glory, good and bad wish both alike. But the good goeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, by virtue leading him directly to his possession of honour, glory, soue●…. T●…t this was the Romans course, their temples showed, virtues & honours being 〈◊〉) close together: (though herein they took God's gifts for gods themselu●…) Virtues and honours temples. wherein you might easily see, that their end was, to show that their was no access to honour but by virtue, whereunto all they that were good referred it: f●…●…e evil had it not, though they laboured for honour by indirect means, namely by ●…ceite and illusion. The praise of Cato excelleth, of whom he saith that the 〈◊〉 ●…ned glory, the more it pursued him. For this glory that they seek, is the goo●… (〈◊〉) ●…ion of men concerning such or such. And therefore that is the best virtue, Glory. that s●…h not upon others judgements, but upon ones own conscience, as the Ap●…●…h: Our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience: and again: Let every 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his own work, and so shall he have glory in himself only, and not in ano●… 2. Cor. 1. Galat. 6. ●…o that glory & honour which they desire so, & aim so after, by good means, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 go before virtue, but follow it: for there is no true virtue, but leveleth 〈◊〉 chiefest good. And therefore the honours that Cato required (ay) he should True virtue. not have required, but the city should have returned him them, as his due desert. But whereas there were but two famous romans in that time, Caesar & Cato, Cato's v●…tue seems far nearer the truth of virtue, than Caesar's. And let us take Cato's (k) opinion of the state of the city, as it was then, & as it had been before. Think not (saith he) that our ancestry brought the city unto this height by arms. If it were so, we ●…ld make it far more admirable than ever. But they had other means which we want: industry at home, equity abroad, freedom in consultation, and purity of minds in all ●…en, free from lust and error. For these have we gotten riot, and avarice, public beggary and private wealth: riches we praise, and sloth we follow: good & bad are now vndisi●…guished, ambition devouring all the guerdon due to virtue. Nor wonder at it, when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 patcheth up a private estate, when you serve your lusts at home, and your profit 〈◊〉 ●…ffect here. This is that that layeth the state open to all incursion of others. (l) He that ●…deth these words of Cato in Sallust, may think that the old romans were all such 〈◊〉 ●…ose, whom we have shown to be so praiseworthy before: it is not so: for o●…wise his words which we related in our second book should be false, where he saith: that the city grew troubled with the oppressing power of the great ones, & 〈◊〉 ●…he people grew to a division from their fathers upon this cause: that there we●… di●…ers other dangerous dissensions, and that they agreed in honesty & conco●… longer than they stood in fear of Tarquin, & of the great war of Hetruria: which being ended, the Senators began to make slaves of the people, to ●…udg Lib. 2. Cap. 18. of their lives as imperiously as the Kings had done, to chase men from their possessions, & only their faction bore the sway of all; unto which discords (the one desiring to rule, & the other refusing to obey) the second African war gave end because a fear began then to return upon them, and called their turbulent spirits ●…om those alterations to look to the main, and establish a concord: But all the great affairs were managed by a few that were as honest as the times afforded, and so by tolerating those evils, the state grew well up, through the providence of a few good governors: for as this writer saith, that having heard & read of many memorable military deeds of the romans by sea & land, he had a great desire to know what it was that supported those great businesses, wherein the romans very often with a handful of men (to count of) have held out war with most powerful, rich & victorious Kings: & having looked well into it, he findeth, that the egregious virtue of a very few citizens hath been cause of this happy success of all the rest: surmounting wealth by poverty, & multitude by scarcity. But after that corruption had eaten through the City (saith he) than the greatness of the commonwealth supported the viciousness of her magistrates. So the virtue of a few, aiming at glory, honour, & sovereignty, by a true line: that same virtue, is that which Cato, so preferreth: This was the industry at home, that he so commended, which made their public treasury rich, though the private were but mean (m) And the corruption of manners he bringeth in as the just contrary, producing public beggary through private wealth. Wherefore, whereas the Monarchies of the East had been along time glorious, God resolved to erect one now in the West also, which although it were after them in time, yet should be before them in greatness and dignity. And this he left in the hands of such men as swayed it, especially to punish the vicious states of other nations: and those men were such, as for honour & dominations sa●…e would have an absolute care of their country, whence they received this honour: and would not stick to lay down their own lives for their fellows, suppressing covetousness, & all other vices, only with the desire of honour. L. VIVES. CAlled (a) consuls] That Consul comes of Consulo, this all do acknowledge: but Consulo signifieth many things, and here ariseth the doubt in what sense Consul is derived from it. Consuls. Quintil. lib. 1. Whether Consul come of Providing for, or of judging, for the old writers used Consulo to judge, and it is yet a phrase, boni consulas, judge well. Livy and Quintil. say that the Consul was once called judge. But I rather hold with Varro, that the Consul is a name of ministry, implying that he hath no power nor authority in the state, but only to be the warner of the Senate, and to ask the people's counsel, what they would have done. For the Senate of old, never did any thing▪ but the Conful first asked the people's minds, and brought them word how it passed, whence this ordinary phrase ariseth: He entreated the Consul to bring word back how this or this passed: Caesar's letters being brought by Fabius to the Consuls, The Trib●…s could very hardly with much contention obtain that they should be read in the Senate, but th●… their contents should be related to the Senate, they could not be persuaded. Caes. 〈◊〉. de bello Pompey. lib. 1. Whereby it appeareth that the Senate gave not their verdicts upon any thing, but what was related to them by the Consuls which custom was duly observed in old times. But afterwards some of the magistrates got power to enforce the senates voices to any thing what they listed prefer. Uarro's words are these (de ling. lat. lib. 4.) He was called that Cons●…l for 〈◊〉 with the people and senate. Unless it be as Actius saith in Brutus he that judgeth right [Q●…i recte consulat,] Let him be Consul. (b) Saluste] In bello Catiline. (c) Gowned] Rightly go●…d (●…ith Ser●…) for all ages and sexes there aware g●…nes. (d) Assaracus] Grandsire to Anchises, father to 〈◊〉, of whom came Aeneas, of him julus, of him the Alban King and of 〈◊〉. them Ro●…lus. (e) 〈◊〉] This is touching the revenge of Troy, that their countries that bur●…ed Troy should be subdued by a progeny of Trojans. So saith the Aeneads. 〈◊〉 ille Argos, Agamemnoniasque, Mycenae, 〈◊〉 A●…cidem genus 〈◊〉 Ac●…li 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Troi●…, & templa 〈◊〉 Mineruae The towers of Argos he shall undermine, And wrack (Pelides) that great son of thine, Revenging ●…roy and Pallas wronged shrine. Phthia was Achilles his native soil, a town in Phtheias a part of Macedoniae. He was Phthia. Larissa. bro●…ght up tho at Larissa, and therefore called Larissaeus: though Phithia and Larissa be both in Achaia, as else where I will make plain, as also that the Argive tower was called Larissa. Phthia in Macedonea was subdued by L. Aemilius, after he had overthrown Pers●… Micaenae. ●…nae, is in Argolis, as Mela testifieth, and from thence the Kingdom was transferred to Argos. L. Mummius conquered it, together with all Achaia: Argos is near Mycenae saith Argos. M●…. The Kingdom was the Argives from Inachus to Pelops DXLIIII. years. Euseb. Iu●… Higi●…us saith that Virgil erreth in these verses, for he that conquered Argos did not 〈◊〉- ●…hrow Pyrrhus, so that he would have the middle verse taken out. But Servius saith 〈◊〉 is, Illeque, and he, to be understood, it being understood of Curius. (f) 'tis true] Nay all 〈◊〉: Marius built them after the Cymbrian war: but because there was a gutter betwixt them, they seemed a couple. (h) Opinion of men] This is glory in general: but the true glory Glory. is a so●…d a●…d express thing (saith Tully) no shadow: and that is the uniform praise of them that are goo●…, 〈◊〉 uncorrupted voice of such as judge aright of virtues exellence: which answers vert●… 〈◊〉 Echo, and followeth it like a shadow. Tusc. quaest. lib. 3. ay Should not▪ This Cato of Utica (of whom he speaketh) sued for the tribuneshippe, and got it: the praetorship, and (after Cato of utica. one repulse, Vatinius (a fellow hated of GOD and man) being preferred before him) got that too: the consulship, and there had a final repulse. He was a man (saith Plutarch) fit to be ●…ought for a magistrate, and more fit to be forced unto dignities, then to sue for them. (k) Opinion] In his oration which (being Tribune) he made in the Senate, against the C●…spiratours. Sallust, Catiline. (l) He that heareth▪ The later Romans' were always a talking of the virtues of their ancestry, extolling them to heaven: either because all things declined from better to worse, or because they thought still that the times past were best. (m) And 〈◊〉 ●…ption] A diversity of reading, vitium esse contrarium & è contrario, all to one sense: 〈◊〉 ●…ter is in all the old manuscripts. O●…●…bition, which being a vice, is notwithstanding herein held a virtue that it doth restrain vices of worse natures. CHAP. 13. B●…t he is better sighted, that can see this desire of glory to be a vice: Horace 〈◊〉 it, and therefore said, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 t●…es, sunt certa piacula quae te, (b) 〈◊〉 lecto poterunt recreare libello. You swell with thirst of praise: but I can tell A medicine: read this book thrice over (b) well. Epist lib. 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Odes he sung this, to the same purpose of suppressing ambitious thou●…. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 avidum domando 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 si Lybiam remotis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, & uterque Paenus, — Seruiat uni. He that can conquer his affects rebelling, Hath larger Monarchy, than he that swa●…s Car. lib. 2 The Lybians, (c) Gades, and both Africas, — And more excelling. 〈◊〉 notwithstanding, those that do not bridle their exorbitant affects by 〈◊〉, by the power of the holy spirit, and the love of that intellectual beauty, 〈◊〉 they cannot be happy, yet they may be less unhappy, in avoiding this 〈◊〉 of humane glory howsoever: Tully could not (f) dissemble this, in his 〈◊〉 Of the Commonwealth, where speaking of the instruction of a Prince, for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he saith he must be (g) nourished with glory: and so thereupon infer●… Glory a Prince's nourishment. what worthy deeds this glory had drawn from his ancestors. So that 〈◊〉 ●…e so far from resisting this vice, that they did wholly give themselves 〈◊〉 ●…nt and excite each one, thinking it useful to the state: Though in 〈◊〉 b●…s of Philosophy, Tully never dissembles (h) this contagion, but confes●…th 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 clear as day. For speaking of studies, aiming at the true good, and contemning the vain blasts of humane praises, he inferreth this axione, ay Honour nourisheth arts, and glory keepeth all men on work in studies, and what men approve not, lieth unregarded. L. VIVES. Said (a)] Epist. lib. 1. to Maecenas. ter purè: thrice over (b) well] The Philosophers books of manners are to be read purely, diligently, not against the will, but desirously, that we may reap profit thereby, for so doing, we shall. Prophyry saith we must come with clean Philosophy to be well read. hands, as unto a sacrifice. (c) Latius] Carm. lib. 2. ad Sallust. (d) Gades] An Island of Spain, famous for Hercules his travels and pillars. (e) Both Africa's] Acron and Porphy●…y think that by the one, he meaneth Lybeans, and by the other the Gadetanes whom the Africans first placed there: as if the Poet intended a conjunction of Empire in lands divided by seas, as he saith in the said place, before. (f) Dissemble] Some read Silere, conceal, but the old Copies ●…ead it as we have set it down. (g) Nourished] Stoicism. A wise man is a creature of glory; Simonides, (quoted by Xenophon in his Hieron) distinguisheth a man from all other creatures in this especial thing, that he is touched by glory and honour. (h) This contagion] The proposition [ab] in the Latin text is superfluous: our reading is in the better. ay Honour] Prooem. Tusc. quaest. That we are to avoid this desire of humane honour: the glory of the righteous being wholly in GOD. CHAP. 14. WHerefore without doubt, we had better resist this desire then (a) yield to it. For much the nearer are we to GOD, as we are purer from this impurity: which although in this life, it be not fully rooted out of the heart, because it is a temptation that troubleth even the best proficients in religion, yet let The love of justice should excel the love of glory. the love of righteousness suppress the thirst of ambitiousness. And thus: if some things lie unrespected, because men approve them not, and yet be good and honest, then let the love of humane praise blush, and give place to the love of truth. For this is a great enemy to our faith, if that the affect of glory have more room in our hearts then the fear or love of our GOD: and therefore he saith: How can you believe, that expect honour one from another, and seek not the honour th●… ●…o. 5. 43. cometh of GOD? And likewise it is said of some that believed in him and yet durst not profess it; They loved the praise of men more than the praise of GOD. ●…o. 12. 43. Which the holy Apostles did not: for they preached the name of Christ, where it was (b) not only not approved of, (as Tully saith, and what men approve not, lieth unregarded) but where it was even detested, holding the rule that their master (the minds physician) had taught them. Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny (c) before my Father which is in Heaven, and (d) before the M●…t. 10. 33 Luc. 12. 9 Angels of GOD: So that all their reproaches, by their cruel persecutions, their extreme pains, could not drive them from preaching this salvation, let the madness of man oppose what it could. And whereas this divine life, conversation, and doctrine of theirs, having suppressed all hardness of heart, and erected the peace of righteousness, was crowned with an unbounded glory in Christ 〈◊〉 church: this did not they rest, as in the expected guerdon of their virtues, but referred it all unto Christ his glory, by whose grace they were what they we●…. And the same did they transfuse into such, as they converted unto the 〈◊〉 of him, whereby they might become such as they were before them: 〈◊〉 to keep them from touch of humane ambition their Master taught th●… this, Take heed that you do not your good deeds before men, to be seen of them, or else ye shall have no reward of your father which is in heaven. But lest they should misconceive Mat. 6. 1. this, and fear to do well before men: and so become less profitable by striving to keep their virtuous acts in secret, then otherwise; he saith again, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Mat. 5. 16. father which is in heaven. Do not well with an intent that men should see you do so, and so turn to behold you, who are not what you are by them: but do so that they may glorify your father in heaven, unto whom if they turn they may be such as you are. Thus did the Martyrs, that excelled the Scaeuola's, C●…rtij and Deccis, (not by punishing themselves, but by learning the inflictions of others) in true virtue, piety, and innumerable multitude. But the others, living in an earthly city, wherein the end of all their endeavours was by themselves propounded to themselves, the fame (namely) and domination of this world, and not the eternity of heaven, not in the everlasting life, but in their own ends, and the mouths of their posterity: what should they jove, but glory, whereby they desired to survive after death in the (e) memories and mouths of such as commended them. L. VIVES. THen yield (a) to it] So must the sense be: we must resist the desire of glory, and not yield to it. (b) Not only not] we have given it the best reading of all I think and the nearest to likelihood. (c) Before my father] Matt. 10. 33. (d) Before the Angels of God] Luc. 12. 9 (e) Memories and mouths] I fly, as living, through the mouths of men, ●…aith Ennius. Of the temporal rewards that God bestowed upon the romans virtues and good conditions. CHAP. 15. Such therefore as we have spoken of, if God did neither mean to bless them with eternity in his heavenly city, amongst his Angels (to which society that true piety brings men, which affordeth that true divine worship (which the True piety. greeks call (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) to none but only the true God) nor to vouchsafe them an earthly glory or excellence of Imperial dignity; then should their virtues, the good acts whereby they endeavoured to ascend to this glory, pass unrewarded. But the Lord saith even of such as do good for humane glory; Verily I say unto you they have their reward: These therefore that neglected their private estates for the commonwealth and public treasury, opposing covetise, having a full care of their country's freedom, and living according to their laws, without touch of lust or guilt, these seemed to go the right way to get themselves honour, and did so: honoured they are almost all the world over, all nations very near, received their laws, honoured were they then in all men's mouths, and now in most men's writings through the world: Thus have they no reason to complain of God's justice; they have their reward. L. VIVES. Call (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to worship, or to serve. Latria. Of the reward of the eternal citizens of heaven, to whom the examples of the romans virtues were of good use. CHAP. 16. But as for their reward that endure reproaches here on earth for the city of GOD, (which the lovers of the world do hate and deride) that is of another nature. That City is eternal: No man (a) is borne in it, because no man The eternal city. dieth in it. Felicity is there fully, yet no goddess, but a God's gift: of this habitation have we a promise by faith, as long as we are here in pilgrimage on earth, and long for that rest above. The Sun ariseth not there both upon good and bad, but the Son of righteousness shineth only over the good. Rom. 8. Mat. 5. There shallbe no need to respect the common treasury more than the private, truth is all the treasure that lieth there. And therefore the Roman Empire had that glorious increase, not only to be a fit guerdon to the virtues of such worthies as we forenamed, but also that the citizens of heaven in their pilgrimages upon earth, might observe those examples with a sober diligence, and thence gather how great care, love, and respect ought to be carried to the heavenly country for life eternal, if those men had such a dear affect to their earthly country for glory so temporal. 2. Cor. 5. L. VIVES. NO man (a) is borne] That is, their is no increase of them, no more than there is decease, the●… just number being predestinate and foreknown by the eternal GOD himself. The fruits of the romans wars, both to themselves and to those with whom they warred. CHAP. 17. FOr what skilleth it in respect of this short and transitory life, under whose dominion a mortal man doth live, so he be not compelled to acts of impiety or injustice. But did the romans ever hurt any of the nations whom they conquered and gave laws unto, but in the very fury and war of the conquest? If they could have given those laws by agreement, it had been better (but then had been no place for triumph) for the romans lived under the same laws themselves that they gave to others. This (a) had been sufficient for the state, but that Mars, Bellona and Victory should then have been displeased, and displaced also, if they had had no wars, nor no victories. Would not then the states of Rome, and other nations have been all one? especially, that being done, which was most gravely and worthily performed afterwards, (b) every man that belonged to the Roman Empire, being made free of the city, as though they were now all citizens of Rome, whereas before there was but a very few, so that such as had no lands, should live of the common? this would have been granted unto good governors by other nations, sooner by entreaty then force. For what doth conquering, or being conquered hurt, or profit men's lives, manners, or dignities either? I see no good it doth, but only addeth unto their intolerable vainglory, who aim at such matters, and war for them, and lastly receive them as their labours reward. Doth not their land pay tribute to the state as well as others? Yes. May they learn any thing that others may not? No. (c) And are there not many Senators that never saw: Rome? True. Take away vainglory and what are men but men? An●… if the perverseness of the age would permit the very best means for 〈◊〉 bear away the greatest honours, than should not this humane honour b●… so prizeworthy howsoever, being but a breath and a light fume? But yet 〈◊〉 us use these things, to do ourselves good towards GOD. Let us co●…sider what obstacles these men have scorn●…d, what pains they have tak●… what affects they have suppressed, and only for this humane glory which afterward they received as the reward of their virtues; and let this serve to suppress our pride also, that seeing the city wherein we have promised habitation and Kingdom, is as far different from this in excellence, as Heaven from earth, life eternal from mirth temporal, firm glory from fuming vainglory, angels company from men's, and his light that made the Sun & Moon, from the light of the Sun and Moon: then have the citizens of this heavenly region done just nothing, in doing any thing for attaining this celestial dwelling, seeing that the other have taken such pains in that habitation of earth, which they had already attained: especially, the remission of sins, calling us as Remission of sins. citizens, to that eternal dwelling; and having a kind of resemblance with Romulus his sanctuary, by which he gathered a multitude of people into his city Romulus' his sanctuary. through hope of impunity. L. VIVES. THis had been (a)] The old books read Hoc si fieret sine mart etc. if this could have been done without Mars, making it run in one sentence unto the interogation. All the Roman subjects made free of the city. (b) Every man] The Latins were made free denizens of old: and from them it spread further into Italy, over Po, over the Alpes, and the sea. Claudius' Caesar made many Barbarians free of Rome: affirming, that it was the ruin of Athens and Lacedaemon, that they made not such as they conquered free of their Cities. Afterwards, under Emperors that were Spaniards, Africans, and Thracians, whole P●…ouinces at first, and afterwards the whole Empire was made free of Rome. And whereas before, all were called Barbarians Barbarians who they are. but the greeks, now the romans being Lords, exempted themselves, and afterward the Latins, and all the Italians from that name: but after that, all the Provinces being made free of the City, only they were called Barbarians which were not under the Empire of Rome: And thus doth Herodian, Spartianus, Eutropius, and later Historiographers use it. So the river Rhine had two banks the neither of them was Roman, the further, Rhines banks. Barbarian, Claudianus. O 〈◊〉 doluit Rh●…nus quá Barbarus ibat, Quod ●…e non geminis frueretur judice ripis. O how Rhine wept, on the Barbarian shore, I ha●… both his banks were not within thy power. (c) And are there not] Many nations being made free of the City, many of the chief men of those nations were made Senators, though they never saw Rome, no more than a many that were Citizens. How far the Christians should be from boasting of their deeds for their eternal country, the romans having done so much for their temporal City, and for humane glory. CHAP. 18. WHy is it then so much to despise all this world's vanities for eternity when as Brutus could kill his sons (being not enforced to it) for fear his country should lose the bare liberty? Truly it is a more difficult matter to kill one's children, then to let go those things which we do but gather for our children, or to give them to the poor, when faith or righteousness bids us. Earthly riches can neither bless us nor our children with happiness; we must either lose them in this life or lea●…e them to be enjoyed after our death, by one, we cannot tell whom, perhaps by those we would not should have them. No, it is GOD, the minds true wealth, that makes us happy. The Poet rears Brutus a God the minde●…●…rue wealth. monument of unhappiness for killing his sons, though otherwise he praise him. — Natosque pater fera bella moventes, Ad paenam patriá pro libertate vocabit Infaelix, utcumque ferent ea fata minores. His sons, convict of turbulent transgression, He kills, to free his country from oppression, Hapless how ere succeeding times shall ring. But in the next verse he gives him comfort: Vicit amor patriae laudumque immensa cupido. Conquered by's country's love, and thirst of prey. (e) The two things that set all the romans upon admirable action. So than if the Father could kill his own sons, for mortal freedom, and thirst of praise, (both transitory affects) what a great matter is it, if we do not kill our sons, but count the poor of Christ our sons, and for that eternal liberty, which freeth us from sin, death and hell; not for humane cupidity, but for Christian charity; to free men, not from Tarquin, but from the devils, and their King? And if Torquatus, another Roman, slew his own son, not for fight against his country, but for going only against his command; being general, (he being Torquatus. a valorous youth and provoked by his enemy, yea and yet getting the victory): because there was more hurt in his contempt of authority, then good in his conquest: why should they boast, who for the laws of that never-ending country do forsake only those things which are never so dear as children; namely earthly goods and possessions? If Furius Camillus, after his banishment, Camillus. by his ●…ngratefull country, which he had saved from being oppressed by the valorous Veians yet would deign to come to free it the second time, because he had no better place to show his glory in: why is he extolled (as having done great matters) who having (perhaps suffered some great disgrace and injury in the church by his carnal enemies) hath not departed to the church's enemies, the Here●…es or invented some heresy against it himself, but rather hath guarded it, 〈◊〉 far as in him lay, from all the pernicious invasions of heresy, because their is no (a) other place to live in unto eternal life, though there be others ●…gh to attain humane glory in? If Scaevola, when he saw he had failed to ki●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (a sore foe to Rome,) and killed another for him, to make a peace Scaenola. with him, ●…t his hand into the fire that burned on the Altar, saying that Rome had a multitude such as he that had conspired his destruction, and by this speech so terrified him that he made a present peace with them and got him packing) why shall any man talk of his merits in respect of the Kingdom of Heaven, if he lose, (not his hand but) his whole body in the fire for it, (not by his own choice but) by the power of the persecutor? If Curtius, (to satisfy the Oracle Curtius. that commanded Rome to cast the best jewel it had into a great gulf, and the romans being resolved that valour and men of arms were their best jewels) took his horse and armour, and willingly leapt into that gaping gulf; why shall a man say he hath done much for heaven that shall (not cast himself to death but) endure death at the hands of some enemy of his faith, seeing that GOD, his Lord, and the King of his country, hath given him this rule as a certain Oracle: Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. If Mat. 10. 28 The Decii. the two Decii consecrated themselves to their country's good & sacrificed their blood (as with prayers) unto the angry gods for the deliverance of the Roman army, let not the holy Martyrs be proud of doing any thing for the partaking of their eternal possessions, where felicity hath neither error nor end, if they do contend in charitable faith and faithful charity, even unto the shedding of their blood both for their brethren, for whom and also for their enemies by whom it is shed. (k) If Marcus Puluillus in his dedication of the Temple to jove, juno and Min●… false news being brought (c) (by those that envied his honour) of his sons death, that so he might leave all the dedication to his fellow, and go perturbed away, did nevertheless so contemn the news, that (d) he bade them cast him forth unburned, his desire of glory utterly conquering his grief of being childless: why should that man say he hath done much for the preaching of the gospel, (which freeth and gathereth God's citizens out of so many errors) to whom being careful of his Father's funeral, the LORD said. Follow me, Regulu●…. and let the dead bury their dead? If M. Regulus▪ not to deal falsely with his most cruel enemies, returned back to them from Rome itself, because (as he answered the romans that would have stayed him) he could not live in the dignity of an honest citizen in Rome, since he had been a slave in Africa: and that the Carthaginians put him to an horrible death for speaking against them in Rome's Senate: What torments are not be scorned, for the faith of the country, unto whose eternal happiness faith itself conducteth us? Or what reward had GOD for all his benefits, if, for the faith which every one owes to him, he should suffer as much torment as Regulus suffered for the faith which he ought to his bloodiest foes? Or how dare any Christian boast of voluntary poverty (the (f) means to make his travel unto his country, where GOD, the true riches The praise of voluntary poverty. dwelleth more light and easy) when he shall hear or read of (g) L. Valerius, who dying consul, was so poor, that his burial was paid for out of the common Valerius Poplicola. Q. ●…incinatus. purse; or of Q. (h) Cincinatus, who having but 4. acres of land, and tilling it himself with his own hands, was fetched from the plough to be Dictator? an office (ay) more honourable than the Consuls? and having (k) conquered his foes, and gotten great honour, returned to his old state of poverty? Or why should any man think it a great matter, not to be seduced from the fellowship of celestial powers, by this world's vanities, when as he reads how (l) Fabricius could not be drawn from the romans by all Pyrrhus the King of Epirus his promises, Fabricius. though extended even to the 4. part of his Kingdom, but would live there still in his accustomed poverty? for whereas they had a rich and powerful weal-public, and yet were so poor themselves, that (m) one that had been twice Cons●… was put out of that Senate of (n) poor men by the Censors decree, because he was found to be worth ten pound in silver; if those men that inritched the treasury by their triumphs were so poor themselves, then much more ought the christians, whose riches are (for a better intent) all in common, as the Apostles acts record: to be distributed to every man according to his need: neither any of them said that any thing he possessed was his own, but all was in common: much more Act 4 I say aught they to know that this is no just thing to boast upon, seeing that they do but that for gaining the society of the Angels, which the other did (or near did) for their preserving of the glory of the romans. These now, and other such like, in their books, how should they have been so known, and so famous, had not Rome's Empire had this great and magnificent exaltation and dilatation? Wherefore that Empire, so spacious, and so contin●…ant & renowned by the virtues of those illustrious men was given, both to stand as a reward for their merrites, and to produce examples for our uses. That if we observe not the laws of those virtues for attaining the celestial Kingdom, which they did for preserving one but terrestrial, we might be ashamed: but if we do, then that we be not exalted, for as the Apostle saith. The afflictions of this present time are not worthy of the glory which shallbe Rom. 8. ve●…. 18. showed unto us. But their lives seemed worthy of that present temporal glory. And therefore the jews, that executed Christ, (the New testament revealing what the old conceiled, that God was not be worshipped for the earthly benefits which he bestows upon bad as well as good, but for life eternal, and the perpetual blessing of that supernal city) were justly given to be the slaves and instruments of their glory: that those that sought earthly glory by any virtue soever, might overcome and subdue those that refused and murdered the giver of true glory and eternal felicity. L. VIVES. NO other (a) place.] Some texts want the second negative, but erroneously, I●… must be read as we have placed it. (a) M. Puluillus.] Liu. lib. 2. Ualer. lib. 5. Plut. in Poplicol. Dionys, and others. This temple to jove, juno and Minerva, Tarquin. Priscus vowed, Tarquin the proud built, and the dedication falling to the Consuls, Puluillus had it, and was informed (as Augustine saith) that his son etc. (c) by those that] by M. Ualerius, brother to P. Valerius Consul, who grieved that that magnifi●…nt temple should not be dedicated by one of his family and so brought that news of Puluillus his sons death that the grief of his family, might make him give over the dedication. (d) He bade them cast him.] Plutarch, Livy saith he bade them bury him then. (e) Let the dead] Living to the world, but dead i●… deed, since dead to God, let them bury such as they think are dead. (f) the means.] In ones life, as in one's travel, the less Burden he hath about or upon him, the lighter he goeth on his journey. (g) L. Ualerius Liu, Plutarch and Ualerius write that this Ualerius Poplicola was so poor that they were feign to bury him at the charge of the city. So doth Eutropius and others. It is said each one gave somewhat to his burial: Plut, farthings a piece saith Apuleius, Apolog. de. Magia. Augustine doth but touch at the story, respecting neither his surname not the year of his death, for he was called Publius not Lucius and died a year after his 4. consulship, Uerginius and Cassius being Conss. the sixth year after the expulsion of the Kings Liu. D●…. The dictatorship. (h) Q. Cincinatus. Liu. lib. 3. Ualer. lib. 4. ay More honourable.] The dictatorshippe was a regal office, from it was no appeal, to it were consuls and all obedient, it continued by the law but six months; and was in use only in dangerous times, the election was made always in Italy, and in the night: He was called the master of the People, and had the Master of the horsemen joined with him. This office had original in the CCLII. year of the City after Caesar's death, by the law of Antony the consul; and for envy of Caesar perpetual dictatoriship was abolished for ever (k) conquered.] The Aequi, and triumped over them (l) Fabritius.] One not rich, but a scorner of riches. Being sent Ambassador to Pyrrhus' King of Epirus about the rans●…ming of the prisoners, he asked him if he would go to Epirus with him & he would give him the forth part Fabricius a scorner of riches. of his kingdom, he replied it was not fit, for all the people would wish rather to be under his command then Pyrrhus' his. Pyrrhus, content with this answer admired the plain magnanimity of the man, offered him money as a friend, he would none. (m) One that.] Cornelius Ruffinus this was: Corn. Silla. Fabritius the Censor put him off the Senate for being worth ten pound in coined silver. Liu. lib●… nay he had been Dictator saith Gellius. lib. 4. this was the first Cornelius that was called Sybi●… and then Silla, of all the Cornelian family. Macrobius, he was first consul with Manl. Cur. denatus, and thirteen years after, with C. junius. (n poor men] Rome was never more fertile of continent honest men then in the war of Pyrrhus. The difference between the desire of glory, and the desire of rule. CHAP. 19 THere is a difference between desire of glory and desire of rule: for though the first do incline to the second, yet such as affect the true human glory, have a desire to be pleasing unto good judgements, for there is much good in manners, Desire of rule without love of glory. whereof many can judge well although many again have not this good, not go that honest way to glory, honour and sovereignty that Sallust saith of: He goeth the true way. But whosoever desires to rule without that desire of glory which keeps men in awe of good judgements, he careth not by what villainy he compass affect, and so his going about it will show. And therefore the hunter of glory either followeth the true tract or covers his courses so well, that he is held to be Desire of rule without love of glory. still in the true tract, and thought to be good when he is not so, wherefore to the virtuous, contempt of glory is a great virtue: because God beholdeth it, and not the judgement of man, for whatsoever he doth before men, to show this contempt, Contempt of glory. he hath no reason to think they suspect him amiss, that think he doth it for his more glory. But he that contemneth their opinative praise, contemneth also with it, their unadvised suspect: yet not their salvation (if he be good) because he that hath his goodness from God, is of that justice, that he loveth his very enemies, and so loveth them that he wisheth his slanderers & backe-bit●…rs reform, and to become his companions, not here but in his eternal country, for his commenders, as he respecteth not their praises, so he neglecteth not their, loves, desiring neither to falsify their praises, nor delude their loves: and therefore urgeth them to the praise of him, from whom every one hath all his praiseworthy endowments. But that man that despising glory, doteth on domination, is worse than a beast, both in (a) manners barbarism, & lusts extremity. Such men Rome hath had: for though it had lost the care of credit, yet it retained still the affect of sovereignty: nay Rome (saith History) had many such. But (b) Nero Caesar was he that got first of all God's providence is it that rais●…h the wicked. Pro. 8, 15. to the top-turret of all this enormity: whose luxury was such that one would not have feared any manly act of his: & yet was his cruelty such, as one ignorant of him would not have thought any effeminate spark resident in him, yet even such as this man was have no dominion but from the great God's providence, holding man's vices sometimes worthy of such plagues. The scripture of him is plain: By me kings reign, & Princes: tyrants by me govern the earth. But (c) lest Tyrannus here should be taken only for vild & wicked kings, & not (as it it meant) for all the old worthies, hear. Vir. Pars mihi pacis crit dextran tetigisse T●…ranni, (d) Some peace I hope, by touching your king's hands. But elsewhere it is more plainly spoken of God, that he maketh an hypocrite to reign, because the people are snared in perverseness. Wherefore though I have job 34. done what I can to show the cause why the true and just God gave the romans such assistance in erecting their Empires and Cities earthly glory upon such a frame of Monarchy, yet there may be a more secret cause then yet we see; namely the divers deserts of the world, open to God, though not to us: it being True virtue serveth not glory. plain to all godly men, that no man can have true virtue without true piety, that is, the true adoration of the one and true God: nor is that virtue true neither, when it serveth but for human ostentation. But those that are not of the etereternall city called in the scriptures the city of God, they are more useful to their earthly city (e) in possessing of that world-respecting virtue, then if they wanted that also. But if (f) those that are truly Godly, and upright of life, come to have the government of estates, there can no greater happiness befall the world then through the mercy of God to be governed by such men. And they do attribute all their virtues (be they never so admired) unto the grace of God only, (g) who gave them, to their desires, their faith and prayers: besides, they know how far they are from true perfection of justice; I mean such as is in the angelical powers, for whose fellowship they make themselves fit. But let that virtue that serveth humane glory without piety be never so much extolled, it is not comparable so much as with the unperfect beginnings of the Saints virtues, whose assured hope standeth fixed in the grace and mercy of the true God. L. VIVES. Manner's (a) Barbarism] or vice's barbarism, read whether you will (b) Nero] Son to Domitius Aenobarbus and Agrippina, daughter to Germanicus: adopted by Cl. Caesar, his Stepfather, and named Nero ●…aesar, after him he succeeded him, and was the last of Caesar's blood that was emperor: a man of strange cruelty and beastliness, and for these vices left noted to all posterity: otherwise, as Suetonius saith, he was desirous of eternity of same. He called Apr●…, after himself Neroneus, and meant to have named Rome Neropolis. (c) Lest Tirans.] Of Tyrannus. this before, the King & the tyrant, diffred not of old, the word comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to command or sway. Virgil. Te propter lybicae gentis Nomadumque Tyranni Odêre incensi: for thee, the Libyans Anea●…. and Numidian Kings, hated him fore. etc. and Horace carm. 3. Princeps et innantem Maricae Littoribus tenuisse Lyrim, latè Tyrannus. etc. Tyrannus is sometimes Lord & sometimes a cruel Prince, sometimes a Potent Prince. Acron. So Augustine here putteth worthy, for Potent, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek being both power, and fortitude: as Homer & Pindarus, often use it: In Nemeis de Hercule. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, my sons valour. (d) Some peace.] Latinus his words of Aeneas, whom he held to be a good man. (e) In possessing.] A falty place, the sense is: when they have that desire of human glory they are of more use in an earthly state, then when they want it. (f) Those that.] They are the true Philosophers and if they should rule, or the rulers were like them, happy should the states be, saith Plato. (g) Who gave.] James. 1. 5, 6. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, which giveth, to all men liberally and reproacheth no man, and he shall give it him. But let him ask in faith and waver not. etc. That virtue is as much disgraced in serving humane glory as in obeying the pleasures of the body. CHAP. 20. THe Philosophers that (a) make virtue the scope of all humane good, do use in disgrace of such as approved virtue and yet applied it all to bodily delight (holding this to be desired for itself, and virtue to be sought only for respect to this pleasure) to delineate a Picture (as it were with their tongues) wherein The picture of pleasure. pleasure sitteth on a throne, like a delicate Queen, and all the Virtues about her, ready at a beck to do her command. There she commands prudence to seek out a way whereby pleasure may reign in safety: justice must go do good turns, to attain friends, for the use of corporal delights, and injury none: fortitudes task is, that if any hurt (not mortal) invade the body, she must hold pleasure so fast in the mind, that the remembrance of delights past, may dull the touch of the pain present. Temperance must so temper the nourishment, that immoderation come not to trouble the health, and so offend Lady pleasure, whom the Epicures do say is chiefly resident in the body's soundness. Thus the virtues being in their own dignities absolute commanders, must put all their glories under the feet of pleasure: and submit themselves to an imperious and dishonest woman. Then this picture, there cannot be a sight more vild deformed, and abominable to a good man, say the Philosophers, and it is true. Nor think I that the picture would be so fair as it should be, if humane glory were painted in the throne of pleasure: for though it be not a (b) nice piece, as the other is, yet it is turgid, and full of empty air▪ so that ill should it beseem the substantial virtues, to be subject to such a shadow, that prudence should foresee nothing, justice distribute nothing, fortitude endure n●…thing, temperance moderate nothing, but that which aimeth at the pleasing of men & serving of windy glory. Nor are they quite from this blot, who contemning the judgements of others (as scorners of glory) yet in their own conceit hold their wisdom at a high prize, for their virtue (have they any) serveth humane glory in another manner, for he that pleaseth himself is (c) but a man, but he that builds and believes truly and piously upon God, whom he loveth, applieth his thoughts more upon that which he displeaseth himself in, then upon those things, which if they be in him, do rather please the truth, then him: nor doth he ascribe the power he hath to please, unto other, but unto his mercy, whom he feareth to displease: giving thanks for the cure of this, and praying for the cure of that. L. VIVES. Philosopher's that (a) make] The stoics, as Cleanthes. This picture Tully talketh of, De finib. l. 2. (b) Nice.] For glory is got by sweat and pains. (c) But a man] bends his affects no further than man's present being. That the true God in whose hand and providence all the state of the world consisteth, did order and dispose of the Monarchy of the romans. CHAP. 21. THis being thus, the true God (a) that giveth the heavenly kingdom only to the godly, but the earthly ones both to good and bad, as himself liketh, whose pleasure is all justice; he is to have all power of giving or taking away sovereignty, ascribed unto himself alone, and no other, for though we have shown somethings that he pleased to manifest unto us, yet far, far is it beyond our powers to penetrate into men's merits, or scan the deserts of kingdoms aright. This one God therefore, that neither stayeth from judging, nor favouring of mankind, when his pleasure was, and whilst it was his pleasure, let Rome have sovereignty: so did he with Assyria & Persia (b) who (as their books say) worshipped only two gods, a good & a bad.) to omit the Hebrews, of whom (I think) sufficient is already spoken, both of their worship of one God, & of their kingdom. But he that gave Persia corn without Sigetia's help, and so many gifts of the earth, without any of those many gods (that had each one a share in them, o●… rather were three or four to a share,) he also gave them their kingdom, without their helps, by whose adoration they thought they kept their kingdom. And so for the men: he that gave (c) Marius rule, gave Caesar rule, he that gave Augustus' it, gave Nero it: he that gave Vespasian rule or Titus his son (d) both sweet natured men, gave it also to Domitian, that cruel bloodsucker. And to be brief, he that gave it to Constantine the Christian, gave it also to julian (e) the Apostata, whose worthy towardness was wholly blinded by sacrilegious curiosity, and all through the desire of rule: whose heart wandered after the vanity of false oracles, as he found, when upon their promise of victory he burned all his ships that victualled his army: and then being slain in one of his many rash adventures, he left his poor army in the ●…awes of their enemies, without all means of escape, but that God Terminus (of whom we spoke before) was feign to yield, and to remove the bounds of the Empire. Thus did he give place to necessity that would not give place to jupiter. All these did the True, sacred and only God dispose and direct as he pleased, & if the causes be unkowne why he did thus, or thus, is he therefore unjust? L. VIVES. GOd that (a) giveth] Here is a diversity of reading in the text: but all comes to one sense. (b) Who as their] The Persian Magi (whose chief Zoroafter was) held two beginnings Zoroafter. a good and a bad: that the God of heauen●…, this the god of hell. This they called Pluto and Ari●…anius, the evil Daemon: that jove and Horosmades, the good Daemon, Hermipp. Eudox. Theo●…p. apud Two kinds of souls in Plato's world. Pythagoras' his numbers. The Manichees. Laert. Those Plato seems to follow (de leg. l. 10.) putting two sorts of souls in the world, originals of good and original of bad: unless he do rather Pythagorize: who held, that the unity was God, the mind, the nature, and the good of every thing: the number of two, infinite, material, multiplicable, the Genius and evil. The Manichees also (Aug. de heres.) held two beginnings, contrary, and coeternal: and two natures and substances of good and of evil: wherein they followed the old heretics. (c) Marius] He coupleth a good and a bad together. Marius most cruel, Caesar most courteous, Augustus the best Emperor, Nero the worst that could be. (d) Both sweetly] T. Vespasian had two sons, Titus & Domitian. Their father was conceited and full of delicate mirth: and Titus the son so gentle, and indeed so full a man, that he was Vespasian. called Mankinds Delicacy: Sueton. I have resolved (saith Pliny the second in his prefa●… of his natural History to Titus the son) to declare unto you (most mirthful Emper●…, for that stile is the fittest, as being your old inheritance from your Father. etc. Domitian was neither like father nor brother, but bloody and hated of all men. (e) The Apostata] a fugitive, or turncoat: for being first a Christian, Libanius the Sophister perverted Domitian. him, and from that time he was all for oracles, lots, with crafts and promises of Magicians, where-by he came to destruction, being otherwise a man of a great spirit, and one as fit for julian. Empire as the world afforded. That the originals and conclusions of wars are all at God's dispose. CHAP. 22. SO likewise doth he with the times and ends of war, be it his pleasure justly to correct, or mercifully to pity mankind ending them sooner or later, as he willeth. Pompeyeses (a) Pirate war, and Scipio his (b) third African war, were ended wars soon ended. with incredible celerity. The Slaves was also, (c) though it cost Rome two Consuls and many Captains, making all Italy feel the smart of it, yet in the third year after it was begun, it was finished. The Picenes, Martians, Pelignians, (Italians all) sought to pluck their necks from their long and strict servitude unto Rome, though it now had subdued huge dominions, and razed Carthage. In this war the romans were sorely foiled (d) two Consuls killed, and many a tall soldier and worthy Senator left dead: yet this war had continuance but unto the 5. year: marry the second African war lasted a great while, eighteen years: to the great weakening of the commonweal, and almost the utter ruin wars hardly ended. thereof, 70000. soldiers falling in (e) two battles. The first Afr●…can war held three and twenty years: Mithridates war (f) forty years. And lest any one should think that in the ancient laudable times the romans had any better rules to dispatch war sooner than the rest, the Samnites war lasted (g) almost fifty years, wherein the romans were conquered, even unto slavery. But because they loved not glory for justice, but justice for glory, they (h) broke the peace and league which they had made. These I write, because some being ignorant in antiquities, and othersome being dissemblers of what they know, might otherwise upon discovery of a long war since the time of Christianity, fly in the face of our religion, and say if it were not so potent, and if the old adorations were restored, that war would have been ended by the Romans' virtues, and the assistance of Mars and Bellona, assoon as the rest were. Let them that reads of their wars, recollect but what (ay) uncertain fortune the ancient romans had in the wars with the whole world, being tossed like a tempestuous sea, with thousand storms of invasions and arms: and then let them needs confess, what so feign they would conceal, and cease in this opposition against God's power, to possess others with errors, and be the butchers of their own souls. L. VIVES. Pompeys' (a) Pirates war] Ended in forty days after Pompey's departure from Brund●…. Flor. Cic. pro leg. Manl. (b) Third African] Begun and ended in three years. (c) Although] Arius the Pr●…tor and two Consuls, Cn. Lentulus and L. Gellius were overthrown by Spartacus. (d) Two Consuls] L. ●…ul Caesar, and P. Rutilius. L●…uie. (e) Two battles▪] At Thrasy●…ne▪ and at Cannae. (f) Forty years] Florus, but it was first stayed by a peace made with Sylla: then renewed by L. Lucullus, and lastly ended by Pompey the great. (g) Almost fifty.] forty nine▪ as Eutropius and Orosius account. Florus saith fifty, Appian eighty, and he is nearest Li●…es account, that saith the romans war with the S●…nites lasted near an hundred years, in uncertainty of fortune. lib. 23. But if Fabius Gurges ended it in his Consulship, it is but fifty years from the Consulships of M. Val. corvinus and Cornelius Cossus. But indeed the Samnites joined with Pyrrhus, and had had a conflict before with D●…ntatus▪ between Gurges his Consulship and Pyrrhus his coming into Italy. (h) Broke the peace] This Li●…ie she weth crookedly enough. lib. 9 wherein he saith, that the romans childishly deluded the faith, league, and oath, which they had passed to Pontius Captain of the Sam●…tes: it was true. For they sought forth childish evasions for their own profit. ay Vncerta●… 〈◊〉] some have eventus here for Fortune, I will not dispute whether eventus may have eventus. the plural number: Ualla saith it is rare, but yet sometimes it is so used, he doth not deny it. Of the battle wherein Rhadagaisus, an idolatrous King of the Goths was slain, with all his army. CHAP. 23. NAy that wonderful mercy of Gods, in an act done with in our memories, they will not so much as mention with thanksgiving, but endeavour as much as in them lieth, to smother it in eternal oblivion; which should we do, we should be as graceless and ungrateful as they. Rhadagaisus (a) King of the G●…es▪ having brought a huge army even before the walls of Rome, and holding his sword even over their necks (as it were) upon one day was overthrown so sudde●…ly, that not so much as one Roman being slain; slain? no nor yet woun●…, his whole army consisting of above ten thousand men, was utterly defeated▪ ●…ee himself and his sons taken and justly beheaded. If this wicked Bar●… had entered Rome with those forces, whom would he have spared? what places would he have honoured, what God would he have feared? whose blood, whose chastity should have escaped him? But o how these wretches boasted of his precedent conquests, that he had been so victorious, that he had gotten such and such fields, only because he was a daily sacrificer to those gods which Christianity had chased from Rome! For at his approach thither, where by the b●…ck of God's Majesty he was crushed to nothing, his fame was so spacious that it was told us here at Carthage, that the Pagans believed, reported, and boasted that he could not be conquered by any of those that would not suff●… the romans to adore those gods, whose good favours he had obtained by the daily sacrifices he offered. Thus they never gave thanks for the merciful goodness of God, who having resolved to chasti●…e the world's corruption with a greater Barbarian irruption, yet did moderate his justice with such mercy, that at first he gave their leader into the hands of his enemies, because the Devils whom he served should gain no souls by the persuasion of the glory of his conquests. And then when such Barbarians had taken Rome, as against all custom of hostili●… defended▪ such as fled into the holy places▪ only in reverence of Christianity, pro●…ing themselves far greater enemies for the name of Christ, unto the D●…ls and sacrilegions sacrifices, (in which the other reposed his trust) then unto the opposed soldiers themselves: Thus God did give the romans this merciful correction, and yet by destroying the devils adorer, showed them that there was neither any help in those sacrifices for the state of this present life (as they may see that will be attentive and not obstinate) nor that the true religion is to be refused for earthly necessities, but rather held fast, in hope and expectation of the heavenly glories. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) King, [This was in Honorius his time, of whom read the preface. The state and truth of a Christian Emperors felicity. CHAP. 24. FOr we Christians do not say, that Christian Emperors are happy, because they have a long reign, or die leaving their sons in quiet possession of their Empires, or have been ever victorious, or powerful against all their opposers. These are but gifts and solaces of this laborious, joyless life; Idolaters, and such as belong not to God (as these Emperors do) may enjoy them: Because God in his mercy will not have these that know him, to believe that such things are the best goods he giveth. But happy they are (say we) if they reign justly, free from being puffed up with the glozing exaltations of their attendance, or the cringes of their subjects, if they know themselves to be but men, and remember that: if they make their power their trumpeter, to divulge the true adoration of God's Majesty, if they love, fear and honour him: if they long the most for that Empire (a) where they need not fear to have partners: if they be slack to avenge, quick to forgive: if they use correction for the public good, and not for private hate: if their pardons promise not liberality of offending, but indeed only hope of reformation: if they counterpoise their enforced acts of severity, with the like weight of bounty and clemency, (b) if their lusts be the lesser because they have the larger licence: if they desires to rule their own affects, rather than others estates: and if they do all things, not for glory, but for charity, and with all, and before all, give God the due sacrifice of prayer, for their imperfections; Such Christian Emperors we call happy, here in hope, and hereafter, when the time we look for, cometh indeed. L. VIVES. EMpire (a) where] On earth Kings love no consorts: power is impatient of participation, saith Lucan, but in heavens joys, the more fellows, rather the more joy than the less. (b) If their] A proverb, the more leave, the less lust should follow. Of the prosperous estate that God bestowed upon Constantine a Christian Emperor. CHAP. 25. FOr the good God, lest those that worship him for the life of eternity, should think that no man can attain to this earthly glory, but such as adore the Devils, (whose (a) power in those things beareth a great sway) bestowed such store of those earthly benefits as no other man durst wish for, upon (b) Constantine the Emperor, one that worshipped no Devils, but only the said true God. To him did he grant the building of (c) a new City, partaker of the (d) Roman Empire, as the Daughter of Rome herself; but (e) excluding all diabolical temples, or idols. Long did he reign therein, and alone sway de (f) the whole Roman world: he was in war most victorious: in suppressing (g) tyrant's most fortunate. He died an aged man, and left his (h) sons all Emperors; But least any Emperor after him, should turn Christian for hope of attaining Constantine's felicity, (the scope of Christianity being not that, but life eternal.) He cut off (i) jovinian far sooner than he did julian, & suffered (k) Gratia●… to be slain by his enemy's sword: yet with far more respect, than (l) Pompey was Christian Emperors dying unfortunately. killed, that worshipped the Roman gods. For Cato, whom he left as his successor in the war he waged, could never revenge his death; But Gratianus (though the souls of the godly regard not such solaces) was fully revenged by (m) Theodosius, with whom he shared the Empire, though he had (n) a younger brother: being more respective of a faithful friend then of a too awful power. L. VIVES. WHose (a) power] In the earth there is none like Behemoth, saith job. Chap. 41. vers. 24. for he knows indeed where all treasure lieth, which is the means to height, and the ruining of foes. (b) Constantine] son to Constantius and Helen: borne in Britain, first Christian Emperor of Rome, after Philip: he overthrew his opposers, and lived and died an Constantine. happy old Emperor, at Nicomedia, the 31. year of his Empire. (c) A new City] Virgil. O regina novam cui condere jupiter urbem, etc. O Queen, whom jove voutchsafes to build a new, etc. Constantine having gotten an universal peace, and rid himself of troubles, began to think of building a new city, to be called by his name: first he began one at Sardis in Asia, then at Sigeum in Troas: thirdly at Chalcedon, and there he erected walls. But as they wrought, the birds took the lines of the Masons, and carried them to Byzantium in Thrace, Pyzance. Constantinople. and so by God's appointment (as it were) they built it up there, naming it Constantinople, as it is called yet: and Byzantium also, because of the other town that Pausanias' the Spart●… King built there: which Severus almost, and Galienus soldiers utterly subverted. (d) For thither did Constantine transport many Senators, and noble families; and the Emperors lay more at Constantinople then at Rome: so contended it with Rome in state and dignity. (e) Excluding] He dedicated it to the Blessed Virgin Mary. (f) Roman world,] The Roman world. World, for that part of the world that the romans had under them: so say we the Christian world, for that part we hold. Lucan useth the Iberean world, for Spain, and the 〈◊〉 world for France and Germany: And when Caesar was to remove out of Spain into Italy, and so into Greece: Uictrices aquilas aliam laturus in orbem, Bending his Eagles to another world: saith he. The phrase Marcellinus useth often: and Aurelian to Zenobia wrote himself Emperor of the Roman world, Treble. Pollio. Now it is foolish to call them Emperors of that part of the world that they never conquered: or of that which they once had conquered, and now have lost, because they lost it by the same law they got it, by war and bloodshed. But these vain titles make Princes go mad, whereas indeed they are nothing but the world's firebrands, and mankinds destructions. Shame on the doltish Lawyers, for jangling so about them. (g) Tyrant's] Maxentius and Licinius. (h) Sons] Constantius, Constantine, and Constans: It is not certain whether he himself shared the Empire amongst them, or they amongst themselves after his death. ay jovinian] he died at Dadastan in jovinian. Asia, of a pain in the stomach, the seventh month of his Empire. Uarromanus and he being Consuls. He was a Christian, and cannonized a Saint by Valentinian. (k) Gratian] Gratian. Valentinians son. The Roman bands conspired against him whilst he lived at Tre●…ers, and elected one Maximus for their leader, who slew him as he was upon going into Italy, He was a religious Christian Prince. This of him, and the rest here mentioned, I have from Eutropius, Paulus Diaconus, Oros. and Pomp. Laetus, (l) Pompey] Ptolemy's guard Pompey. flew him in a boat before all the people of Alexandria, looking on them. An unworthy death for so worthy a man. Liu. Flor. Plutarch, Lucan, Appian. (m) Theodosius] He was Theodosiu●… a Spaniard, Gratian at Syrmium made him his fellow Emperor, with the people's great applause, being a man both virtuous and valiant, descended from trajan, and (they say) like him in person. He took Maximus at Aquileia, and beheaded him. (n) A younger] Valentinian. Of the faith and devotion of Theodosius Emperor. CHAP. 26. SO he did not only keep the faith which he ought him in his life time, but like a Christian indeed, received his little brother Valentinian into his protection and defence, when Maximus his murderer had chased him from his state: and held the care of a father over him, which he needed not have done, but might easilyly have taken all to himself, had his ambition overpoysed his religion. But he preserved his state imperial for him, and gave him all the comfort, honest courtesy could bestow. And when as the good fortune of Maximus begot him a terrible name, Theodosius did not creep into a corner of his Palace, with wizards and conjurers, but sent to (b) john, that lived in a wild ernesse of Egypt, whom john an Hermit and a Prophet. he had hard was graced from God by the spirit of prophecy: to him sent he and received a true promise of victory. So soon after having killed the tyrant Maximus he restored the (c) child Valentinian to this empire, from whence he was driven showing him all the reverend love that could be: and when this child was slain, (as he was soon after, either by treachery, or by some other casualty) and that Eugenius another tyrant was unlawfully stepped up in his place, receiving another answer from the prophet, his faith being firm, he fetched him down from his usurped place, rather by prayer then power, for the soldiers that were in the battle on the usurpers side told it unto us, that there came such a violent wind from Theodosius his side, that it smote their darts forth of their hands, and A great wind aided Theodosius if any were thrown, it took them presently in an instant, and forced them upon the faces of those that threw them. And therefore (d) Claudian (though no Christian) sings this well of his praise. O nimiu●… dil●…cte deo cui militat aethaer, ●…t coniurati veniunt ad cl●…ssica venti. O gods beloved, whom●… powers aereal, And winds come armed to help, when thou dost call●… And being victor (according to his faith and presage) he threw down certaives Images of jupiter which had been consecrated (I know not with what ceremonies) against him, and mirthfully and kindly (e) gave his footmen their thunderboults, who (as they well might) jested upon them: because they were glad, and said they would abide their flashes well enough: for the sons of his foe, some of them fell in the fight (not by his command:) others being not yet Christians, but flying into the Church, by this means he made Christians, and loved them with a Christian charity: nor diminishing their honours a whit, but adding more to them. He suffered no private grudges to be held against any one after the victory. He used not these civil wars, like as Cynna, Marius, and Sy●… did, that would not have them ended, (f) when they were ended; but he rather sorrowed that they were begun, then ended then, to any man's hurt. And in all these troubles, from his reigns beginning, he forgot not to assist and succou●… the labouring Church, by all the wholesome laws which he could promulgate against the faithless: (g) Valens an Arrian heretic having done much hurt therein whereof he rejoiced more to be a member then an earthly Emperor. He commanded the demolition of all Idols of the Gentiles, knowing that not so much as earthly blessings are in the devils power, but all and each particular in Gods. And what was there ever more memorable than that religious (h) humility of his, when being even forced by his attendants to revenge the i●…iury offered him by the Thessalonicans, (unto whom notwithstanding at the bishops entreaties he had promised pardon) he was excommunica●… 〈◊〉 h●…s humi●…y. and showed such repentance, that the people entreating for him, rather did lament to see the imperial Majesty so dejected, than their feared his war●… when they had offended. These good works, and a tedious roll of such like, did he bear away with him out of this transitory smoke of all kind of humane glory: their reward is eternal felicity, given by the true God, only to the good. For the rest, be they honours, or helps of this life, as the world itself, light, air, water, earth, soul, sense, and spirit of life, this he giveth promilcually to good and bad: and so he doth also with the greatness and continuance of the temporal Empires of all men, which he bestoweth on either sort, as he pleaseth. L. VIVES. WHen (a) as] Andragathius one of Maximus his Countess, an excellent soldier, and a cunning leader, managed all the war, and with his tricks brought Theodosius to many shrewd plunges. (b) john] An Anchorite, that had the spirit of prophecy presaging many john the Anchorite. things, and this victory of Theodosius amongst others. Prosper Aquitan. Theodosius sent often to him for counsel in difficult matters. Diacon. (c) The child] He made him, being Gratians brother, Emperor of the West, but Arbogastes, Count of Uienna slew him by treachery, set up Eugenius, and with a mighty power of Barbarians stopped the passage of the Alpes, to keep Theodo●…s back. The godly Prince fasted and prayed all the night before the battle, and the next day fought with them, though being far their inferior in number, and yet by gods great and miraculous power, got a famous victory. Eugenius was taken and put to death. Arbogastes slew himself. (d) Claudian] Most men hold him an Egyptian, and so Posidonius Claudian. that lived with him, and was his familiar affirmeth. Not Posidonius the Rhodian, but a certain Prelate of Africa. He was borne to Poetry, elegantly wittied, but a little superstitious, There is a Poem of Christ under his name, perhaps he made it to please Honorius, for he was a great flatterer. The verses here cited, are in his Panegyric upon Honorius his third Consulship, written rather in his praise then upon Theodosius, though he speak of this victory at the Alpes, which like a scurrilous flatterer, he rather ascribeth to Honorius his fate and felicity, then to Theodosius his piety. For thus he saith: — Victoria velox Auspiciis effecta tuis: pugnastis uterque, Tu fatis, genitorque manu: te propter & Alpe●… Inuadi faciles: cauto nec profuit hosti Munitis haesisse l●…cis: spes irrita valli Concid●… & scopulis patuerunt claustra rewlsis. Te propter gelidis Aquilo de monte procellis Obruit adversas aci●…s, revolutáque tela Vertit in auctores, & turbine repulit haste as. O nimium dilect deo cui fundit ab antris Aeolus armatas hyemes, cui mi●…itat aether, Et coniurati veniunt ad classica venti! — Swift victory needs not be sought, she's thine: this fight, thou and ●…hy father fought; Their native strength: nor did it boot the foe To man his forts: the trench and rocks fell flat, And left away for thee to enter at. For thee, the north-wind from the heights descended, In whi●…le-windes raining all the darts they bended At thee, on their own breasts, in pointed showers: O Gods beloved! to whom the stormy powers Raised from the deep in arms ethercall, And winds are priest to help, when thou dost call. T●… Claudi●…n hath it, differing somewhat from Augustine's quotation. It may be the vers●…s were spread at first as Augustine hath them, for he lived in Claudians' time. In the copy of Col●… it is r●…d, lust as it is in the text. O nimium dilect deo cui militet ●…ther! etc. And so in Orosius and 〈◊〉. (e) Footmen] An office in court, that was belonging to the speedy dispatch of the Foo●…. Prince's message: not much unlike our Lackeys at this day: Footmen they were called both of old by Tully, and of late times by martial. Suetonius mentioneth them in his Nero: He never traveled ●…r made a journey (saith he of Nero) without a thousand Caroches, their mules shod all with sil●…r, his muletours all in silken raiments, and all his coatch-men and footmen in their brac●…lets and rich coats. And in his Titus: Presently he sent his footmen to the others mother, who was a far off, to tell her very carefully that her son was well. The Roman Emperor removing into Greece, gave Greek names to all the offices about them: and amongst others, these footmen were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, runners. Such they had of old also, as Alexander the great had Philonides, that ran 1200. furlongs in one day: Pliny. (f) When they were] They would not be quiet when the wars were finished: but having no foes left to kill, made themselves some continually to practise murder upon. (g) Valens] A chief Arrian, he did extreme Valens. harm to the Bishops and religious men in the Church, and put many of them to death, and sent Arian Bishops to the Goths, that desired to be instructed in the Christian faith. (h) Humility] The Thessalonicans (citizens of a town of Macedonia so called) having by a tumult The massacr●… 〈◊〉 Thessalonica. begun in the Theatre, expelled the Magistrates out of the town, Theodosius being here-at grievously offended, intended to punish this injurious act most severely: yet by the Bishop's entreaties, pardoned them. Notwithstanding, the wronged parties having many friends in court that ceased not daily to animate and urge Theodosius to this revenge, at length being overcome by their entreaties, he sent an army, and put a many thousands of the citizens to death. For which deed, Ambrose Bishop of Milan, on good-Friday, excommunicated him, ●…arring him the Church, until he had satisfied for his crime by a public repentance. He obeyed Th●…odosius 〈◊〉. and prostrating himself humbly before the world (as the old custom was) professed himself repentant, and sorry for his offence, entreated pardon first of God and the whole host of heaven, next of the Bishop, and lastly of all the whole church, and being thus purged, was restored to the use of Church and Sacraments. Augustine's invective against such as wrote against the Books already published. CHAP. 27. But now I see I must take those in hand, that seeing they are convicted by just plain arguments in this, that these false gods have no power in the distribution of temporal goods, (which fools desire only) now go to affirm that they are worshipped, not for the helps of this life present, but of that which is to come. For in these five books past, we have said enough to such as (like little babies) cry out that they would feign worship them for those earthly helps, but cannot be suffered. The first three Books I had no sooner finished, and let them pass abroad unto some men's hands, but I heard of some that prepared to make (I know not what) an answer to them, or a reply upon them. Afterward I heard, that they had written them, and did but watch (a) a time when to publish it securely. But I advise them not to wish a thing so inexpedient: (b) It is an easy 〈◊〉. thing for any man to seem to have made an answer, that is not altogether silent; but what is more talkative than vanity, which cannot have the power of truth, by reason it hath more tongue than truth? But let these fellows mark each 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more 〈◊〉 ●…hen truth thing well: and if their impartial judgements tell them, that their tongue-ripe Satirism may more easily disturb the truth of this world, then subvert it, let them keep in their trumperies, and learn rather to be reform by the wise, then applauded by the foolish. For if they expect a time (not for the freedom of truth but) for the licensing of reproach, God forbid that that should be true of them, which Tully spoke of a certain man, that was called happy, in having free lea●…e to ●…ffend. (c) O wretched he that hath free liberty to offend! And therefore what ever he be, that thinketh himself happy in his freedom of repro●…hing others, I give him to understand that far happier should he be in the lack of that licence, seeing that as now, he may in form of consultation contradict or oppose what he will, setting aside the affecting of vain applause: and hear what he will, and what is fit in honest, grave, free, and friendly disputation. L. VIVES. WAtch (a) a time] Many write against others, and watch a time for the publication, to the hurt of the adversary and their own profit. Such men writing only to do mischief, are to be hated as the execrable enemies of all good judgements. For who cannot do injury? And what a mind hath he that thinketh his gifts and learning must serve him to use unto others ruin? If they seek to do good by writing, let them publish them then, when they may do●… others the most good, and their opponents the least hurt. Let them set them forth whil●… 〈◊〉 adversary lives, is lusty, and can reply upon them, and defend his own cause. In pr●…at. h●…stor not. Pl●…●…tes that Asinius Pollio had Orations against Plancus, which he meant to publish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 death, lest he should come upon him with a reply. Plancus hearing of it, tush saith 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 is none but ghosts will contend with the dead: which answer so cut the combs of the ●…ions, that all Scholars made jests and mocks of them. (b) It is easy] The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (the voluntary censurer of the contentions between the greatest Scholars) if 〈◊〉 silent, presently condemn him, and give him for conquered, without any other trial: and holding him the sufficient answerer, that doth not hold his peace. If both write 〈◊〉; O ●…en (say they) it is a hard controversy, and so leave it: never looking, (nor if they wo●…ld could they discern) whose cause is better defended; because they do not understand it: 〈◊〉 even as Augustine saith here, Uanity having more words than verity; those fools ofte●…●…on that side, that kept the most coil. (c) O wretched] Tusc. l. 5. speaking of Cin●…: Is 〈◊〉 ●…appy that slew those men: no, I rather think him wretched, not only for doing it, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ied himself so to get the licence to do it: Though to offend is unlawful, and li●…●…o man, we abuse the world: for that is lawful which each man's good hath left 〈◊〉 ●…o perform or follow. Finis, lib. 5. THE CONTENTS OF THE sixth book of the City of God. 1. Of those that affirm they do worship these Gods for eternal life, and not for temporal respects. 2. What may be thought of Varroes' opinion of the gods, who dealeth so with them in his discovery of them and their ceremonies, that with more reverence unto them he might have held his peace. 3. The division of Varroes' books which 〈◊〉 styleth. The Antiquities of Divine & humane affairs. 4. That by Varroes' disputations the affairs of those men that worshipped the gods, are of far more antiquity than those of the Gods themselves. 5. Of Varroes three kinds of Divinity: Fabulous, Natural and Politic. 6. Of the Fabulous and Politic Divinity against Varro. 7. The coherence and similitude between the fabulous Divinity and the civil. 8. Of the natural interpretations which the Paynim Doctors pretend for their Gods. 9 Of the offices of each peculiar God. 10. Of Senecaes' freer reprehension of the civil Theology than Varroes was of the Fabulous. 11. Senecaes' opinion of the jews. 12. That it is plain, by this discovery of the Pagan God's vanity, that they cannot give eternal life, having no power to help in the temporal. FINIS. THE six BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of those that affirm they do worship these gods for eternal life and not for temporal respects. CHAP. 1. IN the five precedent books I think they be sufficiently confounded that hold that worship justly given unto these false gods, which is peculiar only to one true GOD, and in greek is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and that this worship ought to be offered unto them for temporal commodities, all which Gods, Christianity convinceth either to be frivolous and unprofitable Images, and damned spirits, or at least, and at best no Creators, but Creatures. But who knoweth not that neither those five books, nor all that a man could make, would stay and satisfy excess of obstinacy? for it is some men's glory (vain indeed) never to yield to the truth, but oppose it to their own perdition, in whose bosoms sin hath so large an Empire, for their disease exceedth all cure, not through the Physicians want of skill, but the patients impatient frowardness. But as for such as read the said books without any obstinate intent, or with little, and ponder the things they read in an unpartial discretion, those shall approve, that our labour in their satisfaction, hath rather performed more than the question required then otherwise: and that all the malice, wherein they ●…ke Christianity the cause of all the afflictions falling upon this transitory world, (the best learned of them dissembling their knowledge against their o●…●…sciences) is not only void of all reason and honesty, but fraughted 〈◊〉 rashness and pernicious impudence. Now therefore (as our method 〈◊〉) are they to be dealt withal that make eternity the end of this erroni●… worship, which Christian religion so rejecteth: let us take our beginning from the holy and oraculous Psalmist, that saith (a) Blessed is the man that maketh Psam. 40. 4. the ●…rd his trust, and regardeth not the proud nor such as turn aside to lies. But of all such as do go astray in those errors, the Philosophers are least falty, that could never abide the fond opinions of the vulgar, who made their gods images, & fabled divers things of them, most false and unworthy the Deities, or else believed them from the reports of others, and from that belief intruded them into the ceremonies, and made them parts of their worships. Wherefore with such as (b) though they durst not openly, yet secretly disliked those things, this question may be●…lty disputed of: Whether it be fit to worship one God the maker of all bodies and spirits, for the life to come, or many gods (c) being all (by their best Philosophers confessions,) both created and advanced. But who can endure to hear it said that the gods which I reckoned up in part, in the 4. book, and have peculiar charges can give one life eternal. And those sharp witted men that 〈◊〉 of the good they do by writing of these things, in instructing the people what to entreat at each of their hands, would they commit such a gross absurdity as that which the Mimics do in jest, ask water of Bacchus and 〈◊〉 of the Nymphs? As thus: would they teach a man that prayed un●… the Nymphs for wine, if they answered him, we have no wine, go to ●…hus for that: Then to reply, if you have no wine I pray you then give me life eternal? what grosser foolery could there be then this? would not the Nymphs fall a laughing (for they are (d) prone to laughter when they do not affect deceit as the devils use to do) and say to him, why fond man dost thou think we have life eternal at command, that have not a cup of wine at command as thou hearest? Such fruitless absurdity should it be to ask eternal life or hope for it of such Gods as are so bound to peculiar charges in things respecting Life eternal in vai●… asked of the gods. this frail and transitory life, that it were like mymicall scurrility to demand any thing of any one of them which resteth under the disposing of another. Which when the Mimikes do, men do very worthily laugh at them in the Theatre, and when ignorant fools do it, they are far more worthily derided in the world. Wherefore the peculiar positions that we ought to make unto every god, by the governors of cities, their learned men have compiled, and left unto memory: which must be made to Bacchus, which to the Nymphs, Vulcan etc. part whereof I recited in the fourth book, and part I willingly omitted. Now than if it be an error to ask wine of Ceres, bread of Bacchus, water of Vulcan, and sire of the Nymphs: how much more were it an error to ask life eternal of any one of them? wherefore if that in our disputation about the earthly Kingdoms, and in whose power they should be, we showed that it was directly false to believe that they consisted in the power of any one of those imaginary gods, were it not outrageous madness then to believe that the life eternal; with which the Kingdoms of the earth are no way worthy to be compared, should be in the gift of any of them? Nor can their state, and height, compared with the baseness of an earthly Kingdom in respect of them, be a sufficient cloak for their defect in not being able to give it: because (forsooth) they do not respect it. No, what ever he be that considering the frailty of man's nature maketh a scorn of the momentary state of earthly dominion, he will think it a●… unworthy injury to the gods to have the giving and guarding of such vanities imposed upon them. And by this, if that (according as we proved sufficiently in the two books last passed) no one god of all this catalogue of noble and ignoble god●… were fit to behold the bestower of earthly states, how much less fit were they all to make a mortal man partaker of immortality? Besides (because now we dispute against those that stand for their worship in respect of the life to come) they are not to be worshipped for those things which these men's erroneous opinion (far from all truth) have put as their proprieties, and things peculiarly in their power: as they believe that hold the honouring of them very useful in things of this present life, against whom I have spoken to my power in the 〈◊〉 precedent volumes. Which being thus, if such as adore Iwentas, flourish in v●…or of youth, and those that do not, either die under age, or pass it with the ●…fes of decrepit sickness: If the chins of Fortuna Barbata her servants 〈◊〉 ●…ll of hair, and all others be beardless: then justly might we say that thus 〈◊〉 ●…ese goddesses are limited in their offices: and therefore it were no ask li●…●…nall of Iwentas, that could not give one a beard, nor were any good to 〈◊〉 ●…cted of Fortuna Barbata after this life, that had not power to make one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he had a beard. But now, their worship being of no use for those things in their power, seeing many have worshipped Iwentas that lived not to be 〈◊〉; and as many honoured Fortuna Barbata that never had good beards: and many without beards that worshipped her were mocked by them that had be●…ds and scor●…●…r; is any man then so mad, that knowing the worshipping ●…f th●…m to be 〈◊〉 in those things whereto their pretended power extendeth, yet will believe it to be effectual in the obtaining life eternal? Nay even those that did share out their authority for them, (lest being so many, there should some sit idle,) and so taught their worship to the rude vulgar; nor these themselves durst affirm that the life eternal was a gift comprised in any of their powers. L. VIVES. BLessed (a) is the man] The Septuagints translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. That maketh the 〈◊〉, of the LORD his hope. But the Hebrew, original hath it as Augustine citeth it. Indeed; the difference is not of any moment. (b) Though they durst not] They feared the laws, as they did the Areopagites at Athens: as Tully saith of Epicurus. (c) Being all] Plato in Ti●…. (d) Pr●… to laughter] Alluding to Virgil in his Palaemon. Et quo, sed faciles Nymphae risere, sacello etc. The shrine wherein the pleasant Nymphs were merry. 〈◊〉 not call them Faciles, pleasant, or kind, because they were soon moved to laughter, but be●…use they were soon appeased, and easy to be entreated.— Faciles venerare Nap●…s, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his Georgikes; to adore the gentle Napaeae. And in the same sense are men called Ge●… ●…iles. What may be thought of Varro's opinion of the gods, who dealeth so with them in his discovery of them and their ceremonies, that with more reverence unto them he might have held his peace. CHAP▪ 2. W●… was ever a more curious inquisitor of these matters than Varro? a ●…re learned inventor, a more diligent judge, a more elegant divider, or a ●…act recorder? And though he be not eloquent yet is he so documenta●…▪ 〈◊〉 sententious, that to read his universal learning will delight one that 〈◊〉 matter, as much as T●…lly will one that loveth words. Yea Tully (a) him●…e leaveth this testimony of him, that the same disputation, that he handleth in his Academic dialogues, he had (he saith) with Marcus Varro, a man the most ●…ute, and (d) doub●…lesse the most learned of his time. (c) He saith no●… the mo●…●…quent, because herein he had his betters: but, most acute: and in his A●…kes where he maketh doubts of all things, he calleth him Doubtless the ●…st learned: being so assured hereof that he would take away all doubt which he ●…ed to induce into all questions, only in this Academical disputation forgetting himself to be an Academike. And in his first book, having com●…ed his works, (d) We saith ●…ee in the City were but as wandering p●…lgrimes, 〈◊〉 ●…kes brought us home, and taught us to know what, and whom we were. Thy 〈◊〉 age, time, religious and politic discipline, habitations, order, all the forms, causes 〈◊〉 kinds of divine and civil discipline, by these are fully discovered. So great was his learning, as (e) Terentius also testifieth of him in the verse. Vir doctissi●… v●…decunque Varro: Varro, a man of universal skill: Who hath read so much ●…t ●…ee wonder how he hath had time to write, and (f) hath written so much that we 〈◊〉 how any man should read so much. This man (I say) so learned and so witty, 〈◊〉 he been a direct opposer of that religion he wrote for, & held the ceremonies, 〈◊〉 ●…ay religious, but wholly superstitious, could not (I imagine) have recorded 〈◊〉 ●…testable absurdities thereof, than he hath already. But being a worshippe●… 〈◊〉 ●…ame gods, & a teacher of that worship, that he proffesseth he feareth that his work should be lost, not by the enemy's incursion, but by the citizen's negligence, and affirmeth that with a more worthy and commodious care were they to be preserved, then that wherewith Metellus fetched the Palladium from the slaves, and Aeneas his household gods from the sack of Troy: yet for all this, doth he leave such things to memory, as all, both learned and ignorant do judge most absurd and unworthy to be mentioned in religion? What ought we then to gather, but that this deeply Skilled man (being not freed by the holy spirit) was over-pressed with the custom of his city and yet under show of commending their religion gave the world notice of his opinion. L. VIVES. TUlly (a) himself] What Tully meant to handle in his Academikes, his thirteeneth Epistle of his first book to Atticus openeth fully: being rather indeed a whole volume, than an Epistle. He writeth also (de divinat. lib. 2.) that he wrote fourth books of Academical questions. And though he certify Atticus that he hath drawn them into two, yet wanteth there much: and of the two that we have extant, Nonius Marcellus quoteth the second divers times by the name of the fourth. The place Augustine citeth, is not extant in the books we have. (b) Doutbtlesse the most] Uarro in his life time (when envy stir most) was called the most learned of the Gowned men, and (which never man had besides him) in his life had his Varro while he lived had his Sea●…e ●…p. statue set up in the library which Asinius Pollio made public at Rome. (c) He saith not] Varro (as by his books left us doth appear) either regarded not, or else attained not any pleasing formality of stile. (d) We saith he] Academic. quest. lib. 1, and the like is in Philippic. 2. (e) Terentianus] A Carthaginian, living in Diocletians time, he wrote a work of letters, syllables Terentianus. and metres, in verse, which is yet extant. Servius and Priscian cite him very often. The verse Augustine quoteth is in the chapter of Phaleuciakes. (f) hath written] Gellius. lib. 3. relateth out of Varro his first book Hebdomarum, that being fourscore and four years of age, he had written 490. books of which some were lost at the ransacking of his library when he was proscribed. The division of Varro's books which he styleth, The antiquity of divine and humane affairs. CHAP. 3. HE wrote one and forty books of antiquities: dividing them into affairs divineand humane: these he handled in five and twenty of them, the divine in sixteen, so following the division, that every six books of humanity he divided into (a) four parts: prosecuting the persons, place, time, and nature of them all; in his first six he wrote of the men, in the second six of the places, in his third six of the times, in his last six of the actions: One singular book, as the argument of them all, he placed before them all: In his (d) divinity also he followeth the same method touching the gods, (for their rites are performed by men in time and place). The four heads I rehearsed he compriseth in three books peculiar. In the first three of the men, the next three of places, the third of the times, the last of the sacrifices, herein also handling who offered, where, when, and what they offered with acuity and judgement. But because the chief expectation was to know to whom they offered, of this followed a full discourse in his three last books, which made them up fifteen. But in all 16. because a book went as an argument by itself before all that followed: which being ended, consequently out of that fivefold division the three first books did follow of the men, so subdivided that the first was of the Priests, the second of the 3. of the fifteen (d) rite-obseruers. His second three books of the places, ●…dled. 1. the Chapels, second the Temples: 3. the religious places. The ●…hree books of the times, handled first their holidays. 2. the Circensian gam●…s: 3. the stage-plays. Of the three concerning the sacrifices▪ the 1. handled ●…tions: 2. the private offerings: 3. the public. All these as the parts of th●…●…recedent pomp, the gods themselves follow in the three last, they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all this cost is bestowed: In the 1. the gods known. 2. the god's ●…ine: 3. the whole company of them: 4. the selected principals of them. 〈◊〉 in this goodly frame and fabri●…e of a well distinguished work, it is appa●… t●… all that are not obstinately blind, that vain and impudent are they that beg or expect eternal life of any of these gods: both by that we have spoken 〈◊〉 ●…at we will speak. These are but the institutions of men, or of devils: not go●…●…ells as he saith, but to be plain wicked spirits, that out of their 〈◊〉 malice, instill such pernicious opinions into men's fantasies, by abu●… 〈◊〉 senses, and illuding their weak capacities, thereby to draw their 〈◊〉 ●…to vanity more deep, and unloose the hold they have, or might have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 changeable and eternal verity. Varro professeth himself to write of 〈◊〉 before Divinity, because first (saith he) there were Cities and soci●…▪ ●…ich afterward gave being to these institutions. But the true religion 〈◊〉 ●…riginall from earthly societies: God the giver of eternal comfort inspi●… i●…to the hearts of such as honour him. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉▪ parts] divided them into four sections, not inducing parts of contrarieties of 〈◊〉 (b) In his Divinity also] Identidem the old books read, but it may be an error in the 〈◊〉 ●…m is better: In like manner. (c) Augurs] Their order is of great Antiquity, deri●… 〈◊〉 to Greece, thence to Hetruria and the Latin Aborigines, and so to Rome. Romu●… Augur, and made 3. others. Dionysius. He set an Augur in every Tribe. Liu. In pro●…●…me they added a fourth: and afterwards five more which made up nine: And so they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Priests: Consuls M. Valerius; and Tar●…●…he ●…he proud having bought the books of the Sibyls, appointed two men to look in them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 need was: those were called the Duumvirs of the sacrifices. Afterwards these two were 〈◊〉 ●…enne; by the Sextian Licinian law in the contention of the orders, two years before the ●…ians were made capable of the Consulship: and a great while after, five more added, w●…●…mber stood firm ever after. That by Varro's disputations, the affairs of those men that worshipped the gods, are of far more Antiquitity than those of the gods themselves. CHAP. 4. T●…is therefore is the reason Varro giveth why he writes first of the men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ter of the gods who had their ceremonious institutions from men: 〈◊〉 (saith he) the Painter is elder than the picture, and the Carpenter then the 〈◊〉 ●…re Cities before their ordinances But yet he saith if he were to write of 〈◊〉 ●…ll nature of the gods, he would have begun with them, and have dealt 〈◊〉 men afterwards: As though here he writ but of part of their natures, 〈◊〉 of all: Or that (a) some part of the god's nature (though not all) should 〈◊〉 ●…lwaies be preferred before men? Nay what say you to his discourse in his 〈◊〉 l●…st books of gods certain, god's uncertain, and gods selected? 〈◊〉 he seems to omit no nature of the gods. Why then should he say if we 〈◊〉 ●…o write of all the nature of gods and men, we would have done with the gods over we would begin with the men? Either he writes of the god's natures in whole, in part, or not all: if in whole, then should the discourse have had first place in his work: if in part, why should it not be first nevertheless? Is it unfit to prefer part of the gods nature before whole man's? If it be much to prefer it before all the worlds, yet it is not so to prefer it before all the romans. And the Books were written only in Rome's respect, not in the worlds, yet (saith he) the men are fittest before, as the Painter to the picture, and the Carpenter to the building: plainly intimating that the Deities affairs had (as pictures and buildings have) their original directly from man. So then remaineth; that he wrote not all of the god's natures, which he would not speak plainly out, but leave to the reader's collection. For where he saith, (b) not all, Ordinarily it is understood (Some) but may be taken for (None) For none neither all nor some. For as he saith (c) If it were all the god's nature that he wrote of, he would have handled it before the men's. But truth (hold he his peace) crieth out, it should nevertheless have the place of the romans particular, though it be but particular itself. But it is rightly placed as it is, the last of all, therefore it is none at all. His desire therefore was not to prefer Humanity before Divinity, but truth before falsehood. For in his process of humanity he followeth history: but in his divinity nothing but vain relations and idle opinions. This is the aim of his subtle intimation, in preferring the first, and giving the reason why he doth so: Which had he not given, some other means perhaps might have been invented for the defence of his method. But giving it himself, he neither leaveth others place for other suspicions, nor fails to show that he doth but prefer men before men's institutions, not man's nature before the Deities: Herein confessing that his books of Divinity are not of the truth pertaining to their nature, but of their falsehood effecting others error: which (as we said in our 4. book) he professed that he would form nearer to the rule of nature if he were to build a City: but finding one established already, he could not choose but follow the grounded customs. L. VIVES. THat (a) some part] There is no part of the god's nature were it never so small but is to be preferred before man's whole. (b) Not all] It is a wonder that our Commentators miss to make a large discourse of aequipalences in this place, and of the Logicians axioms and dignities out of their fellow Petrus Hispanus: nor nothing of mobilities, and immobilities. Augustine in this place speaketh of the Logicians precepts, of, not all men dispute, and some men do not dispute, which run contrary: But not all affirmeth nothing: so that whether some men do not dispute, or none dispute, not all is truly said of either. For if it be true that no man do this, then true it is that not all men do it, because some do it not, if it be false to say all men do it: These arise out of the repugnances of contraries & contradictories: for if it be true that no man is, and false that some man is not such, then shall it be true that [all men are such] all is being contradictory to [some is not] and so should [all] and [none] light true in one sense, which cannot be; these precepts of enquiring truth and falsehood, Aristotle taught, and the Greek Logicians after him, as likewise Apuleius Perihermenias', Martian Capella and Severinus Boethius, whom we may call Latines, (c) If it were] Augustine taking away the adjunct taketh that also away to which it is an adjunct: Our Logicians say that rejecting the conditional conclusion, the precedent is rejected, so if he wrote of any nature of the gods, it were to come before humane affairs: but that which he doth write is not to come before them: Therefore he writeth not of God's nature: Otherwise the consequence were were false if the antecedent were true and the consequent false. For the repugnance of the consequent should concur with the antecedent. Now this discourse of mine were logical if the terms were such, that is schoole-termes, filled with barbarism and absurdity, but because they are grammar, that is something nearer the latin, though not fully latin, yet they are Gr●…rian, not Logical. Of Varro his three kinds of divinity, fabulous, natural, and politic. CHAP. 5. Again, what meaneth his threefold distinction of the doctrine concerning the gods, into mythicall, Physical, & civil? and (to give him a latin tongue) That is the first, (a) fabulare, but we will call it fabulous, for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in greek, it is a fable or tale. The second Natural as the use of the word teacheth plain. The third he nameth in latin, Civil: And then proceedeth: Mythicall the Poets use principally: Physical the Philosophers: Civil the vulgar. For the firs●… 〈◊〉 he) it is fraught with fictions most disgraceful to the Deities: As thi●… 〈◊〉 ●…his god is borne of one's head, that of ones thigh, that of drops o●… 〈◊〉 And this, that the gods were thieves, adulterers and servants to man: And finally they attribute such things to the gods, as cannot be residen●… 〈◊〉 in the most contemptible wretch of all mortality, nor happen but unto 〈◊〉 slavish natures. Here now as far as fear permitted, he makes a fair discovery of the injury offered to the gods by such ungodly fables: And h●…e he might, seeing he speaketh not of the natural nor civil philosophy, but of 〈◊〉 ●…bulous which he thought he might reprehend freely. But now to the nex●… 〈◊〉 (b) second, saith he is that wherewith the Philosophers have filled their vo●…mes: Wherein they dispute what, whence, and when the god's we●…●…her from eternity of fire, as (c) Heraclitus held, or of (d) numbers as 〈◊〉 ●…aught: Or of (e) Atoms as Epicurus believed: and such like as are far 〈◊〉 ●…able within the schools then without, in the place of orations. Here 〈◊〉 ●…th nothing in this kind, but only relates the controversies which di●…em into sexes and factions. Yet this kind he excludeth from the people's e●…, but not the other, which was so filthy and so frivolous. O the religious 〈◊〉 of the people, and even with them, of Rome! The Philosophers discourses o●…●…ddes they cannot any way endure: but the Poet's fictions, and the Player's 〈◊〉, being so much dishonourable to the divine essences, and fit to be spok●… of none but the most abject persons, those they abide and behold with 〈◊〉: Nay, with pleasure. Nay these the gods themselves do like, and therefore ●…e them decreed as expiations. I but say some, we make a difference of these two kinds, the mythicall and the physical, from the Civil, whereof you now 〈◊〉 to speak: and so doth he distinguish them also. Well let us see what ●…e saith to that: I see good cause why the fabulous should be separate from 〈◊〉 because it is false, foul and unworthy. But in dividing the natural and 〈◊〉 civil what doth he but approve that the civil is faulty also? For i●… i●… be natural, why is it excluded? And if it be not natural why is it ad●…ted? This is that that makes him handle the humane things before the di●…, because in the later he followed that which men had ordained, not 〈◊〉 ●…hich the truth exacted. But let us see his civil divinity: The third kind (s●…h he) is that which men of the City, chiefly the priests ought to be c●…g in: as, which gods to worship in public, and with what peculiar sort of s●…s each one must be served: But let us go on with him. The first of those ki●… saith he was adapted to the Stage. The 2. to the World. The 3. to the City. Who seeth not which he preferreth? Even his second Philosophical kind. This belongeth (he saith) to the World, (f) than which they hold nothing more excellent. But the other two, the first and the third, them he distinguisheth and confineth to the Stage and the City: for we see that that the pertinence of them to the City hath no consequence why they should pertain to the World, though there be Cities in the World; for false opinion may get that a belief of truth in a City which hath not any nature nor place in any part of the World. And for the Stage, where is that but in the City? There ordained by the City, and for what end but stage-plays? And what stage-plays but of their gods, of whom these books are penned with so much pains? L. VIVES. FIrst (a) fabulare The word Snetonius useth: He loved (saith he of Tiberius) the reading of Fabular History, even were it ridiculous and foolish. (b) Second] The Platonist●…, (chiefly the stoics) reduced all these god's fables unto natural causes and nature's self, as their heads. (Plato in Cratylo Cic. de nat. dear. Phurnut. and others.) But this they do wring for sometimes in such manner that one may see they do but dally. (c) Heraclitus] an Ephesian: he wrote a book that needed an Oedipus or the Delian Swimmer, and therefore he was called Scotinus, dark. He held fire the beginning, and end of all things, and that was full of souls and daemons, spirits. His opinion of the fire, Hippasus of Metapontus followed. (d) Numbers Pythagoras held that God, our souls, and all things in the world consisted upon numbers and that from their harmonies were all things produced. These numbers Plato learning of the Italian Pythagoreans, explained them and made them more intelligible: yet not so but that the r●…ader must let a great part of them alone: This Cicero to Atticus calleth an obscure thing, Plato his numbers. (c) Or of Atoms] Epicurus in emulation of Democritus taught that all things consisted of little indivisible bodies, called therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from which notwithstanding he excluded neither form, magnitude, nor weight. (f) Than which they hold] Nature knoweth nothing more fair, or more spacious. Seneca. Plato in Timeo. Tull. de nat. dear. 2. and other Philosophers hold this. Of the fabulous and politic divinity against Varro. CHAP. 6. VArro, seeing thou art most acute, and doubtless most learned, yet but a man, neither God, nor assisted by God's spirit in the discovery of truth in divinity, thou seest this that the divine affairs are to be excluded from humane vanities; and yet thou fearest to offend the people's vicious opinions and customs in these public superstitions, being notwithstanding such, as both thyself held, and thy written works affirm to be directly opposite to the nature of the Deiti●…s, or such as men's infirmity surmised was included in the Elements. What doth this humane (though excelling) wit of thine in this place? what help doth thy great reading afford thee in these straits? Thou art desirous to honour the natural gods, & forced to worship the civil: thou hast found some fabulous ones whom thou darest speak thy mind against: giving (a) the civil some part of their disgrace whether thou wilt or no: for thou sayst the fabulous are for the Theatre, the natural for the world, the civil for the city: the world being the work of God, the Theatre & City of men nor are they other gods that you laugh at, than those you worship: Nor be your plays exhibited to any but those you sacrifice unto: how much more subtle were they divided into some natural, and some instituted by men? And of these later, the Poet's books taught one part, and the priests another: yet notwithstanding with such a coherence in untruth that the diue●… that like no truth approve them both: but setting aside your natural divinity (whereof hereafter) pleaseth it you to ask or hope for life eternal of your Poetic ridiculous Stage-goddes? No at no hand. GOD forbid such sacrilegious madness! Will you expect them of those gods whom these presentations do please and appease, though their crimes be the things presented: I think no man so brainlessly sottish. Therefore neither your fabulous divinity nor your politic can give you everlasting life. For the first soweth the god's turpitude, and the later by favouring it, moweth it. The first spread lies, the later collect them. The first hanteth the deities with outrageous fixions, & the later imputeth these fixions to the honour of the deities. The first makes songs of the gods lascivious pranks, and the later sings them on the gods feast days. The first recordeth the wickednesses of the gods, and the later loveth the rehearsal of those records. The first either shameth the gods, or feigneth of them: The later either witnesseth the truth or delighteth in the fixion. Both are filthy and both are damnable. But the fabulous professeth turpitude openly, and the politic maketh that turpitude her ornament. Is there any hope of life eternal where the temporal suffers such pollution? Or doth wicked company and acts of dishonest men pollute our lives, and not the society of those false-adorned, and filthyly adored fiends? If their faults be true, how vile are they worshipped? If false, how wicked the worshippers? But some ignorant person may gather from this discourse that it is the poetical fixions only and Stage-presentments that are derogatory from the Deities glory, but not the Doctrine of the Priests, at any hand; that is pure and holy. Is it so? No, if it were, they would never have given order to erect plays for the god's honour, nor the gods would never have demanded it. But the Priests feared not to present such things as the god's honours in the theatres, when as they had practised the like in the Temples. Lastly our said Author indeauoring to make Politic Divinity of a third nature from the natural and fabulous, maketh it rather to be produced from them both, then several from either. For he saith that the Poets write not so much as the people observe, and the Philosophers write too much for them to observe: both with notwithstanding they do so eschew that they extract no small part of their civil religion from either of them: Wherefore we will write of such things as the Poetic and the politic divinities do communicate: Indeed we should acknowledge a greater share from the Philosophers, yet some we must thank the Poets for. Yet in anotherplace of the gods generations, he saith the people rather followed the Poets than the Philosophers, for he teacheth what should be done, there what was done: that the Philosophers wrote for use, the Poets for delight: and therefore the poesies that the people must not follow, describe the gods crimes, yet delight both gods and men: for the Poets (as he said) write for delight, and not for use, yet write such things as the gods effect, and the people present them with. L. VIVES. Giving (a) the civil] The Coleine readeth Perfundas [which we translate.] Varro's reproaches of the fabulous gods must needs light in part upon the politic gods, who derive from the other, and indeed are the very same. The coherence and similitude between the fabulous divinity and the civil. CHAP. 7. THerefore this fabulous, scaenical, filthy, and ridiculous divinity hath all reference unto the civil. And all that which all condemn, is but part of this which all must be bound to reverence: Nor is it a part incongruent, (as I mean to show) or slightly depending upon the body of the other, but as conformed & consonant as a member is unto the fabric of the whole body. For what are all these Images, forms, ages, sexes and habits of the gods? The Poets have jove with a beard, and Mercury with none, have not the Priests so? Have the Mimikes made Priapus with such huge privities, and not the Priests? Doth the Temples expose him to be honoured in one form, and the Stage to be laughed at in an other? Do (a) not the statues in the Temples as well as the Players on the Stage present Saturn old, and Apollo youthful? Why are Forculus and Limentinus (gods of doors and thresholds) of the masculine sex, and Cardea goddess of hinges, of the feminine? Because those are found so in the book of Priests which the grave Poets held too base to have places in their Poems. Why is the Stage- Diana (b) armed, and the cities a weaponless Virgin? Why is the Stage- Apollo a harper, and Apollo of Delphos none? But these are honest in respect of worse: what held they of jove, when they placed his Nurse in the Capitol? Did they not confirm (c) Euemerus that wrote truly (not idly) that all these gods were mortal men? And those that placed asort of (d) glutton parasite gods at Jove's table, what intended they but to make the sacrifices (e) ridiculous? If the Mimike had said that jove bad his Parasites to a feast, the people would have laughed at it. But Varro spoke it not in the god's derision but their commendation, as his divinity, not his humane works do keep the record: He spoke it not in explaining the Stage-lawes, but the Capitols: These and such like convinceth him to this confession, that as they made the gods of humane shapes, so they believed them prone to humane pleasures: For the wicked spirits lost no time in instilling those illusions into their fantasies: And thence it came that Hercules his Sexton being idle fell to dice with himself, making one of his hands stand for Hercules and another for himself: and played for this: that if he got the victory of Hercules, he would provide himself a rich supper, and a (f) wench of the Temple stock: and if Hercules over-came, he would provide such another supper for him of his own purse: having thereupon won of himself by the hand of Hercules, he provided a rich supper, and a delicate courtesan called (g) Larentina. Laurentina Hercules who●…e deified. Now she lying all night in the Temple, in a vision had the carnal company of Hercules, who told her that the first man she met in the morning after her departure should pay her for the sport that Hercules ought her for. She departing accordingly met with one Tarutius a rich young man, who falling acquainted with her and using her company long, at last died and left her his heir. She having got this great estate, not to be ungrateful to the Deities whose reward she held this to be, made the people of Rome her heir: and then being gone (none knew how,) a writing was found that affirmed that for these deeds she was deified. If Poets or Players had given first life to this sable, it would quickly have been packed up among fabulous divinity, and quite secluded from the politic society. But since the people not the Poets, the Ministers not the Mimikes, the Temples not the theatres are by this author taxed of such turpitude, The Players do not vainly present the god's beastiality, it being so vile, but the Priests do in vain to stand so earnestly for their honesty, which is none at all. There are the sacrifices of juno, kept in her beloved Island (h) Samos, where jove married her. There are sacrifices to Ceres, where she sought her daughter Proserpina when Pluto had ravished her: To Venus (ay) where h●…: sweet delicate Adònis was killed by a bore: To Cibele, where her sweet heart Atis, a ●…aire and delicate youth being gelded by chaste fury, was bewailed by the rest of the wretched gelded Galli. These sacrifices being more beastly than all Stage-absurdities (yet by them professed and practised) why do they seek to exclude the Poet's figments from their politic Divinity, as unworthy to be ranked with such an honest kind? They are rather beholding to the Players that do not present all their secret sacrileges unto the people's view. What may we think of their sacrifices done in covert, when the public ones are so detestably profane? How they use the Eunuches, and their G●…ynimedes in holes and corners, look they to that: yet can they not conceal the bestial hurt done unto such by forcing them. Let them persuade any man that they can use such Ministers to any good end: Yet are such men part of their sacred persons. What their acts are we know not, their instruments we know; But what the Stage presents we know, and what the whores present: Yet there is no use of Eunuch nor Pathike: Yet of obscene and filthy persons there is: For honest men ought not to act them. But what sacrifices are these (think you) that require such ministers for the more sanctity as are not admitted, no not even in (k) Thymelian bawdry. L. VIVES. DO (a) not] Interrogatively, not to inquire, but to fix the intention of the speech more firmly in the auditor's ear. (Quintill. lib. 9) The matter is, Saturn is figured with a beard in Temples, and Apollo without one: And there is Dionysius of Syracusa's jest of taking away Aesculapius his beard of gold, saying it is not fit the son have a beard and the father none. Apollo's statue at Delos held in the right hand a bow, on the left the three graces, one with a harp, another with a pipe, the third with a flute. (b) Armed] With bow and quiver. (c) Euemerus] Euemerus. Of Mess●…a in Sicily: he wrote the true story of jove & the other gods out of old records, mysteries and Hieroglyphikes called by the Greeks the holy story. Ennius' interpreted. it Cicero. He is mentioned by the Greek authors, by Cicero, Varro, Lactantius, Macrobius, Servius, and many more. Sextus Empericus calleth him Atheist, for writing the truth of the gods. So doth Theodoricus of Cyrene; & numbers him with the Diagorae and the Theodori: timon in Syllis calleth him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an insolent old fellow, & an unjust writer. (d) Glutton.] To the Priest's College, three were added to look to the gods banquets, and called the Triumvirs Epulones. Afterward they were made two more, five: Lastly ambition added two more to these, & this number stood of the Septenvirs Epulons, that looked to the providing of Jove's banquet, before whose Image they banqueted also themselves. Cicero. (in aruspic. respons.) calleth them Parasites, because such ever feed at other men's tables, as the greek word intimateth: Varro calleth them so by the nature of the word, Parasites, quasi, Jove's guests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to seek his meat abroad. (e) Ridiculous] Mimical. (f) Awench] Flora some say, others Acca Laurentia, whose feasts are called Larentinalia. Thereof read Macrob. saturnal. 〈◊〉. Lactantius glanceth at it. Her surname (saith Verrius Flaccus) was Flava: of this also read Plutarch. Probl. (g) Larentina] Laurentia Commonly Larentia: for Acca Laurentia they say was nurse to Romulus, and the Laurentalia are hi●… feasts: but his courtesans are the Floralia. (b) Samos] An Isle in the Aegean sea, so called for the height and cragginess thereof. Varro writeth that it was first called Parthenia, juno being there brought up, & married to jove: wherefore she hath a most worthy and ancient Temple there erected: a statue like a bride & yearly feasts kept in honour of her marriage. This (Lactant. lib. 1.) Samos was dear to juno, for there she was borne. Virg. Aeneid. ay Where her sweet] Cynara Adonis' his death. begot Adonis upon his daughter Myrrah, by the deceit of her Nurse: Adonis reigned in Cyprus. Ual. Probus upon Virgil's Eglogue called Gallus following Hesiod, saith that he was Phoenix his son, and that jove begot him of Philostephanus without use of woman. Venus loved him dearly: but he being given all to hunting, was killed by a Boar. They fable that Mars being jealous, sent the Boar to do it, and that Venus bewailed him long, and turned him into a flower, called by his name. Macrobius: tells of Venus her statue on mount L●…banus, Venus' her statue on mount Libanus. with a sad shape of sorrow, her head veiled, and her face covered with her hand: yet so as o●…e would think the tears trickled down from her eyes. The Phaenicians called Ado●… 〈◊〉▪ (Pollux. lib. 4.) and so were the pipes called that were used at his yearly funeral fea●…, though Festus say they were named so because the goose is said to gingrire, when she creaketh. Bes●…es, Ging●…e what it i●…. because Adonis was slain in his prime, therefore they dedicated such gardens to Venus as made a fair show of flowers and leaves without fruit: Whence the proverb came of Ado●… gardens, which Erasmus with many other things explaineth in his Adages, or as Budaeus calleth the work in his Mercury's seller, or Minerua's warehouse. (k) Thymelian.] A word the greeks use o●…ten: and of the Latins vitrvuius (Architect. lib. 5.) but obscurely in ●…ine opinion, which I will set down that others may set down better, if such there be. The Stage stood in the Theatre between the two points farthest extended, and there the Players acted comedy and tragedy: The Senators had their seat between that and the common galleries, wherein there was a place five foot high which the greeks called Thymele and Logeus, whereon the tragedian Chorus danced; and the comedians too, when they had one, sometimes to the Players, sometimes to the people when the Players were within; there also stood the music, and all such as belonged to the Play and yet were no actors and the place got the name of Orchestra, from the greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to dance: and the Greeks call Thymele 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, belonging to the pipes: and all the musicans there playing were called Thymelic●…. They think it took the name Thymele, of the Altars therein erected to Bacchus and Apollo, for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken for an Altar. Donate applieth Terence his words in Andria, take vervin from the Altar: unto this Apuleius useth Thymelicum Choragium for the Player's apparel. (In Apolog. 1.) Thymele was also the wife of Latinus a Mimike, Thi●…le wi●… to ●…atinus a Mimike actor. and fellow-actor with him in his momery. Domitian delighted much in them both as martial showeth in his Epigram to him. Qua Thymelem spes●…s 〈◊〉 latinum Illa 〈◊〉 precor carmina 〈◊〉. A●… Thymele and Latinus ●…ere in place, (Good) read our ver●…es with the selfsame face. Of the natural interpretations which the Paynim Doctors pretend for their gods. CHAP. 8. I But these things (say they) are all to be interpreted naturally & Phisiologically. Good, as though we were in quest of Physiology and not of Theology, as 〈◊〉 we sought nature and set God aside. For though the true God be God in nature and not in opinion only, yet is not all nature God; for men, beasts, birds, trees & stones, have each a nature that is no deity. But if your interpretation of the mother of the gods, be, that she is the earth, what need we seek further? what do they say more that say all your gods were mortal men? For as the earth is the mother, so are they earth's children: but refer his sacrifices to what nature you can, for men to suffer (a) women's affects is not according but contrary to nature. Thus this crime, this disease, this shame is professed in her sacrifices, that the vildest wretch living would scarcely confess by tortures. Again if these ceremonies, so much fouler than all Stage-obscaenity, have their natural interpretations for their defence; why should not the like pretended excuse be sufficient for the fictions Poetical? They interpret much in the same manner: so that in that it is counted so horrid a thing to say that Saturn devoured his sons: they have expounded it thus, that (b) length of time, signified by Satur's name, consumeth all things it produceth: Saturn a devourer of his sons. or as Varro interpreteth it that Saturn belongeth to the seeds, which being produced by the earth, are entombed in it again: others give other senses and so of the rest. Yet is this called fabulous Theology, and cast out, scorned and excluded for all the expositions; and because of the unworthy fictions, expelled both from coherence with the natural and Phylosophycall kind, as also with the civil and politic. Because indeed, the judicious and learned compilers hereof, saw both the fabulous and the politic worthy reprehension; but they durst not reprove this as they might do the other. That, they made culpable, and this they made comparable with that, not to prefer either before other, but to show them both fit to be rejected alike: and so having turned them both out of credit without incurring the danger of openly condemning the later: the third the natural kind might get the less place in men's opinions. For the civil and the fabulous are both fabulous and both civil, both fabulous, witness he that observes their obscaenities, both civil, witness he that observes their confusing them together in plays and sacrifices. How then can the power of eternity lie in their hands whom their own statues and sacrifices do prove to be like those fabulous rejected gods, in form, age, sex, habit, descent, ceremonies, etc. In all which they either are convicted of mortality, and attaining those erroneous honours by the devils assistance, in or after their life or death, or else that they were true devils themselves that could catch all occasions of filling men's hearts with errors contagion. L. VIVES. women's (a) affects] The Priests of Cibele, the Galli, who not being able to do like men, suffered like women. (b) Length of Time] Cicero de nat. Deo. lib. 2. Saturn is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in greek and time. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Of this hereafter. Of the offices of each peculiar God. CHAP. 9 WHat say you to the obsurd Numitary division of the gods charges-where each one must have prayers made to him for that which he come, maundeth? (Of these we have recited part but not all): Is it not more like a scene of scurrility than a lecture of Divinity? If a man should set two Nurses to look to his child, one for the meat, and another for the drink, as they do two goddesses, Educa and Potica, he should be taken for a Cumane ass, or a mimical fool. And then they have a Liber, that letteth lose the masculine sperm in men, at carnal copulation, and one Libera for the women, whom they hold Venus (for (〈◊〉) women, they say, do let forth sperm also) and therefore they dedicate a man's privy member to Liber, and a woman's to Libera: Besides (b) wine and women they subject unto Liber, as the provokers of lust: and in such mad manner keep they their Bacchanalian feasts: where Varro confesseth that the Bacchaes women could not possibly do such such things unless (c) they were mad (d) yet the Senate being grown wiser, disliked and abolished these sacrifices. It may be here they descried the power of the devils in such men's minds as held them to be gods. Truly this could not have been upon the Stage: there the players are never mad, though it be a kind of madness to honour the gods that delight in such gracelessnesse. But what a strange distinction hath he of the religious and the superstitious, that the later do stand in fear of the gods, and the first do but reverence them as parents, not fearing them as foes: and to call all the gods so good that they will far sooner spare the guilty then hurt the guiltless: and yet for all this the woman in childbed must have three gods to look to her after her deliverance, lest sylvanus come in the night and torment her: in signification whereof three men must go about the house in the night, & first strike the thresholds with an hatchet, then with a pestle, and then sweep them with besoms, that by these signs of worship, they may keep sylvanus out: because the trees are not pruned without iron, nor corn is not made into meal without pestles; nor the fruits swept up together without beesoms: from these three acts, three gods got names: (e) Inter●…, of the hatchets cutting, Intercisio: (f) Pilumnus, of Pilun the pestle or mortar. Deverra, of Ʋerro to sweep: And these kept sylvanus from the woman in bed. Thus were they fayne to have three good against one bad, or all had been too little: and these three must with their handsome neat culture, oppose his rough, savage brutishness Is this your god's innocence? is this their concord? Are these your saving City Deities, far more ridiulous than your Stage-goddes? When man and woman are wed together, godde jugatinus hath to do: Nay that's tolerable. When the bride must be led home, god (g) Domiducus look to your charge: now who must keep her at home? god Domitius: I but who must make her stay with her husband? why that can goddess Manturna do. Oh why proceed we further! spare, spare man's chaster ears: let carnal affect and shamefast secrecy give end to the rest! What doth all that crew of gods in the Bride-hall chamber upon the departure of the (h) Paranymphs, the feast masters? Oh sir, not to make the woman more shamefast by their being present but because she is weak and timorous, to help her to lose her virginity with less difficulty. For there is goddess Virginensis, Godde Subigus, goddess Prema, goddess Partunda, and Venus, and Priapus. If the man stood in need of help in this business, why were not one of them sufficient to help him? Would not Venus her power serve, who they said was so called because virginity could not be lost without her help? If there be any shame in man, that is not in the gods, when the married couple shall think that so many gods of both sexes to stand by at their carnal conjunction, and have their hands in this business, will not he be less forward and she more froward? If ay Virginensis be there to lose the Virgin girdle, Sub●…gus to subject her under the man, and Prema to press her down from moving after the act, what shall * It signifies the enabling of the woman to bring ●…th a child. Partunda have to do but blush and get her out of doors, and leave the husband to do his business. For it were very dishonest for any one to fulfil her name upon the bride, but he. But perhaps they allow her presence because she is a female. If she were a male and called Partundus, the husband would call more protectors of his wives honesty against him, than the childbearing woman doth against sylvanus. But what talk I of this, when (k) Priapus (that unreasonable male) is there upon whose (l) huge and beastly member: the new bride was commanded (after a most honest, old and religious order observed by the Matrons) to get up and sit? Now, now let them go, and cashier their fabulous theology from the political, the Theatre from the City, the Stage from the Temple, the Poet's verses from the Priest's Documents, as turpitude from honesty, falsehood from truth, lightness from gravity, foolery from seriousness! Now let them use all the subtle art they can in it! We know what they do that understand the dependence of the fabulous theology upon the civil, and that from the Poet's verses it redounds to the City again as an Image from a glass, and therefore they, not daring to condemn the civil kind, present the Image thereof and that they spare not to spit true disgrace upon, that as many as can conceive them, may loath the thing that shape presenteth and resembleth: Which the gods notwithstanding behold with such pleasure, that that very delight of theirs bewrays their damned essences; and therefore by terrible means have they wrung these Stage-honours from their servants in the sacrifices: Manifesting hereby that themselves were most unclean spirits, and making that abject, reprobate, and absurd Stage-divinity a part of this civil kind that was held selected and approved, that all of it being nought but a lump of absurdity framed of such false gods, as never were, one part of it might be preserved in the priests writings, and another in the Poets. Now whether it have more parts is another question. As for Varro's division, I think I have made it plain enough that the divinity of the Stage and the City belong both to that one politic kind: And seeing they are both markable with the like brands of foul, false and unworthy impiety, far be it from religious men to expect eternal life from either of them. Lastly Varro himself reckons his gods from man's original, beginning with janus, and so proceeds through man's life to his age, and death, ending with (m) Naenia, a goddess whose verses were sung at old men's funerals. And then he mentions gods that concerns not man, but his accidents, as apparel, meat, and such necessaries of life, showing what each only could, and consequently what one should ask of each one. In which universal diligence of his he never showed whom to ask eternal life of, for which only it is that we are Christians. Who is therefore so dull, that he conceiveth not that this man in his diligent discovery of politic Divinity, and his direct and apparent comparison of it with the fabulous kind, and his plain affirmation that this fabulous kind was a part of the civil, desired only (〈◊〉) to get a place for the natural kind (which he called the Philosophers kind) in the minds of men? Fully reprehending the fabulous kind, but not daring meddle with the civil, only show it subject to reprehension, so that it being excluded together with the fabulous, the natural kind might have sole place in the elections of all good understandings. Of which kind GOD willing I mean to speak more peculiarly and fully in place convenient. L. VIVES. FOr (a) women] ipsam, or ipsas. It is a great question in Philosophy. Plato and Aristole say no, only they let down in copulation a certain humour like unto sweat, which hath no use in generation: Pythagoras and Democritus say they are spermatique: and Epicurus also after them, as he useth to follow Democritus. Hipponax as a mean between them both, saith it is sperm, but not useful in generation, because it remaineth not in the vessel of conception. (b) Wine and 〈◊〉] The Satyrs and mad-women called the Howling-bacchaes followed Bacchus. Here-upon Bacchus! Eustathius saith he had his name from that confused cry. (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be mad) and that a [c] more was added to help the sound. The women were also called Mimallonides, of a hill in Asia minor called minans, & Bassarides, and Thyiades of Thyia where Bacchus his rites had first institution. Plutarch describeth their pomp thus: First, was carried a flag on of wine, & a sprig of a vinet than one led a goat: after a box, a pine apple, and a vine-prop: all which afterward grew out of use, and gave place to better. De cupid. opum. There was also the van (Virgil.) which is otherwise called the creele. Servius. Varro names the vine-prop and the pineapple, with were like the ivy lavelins that the Bacchaes bore, which followed Bacchus into India. These javelins were all girt ro●…nd with branches of the vine and ivy, this ivy they added because one kind of it procureth madness, and makes men drunk (saith Plutarch) without wine, and appeaseth them that are ready to fall into fury: indeed all ivy is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to provoke lust: the Thyrsus is also the nuptial crown: also the lamp that they bore in honour of Dionysius: but when it strives for the crown it is written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: the last syllable acute. In those sacrifices, the offers were rapt with fury, & thence came the name of Bacchus. Val. Prob. Bacchari, is to rage, and the Bacchaes were those raging bedlam women that performed this sacrifice to Liber Pater: they were called Maenades, & Maenades. He Menoles quasi all mad as Clement saith. Euseb. (c) They were mad] Quiet minds would not have committed such fooleries, filthiness and butcheries; for many slaughters were committed in those sacrifices. Pentheus, Minus King of India, Lycurgus of Thrace, and Orpheus, were all thus murdered. (d) Yet the Senate] of the expulsion by a decree, read Livy lib. 39 (e) Intercidona] So it is in most of the old copies. (f) Pilumnus] Pilumnus and Picumnus Pilumnus. were brethren gods. Picamnus found out the mannuring of grounds, and therefore ●…as called Pilumnus●…ound ●…ound out the manner of braying or grinding of corn and th●…fore was worshipped by the Bakers, and, the pestle called Pilum after him. (Seru▪ in Ae●…▪ 9▪ Italy (saith Capella) ascribeth the grinding of corn to Pilumnus. (lib. 2.) Pilum was also a 〈◊〉 weapon with a three square iron head●…, nine nches long, the staff five foot 〈◊〉: and also an instrument wherewith they beat any thing to powder in a mortar. iMod●…stus. The ancient Heturians and Latins made all their meal by mortars with hand-labour. Afterwards were Milles invented for fit use: which had also plain and wooden pestles. (Plin. l. 18.) Marcellus saith that Pilumnus and Picumnus were rulers of marriage fortunes. Varro de vita pop. Rom. l. 2.) If the child lived, that the Midwife placed it upon the earth, for to be strait and lucky, and then was there a bed made in the house for Pilumnus and Picumnus. (d) Domiducus] Capella calls juno so: Interduca, Domiduca, Vnxia, and Cynthia (saith he) thou art to be invoked at marriages by the virgins, to protect their journey. (l. 2.) he speaketh to juno: thou must lead them to fortunate houses, & at the anointing of the posts, stick down all good luck there, Para▪ 〈◊〉. and when they put of their girdle in their beds, then do not fail them: all this Capella) (h) Paranymps] Hierome called them the pronubi, such as brought the Bride to her husband's bed: the Latins also called them auspexes, because (as Tully saith) they hand-fisted them and presaged good luck to the marriage: these came from the Bridegroom to the Bride, and returned fromhi●… to him for the vail. Tacitus hath these words of Nero: he was obscene in all things lawful, and lawless, and left no villainy unpractised, but for more filthiness, made a solemn marriage with one of his kennel of his unnatural lechers called Pythagoras: he wore his vail, sent two auspexes to him, ordained the brid-bed and the nuptial tapers. ay Virginensis] Capella seems to call her Cinthi●… juno. The virgins of old wore a Virgin fillet. Hom. Odyss. 11. which custom Rome got up, & kept it until the ruin of the Empire. Martia. Qui zona soluit diu Ligatam: who loosed the long knit-fillet, etc. In 〈◊〉 they use them yet. (k) Priapus] he was expelled from Lamps●… Priapus. where he was borne, for the hugeness of his pre-pendent. Servius. Lactantius writes that he & Silenus his ass, being all in Bacchus his company, strove who bore the better tool: and that the Ass over-came him, and therefore Priapus killed him. Collumnella calleth him the terrible-memberd-god. Ovid in his Priap●…ia hath much hereof, which for shames-sake I omit. (l) Hvg●… and beastlike] Ovid confirmeth this. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gravis 〈◊〉, etc. Since (Priapus) thou hast so huge a tool. And a little after. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pampi●…o caput, Ruber 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Thou cro●…n'd in vines with fiery face dost fit▪ Yet looks thy tool as fiery every whit. Horace also useth fascinum in the same sense: because (saith Porphyry) that the witches often practised their crafts upon this member: but I think rather because it kept away witchcrafts: for in Dionysius his feasts, Priapus being rightly consecrated and crowned with a garland by the most honest Matron of the town, this was an avoidance of all witchcraft from the corn, as Augustine showeth in the next book, out of Varro: and for the avoidance of witchcraft was the Bride bidden to ●…it upon it: for Pompeius Festus saith that the fescenine verses that were sung at marriages seem to derive their name from driving away this fascinum: so was Priapus the god of seed in marriages as well as the fields, and worshipped that witchcraft should not hinder their fruitfulness, Unless it be as Lactantius saith (l. 1.) that Mutinus was a god upon whose privy part the bride used to ●…it, in sign that he had first tasted their chastity: that this was Priapus we showed in the 〈◊〉▪ book, his office was tun make the man more active and the woman more patient in the first cop●…ion, as Augustin here implieth. Festus●…aith ●…aith also that the bride used to sit on 〈◊〉 sheepskin, to show either that the old attire was such, or that her chief office now was spinning of wool: Plutarch saith that when they brought the bride they laid a sheepskin under her, and she bore home a dista●…e and a spindle. (m) Naenia] It was indeed a funeral song, sung to the flu●… in praise of the dead, by the hired mourner, all the rest weeping: Simonides his invention. N●…. H●…. she was also a goddess, having a Chapel without Port viminal: her name was derived from the voice of the mourners: some it signifieth the end: other think it is drawn from the coll●… 〈◊〉 which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the out-most and treble string in Instruments is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hereof 〈◊〉 the last song sung to one, called Naenia. (Fest. lib. 12. (n) Get a place.] The sense is Va●…s; 〈◊〉 underhand is to work out both the poetic and politic Di●…ity out of men's hearts, and leave place only for the natural. Of Seneca's freer reprehension of the civil Theology then Varro's was of the fabulous. CHAP. 10. But the liberty that this man wanted in reprehending that civil divinity which was so like to the stages, Anneus Seneca (whom some proofs confirm to 〈◊〉 lived in the (a) Apostles times) wan●…ed it not fully, though in part he did: In his works written he had it, but in his life he lacked it. For in his (b) book against superstitions, far more free is he in beating down the political kind of Theology, than Varro was against the poetical. For speaking of Images, the Immortal and sacred gods (saith he) do they consecrate in a vile, dead, and dejected Seneca's reprehension of the gods altars. substance, confining them to shapes of men, beasts, fishes and ambiguous monsterlike creatures: calling them deities; which if one should meet alive w●…●…sters and prodigies. And a little after, speaking of natural divinity, 〈◊〉 rejected some opinions proposeth himself a question thus: shall I bele●… (●…aith one) that Heaven and Earth are Gods, that their are some under the 〈◊〉, and some above it? shall I respect Plato, or (c) Strato the Peripatetique while this makes God without a soul, and that, without a body? Answering then to the question: what then saith he? dost thou think there is more truth in the d●…eams of Romulus, Tatius, or Tullus Hostilius? Tatius dedicated goddess Cloacinia, 〈◊〉, Picus and Tiberinus: Hostilius, Fear and Paleness, two extreme affects of 〈◊〉: the one being a perturbation of an affrighted mind, the other of the body: not a disease but a colour. Are these more like Gods, inhabitants of heaven? A●… of their cruel and obscene ceremonies, how freely did he strike at them? One geldeth himself, another cuts off his torn parts: and this is their propitiation for the gods anger: but no worship at all ought they to have that delight in such as this is. The fury and disturbance of mind in some is raised to that height by seekeing to appease the gods, that (d) not the most barbarous and (e) recorded tyrants would desire to behold it. Tyrant's indeed have 〈◊〉 off the parts of some men, but never made them their own tormentors. (f) 〈◊〉 have been gelded for t●…eir Prince's lust: but never commanded to be their own gelder's. But these, kill themselves in the temples, offering their vows in 〈◊〉 and wounds. If one had time to take interview of their actions, he 〈◊〉 ●…ee them do things so unbeseeming honesty, so unworthy of freedom, & ●…like to soberness, that none would make question of their madness, if they 〈◊〉 fewer: but now their multitude is their privilege. And then the capitol 〈◊〉 that he recordeth, and fearelessly inveigheth at, who would not hold 〈◊〉 mad ones, or mockeries? For first in the losing of (g) Osiris in the Egyptian sacrifices, and then in the finding him again, first the sorrow and then ●…eir great joy, all this is a puppettry and a fiction, yet the fond people ●…ugh they find nor lose not any thing, weep, for all that, and rejoice again 〈◊〉 heartily as if they had: I but this madness hath his time. It is tolerable (〈◊〉 he) to be but once a year mad. But come into the Capitol, and you 〈◊〉 shame at the mad acts of public furor. One sets the gods under their King▪ mother tells jove what a clock it is, another is his sergeant, and another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rubbing of him as if he anointed him. Others dress juno and Minerva th'air, standing a far off the temple, not only of the Image, and tricking wi●…●…ir fingers as if they were a combing and crisping it: another holds the glass, and another bids the gods to (h) be his advocates. Some present them with scrolls, and propound their causes to them. One old (ay) arch-plaier played the Mimike continually in the Capitol, as if the gods had found great sport in him whom the world had rejected. Nay there ye have all trades work to the gods, and a little after: But these though they be idle before the gods, yet they are not bawdy, or offensive. But some sit there, that think jove is in love with them: never respecting juno's poetically supposed (k) terrible aspect. This freedom Varro durst not assume, he durst go no farther than Theology poetical: but not to the civil which this man crusheth in sunder. But if we mark the truth, the temples where these things are done, are worse than the theatres where they are but feigned. And therefore Seneca selecteth those parts of this civil Theology for a wise man to observe in his actions, but not to make a religion of. A wise man (saith he) will observe these as commands of the laws, not as the pleasures of the gods, and again: We can make marriages, nay and those unlawful ones▪ amongst the gods, joining brother and sister: Mars and (l) Bellona, Vulcan and Venus: Neptune and Salacia: Yet some we leave single, as wanting (m) means of the bargain, chiefly some being widows, as Populonia, Fulgura, and Rumina, nor wonder if these want suitors. But this rabble of base gods forged by inveterate superstition, we will adore (saith he) rather for laws sake then for religions, or any other respect. So that neither law nor custom gave induction to those things either as grateful to the gods or useful unto men. But this man whom the Philosophers as (n) free, yet being a great (o) Senator of Rome, worshipped that he disavowed, professed that he condemned and adored that he accused: because his philosophy had taught him this great matter, not to be superstitious in the world, but for law and customs sake to imitate those things in the Temple, but not act them in the Theatre: so much the more damnably, because that which he counterfeited, he did it so, that the (p) people thought he had not counterfeited: But the player rather delighted them with sport, than wronged them with deceit. L. VIVES. APostles (a) times] It may be the proofs are the Epistles that are dispersed under the name of him to Paul, and Paul unto him: but I think there was no such matter. But sure it is, that he lived in Nero's time, and was Consul then: and that Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom about the same time. For they, and he left this life both within two years: it may be both in one year, when Silius Nerua, and Atticus Vestinus were Consuls. (b) Book against superstitions] These, and other works of his are lost: one of matrimony, quoted by Hierome against jovinian: of timely death: Lactant, of earthquakes mentioned by himself. johannes and ●…eas Scraneus. These, and other losses of old authors Andrew Straneo my countryman in his notes upon Seneca, deploreth: a taste of which he sent me in his Epistle, that united us in friendship. He is one highly learned, and honest as highly, furthering good studies with all his power himself, and favouring all good enterprises in others. (c) Strato] Son to Archelaus of Lanpsacus: who was Strato. called the Physical because it was his most delightful study, he was Theophrastus his scholar, his executor, his successor in his school, and master to Ptolemy Philadelphus: There were eight Strato's. Laërt. in Uit. (d) That not the] The grammarians cannot endure N●… and quidem to come together: but we read it so in six hundred places of Tully, Pliny, L●… and others: unless they answer unto all these places that the copiers did falsify them. I do not think but an interposition doth better: this I say. (e) Recorded] As Dyonisius, Phalaris, Mezentius, Tarquin the Proud, Sylla, C●…a, Marius, Tiberius, Cla●…, and Caligula. (f) Some have] The Persian Kings had their eunuchs, in whom they put especial trust. [So had Nero] (g) Osiris] He being cut in pieces by his brother 〈◊〉 Typhon, and that Isis and Orus Apollo had revenged his death upon Typhon, they went to seek the body of Osiris with great lamentation, and to Isis her great joy, found it, though it were disparkled in divers places: and hereupon a yearly feast was instituted on the seeking of Osiris with tears, and finding him with joy. Lucan saith hereupon Nunquam satis qua●…us Osiris: the ne'er wel-sought Osiris. (h) Be his advocates] Uadaeri is to bring one to the judge at a day appointed, Vadimonium, the promise to be there. So the phrase is used in Tully, to come into the Court, and the contrary of it is, non obire, not to appear, Pliny in the preface of his history, and many other authors use it: the sense here is, they made the gods their advocates like men, when they went to try their causes. ay Arch-plaier] Archimimus, co●… of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to imitate because they imitated their gestures whom they would make ridiculous, as also their conditions, and then they were called Ethopaei, and Ethologi whereof comes Ethopeia. Quintil. Pantomimi were universal imitators; Archimimi, the chief of all the Mimikes, as Fano was in Vespasians time. Who this was that Seneca mentions, I know not. (k) Terrible] She was jealous and maligned all her step-sons and Jove's harlots, so that she would not forbear that same Daedalian statue which jove being angry threatened to marry in 〈◊〉. For being reconciled to him, she made it be burnt. Plut. Hence was Numa's old law. No 〈◊〉 touch Juno's altar. Sacrifice a female lamb to juno, with dishevelled hair. (l) Bellona] Some ●…ke her his mother, and Nerione (or as Varro saith, Neriene) his wife: which is (as Gel●…) a Sabine word, & signifieth virtue and valour, and thence came the Nero's surname. ●…es had it from the greeks: who call the sinews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and thence comes our [Ner●…] and the Latin Neruus. Plaut. Trucul. Mars returning from a journey salutes his wife Ne●… 〈◊〉 Noct. Att. lib. 10. (m) Means of the bargain] That is one to be coupled with: hen●…●…es the Latin phrase Quaerere condicionem filiae, to seek a match for his daughter 〈◊〉 lib. 4. Cic. Philipp. It was used also of the Lawyers in divorses. Conditione tua 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. I'll not use thy company. (n) As free] We must seem Philosophy (saith Seneca) to be free: using free, as with a respect, not simply. (o) Seneca] He was banished by Claudius: but 〈◊〉 being executed, and Agrippina made Empress, she got his revocation, and senatorship ●…torship of the Emperor, that he might bring up her son Nero. So afterward Tr●…●…ximus and he were Consuls. Ulp. Pandect. 36. He was won derfull rich. tranquil Tatius. The gardens of rich Seneca. (p) People] His example did the harm, which Ele●…●…ed ●…ed to avoid Macchab. 2. 6. with far more holiness and Philosophical truth. Seneca his opinion of the jews. CHAP. 11. THis man amongst his other invectives against the superstitions of politic 〈◊〉 Theology condemns also the jews sacrifices, chiefly their saboaths: say●… 〈◊〉 by their seventh day interposed, they spend the seventh part of their 〈◊〉 idleness, and hurt themselves by not taking divers things in their time ●…et dares he not meddle with the Christians (though then the jews deadly 〈◊〉 upon either hand, lest he should praise them against his country's old cus●… or dispraise them perhaps against (a) his own conscience. Speaking of the 〈◊〉, he saith: The custom of that wicked nation getting head through all the world, the vanquished gave laws to the vanquishers. This he admired, not ●…ing the work of the godhead. But his opinion of their sacraments he subscribeth. They know the cause of their ceremonies (saith he) but most of the people do they know not what. But of the jewish sacrifices how far gods institutions first directed them, and then how by the men of God that had the mystery of eternity revealed to them, they were by the same authority abolished, we have both elsewhere spoken chiefly against the (b) Manichees, and in this work in convenient place mean to say somewhat more. L. VIVES. AGainst (a) his own] Nero having fired Rome, many were blamed for the fact by the villains of his Court, and amongst the rest the Christians whom Nero was assured should smart for all, because they were of a new religion: so they did indeed and were so extremely tortured that their pangs drew tears from their severest spectators. Seneca mean while begged leave to retire into the country for his health's sake: which not obtaining, he kept himself close in his chamber for divers months: Tacitus saith, it was because he would not partake in the malice that Nero's sacrilege procured: but I think rather, it was for that he could not endure to see those massacres of innocents. (b) Manichees] They reviled the old Testament and the jews law. August, de Haeres. ad Quodvultdeum, Them scriptures they said GOD did not give, but one of the princes of darkness. Against those Augustine wrote many books. That it is plain by this discovery of the Pagan gods vanity, that they cannot give eternal life, having not power to help in the temporal. CHAP. 12. NOw for the three Theologies, mythycall, physical and political: or fabulous, natural and civil: That the life eternal is neither to be expected from the fabulous, for that the Pagan's themselves reject and reprehend, nor from the civil, for that is proved but a part of the other: if this be not sufficient to prove, let that be added which the forepassed books contain, chiefly the 4. concerning the giver of happiness: for if Felicity were a goddess, to whom should one go for eternal life but to her? But being none, but a gift of GOD, to what god must we offer ourselves, but to the giver of that felicity, for that eternal and true happiness which we so entirely affect? But let no man doubt that none of those filth-adored gods can give it: those that are more filthyly angry unless that worship be given them in that manner, and herein proving themselves direct devils: what is said I think is sufficient to convince this. Now he that cannot give felicity how can he give eternal life? eternal life, we call endless felicity, for if the soul live eternally in pains, as the devils do, that is rather Eternal life. eternal death. For there is no death so sore nor sure, as that which never endeth. But the soul being of that immortal nature, that it cannot but live some way, therefore the greatest death it can endure is the deprivation of it from glory, and constitution in endless punishment. So he only giveth eternal life (that is endlessely happy) that giveth true felicity. Which since the politic gods cannot give, as is proved: they are not to be adored for their benefits of this life as we showed in our first five precedent books: and much less for life eternal, as this last book of all, by their own helps hath convinced. But if any man think (because old customs keep fast roots) that we have not shown cause sufficient for the rejecting of their politic Theology, let him peruse the next book, which by the assistance of GOD I intent shall immediately follow this former. Finis lib. 6. THE CONTENTS OF THE seventh book of the City of God. 1. Whether divinity be to be found in the select gods, since it is not extant in the politic Theology. chapter. 1. 2. The selected gods, and whither they be excepted from the base gods functions. 3. That these gods elections are without all reason, since that base gods have nobler charges. 4. That the meaner gods being buried in silence more better used then the select, whose 〈◊〉 were so shamefully traduced. 〈◊〉. Of the Pagans more abstruse Phisiologicall doctrine. 6. Of ●…rro his opinion that GOD was the soul 〈◊〉 world, and yet had many souls under 〈◊〉 on his parts, all which were of the divine nature. 7. Whether it stand with reason that janus and Terminus should be two gods. 8. 〈◊〉 the worshippers of janus made him two 〈◊〉 yet would have him set forth with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…es power, and janus his compared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ther janus and jove be rightly di●… 〈◊〉 or no. 〈◊〉 Of Jove's surnames, referred all unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God, not as to many. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 jupiter is called Pecunia also. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the interpretation of Saturn and 〈◊〉 ●…roue them both to be jupiter. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the functions of Mars and Mercury. 〈◊〉 Of certain stars that the Pagans call 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 Of Apollo, Diana and other select gods, 〈◊〉 ●…ts of the world. 〈◊〉 That Varro himself held his opinions of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be ambiguous. 18. The likeliest cause of the propagation of Paganism. 19 The interpretations of the worship of Saturn. 20. Of the sacrifices of Ceres Elusyna. 21. Of the obscaenity of Bacchus' sacrifice. 22. Of Neptune, Salacia and Venillia. 23. Of the earth held by Varro to be a goddess, because the world's soul (his God) doth penetrate his lowest part and communicateth his essence therewith. 24. Of Earth's surnames and significations which though they arose of divers originals, yet should they not be accounted divers gods. 25. What exposition the Greek wisemen give of the gelding of Atys. 26. Of the filthiness of this great Mother's sacrifice. 27. Of the naturalists figments, that neither adore the true Deity, nor use the adoration thereto belonging. 28. That Varro's doctrine of Theology hangeth no way together. 29. That all that the Naturalists refer to the world's parts, should be referred to GOD. 30. The means to discern the Creator from the Creatures, and to avoid the worshipping of so many gods for one, because their are so many powers in one. 31. The peculiar benefits (besides his common bounty) that GOD bestoweth upon his servants. 32. That the mystery of our redemption by Christ was not obscure in the precedent times, but continually intimated in divers significations. 33. That Christianity only is of power to lay open the devils subtly and delight in illuding of ignorant men. 34. Of Numa his books which the Senate for keeping their mysteries in secret, did command should be burned. 35. Of Hydromancy whereby Numa was mocked with apparitions. FINIS. THE SEVENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Whether divinity be to be found in the select Gods, since it is not extant in the Politic Theology. CHAP. 1. WHereas I employ my most diligent endeavour about the extirpation of inveterate and depraved opinions, which the continuance of error hath deeply rooted in the hearts of mortal men: and whereas I work by that grace of GOD (who as the true GOD is able to bring this work to effect) according to my poor talon: The quick and apprehensive spirits that have drawn full satisfaction from the works precedent, must bear my proceedings with pardon, and patience: and not think my subsequent discourse to be superfluous unto others because it is needless unto them. The affirmation that divinity is not to be sought for terrestrial vies (though thence we must desire all Divinity wherefore to be sought. earthly supplies that we need) but for the celestial glory which is never not eternal, is a great matter. This divinity, or, let me say deity; for this (a) word our Christians have now in use as expressly traduced from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. This divinity therefore or deity is not in that politic Theology which M. Varro discourseth of in his 16. books: that is, the worship of any god there expressed will not yield to man eternal life: he that will not be persuaded this is true, out of our sixth book last finished, when he hath read this, I believe shall not find any point of this question left undiscussed: for some perhaps may think that the selected gods of Varro's last book (whereof we said some what) and none but they are to be honoured for this eternal beatitude. I say not herein as (b) Tertullian said, with more conceit prehaps then truth: if the gods be chosen like (c) scallions, than the rest are counted wicked. This I say not, for I see that out of an elected sort, another particular election may be made: as out of a company of elected soldiers one is elected for this office in arms and another for one not so weighty: and in the church, when the elders are elected, the others are not held reprobate: being all GOD'S good faithful elect. In architecture, corner and foundation stones are chosen, yet the rest are not refused but will fit other places. Grapes are chosen to eat: but they are not worth nought which we leave for wine. The matter is plain and needs no farther process. Wherefore neither the gods nor their servants are falty, in that they are selected from many: but let us rather look what the selected are, and what is the end of their selection. L. VIVES. THis (a) word] Used by Hierome, Lactantius and Fulgentius: the greeks derived the substantive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, divinity, from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, divine: which substantive the Christians took in as large a sense as the word itself Divine: and when the would express God's nature with the fittest term, they used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. So doth Athanas. both the Gregory's and other Grecians: which they might rather do (saith Quintilian) than the Latins. But yet all the strict rules of art could not keep the latins from using Deitas, the deity in expressing Gods proper nature: nor is it extended so far as Divine, is, or divinity: for they are spoken of books, deeds, men, etc. But neither Deitas, or Deus are predicates for them, though they be divine. And therefore methinks Ualla doth blame the Christian writers undeservedly, to say they use a new word, not heard of before. (In Dialectica.) For to take away the greeks authority of framing themselves words, is to cancel their old privileges. (b) Tertullian.] Of him read Hierome de scriptor. Eccl. He was a Priest of Carthage Son to a vice consul: quick witted and vehement: he lived in the times of Severus and Caracalla, and wrote much: which being recorded I surcease 〈◊〉 ●…count. Cyprian the Martyr passed not a day without reading a piece of his works: but called him his Master, yet fell he to be a Montanist, through the envy and malice of the clergy of Rome. All this hath Hierome. His books, lay many ages lost, at last this very year when this book came forth, Beatus Rhenanus of Sletstad, a learned scholar found them in Germany, and set them forth at Frobenius his press. (c) Scallions.] Bulbus is a name to all roots that are like onions. Palladius useth it for the lily root: but the proper Bulbi are they Mergarides perhaps our English potatoes. that t●… Arabians all Mergarides, and provoke lust as martial shows. Plinny. lib. 1. saith the chief of those Bulbi are the squillae or sea unions, of which sort the root called Epimenidia is only fit to eat. theophra. lib. 7. The rest are not for meat. The selected gods, and whether they be exempted from the base gods functions. CHAP. 2. THose (a) selected gods, Varro commendeth in one whole book, and these they are janus jove, Saturn, Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars; Vulcan, Neptune, Sol, Orcus, Liber Pater, Tellus, Ceres, juno, Luna, Diana Minerva; Venus, and Vesta. In these 20 are 〈◊〉 males and 8. females. Now (b) whether are they called select, for their princi●…●…arges in the world, or for that they were more known & adored then ●…he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of their greater charges, then may they not come to meddle 〈◊〉 ●…ty businesses of the base gods. But at the conception of the child, 〈◊〉 those petty gods charges arise, janus is making fit receipt for the seed: 〈◊〉 hath business in the seed also; (d) Liber is making the man's seed flow ●…ly: and Libera whom they say is Venus, she is working the like in the 〈◊〉: all these are of your selected gods. But then there is Mena, the god●…●…he female flux, a daughter of jove but yet a base one. And (f) this sway 〈◊〉, he giveth to juno also, in his book of the select ones amongst whom 〈◊〉 ●…eene: and here is juno Lucina together with her stepdaughter Mena, rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blood. And then there are two obscure fellows (of gods) Vitumnus 〈◊〉 ●…us, one giveth vital breath, and another sense to the child be●… These two base gods do more service here then all the other great 〈◊〉 gods, for what is all that the heap together in the woman's womb, 〈◊〉 life and sense, but as a lump of (g) clay and dust. L. VIVES. THose. (a) Selected.] To the twelve counsellor gods (before remembered) were twelve other added, as Nobles but not Senators: yet such as had great charge in the world, and gre●… share in divers consultations, as others of other meaner sort have sometimes. Seneca 〈◊〉 that jove made janus one of the Conscript fathers and consul of the afternoon: but 〈◊〉 ●…ee scoffeth, though indeed all these god-stories are but mere fopperies. And 〈◊〉 the couples jupiter and juno, Saturn and Tellus, Mercury and Minerva (but not ●…d, but both of one science) as Bacchus and Ceres, Apollo, Diana and, are) than Mars and Venus the two lovers, Vulcan and Vesta the two fires: Sol and Luna the world's two lights: marry janus, Neptune, Genius and Orcus the goddess unchosen, are all too base for them. (b) Whether] A problematique form of argument. (c) Saturn] coming of Satu●…, a thing sown. Var. de Lin. lat. l. 4. (d) Liber] Cicero (de nat. dear. 2.) saith that Liber Bacchus, son to jove and Semele, is one, and Liber that the romans worship so reverently with Libera and Ceres is another. That these two later were Ceres children, and so called Liberi: Libera was daughter to Ceres, and called Proserpina, saith he. In Uerr. Actio. 6. These three had a temple near the great Circuit, vowed by A. Posthumus Dictator, and renewed by Tiber●… Caesar. Tacit. lib. 2. (e) Mena] the Moon: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek, because the women's flux follows her motion. Arist. de anima. she was the daughter of jove and Latona: and therefore he calleth her Juno's step-daughter: But by this name she is unknown to the Latins. (f) This sway] The women adored juno Fluona, for stopping this flux at conceptions. Festus. (g) Cl●… and dust,] alluding to man's beginning and end. Genesis 1. In clay he began, and in dust be shall end. That these gods elections are without all reason since that base gods have nobler charges. CHAP. 3. But why doth he call so many of the selected gods to this charge, and the●… Vitumnus and Bentinus get the principal offices of all the rest? Select janus, he maketh way for the seed: select Saturn he brings it: select Liber, he puts it freely forth: and so doth Libera (a) be she Ceres or Venus, to the women, select juno with her daughter Mena's help, brings flux of blood to (b) nourish the birth. But base Vitumnus, he brings life to it: obscure Sentinus, he gives it sense. Which two gifts are as far above the rest, as they are short of reason. For as the reasonable creature excelleth that which is but only sensitive, as the beast: so the sensitive must needs excel that which hath neither sense nor life. So that Vitumnus the quickener, and Sentinus the sence-giver had more reason to be selected, then either janus the seed-guider, Saturn the giver, or Liber and Libera the losers▪ which seed it were unworthy to imagine, unless it were animated and made sensitive: which select gifts the select gods give not, but only a couple of poor obscure fellows that must stand at the door when these are let in. If they reply, janus is god of all beginnings, and therefore justly openeth the womb: Saturn of all seed, and therefore justly worketh in the man's sowing of it: Liber and Libera of the distillation of seed in all spermaticall creatures, and therefore must work in this dispersing of man's: juno of all births and purgations, and therefore justly must have a hand in the woman's at this time: W●… what of Vitumnus and Sentinus, have they dominion over all things living and sensitive? If it be granted, then see how these two are advanced. For seeds to grow on earth is earth's nature: but to live and have sense, that comes from the gods of the stars, they say. But if they say that these two have sway only over fleshly sensitives; why then could not he that giveth sense to fishes and all things else, give flesh sense also, and extend his general power through each peculiar? what need then of Vitumnus and Sentinus? If he that rules life and sense, rule all things else, and gave the charge of fleshly sensitives to these his two servants, as a place of no credit: Kept these selected gods so few attendants, that they could not commit the said base offices to some of their followers, but must debase all (their cause of selection) their nobility to be joined fellow-worke-men with such a base couple? Nay juno the selected Queen of all the selected (c) Jove's wife and sister, yet is Interduca to the children, and worketh with a couple of base goddesses Adeona and Abeona. And there is goddess men's, that sends the child a good mind, she's no select, and yet (d) how can a greater gift be given to man? Now juno plays Iterduta, and Domiduca, as though it were such a matter to make a journey or to come well home, if one be not in his right mind: yet the goddess of this good gift was none of the select. Truly she deserved it before Minerva (e) that had charge of the child's memory A good mind better than memory. in this quartering of duties. For who doubteth that it is better to have a good mind, than a memory never so capable? for he that hath a good mind is never evil. But (f) many wicked men have admirable memories, and are so much worse because they cannot forget their evil cogitations. Yet is Minerva selected. And for Virtue and Felicity, (of whom our fourth book treateth) those goddesses they had, but never selected them, whilst Mars and Orcus, the one the causer of death, and the other the receiver, these were selected. Seeing therefore that in these worthless affairs, shared amongst so many, the Patrician and Plebeian God, work all together in huggermugger: and that some gods that were not held worthy of selection, had more honourable charges in the businesses, than the selected: it resteth to believe, that their being known to the vulgar more than the other, and not their bearing charge above the other, put in their name's 〈◊〉 this bill of selection. And therefore Varro himself saith, that (g) many father-gods and mother-goddesses, were grown ignoble, like mortal men. If therefore felicity be not to be placed amongst those selects, because they got their places rather by chance then desert: yet surely fortune should be one amongst them, or rather above them, who giveth not her gifts by reason, but ever casualty, as it falleth out. She of right should have been their chief, as showing 〈◊〉 ●…er chiefly upon them; when as we see it was no virtue nor reasonable 〈◊〉 of theirs but only the power of fortune (as all their adorers do be●… 〈◊〉 made them be selected. For witty Sallust it may be excluded not 〈◊〉 ●…hen he said. Fortune ruleth in every thing: disposing them rather accord●…●…ill then unto truth. For they can show no reason why Venus should be 〈◊〉 Virtue obscure, seeing both are made goddesses, and their merits are ●…parable. If Venus deserved her enhansement in this, that more affect her 〈◊〉 ●…ue, why then is Minerva famous, and Lady Money obscure, seeing that 〈◊〉 of men there is (h) more loves coin then knowledge? and even in the 〈◊〉, you shall not find one but it is set to sale, and still there is more respect 〈◊〉 ●…hich respecteth other ends (ay) then to that which other ends do most 〈◊〉 If therefore the fond vulgar were the selectors, why was not Money pu●… 〈◊〉 Minerva, since all their trades aim at Money? But the wisemen selected 〈◊〉 ●…hy was Venus preferred before Virtue, which all reason will of right 〈◊〉 Certainly (as I said) if fortune (who as they think, that think her 〈◊〉 ●…ull) ruleth in every thing (disposing them rather according to her lust 〈◊〉 then to right or reason) had so much power over the gods, that she 〈◊〉 ●…nce and obscure whom she list, than should the first place of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 right have been hers, that had such authority over the state of the 〈◊〉. But may we not think that Fortune was Fortunes own foe, and so kept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place? Sure it was so: she was her own foe, that could give ad●…ments to others, and took none herself. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) be she] We said she was sister to Dionysius, and that they two betoken the Sun and Moon, that rule in natural seeds of all sorts, we will show that Luna is also Venus and Ceres. Apulei. Metamorph. lib. 11. Macrob. Saturn. 1. Val. Prob. Servius in Georg. 1. Prophyry saith the moons generative virtue is called Ceres. Virgil, following Varro, joins liber and Ceres: whence it is plain that Ceres was also called libera. (b) To nourish.] Hereof Plin. lib. 7. It is the matter or substance fitted for generation the masculine seed congealing in it, and so growing to perfection, when it flows in women with child, their burden is dead, or corrupted. Nigidius. Then this blood menstrual there cannot be a more filthy, nor venomous thing: which alone is enough to curb and dash the proud heart of man. (c) Wife and sister.] Virgil: It is common. (d) How can.] This is all the Philosophers saying: a man is the wonder of the world, and the mind the wonder of the man. (e) That had charge.] In Minerva's feasts the children carried new yeares-gifts to their masters and made a play day of that, to do service to Minerva that ruled the memory, the storehouse of discipline, and the especial sign of wit in little children as Quintilian saith; she ruleth the wit also and was called the birth of Jove's brain. ovid. faster. Pallada nunc puri tener 〈◊〉 ornate puellae: Qui bene pl●…arit Pallada doctus erit. Now Pallas temple (youths and damsels) fill. He that can please her shall have wit at will, And so he proceedeth. (f) Many wicked.] Plato in his Thaetetus, saith that the choleric person is the best memoried: guessing doubtless by the hot and dry brain. (g) Many father gods.] jove is above Saturn, and he above Caelus, whose parents are unknown, though Phurnutus calls his father by the name of Haemon, juno also is more famous than Ops, and she then her mother. (h) Moore loves coin.] Querenda Pecunia primum est: vertus post nummos Haec janus summus ab imo Perdocet: Haec recinunt iwenes dictata, senesque. First coin, than virtue: this doth janus sing, And this through mouths of youth and age doth ring. Euripides presents one in a humour neglecting allthings, all reproaches for wealth: his reason is: why what? do they ask how good one is? how honest? no, how rich? each one is that which he possesseth. ay Then to that which.] A difference of reading, but it is reform, the Axi●… is Aristotle's, Poster. 1. That, whose end respecteth another is not so good as the end it respecteth, and principles are both plainer and before their conclusions, in precedency, though here he speak not so much of the final cause as of the efficient. But in his Ethics he teacheth that the things respected are better than the things respecting. That the meaner gods being buried in silence were better used then the select, whose faults were so shamefully traduced. CHAP. 4. NOw any one that longed after honour might gratulate those selected gods and say their selection had been good if it had not rather been used to their disgrace then their honours, for the baseness of the meaner sort kept them from scorns. Indeed we do laugh when we see how fond opinion hath parted them into squadrons, and set them to work upon trifles like (a) hospital men, or the (b) goldsmith in the silver-street, where the cup goeth through so many hands ere it 〈◊〉 done, when as one good workman might do all himself. But I think they had each such little shares, to learn their work the sooner, lest the whole should have been too long in learning. But we can scarcely find one of the unselected gods that is be come infamous by any foul act doing: but scarcely one of the select, but on the contrary. The latter came down belike to the base works of the first, but the first ascended not to the high crimes of the later. In (c) deed of Ia●…s I find nothing blameworthy: perhaps he lived honestly and out of the (d) rank of villains, he received Saturn courteously, being expelled his kingdom, and shared his state with him, and they built two cities, the one janiculum, the other Saturnia. But those senseless adorers of Idolatry and filthiness, have made him a very monster: sometimes with two faces, sometimes with four. Did they desire that since the other gods had lost all (e) honesty of face by their fowl acts, his innocence should be the more apparent by his many foreheads? L. VIVES. I (〈◊〉) Spittle-men] A diverse reading: ours is the best as I think. He doth mean such 〈◊〉 as had the gathering of some abject pence, of little or no use to the state: some fragments of collections. (b) Goldsmiths] One carves, one guilds one sets on an ear, or a corner 〈◊〉 like, though the plate sellers are not Goldsmiths, but put their work out to the goldsmiths themselves or rather bankers, or exchangers: the workmen kept shops about the great market place. Uitru. l. 5. Liu. lib. 26. To get thee out of the market place, is Plautus' phrase in his 〈◊〉 Augustine useth the Syluer-streete here, for a place where the goldsmiths wrought. (c) 〈◊〉] He was borne in Italy, and reigned there with Camese borne there also: the 〈◊〉 as called Camesena, the City janiculum: but he dying, janus ruled all, and entertained janus. Saturn in his flight from Crete: learned husbandry of him, and shared his kingdom with 〈◊〉 giving him Mount Tarpeius, whereon there stood a tower and a little town which Aeneas would have Saturnia called Aeneopolis. he called Saturnia: Aeneas would have called it Aeneopolis afterwards, but it kept the old name Saturnia still: there were some monuments of it remained long after: the Saturnian gate called afterward Padana, as the writing on the wall testifieth; and the temple of Saturn in the entrance. Tarquin the proud afterwards building junos' temple, and Saturn being as it were expelled from thence also by his son, the whole Capitol was dedicated in the name of Great omnipotent jupiter. Uirg. Aeneid. 8. Seru. ibid. ovid. fast. 1. Eutrop. Solin. Macrob. Diony. & Pru●…. There is a book under Berosus the Chaldaeans name that saith janus was Noah: I hold th●…●…ke nothing but mere fables, worthy of the Anian Commentaries. Of janus, Berosus the Chaldean. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall hear more. (d) Rank of villains.] ovid. (fast. 6.) saith he ravished 〈◊〉 who was afterwards called Carna, and made goddess of hinges: But Augustine The nymph Crane. either 〈◊〉 forgot it, or else held it but a false fiction. (e) Honesty of face] the face and the fore●…●…en for shame. Hence is Pliny's Perfricare faciem, & frontem in Quintilianum, to 〈◊〉 ashamed. Lucan. Nec color imperii, nec frons erit ulla senatus: The Court will want all shame, the state all shape. And Persius. Exclamet Melicerta perisse— Frontem de rebus— Letoy Melicerta cry— All shame is fled. Of the Pagans more abstruse physiological doctrine. CHAP. 5. 〈◊〉 let us rather hear their natural expositions, wherewith they would 〈◊〉 ●…ne to cloak their piteous errors as in cloudy mysteries. First Varro so ●…nds them, that he saith the pictures, shapes and vestures of the gods were 〈◊〉 of old for the devout, therein to contemplate the world's soul, and the parts thereof, that is the true Gods in their minds: whereof such as erected hu●…e shapes, seemed to compare the immortal essence unto the soul in man, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vessel should be put for the thing itself, and a flagon (a) set in Libers' 〈◊〉, to signify wine, taking the continent for the contained; so by that hu●… shape, the reasonable soul in the like included might be expressed, of 〈◊〉 ●…ure they say that God, or the gods are. These are the mystical doctrines 〈◊〉 ●…is sharp wit went deep into, and so delivered. But tell me thou acc●…n, hast thou lost that judgement in these mysteries that made thee say, that they that first made Images, freed the City from all awe, and added error to error, and that the old romans served the gods in better order without any statues at all? They were thy authors for that thou spokest against their successors. For had they had statues also, perhaps fear would have made thee have suppressed thy opinion of abolishing Images, and have made thee have sought further for these vain Mythologies and figments: for thy soul, so learned and so ingenious (which we much bewail in thee) by being so ingrateful to that God (by whom, not with whom it was made: nor was a part of him but a thing made by him, who is not the life of all things, but all life's maker) could never come to his knowledge by these mysteries. But of what nature and worth they are, let us see. Mean time this learned man affirmeth, the world's soul entirely to be truly God, so that all his Theology being natural, extendeth itself even to the nature of the reasonable soul. Of this natural kind he speaketh briefly in his book whence we have this: wherein we must see whether all his mystical wrest can bring the natural to the civil, of which he discourseth in his last book of the select Gods: if he can, all shall be natural. And then what need he be so careful in their distinction? But if they be rightly divided, seeing that the natural that he liketh so of is not true, (for he comes but to the soul, not to God that made the soul:) how much more is the civil kind untrue and subject, that is, all corporal and conversant about the body as his own interpretations being diligently called out, shall (by my rehearsal) make most apparent. L. VIVES. Flagon (a) Oenophorum, of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, wine, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to carry, Iwenall useth the word. Sat. 6. and Apuleius Asin. l. 2. & 8. and Martial. Pliny saith, it was a work of the rare painter Praxitales: but he means a boy bearing wine. Beroaldus out of this place gathereth that they used to set a flagon of wine in Bacchus' temple: It is more than he can gather hence, though it may be there was such an use. Of Varro his opinion that God was the soul of the world, and yet had many souls under him in his parts, all which were of the divine nature. CHAP. 6. THe same Varro speaking further of this Physical Theology (a) saith, that he holds God to be the soul of the world, which the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and (b) that this world is God. But as a whole man, body and soul, is called wise of the soul only, so is the world called God in respect of the soul only, being both soul and body. Here (seemingly) he confesseth one God, but it is to bring in more, for so he divides the world into heaven and earth: heaven into the air and the sky, earth into land and water: all which four parts he fills with souls, the sky (c) highest, the air next, than the water, and then the earth: the souls of the first two he maketh immortal, the latter mortal. The space between the highest heaven and the Moon he fills with souls ethereal and stars, affirming that they both are and seem celestial Gods: (d) Between the Moon and the tops of the winds he bestoweth airy souls, but invisible (save to the mind) calling them Heroes Lar, and Genij. This he briefly recordeth in his prologue to his natural Theology, which pleased not him alone, but many Philosophers more: whereof with God's help we will discourse at full, when we handle the civil Theology as it respecteth the select gods. L. VIVES. THeology (a) saith] The Platonists, Stoics, Pythagorians and the jonikes before them all, held God to be a soul: but diversly: Plato gave the world a soul, and made them conjoined, god. But his other god, his men's, he puts before this later, as father to him. The stoics and he agree, that agree at all. Thales and Democritus held the world's soul the highest god. (b) That this] Plato, the stoics and many Philosophers held this. (c) Sky the highest] Aristotle puts the fire above the air and the heaven: the Platonists held the heaven to be fiery, and therefore called Aether. And that the air next it was a hurtless fire, kindled by it. This many say that Plato held●… following Pythagoras, who made the universal globe of 4. bodies. But Uarro here maketh air to be next heaven, as the stoics did especially, and others also. Though the Plato●… and they differ not much, nor the Peripatetics, if they speak as they mean, and be rightly understood. But aether is the air as well as the sky and fire, as caelum is in latin. Virgil. Illa levem fugiens raptim secat aethera pennis: With swift-winged speed she cuts the yielding air. (a) 〈◊〉 the moon] The first region of the Air (Aristotle in his Physics) ending at the top of the clouds; the second containing the clouds, thunder, rain, hail and snow●… the 〈◊〉 from thence to the Element of fire. Whether it stand with reason that janus and Terminus should be two godees. CHAP. 7. I 〈◊〉 therefore whom I begun with, what is he? The (a) world. Why this is a plain and brief answer: but why hath (b) he the rule and beginnings then, and another (one Terminus) of the ends? For therefore they have two (c) months' dedicated to them january to janus, and February to Terminus. And so the (d) Termina●… then kept, when the (e) purgatory sacrifice called (f) Februm was also kept, 〈◊〉 the month hath the name: Doth then the beginning of things belong to the ●…ld, to janus and not the end but unto another? Is not all things beginning 〈◊〉 world to have their end also therein? What fondness is this, to give him 〈◊〉 ●…se a power, and yet a double face? were it not better (g) to call that doublefaced statue both janus and Terminus, and to give the beginnings one face and the 〈◊〉 another, because he that doth an act must respect both? For in all actions 〈◊〉 that regardeth not the beginning foreseeth not the end. So that a respective memory and a memorative providence must of force go together. But if they imagine that blessedness of life is but begun and not ended in this world, and that therefore the world (janus) is to have but power of the beginnings: why then they should put Terminus amongst the selected gods before him: For though they were both employed about one subject, yet Terminus should have the better place; for the glory is in the conclusion of every act, and the beginnings are full of doubt and fear till they be brought to perfection, which every one at his beginning of an act doth desire, intent and expect, nor joyeth he in the beginning, but in the consummation of his intents. L. VIVES. THe (a) world] Macrobius Saturn. 1. (b) The rule of] Xenon saith, because he did first induce religion into Italy; therefore he deserved to be ruler of the beginnings of sacrifices: he that would know moreof this, let him read Macrobius, a known author. (c) months'] The Roman ye●… before Numa had but 10. months' with the Albans. Numa added the 2. last, january & February. Varro. Plutarch. Ovid thinketh that january of old began the year. (Fast. 2.) & February ended it, the last day whereof was Terminus his feast, and that afterwards the Decemuirs in the 12. tables joined january and February together. (d) Terminalia] the last feast of February, before the expulsion of Tarquin: but after they kept the kings-flight feast after the other. The Terminalia (saith Bede) were the 23. of February. De not▪ rerum. (e) The purgatory) The Terminalia were no purgations, but the Februa were, which were kept that month also. (f) Febr●…] Ovid fastorum. 2. Februa Romani dixere pia mina Patres. Our fathers said the Februa were purgations. And a little after. Denique quocumque est quo corpora nostra piantur, Hoc apud intonsos nomen habebat avos. What ever washed the body's guilt away, Unkempt antiquity called Februa. And hence carne our February. (g] To call that doublefaced] Cicero seems to make janus God both of beginnings & ends. De nat. dear. 2. Macrob. doth the like, following the opinion of many. Why the worshippers of janus made him two faces, and yet would have him set forthwith four also. CHAP. 8. But now to the meaning of janus (a) his two faces. Two he had (say they) one before, another behind, because when we gape, our mouth is like the world (& therefore the Greek called them (b) palate, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, heaven. And some Latin poets have called the palate Coelum, heaven also: from whence is a way outward, to the teeth, & inward to the throat. See now to what a pass the world is come, for your Greek or poetical name of the palate. What is all this to life eternal? or the soul? here is god's worship all bestowed, for a little spittle to spit out, or swallow down, as the gates shall open or shut. But who is so foolish that cannot find in the world two contrary passages, whereat one may enter in or out? but of our mouth & throat (whose like is not in the world) must frame the similitude of the world in janus, only for the palate, (c) whose similitude is not in janus. And whereas they make him 4. faces, calling his statue double janus, these they attribute to the 4. corners of the world, as if the world's four corners looked all forward, as his 4. faces do. Again if janus be the world, & the world consist of 4. parts then the picture of two faced (d) janus is false (for though he be foure-faced sometimes yet he never hath four gates). Or if the two-faced picture be true, because east & west includeth usually all the world, will any man when we name the north and the south, call the world double, as they do janus with his 4. faces? nor have they any similitude in the world correspondent to their four gates of ingress & egress; as they have found for the 2-faces in the mouth of a man: (e) unless Neptune come with a fish, there indeed in his mouth is a passage in and a passage out, and ways forth on either side his chaps. But of all these ways there is none leadeth any soul from vanity, but such as hear the truth say; I am the way. john. 10. L. VIVES. janus (a) his] Some say his wisdom & providence procured him this double fronted statue, as Homer saith of a valiant fellow: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he looked both before & behind at once. Plutarch gave two reasons for this statue. First because he was first a Grecian called Per●…bus (as is recorded) and then coming into Italy, changed both name, language, and conditions. Secondly because he taught the Italians both husbandry and policy, Problem. Others (as Ovid, which reason Augustine here toucheth) say he signifieth the world, one face being the east, and another the west. Some say he had reference to the rising and sett●…ng of the sun, & signified the sun. Nigidius he also saith that the greeks worshipped Apollo Thyanues, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: the Porter, and the ●…ourney-guider. But I think not in that shape that the romans worshipped janus: for Ovid saith: Quem tamen esse deum dic am te Iane biformis? Na●… tibi par nullum Gr●…cia numen habet. In English th●… What god (two-fronted janus) shouldst thou be? Of all the gods of 〈◊〉 is none like thee. He was framed with four faces also. C. Bass▪ de diis apud Macrob. janus hath two faces as the doorkeeper of heaven and hell: four faces, because in his Majesty he compriseth all the earth's climates. This is that janus who in their ceremonies they called double janus: the two faced one was called janus the simple: the others Temple was open in war and shut in peace (b) Palate, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] Arist. de part. Animal. And Pliny imitating him, useth caelum for the palate (l. 11.) speaking of the brain: this (quoth he) is the most excellent of the spermative parts nearest to the [heaven of the head,] palate. (c) Whose similitude] or, from whose similitude janus hath his name. (d) janus is false] Some hold the rest, unto [Or if the two faced picture] to be ●…oisted in. It is not very unlikely by the subsequence. (e) Unless Neptune] for in men it cannot be found. Of Jove's power, and janus his compared together. CHAP. 9 But let them tell us now whom they mean by jove (a) or jupiter. He is a God (quoth they) that rules the causes of all effects in the world. This is a great charge. Ask (b) Virgil's excellent verse else. Foelix qui potuit rerum cognoscer●… causas. O blessed he, and excellent▪ that ken the cause of each event. But why then is janus preferred before him? let the great absolute scholar speak. Because saith he, janus rules the first things, and jove the greatest. Why then jove is still worthy of the superiority: the greatest things control the first: and excel them in dignity though they be short of them in time. If the beginnings, and the excellencies of all acts be compared together this is true: To go is the beginning of an act; but to finish the journey is the perfection. To begin to learn, is another, but the habit of learning is the excellence, and so in all things, the beginning▪ is the first, and the end the best. But the cause of janus & Terminus is already heard. But the causes that jove swayeth are not effects, but efficients: nor can the facts begun or ended be before them, for the agent is always before the act. Wherefore let janus have sway in beginnings of acts, jove yet hath dominion in things before his. For nothing is either ended or begun without a precedent efficient cause Now as for this great nature's master, and cause-disposing God, if the vulgar call him jove, and adore him with such horrible imputations of villainy as they do, they had better and with less sacrilege, believe no God at all. They had better call any one jove that were worthy of these horrid and hateful horrors, or set a stock before them and call it jove, with intent to blaspheme him (as Saturn had a stone laid him, to devour in his sons stead) then to call him both thunderer, and lecher, the world's ruler, and the women's ravisher, the giver of all good causes to nature, and the receiver of all bad in himself. Again if Ia●…s be the world, I ask where Jove's seat is is? our author hath said that the true Gods are but parts of the world's soul, and the soul itself: well than he that is not such, is no true God. How then? Is jove the world's soul, and janus the body, this visible world? If it be so, janus is no god, for the world's body is none: but the soul and his parts only, witness themselves. So Varro saith plainly, he holds that God is the world's soul, and this soul is god. But as a wise man hath body and soul, and yet his name of [●…ise] is only in respect of his soul. So the world hath soul and body, yet is called God only in reference to the soul. So then the world's body alone is no god: but the soul, either separate or combined with the body, yet so that the godhead rest only in itself: if I●… then be the world and a god; how can jove be a part of janus only, and yet so great a god? for they give more to jove then janus, iovis omnia plena; all is full of Io●…e, say they. Therefore if jove be a god, & the king of gods, they cannot make any but him to be the world, because he must reign over the rest, as over his own parts. To this purpose Varro in his book of the worship of the gods which he published several from these other, set down a distich of Valerius (c) Sor●…nus his making: it is this; jupiter omnipotens regum, rex ipse deusque, Progenitor, genitrixque deum, deus v●…us & omnis. High jove, King's King, and Parent General, To all the gods: God only, and God all. These verses Varro exp●…undeth, and calling the giver of seed, the male, and the receiver the female, accounted jove the world, that both giveth all seed itself, and receiveth it into itself. And therefore Soranus (saith he) called jove, Progenitor, genitrixque, father and mother, Full Parent general, to all etc. and by the same reason is it that he was called, one and the same, all: for the (f) world is one, and all things are in that one. L. VIVES. Jove (a) or jupiter] For they are both declinable nominatives: Genetivo, iovis and Iup●…ris: though we use the nominative only of the later, and the other cases of the first, as the greeks do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (b) Uirgils'] Georgic. 2. calling the investigators of causes happy, as the Philosophers did, of the Peripatetics and Academikes, Arist. Ethic. 10. Cicero de finib. 5. (c) Soranus] Mentioned by Cicero, de Oratore. 1. Plin. lib. 3. Solin. Polihist. Plut. Probl. Macrob. Saturn. Seru. in Georg. 1. He was a learned Latin, counted the best scholar of the Gowned professors. Cic. de orat. 1. Varro was so held also but Soranus before him, as Ennius the best Poet before Virgil. He had honours at Rome, and the tribuneship for one: and because he spoke the secret name of Rome which no man might utter, he lost his life. Pli●…. Solin. Macrob. and Plutarch, though in Pompey's life Plutarch saith that Q. Valeri●… the Philosopher (which most understood to be Soranus) was put to death by Pompey. But this is but at the second hand (saith he) from Opius: let us beware how we trust a friend to Caesar in a stori●… of Pompey. Some say he died suddenly: Others, that he was crucified. Seru. (d) jupiter] The old copies read jupiter omnipotens, regum rerumque, deumque, for the first verse. (e) G●…uer of seed] Orph. Hymn. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. God as a man begets, as woman, breeds. (f) World is] So held all the best Philosophers against Anaximander, Anaximenes, Aristarchus, Xenophan●…s, Diogenes, Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus, all which held many worlds. Whether janus and jove be rightly distinguished or no. CHAP. 10. WHerefore janus being the world, and jove the world also, and yet the world but one, why then are not janus and jove one? Why have the several Temples, several altars, rites and statues all several? Because the original is one thing and the cause another, and therefore their names and natures are distinct herein? Why how can this be? If one man have two authorities, or two sciences, because they are distinct, is he therefore two officers, or two tradesmen▪ So than if one GOD have two powers over causes, and over originals, must he needs therefore be two Gods, because they are two things? If this may be faith then let jove be as many gods as he hath surnames for his several authorities, for all his powers, whence they are derived are truly distinct: let us look in a few of them, and see if this be not true. Of Jove's surnames, referred all unto him, as one god, not as to many. CHAP. 11. THey called him (a) Victor, In●…incible, Helper, Impulsor, Stator, (b) Hundred foote●…, the R●…fter, (c) the Nourisher, Ruminus, and inunmerable other names too long (d) to rehearse. All the names they gave one God for divers respect and powers, yet did they not make him a god for each peculiar, because he conquered, was unconquered, helped the needy, had power to enforce, to stay, to establish, to overturn, because he bore up the world like a (e) rafter, because he nourished all, and as it were gave all the world suck. Mark these powers conferred with the epithets: Some are of worth, some idle: yet one gods work they are (f) all, as they say. I think there is more nearness of nature between the causes and the beginnings of things, for which they make one world two gods, janus and jove, who (they say) both containeth all, and yet giveth creatures suck: yet for these two works of such different qualities, is not jove compelled to become two gods, but playeth the one part as he is Tigillus The Rafter, and the other as he in Ruminus, the Dugg-bearer. I will not say that it were fitter for juno to suckle the words creatures then jupiter, especially having power to make a waiting maid of goddess Rumin●…: for it may be they will reply: why juno is nothing but jupiter, as Soranus saith. jupiter omnipotens regum, rerumque deumque Progenitor, genetrixque deorum,— He is god only and god all: but why is he called Ruminus then, whenif you look a little farther into him, you shall find him to be Rumina the goddess, for if it seem (g) justly unworthy of the majesty of the gods, to set one to look to the knot of the corn, and another to the blade, how much more is it unreverently ridiculus to put a base office, the suckling of whelps, lambs, calves or so, unto the performance of two gods, the one whereof is Lord of the whole universe: I, and not this neither with his wife, but with a base goddess, I cannot tell whom Rumina, unless he be both Ruminus and Rumina, this for the females, and that for the males, For I dare say that they (h) would not have given jove a female name, but that he is called a father and a mother, or a full parent general in the said verses. Nay I find him also named Pecunia, a name of one of the shake-rag goddesses in our forth book. But since men and women both have money, why is he not Pecuni●…s and Pecunia aswell as Ruminus and Rumina, but let them look to that. L. VIVES. HIm (a) Victor.] jove had many surnames both greek and latin, which Orpheus purposely collecteth in his Hymns, and Homer dispersedly in both his Poems and Hymns, as that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 friendship's Lord: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Hospitable: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sociable, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 god of others and other like more natural to him then useful to men. Besides there was jupiter Anxur, and Terracina, quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, beardless: and here-upon was Terracina called Anxur. S●…ru. There was also jupiter, Ap●…y as in Olympia consecrated by Hercules, to chase away the flies, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which troubled his sacrifices, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, at Athens, the kinsman: his feast was the second day of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is the deceitful days, and it was called Anarrhysis, of the blood that ran from the slaughtered offerings. There was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Hatchet bearer, in Caeria with an axe in his hand in stead of a thunderboult, called by the Lydians, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plat. Prob. In Greece there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the deliverer, that freed them from Persian armies. Dodo●… i●… Ch●…onia, Milesius in Asia Minor, Hammon in Afryca, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Athens, that had no sacrifice, but fruit, and apples. Thucydides. There was also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Pardoner, at Argos, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the cuckoo, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, dedicated by Phrix●…s, as the fellow of his flight: and there was the golden fleece that Appolonius speaketh of. Aratrius also amongst the Phaenicians, Caelus his son, Saturn's brother, called Dagon, the first inventor of ploughs, and therefore called jupiter Aratrius, of Aratrum, a plough: there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 common to all Greece. Agoraeus, the Courtier in Sicily, for in the Court he had a statue. Herodot. There was in Rome besides those that Augustine reckoneth, jupiter Feretrius, of the rich spoils that Romulus bore [Ferebat] from the foe: he dedicated him Capitolinus, of the place: Elicius, dedicated by Numa on Aventine, for getting knowledge of [Eliciendis] the gods pleasures for the expiation of thunder. Pistor, the Baker of the bread the besieged threw down from the Capitol when Rome was taken: his feast was the sixth of junes' Ides. Uiminius of the Hill viminal: Praedator, the preygetter, to whom a part of every prey was due. Seru. Ultor, the Revenger, dedicated by Agrippa. The thunderer, which Augustus dedicated after the Spanish war: The keeper, Domitian erected in the Capitol, The Latin, Tarquin the Proud on mount Alba. Th' Invincible, his feast, Id. junii. The finder, dedicated by Hercules for finding his oxen. His altar was near Port Tergemina, and his offering was a heifer. Adultus, honoured at marriages. Liu. Dionys. Plut. Sueton. Lactantius writeth that jove got the surnames of all his hosts, or friends, as of Athabyrius, and Lapriandus, that aided him in war, as also Laprius, Molion, and Cassius. Theseus' dedicated a Temple to jove Hecalesius, and ordained him sacrifices in Athens territory, because of his old Hostess Hecalesia, Aristotle saith that GOD being but one, is called by many names, the Lightner, the thunderer, the Ethereal, the Celestial, the Thunder-striker, the Rayne-sender and the Fruite-sender, the Citty-guide, and the Birth-ruler, the Fortifier, the homogenial, Fatherly: as also all Fate, and all that belongs to Fate, Necessity, Revenge, and Adrasteian. (b) Hundred-footed] For his stability, as Augustine expoundeth it standing on many feet: There is a worm called Cenotupes, [we call her a Palmer.] (c) Nourisher] Alimum, of Alo to nourish, Not Alienum. Venus was called Alma, so was Ceres and the earth, as the nourisher of all. Some read it Alumnus, but they mistake the meaning exceedingly. (d) To rehearse] The Commentators not understanding the Latin so well as they might took out [Persequi, to rehearse] and depraved the place, with Perseprosequi, thinking persequi was only to persecute. (e) Rafter] A piece of wood whereon the frame of the house resteth: Aristotle compareth the knot where the arch is joined in the midst, unto GOD in the world, who were he absent but one minute (saith he) the whole frame of nature must needs fall, as the whole arch must upon the least of their joint. Nor far from this purpose is the verse of Orpheus in his hymns, concerning jove. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 GOD is the link, of th' earth and starry Heavens: and afterward, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. God is the seas root. (f) All] Great and little, worthy and idle. (g) justly unworthy] The crew of gods about the corn, was derided in the fourth book. (h) Would not] The copies that leave out [not] are depraved. That jupiter is called Pecunia also. CHAP. 12. But do you hear their reason for this name? He is called Pecunia (say they) coin, because he can do all things. O fine reason for a name of a god! Nay he that doth all things is basely injured that is called Pecunia, coin. For what is that which all (a) mortal men possess under the name of coin, or money, in respect of the things contained in heaven and earth? But avarice gave him this name, that he that loved money might say his god was not every body, but the King of all the rest. far more reason therefore had they to call him riches: for riches and Money are to several things. (b) wise, just & honestmen we call rich, though they have little or no money, for they are the richer in virtues: which maketh little suffice them for necessaries, whereas the greedy covetous man that always gapeth after money, him we count ever poor and needy. Such may have store of money, but there in they shall never lack store of want. And God, we say well, is rich, not in money, but in omnipotency. So likewise, moneyed men are called rich, but be they greedy, they are ever needy, and monylesse men are called poor, but be they contented, they are ever wealthy. What stuff then shall a man have of that divinity, whose scope and chief God (c) no wise man in the world would make choice of? How much likelier were it (if their religion in any point concerned eternal life) to call their chief universal God (d) Wisdom, the love of which cleanseth one from the stains of avarice, that is the love of money. L. VIVES. ALL (a) mortal] All men's possessions, have reference to money: so that it is said, that Peculium, gain, cometh of Pecudes, sheep (Columell. Seru. Festus.) because these were all the wealth of antiquity: for they were almost all shepherds, and from them this word came first, and afterward signified cittie-wealth also. Uar. de ling. lat. lib. 4. (b) Wise, just,] a Stoical Paradox. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, only the wise are rich. Tully proves it strongly: and many Philosophers have confirmed it, all whose minds were against money. (c) No wise man] Avarice (saith Sallust) is the love of Money, which no wise man ever affected: it is a poison that infecteth all the manliness of the mind, and maketh it effeminate: being ever infinite and insatiable, neither contented with want, mean nor excess. (d) Wisdom] as well call our God. That the interpretations of Saturn and Genius, prove them both to be jupiter. CHAP. 13. But what should we do saying more of jupiter; to whom all the other gods have such relation, that the opinion of many gods will by and by prove a babble, and jove stand for them all, whether they be taken as his parts and powers, or that the soul that they hold is diffused through all the world: got itself so many diverse names by the manifold operations which it effected in the parts of this huge mass, whereof the visible universe hath the fabric and composition? for what is this same Saturn? A chief God (saith he) and one that is Lord of all seeds and sowing. What? but doth not the exposition of Soranus his verses say that jove is the world, and both creator and conceiver of all seeds? He therefore must needs rule the sowing of them. And what is (a) Genius? God of generation (saith he.) Why tell me, hath any one that power, but the world, to whom it was said, High jove, full parent general of all? Besides, he saith in another place, that the Genius (b) is the reasonable soul, peculiar in each peculiar man. And that the soul of the world is a God of the same nature, drawing it to this, that that soul is the universal Genius to all those particulars. Why then it is the same that they call jove. (c) For if each Genius be a god, and each soul reasonable a Genius, then is each soul reasonable a god by all consequence, which such absurdity urgeth them to deny, it resteth that they make the world's singular soul their selected Genius, and consequently make their Genius directly jove. L. VIVES. WHAT (a) is Genius?] The Lord of all generation. Fest. Pompey. The son of the gods and the father of men, begetting them: and so it is called my genius. For it begot me. Aufustius. The learned have had much a do about this Genius, and find it manifoldly used. Nature's Genius is the god that produced her: the Heavens have many Genii, read them in Capella his Nuptiae. Melicerta is the seas Genius. Parthen: the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth are the genii of all things corporal. The greeks call them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 genial gods. Such like hath Macrobius of natures Penates: jupiter and juno are the air, lowest, and mean: Minerva the highest, or the ethereal sky: to which three Tarqvinius Priscus erected one Temple under one roof. Some call the moon and the 12. signs Genii: and chief Genii too. (for they will have no place without a predominant Genius:) Every man▪ also hath his Genius, either that guardeth him in his life, or that looks to his generation, or that hath original with him, both at one time. Censorin. Genius, and Lar, some say are all one. C. Flaccus de Indigitaments. The Lar (saith Ovid) were twins to Mercury and Nymph Lara, or Larunda. Wherefore many Philosophers and Euclid for one, gives each man two Lar, a good and a bad: such was that which came to Brutus in the night, as he was thinking of his wars he had in hand. Plutarch. Flor. Appian. (b) Genius is] Of this more at large in the book following. (c) For if each] A true Syllogism in the first form of the first mood, usually called Barbara. Of the functions of Mars and Mercury. CHAP. 14. But in all the world's parts they could find never a corner for Mars and Mercury to practise in the elements, and therefore, they gave them power in men's actions, this of eloquence, & the other of war. Now for Mercury (a) if he have power of the gods language also, then is he their King, if jupiter borrow all his phrase from him: but this were absurd. But his power stretcheth but unto man's only, it is unlikely that jove would take such a base charge in hand as suckling of not only children, but cattle also, calves or foals, as thence he hath his name Romulus, and leave the rule of our speech (so glorious a thing and that wherein we excel the beasts) unto the sway of another, his inferior. ay but how if Mercury be (b) the speech only itself, for so they interpret him: and therefore he is called Mercurius, (c) quasi Medius currens, the mean currant, because to speak is the only currant mean for one man to express his mind to another by, and his greek name (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is nothing but interpreter & speech, or, interpretation which is called in greek also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and thence is he (e) Lord of merchants, because buying and selling is all by words and discourses. Hereupon they (f) wing his head and his feet, to signify the swift passage of speech, and call him (g) the messenger, because all messages, and thoughts whatsoever are transported from man to man by the speech. Why very well. If Mercury then be but the speech, I hope he is no god then, by their own confessions. But they make gods of no gods, and offering to unclean spirits, in stead of being inspired with gods, are possessed with devils. And because the world and elements had no room for Mars to work in nature, they made him god of war, which is a work of man not to be desired after. But if Mars be war as Mercury is speech, I would it were as sure that there were no war to be falsely called god, as it is plain that Mars is no god. L. VIVES. MErcury (a)] There were five Mercuries (Cicero.) The first, son to Caelus and Die, the second to Valens, and Pheronis, this is he that is under the earth calleth otherwise Tryphonius, third son to jove and Maia, fourth father to Nilus, him the Egyptian held it sacrilege to name. 5. He that the Pheneates worshipped he killed Argus, they say, and therefore governed Egypt, and taught the Egyptians laws and letters. They call him Theut. Thus far Tully. Theut is named by Plato in his Phaedon, and Euseb. de praeparat. evang. lib. 1. who saith the Egyptians called him Thoyth, the Alexandrians, Thot, the greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that he first taught letters and looked into the secrets of Theology. Diodorus saith he first invented spelling of words, and giving of names to things, as also rites and ceremonies. Lib. 1. for the words, Horace d●… testify it out of Alcaeus: and therefore the Egyptians thought him the inventor and god of languages, calling him the interpreter of God and men: both because he brought religion as it were from the gods to men, and also because the speech, and prayer passeth from men to the gods, with which is no commerce. Thence comes Aristides his fable, there was no commerce nor concord between man and man, until Mercury had sprinkled them with language; and the inventing of letters missive was a fit occasion to make them think that he was a god, having power by their secrecy to dispatch things with such celerity. (b) The speech only] Mercury (they say) is the power of speech, and is feigned to be strait, seeing the tongue runs so smooth, but in a set speech some will have a solar virtue, which is Mercury, others a Lunary, that is Hecate, other a power universal called Her●…is, Porph, Physiologus. One of the causes of his being named Cyllenius is (saith Festus P●…s (because; the tongue doth all without hands, and them that want hands are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though this is a name common to all lame persons. Others hold that he had it from some place. (c) Mercurius quasi] Of Merx, merchandise, saith Festus, and I think truly it comes of Mercor, to buy or sell, whence our word Merchant also cometh. (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] Of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to interpret. This it is to be the god's messenger: not to interpret their sayings, but faithfully to discharge their commands, which the speech can do, transferring things from soul to soul, which nought but speech can do: and since souls were taken for gods thence was he counted the god's interpreter. Plato in Cratylo: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. They that doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (saith he) that is speak, we justly call Ironies. But now having gotten, as we think, a better word, we call it Hermes. Iris also may be derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to speak, for she is a messenger also. He that dealeth in any other man's affair, is called an interpreter, a mean; and an arbitrator. Ser. in Aeneid. 4. and Cicero in divers places. Urigil also, In Dido's words to juno, the mean of atonement between her and Aeneas, saith thus. Tu harum interpres curarum et conscia juno. Thou juno art the mean, and knows my grieves. (e) Lord of Merchants] Without language farewell traffic. Diodorus saith that some 〈◊〉 Mercury to have found out weights, and measures: and the way to gain by trading. There is a Greek proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, common gain. (f) Winged] His feet wings are called Zalaria, & in Homer, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: he had head-wings also behind each of his ears. Apuleius. Apologus, his wings were above his hat, as he saith in Plautus his Amphitruo. I wear these feathers in my hat. Beroald. Sueton in August. (g) Messenger] Diodor. Sicul. lib. 6. Acron in Horat. Car. lib. 1. Of certain stars that the Pagans call their gods. CHAP. 15. PErhaps these (a) stars are their gods that they call by their gods names. For one they call Mercury, another Mars: nay and there is one jove also, though all the world be but jove. So is there a Saturn, yet Saturn hath no small place besides, being the ruler of all seed. But then there is the brightest of all, Venus, though they will needs make her (b) the Moon also: though she and juno contend as much for that glorious star, in their opinion, as they did for the (c) golden apple. For some say that Lucifer is Venus: others, juno, but Venus (as she doth ever) gets it from juno. For many more call it Venus, than juno, there are few or none of the later opinion. But who will not laugh to have jove named the King of gods and yet see Venus have a far brighter star than his? His fulgor should have been as supereminent as his power: but it seems less (they reply) and hers more, because one is nearer the earth than another. Why but if the highest place deserve the honour why hath not Saturn the grace from jupiter? O●… could not the vanity that made jove King, mount so high as the stars? So th●… Saturn obtaineth that in heaven which he could neither attain (d) in his Kingdom nor in the Capitol? But why hath not janus a star aswell as Io●…▪ being all the world, and comprehending all as well as (e) jove? Did he fall to composition for fear of law, and for one star in heaven was content to take many faces upon earth? And if two stars only made them count Mars and Mercury for deities, being notwithstanding nothing but speech and war, no parts of the world, but acts of men: why hath not Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Scorpio etc. th●… are in the (f) highest heaven, and have more. (g) certain motions, why ha●… not they Temples, Altars and sacrifices? nor any place either amongst the popular gods or the selected? L. VIVES. THese stars] Plato saith that the greeks (and many Barbarians) whilom used to ad●… no gods, but the Sun, Moon and Stars, calling them natural gods (as Beritius wrote to Sanchaniates) affirming that of the ancient, men the Phaenicians and Egyptians first began to erect temples and sacrifices for their friends and benefactors: naming them by the stars nam●… one Heaven, another Saturn, a third the Sun, and so forth. Thus far Plato. Doubtless the gods themselves being cunning Astrologians either gave themselves those names, or such as held those great powers of theirs to be in the stars, gave the Inventors of star-skil those names. For the star Mercury they say maketh men witty, eloquent, and fitting to the planet he is joined with: and Seneca liketh this cause of his name of the gods interpreter. For with jupiter and the Sun, he is good, with Mars and Mercury, malevolent. Mars is violent, a war-breeder, & as Porphyry saith, the Lo: of wrath, because of fiery ardour, ariseth fury and war. Hence is the stoics Theology referring all the gods natures to the worlds: and consequently so obscure that the truth is not possibly to be extracted: as Eusebius saith both out of Sanchoniato, & proveth also by argument: De praeparat. evang. lib. 1. As Augustine doth also here. (b) The moo●… also] Mac. Sat. 1. alleging Philochorus in Atis: that Venus is the Moon, and that men in women's apparel sacrificed to her, and women in men's, because she was held both: Thou heavenly Venus (saith Apuleius) to the Moon, that caused all copulation in the beginning, propagating human original, thou art now adored in the sacred oratory of Paphos. Transform. lib. 11. (c) Golden apple] The goddesses contention about the golden apple is plainer than that it needs my rehearsal: of Lucifer, Pliny saith thus. Under the Sun is the bright star Venus moving diurnally, and planetarily: called both Venus and Luna, in the morning being Sols harbinger, she is called Lucifer: as the pety-sun, and light-giver of the day: at night following the sun, she is styled Uesper, as the light continuer and the moons vicegerent. lib. 2. Pythagoras first of all found her nature, magnitude, and motion. Olympiad. 4●…. about the year of Rome 142. she is bigger than all the other stars, and so clear that (sometimes) her beams make a shadow. That maketh her have such variety of names, as, juno, Isis, Berecynthia, etc. (d) In his Kingdom] Whence he was driven by his son jove, as also from the Capitol that before was called Saturnia, until it was dedicated to jupiter Capitolinus. (e) jove] Using iovis the Latin nominative, as Tully doth in 6. De republs. that happy star called jove. (f) Highest] The Zodiac in the 8. Sphere, so called of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a creature: every sign whereof containeth divers bright stars. (g) Certain motion] Perpetually and diurnally once about from East to West in 24. hours: making night and day, and ever keeping place: whereas the Planets are now joined, now opposite, now swift, now retrograde, which change gave them the greek name Planet of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, error: though they keep a certain motion nevertheless: yet seemingly they err and wander through their alteration in motion, which the Zodiac never altars, as situate in the 8. Sphere called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Of Apollo, Diana, and other select gods, called parts of the world. CHAP. 16. ANd though they make (a) Apollo, a (b) wizard & a (c) physician, yet to making him a part of the world, they say he is the Sun, & Diana his sister is the Moon, and (d) goddess of journeys. So is she (e) a Virgin also, untouched, and they both bear shafts, (f) because these 2. stars only do send to the earth. Vulcan they say, is the world's fire. Neptune the water: father Dis, the earth's foundation and depth, Bacchus and Ceres seed-gods, he to the masculine, she of the feminine: or he of the moisture and she of the dry part of the seed. All this now hath reference to the world, to jove, who is called the full parent general, because he both begets and brings forth all things seminal. And Ceres the great mother, her they make the earth, and juno besides. Thus the second cause of things are in her power, though jove be called the full parent, as they affirm him to be all the world. And Minerva because they had made her the arts goddess, and had never a star for her, they made her also the sky, or (g) the Moon, Vesta they accounted the chief of all the goddesses, being taken for the earth: and yet gave her the protection of the (h) worlds fire, more light and not so violent as that of Vulcan's was. And thus by all these select gods they intent but the world: in some total, and in others partial: to all, as jove is: partial, as Genius, the great mother, sol and Luna, or rather Apollo and Diana, sometimes one god stands for many things, and sometimes one thing presents many gods, the first is true in jupiter, he is all the world, he but only (ay) Heaven, and he is only a star in Heaven: So is juno, goddess of all second causes, yet only the air, and yet the earth, though she might (k) get the star from Venus. So is Minerva the highest sky, and the Moon in the lowest sky as they hold. The second is true in the world, which is both jove and janus: and in the earth which is both juno, the Great mother, and Ceres. L. VIVES. APollo. (a)] Tully de. that dear. lib. 3. makes 4. Apollo's, and 3. Diana's. The 3. Apollo. and the 2. Diana were the children of jove and Latona. (b) Wizard.] Commonly affirmed in all authors of this subject, Greek and Latin. Plato saith the Thessalonians called him not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 simple, because of his divination, wherein was required, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: truth, and simplicity, which are all one. In Cratilo. Glaucus taught him his divination, he that was afterward made a Sea-god and called Melicerta. Nicand in A●…tolicis. (c) Physician.] Macrob. Satur. They counted the vestals thus. Apollo phisiti●…n, Apollo Paean, etc. He proves him to be Aesculapius, that is a strength of health, a rising solely from the substance of animated creatures. Much of Apollo yea may read in the said place. (d) Goddess of.] Her statues were cut all youthful, because that age beareth travel lest Festus lib. 9 for Diana was held a goddess of ways and journeys: she ruled also mountains and groves, and used the ●…hes often in her hunting, as shallbe showed hereafter. (e) Virgin.] So it is reported, that it was not lawful for men to come in her temple at Rome, because one ravished a woman there once that came to salute the goddess, and the dogs tore him in pieces immediately. Plato calleth her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. etc. because of the integrity and modesty that she professed in her love of virginity: or, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. because she hath the copulation of man and woman. Though the fables go that she lay with Endymyon: and that Pan, Mercury's son, gave her a white sheep for 〈◊〉. Uirg. 3. Georg. Munere sic niveo lanae si credere digum est, Pandeus Archadiae captam te Luna fefellit, In Nemora alta vocans, nec tu aspernata voca●…tem es. etc. Arcadian Pans white fleece ('tis said) so blinded, Thine eyes (fair Phoebe:) he being briefly minded, Called the, thou yieldest, and to the thick you went, etc. (f). Shafts.] Apollo beareth those that he killed the serpent Python withal: and therefore Homer calleth him oftentimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is far-darting, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is shooting high: and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, eternal archer: Now Diana, vowed a perpetual virgin, haunteth the woods and hills, hunting as Virgil describeth Venus when Aeneas saw her buskined, and tucked round, and a quiver at her back, as ready for the pursuit. These shafts are nothing (all say) but the beams of those stars as Lactantius saith of the Son. Armatus radiis elementa liquentia lustrans, Armed with rays he views the watery plains. (g) The Moon.] Porph. Natural. dear interpretat. That in the Sun (saith he) is 〈◊〉, that in the Moon Miverua, signifying wisdom. (h) Worlds fire.] Ours that we use on earth, belonging (as I say) to generation: Though herein, as in all fictions is great diversity of opi●…ons. Phurnutus saith Vulan is the grosser fire, that we use, and jupiter the more pure fire, and Prudentius saith. — Ipse ignis qui nostrum seruit ad usum. Vulcanus, ac perhibetur, et in virtute supernâ, Fingitur ac delubra deus, ac nomine et ore, Assimulatus habet, nec non regnare caminis, Fertur, & Aeoliae summus faber esse vel Aetna. — The fire that serves our use, Height Vulcan, and is held a thing divine, Graced with a stile, a statue and a shrine, The chimeys god he is, and keeps they say. Great shops in Aetna and Aeolia. ay only Heaven.] Ennius: Aspice hoc sublime candens quem invocant omnes, iovem— behold yond flaming light, which each call jove. (k) Get the star.] In the contention for Lucifier or the day star. That Varro himself held his opinions of the Gods to be ambiguous. CHAP. 17. But even as these cited examples do, so all the rest, rather make the matte●… intricate then plain: and following the force of opiniative error, sway this way, and that way, that Varro himself liketh better to doubt of them, then to deliver this or that positively, for of his three last books having first ended that of the certain gods, than he came into that of the (a) uncertain ones, and there he saith: If I set down ambiguities of these gods, I am not blame worthy. He that thinketh I ought to judge of them, or might, let him judge when he readeth them. I had rather call all my former assertions into question then propound all that I am to handle in this book, positively. Thus doth he make doubts of his doctrine of the certain gods aswell as the rest. Besides in his book of the select ones having made his preface out of natural theology, entering into these politic fooleries, and mad fictions, where truth both opposed him, & antiquity oppressed him, here (qd he) I will write of the gods to whom the romans have built temples, & diversity of statues, b●… I will write so as xenophanes (b) Colophonus writeth: what I think, not what I will defend, for man may think but God is he that knoweth. Thus timorously he promiseth to speak of things not known nor firmly believed, but only opinative, & doubted of being to speak of men's institutions. He knew that there was the world, heaven, and earth, stars, & all those together with the whole universe subject unto one powerful and invisible king: this he firmly believed, but he durst not say that janus was the world, or that Saturn was Jove's father and yet his subject, nor of the rest of this nature durst he affirm any thing confidently. L. VIVES. THe (a) Uncertain.] Of these I have spoken before: now a little of the unknown, for it is an error to hold them both one: The territories of Athens had altars to many vokowne gods: Acts. 17. and Pausanias in Attic. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the altars of the vn●… gods: These Epimenides of Crete found: for the pestilence, being sore in that country, 〈◊〉 ●…d them to expiate their fields, yet not declaring what god they should invo●…, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expiation, Epimenides being then at Athens, bade them turn the cattle that they would off●… into the fields, and the priests to follow them, and where they stayed, there kill them and ●…er them to the unknown propitiatory God. Thereupon arose the erection of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which continued even unto Laertius his time. This I have been the willinger to 〈◊〉, ●…cause of that in the Acts. (b) Xenophanes] Son to Orthomenes of jonia where 〈◊〉 the Poet was borne. Apolodorus, out of Colophon. He held all things incompre●…, ●…nst the opinion of Laërtius Sotion. Eusebius following Sotion, saith he did hold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 senses self and our reason, for company: he wrote of the gods against Homer, and He●…. There was another Zenophanes, a lesbian, and a Poet. The likeliest cause of the propagation of paganism. CHAP. 18. OF all these the most credible reason is this: that these gods were men that by the means of such as were their flatterers, (a) had each of them rites and sacrifices ordained for them correspondent unto some of their deeds, manners, wits, fortunes and so forth: and that other men (rather devils) sucking in these errors, and delighting in their ceremonies, novelties, so gave them their propagation, being furthered with poetiall fictions, and diabolical illusions. For it were a likelier matter that an ungracious son did fear killing by as ungracious a father, and so expelled him from his kingdom, then that which he saith, that jove is above Saturn because the efficient cause which i●… ●…es, is before the material which is Saturn's. For were this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should never have been before jove, nor consequently his fa●…●…or the cause goeth always before the seed, but the seed never ge●… the cause. But in this endeavour to honour the vain fables, or impi●… of men with natural interpretations, their most learned men are 〈◊〉 into such quandaries, that we cannot choose but pity their vanity as●… 〈◊〉 the others. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) each] In this place the Copies differ, but our reading is the most authen●…, and most ancient. Some Copies leave out [By the means of such as were their 〈◊〉] But it is not left out in the old manuscripts, we read it as antiquity leau●… 〈◊〉. The interpretations of the worship of Saturn. CHAP. 19 S●… (say they) devoured all his children, that is all seeds return to 〈◊〉 earth from whence they came: and a clod of earth was laid in steed of 〈◊〉 for him to devour, by which is meant that men did use to bury their 〈◊〉 in the earth before that ploughing was invented. So then should Saturn b●… called the earth itself, and not the seeds, for it is the earth that doth as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 devour the own offspring, when as the seeds it produceth are all returned into it again. But what correspondence hath men's covering of corn with clods, unto the laying of Saturn a clod in steed of jove? is not the corn which is covered with the clod, returned into the earths womb as well as the rest? For this is spoken as if he that laid the clod, took away the seed. Thus say they, by the laying of this clod was jove taken from Saturn, when as the laying of the clod upon a seed maketh the earth to devour it the sooner. Again, being so, jove is the seed, not the seeds cause as was said but now. But these men's brains run so far a stray with those fond interpretations, that they know not well what to say. A sickle he beareth for his husbandry they say: Now in (a) his reign was not husbandry invented, and therefore (as our author interpreteth) the first times were called his, because as then men did live upon the earths voluntary increase and fruits. Whether (b) took he the sickle upon the loss of his sceptre as one that having been an idle King in his own reign would become a painful labourer in his sons? Then he proceedeth, and saith that (c) some people, as the Carthaginians offered infants in sacrifice to him, and others, as the (d) Galls, offered men, because mankind is Sacrifices of men. chief of all things produced of seed. But needeth more of this bloody vanity This is the observation of it all, that none of these interpretations have reference to the true, living, incorporeal, changeless nature, whereof the eternal life is to be craved: but all their ends are in things corporal, temporal, mutable and mortal, and whereas Saturn they say did (e) geld his Father Caelus, that is (quoth he) to be understood thus, that the divine seed, is in Saturn's power and not in Heavens: that is, nothing in heaven hath original from seed. Behold here is Saturn made heavens son, that is Jove's. For they affirm steadfastly that jove is heaven. Thus doth falsehood without any opposer overthrow itself: He saith further, that he was called (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is, space of time, without the which no seed falsehood overthrows itself. can come to perfection. This and much like is spoken of Saturn in reference to the seed: Surely Saturn with all this power should have been sufficient alone to have governed the seed: why should they call any more gods to this charge, as Liber, and Libera, or Ceres? of whose power over seed he speaketh as if he had not spoken at all of Saturn. L. VIVES. IN (a) his reign] Who first invented husbandry, it is uncertain. Some (as the common sort hold) take it to be Ceres: other, Triptolemus (at least for him that first put it in practice,) is justine, and Ovid: Some, Dionysius, as Tibullus, Diodorus calleth him Osiris, and therefore Virgil faith. Ante iovem nulli subigebant arua coloni, Until Jove's time there were no husbandmen. Some think that Saturn taught it unto janus and the Italians: being driven to invent somewhat of necessity after he was chased from Crete. So that still husbandry was not invented Saturn. in his reign but after. The poets will have no husbandry in the golden age, the days of Saturn: Virgil saith, the earth brought fruits Nullo poscente, no man taking pains for The golden age. them: and Ovid, fruges tellus inarata faerebat, the earth bore corn unplowed. Hesiod. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. The earth brought fruit unforced, both good and in abundance. (b) took 〈◊〉 His sickle was found at Zancle a city in Sicily & thence the town had that name. Sil. Ital●…. 14. For 〈◊〉 in the Sicilian tongue, was a sickle. Th●…y did, (c) Some people] Oros. lib. 4. cap. 6. Trogus, Lact. lib. 1. and Posce●…inus Festus. Some say the Carthaginians offered children to Hercules. Plin. li. 36. but others say it was to Saturn. Plato in Mino●…. Dionys. Halicarn. The odoritus C●…s. in Sacrific. Euseb. and Tertullian who addeth that at the beginning of Tiberius his reign he forbade it them, and crucified their priests: yet they did continue it secretly even at the time he wrote this. Some refer the cause of this cruelty unto junos' hate. But Eusebi●… 〈◊〉 of Sanchoniato reciting the Phaenicians theology saith that Saturn King of Palestine dying, ●…rned into the star we call Saturn, and that soon after Nymph Anobreth having but ●…e 〈◊〉 son by Saturn who was therefore called Lewd (for that is one only son in the 〈◊〉 tongue) was compelled to sacrifice him for to deliver her country from a dangerous 〈◊〉 and that it was an old custom in such perils to pacify the wrath of the revenging 〈◊〉 with the blood of the Prince's dearest son. But the Carthagians (being come of 〈◊〉 ●…cians) sacrificed a man unto Saturn, whose son had been so sacrificed: either of their own first institution in Africa, or else traducing it from their ancestry. De prae. evan. How these children were sacrificed Diodorus telleth: Biblioth. lib. 20. They had (saith he) a brazen 〈◊〉 of Saturn, of monstrous bigness, whose hand hung down to the Earth so knit one within an●…r, that the children that were put in them, fell into a hole full of fire. Thus far he. When we ●…ed this book first, our seamen discovered an Island calling it after our Prince's name, 〈◊〉, wherein were many statues of devils, hollow within, brazen all; and their hands 〈◊〉, wherein the Idolaters used to lay their children they sacrificed, and there were they 〈◊〉 ●…ned by the extreme heat of the brass caused by the fire that they made within 〈◊〉 (〈◊〉) The Gauls.] Not unto Saturn, but to Esus, and Theutantes. Plin. lib. 30. Solin. Mela, C●…ane, and Lactantius. To Mercury saith Tertullian: but that is Theutantes. Plin, men●… ●…erius his prohibition of so damnable a superstition. Claudius farbad them as Sueto●… 〈◊〉: Indeed Augustus first forbade it but that was but for the city only. A decree was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the year of Rome. DCLVII. consuls, P. Licinius Crassus. and Cn. Cornelius Lantu●…, forbidding human sacrifices all the Empire through: and in Hadrians time it ceased al●… 〈◊〉 over the world, jupiter Latialis was worshipped with ablation of man's blood in Ter●…●…y ●…y and Eusebius and Lactantius his time. And before Herc●…es was Saturn so wor●… Latium, which sacrifice Faunus brought up for his grandsire Saturn, because of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was (as Lactantius and Macrobius recite out of Varro) this: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. bring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; and lights for This his father: This his father was Saturn. Lactantius readeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a word doubtful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 circumflexe is light and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 acute is a man Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Straight 'gainst the suitors went this heavenly man. 〈◊〉 often elsewhere. Plutarch in his book entitled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, live in private, giveth the 〈◊〉 why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be both light and a man. But Hercules coming into Italy and see●… 〈◊〉 Aborigines that dwelled there continually take of the greeks for sacrifice that were 〈◊〉 ●…her to inhabit, and ask the cause, they told him this oracle, which he did 〈◊〉 light, not man: and so they decreed that yearly each Ides of May the Priests and 〈◊〉 should cast thirty men's images made of osiers or wickers into Tiber, from of the 〈◊〉 Miluius: calling them Argaei, (for the old latins held all the Grecians Argives) and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should have lights offered to him. Dionis. Plutarch. Uarro. Festus, Gel. Macrob. 〈◊〉 Lactant. ovid. yet Ovid telleth this tale of another fashion Faster. 5. Manethon saith, the A●…tians used to sacrifice three men to juno in the city of the sun, but King Amasis changed the sacrifice into three lights. (e) Geld his father.] Eusebius discoursing of the Phani●…●…ity ●…ity saith thus: after Caelus had reigned. 32. years, his Son Saturn lay in wait 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about floods and fountains and having gotten him, gelded him: his holy blood 〈◊〉 into the spring and the place is to be seen at this day. He was (saith Diodorus) an 〈◊〉 Astrologian, and distinguished the year, and by this skill got his name, he 〈◊〉 the rude civility and sciences, and reigned in the northwest of Africa, having 45. chil●… by several wives. (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] Quasi. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, time. Cicero giveth another interpretation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I●…e, and Saturn, de nat. dear. lib. 2. But Saturn is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The Ro●… called Saturn the father of verity because truth will out in time. Plutarch. Of the sacrifices of Ceres Eleusina. CHAP. 20. O●… Ceres (a) her sacrifices, them of Eleusina, used at Athens were the most noble. Of them doth Varro say little or nothing only he talks a little of the corn that Cere's found out, and of her loss of Proserpina that was ravished by Pluto. And she (he saith) doth signify fruitfulness of seed, which one time failing, and the earth seeming to be wail that want of fertility, it grew to an opinion that Hell, or Pluto had taken away the daughter of Ceres, the said fruitfulness, which Proserpina. of creeping forward, is called Proserpina, which thing they deploring in public manner, because that fertility came again, all their joy returned at the return of Proserpina, and so had Ceres' feasts institution, furthermore he saith this, that she hath many things in her sacrifices which have no reference but to the corn. L. VIVES. CEres (a) her sacrifices] To have a little discourse hereof more than is vulgar, will neither be unpleasing nor unprofitable. Ceres had Proserpina by jove, Pluto ravished her out of Ceres' sacrifices. Sicily and her mother sought her almost all the world over. At last coming to Eleufis, one of the twelve towns in the Athenian territory, one Celus the King thereof took her to harbour and let her have the education of Triptolemus, his (or as Strabo saith) I●…inus his son by Hyona. What ever he was, he loved Ceres well, ordered her a solemn yearly sacrifice Triptolemus. calling the feast Eleusina, and Ceres and Proserpina the second Eleusina goddesses: Some say that Erictheus brought them out of Egypt, I do not disprove them, for thence came the most of the world's Idolatry. These sacrifices none might see but votaries, the crier bad avoid all profane: and hence had Virgil his verse. Procul ô procul este prophani, Fly, fly far hence, profane: Seru, and Alcibi●…s was sore troubled for being at Ceres her sacrifices before he was initiate. The first that ●…ished them was the Philosopher Numerius, to whom afterwards the goddesses (they say) in a dream appeared, in whore's habit and complained that he had made them common. Which certainly proved their ceremonies whorish: for had they been honest, they would have feared divulgation. Socrates in Plato glanceth at this and much more: commanding the gods turpitudes to be kept in all taciturnity, and threatening that he would discover the secrets of Isis, which is all one with Ceres. In which words he maketh Isis acknowledge plain enough that they are filthy. Here of saith Nazianzen thus, We have no ravished Proserpina, nor wandering Ceres, nor Triptolemus, nor Dragons, nor such as partly do The filthiness, of the 〈◊〉 sacirfices. and partly suffer: I shame to lay the night-sacrifices in the light, and to turn a mystery into a turpitude. Eleusine, knoweth & such as look upon these concealed matters, fit indeed for concealment. Thus he in his Epiphaniae, beginning at these words: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. etc. And happy jason (saith Theocritus) that attained more than men profane believe, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. Wherein he closely girdeth at the adultery of Ceres and jason. What these sacrifices did contain, Eusebius showeth thus out of Clement: Some say (quoth he) that Mela●… Amythaons' son brought the solemnities of Ceres from Egypt into Greece. Ceres was delivered, the daughter was brought up: some called her Perephatte: jove begot her in Perephatte. form of a Dragon, and so comes the Dragon to be shown rolled up in the Sauati●… Mysteries, as a memorial of the gods; or I should say of so fowl a turpitude. Perephatte also brought forth a son like a Bull: whereupon some poets have sung of the Bull, the Dragon's father, and the Dragon, the Bull's father: Those memorial secrets they bear up unto a hill, and they celebrated the shepherds goad, yes I think the shepherds goad, a kind of rod that the Bacchanalianes did bear. Further of these secrets I cannot relate, of the basket, the rape, the Idonerian gulf, Euboleus his son, all whom together with the two goddesses that one gulte did swallow up, and thereupon they have a hogsty in their ceremonies: which the women in the cities thereabouts observe in divers fashions: there is the Thesmophoria, the Scirophoria, and the I●…ephabiliphoria, in all which was there divers laments for Ceres her loss and Periphattes rape. This Eusebius, as Trapezuntius interpreteth him, for the greek book I have not. The women priests carried baskets also covered, one full of flowers, portending the spring, another with ears of corn, for autumn. These Virgins were called, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, basket-bearers: Tully mentioneth them against Varro, though Porp●…y upon Horace affirm that the Ca●…phere were Juno's servants at her sacrifices at At●…. 〈◊〉. These we speak of, Clement saith were called orgies, of the anger that was between Ceres●…d ●…d I●…. Catullus. Pars obscura cavis celebrabant Orgia cistis: Orgia qu●… frustrà cupiunt audire prophani. Orgie●…. Part keeping th' Orgies, hollow baskets bare: Th' Orgies, which none unhallowed must come near. But all the Greek sacrifices almost, were called Orgies. Strab. lib. 10. Ser. in 4. Aeneid. Therein were t●…s many images. 1. The creators, borne by the chiefe-priests, the mysteries expounder. 2. the sons, borne by the taper-bearer. 3. the Moons, by the altar-seruant, or sacrificer. 4. Mercuries, by the crier: and 5. a woman's. () as Priapus was borne in Dionysius his sacrifices, as Theodoritus witnesseth: who affirms that jove lay both with Ceres the mother and P●…serpina the daughter: And to those sacrifices might none but the invited be admitted, not any whose conscience accused him of any crime, for so the crier proclaimed. Nero durst not come there, for his guilt: and Antoninus would needs be invited, to prove himself innocent. Yet whether it were at the great sacrifices or no, I know not, for at Athens it was a ●…aw 〈◊〉 no stranger should be admitted them. Aristoph. Commentator. So Hercules desiring 〈◊〉, though he were a friend, and Jove's son, yet it being against the law, they ordain the ●…aller sacrifices Elensivae, where any stranger might have access, calling the former, Ceres her sacrifices, the later Proserpina's: which he saith were but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. As a purgation and preparation to the greater. The coat which they put on at their initiation must never come of vnti●… i●… be so ragged, that it be past wearing: Some say they kept them to make children's s●…g clothes off. And thus for Greece. Rome had a great yearly feast of Ceres, which mou●…ers might not be present at. Liu. They had also the marriages of Ceres or Orcus, wherein it was an offence to bring wine, but frankincense only and tapers, whereof Plautus saith, I 〈◊〉 you are about Ceres' feasts, for I see no wine: Aulular. Of this sacrifice read Macrob. 〈◊〉 and Servius upon Virgil's Georgikes lib. 1. upon this place. Cuncta tibi Cerem pubes agrestis adoret, Cui tu lact favos, & miti dilue Baccho. Call all the youth unto these rites divine, And offer Ceres' honey, milk, or wine. ●…re were also the Cerealia games in Ceres' honour, whereof Politian a great scholar hath Cerealia. 〈◊〉 in his Miscellanea: whose judgement lest some be mistaken by, I will write mine 〈◊〉 hereof. First the old Circian games that Romulus ordained to Hipposeidon and these 〈◊〉 are not all one: these are far later in original: Again these later were kept long 〈◊〉 Memmius his time. Liu. namely the sixteenth year of the second African war by 〈◊〉 ●…ates decree. Gn. Seruillus Geminus being dictator, and Aaelius Paetus Master of the 〈◊〉. Nor do Tacitus or Ovid control this, in saying the Cerealia were kept in the great 〈◊〉. The Cereal Aediles were made for the corns provision not for the plays though 〈◊〉 made some to Ceres. But I marvel that Politian thinketh that that Memmius whom 〈◊〉 made Aedile, was he to whom Lucretius dedicated his book or (if it shall please you) Politian. 〈◊〉 son, when as Lucretius died in the second consulships of Pompey and Crassus, and the work was written in Memmius his youthful days. True it is one error begets many. I would not have any man think this spoken in derogation from the glory of so great a scholar; for 〈◊〉 is not to be rejected for being deceived, he was but a man. My words aim at the ●…fit of the most, not at detraction from him or any. If any man think otherwise (which is 〈◊〉) know he, that it is no injury to reprehend either Politian or any man else of the cunning●… in matter of antiquity: But of the Cerealias let this suffice. Of the obscaenity of Bacchus' sacrifices. CHAP. 21. But now for Libers (a) sacrifices, who ruleth not only all moisture of seeds and fruits whereof wine seems principal, but of creatures also: To ●…ibe their full turpitude, It irks me for loss of time, but not for these men's ●…ish pride. Amongst a great deal of necessary omission, let this go, whereas he saith that Libers' sacrifices were kept with such licence in the highways in Italy, that they adored men's privities in his honour: their beastliness exulting, and scorning any more secrecy. This beastly sight upon his feast days was honourably mounted upon a (b) wagon, and first road thus through the country, and then was brought into the city in this pomp. But at (c) Lavinium they kept a whole month holy to Liber, using that space all the beastly words they could devise, until the beastly spectacle had passed through the market place, and was placed, where it used to stand. And then must the most honest matron of the town crown it with a garland. Thus for the seeds success was Liber adored: and to expel witchcraft from the fields, an honest matron must do that in public, which an whore should not do upon the stage if the matrons looked on. For this was Saturn accounted insufficient in this charge, that the unclean soul finding occasion to multiply the gods, and by this uncleanness being kept from the true GOD, and prostitute unto the false, through more unclean desires, might give holy names to these sacrileges, and entangle itself in eternal pollution with the devils. L. VIVES. LIbers (a) sacrifices] Kept by the Thebans on mount Cithaeron every third year: in the Bacchus' his sacrifices. nights and called therefore Nyctilena. Seru. and of the years, Trieretica, or Triennalia. Herein were the Phally, (that is huge privy members) used. Herodot. Plutarch, de cupid. op. The Agiptians used little statues with such huge perpendents: the other nations carried the Phallus. members only about, for fertility sake. The feasts were called Phallogogia. Theodoret. lib. 3. Why Priapus and Bacchus have feasts together, there be divers reasons. 1. Because they Philagogia. were companions. 2. because without Bacchus ', Priapus can do nought, and therefore was held the son of Bacchus and Venus. 3. because Bacchus is Lord of seed, whereof Priapus is the chief instrument, and therefore god of gardens, and hath his feasts kept by the husbandmen with great joy. Now Diodorus saith that Osiris (whom he counteth Bacchus) being cut in pieces by Typhon, and every friend bearing part away, none would take the privy member, so it was cast into Nile. Afterwards Isis having revenged his murder, got all his body again, only that she wanted, and so consecrated an Image thereof, and for her comfort honoured it more than all the other parts, making feasts to it, & calling it Phallus at the Priests first institution; Nazianzen reckoneth both Phalli and Ithyphalli: but I think they Ithyphall●…. differ not, but that for the more erection it was called Ithyphallus, of the greek. (b) Wagons] To yoke mice in wagons saith Horace in his satires. lib. 2. It is adiminutive of veins: Plaustra: much difference is about Plaustra and Plostra, U. Probus is for Plostra: Florius Plostelum. told Vespasian he must say plaustra, so the next day he called him Flaurus, for Florus. Suctonius. (c) At Lavinium] A town in Latinum, built by Aeneas and named after his wife. Alba longa was a colony of this: of Alba, before is sufficient spoken. Lavinium. Of Neptune, Salacia, and Venilia. CHAP. 22. NOw Neptune had one Salacia to wife, governess (they say) of the lowest parts of the sea, why is Venilia joined with her, but to keep the poor soul prostitute to a multitude of devils? But what saith this rare Theology to stop our Venilia. Salacia. mouths with reason? Venilia is the flowing tide. Salacia the ebbing: What? two goddesses, when the water ebbing, and the water flowing is all one? See how the soul's lust (a) flows to damnation! Though this water going be the same returning, yet by this vanity are two more devils invited, to whom the soul (b) goeth, and never returneth. I pray the Varro, or you that have read so much, and boast what you have learned, explayne me this, not by the eternal unchanging nature which is only god, but by the world's soul, and the parts, which you hold true gods. The error wherein you make Neptune to be that part of the world's soul that is in the sea, that is somewhat tolerable: but is the water ebbing and the water flowing two parts of the world, or of the world's soul? which of all your wits containeth this unwise credence? But why did your ancestors ordain ye those two goddesses, but that they would provide that you should not be ruled by any more gods, but by many more devils, that delighted in such vanities: But why hath Salacia, that you call the inmost sea, being there under her husband, lost her place? for you bring her up above when she is the ebbing tide: Hath she thrust her husband down into the bottom for entertaining Venilia to his harlot. L. VIVES. LUst (a) flows] Alluding to the sea. (b) Goeth and never returneth] Spoken of the damned, that neither have ease nor hope at all. He alludeth to job. 10. vers. 21. Before I go and Hel. shall not return to the land of darkness and shadow of death, even the land of misery and darkness, which both the words themselves show, and the learned comments affirm is meant of hell. Of the earth, held by Varro to be a goddess, because the world's soul (his god) doth penetrate his lowest part, and communicateth his essence therewith. CHAP. 23. WE see one earth, filled with creatures: yet being a mass of elemental bodies and the world's lowest part, why call they it a goddess? because it is fruitful? why are not men gods then that make it so with labour, not with worship? No, the part of the world's soul (say they) contained in her, ma●…eth her divine: good: as though that soul were not more apparent in man: without all question, yet men are no gods: and yet which is most lamentable, are subjecteth so that they adore the inferiors as gods, such is their miserable error. Varro in his book of Varro his degrees of souls. the select gods, putteth (a) three degrees of the soul in all nature. One, living in all bodies unsensitive, only having life: this he saith we have in our bones, nails and hair: and so have trees living without sense. Secondly, the power of sense diffused through our eyes, ears, nose, mouth and touch. Thirdly, the highest degree of the soul, called the mind, or intellect: confined (b) only unto The intellect. man's fruition: wherein because men are like gods, that part in the world he calleth a god, and in use a Genius. So divideth he the world's soul into three degrees. First stones and wood, and this earth insensible which we tread on. Secondly the world's sense, the heavens, or Aether: thirdly, her soul set in the stars (his believed gods) and by them descending through the earth, goddesie Tellus: and when it comes in the sea, it is Neptune: stay, now back a little from this moral theology, whether he went to refresh himself after his toil in these straits: back again I say to the civil, let us plead in this court a little. I say not yet, that if the earth and stones, be like our nails and bones, they have no more intellect, than sense. Or if our bones and nails be said to have intellect, because we have it, he is as very a fool that calleth them gods in the world, as he that should ●…me them men in us. But this perhaps is for Philosophers, let us to our civil theme: For it may be though he lift up his head a little to the freedom of 〈◊〉 natural theology, yet coming to this book and knowing what he had to ●…oe, he looks now and then back, and saith this, lest his ancestors and others should be held to have adored Tellus and Neptune to no end. But this I say, seeing ●…th only is that part of the world's soul that penetrateth earth: why is it not 〈◊〉 entirely one goddess, and so called Tellus? which done, where is Orcus, 〈◊〉 and Neptune's brother, father Dis? and where is Proserpina his wife that some opinions there recorded, hold to be the earth's depth not her fertility? If they say the soul of the world that passeth in the upper part is Dis, and that in the lo●…er, Proserpina, what shall then become of Tellus? for thus is she entirely divided into halves: that where she should be third, there is no place, unless some will say that Orcus and Proserpina together are Tellus; and so make not three but one or two of them: yet 3. they are held, & worshipped by 3. several sorts of rites, by their altars, priests & statues, and are indeed three devils that do draw the deceived soul to damnable whoredom. But one other question: what part of the world's soul is Tellumo? No, saith he, the earth hath two powers, a masculine to produce, and a feminine to receive, this is Tellus and that Tellumo: But why then do the Priests (as he showeth) add other two and make them four? Tellumo, Tellus, (c) Altor Rusor? for the two first, you are answered: why Altor? of Alo, to nourish, earth nourisheth all things. Why Rusor? of Rursus, again, all things turn again to earth. L. VIVES. PUtteth three (a) degrees] Pythagoras and Plato say the soul is of three kinds, vegetable, The souls two parts. sensitive, reasonable. Man's soul (say they is twofold): rational and irrational: the later twofold, affectionate to ire and to desire: all these they do locally separate. Plat. de Rep. l. 4. Aristotle to the first three addeth a fourth, locally motive. But he distinguisheth those parts of the reasonable soul in use only, not in place nor essence, calling them but powers, referred unto actions. Ethic. Alez. Aphrodiseus showeth how powers are in the soul. But this is not a fit theme for this place. But this is all: it is but one soul that augmenteth the hair and bones, profiteth the senses, and replenisheth the heart and brain. (b) Only unto] This place hath diversities of reading, some leave out part, and some do alter: but the sense being unaltered, a note were further frivolous. (c) Altor] Father Dis and Proserpina had many names in the ancient ceremonies. He, Dis, Tellumo, Altor, Rusor, Cocytus: she Uerra, Orca and N●…se Dis, Proserpina, Romulus called Altellus Tellus. Thus have the priests books them. Romulus was also called Altellus, of nourishing his subjects so admirably against their envious borderers. jupiter Plutonius (saith Trismegistus) rules sea and land, and is the nourisher of all fruitful and mortal fowls. In Asclepio. Of earth's surnames and significations, which though they arose of diverse originals, yet should they not be accounted diverse Gods. CHAP. 24. THerefore earth for her four qualities ought to have four names, yet not to make four gods. One jove serves to many surnames, and so doth one juno: in all which the multitude of their powers constitute but one God and one goddess, not producing multitude of gods. But as the vilest women are sometimes ashamed of the company that their lust calleth them into, so the polluted soul, prostitute unto all hell, though it loved multitude of false gods, yet it sometimes loathed them. For Varro, as shaming at this crew, would have Tellus to be but one goddess. They (a) call her (saith he) the Great mother, and her Timbrel is a sign of the earth's roundness: the turrets on her head, of the towns: the seats about her, of her eternal stability when all things else are moved: her 〈◊〉 Priests signify that such as want seed must follow the earth that containeth all: their violent motions about her do advise the tille●…s of earth not to sit idle, for there is still work for them. The Cymbals signify the noises with plough irons, etc. in husbandry, they are of brass, for so were these instruments (b) before Iron was found out. The tame Lion signified that the roughest land might by tillage be made fertile. And then he addeth, that she was called Mother earth, and many other names, which made them think her several gods. They held earth to be Ops (saith he) because help, (Opis) maketh her more fruitful: Mother, for hi●… general production. Great for giving meat. Proserpina, because the fruit do creep (Proserpunt) out of her. Vesta, for that the herbs are her vesture: Earth's surnames. and so saith he are other deities fitly reduced unto her by several respects. But if she be one goddess, (as in truth she is not) why run ye to so many? Let one have all these names, and not be many goddesses. But errors power prevailed to draw Varro fearfully after it: for he saith; neither doth this control their opinions that take these for many gods. There may be one thing (saith he) and many things therein. Well suppose that many things are in a man: therefore many men? many things are in a goddess, therefore many goddesses? But let them divide, combine, multiply, reply and imply what they will. These are the mysteries of great Mother-earth, all referred to seed and husbandry. But doth your timbrel, turrets, eunuchs, rave, cymbals and Lions in all this reference, promise eternal life? do your gelded Galli serve her to show that seed-wanters must follow the earth, and not rather that the following of her brought them to this want? for whether doth the service of this goddess supply their want or bring them to want? is this to explain, or to explode rather? Nor is the devils power herein ever a jot observed, that could exact such cruelties, and yet promise nought worth the wishing. If earth were held no goddess, men would lay their hands upon her and strengthen themselves by her, & not upon themselves, to enervate themselves for her: If she were no goddess, she would be made so fertaile by others hands, that she should never make men barren by their own hands. And whereas in Libers' sacrifices an honest Matron must crown that Libers' sacri●…ces. beastly member, her husband perhaps standing by blushing and sweeting (if he have any shame) and whereas in marriages the bride must ride upon (c) Priapus his ●…llstaffe, these are far more (d) lighter and contemptible than that cruel obscaenity, and obscene cruelty: for here the devils illude both sexes, but maketh neither of them their own murderers. There they fear the bewitching of their corn, here they fear not the un-manning of themselves. There the bride (e) is not so shamed that she either looseth chastity or virginity, here the massacre of manhood is such the gelded person is left neither man nor woman. L. VIVES. THey (a) call her] Ovid Fast. 4. gives another reason of the Great mother's worship. The Cybeles sacrifices. Cymbals and Tymbrils were imitations of the Corybantes, that kept jove with the noise of their shields and helms: the timbrels stand for the bucklers being leather, and the Cymbals for the helms being brass. The turrets are for that she built first towers in Cities, the Eunu●…s she liketh for Atys his sake: she is borne by Lions because she tameth them. (b) Before I●…,] This is left out by some. (c) Priapus his Colestaffe] A Metaphor, Scapus is the stalk of any herb, but used in Uarro and Pliny for a man's privy member, that is erected like a stake or stalk: Scapus is also a beam or juncture in building. Vitr. (d) Lighter] so is the old ma●…scripts, Scapus. (e) Is not so] Priapus was used to help the husband in taking away the maiden●…ad of the wife, and the wife in fruitfulness of offspring. What exposition the Greek wise men give of the gelding of Atys. CHAP. 25. But we have forgotten Atys & his meaning all this while, in memory of whose love the (a) Galli are gelded. But the wise greeks forget not this goodly matter. Because of the earth's front in the spring, being fairer than, then ever. (b) Por●… a famous Philosopher saith Atys signifieth the flowers, & was therefore guel●…, because the flower falleth off before the fruit. So then, not (c) Atys, man, or manlike, but his privy parts only were compared to the flowers, for they fe●…l of in his spring: nay many fell not of, were cut of; nor followed any fruit upon this, but rather lasting sterility, what then doth all that which remained of him after his gelding signify? whether is that referred? the meaning of that now? or because they could find no reference for this remainder, do they think that he became that which the fable showeth, & as is recorded? Nay Varro is ours against them in that justly, and will not affirm it, for his learning told him it was false. L. VIVES. THe Galli (a) are] Cybele's priest: of these we have spoken. Festus saith they gelded themselves, Why the Gall●… geld themselves. because having violated their parent's name they would never be parents. Bardesanes the Syrian saith that King Abgarus made all their hands to be cut off that had used themselves so: and so this ceremony ceased: Macrobius interpreteth the passages of Cybele and Atys, Ve●…s and Adonis, Isys and Osiris, all one way: calling the women the earth, and the men the sun. (b) Porphiry] Of him elsewhere: this place is in his book De rational. n●…. Deor. Atys and Adonis (saith he) are the fruits, but Atys especially the flowers that fall e●…e the fruit be ●…ipe, and so they say he was gelded, because the fading flowers bear no fruit. (〈◊〉) Atys man or man's like] Alluding to Plato's riddle. De rep. 5. A man and no man, having sight and no sight, smote and smote not, a bird and no bird, with a stone and no stone, upon a tree and no tree: that is, An eunuch, purblind, threw and but touched a Bat with a pumyce stone, ●…ittng Plato hi●…●…iddle. in an Eldern tree. Of the filthiness of this Great Mother's sacrifices. CHAP. 26. NO more would Varro speak of the Ganymedes that were consecrated unto the said Great mother, against all shame of man and woman: who with anointed heads, painted faces, loose bodies and lascivious paces, went even until yesterday up and down the streets of Carthage, basely begging (a) of the people wherewithal to sustain themselves. Of these have not I (to my knowledge) (b) read any thing: their expositions, tongues and reasons were all ashamed and to seek. Thus the Great mother exceeded all her sonne-gods, not in greatness of deity, but of obscaenity. janus himself was not so monstrous as this (c) monster: he was but deformed in his statue: but this was both bloody and deformed in her sacrifices. He had members of stone given him, but she takes members of flesh from all her attendance. This shame, all Jove's letcheries come short of: he besides his female rapes, defamed heaven but with one (d) Ganymede, but she hath both shamed heaven, and polluted earth with multitudes of (e) professed and public Sodomites. It may be thought that Saturn that gelded his father comes near, or exceeds this filthiness: O but in his religion men are rather killed by others then gelded by themselves. He eat up his sons say the Poets, let the Physical say what they will: history saith he killed them: yet did not the romans learn to sacrifice their sons to him from the Africans. But this Great mother brought her eunuchs even into the Roman temple, keeping her bestial reaks of cruelty even there: thinking to help the romans to strength, by cutting away their strengths fountains. What is Mercury's theft, Venus her lust, the whoredom and the turpitude of the rest (which were they not commonly sung upon stages, we would relate) what are they all to this foul evil, that the Mother of the gods only had as her peculiar? chiefly the rest being held but poetical fictions, as if the Poets had invented this too, that they were pleasing to the gods? So the●… it was the Poet's audatiousnesse that recorded them, but whose is it to exhibit them at the gods urgent exacting them, but the gods direct obscaenity, the devils confessions, and the wretched soul's illusions? But this adoration of Cibele by gelding one's self the Poets never invented, but did rather abhor it then mention i●…: Is any one to be dedicated to these select Gods for blessedness of life hereafter, that cannot live honestly under them here, but lies in bondage to such unclean filthiness; and so many dammed devils? but all this (say they) hath reference to the world: nay look if it be not to the wicked. (f) ●…hat cannot be referred to the world that is found to be in the world? But we do seek a mind that trusting in the true religion doth not worship the world as his God, but commendeth it for his sake, as his admired work, and being expiate from all the stains of the world, so approacheth to him that made the world: we see these selected gods more notified than the rest: not to the advancement of their merits, but the divulging of their shames; this proves them men, as not only Po●…es but histories also do explain: for that which Virgil saith Aen. 8. Primus ab aethereo venit Saturnus Olympo, Arma iovis fugiens, & regnis exul ademptis. An (g) Whence Saturn came Olympus was the place, Flying Jove's arms, exiled in wretched case. d so as followeth, the same hath (h) Euemerus written in a continuate history, translated into latin by Ennius: whence because much may be taken both in Greek and also in Latin that hath been spoken against these error, by others before us, I cease to urge them further. L. VIVES. B●…g. (a) Of.] These Galli were allowed to beg of the people by a law that Metellus made O●…id, shows the reason in these verses. Dic inquam, parva cur stipe quaerat opes? Contulit aes populus de quo delubra Metellus Fecit, ait, dandae mos stipis inde manet. Tell me (quoth I) why beg they basely still? Metellus, built the shrine o' th' towns expense, (quoth he) and so the begging law came thence. Cicero in his sacred and severest laws (of those times) charged that None but the Idaean goddesses Priests should beg: his reason is because it fills the mind with folly and empties [The Lovanists omit this.] Ganymede. the purse of money. [But what if Augustine or Cicero saw now how large and rich societies go a begging to those on whom they might better bestow something? whilst he (mean time) that giveth it sitteth with a piece of brown bread, and a few herbs, drinking out of an earthen put full of nothing but water, and a great sort of children about him for whose sustenance he toileth day and night: and he that beggeth of him is a rich beggar, fed with white and purest bread, patrridge and capons: and soaked in spiritful and delicious wines?] (b) Red any thing.] Of their interpretation. (c) Monsters.] He seemeth to mean Priapus. (d) Ganymede.] Son to Troos King of Phrigia, a delicate boy: Tantalus in hunting forced him away, and gave him to jove in Crete: jove abused his body: The Poet's fable how jove catched him up in the shape of an eagle, and made him his chief cupbearer, in place of Hebe and Vulcan Juno's children, and turned him into the sign Aquary. (e) Professed.] Openly avowing their bestial obsc●…ity. (f) What cannot.] There is not any other reading true but this. (g) Whence Saturn.] E●…r to Aeneas. Uirg. Aenead. (h) Euemerus.] Some read Homerus, falsely: for it was Eue●…rus as I said that wrote the History called Sacred. Of the Naturalists figments that neither adore the true deity, nor use the adoration thereto belonging. CHAP. 27. WHen I consider the Physiologies which learned and quick witted men have endeavoured to turn into divine matters, I discover as plain as day that they cannot have reference to aught but natural and terrestrial (though invisible) objects, all which are far from the true God: If this extended no further than the congruence which true religion permitted, then were their want of the knowledge of the true God, to be deplored, and yet their abstinence from acting or authorizing obscaenity, to be in part approved. But since that it is wickedness to worship either body or soul for the true God (whose only dwelling in the soul maketh it happy) how much more vile is it to adore these things with a worship neither attaining salvation nor temporal renown? and therefore if any worldly element be set up for adoration with temple, priest or sacrifice, which are the true Gods peculiar, or any created spirit, all were it good and pure: it is not so ill a thing because the things used in the worship are evil, as because they are such as are due only to his worship, to whom all worship is due. But if any one say he worshippeth the true God in monstrous statues, sacrifices of men, crowning of privities, gelding, payments for sodomy, wounds, filthy and obscene festival games, he doth not offend because he that he worshippeth is to be worshipped, but because he is not to be worshipped so as he doth worship him. But he that with these filthinesses, worshippeth not God the creator of all, but a creature, be it harmless or no, animate or dead; double is his offence to God: once for adoring that for him which is not he; and once for adoring him with such rites as is (a) not to be afforded unto either. But the foulness of these men's worship is plain: but what or whom they worship, is not so, were it not for their own history that records the gods that exacted those bestialities so terribly: so therefore doubtless they were devils, called by their politic Theology into Idols, and passing from thence into men's hearts. L. VIVES. IS (a) not to be] Nothing is to be worshipped in that manner, neither God, nor that which is not God; for the worship of itself is wicked. That Varro his doctrine of theology hangeth no way together. CHAP. 28. THerefore what is it to the purpose, that so learned a man as Varro hath endeavoured to reduce all these gods to heaven and earth, and cannot? they slip from his fingers and fall away do what he can: for being to speak of the goddesses: seeing that as I said (quoth he) in my first book of the places, there are observed two beginnin●…s of the gods, producing deities celestial and terrestrial, as befo●…e being to speak of the masculine gods, we began with heaven, concerning janus called heaven or the world: so now of the feminine beginning with the earth, Tellus. I see how sore so good a wit is already plunged. He is drawn by a likelihood to make heaven the agent and earth the patient, & therefore giveth the first the masculine form, and the latter the feminine: and yet understandeth not that he that giveth those unto both these two, made them both. And here-upon he interpreteth (a) the Samothratians noble mysteries so, saying that he will lay open such things thereof to his nation as it never knew: this he promiseth most religiously. For he saith be hath observed in Images that one thing signifieth earth, another heaven, another the abstracts of forms, (b) Plato's Ideae: he will have jove to be heaven, juno earth, Minerva the Ideas: Heaven the efficient, earth the substance, Idea the form of each effect: Now here I omit to say that Plato ascribed so much to these forms, that he saith heaven doth nothing without them, but itself was made by them. This I say, that Varro in his book of the Select gods, hath utterly overthrown this distinction of those three: Heaven he placeth for the masculine, for t●…e feminine, earth: amongst which he putteth Minerva, that but now was above heaven. And Neptune a masculine God, is in the sea, therefore rather in earth then heaven. Father Dis, or (c) Pluto a male-god, and their brother, he is also in earth upmost, and Proserpina his wife under him. How can those heaven-gods now be earth-gods, or these earth-gods have rooms above or reference to heaven? what sobriety, solidity, or certainty is in this discourse? And earth is all their mother, that is served with nothing but sodomy, cutting and gelding. Why then doth he say, janus the gods chief, and Tellus the goddesses, where error neither alloweth one head, nor fury a like time? why go they vainly about to refer these to the world, (e) as if it could be adored for the true God, the work for the maker? That these can have no reference thither, the truth hath convinced: refer them but unto dead men, & devils, and the controversy is at an end. L. VIVES. THe (a) Samothracians] Of these gods I have already spoken. They are Heaven and earth, The Samothracian gods. I●…e and juno that are the great Samothracian gods. Uarro de ling. lat. l. 4 And Minerva also. To these three the stately temple of the Capitol was dedicated. In Greek it is not well known who these Samothracian gods were. Apollonius his interpreter hath these words. they call the Samothracian gods, Cahiri, Nnaseas saith that their names are Axierus, that is, Ceres. 〈◊〉, Proserpina, Aziocersus, father Dis and Mercury their attendant as Dionysodorus saith. A●…n saith that jove begot jasion and Dardanus upon Electra: The name Cabeiri serves to derive from the mountains Caberi in Phrygia, whence these gods were brought. S●…e s●…y these gods were but two, jove the elder and Dionysius the younger. Thus far he: He that will read the Greek, it beginneth at these words: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Now jasion they say was Ceres' son, and called Caberus the brother of Dardanus: others say la●… loved and lay with Ceres and was therefore slain by thunder. He that will read more of the Cabeiri, let him go to Strabo. lib. 10. (b) Plato's Idea,) So called of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a form or Cabeiri. shape, for he that will make a thing, first contemplateth of the form, and fitteth his work therein: A Painter draws one picture by another: this is his Idea, and therefore it is defined, Plato's Idea. a form of a future act. The Ideae of all things are in God, which in framing of the world and cach part thereof, he did work after: and therefore Plato maketh three beginnings of all: the mind; that is God the worker: the matter or substance of the world: and the form that it is framed after: And God (saith he in his Tymeus) had an Idea or form which he followed in his whole fabric of nature. So that not only the particular spaces of the world, but the 〈◊〉, heaven and the whole universe (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) had the beginning from an Idea. They are e●…all, uncorporall, and simple forms of things (saith Apuleius Dogmat. Platon) and from hence had God the figures of all things present and future, nor can more the one Idea be ●…nd in one whole kind of creature, according to which all of that kind are wrought as 〈◊〉 of w●…e. Where these Ideas are, is a deeper question and diversly held of the Platonists: of that hereafter. (c) Pluto] Of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, gain. Dis in Latin, quasi dives, rich: for out of the 〈◊〉 bowels, (his treasury) do men fetch up stones of worth, and metals. And therefore was Pluto. ●…e said to dwell under the land of Spain, as Strabo saith: because there was such store of mettal●…es, corn, cattle, and means of commodity. (d) One head] for janus had two heads, & Cybel's Prie●…s were mad. (e) As if it) or, which if they could no godly person would worship the world. That all that the Naturalists refer to the world's parts, should be referred to God. CHAP. 29. FOr this their natural theology referreth all these things to the world, which (would they avoid scruple of sacrilege) they should of right refer to the true God the world's maker and creator of all souls and bodies. Observe but this, we worship God, not heaven, nor earth (of which (a) two parts of the world con●…h:) nor a soul or souls diffused through all the parts thereof. but a God that made heaven and earth and all therein, he made all creatures that live, brutish, & senseless, sensitive, and reasonable: (b) And now to run through the operations of this true and high GOD, briefly, which they reducing to absurd and obscene The works of the ●…ue God. mysteries, induced many devils by. We worship that God that hath given motion, existence, and limits to each created nature, that knows, contains and disposeth of all causes, that gave power to the seeds, and reason to such as he vouchsafed: that hath bestowed the use of speech upon us, that hath given knowledge of future things to such spirits as he pleaseth: and prophesieth by whom he please; that for man's due correction, ordereth and endeth all wars & worldly tribulations: that created the violent and vehement fire of this world, for the temperature of this great & huge mass: that framed and guideth all the waters: that set up the sun as the world's clearest light, and gave it congruent act and motion: (c) that taketh not all power from the spirits infernal: that afforded nourishment moist or dry unto every creature according to the temperature: that founded the earth and maketh it fertile: that giveth the fruits thereof to men and beasts: that knows and order all causes, principal and secondary: that giveth the moon her motion: and hath set down ways in heaven and earth to direct our change of place: that hath graced the wit he created, with arts and sciences, as ornaments to nature: that instituted copulation for propagation sake: that gave men the use of the earthly fire to meet by and use in their conventions. T●…se ●…re the things that learned Varro either from others doctrine or his own 〈◊〉 striveth to ascribe unto the selected Gods by a sort of (I wot near 〈◊〉) ●…aiurall interpretations. L. VIVES. WH●… (a) two parts] Gen. 1. 1. In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. Which 〈◊〉 make the whole world, including in heaven all things celestial, in earth all things mortal (b) And now] An Epilogue of all the gods powers which he hath disputed of. (c) That taketh] Read. job. 40. & 41. of the devils power from God. The means to discern the Creator from the creatures, and to avoid the worshipping of so many gods for one, because there are so many powers in one. CHAP. 30. But these are the operation of one only and true God: yet as one & the sa●…e god in all pla●…, all in all, not included in place, not confined to local qua●…tie, ●…sible and immutable, filling heaven and earth with his present power, His nature (a) needing no help. So doth he dispose of all his works of creation, ●…t each one hath the peculiar motion permitted it. For though it can do no●… without him, yet is not any thing that which he is. He doth much by his Ange●… Angels. 〈◊〉 only he maketh them also blessed. So that imagine he do send his Angel●…●…o 〈◊〉 for some causes, yet he maketh not the men blessed by his Angels, b●… by hi●… self he doth the angels▪ from this true and everlasting God, and from no●…●…ther hope we for life eternal. L. VIVES. (〈◊〉. N●…ding] as the other gods do, that must be feign to have assistance in their faculty & powe●… The Pee●…r benefits (besides his co●…on bounty) that God bestoweth upon his servants. CHAP. 26. FOr of him, besides these benefits whereof we have spoken partly, such as 〈◊〉 left to the administration of nature and bestowed both upon good and bad, we 〈◊〉 a particular bounty of his love particular only to the good: for although we 〈◊〉 never yield him sufficient thanks for our being, life, sense, and understanding of him. yet for that he hath not forsaken us when we were involved in sin, tur●…d away from his contemplation, and blinded with love of black iniquity, for that 〈◊〉 hath sent us his Word, his only Son, by whose incarnation and extr●… passion for us we might conceive how (a) dearly god esteemed us, and 〈◊〉 singular sacrifice be purged from our guilt, and by the illumination of 〈◊〉 spirit in our hairs, tread down all difficulties, and ascend to that eternal 〈◊〉 ineffable sweetness of his contemplation: what heart, how many tongues 〈◊〉 to return sufficient thanks for this last benefit? L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dearly.] Rom. 8. 32. Who spared not his own son but gave him for us all to death. etc. 〈◊〉 That the Mystery of our redemption by Christ was not obscure in the precedent times, but continually intimated in divers significations. CHAP. 32. 〈◊〉 Mystery of Eternal life, even from the first original of mankind, was 〈◊〉 the angels declared unto such as God vouchsafed, by divers signs 〈◊〉 ●…all shadows congruent to the times wherein they were showed. And 〈◊〉 ●…ebrewes being gathered into a common wealth to keep the memory 〈◊〉 ●…ty, had divers that prophesied the things that should fall out from the 〈◊〉 of Christ unto (a) this very day: some of which Prophets (b) understood 〈◊〉 ●…cies, and some did not. Afterwards they were pispersed amongst the 〈◊〉 leave them (c) the testimony of the scriptures which promised e●…ernal 〈◊〉 jesus Christ: for not only all the Prophecies, which were in words, & 〈◊〉 ●…epts which had reference to actions and manners, were therein con●… but all their sacrifices also, the Priesthoods, temple or tabernacle, altars, ●…ies, feasts, and what ever hath reference to that divine worship of God, All things fulfilled in Christ. 〈◊〉 presages, and prophetical significations of that eternal life bestowed by 〈◊〉 all which we now believe either are fulfilled, or see are now in fulfilling, 〈◊〉 shallbe fulfilled hereafter in him. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) this very day.] For the Prophecies are not yet at an end: and though the sum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all were fu●…filled in Christ, yet by him divers things since are to come to pass 〈◊〉 particularly been intimated in the prophecies: as that (not in one prophet only) 〈◊〉 ●…ring together of the dispersed Israel, at the end of the world. (b) Understood.] All How the Prophets understood the prophecy both Heathen & others. 〈◊〉 ●…phets understood not their prophecies, nor did those that understood part vnder●… 〈◊〉 they spoke not themselves but by God's inspira●…ion, whose counsels they 〈◊〉 fully acquainted with: nor did God use them as men skilful in future events, but 〈◊〉 as he meant to speak to the people by: yet deny we not but that the sum of all their 〈◊〉, th●…ing of the Messias was revealed to them by God almighty. The gentiles 〈◊〉 of opinion that the Sibyls and the other Prophets understood not all their presages, 〈◊〉 ●…ey spoke them at such times as they were rapt beyond their reason, and having put 〈◊〉 proper minds, were filled with the deity. And therefore jamblicus saith that the 〈◊〉 and sober that the Sibyl's and prophets are in their prophesying, the dasker and obscurer their prophecies are: and then they speak plainly and clearly when they are wholly enthusiastical. In mysteriis. (c) The testimony] That the scriptures might be dispersed throughout the world, wherein the consequents of Christ's coming and suffering were so plainly described, that none that had seen or heard of Christ's life and doings, could deny that he it wa●…of whom they were prophesied. That Christianity only is of power to lay open the devils subtlety and delight, in illuding of ignorant men. CHAP. 33. THis only true religion is of power to lay open that the Gentiles gods are Who were the Gntiles gods. most unclean spirits, desiring upon the occasion of some departed souls, or under the shapes of some earthly creatures, to be accounted gods, and in their proud impurity taking pleasure in those obscaenities as in divine honours, maligning the conversion of all men's souls unto the true God. From whose beastly and abominable tyranny a man then getteth free, when he layeth his belief upon him, who by his rare example of humility declared from what height and for what pride those wicked fiends had their fall. Hence arose those routs of gods, whereof partly we have spoken, and others of other nations, as well as those we now are in hand with, the Senate of selected gods: selected indeed, but for villainy, not for virtue. Whose rites Varro seeking by reason to reduce to nature, and to cover turpitude with an honest cloak, can by no means make them square together: because indeed the causes that he held (or would have others hold) for their worship, are no such as he takes them, nor causes of their worship. For if they, or their like were so, though they should not concern the true God, nor life eternal which true religion must afford, yet their colour of reason would be some mitigation for the absurd acts of Ignorance: which Varro did endeavour to bring about in divers their theater-fables, or temple-mysteries: wherein he freed not the theatres for their correspondence with the temples, but condemned the temples for their correspondence with the theatres: yet endeavouring with natural reasons to wipe away the filthy shapes that those presentments imprinted in the senses. Of Numa his books, which the Senate for keeping their mysteries in secret, did command should be burned. CHAP. 34. But contrariwise, we do find (as Varro himself said of Numa his books) that these natural reasons given for these ceremonies could no way be allowed of: nor worthy of their priests reading, no not so much as their secret reserving. For now I will tell ye what I promised in my third book to relate in convenient place: One (a) Terentius (as Varro hath it in his book de Cultu deorum.) had some ground near to mount janiculus, and his servants ploughing near to N●… his tomb, the plough turned up some books, containing the ceremonies institutions: (b) Terentius brought them into the city to the Praetor, who having looked in them, brought this so weighty an affair before the Senate: where having read some of the first causes why he had instituted this and that in their religion; The Senate agreed with dead Numa, and like (c) religious fathers, gave order to the Praetor for the burning of them. Every one here may believe as he list: nay let any contentious mad patron of absurd vanity say here what he list. Sufficeth it, I show that the causes that N●… their King gave for his own institutions, ought neither to be showed to people senate, no nor to the Priests themselves: and that Numa by his unlawful 〈◊〉 came to the knowledge of such devilish secrets as he was worthy to be Numa, founder of the Roman religion. 〈◊〉 ●…ded for writing of. Yet though he were a King that feared no man, he du●… for all that either publish them, or abolish them: publish them he would no●…●…are of teaching wickedness: burn them he durst not for fear of offendi●… devils: so he buried them where he thought they would be safe, (d) not 〈◊〉 ●…he turning up of his grave by a plough. But the Senate fearing to re●… their ancestors religion, and so agreeing with Numa's doctrine, yet held 〈◊〉 ●…kes too pernicious either to be buried again (least men's madder cu●… should seek them out) or to be put to any use but burning: to the end 〈◊〉 seei●…g they must needs stick to their old superstition, they might do it with ●…ame by concealing the causes of it, whose knowledge would have distur●… whole city. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 Terentius] The story is written by Livy, Ualerius, Plutarch and Lactantius. Livy 〈◊〉 ●…erius his ordinary follower, say that Q. Petilius found the books. Pliny, (out of 〈◊〉) that Gn. Terentius found them in one chest, not two. Livy calls that years 〈◊〉 C. Bebius Pamphilus, and M. Amilius. Lepidus: for whom Hemina putteth P. Cor●…●…gus: after Numa his reign DXXXV of the books, the several opinions are 〈◊〉. 13. cap. 13. (b) Terentius] Petilius they said: some say he desired the Praetor they 〈◊〉 ●…ead: others that he brought a Scrivener to read them. The history in Livy lib. 40. 〈◊〉 and Pliny lib. 1. 'Tis sufficient to show the places: He saith he brought them in●…, for though Numa's tomb were in the city (namely in the fourteenth region, 〈◊〉) yet being beyond Tiber, such as came to the Senate house seemed to come out 〈◊〉 ●…bes, or country. (c) Religious fathers] as touched with fear that religion should 〈◊〉 by the publication of those books. Some read religious in reference unto books: 〈◊〉 ●…ng scruples of religion in men's minds, for that is the signification of the Latin 〈◊〉 any man will read it irreligious. (d) Not fearing] It was a great and religious 〈◊〉 ●…as had over sepulchres of old: none might violate or pull them down, it was a The re●…rence of sepulchres. 〈◊〉 twelve tables, and also one of Solons and Numa's, & of most old lawgivers, greeks ●…es: belonging rather to their religion then their civil law, for they held sepulchres 〈◊〉 ●…les of th'infernal gods, and therefore they wrote upon them these letters: D. M. S. 〈◊〉 ●…anibus sacrum: A place sacred to the gods of Hell: and their solemnities were 〈◊〉 ●…cia. Cicero de legib. lib. 2. Of hydromancy, whereby Numa was mocked with apparitions. CHAP. 35. 〈◊〉 N●…ma himself, being not instructed by any Prophet or Angel of God, 〈◊〉 feign to fall to (d) hydromancy: making his gods (or rather his devils) to Hydr●…mancie. 〈◊〉 in water, and instruct him in his religious institutions. Which kind of 〈◊〉 ●…n saith Varro, came from Persia, and was used by Numa, and afterwards 〈◊〉 ●…thagoras, wherein they used blood also, and called forth spirits infernal, 〈◊〉 ●…ncie the greeks call it, but Necromancy or hydromancy, whether ye like, 〈◊〉 it is that the dead seem to speak. How they do these things, look they Necromancy. 〈◊〉: for I will not say that their laws prohibited the use of such things in 〈◊〉 cities before the coming of our Saviour, I do not say so, perhaps they 〈◊〉 allowed it. But hence did Numa learn his ordinances which he published 〈◊〉 publishing their causes: so afraid was he of that which he had learned. 〈◊〉 which afterward the Senate burned. But why then doth Varro give them such a sort of other natural reasons, which had they been in Numa's books, they had 〈◊〉 been burned, or else Varro's that were dedicated to (c) Caesar the priest should have been burned for company? So that, Numa's having nymph (a) ●…ia to his wife was (as Varro saith) nothing but his use of water in Hydrom●…cy. For so use actions to be spiced with falsehood and turned into fables. So by that Hydromancy did this curious King learn his religious laws that he gave the romans, and which the Priests have in their books: marry for their causes them he learned also, but kept to himself: and after a sort entoumbed them in death with himself, such was his desire to conceal them from the world. So then either were these books filled with the devils best all desires, and thereby all the politic Theology that presenteth them such filthynesses, made altogether execrable, or else the gods were shown by them, to be none but men departed whom wormeaten antiquity persuaded the world to be gods, whereas they were devils that delighted in those obscene ministries, and under their names whom the people held divine, got place to play their impostures, and by illusive miracles to captivate all their souls. But it was God's pro●…dence. by gods eternal secret providence, that they were permitted to confess all to N●…a who by his Hydromancy was become their friend, and yet not to warn him rather to burn them at his death, then to bury them: for they could neither withstand the plough that found them, nor Varro's pen, that unto all memory hath recorded them. For the devils cannot exceed their direct permission, which GOD alloweth them for their merits that unto his justice seem either worthy to be only afflicted, or wholly seduced by them. But the horrible danger of these books, and their distance from true divinity may by this be gathered, that the senate chose rather to burn them that Numa had but hidden, then (e) to fear what he feared that durst not burn them. Wherefore he that will neither have happiness in the future life, nor godliness in the present, let him use these means for eternity. But he that will have no society with the devil, let him not fear the superstition that their adoration exacteth, but let T●… religi●… 〈◊〉 the de●…. him stick to the true religion which convinceth and confoundeth all their villainies and abominations. L. VIVES. TO (a) Hydromancy] Divination by water. Divination generally was done by divers means: Th●… kinds of D●…. either by Earth, G●…mancy: or by fire, Pyromancy (or Ignispicina, found by Amphiarans as Pliny saith:) or by smoke, Cap●…mancy: or by birds, Augury: or by entrails, Aruspicina: (used much by the Etrurians, and by janus, Apollo's son, amongst the Heleans, and after him by Thrasibulus who beheld a dog holding the cut liver) or by a siue, called Coscinomancy, o●… by hatchets, Axinomancy, or by Herbs, Botinomancy, the witches magic, or by dead bodies, N●…mancy, or by the stars, Astrology (wherein the most excellent are called Chaldees, though never borne in Caldaea): or by lots, Cleromancy: or by lines in the hand, Chiromancy, or by the face and body, Physiogn●…my: or by fishes, Icthyomancy (this Apuleius was charged with:) or by the twinkling and motion of the eyes called Saliatio, & the Palmique augury. Then was there interpretation of dreams, and visions, or sights of thunder or lightning, noises, sneezings, voices, and a thousand such arts of invoking the devils, which are far better unnamed. Hydromancy I have kept unto the last: because it is my theme: It is manifold: done either in a gl●…sse bottle full of water, wherein a Child must look, (and this is called, Gastromancy of the glasses belly) or in a basin of water, which is called Lecanomancie, in which Strabo saith the Asians are singular. Psellus de damonibus, affirmeth this also and showeth how it is done: that the devils creep in the bottom, and send forth a still confused found, which cannot be fully understood, that they may be held to say what ever 〈◊〉 to pass, and not to lie. Many also in springs did see apparitions of future things. 〈◊〉 ●…aith, that in Aegina (a part of Achaia) there is a temple of Ceres, and a fountain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, wherein sick persons after their offering sacrifice behold the end or continuance of 〈◊〉 ●…ses. jamblichus tells of a cave at Colophon wherein was a Well that the Priest ha●…●…ifice certain set nights, tasted of, and presently became invisible, and gave an●…●…at asked of him. And a woman in Branchis (saith he) sat upon an Axletree, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a rod that one of the goddesses gave her, or dipping her foot or skirt in the water, so 〈◊〉 ●…d prophesied. Apulcius writeth out of Uarro, that the Trallians enquiring by 〈◊〉 of the end of the war of Mithridates, one appeared in the water like Mercury 〈◊〉 that looked in it, and sung the future success of the war in 360. verses: but because of ●…tion of the boy, I think he means Gastromancy. Apolog. de Magia. This last 〈◊〉 N●…a use in a fountain: Plutarch saith, that there were women in Germany that 〈◊〉 events by the courses, noise and whirle-pittes of rivers. In his life of Caesar. 〈◊〉 Pythagoras] A careful respect of the times: for Numa was dead long before 〈◊〉 was borne. Some say that he was Pythagoras his scholar, and Ovid for one: they all 〈◊〉 ●…ror is lighter in a Poet then in an Historiographer. (c) Caesar] Dictator and Priest, 〈◊〉 dedicates his Antiquities. (d) Aegeria] Some held her to be one of the Muses, 〈◊〉 called the wood where she used Lucus Camaenarum, the Muse's wood. Some 〈◊〉 but a water-nimphe, and that after Numa his death Diana turned her into a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith she was called Aegeria, ab egerendo, of putting forth, because the great 〈◊〉 s●…rificed unto her for the aid she was thought to give them in the deliue●… 〈◊〉 ●…estus. (e) To fear] For Numa durst not burn them for fear of proo●…●…nger against him. Finis lib. 7. THE CONTENTS OF THE eight book of the City of God. 1. Of the questions of natural theology to be handled with the most excellent Philosophers. chapter. 1. 2. Of the two kinds of Philosophers, Italian and Ionian. 3. Of the Socratical discipline. 4. Of Plato the chief of Socrates his scholars, who d●…d philosophy into three kinds. 5. That the chief controversy with the Pl●…sts is about theology, and that all the P●…rs opinions hereof are inferior to the●…y. 6. How the Platonists conceived of the natural part of Philosophy. 7. The excellency of the Platonists above the rest in logic. 8. That the Platonists are to be preferred in Morality also. 9 Of the Philosophy that cometh nearest chrtianity. 10. What the excellence of a religions christian is in these philosophical arts. 11. Whence Plato might have that knowledge that brought hi●… so near the christian doctrine. 12. That the Platonists for all their good op●… of the true GOD, yet nevertheless held tha●… worship was to be given to many. 13. Of Plato's affirmation that the gods were all good, and lovers of virtue. 14. Of such as hold three kinds of reasonable souls: In the gods, In eyrie spirits, and in Men. 15. That neither the airy spirits bodies, 〈◊〉 height of place make them excel men. 16. What Apuleius the Platonist held concerning the qualities of those airy spirits. 17. Whether it becomes a Man to wors●… those spirits from whose guilt he should be p●…e. 18. Of that religion that teacheth that those spirits must be men's Advocates to the good Gods. 19 Of the wickedness of art magic, depending on these wicked spirits ministry. 20. Whether it be credible that good Gods had rather converse with those spirits then wi●…h Men. 21. Whether the Gods use the devils as their messengers, and be willing that they should. 22. The renouncing of the worship of those spirits against Apuleius. 23. Hermes Trismegistus his opinion of Idolatry, and how he might come to know th●… the Egyptian superstitions were to be abrogated. 24. How Hermes openly confessed his progenitors error, and yet bewailed the destruction of it. 25. Of such things as may be common in Angels and Men. 26. That all paganism was fully contai●…d in dead men. 27. Of the honour that Christians give to ●…he Martyrs. FINIS. THE EIGHTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD. Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of the questions of natural Theology to be handled with the most excellent Philosophers. CHAP. 1. NOw had we need to call our wits together in far more exact manner then we used in our precedent discourses; for now we are to have to do with the Theology called natural, nor deal we against each fellow (for this is neither the civil, nor stage-theology, the one of which records the gods filthy crimes, and the other their more filthy desires, and both show ●…lls and not gods) but against Philosophers whose very name (a) truly i●…ed, professeth a love of wisdom. Now if GOD (b) be wisdom as Wisdom. 7. 10. Heb. 1. 〈◊〉 scripture testifieth, than a true Philosopher is a lover of GOD. But (〈◊〉) the thing thus called, is not in all men that boast of that name (for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are called Philosophers are not lovers of the true wisdom,) we must 〈◊〉 as we know how they stand affected by their writings, and with ●…te of this question in due fashion. I undertake not here to refute all ●…ophers assertions that concern other matters, but such only as per●… Theology, (which (e) word in greek signifieth speech of divinity) 〈◊〉 that kind either. but only such as holding a deity respecting mat●…●…iall, yet affirm that the adoration of one unchangeable GOD suf●… unto eternal life, but that many such are made and ordained by him, 〈◊〉 ●…red also for this respect. For these do surpass Varro his opinion in 〈◊〉 at the truth: for he could carry his natural Theology no farther 〈◊〉 world and the worlds soul: but these beyond all nature living, ac●… a GOD, creator not only of this visible world, (usually called Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.) but of every living soul also: and one that doth make the reason●… blessed, by the participation of his incorporeal and unchangeable 〈◊〉 that these Philosophers were called Platonists, of their first founder Plato, 〈◊〉 that none that hath heard of these opinions but knoweth. L. VIVES. V●…y (a) name] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wisdoms love: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, wisdoms lover whose contrary is 〈◊〉, opposition to wisdom, as Speusippus saith. (b) Be wisdom] Wisdom the 7. Philosophy. P●…o the Hebrews chapter 1. Do call the son, the wisdom of the father, by which he ●…de the world. c. The thing] Lactantius holds this point strongly against the Philosophers: 〈◊〉 ●…eins hath an elegant saying. I hate (saith he) the men that are idle indeed and Phi●…all in word. But many have handled this theme. (d) All that] A different reading, all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p●…rpose. (e) Word in greek●…] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, speech, or discourse, or reason concerning GOD 〈◊〉 is all these. Of the two kinds of Philosophers Italian, and Ionian, and of their authors. CHAP. 2. WHerefore concerning this Plato, as much as shall concern our purpose, I will speak in brief, with a remembrance of such as before him held the same positions. The greek monuments (a language the most famous of all the nations) do record (a) two kinds of Philosophers: th' Italian, (b) out of that part of Italy which was whilom called Magna Grecia: and the (c) jonian, in the The Italian Philosophy. country now called Greece. The Italian had their original from (d) Pythagoras of Samos, (e) who also was the first author (they say) of the name of Philosophers. For whereas they were before called wise men, that professed a reformed course of life above the rest, he being asked what he professed answered, he was a Philosopher, that is a lover and a longer after wisdom: but to call himself, The jonnike Philosophy. a wise man, he held a part of too great arrogance. But the jonikes were they whose chienfe was (f) Thales Milesius, (g) one of the seven Sages. But the (h) other six were distinguished by their several courses of life, and the rules they gave for order of life But Thales, to propagate his doctrine to succession, searched into the secrets of nature, and committing his positions unto monuments and letters, grew famous: but most admired he was, because he got the knowledge of (k) Astrological computations, and was able to prognosticate the eclipses of Sun and Moon, yet did he think that all the world was made of (l) water: that it was the beginning of all the elements, and all thereof composed. (m) Nor did he teach that this fair admired universe, was governed by any divine or mental power. After him came (n) Anaximander his scholar, but he changed his opinion concerning the natures of things: holding that the whole world was not created of one thing (as Thales held of water) but that every thing had original from his proper beginnings, which singular beginnings he held to be infinite, & that infinite worlds were thereby gotten, all which had their successive original, continuance and end: (o) nor did he mention any divine mind as rector of any part hereof. This man left (p) Anaximenes his scholar and successor, who held all things to have their causes from the (q) infinite air: but he professed their was gods: yet made them creatures of the air not creators thereof. But (r) Anaxagoras his scholar first held the divine mind to be the efficient cause of all things visible, out of an infinite matter consisting of (s) unlike parts in themselves, and that every kind of thing was produced according to the Species, but all by the work of the divine essence. And (t) Diogenes another of Anaximenes his followers held that the (u) air was the substance producing all things, but that it was aided by the divine essence without which of itself it could do nothing. To Anaxagoras succeeded (x) Archelaus, and (y) he also held all things to consist of this dissimilitude of parts, yet so, as there was a divine essence wrought in them, by dispersing and compacting of this (z) consonance and dissonance. This man's scholar was (a) Socrates, Plato his Master, for whose sake I have made this short recapitulation of these other. L. VIVES. TWo (a) kinds] The sects of Philosophers at first were so great in Greece, that they were distinguished by the names of the signiories they lived in: One of Italy, the country where Phythagoras the first Master of one opinion, taught: another of jonia, Thales his native soil, wherein Miletum standeth, called also (saith Mela) jonia, because it was the chief City of that country. So did Plato and Aristotle distinguish such as were of more antiquity than these. (b) Out of that part] At Locris (saith Pliny) beginneth the coast of that part of Italy called Magna Grecia: it is extended into three bars: and confronteth the Hadriatique sea (now called Golfo De Venetia) which the Grecians used oftentimes to cross over. I wonder that s●…e have held all Italy to be called so, because Pliny doth write thus: What have the Grecia●…s (a most vanie-glorious nation) shown of themselves, in calling such a part of Italy, Magna Grecia, Great Greece? Whereby he showeth that it was but a little part of Italy, that they 〈◊〉 thus. Of the 3. bay I spoke of, one of them contains these five Cities, Tarentum Me●…us, Heraclea, Croto, and Turii: and lieth between the promontories of Sales, and La●…. Mela. It is called now, Golfo di Taranto. Here it is said Pythagoras did teach. (c) Io●… jonia. jonia is a country in Asia Minor, between the Lydians, the Lycaonians, and our sea ●…ing Aeolia and Caria on the sides: this on the Southside that on the North: Miletus is the ●…se City (saith Mela) both for all arts of war and peace: the native soil of Thales the ●…sopher, Tymotheus, the Musician, Anaximander the Naturalist, and divers other whose w●…s have made it famous. Thales taught his fellow citizen, Anaximander, he his fellow citizen also Anaximenes: he, Anaxagoras of Clazomene, Pericles, Archelaus and Socrates of Athens: and Socrates almost all Athens. (d) Pythagoras] Aristoxenus saith he was of Tyrrhe●…, Phythagoras. in ●…e that the greeks took from the Italians, he went into Egypt with King Amasis, and r●…ng back, disliking the tyrannous rule of Polycrates of Samos he passed over to Italy. (●…y who also] Cicero (Tnsc. 5. out of Heraclides of Pontus) relateth that Pythagoras being ●…ked of Leontes the Phliasian King what he professed, he answered that whereas the rest of his pros●… had called themselves wise men, Sophi he would be called, But a lover of wisdom, a P●…pher; with a more modest respect of his glory: And hereupon the name Sophi grew quite ●…of custom, as ambitious and arrogant: and all were called Philosophers after that, fo●… inde●… the name of wise, is God's peculiar only. (f) Thales] The first Naturalist of Greece Thales of Miletus. 〈◊〉 first year of the 35. Olympiad, after Apollodorus his account in Laertius. (g) 〈◊〉] A sort of youths having bought (at a venture) a draft of the Milesian fishers, 〈◊〉 ●…awne up a tablet of gold, they fell to strife about it, each would have had it, so unto 〈◊〉 his oracle they went, who bade them give it unto the wise. So first they gave it vn●… 〈◊〉, whom the jonians held wise: he sent it unto another of the seven, and he to an●… and so till it came to Solon, who dedicated it to Apollo, as the wisest indeed. And these 〈◊〉 had the same of wisdom over all Greece, and were called the seven Sages. (h) The ot●… Chilo of Lecedaemon, Pittacus of Mitilene. Bias of Priene, Cleobulus o●… Lindus, Peri●… The 7. Greek Sages. ●…orynthe, and Solon of Athens: of these at large in the eighteenth book. ay Com●… 〈◊〉] Some say that the Astrology of the Sailors was his work: others ascribe it unto R●…●…f ●…f Samos, Laban the Argive saith he wrote 200. verses of Astrology. (k) Astrologi●…] End●…s saith he presaged the eclipses. Hist. Astrolog. Amongst the Greeks (saith Pliny lib. 〈◊〉.) Thales, in the fourth year of the 48. olympiad, was the first that found their 〈◊〉 of eclipses, and prognosticated, that which fell out in King Halliattes time, in the ●…XX. year after the building of Rome. So saith Eusebius, and Cicero de divinat. lib. 1. Wh●…e for Haliattes, he writeth Astyages. But they lived both at one time, and had wars one ●…ith another. (l) Water] As Homer calls the sea; father of all: Plutarch (in Placit. Philos:) and o●…e give Thales his reason, because the seed of all creatures animate is moist: and so is all ●…nt: Nay they held that the seas moisture nourisheth and increaseth the stars. (m) Nor did 〈◊〉 Velleius in Tully, affirmeth that Thales thought all things to be made of water, and 〈◊〉 the essence that was the cause of all their production, is God: and Laertius saith that he 〈◊〉 all things full of Daemons: and being asked whether the gods knew not a man's evil ●…ds: Yes (said he) and thoughts too: But this proves God's knowledge only, and no●… his operation to be avouched by him. (n) Anaximander] A Milesian also, but not he that wrote the Anaxima●…der. Histories. He held an infinite element was the substance of the production of all things: but ●…er showed whether it was fiery, airy, earthly or watery: He held besides that the parts of 〈◊〉 infinite thinng were successively changed, but that the whole was im●…utable. Aristot. Plu●…. 〈◊〉 Euseb. (o) Nor did he] Herein Plutarch reprehendeth him for finding the matt●…, and ●…t the efficient cause. For that infinite element is the matter, but without some efficient cause it can do nothing. But Tully saith that he affirmed that there were natural gods far distance East and West and that these were their innumerable worlds; De nat. dear. lib. 1. So that these contraries, their original and there efficient are all one, namely that eternal cold and heat: as Euseb ●…e pr●…par. evang. saith, and Aristotle intymateth Phys. lib. 1. (p) Anaximenes'] Son to Eurystratus, a M●…lesian also: borne, Olympiad. 64. He died in the year of Croesus his overthrow, as Anaximenes. Apollodorus counteth. (q) Infinite air] Infinite (saith Eusebius) in kind, but not in qualities: of whose condensation, and rarefaction all things have their generation. He held the air god, generated, infinite and eternally moving: The stars, the Sun and the Moon were created (he held) of the earth. Cicero. (r) Anaxagoras] Borne at Clazomene, a town in jonia, he died, Olymp. 88 being 62. years of age. His work (saith Plutarch and Laertius) began thus: There was one universal mass: an essence came, and disjoined it and disposed it:] For he Anaxagoras. held a matter or mass including infinite forms of creation and parcels of contraries and others, all confused together, which the divine essence did compose, and separate: and so made flesh, of many parcels of flesh, of bones, bone, and so of the rest: yet are these other parcels formally extant in the whole, as in their bones there is parcels of flesh, and fire, and sinews, etc. For should bread or meat give increase to a bone, or the blood unless there were seeds or little parcels of bone and blood in the bread though from their smallenesse they be invifible? Arist. Plutarch, Laertius. (s) Unlike] Or like: either is right. For as Aristotle saith, Anaxagoras held infinite parts in every body, both contrary, and correspondent, which he called Homogenia, or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: similaria, like: Symilarities Gaza translateth it. For in bodies they are parts that are similare, as in fire water, flesh, bone etc. and here the name of each part is the name of the whole: each drop of water is water, and each bit of flesh is flesh, and so of the rest: then are there also parts dissimilar, as in a man, an horse and so forth: wherein are parts severally called, as bones, nerves, blood, skin, and such: likewise in artificial things: as a table, a book, or so: every leaf is not a book, nor every part of the table a table. These parts are called Heterogenea, or, Of divers kinds: multigenae, Agricola calls them. The Symilar parts Anaxagoras held to be in all things infinite, either different, as of wood, blood, air, fire, bone and such: or congruent as of water, infinite parcels all of one nature, and so of fire. etc. for though bodies be generate by this separation, yet cannot these parts be so distinguished but infinite will still remain: that evermore is best means for one thing to be progenerate of another, and nourished, so that this communication continueth everlastingly, of nature, place, and nutriment. But of the Heterogeneal parts he did not put infinite in nature, for he did not hold that there were infinite men in the fire, nor infinite bones in a man. (t) Diogenes] There were many of this name one of Synope called the Cynic: one of Sicyon, Diogenes. an Historiographer: one a stoic, fellow Ambassador to Rome which Carneades borne at Seleucia, but called the Babylonian, or Tharsian: one that writ of poetical questions, and Diogenes Laertius from whom we have this our Philosophy, elder than them all: one also called Apolloniata, mentioned here by Augustine. Our commentator like a good plasterer daubed the Cynic and this, into one, as he made one Thomas, of Thomas Valois and Thomas Aquinas in his Commentaries upon Boethius. (u) Air] Cic. de nat. de. What is that air that Diogenes Apolloniata calls God▪ He affirmed also innumerable worlds, in infinite spaces, and that the air thickening itself into a globous body, produceth a world. (x) Archelaus] Archel●… the Naturalist. Some say, of Myletus, some of Athens. He first brought physiology from jonia to Athens: and therefore was called Physicus, also because his scholar Socrates brought in the Morality. y He also] Plutarch saith he put the infinite air for the world's general principle, and that the r●…ity and density thereof made fire and water. (z) Consonance] Eternity, say the manuscripts. (a) Socrates] This is he that none can sufficiently commend: the wisest Pagan that ever was: An Athenian begot by Sophroniscus a stone-cutter, and Phanareta, a midwife: A man, temperare, chaste, just, modest, patient, scorning wealth pleasure and glory: for he never wrote any thing: he was the first that when others said he knew all, affirmed himself he knew nothing. Of the Socratical●… discipline. CHAP. 3. Socrates' therefore was (a) the first that reduced Philosophy to the refor●…tion of manres for all before him aimed at natural speculation rather than practise morality: I cannot surely tell whether the tediousness (b) of these obscurities moved Socrates to apply his mind unto some more set and certain invention, for an assistance unto beatitude: which was the scope of all the other Philosophers intents, and labours: or (as some do favourably surmise) he (c) was unwilling that men's minds being suppressed with corrupt and earthly affects, should ofter to crowd unto the height of these Physical causes whose total, and whose original relied solely (as he held) upon the will of God omnipotent, only and true: wherefore he held that (d) no mind but a purified one, could comprehend them: and therefore first urged a reformed course of life, which effected, the mind unladen of terrestrial distractions might tower up to eternity, & with the own intellectual purity, stick firm in contemplation of the nature of that incorporeal, & unchanged and incomprehensible light, which (e) containeth the causes of all creation. Yet sure it is that in his moral disputations, (f) he did with most elegant and acute urbanity tax and detect the ignorance of these overweening fellows that build Castles on their own knowledge, either in this, confessing his own ignorance, or dissembling his understanding. (g) whereupon envy taking hold, he was wracked by a (h) calumnious accusation, and so put to death (ay) Yet did Athens that condemned him, afterward publicly lament for him, and the wrath of the commonty fell so sore upon his two accusers that one of them was trodden to death by the multitude, and another forced to avoid the like by a voluntary banishment. This Socrates (so famous in his life and death) left many of his scholars behind him, whose (l) study and emulation was about moralyty ever, and that summum bonum that The final good. The Socratists of divers opinions. greatest good which no man wanting can attain beatitude. (m) Which being not evident in Socrates his controversial questions, each man followed his own opinion, and made that the final good: (n) The final good is that which attained, maketh man happy. But Socrates his scholars were so divided, (strange, having all onemaister) that some (o) Aristippus) made pleasure this final good: others (p) Antisthenes) virtue. So (q) each of the rest had his choice: too long to particularise. L. VIVES. WAs the (a) first] Cicero. Acad. Quest. I think (and so do all) that Socrates first called Philosophy out of the mists of natural speculations, wherein all the Philosophers before Socrates. had been busied, and apllyed it to the institution of life and manners, making it the mean to inquire out virtue and vice, good and evil: holding things celestial, too abstruse for natural powers to investigate, & far separate from things natural: which if they could be known, were not useful in the reformation of life. (b) Tediousness] Xenophon. Comment. rer. Socratic. 1. writeth that Socrates was wont to wonder, that these daily and nightly investigators, could never find that their labour was still rewarded with uncertainties: and this he explaineth at large (c) Was unwilling] Lactantius his words in his first book, are these. I deny not but that Socrates hath more wit than the rest that thought they could comprehend all nature's courses, wherein I think them not only unwise, but impious also, to dare to advance their curious eyes to view the altitude of the divine providence. And after: Much guiltter are they that lay their impious disputation upon quest of the world's secrets profaning the celestial temple thereby, then either they that enter the Temples of Ceres, Bona Dea, Vesta. (d) No mind] Socrates disputeth this at large in Plato's P●…adon, at his death: Showing that none can be a true Philosopher that is not abstracted in spirit from all the affects of the body: which then is affected when in this life the soul is looseed from, all perturbations, and so truly contemplated the true good, that is the true God: And therefore Philosophy is defined a meditation of death, that is, there is a separation or divorce between soul and body: the soul avoiding the body's impurities, and so becoming pure of itself: For it is sin for any impure thought to be present at the speculation The true Philosopher. of that most pure essence: and therefore (he thought) men atoned unto God have far more knowledge than the impure that know him not. In Plato's Cratylus, he saith good men are only wise: and that none can be skilful in matters celestial, without God's assistance. In Epinomede. There may be other beginnings found, either known to God or his f●…es, saith Apulcius out of Plato. (e) Which containeth] This is Plato's opinion related by Augustine, not his own. [This I add because our truth-hunter sets it as Augustine's, and then [The Lovanists leave this.] comes in with his realityes and formalities, such as Augustine never dreamt of.] For Plato saith, God is the minds light, like as the sun we see is the light of the body, whereby we see, So is God the cause of our understanding, whose sacred light infuseth things, and the knowledge of truth into us. De Rep. 6. The sun is the light of the world visible, and God of the invisible. Nazanz. (f) He did with most] Plato, Xenophon, Aeschines, Xenocrates and other reduced Socrates his words into Dialogues, wherein he most elegantly reprehendeth their ignorance that persuaded both themselves and the multitude that they knew all things: Such were Protogoras, Gorgias, Euthydemus, Dionysodorus, and others. (g) Whereupon] His disputation (saith Plato) overthrew him. Three (saith Laertius) accused him, Anytus, Melitus & Lycon, an Orator in Anytus his defence of the trades-mens tumultuous crew and the other Citizens, whom Socrates had often derided. Melitus defended the Poets, whom Socrates would have expelled the City. Of these things read Plato and Xenophon in their Apologies for Socrates: But the plainest of all is Laertius in his life of Socartes. He was condemned by two hundred eighty one sentences. (h) Calumnious] My accusers (saith Socrates) nor my crimes, can kill me: but envy only which both hath destroyed and will destroy the worthiest ever. ay Yet did Athens] They did so grieve for his death, that they shut up all the schools: and made a sad vacation all over the City, put Melitus to death, banished Anitus and erected Socrates a brazen statue of Lysippus his workmanship. (k) Many] All the sects almost, derived from Socrates; Socrates' his statue. the Platonists, Academikes, Cyrenaikes, Cynikes, Peripatetics, Megarians and stoics. (t) Study and emulation] This only question made all the sects. (m) Which being not] For his disputations rather were confutations of others, than doctrines of his own. For professing himself to know nothing, he thought it unfit to affirm any thing. Plato's Thaeatetus. (n) The final good] To which all things have reference. Cic. de finib. For this (saith he lib. 3.) being the utmost (you know I interpret the greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, so) We may call it the last, or the end, for which all things are desired, and itself only for itself: as Plato, Aristotle and the rest affirm. (o) Aristippus] A Cyrenian, the first Socratist that taught for money, as he would have also paid for his learning: (But Socrates never took pay, saying his Genius forbade him) Aristippus. He suffered also Dionysius of Syracuse the younger, to deride him, and flattered him for gain. He made bodily pleasure the greatest good. Diog. Laert. Of them the Cyrenaikes Philosophers had their original. An end of this with a brief note out of Hierome upon Ecclesiastes, speaking of pleasure. Let this (quoth he) Be affirmed by some Epicurus, or Aristippus, or the Cynikes, or such Philosophical cattle: it must be the Cyrenaikes, for what had the Cynikes to do with bodily pleasures? (p) Antisthenes'] The author of the Cynikes, or Dogsect, Antisthenes. master to Diogenes of Synope the Cynic: he held virtue the greatest good. (q) Each of] The diversity of opinions herein, you may read in Cicero his 2. de finibus. And we have touched them briefly in the preface to his work de legibus. Of Plato the chief of Socrates his scholars, who divided. Philosophy into three kinds. CHAP. 4. But of all Socrates his scholars, there was one whose glory worthily obscured all the rest: Plato: (a) He was an Athenian, borne of honest parentage, and endowed with perfection of understanding far more than all his fellows. So he thinking that his invention and (b) Socrates his instructions were all too short of the true aim of Philosophy, and therefore would needs go travel to any place where Fame told him he might drink of the fount of noble sapience. So went he into (c) Egypt, and there learned all that he held worth learning, and from thence into (d) Italy, where the Pythagoreans were famous, and there did he drain from the most eminent teachers, all the Philosophy of Italy. And because he dearly affected his master Socrat●…s, he maketh him in all his Dialogues to temperate that which (a) either he had learned of others, or invented of himself, with his delicate urbanity and motality. So whereas the study of (f) wisdom is either concerning action The stu●…y of wisdom and what ●…t concerns. or contemplation, and thence assumeth two several names, active and contemplative, the active consisting in the practice of morality in ones life, and the contemplative in penetrating into the abstruse causes of nature, and the nature of Divinity. (g) Socrates is said to excel in the active: Pythagoras in the contemplative. But Plato conjoined them into one perfect kind, which (h) he subdivided into three sorts: The Moral: consisting chiefly in action: The Natural in contemplation: The Rational, in (i) distinction of true and false: (k) which though it be useful in both the other, yet it pertaineth more particularly to contemplation. And therefore this Trichotomy or triple division doth not contradict the other Dichotomy that includeth all in action and contemplation. But as for Plato's opinion herein, what should be the end of all actions, the cause of all natures, and the light of all reasons, is both tedious to follow, and may not be rashly affirmed. For (l) delighting in his master Socrates his dissembling of his knowledge (whom he maketh disputant in all his dialogues) and affecting that, he left his own opinions in these great questions as ambiguous (very near) as his masters? yet do we intend out of his own discourses, and his relations (m) from others, to repeat some of his positions, either such as do square with truth of that religion, which our faith professeth and defendeth, or such as oppose it: as far as shall concern the singularity or multititude of gods, whom the Catholic religion saith we must worship for the obtaining of eternal felicity in the life to come. For it may be that such as knew Plato to excel all the other Phlosophers of all nations, and understood him far better than others, do think that in God is the cause of natures, the light of reason and the rule of life: which have reference to the three Phylosophies, Natural, Rational and Moral. (n) For if a man were created, by his excelling part to aspire to that which excelleth all, that is, the One, True, almighty God, without whom nothing hath being, no reason instructeth and no use assisteth: (o) then let him be searched out, in whom we have all security: let him be beheld, in whom is all our certainty, let him be beloved, in whom is all our morality. L. VIVES. PLato (a)] His parents were Aristo and Perictione: He came from Codrus by the father, Plato. the last King of Athens: by the mother from Solon, one of the seven sages; the famous Lawgiver of Athens. Both his pedigrees claim from Neptune. He was born at Athens: Olym●…iad. 88 His life and actions are recorded by many; who extol him for wisdom and conversation above all earthly men. But indeed their love is so far from doing him more than right, that but that I know them stand dearly affected unto him, I should suspect they did somewhat envy his praise for he erreth in my judgement that holdeth not Plato to have been somewhat more than man, at least of that same rare, and singular race and stamp of men. (b) Socrates his] A divers reading. (c) Egypt] Laertius (saith Euripides) & he went thither together, after his return from Italy. (d) Italy] Into Magna graecia, where Pythagoras had left many of his sect: of whom Ar●…as the elder read unto Plato at Tarentum, and Euritus, Timaeus at Locris, Phylolaus at Croto. Tully in his Cato Mayor, saith he came thither in the Consulships of L. Aemilius, and Appius Cla●…dius: though Livy at that time (that was twenty four years after the Candine foil) putteth Furius Camillus in Appius his place. Plato went also to Megara to Euclid the mathematician, and to Theodorus another of Cyrene: and but for the wars meant to have vis●…ed ●…he Persian Magies. (e) Either he had] Al this learning he said was Socrates his (Epist ad Dyo●…s) Ascribing all his Philosophy both moral & natural to him. (f) Wisdom is] ●…lato & Aris●…e reckon some disciplines that are neither active nor contemplative, but effectual, as Architecture and all mechanike trades. So that some they say are speculative, as Theology: some act●…ue wherein Effecting disciplines, Plato. no effect remains after the act, as music and all rhetoric: some affecting materially as all the trades, building, cobbling, carving, etc. But this last is impertinent in this place. (g) Socra●… said] Active, that is in morality and virtuous rule of the actions, wherein he is said to be wh●…ly employed: yet did he speculate much in this kind: for Adymantus saith to him (Pl to Derepub. lib. 2.) Thou hast spent thy time in nothing but speculation: And what pains he took in the investigation of the means to attain the summum bonum, himself showeth in his Apology in Plato: but he directed all to action: but Pythagoras his aims being at matters only pertaining to themselves, had their full limitation in themselves. (h) He subdivided] This diu si●… (saith Eusebius de praep. evang.) he had from the Hebrews, alleging Atticus the Philosophers opinion, who describeth them plainly, and that he conjoined the parts of Philosophy that was in pieces before, as the torn members of Pentheus: for Thales and his followe●…s were all Physical: The other sages all Moral: Zeno and the Eleans, all Logical. All these Plato combined and divulged, publishing his Philosophy perfect, not by piece-meal as Aristotle confirms (Phys. lib, 7.) Philosophy at first (saith Laertius in his Plato) meddled but with nature: then came Socrates and made it Moral. then Plato with his rational made it absolute & had the last hand upon it. Apuleius speaking of him saith that he filled all his books with the most admirable and extracted things that Zeno and Parmenides had taught, so conjoining the tripar●…ite Philosophy, and so reconcyling each, that he avoided all dissonance of parts, and made each acknowledge a dependence upon other. (Dogmat. Platon) Some of his Dialogues all Logical, as his ●…orgias and his Euthydemus: some privately Moral, as his Memnon, Eutiphyro, Phylebus and Crito: some publicly Moral, as his Laws, and his Respublica: Some Natural, as his Timaeus: Some Supernatural, as his Parmenides, and his Sophista: yet all these are Logically composed. ay distinction of true] terminat or disterminat, all is but to distinguish, so doth Lucan use disterminat. ab auson●…s disterminat arua Colonis, divides the fields. And Mela useth it so also, Bosphorus disterminat Europam ab Asia, Bosphorus divides etc. (k) Which though it be] It is a great question in our Schools whether Logic be speculative or practic: A fond question truly I think, [This note the Lovanists have left out wholly. and fellow with most of our Phylosophycall themes of these times, where the dreams of practice and speculation do nought but dull young apprehensions. And now at last the cause goes on the Practikes sides, because it teacheth to dispute: as though we argue not more in our contemplation of nature, then in our morality. But these Schoolmen neither know how to speculate in nature, nor action, nor how the life's actions are to be ordered: Not that I think these must belong only to speculation, but Augustine saith here, That it is necessary to them both: but especially it is employed about seeking truth, falsehood, and probability.] (l) Delighting 〈◊〉 his master] Plato (as I said) confessed that Socrates was author of all his works, and in all his Dialogues, the words that Plato giveth him, are by his author only to be held his opinions, Plato.] [And this also for company.] though he speak his own opinion by the mouth of Timaus, and the Arthemian stranger, and Zeno the Elean. (m) From others] Or from him: For Socoates and he were still of one opinion, though others were so also. (n) For if a man] [What need such a turmoil whether this be the intellect, or will, since Aristotle to omit others, saith that the mind is man's most excelling part, in that it is both intellect, will and memory: But they are so hard, that being not understood by these fellows, they admire them: marry these being plain, and almost palpable, they neglect] (o) Then let] Alluding to the division of Philosophy into three parts: The old books for security, read certainty, and for certainty, truth. That the chief Controversy with the Platonists is about Theology, and that all the Philosopher's opinions hereof are inferior unto theirs. CHAP. 5. IF Plato then affirm that a wise man is an immitator, a knower and a belover of this GOD: Whose participation makes a man blessed, what need we meddle with the rest, whereof none come so near us as he? Away therefore with this same fabulous theology, pleasing reprobate affections with the crimes of the gods: Away with the civil, wherein the devils working upon the willingness of the ignorant to impure acts, cause them to celebrate mortal errors for divine honours: In the beholding of which, they (a) make their servants the ushers of their vain villainies, both by the example of these dishonest sports alluring others to their worship, and making themselves also better sport with the guilt of the spectators of these impurities. Wherein also, if there be any honesty left in the Temples, it is polluted by attraction of turpitude from the Stages and if any filth be presented on the Stages, it is graced with the coherence it hath with that of the Temples. The pertinents whereof Varro interpreting by references to heaven, nature and causes of production, failed wholly of his purpose because the things themselves signified no such matters as he interpreted them by. And though they did, the reasonable souls, which are parts in that order of nature, are not to be held for gods: Nor ought it to be subject to those things over which God hath given it superiority: Away with those things also which Numa buried, being pertinent to these religious ordinances: and being afterwards turned up by a plough, were by the Senate buried. And those also (to favour our suspicion of Numa.) Which Alexander the great wrote (b) to his Mother, that he had learned of Leon an Egyptian Priest: Where not only Picus, Faunus Aeneas, Romulus, Hercules, A●…sculapius, Bacchus, Castor and Pollux, and other mortal men, whom they had for their gods, but even the (c) gods of the greater families, whom Tully (not naming them though) seems to touch at in his Tusculane Questions: jupiter, juno, Saturn, Vulcan, Vesta, and many other which Varro would make nothing but Elements and parts of the world, there are they all shown to have been but men. For the Priest fearing the revealing of these mysteries, warned Alexander that as soon as his Mother had read them, he should burn them. So not all this fabulous and civil Theology shall give place to the Platonists, (who held a true God the author of all things, the clearer of all doubts, and the giver of all goodness) but even the other Philosophers also, whose gross bodily inventions held the world's beginning to be bodily: let all these give place All the philosophers short of●…lato. to those good god-conceiving men: let Thales depart with his water, Anaximenes with the air; the stoics with their (d) fire, Epicurus with his Atoms, his indivisible and in sensible bodies and all other (that now are not for us to recount) who placed natures original, in bodies either simple, compound, quick or dead, for there were (e) some, and the Epicureans were they, that held a possibility of producing the quick out of the dead: (f) others would produce out of the quick, some things quick and some dead: yet all bodily, as of a body produced. But the stoics held (g) the fire one of this visible worlds four elements, to be wise, living, the The stoics sire. Creator of the world whole and part, yea even God himself. Now these & their fellows, followed even the bare surmises of their own fleshly opinions, in these assertions. For (h) they had that in them which they saw not, and thought that to be in them which they saw externally: nay which they saw not, but imagined only: now this in the sight of such a thought, is no body, but a body's likeness. But that wherewith our mind seeth seethe this bodies likeness, is neither body nor likeness, and that which discerneth the other, judging of the deformity or beauty of it, is more beauteous than that which it judgeth of: This is the nature of man's mind and reasonable soul, which is no body; nor is the body's likeness, revolued in the mind a body either. So than it is neither fire, air, water nor The corporcal world earth, of which four bodies which we call Elements, this visible World is composed. Now if our soul be no body, how can God that made it be a body? So then let these give place to the Platonists and (ay) those also that shamed to say God was a body, and yet would make him of the same essence that our s●…es ar: being not moved by the soul's mutability, which it were vile to ascribe unto God. I but (say they) (k) the body it is that altars the soul: of itself it is immutable. So might they say that it is a body that woundeth the body: for of itself it is invulnerable. That which is immutable, nothing external can change: But that that any body altars is not unchangeable: because it is externally alterable. L. VIVES. THey (a) make] A difference of reading, but not worthy the noting. (b) Wrote this] Cyprian, affirming all the Pagan gods were men, saith: that this is so, Alexander writeth in a famous volume to hi●… mother, that the fear of his power made such secrets of the gods to be revealed unto him by that Pries●… that they were (he saw now) nothing else but ancient kings, whose memories used to be kept at first, and afterwards grew to sacrifices. De Idol. Vanitate. (c) Gods of the] Tarqvinius Pris●…s, fist King of Rome added 100 Senators to the ancient Senate, and these were called the fathers of the lesser families: the former of the greater, which phrase Tully useth metaphorically, for the ancient confirmed gods. If we should seek the truth of Greek authors, (saith Tully) even these gods of the greater families would be found to have gone from us here ●…n earth, up into heaven. Thus far he: Tusc. Quaest 1. Teaching the soul's immortality, The gods of the higher house. which being loosed from the body, shall be such as they who are adored for gods. Such were Romulus Hercules, Bacchus, etc. And thus is heaven filled almost full with men. Tully also elsewhere calleth such gods of the greater families, as have always been held celestial. In Legib. Those that merit heaven he calleth God's ascript. (d) Fire] Cic. de nat. dear. The stoics hold all active power, fire: following (it seems) Heraclitus. And Zeno their chief defineth the nature Scoikes Ep●…s. that he held for god, to be a fire artificial, generative, and moving. (e) Some] The Epicureans held all men and each thing else to come out of Atoms, flying about at random and knitting together by chance. (f) Others] So the old Manuscripts do read it. (g) Held the fire] Cic. de ●…t, de●… (h) They had that] They could not conceive the soul to be incorporeal, but corporal only, nor universally that, but sensible only. And it is trivial in the schools. Nothing is in the ●…derstanding that was not first in the sense. That is, our mind conceiveth but what is circumscribed with a body sensible, or an object of our sense. So we conceit incorporeal things, corporally, and corporal things never seen, by imagination and cogitation of such or such forms as we have seen: As one that never saw Rome, but thinks of it, he imagineth it hath walls, churches, buildings, or suchlike, as he hath seen at Paris, Louvaine, Valencia, or elsewhere. Further, Augustine teacheth that the thoughts are incorporeal, and that the minds internal senses which produce thoughts, are both before thoughts, and things themselves: which senses internal, God being the Creator of, must needs be no body, but a power more excellent than all other bodies or souls. ay Those also] Cic. de nat. dear. l. 1. for Pythagoras that held God to be a soul continuate & diffused through all nature, never marked the perturbations our souls are subject to, by which (were God such) he should be distracted, and disturbed, & when Py●…. the souls were wretched (as many are) so should god be also: which is impossible: but Plato derived our souls from the substance of the stars, & if they died young, he affirmed their return theth●…, again, each to the star whence it came: and that as the stars were composed of the 4. Ele●…, so we●…e the souls, but in a far different manner than that composition of the bodies. (k) The body] V●…gil (Georg. 4. & Aeneid. 6.) reciteth Pythagoras his opinion singing of God, that is the world's soul, whence each one draws a life at his original, and returns it at his death. But because it may be doubted how all souls have one original sense, one understandeth better than another, and useth reason more perfectly: this difference he held did proceed from the body and not from the souls. For these are his words. Princip●… Calum at Terras Camposque liquentes, ●…temque Globune terrae, Titaniaque astra: Sp●…s intus alit totamque infusa per artus, Mens agi●…at mole●…, & magno se corpore miscet. etc. Heaven, Earth, and Sea each in his proper bound, The moons bright globe, and all the spangled round, A spirit within doth feed, doth move, and pass Through every parcel of this spacious mass. All ●…hich is explained at full by Servius the Grammarian. Porphyry confesseth with Pythagoras' 〈◊〉 the soul suffereth with the body: whose affects, good or bad, redound in part unto the 〈◊〉, yet denieth he that they alter the soul's nature. De sacrificijs. lib. 4. How the platonists conceived of the natural part of Philosophy CHAP. 6. WHerefore ' these Philosophers whom fame (we see) hath worthily preferred 〈◊〉 before the rest, did well perceive that God was (a) no bodily thing: & therefore pa●…●…rther than all bodies in this investigation: they saw that no (b) mutable thing 〈◊〉, and therefore went further than all mutable spirits, and souls to seek for 〈◊〉 ●…gain they saw that (c) all forms of mutable things, whereby they are what 〈◊〉 (of what nature soever they be) have original from none but him, that is 〈◊〉 unchangeable. Consequently, neither the body of this universe, the fi●…●…alities, motions and Elements, nor the bodies in them all, from heaven to 〈◊〉 ●…her vegetative, as trees, or sensitive also as beasts or reasonable also, as 〈◊〉 those that need no nutriment but subsist by themselves as the Angels, God only hath true essence, all the rest depend upon him. 〈◊〉 being, but from him who hath only simple being. For in him (d) to be, and 〈◊〉 ●…ffer not: as if he might have being without life: neither to live, and to 〈◊〉 ●…d: as if he could have life without intellect: nor to understand and to be 〈◊〉 ●…s if he could have the one and not the other. But his life, vnderstan●… beatitude are all but his being. From this invariable and simple essence 〈◊〉 they gathered him to be the uncreated Creator of all existence. For they 〈◊〉 ●…ed that all things are either body, or life: that the (e) life excelleth the 〈◊〉 ●…hat sensibility is but a species of the body; but understanding of the life: 〈◊〉 ●…fore they preferred intellect before sense: Sensible things are those 〈◊〉 to be seen or touched. Intelligible can only be understood by the mind. Things sensible and intelligible. 〈◊〉 is no bodily sweetness, be it in the body, as beauty, or in motion, as 〈◊〉 ●…ll song, but the mind doth judge thereof: which it could not do if this 〈◊〉 ●…ere not in it more excellent, then either in that quantity of body, or 〈◊〉 ●…se of voices and keeping of tones and times. Yet if it were not mutable 〈◊〉 ●…ld not judge better than another of these sensible species, nor one be witti●…●…inger, or more exercised than another, but he that began after should 〈◊〉 much as he that learned before: and he that profited after should be vn●… from his ignorance before: but that which admitteth majority or minori●… angeable doubtless. And therefore these learned men did well observe Mutable what. 〈◊〉 first form of things could not have existence in a subject mutable. And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beholding degrees of diversity in the forms of souls and bodies, and 〈◊〉 the separation of all form from them directly destroyed them, this infered ane●…ty of some unchangeable and consequently an all-excelling form: this they 〈◊〉 the beginning of all things, uncreated, all creating, exceeding right. This 〈◊〉 they knew of God he did manifest unto them by teaching them the gradu●…●…emplation Rome 1. 19 20. of his parts invisible by his works visible: as also his eternity ●…inity, who created all things both visible and temporary. Thus much of 〈◊〉 Physiology, or natural Philosophy. L. VIVES. GOD (a) was no body] This Alcinous in Plato's doctrine argueth thus. If God were a 〈◊〉 God is no body. he should have substance and form: for so have all bodies, being like the Ideas, wherein they ha●…e a secret resemblance. But to say God hath substance and form is absurd: for he should ●…thor be the beginning, nor uncompounded: Therefore he hath no body. Besides, every body is of some substance: What then shall GOD be of fire or air? earth or water? Nor of these are beginnings: but rather have a later being than the substance whereof they consist. ●…ut these are blasphemies, the truth is, GOD is incorporeal. If he were a body, he were generated, and therefo●…e corruptible. But far are those things from GOD. Thus far Alcinous. (b) No mutable] Plato (in Timaeus) calls God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc., one, the same, and always like himself, as Tully translates it. Alcinous saith he must needs be an intelligible substance. Of which kind the soul is better, the●… what is not the soul, but the power that is perpetually actual, excelleth that which is potential, such therefore is God. (c) All forms] In Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, so Tully & others interpret it, (d) To be and to live] Alcinous saith that God is supreme, eternal, ineffable, selfe-perfect, needing nothing, eternally absolute, Deity, cause of all b●…ing, truth, harmony, good, and all these, in one, and one. For I count them not as dis-joined, but coessential. And a little ●…ter he saith that God is incomprehensible, only apparent to the thought: but contained under no kind whatsoever: not definable, nor specifical, nor subject to any accident: to say he is evil were wickedness, and to say he is good is insufficient, for than he should participate of goodness, but he hath neither difference nor accident. This opinion did Dionysius the Divine follow, denying wisdom, life, or understanding to be in god. For Die●…s the Divine. these are the names of particular perfections which are not in God: This seems to be grounded on Plato's words in Phadon that all good is such by participation of good: but there he excepteth true good, that is doubtless God the Idea and essence of all beautiful goodness. (e) Life excelleth] He calls the soul life, as Aristotle doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, perfection or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, any thing eternally actual both may be said of the soul. But Plato speaking of souls, meaneth (it seems) only the rational. The excellency of the Platonists above the rest, in logic. CHAP. 7. NOw as concerning the other part of their (a) doctrine, called logic, far be it from us to join them in comparison with those fellows that fetched the judgement of truth from the bodily senses, and held all things to be swayed by their false and frivolous positions, as (b) Epicurus held, yea and even the stoics. (c) These men standing only affected to the art of disputation called Logic, thought it was to be derived from the senses: affirming that from them the mind doth receive definable notions (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and thence the whole method of learning and teaching hath the propagation. Now (e) here do I wonder how these men (f) affirming a wiseman only to be beautiful, had any notion of this beauty from their sense: and how their carnal eyes could behold the fair form of wisdom. (g) But those whom we do worthily preferr●… have distinguished the conceits of the mind conceived from the forms received by the sense: Giving them no more than their due, nor taking aught of their due from them. But (h) the light of the mind giving power to conceive all, this they hold is God, that created all. L. VIVES. THeir (a) Doctri●…] Plato divided speech into five parts. 1. civil, used in politic affairs, counsels and such like. 2. rhetorical, which is demonstrative, or judicial, containing praise or dispraise, accusation or defence. 3. ordinary discourse of one man with another. 4. workmen's conference in matters mechanical: 5. Logical, consisting of dialogismes, questions and answers. This last is by some ascribed to be Plato's invention; as Phavorinus: others gi●…e it to Alexamenes Teius, Aristotle: Some also to Zeno the Elean: certain it is that Plato g●…e much ornament unto discourse, replenishing it with all parts of learning, gravity and elegance: Wherein though the Logical forms be not expressly taught, yet they are laid dow●… 〈◊〉 practice, and their use fully expressed: And particularly demonstration is practi●…d 〈◊〉 his Timaus S●…phismes, in Euthydemus, whence Aristotle had many of his fallacians: 〈◊〉 ●…tes his induction is of most power of all, and seems to take the original from him: 〈◊〉 ●…ates used it more nimbly than any man living. And from him Quintilian bids his 〈◊〉 fetch it. (b) Epicurus] He held the Sun to be no bigger than it seemed: And th●… if the sense once mistake, one should never trust it after. Cicero, (Plutarc, Placit. lib. 4.) The stoics held the senses true, but their objects now true, and now false. But Epicu●… held sense an object all true, marry opinion he said erred sometimes; and Cicero saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, That unto the forms received by our senses he adjoined the assent of the mind, w●…ch he will have fixed, and voluntary in every one of us. He did not affirm all that we saw was true: But only such as brought with them certain peculiar declarations 〈◊〉 which they pretended. (c) These men] The stoics; for the Epicures rejected Logic, 〈◊〉 and unprofitable. The stoics used it exceedingly. And Chrysippus, Cleanthes and 〈◊〉 ●…saisters of that sect, wrote much in that kind: but all concerning the later part: 〈◊〉 the first, Invention they commonly meddle not with as Cicero saith in his To●…d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] The first apprehensions, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or understanding of things. These ●…th given man, whence the knowledge of many great severalties arise, which mo●…se from visible and palpable objects, producing either knowledge, ignorance ●…n, the mean between both. Cicero calleth them begun conceits, and saith 〈◊〉 first named the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as if one should say, a premeditate apprehension of a thing 〈◊〉, without which we can neither understand, inquire nor dispute. Marry the stoics 〈◊〉 used this word also, which Tully translateth anticipationes: And Chrysippus 〈◊〉 to be a natural understanding of universalities. Laert. (e) here do I] He pro●… the affirmers of these positions rather trusted understanding then sense. (f) affirming 〈◊〉] A Stoical Paradox. (g) But those whom] Plato so dealt that he debarred the 〈◊〉 power to judge the truth, allowing that only to the mind, proving the authority of 〈◊〉 fit to be trusted, because it beholdeth alone the simple truth, uniform and 〈◊〉, in that manner as it is. (h) The light] This sun they held was the light 〈◊〉, and that the prince of the World was the light of the soul to understanding, ●…ge wisdom, and judgement; and therefore he is the father of all light: For from Cie●…r. Acad. Quest. lib. 1. 〈◊〉 invisible, the light visible hath his original, as I showed before out of Plato. The 〈◊〉 ●…noes teacheth. In Doctrina Platonis. That the Platonists are to be preferred in Morality also. CHAP. 8 ●…ere remaineth the Moral, in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which inquireth after the grea●… good whereto all our actions have reference: and which is desired for it 〈◊〉 only, for no other end, but to make us blessed in attaining it only: and therefore 〈◊〉 it the end: as referring all the rest unto it. But desiring it only for it 〈◊〉 This blesse-affording good some would derive from the (a) body, 〈◊〉 ●…om the (b) mind, some (c) from both: For seeing that a man con●… but of soul and body, they believed that his chief good must 〈◊〉 original from one of the two, and therein subsist; as the final end standing 〈◊〉 the shot-marke of all their actions, which being once attained, their labours 〈◊〉 crowned with perfection. So that they (d) that added a third kind of good to these two namely, consisting of honour, riches and such goods of Fortune, ●…wise called extrinsical: did not propose it as a final good, that is, to be desi●… in respect of itself, but referred it to another: being of itself good to the 〈◊〉 and bad to the bad. So this good then, that some derived from the body, and some from the soul, and some from both, all derived from the man's self. But they that took the body's part had the worse side, the soul had the The Philosophers con●…tion about the greatest good. better: marry they that took both, expected this good from the whole man. So then, part or whole, it is from man, howsoever. These three differences made above three several sects of Philosophers: each man construing diversly both of the bodies good, and the souls good, and both their goods. But let all those stand by and make them place that say that he is not happy that enjoys a body, nor he that enjoys a mind, but he that enjoys God: Not as the soul enjoys the body, or itself, nor as one friend enjoys another, but (e) as the eye enjoys the light. If the rest can say any thing for the other similes, or against this last, what it is, God willing we shall in due season discover. L. VIVES. FRom the (a) body] So did Epicurus, Aristippus, and all their followers. (b) The mind] The stoics. (c) From both] As Calipho, Polemon and Diodorus. (d) That added] This triple division of goods, into the bodies, the minds, and fortunes Augustine often useth. It is Aristotle's and the Peripatetics: taken from divers places of Plato, as I will show in the next book. (e) Knowledge of the truth. At the eye] Plato saith that the knowledge of the truth is the greatest good, which being hardly to be attained in this life gives us cause to think that scarcely any one living is truly happy: marry there is great hope of partaking it in the life to come, when we are freed from the body's bounds, the sole impediment of the soul's perfection. But when we die (so we die pure) then in the sight of that it that truly existent truth, God, we shall enjoy the height of our desires, that is, truth and universal knowledge. Wherefore as the eye wanting the light is useless, and setteth the owner sadly affected in darkness, and perpetually sorrowful: but when the Sun, the light comes, it riseth with vigour to the function, and useth the office with cheerfulness and alacrity: so our intellect being ungived from the body, if it want the light of God's truth, it must needs lament and languish, but if it have it, it exulteth, and joyfully useth that light which presents the forms of all the creation. Whence it cometh that in our pleasures and felicities wherein we fulfil our affections, and as it were enjoy ourselves, we d●…ot reap that delectable comfort that we draw from the internal contemplation of that eternal good, and from that attaining the pure light of so perfect a wisdom. So that the soul that is absolutely blessed, enjoyeth not God in his beauty, and love, which concern pleasure, an act of the will: but in his truth which is an act of the intellect: though then followeth his beauty, and his love, entirely delectable, nor can these be separated. For none knows God, but admireth him: none admireth him, but joins love to his admiration and delighteth in them all. Thus much out of Plato in divers places of his Respub. leges Phadon and Philaebus, who still preferreth the inquiry and contemplation of truth, and that to men of pure life, exhorting and exciting all thereunto. And this all the Academics and Peripatetics profess after him, as Tully teacheth De finib. lib. 5. Of that Philosophy that cometh nearest to Christianity. CHAP. 9 LEt it suffice now to remember that Plato (a) did determine that the end of all good was the attaining a virtuous life, which none could but he that knew and followed God: nor is any man happy by any other means. And therefore Platos●… Philosopher a lover of God. he affirmeth, that to be a Philosopher is to love God, whose nature is incorporeal: And consequently that wisdoms student, the Philosopher, is then blessed when he enjoyeth God. For though the enjoying of each thing a man loveth doth not forthwith make him happy: (for many by placing their love on hateful objects are wretched, and more wretched in enjoying them) yet is no man happy that enjoyeth not that he loveth. For (b) even those that love what they should not, think not themselves happy in loving, but in enjoying. But he that enjoys what he loves, and loves the true and greatest good. Who (but a wretch) will deny him to be happy? This true and greatest good, is GOD saith Plato, and therefore he will have a Philosopher a lover of GOD, that because Philosophy aims at beatitude, the lover of God might be blessed by enjoying GOD. Wherefore what ever Philosophers they were that held this of the high and true 〈◊〉 that he was the world's Creator, the light of understanding, and the good of all action: that he is the beginning of nature, the truth of doctrine, and the happine●… life: whether they be called Platonists (as fittest) or by any other sect: (c) ●…er the Ionian teacher held as this Plato did, and understood him well; Or th●…e Italians held it from Pythagoras & his followers, or any other of the same ●…ine, of what nation so ever they were, and were counted Philosophers (d) ●…tes, Lybians, (e) Egyptians, (f) Indians, (g) Persians, (h) Chaldees, ay Scythi●…) Galls, (l) Spaniards, or others that observed and taught this doctrine, t●… we prefer before all others, and confess their propinquity with our ●…e. For though a Christian, used only to the Scriptures, never heard of 〈◊〉 ●…nists, nor knoweth whether Greece held two sects of Philosophers, the 〈◊〉 and the Italian, yet is he not so ignorant in humanity, but he knows 〈◊〉 Philosophers profess either the study of wisdom or wisdom 〈◊〉. But let him beware of those that dispute (m) of the Elements of this 〈◊〉 ●…ely, and reach not up to God that made them Elements. The Apostle 〈◊〉 good warning of this: Beware (saith he) lest any deceive you by Philosophy 〈◊〉 deceit, according to the world's Elements. But lest you should think Colo●…. 28. 〈◊〉 held all Philosophers to be such, he saith elsewhere: (n) For that 〈◊〉 ●…ich is known of God, is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto 〈◊〉 For his invisible powers from the beginning of the world are manifested by Rom. 1. 19 20. 〈◊〉, and so is his (p) eternal. virtue. And having spoken a great matter con●… God unto the Athenians which few of them understood (q) In him we live, 〈◊〉 and have our being: he added as some also of your writers have said: He Act. 17. 18. 〈◊〉 to beware of their errors. For he said that GOD had by his works, 〈◊〉 his invisible power to their understanding, there also he said that they 〈◊〉 worship him aright, but gave the divine honours with were his pecuriarly, 〈◊〉 ●…her things then was lawful: because that when they knew God, they glorified him Rom. 1. 21. 22. 23. 〈◊〉 ●…d, neither were thankful: but became vain in their own imaginations: O 〈◊〉 ●…sh heart was full of darkness! For professing themselves wise, they proved 〈◊〉 ●…d turned the glory of the incorruptible God, into the similitude of the Image of 〈◊〉 ●…ible man, and of birds, and beasts, and serpents. (r) In this place the Romans, 〈◊〉 ●…ns, Egyptians, and all that gloried in their wisdom, are justly taxed. But 〈◊〉 ●…d we will argue this hereafter: as for those things wherein we and they con●… of one God the Creator of this universe, who is not only incorporeal, 〈◊〉 all bodies, but also incorruptible above all spirits, our beginning, our light 〈◊〉 goodness, in these we prefer them before all others. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 did determine] That venerable, and holy-teaching Plato, surmounting all Phylo●…●…rs in almost all other matters, in defining man's greatest good, outstripped Plato's opinion of the greatest good. ●…m-selfe, in his first book De Legib. He divides good, into divine and humane: 〈◊〉 is quite separate from virtue, the first conjoined therewith. Socrates in Gor●…●…es ●…es that beatitude consisteth in learning and virtue, calling only the good, happy, 〈◊〉 wretched. And in Menexenus, in six hundred places, (and so all Plato through) 〈◊〉 only honest and beauteous. As for other gods, without virtue they are the de●… of him that possesseth them. But these are but Plato's common sayings: in these 〈◊〉 ●…th with his fellows: But when he list, he riseth in spirit, and leaves all to other 〈◊〉 of wisdom beneath him. His Philebus is a dialogue of the greatest good, or as some entitle it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of pleasure. Therein he maketh six ranks of goods, in the second stands the things proportionate, fair, perfect sufficient, and such like. In the third understanding, and sapience. In the fourth, the goods of the soul, sciences, arts and good opinions. But in the first, he putteth measure, moderation and opportunity. All which (as he writeth to Dionysius) import that GOD is the proportion, cause, measure, author and moderator of all goodness. And in his 2. de Repub. he calleth GOD, the greatest good and the Idea of good. And therefore Apuleius defineth GOD to be the professor and bestower of Beatitude: Dogm: Plat. And Speusippus defineth him to be, A living immortal and supernatural essence, sufficing to beatitude, and cause of nature and all goodness. The contemplation of this good did Plato say, made a man happy. For in his Banquet; Diotima, a most wise woman biddeth Socrates to mark her speech well. And then falling into a discourse that our love concerned beauty, at last she drew to a deeper theme, affirming a beauty that was eternal, immutable and undiminished, nor increased, nor fair in one part and not in another, nor being subject to any vicissitude, or alteration of times: Nor beautiful in one respect and not in all: Whose beauty is neither altered by place, nor opinion, nor is as a part, or an accident of that essence wherein it is. But it is ever existem in one and the same form, and from thence flows all the worlds beauty: yet so, as neither the original of any thing decreaseth it, nor the decay augmenteth it, or giveth any effect, or change to it. This holy and venerable beauty when a man beginneth to behold truly, that is being dislinked from the love of other beauties, then is not he far from the top of his perfection. For that is the way to things truly worth desiring: Thus must we be truly led vn●… it, when a man ascendeth by degrees from these inferior beauties unto that supreme one, transporting himself from one fair object unto two, and so unto all the rest of all beautiful desires, whereupon the like disciplines must needs follow, of which the only chief and chiefly to be followed, is the contemplation of that supreme beauty, and from thence to draw this lesson, thus must a man internally beauteous, direct his life. Saw you, but this once clear, you would scorn riches, honours and exterior forms. Tell me now (saith she) how great a happiness should he give thee that should show thee this sincere, this purest beauty, not circumscript with a form of mortality, nor with colours nor metals, or such like trash, but in itself merely divine, and one and the same to all eternity? I pray thee wouldst thou not admire his life that should have his wiseness so full as to behold and enjoy this glorious beauty? O glorious partaker of unchanged solid virtue! Friend of the all powerful God, and above all other Divine and immortal. These are the words of wise Diotyma unto Socrates to which he replieth that he believed her, and that he laboureth to persuade mankind that there is no such mean to attain the possession of this pulchritude, as the love of it: and that no man should think it were enough to dispute of it in words, or to contemplate thereupon with an unpurged heart. Which things is hard, nay near impossible saith Plato: yet teacheth he that beatitude is attained by imitation of GOD (De leg. 4.) where speaking of GOD'S friends and enemies, he saith, That it must be a wise man's continual meditation how to follow God, and make him the rule of his courses before all mortal men, to whose likeness his chief study must be to ●…old himself. what it is to be like GOD he showeth in his Thaeatetus, it is to be just, wise and holy. And in his Epistle to Hermeas and his fellows, he saith, That if any man be a Philosopher, he aimeth at the knowledge of God, and his father, as far as happy men can attain it. And in his Epinomis, speaking of GOD, he saith: Him doth each man especially admire, and consequently is inflamed with the power of humane wit to labour for this beatitude in this life present, and expecting a place after death with those that have served virtue. This saith Plato, who placed the greatest beatitude in the life to come. For he saith in the same book, That none (or very few) can attain happiness in this life, but great hope there is after this life to enjoy the happiness for which we have been so careful to keep and continue our courses in goodness and honesty. And towards the end he saith: It is wickedness to neglect God, the reason of all being so fully already discovered. He that can make use of all this, I c●…t him truly wise, and firmly avow that when he dieth, he shall not be any longer in the common fashion of this life, but have a certain peculiar excellence allotted him, to be both most wise and most happy? And live a man so, where he will, in Island or continent, he shall partake this felicity: and so shall he that useth these directions wheresoever, in government of others, or in private estate referring all to God. But as we said before, so say we still, very few attain this perfection 〈◊〉 this life: this life: this is most true, and no way rashly spoken. Thus much out of his 〈◊〉. In the end of his De Repub. thus. Behold now the rewards, stable and glorious which 〈◊〉 shall receive both of god and man besides the particular benefits that his justice doth re●… 〈◊〉. But all these are nothing, neither in number nor quantity in respect of those after death. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phaedon: wherefore (saith Socrates) while we live here on earth, let us have as little 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…h the body as may be, for so we shall get to some knowledge, and keeping a good watch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God set us free from it, we shall pass away pure from contagion, to converse with 〈◊〉 ●…ies, and by ourselves have full understanding of that sincere and pure truth, which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a going my way, hath a great hope to be there crowned with the fruition of 〈◊〉 ●…ch in his life he suffered so many afflictions. And after: If he be a true Philosopher, that 〈◊〉 Gods must needs bear a great stroke with him, namely that he cannot attain the pure 〈◊〉 ●…ill after this life. Thus much out of Plato, in divers places, partly the words, and 〈◊〉 ●…te: which being assumed (to show his opinion) out of his own works, maketh 〈◊〉 ●…s to ad any quotations out of other Platonists. (b) Even those that love.] I wonder Valla. love. Delight. Toenjoy. 〈◊〉 his logic saith that their is no love but delight: the world controls him. I 〈◊〉 ●…ent friend, yet my delight departed with him. But this is not the least nor the last 〈◊〉 ●…hat book. To enjoy, is to take delight of in any thing: as Augustine writeth in his 〈◊〉 We enjoy that we take pleasure in: of the use and the fruit, hereafter in the 〈◊〉 ●…ke. (c) Whether the Ionian.] Though Plato had much from Pythagoras, yet was 〈◊〉 Philosopher for he followed Socrates more than either Architas or Timeus. (d) 〈◊〉] Africans, bordering on the Ocean: Atlas was the first King, brother to Sa●… 〈◊〉 Atlantikes. Atlas. Egyptians. to Caelus: A great Astronomer. He taught his Son Hesperus and many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; for he had seven daughters all married to the Heroës, that had sons 〈◊〉 ●…ous then the Parents. He taught divers of the vulgar also, whence the 〈◊〉 Libya where Hercules learned it and disputed of it. (e) Egyptians.] Their Philosophy 〈◊〉, but most part from Chaldea, chiefly from Abraham: though they (as Diodo●…●…ibe ●…ibe it to Isis and Osiris, Vulcan, Mercury, and Hercules. How ever, sure it is 〈◊〉 Philosophy was divine, and much false and filthy. (f) Indians.] There Philoso●…●…ed brahmin's. Persians. Chaldees. Scythians. brahmin's: of whom read Philostratus his Uita Apollon. Thyan. and Stra●… 〈◊〉 of Alexander the Macedonian his conquests. (g) Persians.] They had the 〈◊〉 Zoroaster taught. (h) Cladaees.] The chief Astrologians and divinators of the 〈◊〉 ●…e read Diodorus. lib. 3. ay Scythians.] Their Philosophers whilom, contended 〈◊〉 ●…tians for antiquity: a nation valiant, plain, just, harmless, doing more by na●…●…en Greece with all her laborious discipline. (k) Galls.] or Frenchmen. They had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: Caesar Comment. Gallic, Bell. and Poets also which were both Philosophers and Druids. 〈◊〉 Saronidae. Dio. l. 6. they had also the wizards that the people came unto for trifles. No 〈◊〉 ●…gst them might be offered without a Philosopher, that was, a Naturalist divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: and these ruled all, in all places. Their Druids) as Strabo saith lib. 4.) were both 〈◊〉 ●…d Moralists. (l) Spaniards.] In Spain, before silver and gold were found, there was 〈◊〉 ●…ny Philosophers, and the people lived wonderful religiously: every society had Spain. 〈◊〉 ●…y the year, chosen out of the most learned and judicious rank of men, equity 〈◊〉 ●…or of justice then, without laws clangor: (yet the Turdetani now called the 〈◊〉 had certain wonderful old laws written) few or no controversies were 〈◊〉: and those that were did either concern virtuous emulation, the reasons of 〈◊〉 gods, of good manners, or of some such themes, which the learned disputed of 〈◊〉 and called the women to be auditors. Afterwards, certain mountains that 〈◊〉 ●…all within broke out and burned, and the melted gold and silver, left ad●… such fine ●…uffes, in men's minds, so showing this to the Phaenicians, who were 〈◊〉 ●…erall merchants of the world, they bartered of their metals away to them for 〈◊〉 ●…o value. The Phaenicians spying this gain, acquainted divers of the Asians and 〈◊〉 therewith, and so came often thither with a multitude of men, sometimes with 〈◊〉 and otherwhiles with but two or three merchants ships: Now many either 〈◊〉 ●…e and the soil, or else loving gold better than their gods, set up their rests in 〈◊〉 ●…d by one trick or other found means to contract alliance with others: and then 〈◊〉 ●…y to send Colonies into Spain out of all Asia, and the Isles adjacent, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their villenies amongst the silly ignorant souls. Then began the Spaniards to 〈◊〉 ●…ir own wealth: to fight, to pray one upon another, first privately, and soon after in whole armies: afterward to flat nations war, waged under alien leaders: the Ph●…nicians a●… first, the authors both of their present and future misfortunes: Then good manners got them gone, equity was sent packing away, and laws came up, together with digging of metta●…s, and other traffics, so that farewell Philosophy, and all arts grew almost to utter ruin: 〈◊〉 they were not written but only passed by tradition from mouth to ear. But that which remained of them was renewed by some well-wishing wits, in the time of the Roman peace: b●… first the Goths, and afterward the Saracins rooted them utterly from amongst the vulga●…. There is an old memorial extant of the ancient times, written in greek and Latin: I hope by 〈◊〉 to illustrate the original of any native country. (m) Of the elements] That is, such as conceive to further than the elements: such as think them the orignalls of all, & never leave GOD any thing to do, whose will disposeth all things. (n) For that which is known] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the greek. (o) His invisible] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both Creation, and the thing created. V●… thinketh that this invisibility is meant of the foam and fabrik of heaven and earth, according to that of the Psalm. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth the works of his hands. And we find Aristotle and many more to gather by the world external shape of Psal. 19 1. the world, that there is a God, that hath a providence and care of the world: and the same they gather by the course and motion of times, by the order of our life, and of the whole universe, wherein such things could not be done, but by that most wise and glorious governor o●… the said universe. Augustine translateth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, constitutions, to make it imply that men may conceive the secrets of GOD, by his works, even from the world's first constitution, to persuade us that this knowledge had existence before Christ his coming, or Moses' law, eue●… from the first creation of the world. And this me thinks is nearest unto Paul's mind, whom this place disputeth against the Philosophers, telling them that when or where ever they live, they may find a god the governor and father of all university: and that (for so follows the sequel) and that, by the works which he hath made, may his invisibility be certainly gathered. (p) Eternal virtue] Not only his secret wisdom, and justice, but his illustrious deity and power: unless you take away [And so] and let the rest depend upon the former: for the greek [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] signifying conjunction, was the cause that [qoqque] was thrust into the Latin interpretatation. (q) In him we live] The ancients called GOD the life that is diffused throughout the universe: and the air also: so that this is true howsoever: that in him we live, we move and have our being. Aratus also said, that all ways, courts, havens, and all places and things were full of jove: which his interpreter attributeth to the air. (r) In which place] The romans and greeks worshipped men's statues for gods, the Egyptians beasts. What the excellence of a religious Christian is in these Philosophical arts. CHAP. 10. NOw if a christian for want of reading, cannot use such of their words as fits disputations, because he never heard them: or cannot call that part tha●… treats of nature, either natural in Latin, or physical in Greek: nor that tha●… inquires the truth, rational or Logical: nor that which concerns rectifying of manners, and goodness of ends Moral; or ethical: yet thence it follows not that he knows not, that from the true God is both Nature, whereby he made us like his Image, Reason, whereby we know him and Grace whereby we are blessed in being united to him. This then is the cause why we prefer these before the other: the other spent their wits in seeking out of the causes of things, the means of learning, and order of life: these knowing GOD, found th●… their was both the cause of the whole creation, the light of all true learning, and the fount of all felicity. So that what Platonists or others soever held th●…s of GOD, they held as we do. But we choose rather to deal with the (a) Pl●…tonists than others, because their works are most famous; for both the greeks (whose language is very greatly ' esteemed of the nations) do●… preserve and extol them, and the Latins, moved by their excelle●… and glory learning them more willingly themselves, and by recordi●… them in their tongues also, left them the more illustrious and plain to us, and to all posterity. L. VIVES. [This is no good doctrine inthe Lovanists opinion, for it is left out, as distasteful to the schoolmen, though not to the direct truth.] WIth the (a) Platonists] From Plato and Aristotle's time, unto Aphrodiseus, that lived under Severus and his son. Aristotle was rather named amongst the learned then either read, or understood: Aprodiseus first adventured to explain him, and did set many on to search farther into the author, by that light he gave: yet did Plato keep above him still, until the erection of public schools in France and Italy, that is, as long as the Greek and Latin tongues were in account: [but when learning grew Mercenary, and mimical, all their aim was gain, and contention, and verbosity, and fond subtlety, with vile feigned words of art, and frivolous quillets, than was Aristotle's logic and physikes held fit for their purpose, and many better books of his thrown aside. But as for Plato because they understood him not, (nay and Aristotle much less, yet) because he teacheth no tricks, oh never name him? I speak not this to imply Aristotle's learning more insufficient than Plato's, but it is a shame that Plato, a holy Philosopher should be thrust by, and Aristotle's best part also, and the rest so read, that he must speak their pleasures, being such fooleries, as not Aristotle, no, not any mad man of his time would have held or divulged.] Whence Plato might have that knowledge that brought him so near the Christian doctrine. CHAP. 11. NOw some of our Christians admire at these assertions of Plato coming soneere to our belief of God: So that some think that at his going to Egypt, h●…e heard the Prophet (a) Hieremye, or got to read some of the prophet's books in his travel: these opinions I have (b) elsewhere related. But by all true chronicles Plato heard not Hieremy. supputation, Plato was borne an 100 years after jeremy prophesied. Plato lived 81. years, and from his death to the time that Ptolemy King of Egypt demanded the Hebrew prophecies, and had them translated by the 70. jews that understood the greek also, is reckoned almost 60. years. So that Plato in his travel, could neither see Hieremy, being dead, nor read the scriptures being not as yet translated into the greek, which he understood (c) unless (as he was of an infatigable study) he had had them read by an interpreter, yet so as he might not translate them, or copy them (which Ptolemy as a friend might entreat, or as a King, command) but only carry away what he could in his memory. Some reason there is for this, because Genesis beginneth thus. In the beginning GOD Gen 1. 1. 2 treated heaven and earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness ●…as upon the deep, & the Spirit of GOD moved upon the wate●…s. And Plato in his (d) Plato's grownd●… out of divinity. Ti●…s saith that GOD first (e) joined the earth and the fire. Now it is certain that (f) he meaneth heaven by fire: so that here is a correspondence with the other: In the beginning GOD created heaven and earth. Again he saith that the two (g) means conjoining these extremities, are water and air, this some may think he had from the other, The spirit of GOD moved upon the waters: not minding in what sense the scripture useth the word Spirit, and because (h) air is a spirit, therefore it may be he gathered that he collected 4. elements from this place. And whereas he saith a Philosopher is a lover of God, th●…re is nothing better squareth with the holy scriptures: but that especially (which maketh me almost confess that Plato wanted not these books) that whereas the Angel that brought God's word to Moses, being asked what his name was that bade him go free the Israelites out of Egypt, answered his name was ay I am that I am: And thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I am hath sent me to you: as if that in Exod. 3. 14. comparison of that which truly is, being immutable, the things that are immutable, are not. Plato stuck hard upon this, and commended it highly: And I ma●…e a doubt whether the like be to be found in any one that ever wrote before Plate, except in that book when it was first written, so, I am that I am, and thou shalt tell them that I am sent me to you. But wheresoever he had it, out of others books before him, or as the Apostle saith: Because that which is known of God, is manifest unto them: for God hath showed it them. For the invisible things of him that i●…, his eternal power and godhead, are seen by the creation of the world, being considered Rom. 1. 19, 20. in his works. This maketh me choose to deal with the Platonists, in our intended question of natural Theology, namely, whether the service of one GOD, or many, suffice for the felicity of the life to come. For as touching the service of one or many for the helps of this temporal life, I think I have said already sufficient. L. VIVES. PRophet (a) Hieremy] He went with the two Tribes Benjamin and juda into Egypt, and Hi●…emy. was there stoned at Tanis: there the inhabitants honour him, for the present help his tomb gives them against the stinging of serpents. b) Elsewhere] De Doctr. xpian. 2. Euseb●… saith Hieremy began to prophesy the 36. olympiad: and Plato was borne the 88 of the Septuagines hereafter. (c) Unless (as he was] justin Martyr. in Paracl. ad gent Euseb. de pr●…p. Theodor. de Graec. affect. all affi●…me that Plato had much doctrine from the Hebrew books. Hereupon Numenius the Philosopher said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? what is Plato but Moyfes made Athenian? And Aristobulus the jew writing to Philometo●…, saith, as Eusebius citeth Plato an Attic Moses. it: Plato did follow our law in many things, for his divers allegations have proved him an observer of it in particular things, and that in many. For the Pentate●…ch was translated before Alexander's time, yea before the Persian Monarchy, whence he and Pythagoras had both very much. (d) Timaeus] So because Timaeus the Locrian is induced as disputing of the wor●…d, h●… had Plato heard in Italy, and he wrote of the world in the doric tongue, out of which book Plato hath much of his doctrine. (e) joined the earth] The words are tra●…slated by Tully thus: Corporeum & aspectabilem itemque tractabilem esse, necessarium est: nihil porrò igni vacuum videri, aut tangi, quod careat solido. Solidum autem nihil, quod terrae sit expers: quamobrem mund●… efficere moliens deus, terram primam, ignemque iungebat. The same is Tymaeus his opinion in his work De Mundo & anima. (f) He meaneth] Plato said heaven was of fire, the stars of the ●…oure Plato held heaven, fire. elements, because they seem●…d more solid. But he held not heaven of the nature of our fire, for he held fires of divers nature. (g) Two means] Water and fire must needs have a mean of coherence. But solid bodies are hardly reconciled by one mean but must have two, which may of themselves & their accidents, compose a convenient third, such is water & air, between fire & earth: for water to earth, & air to fire, bear the same proportion, and so doth water and air between themselves which combination rules so in the elements, that in the ascending and descending innumerable and imperceptible variations of nature all seems but one body, either rarefied unto fire, or condensate unto earth. (h) Air is a spirit] Butler not of God: of this hereafter. ay I am] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a perticiple: as one should say, I am he that is. For we can not transtate it by one word, as Seneca affirmeth Epist. lib. 8. But we may call it Ens, of s●… (as Caesar did,) being, of, to be, as potent, of possum So did Sergius. Quintil. GOD meaneth, th●… he hath being: whereas as nothing else hath properly any being: but are as Isayas saith: of nothing: and job hath it often, GOD only hath being, the rest have not their existenc●… (saith Seneca) because they are eternal themselves, but because their maker guardeth them, and should he desist, they would all vanish into nothing. Plato also saith that corporal things never have true being, but spiritual have. In Timeo & Sophista. And there, and i●… his Parmenides he saith that GOD is one, and Ens, of whom all things depend: that ●…ature hath not a fit expressive name for his Excellence, nor can he be defined, 〈◊〉 ascribed, nor known, nor comprehended, that he begot all these lesser go●… whom in his Tymaeus he saith are immortal only by their father's will, not by their own power Him he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is: as he saith of a true Philosopher in his Phaedon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he conceiveth him which is: and a little after: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partake of them which is, and in his Timaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the eternal being, unbegotten. And all the Platonists agree that the title of his Parmenides, De ente & uno rerum prinoipio, and of his Sophista 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are both meant of GOD, which is the true being, and the beginning of all things: and 〈◊〉 being a perticile is of the presentence, s●…gnifying that GOD hath no time past nor to come, but with him all is present, and so his being is. That he saith in his Tymeus. Time hath par●…es, past, present and to come: and these times of our dividing are by our error falsely ascribed to the divine essence, and unmeetely. For we use to say, he was, is and willbe: but ind●…ed he only is, properly and truly; was and willbe belong to things that arise and proceed according to the times and with them. For they are two motions: but the only Lord of etern●…ty hath no motion, nor is elder, nor hath been younger, nor hath not been hitherto, or shall not be hereafter, nor feeleth any affect of a corporal body, but those parts, past and to come are belonging to time that followeth eternity, and are species of that which moveth itself One God. according to number and space. Thus much out of Timaeus: he that will read the author, let him look till he find these words, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. there this sentence beginneth. Gregory used part of it in his Sermon of the birth of Christ, and handled it largely in that place. GOD was always, and is, and shallbe (saith he) nay rather God is always: was, and shallbe are parts of our time, and defects in nature. But he is eternally being: and so he told Moses when he asked him his name. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. Then he begins to mount, and with divine eloquence to spread the lustre of GOD'S eternity and inmutability: but this worthy man is feign to yield under so huge a burden, and shut his eyes, dazzled wi●…h so fiery a splendour. Plutarch tells that on one post of the Temples door at Delphos was written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, know thyself, and on the other 〈◊〉, thou art: the first having reference to our preparation in matters of divinity, and the later unto GOD'S nature, which is always sixth and firm, whereas ours is flux and mutable. Wherefore, it may well be said of him whose nature is not subject to any alteration of time, but al●…aies fixed and unalterable. thou art. Thou art, may also be referred unto the unmovable eternity, without any respect of the time, as Plato saith in his Parmenides, who will not have the time present made an attribute of GOD, because it is a time, nor will have him called an essence, but rather somewhat inexplicable above all essence, to know what it is not, is easy, but what it is, impossible. Some think that Parmenides himself in his Philosophical poem, meaneth of GOD there where he saith, all things are but one: and so thought Simplicius: for it is unlike that so sharp a wit as Parmenides, found not the difference and multitude of things which he setteth plainly down in his poems. For having spoken largely of that only Ens, he concludeth thus: Thus much of the true high things, now concerning the confused and mortal thing in which is much error. Aristotle through desire to reprehend e●…roniously traduceth his opinion in his Physikes, which Themistius toucheth at: Parmenides (saith he) did not think an accident, that hath existence but from another, to be the Ens he meant of, but he spoke of the Ens which is properly, especially and truly so, which is indeed no other but Plato his very Ens. Nay what say you to Aristotle, that saith himself that Parmenides meant of that one Ens which was the original of all: The other Platonists opinions I have already related: Now as for that sentence (so common against them) that the things intelligible only, not the sensible, have existence: Alcymus in his work to Amynthas' declar●…th that Plato had both it, and Epicharmus. that of the Ideas, out of Epicharmus his books, and allegeth the words of Epicharmus himself, who was a Philosopher of Coos, a Phythagorean, who held that learning made a man as far more excellent than others, as the su●…ne excels the stars and all other light, and the sea the rivers. Plato himself in his Sophista averreth the antiquity of that opinion that affirmed the essence of intelligibilities only, and that thereupon arose a great contention with those th●… held the world to consist of only bodies: Tymaeus also the Locrian in his book de mundo, wrote of these Ideas. But Plato refined all these things, and brought in a more polite, eleg●…t form, adding besides altitude and divinity of doctrine, admirable and excellent. I make no question that Pythagoras did learn those mysteries out of the Scriptures in Egypt. And it i●… more likely that he talked with Hieremy there, then that Plato did. That the Platonists for all their good opinion of the true GOD, yet neverthethelesse held that worship was to be given to many. CHAP. 12. THerefore have I chosen these before the rest, because their good opinion of the true & only GOD, made them more illustrious than the rest, & so far preferred by posterity, that whereas (a) Aristotle, Plato's scholar, an excellent witted man, (b) Plato's inferior indeed, but far above the rest; who instituted the Peripatetique sect, that taught walking, and had many famous scholars of his (c) sect in his (d) masters life time, and after Plato's death (e) Speusippus his sister's son and Xenocrates his beloved scholar succeeded in his school, called the (f) Academy, and their followers (g) thereupon, academics: yet the later Philosophers that liked to follow Plato would not be called Peripatetics, nor Academi●…es, but Platonists: Of which sort there were these famous Grecians (h) Plotine, ay jamblychus, Pla●…onists. (k) and Porphiry: and Apulcius an African was famous both for his writings in the Greek and Latin tongues. But all these, and their followers, yea even (l) Plato himself, held it fit to adore many gods. L. VIVES. WHereas (a) Aristotle] Borne at Stagyra, son to Nicomachus and Phaestis both descended Aristotle. from Aesculapius: borne the 99 olympiad. He came to Plato at 15. years old, and heard him till he was 35. when as Plato died: and then began he to teach himself, walking in the Lycium, whence his followers were called Peripatetics of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to walk. He was an admirable, singular witted man, inferior to none: Plato's better in variety of knowledge, and all the world's better in disputation of all arts. Nor are these great gifts of his to be evil taken, or maligned: we must confess indeed that he was an affectator of glory, and too curious a condemner of others, but withal, modest and abstinent: nor in doctrine of arts had he ever his fellow. I wish he had dealt more uprightly in his confutations of others. (b) Plato and Aristotle compared. Plato's inferior] comparison between Plato and Aristotle is odious, because of their diversity of studies. Doubtless they were both admirable examples for all to imitate. The greeks call Plato, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, divine, and Arystotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is as much: Plato's eloquence was such that it was a common saying, if jove would speak greek, he would speak Plato's greek: But Aristotle's knowledge in Rhetoric (I had almost said) excelled Plato's: marry in use he was far short of him. For Aristotle affected a succinct phrase: lest being ted●…ous, and drawing each thing at length the discourse might become to profuse, and the rules of art too long to bear away. So his enduour was not to admit an idle word, which made him attain unto a great perfection in the proper use of the greek language and figures. (c) Sect] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek, a word of indifference, but ordinarily taken in the worst sense, for all opinions private, or other, without the Church, we call Heresies. (d) His masters life] Aristotle (saith Plato in Laertius) hath kiekt against us, as fools do at their dams. Yet some say he did not teach whilst Plato lived. (e) Speusippus] Eurymedo●…s son, Plato's successor, he taught 8. years, and Speusippus. took pay, for which Dionysius mocked him: he went also as far as Macedon to sing the Epithalamion at Cassander's marriage, for money: which Philostratus saith he had written in bald and Xenocrates rugged verse. Growing diseased Xenocrates of Chaledon succeeded him at his own request, one that Plato loved dearly well and traveled with him into Sicily: he was but dull of wit, but of a severe and sacred carriage. ●…lato saith Aristotle●…ackt ●…ackt the bit and he the spurs: but loved him so well that when men swore he spoke ill of him, he would not credit them, think it unpossible that one whom he loved so well, should not love him again. In controversies of law, the judges never put him to his oath: thinking it sin not to trust so just a man though be swore not. (f) Academy A fan was indeed near Athens, all woods & fens, & therefore unhealthful & had been saith La●…rtius) the habitation of Academus, one of the Heroës: Eupolis the Academy what and ●…ence. Commedian calleth him a god: but Plutarch in his life of Theseus, shows what he was. It was he that told Castor & Pollux that Theseus after his rape of Helen, kept her secretly at Aphidna: & therefore was ever after respected both by them & all the other Lacedæmonians: for in all their roads made into the Athenian territories, they never meddled with Academia: but Dicaearchus saith y●: first was called Ecedemia of one Ecedemus, a soldier under Castor and Pollux: and so after, came to be called Academia: This Laertius toucheth at. Apuleius saith that Plato left all his patrimony, in a little garden near this Academy, two servants, a cup for sacrificing in, and as much gold as would make an earring. In vita Platon. Laertius saith he was honourably buried in the Academy, and that Mithridates king of Pontus, having taken Athens, erected Plato a statue, dedicating it to the Muses. In Athens (this we may not pass) were these schools. First the Academy, secondly Liceum, thirdly Prytaneum, fourthly Canopum, five Stoa, sixthly The sch●…les of Athens. Tempe, seventhly Cynosarges. (g) Thereupon] This is the old Academy, taught to Archesilas, by ●…lemon Senocrates his scholar, and he endeavoured to reduce all to Socrates his form of disputation, to affirm nothing, but confute all, and this was called the new Acame●…, which Tully in Uarro's person affirmeth was like the old one: But henceforth those that had positive grounds for any thing, and held a truth to be in things, as Plato did, were not called Academics but Platonists, I think because the name of Academics was so proper to A●…chesilas schools. (h) Plotine] Borne (saith Suidas) at Lycopolis in Egypt: he wrote four and fifty books, obscure ones, to keep the custom of his sect. He lived in th'Emperor Galie●…us time, Plotine. until Probus entered, he of whose destiny Firmicus doth so lie and prate. Porphyry, Plotines' scholar wrote his life at large. ay jamblichus] Of Calchis, Porphyries scholar, a Pythagorist rather jamblichus than a Platonist as Hierom testifieth: yet in all divine matters, the Platonists are Pythagorians. His wit and manners were better than his masters. (k) Porphyry] A Tyrian, one neither Porphyry. sound in body nor mind, of wavering judgement, unmanly inveterate malice and cruelty: a professed Plotinist: Suidas saith he was Amelius scholar also. Porphiry (saith he, was properly called Basileus, a Tyrian philosopher, Aemelius his scholar whom Plotine taught. He lived in A●…lians time and continued until Diocletians. Thus far Suidas. Why he was called Basileus he showeth in his master Plotines' life. Amelius (quoth he) dedicated this book to me, and in the title called me Basileus, for that was my name: in the language of my country, I was called after my father, Malcus: which translated is king. Thus he of himself. (l) Plato himself] In his Timaeus he calls Saturn, Ops, and juno gods, and all the rest brethren and kinsfolks amongst themselves, and elsewhere, he commands sacrifices unto their gods, Demons & Heroes: saying it is these to whom the Cities good estate is to be commended. De legib. & de repub. in diverse places. Of Plato's affirmation, that the gods were all good, and lovers of virtue. CHAP. 13. WHerefore though in other points they and we do differ, yet to overpass them in this great controversy now in hand, I ask them what gods we must worship? the good, the bad, or both? nay herein we must take Plato's (a) assertion, that holds all the good to be good, no bad ones of them: Why then this worship is the gods, ●…or than it is the gods, and if they be bad their godhead is gone. This being true, (and what else should we believe:) then down goeth the (b) opinion that affirms a necessity of appeasing the bad gods by sacrifices, and invoking the good. For there are no bad gods: & the good only (if there were) must have the worship, without any other partakers. What are they then that love stageplays, and to see their own crimes, thrust into their honours and religion? their power proves them something, but their affects convince them wicked, Plato's opinion of plays was shown in his judgement of the expulsion of Poets, as pernicious and baleful to an honest state. What gods are they now that oppose Plato in defence of those plays? he cannot endure that the gods should be slandered, they cannot endure unless they be openly defaced. Nay they added malicious cruelty to their bestial desires, depriving T. Latinus of his son, & striking him Desires. with a disease, marry when they had done as they pleased, than they freed him from his malady. But Plato very wisely for bad all fear of the evil powers, & confirming himself in his opinion, feared not to avow the expulsion of all these politic absurdities, from a firm state, all those filthinesses that those gods delighted in. And this Plato doth Labeo make a Semy-god: even that (c) Labeo that holds that sad, black Labeo. and bloody sacrifices do fit the evil gods, & mirthful orgies the good: why then dares Plato, but a semigod, boldly debar the gods themselves, the very good ones, from those delights which he held obscaence and unlawful? These gods nevertheless confute Labeo, for they showed themselves cruel and barbarous against Latinus, not mirthful nor game-some. Let the Platonists, that hold all the gods to be good and in virtue the fellows of the wise, and affirm it a sacrilege to believe other of them, let them expound us this mystery, we will, say they: mark us well we do so. L. VIVES. PLato's. (a) Assertion.) Deleg. 10. he saith the gods are good, full of virtue, providence and justice: but yet that they have all this from him that hath the true being, the Prince of nature, as from the fountain of all goodness. This argument Socrates (in their banquet) useth to prove Love no god: all the gods are good, and blessed: so is not Love: ergo. Porphyry de sacrific. 3. GOD is neither hurtful, nor needful of any thing. So held the Stokes, as Tully saith, Offic. 2 but we are all for Plato now; whereof Agustine speaks: if we should recite all, what end should we make. (b) The opinion.] Apuleius saith some of the Daemons love day offerings, some the nights, some mirthful rites, some sad and melancholy. De deo socrat Porpherio upon Horace his Carmen seculare saith it, was a common opinion that some gods were worshipped Why the evil gods are worshipped. lest they should hurt, and others from protection. Plutarch saith that kings and princes did offer sacrifices to these great Daemons, to avert their wrath which was always most perilous. Porphery saith that states need sometimes offer to the devils to appease them from hurting their corn, cattle or horses, for sure it is (quoth he) that if they be neglected they will become angry, and do men much mischief: but lawful worship they have none, and this the divines (not the vulgar only) do hold, allowing sacrifices to be offered them, but that they must not be tasted of. De abstinent animat. The supernal gods have no creatures living offered to them lib. 2. (c) Labeo.] Porphery in the said book, allows no living creature, but fruits flowers honey and meal to be offered to the gods above: So used the ancients, and so should it be saith Theophrastus, and Pythagoras would never suffer creature to be killed for sacrifice. But blood and slaughter are expiations for the devils. And Porphery elsewhere saith that the lower the gods are, the sadder sacrifies they require: the earth-gods, and hell-gods love black cattle: the first upon alltars, the latter in graves and pits. Of such as held. 3. Kind's of reasonable souls: in the gods, in airy spirits, and in men CHAP. 14. ALL reasonable (a) creatures (say they) are threefold: gods, men, devils the gods the highest, than the devils, lastly, men: the first having place in heaven, the second in the air, the third on the earth: each with his change of The devils community with gods and men. place, hath difference in nature: the gods are of more power than the spirits, or men: and men are under the spirits and gods, both by place of nature and worth of merit, (b) the spirits, in the midst, are under the gods and so their inferiors: a●…oue men in place, and therefore in power with the gods, they are immortal: with men passionate, and therefore lovers of loose sports, and poetical figments and are subject to all humane affects, which the gods by no means can be: So Plato's prohibition of Poetry, did not deprive the gods of their delights, but only the airy spirits. Well, of this question divers, but Apuleius a Platonist of Madaura, chiefly in one whole work, disputeth, calling it De deo Socratis, of Socrates his god: where he disputeth what kind of god (c) this power that Socrates had attendant upon him, was: It was as his friend, & forbade him to proceed in any action which it knew would not end prosperously. Now there he plainly affirmeth, that this was no god, but only an airy spirit, handling Plato's doctrine rarely, concerning the height of the gods, man's meanness, and the devils middle interposition. But this being thus, how durst Plato deprive (not the gods, for them he acquitted from all touch of humane affects) but then the airy spirits of their stage pleasures, by expelling of Poets? unless by this act he meant to warn man's soul how ever here encheyned in corruption, yet to detest the unpure, and impious foulness of these devils, even for honesties sake? for if Plato's prohibition, and proof be just, then is their demand and desire most damnable. So either Apulcius mistook the kind of Socrates his Genius, or Plato contradicts himself, now (d) honouring those spirits and straight after abridging them their pleasures, and expelling their delights from an honest state; or else Socrates his spirit was not worth the approving, wherein Apuleius offended in being not ashamed to st●…le his book (e) De deo Socratis, of his god, and yet proves by his own distinction of Dij & daemons, that he should have called it De daemone Socratis, of his devil. But this he had rather profess in the body of his discourse then in his ti●…le, for the name of a Daemon was by good doctrine brought into such hate, that (f) whosoever had ●…ead Daemon in the title, ere he had read the Daemons commendations in the book, would have thought Apuleius (g) mad. And what found he praiseworthy in them, but their subtle, durable bodies, and elevation of place; when he came to their conditions in general, he found no good, but spoke much evil of them: so that he that readeth that book, will never marvel at their desiring plays, and that juch gods as they should be delighted with crime●…, beastly shows, barbarous cruelty, and what ever else is horrible or ridiculous, that all this should square with their affects, is no wonder. L. VIVES. REasonable. (a) Creatures.] Plato reckoneth three sorts of gods: the Dei●…yes, the Daemons, & the Heroes: but these last have reference to men, whence they arise. De leg 4. Epinom. Plutarch The orders of the gods highly commends tho●…e that placed the spirits betwixt gods and men: were it Orpheus, some Phirgian or Egyptian, for both their sacrifices professeth it. De defect oracul. for they found the means (saith he) wherein gods and men concur. Homer (saith he▪ useth the names at ●…don: how calling them gods, and now demons: Hesiod; fire made reasonable nature quadripartite: into gods, spirits, Heroes, and mortals: who living well arise both to Heroes and Daemons. (b) The spirits.) Socrates in Plato's Conuivium, mentioneth a disputation with Diotyma, where he affirmeth the spirits nature to be mean between gods ●…nd man's. (c) This power.] Socrates (they say) had a spirit that forbade him all acts whose events it knew should not be successful: but never incited him to any thing whatsoever. (d) Honouring.] Teaching it also Epinom. (e) De deo.] All that handled this before Apuleius, called this spirit a Daemon not a deity: himself in above six hundredth places in Plato, in Plato Zenophon also, Cicero and Plutarch, Maximus of tire who ●…rot a double demonstration hereof: So did many other ca lit, both Platonists and Philosophers of other nations, ●…ecitall were tedious. (f) Whosoever.] Whosoever reads the title before the book ere he read the book. (g) Mad.] For the gentiles as then called the Demonyaks and such as were possessed with the devil, mad men. That neither the airy spirits bodies, nor height of place, make them excel men. CHAP. 15. Wherefore God forbade that a soul that fears God should think those spirits to excel it because they have more (a) perfect bodies: So should beasts excel us also, many of which go beyond us in quickness of sense, nimbleness, swiftness, strength and long life, what man sees like the Eagle, or Vultur? smells like to the dog? is swifter than stags, hares, and birds? strong as a lion or an elephant, or lines with the serpent (b) that with his skin put of his ears & becomes young again; But as we excel these in understanding, so do we the airy spirits in just living; or should do at least. For therefore hath the high providence given them bodies in some sort excelling ours, that we might have the greater care to preserve, and augment that wherein we excel them, rather than our bodies: and learn to cont●…ne that bodily perfection which we know they have, in respect of the goodness of life, whereby we are before them, and shall obtain immortality of body also, not for the eternity of plagues to afflict, but which purity of soul shall effect. And for the (c) higher place, they having the air, and we the earth, it were a ridiculous consequence to make them our betters in that: for so should birds be by the same reason. (d) I but birds being tired, or lacking meat come down to earth to rest or to feed, so do not the spirits: Well then, will you prefer them before us, and the spirits before them? if this be a mad position, as mad a consequence it is to make them excel us by place, whom we can, nay must excel by piety. For as the birds of the air are not preferred before us, but subjecteth to us for the equity of our reason: so though the devils being higher than we, are not our betters because air is above earth: but we are their betters, because our saith far surmounteth their despair. For Plato's reason dividing the elements Man's hope above the devils despair. into four, and parting movable fire and immovable earth by interposition of air and water, giving each an equal place above the other, this proves that the worth of creatures dependeth not upon the placing of the elements. And Apuleius making a man an earthly creature, yet preferreth him before the water-creatures, whereas Plato puts the water above the earth, to show that the worth of creatures is to be discerned by another method than the posture of natural bodies: the meaner body may include the better soul, and the perfecter the worse. L. VIVES. MOre (a) perfect] Apuleius makes them of a mean temperature between earthly and ethereal, more pure and transparent than a cloud, coagulate of the most subtle parts of air, The devils bodies. and void of all solidity, invisible unless they please to form themselves a groser shape. (b) That with his skin] Casting his skin, he begins at his eyes, that one ignorant thereof would think him blind. Then gets he his head bare, and in 24. hours putteth it of his whole body. The serpent's renovation. Look Aristot. de gen. anim. lib. 8. (c) Higher place] Which Apuleius gathers thus: No element is void of creatures. Earth hath men and beasts: the water, fishes: fire some living things also, witness Aristotle: Ergo the air must have some also: but unless those spirits be they, Lib. 8. Apul de Do●… Socratis. Olympus. none can tell what they be. So that the spirits are under the gods, and above us: their inferiors our betters. (d) I but birds] Apuleius his answer: thus: Some give the air to the birds to dwell in: falsely: For they never go higher than Olympus' top: which being the highest mount of the world, yet perpendicularly measured is not two furlongs high: whereas the air reacheth up to the concave of the moons sphere, and there the skies begin. What is then in all that airy space between the Moon and Olympus top? hath it no creatures? is it a dead useless part of nature? And-againe, birds (if one consider them well) are rather creatures earthly then a●…reall: on earth they feed, rest, breed, and fly as near it as may be: and when they are weary, earth is their port of retirement. This from an imperfect copy of Apuleius: yet Augustine's reason of the place must stand: for though the spirits be above the birds, yet the birds are ●…ill above us: but I mean not hear to play the disputant. What Apuleius the Platonist held concerning the qualities of those airy spirits. CHAP. 16. THis same Platonist speaking of their qualities saith, that they are (as men) subject to passions; of anger, delight, glory, unconstancy in their ceremonies, and fury upon neglect. Besides, to them belong divinations, dreams, auguries, prophecies, and all ●…gicians miraculous works. Briefly he defineth them, things created, passive, reaso●…le, ●…reall, eternal: In the three first they perticipate with us: in the fourth with ●…ne, in the fifth with the gods: and two of the first the gods share with them Plato's devils. also 〈◊〉 the (a) gods (saith he) are creatures: and giving each element to his pro●…habitants, he gives earth to men, and the other creatures: water to the 〈◊〉 etc. air to these spirits, and Aether to the gods. Now in that the spirits are cre●…res, they communicate both with men and beasts, in reason with gods and ●…in eternity with gods only; in passion with men only, in airy essence with 〈◊〉. So that they are creatures is nothing; for so are beasts: in that they are reaso●…able, so are we, equally: in that they are eternal, what is that without felicity: (b) Temporal happiness excels eternal misery. In that they are passive, what ge●… by that? so are we, and were we not wretched we should not be so: in t●…●…ir bodies are airy, what of that, seeing a soul of any nature is preferr●… 〈◊〉 a body of what perfection so ever? And therefore the honour given by t●…●…le, is not due to the souls inferior. But if that amongst these spirits qualiti●… 〈◊〉 had reckoned wisdom, virtue and felicity, and have made them commun●… these with the gods, than had he spoke somewhat, worth noting, yet o●… we not to worship them as God, for these ends, but rather we should know him of whom they had these good gifts. But as they are, how far are they from wo●…h of worship, being reasonable to be wretched, passive to be wretched, eternal 〈◊〉 ever wretched? wherefore to leave all and insist on this only which I said 〈◊〉 spirits shared with us, that is passion, if every element have his crea●… and air immortals, earth and water mortals, why are these spirits 〈◊〉 ●…o perturbations? (to that which the greeks call (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, whence our 〈◊〉 passion deriveth: word (d) of word, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and passion, being (e) a motion of 〈◊〉 ●…e against reason). Why are these in these spirits that are not in beasts? 〈◊〉 appearance of such in beasts, is (f) no perturbation, because it is not against 〈◊〉 which the beast wanteth. And that it is a perturbation in men, (g) their ●…esse, or their (h) wretchedness is cause. For we cannot have that perfec●… wisdom in this life that is promised us after our acquittance from mortal●… 〈◊〉 the gods they say cannot suffer those perturbations, because that their 〈◊〉 is conjoined wi●…h felicity: and this they affirm the reasonable soul 〈◊〉 absolutely pure, enjoyeth also. So than if the gods be free from passion, be●… they are (ay) creatures blessed, and not wretched: and the beasts, because ●…e creatures, neither capable of blessedness nor wretchedness: it romai●…●…t these spirits be perturbed like men, only because they are creatures not ●…d but wretched. L. VIVES. TH●… (a) Gods] Plato also in his Timaeus saith, that they are invisible creatures. Apuleius de deo S●…cr. makes some uncorporall Daemons, viz. Love & Sleep. (b) Temporal▪ It is said that Chiron 〈◊〉 son refused immortality, & that Ulysses chose rather to live and die at home with his ●…er and friends, then to live immortal amongst the goddesses. Plato saith it is better to live a 〈◊〉 little while, then to be eternally possessed of all bodily pleasures without justice & the other Immortality worse than mortality. 〈◊〉. de legib: the Philosophers have a saying, it is better to be then not to be: of that hereafter. 〈◊〉] So Tull. Tus. qu. translateth it: & Quintil. l. 6. termeth it affects, & holds the most proper. 〈◊〉 ●…ly of their ancients, useth passion for it: but I make doubt that the copy is faulty li. 20. 〈◊〉 ●…ds are. It helpeth the passions of the belly, being 〈◊〉 thereupon. (d) Word of word] as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; & passio of p●…tior, to suffer. (e) A motion] Tully hath it from Z●…no. (f) No perturbation] Tully Tusc. quaest. The affections of the body may be inculpable, but not the minds: all which arise out of the neglect of reason, and therefore are existent only in men: for that which we see by accident in beasts, is no perturbation. (g) Their foolishness] For we are over-borne with false opinions: and ourselves rather work our affects then receive them ab extra, and as S●…a saith, we are ever worse afraid than hurt. The stoics held all perturbations to have their source from depravation of opinion. For desire is an opinion of a future good: and fear an opinion of future evil, sorrow, of present evil, joy of present good, all which we measuring by the fondness of our thoughts, and not by the nature of things, thence it comes that we are rapt with so many violent thoughts, (h) Their wretchedness] This is man's misery, that the very wisest is subject to sorrow, joy, and other affects, do he what he can. ay Creatures] Socrates durst not confess that these spirits were bad, or wretched: but he boldly affirms they are neither good nor happy. Plato. Conuivio. Whether it becomes a man to worship those spirits from whose guilt he should be pure. CHAP. 17. WHat fondness then, nay what madness subjects us unto that religion of devils, when as by the truth of religion we should be saved from participation of their vices? for they are moved with wrath (as Apuleius for all his adoring and sparing them affirms): but true religion biddeth us not to yield to wrath, but rather (a) resist it. (b) They are won with gifts, we are forbidden to take bribes of any. They love honours, we are (c) prohibited all honours affectation. They are haters of some, & lovers of some, as their affects transport them: truth teacheth us to love all, even (d) our very enemies. Briefly all the intemperance of mind, (e) passions and perturbations, which the truth affirms of Mat. 5. 44. them, it forbiddeth us. What cause is then, but thine own lamentable error for thee to humble thyself to them in worship, whom thou seekest to oppose in uprightness of conversation? and to adore those thou hatest to imitate, when as all religion teacheth us to imitate those we adore? L. VIVES. RAther (a) resist] Christ in Mathewes Gospels utterly forbids anger. Abbot Agatho said that an angry man could never please GOD, though he should raise the dead to life. Abbot Agatho. (b) They] They take willingly, and beg impudently. Apollo's oracle did always bid his clients remember him with a gift to make themselves more fortunate by: yet the crafty devil desires not their money (he needed not) but their minds that was his aim. (c) Prohibited] Christ forbids his Apostles to assume the name of Masters, to sit high at table, or love salutes in the streets: and commands that the chief should be but as a minister. For honour arose with Heathenism, and should fall therewith, and not survive in the Church: nor is it magnanimous to affect but to contemn it. (d) Our very enemies] Mat. 5. 44. love your enemies, bless them that curse you, etc. It sufficeth not, to bear them no hate, we must love them: which is not impossible. For first Christ did it, and then Steven. Hierom. (e) Passions and perturbations] or passionate perturbations. Of that religion that teacheth, that those spirits must be men's advocates to the good gods. CHAP. 18. IN vain therefore did Apuleius and all of his opinion, honour them so as to place them in the air, and because God and man (as Plato (a) saith) have no immediate commerce, these are the carriers of men's prayers to the gods, and their answers to men. For those men thought it unfit to join the gods with men: but held the spirits fit means for both sides, to (b) to take the prayers hence, and bring answers thence: that a chaste ma●…, and one pure from Magical superstition, 〈◊〉 ●…se them as his patrons, by whom he might send to the gods that love 〈◊〉 things as if he for bear to use it, maketh him far more fit ●…o be heard of 〈◊〉 ●…ies: for they love stage-filthe; which chastity l●…heth: they love all the 〈◊〉 of witchcrafts which innocence abhorreth. Thus chastity and innoce●…●…hey would any thing with God, must make their enemies their 〈◊〉 ●…r else go empty away He may save his breath in defence of stageplays: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 highly-admired master giveth them too sore a blow: if any man be so ●…se, as to delight in obscaenity himself, and think it accepted also of th●…●…ds. L. VIVES. PL●… (a) saith] In Socrates' person in his Conuivium. Diotyma having put love as mean 〈◊〉 mortality and immortality: Socrates asked her, What that love was? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 the great Daemon: (Socrates) for all those Daemons are betwixt gods and men. So●…●…et ●…et conceiving her, asked the nature of this Daemon. He carrieth (saith she) messages 〈◊〉 ●…he gods and men: theirs to us, ours to them: our prayers, their bounties. Such as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 middle place of the universe: thither descend prophecies thither aims all cere●…●…es of the Priests, charms, Teletae, and all the parts of Magic. And she addeth; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God hath no conjunction with man, but useth these Daemons in all his 〈◊〉 with men, sleeping or waking. (b) Take them] Apuleius calls them Saluti-geruli, 〈◊〉 ●…ers; and administri, ministers: the first in our respect, the second in the gods. Ca●… 〈◊〉 them Angeli, messengers, that tell the gods what we do, and Praestites, because their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…e in all actions. Of the wickedness of art Magic, depending on these wicked Spirits ministry. CHAP. 19 〈◊〉 ●…ill I out of the public (b) light of all the world, bring overthrows 〈◊〉 ●…rtes Magic, whereof some wicked and some wretched do make 〈◊〉 ●…he devils name: why if they be the works of the gods, are they so 〈◊〉 punished by the laws? or have Christians divulged these laws against 〈◊〉 any other intent then to suppress a thing so generally pernicious unto 〈◊〉 kind? what saith that worthy Poet? Testor chara deos, & te germana, tuumque Ancid. 4. Dulce caput, Magieas invitam accingier arts. (b) Sister, by heaven, and thee that hearst my vows, I would not use art Magic, could I choose. 〈◊〉 which he saith elsewhere. (c) Atque satas aliò vidi traducere messes. Virg. A●…g. log. 8. I saw the witch transport whole fields of corn, 〈◊〉 these diabolical arts were reported of power to remove whole har●… 〈◊〉 corn and fruits whether they pleased: was not this (as Tully saith) recor●…●…e xii. tables of Rome's ancient laws, and a punishment proclaimed for all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used it? Nay (d) was not Apuleius himself brought before Christian 〈◊〉 for such practices? If he had known them to be divine, he should have Apuleius accused of Magic. ●…ed them at his accusation, as congruent with the divine powers, and have ●…ed the opposite laws of absurd impiety, in condemning so admirable 〈◊〉 the deities. For so might he either have made the judges of his mind, 〈◊〉 had been refract●…rie, and following their unjust laws put him to 〈◊〉 the spirits would have done his soul as good a turn as he had de●… in dying fearelesly, for the due avouching of their powerful operations. Our martyrs when Christianity was laid to their charge, knowing it was the tract of eternal glory, denied it not to avoid a temporal torment, but averred it constantly, bore all tortures undauntedly, and dying securely, struck shame upon the laws foreheads that condemned it as unlawful. But this Platonist wrote a large and eloquent oration (c) now extant, wherein he purgeth himself of all touch of using these arts, and sees no means to prove his own innocence but by denying that which indeed no innocent can commit. But (f) for all these magic miracles, he rightly condemneth them, as done by the works and operations of the devils: wherefore let him look how he can justly give them divine honours, as mediators between the gods and us, when he shows their works to be wicked: and such indeed as we must avoid if we will have our prayers come near to the true God. And then what are the prayers that he affirmeth they do bear unto the gods? Magical or lawful? If magical, the gods will receive no such prayers: if lawful, then use they no such ministers. But if a sinnet (chiefly one that hath sinned in Magic) repent and pray; will they carry up his prayers, or obtain his pardon that were the causers of his guilt, and whom he doth accuse? Or do these devils (to obtain his pardon) first repent themselves for deceiving him, and receive a pardon themselves also afterward. Nay, none will say so: for they that hope to get pardon by repentance, are far from being worthy of divine honours: for if they were desirous of them, and yet penitents also, their pride were to be detested in the first, though their humility were to be pitied in the latter. L. VIVES. LIght (a) of the] Some read law. (b) Sister] Dido unto her sister Anna, when Aeneas was departed: This Virgil grounds upon the romans laws, who for all their superstition, yet condemned Magic. Servius. (d) Atque satas] Uirg. Pharmaceute. Plin. l. 18. Duod. Tab. He that Enchants the corn, etc. and so in diverse places. Pliny saith, that Uectius Marcellus, Magic forbidden. Nero's Harbinger had an Olive-yeard in the Marucine fields, that removed quite over the highway, and that the whole farms went out of their places and seated themselves elsewhere. Magic (saith Apuleius) was forbidden of old by the twelve tables because of the incredible bewitching of the corn. (d) Was not] So were many, by the Roman laws: Apollonius Tyaneus by Domitian, and Apuleius by Claud. Maximus Praefect of Africa not the C●…stian. (e) Now extant] His two Apologies concerning Magic: wherein he leaveth all his luxurious phrase, and his fustian terms, and goeth to it like a plain lawyer: yet not so well but he flies out here and there and must be Apuleius still. (f) For all these] How could men know (saith Eusebius) how to call and compel the Devils, but by the devils own teaching them? This Porphyry confesseth, and allegeth Hecate's prescription how she should be called out. De Orac. Whether it be credible that good Gods had rather converse with those spirits then with men. CHAP. 20. O But there is a necessity bindeth these spirits in this place between the gods and men, to carry & recarry messages & answers from the one to the other. Well, and what necessity? why because no god hath commerce immediately with man. Very good! Oh (a) that is a glorious holiness of GOD surely, that converseth not with a penitent, humble man, and yet will converse with a proud spirit! He hath no commerce with a man that flieth from succour to his death, but with a spirit that counterfeits his deity, he hath: he meddleth not with him that asketh pardon, but with the spirit that imagineth mischief he doth he dealeth not with a Philosopher that expelleth stage-plays, out of an honest city. he dealeth with a devil that forceth stage-plays from the priests and Senators, as part of the religion of a city, he liketh not the men's company that forbid slanders of the gods, but the devils that delight in them, theirs he li●…eth of. He converseth not with the man that executeth just laws upon Magicians, but with the devils that teach Magic, and give it effect those he con●…uerseth with: nor is joined with a man that flieth the example of the devil, yet joins with the devil that hunteth for the wrack of man: This is likely sure. L. VIVES. O (a) that is a glorious] The Bruges copy hath a little alteration, transferring [penitent] into a following sentence: but the sense is all one: it were curiosity to stand upon such small trifles. Whether the gods use the Devils as their Messengers, and be willing that they should deceive them, or ignorant that they do it. CHAP. 21. But there is a great necessity of this so vile an inconvenience, because the ethereal gods, (but that these spirits being upward) otherwise could not know the affairs of earth: heaven (ye know) being far from earth, and air adjoining to both. O rare wisdom! This is their opinion, that their good gods have a care of human businesses, else were they not worth worship, and yet the distance of place debars them from notice how things pass, but that the spirits help them: so there are they necessary: and consequently worship-worthy, as the means that the gods have to know men's cases, and to send them help in time: If this than be so, the devils contiguous body is better known to the gods than a man's good mind. O lamentable necessity! nay ridiculous detestable vanity, to keep vanity from divinity. If the gods by their freedom from the body's obstacles, can behold our minds, what need they any spirits help? And if the gods have corporal means, as sight, speech, motion, or so, in bodies, by which they receive the spirits messages, then may the spirits lie, and deceive them also. So that if the deyties be not ignorant of the devils deceits, no more are they bard the knowledge of our actions. But I would they would tell me whether the spirits told the gods that Plato disliked the slanders that the Poets laid upon them, and yet concealed that they did like well of them, or concealed all, that the gods never knew it: or revealed all, Plato's religious zeal, and their own vile affection? or did they suppress Plato's opinion that would have such impious liberty abrogated as by Poetic fables did injure the gods, and yet shamed not to lay open their own wickedness in affecting such plays as contained the gods disgraces: Choose of these four which they will, and mark the sequel. How vilely they thought of these good gods. If they choose the first, than it is granted that the gods might not converse with good Plato that restrained their shames; and yet conversed with those evil spirits that rejoiced at these injuries of the gods, who could not know a good man being a far but by these devils, because they could not know these devils that were so near them. If they take the second, and say the spirits concealed both, that the gods should neither know Plato's religious law, and the devils sacrilegious practice, what use can the gods have of these messengers for any knowledge, seeing they could not have knowledge of the good laws that honest men promulgated in their honour against the lust of those vile spirits! If they choose the third and make these spirits both to celebrate Plato's prohibition of the gods injuries, and their own affectation of their continuance: why were not this rather to over-crow them, then to interpret to them? And so should the gods hear and iud●…e of both these relations, that they neither should cashier these spirits of their service, that oppo●…ed Plato his good zeal, nor for bear to send Plato rewards by them, for his honest intent. For so are they placed in the chain of natures (a) elements, that they m●…y have the company of those that injury them, but not of those that defend them: both they may know, but the states of (b) air and earth they cannot alter, nor transmute. Now if they choose the fourth, it is worse than all. For who can endure the devils should tell the gods how they are abused by players and Poets, and of the height of pleasure themselves take in these shows, and yet be silent of Plato's grave decree that abrogated all such obscenities? that so the good gods might have intelligence of the wickedness of the worst: their own messengers; and yet none of the Philosopher's goodnesses, that aimed all at their honour whereas the other professed their extreme disgrace. L. VIVES. THe (a) chain of▪ for the elements are cheined together as it were: the lower to the higher, The elements chai●…ed. so coherent, that the parts contiguous seem both of one nature & so it is in the sphe●…es that are all contained one within another. (b) Air and earth▪ That we can neither ascend (not in thought) unto them, nor they descend to us, to hear and help us without interpreters. The renouncing of the worship of those spirits against Apuleius. CHAP. 22. TO avoid therefore all evil thoughts concerning the gods, all the four are to be avoided: nor must we at all believe what Apuleius would have us, and others with him, that the Daemons are so placed between the gods and men, that they bear up men's prayers, and bring down the gods helps: but that they are spirits most thirsty of mischief, wholly unjust, proud, envious, treacherous, (a) inhabiting the air in deed, as thrust out of the glorious heaven for their unpardonable guilt, and condemned eternally to that prison. Nor are they above man in merit because air is above earth, for men do easily excel them, not in The devils hab●…ion. quality of body, but in the faith and favour of the true God. Indeed they rule over many that are not worthy of the participation of god's truth: such are their subjects, won to them by false miracles, and by illusions persuading them that they are gods. But others that looked more narrowly into them and their qualities, would not believe this that they were gods, only they got this place in their opinion, to be held the gods messengers, and bringers of men's good fortunes. Yet those that held them not gods, would not give them the honour of gods because they saw them evil, and held all gods to be good: yet durst they not deny them all divine honours, for fear of offending the people, whose inveterate superstition preserved them in so many temples, altars, and sacrifices. L. VIVES. INhabiting (a) the air,] The old writers placed all their fable of hell in the air: and there was 〈◊〉, Proserpina, the Man●…s, and the Furies▪ Capella, Chalc●… saith▪ the air was justly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, dark: Peter also and Jude affirm that the devils 〈◊〉 bound in darkness in the air, & some in the lowest parts of the earth. Empedocles in Pl●… 〈◊〉 faith that Heaven rejected them, earth expels them, the sea cannot abide them, thus are they ●…ed by being tossed from place to place. Hermes Trismegistus his opinion of Idolatry, and how he might come to know that the Egyptian superstitions were to be abrogated. CHAP. 23. FOr Hermes (a) the Egyptian, called Trismegistus, wrote contrary to these. A●… indeed holds them no gods: but middle agents between gods and men, that being so necessary, he conjoins their adoration with the divine worship. But Trismegistus saith, that the high God made some gods, and men other some. These words as I write them, may be understood of Images, because they are the works of men. But he calleth visible and palpable bodies, the bodies of the gods: wherein are spirits (invited in thereto) that have power to hurt or pleasure such as give them divine honours. So then, to combine such a spirit invisible, by arts unto a visible image of some certain substance, which it must use as the soul doth the body, this is, to make a god, saith he, and this wonderful power of making gods, is in the hands of man. His (b) words are these: And whereas 〈◊〉 discourse (saith he) concerns the affinity between gods and men, mark (Asclepius) this power of man: Our God the Lord and Father, is the creator of the celestial gods, so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the terrestrial, which are in the temples. And a little after: So doth humanity remember the original, and ever striveth to imitate the deity: making gods like the o●…ne Image, as God the father hath done like his. Do you mean statues replied Asclepius? statues, quoth he: do you not see them animate full of spirits and sense, (d) (trust your eyes) doing such wonders? see you not statues that presage future events (far perhaps (e) beyond all prophetical inspiration to foretell) that cure diseases and c●…se them, giving men mirth or sadness, as they deserve? Know you not (Asclepius) th●…t Eg●…pt 〈◊〉 heavens Image, or rather the place whereinto all the celestial graces des●…end, the very temple of the whole world. And since wisdom should foreknow all, I 〈◊〉 not have you ignorant herein. The time shall come that all the zeal of Egypt shall be ●…gated, and all the religious observations held idle and vain. Then goeth he forward, prophesying (by all likelihood) of christianity, whose true sanctity is the ●…tter subversion of all fictions and superstitions: that the saviours true grace might free us from those humane gods, those handy-workes of man, and place us to god's service, man's maker. But Hermes presageth these things as the devils confederate, suppressing the evidence of the Christian name, and yet foretelling with a sorrowful intimation, that from it should proceed the wrack of all their Idolatrous superstitions: for Hermes was one of those, who (as the Apostle saith) K●…ing GOD, glorified him not as GOD, nor were thankful, but became vain in Rome 1. 21. 22. 23. their imaginations, and their foolish heart was full of darkness: when they professed themselves wise, they became fools. For they turned the glory of the incorruptible God into the similitude of the Image of a corruptible man, and birds, and foore-footed beasts, and Serpents (f) For this, Hermes saith much of God according to truth; But how blindness of heart draws him to affirm this, I know not, that these gods should be always subject, whom man hath made: and yet to bewail their abrogations to come. As if man could be more miserable any way, then in living slave to his own handiwork: (g) it being easier for him to put off all humanity in adoring these pieces he hath made, then for them to put on deity by being made by him. For it comes oftene●… to pass that a man being set in honour, be not understood to be like to the beasts, then that his handiwork should be preferred before the work that God made like his own Image, to wit, man's self. Worthily then doth he fall from his grace that made him, that maketh that his Lord which he hath made himself. Those vain, deceitful, pernicious sacrileges, Hermes foreseeing should perish, deploreth, but as impudently as he had known it foolishly. For the spirit of GOD had not spoken to him as it did to the Prophets, that spoke this with gladness. If a man make gods behold they are no gods: and in another place: At that day (saith the LORD) I will Isay 19 1 take the names of their Idols from the earth, and there shallbe no remembrance thereof. And to the purpose, of Egypt hear Isaias. The Idols of Egypt shallbe moved at his Luc. 1. Luc. 1. Mat 16. ●…6 Mat 8. 29 presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of her, and so forward. Such were they also that rejoiced for the fulfilling (h) of that which they knew should come to pass: as Simeon, Anna and Elizabeth, the first knowing Christ at his birth, the second at his conception: and ay Peter, that by God's inspiration said Thou art that Christ the Son of the living GOD. But Hermes had his knowledge from those devils, that trembling in the flesh said to Christ: Why art thou come to undo us before the time: Either (k) because that came suddenly upon them which they expected not until afterwards, or that they called it their undoing to be known, and so despised: and this was before the time, that is, the judgement wherein they, and all men their sectaries are to be cast into eternal torments: as that (l) truth saith, that neither deceiveth nor is deceived; not as he saith that following the puffs of Philosophy flies here and there, mixing truth and falsehood, grieving at the overthrow of that religion which afterwards he affirms is all error. L. VIVES. HErmes (a)] Of him by and by. (b) His words] We have seen of his books, greek and latin. This is out of his Asclepius, translated by Apuleius. (c) So doth humanity] So humanity adapting itself to the nature and original (saith Hermes his book) (d) Trust] So hath Hermes it: Bruges copy hath. Mistrust not yourself. (e) Beyond Apuleius and the Cole●…ne copy have it both in this manner, only Mirth, the Coleynists have more than he. (f) For Hermes] I would have cited some of his places, but his books are common, and so it is needless (〈◊〉) It being easier] A diversity of reading, but of no moment, nor alteration of sense. (h) Of that which] Rejoicing that Christ is come, whom the law and Prophets had promised. So john bade his disciples ask, art thou he that should come or shall we look for an other? ay Peter] This confession is the Church's corner stone, never decaying, to believe and affirm THAT JESUS IS CHRIST THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD. This is no Philosophical revelation, no invention, no quirk, no worldly wisdom, but revealed by GOD the father of all to such as he doth love, and vouchsafe it. (k) Because] He showeth why the devils thought that Christ undid them before the time. (l) Truth] Mat. 25. 41. Depart from me●… ye cursed into everlasting fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. How Hermes openly confessed his progenitors error, and yet bewailed the destruction of it. CHAP. 24. FOr after much discourse, he comes again to speak of the gods men made but of these sufficient (saith he): let us return again to man, & to reason by which divine gift man hath the name of reasonable. For we have yet spoken no wonderful thing of man: the (a) wonder of all wonders is that man could fi●…e out the divine nature, and give it effect. Wherefore our father's erring exceedinly in incredulity (b) concerning the deities, and never penetrating into the depth of divine religion, they invented an art, to make gods, whereunto they joined a virtue out of some part of the world's nature, like to the other: and conjoining these two, because they could make no souls, they framed certain Images whereinto they called either Angels, or devils, and so by these mysteries gave Spirits and devils called into Images. these Idols power to hurt or help them. I know not whether the devils being admitted would say as much as this man saith. Our fathers exceedingly erring (saith he) in incredulity concerning the deities, & not penetrating into the depth of divine religion, invented an art to make gods. Was he content to say they but erred, in this invention? no, he addeth. Exceedingly, thus this exceeding error and incredulity of those that looked not into matters divine, gave life to this invention of making gods. And yet though it were so, though this was but an invention of error, incredulity, and irreligiousness, yet this wise man lamenteth that future times should abolish it. Mark now whether God's power compel him to confess his progenitors error, & the devils to be made the future wrack of the said error. If it were their exceeding error, incredulity & negligence in matters divine that give first life to this godmaking invention, what wonder if this art be detestable, and all that it did against the truth cast out from the truth, this truth correcting that error, this faith that incredulity, this conversion that neglect? If he conceal the cause, and yet confess that rite to be their invention, we (if we have any wit) cannot but gather that had they been in the right way, they would never have fallen to that folly: had they either thought worthily, or meditated seriously of religion yet should we a ffirme that their great, incredulous, contemptuous error in the cause of divinity, was the cause of this invention, we should nevertheless stand in need to prepare ourselves to endure the impudence of the truths obstinate opponents. But since he that admires the power of this art above all other things in man, and grieves that the time should come wherein all those illusions should clasp with ruin, through the power of legal authority: since he confesseth the causes that gave this art first original, namely the exceeding error, incredulity & negligence of his ancestor in matters divine: what should we do but think GOD hath overthrown these institutions by their just contrary causes? that which errors multitude ordained, hath truth's tract abolished: faith hath subverted the work of incredulity, and conversion unto God's truth hath suppressed the effects of true God's neglect: not in Egypt only, (where only the diabolical spirit bewaileth) but in all the world, which heareth a new song sung unto the Lord, as the holy scripture saith. Sing unto the Lord a new song: Sing Psal. 96. 1. unto the Lord, all the earth: for the (c) title of this Psalm is, when the house was built after the captivity: the City of God, the Lords house is built, that is the holy Church all the earth over: after captivity wherein the devils held those men slaves, who after by their faith in God became principal stones in the building: for man's making of these gods, did not acquit him from being slave to these works of his, but by his willing worship he was drawn into their society: a society of subtle devils, not of stupid Idols: for what are Idols but as the Scripture saith, have eyes and see not, & all the other properties that may be said of a dead senseless Image, how well soever carved. But the unclean spirits, therein by that truly black art, bound their souls that adored them, in their society, & most horrid captivity: therefore saith the Apostle: We know that an Idol is nothing in the world: But the Gentiles offer to devilis & not unto God: I will not have them to have society with the Cor. 1. 8. 4. devils. So then after this captivity that bound men slave to the devils, God's house began to be built through the earth: thence had the Psalm the beginning. Sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord and praise his name (d) declare his salvation (e) from day to day. Declare his glory amongst all nations, and his wonders amongst all people. For the Lord is great and much to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the people are Idols, but the Lord made the heavens. He then that bewailed the abolishment of these Idols in the time to come, and of the slavery wherein the devils held men captive, did it out of an evil spirits inspiration, and from that did desire the continuance of that captivity which being dissanulled, the Psalmist sung that god's house was built up through the earth. Hermes presaged it with tears; the Prophet with joy, and because that spirit that the Prophet spoke by is ever victor: Hermes himself that bewailed their future ruin, and wished their eternity is by a strange power compelled to confess their original from error, incredulity and contempt of GOD, not from prudence, faith, and devotion. And though he call them gods, that in saying yet men did make them (and such men as we should not imitate) what doth he (despite his heart) but teach us that they are not to be worshipped of such men, as are not like them that made them: namely of those that be wise, faithful and religious: showing also that those men that made them, bound themselves to adore such gods as were no gods at al. So true is that of the Prophet: If a man make gods, behold, they are no gods. Now Hermes in calling those gods that are made by such means, that is, devils bound in Idols, by an art, or rather, by their own elections, and affirming them the handy-workes of How man doth make the devil god. men, giveth them not so much as Apuleius the Platonist doth (but we have shown already how grossly and absurdly) who maketh them the messengers between the gods, that God made, and the men that he made also; to carry up prayers and bring down benefits: for it were fondness to think that a god of man's making could do more with the gods of Gods making then a man whom he made also could. For because, a devil bound in a statue by this damned art, is made a god: not to each man, but to his binder (g) such as he is. Is not this a sweet god now, whom none but an erroneous, incredulous, irreligious man would go about to make? furthermore if the Temple-devills, being bound by art (forsooth) in those Idols by them that made them gods at such time as they themselves were wanderers, unbelievers, and contemners of gods true religion, are no messengers, between the gods and them; and if by reason of their damnable conditions, those men that do so wander, believe so little, and despise religion so much, be nevertheless their betters, as they must needs be, being their godheads makers: then remaineth but this, that which they do, they do as devils only, either doing good, for the more mischief, as most deceitful, or doing open mischi●…fe: yet neither of these can they do without the high inscrutable The devils benef●…es hurtful. providence of God: nothing is in their power as they are the gods friends, and messenger to and from men: for such they are not: for the good divine powers, whom we call the holy angels, and the reasonable creature inhabiting heaven, whether they be Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, or Powers, can hold no friendship at all with these spirits: from whom they differ as much in affection as virtue differeth from vice, or (h) malice from goodness. L. VIVES. THE wonder (a)] There also he calleth man a great miracle, a venerable, honourable creature. (b) Concerning the] Or, against the deities. (c) The title] The greek saith: A pray ●…g song of David, that the house was built after the captivity. Hieromes translation from the Hebrew hath no title, and therefore the greeks call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Vntitled. (d) Declare] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Annunciate, declare, tell. (e) From day] A Greek phrase De Philosoph. Orac. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (f) An art] Porphyry saith the gods do not only afford men their familiar company but show them what allureth them, what bindeth them, what they love, which days to avoid, which to observe, and what forms to make them, as Hecate shows in the Oracle, saying, she cannot neglect a statue of brass, gold or silver: and shows further, the use of wormwood, a mouse's blood, Myrrh, Frankincense, and stirax. (g) Such as he] An evil man, for such an one Hermes describes. (h) Malice] Malice is here used for all evil: as the greeks use Malice. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but Tully saith he had rather interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by vice, then by malice: for malice is a Species of vice, opposite to honest simplicity, and mother to all fraud and deceit. Of such things as may be common to Angels and Men. CHAP. 25. WHerefore the devils are no means for man to receive the gods benefits by, or rather good Angels: but it is our good wills, imitating theirs, making us line in one community with them and in honour of that one God that they honour (though we see not them with our earthly eyes) that is the means to their society: and whereas our miserable frailty of will, and infirmity of spirit doth effect a difference between them and us, therein we are far short of them, in merit of life not in habit of body. It is not our earthly, bodily habitation, but our unclean carnal affection, that causeth separation between them and us. But when we are purified, we become as they: drawing near them nevertheless before, by our faith, if we believe that (by their good favours also) he that blessed them, will make us also blessed. That all Paganism was fully contained in dead men. CHAP. 26. But mark what Hermes in his bewailing of the expulsion of those Idols out of Egypt, which had such an erroneous incredulity & irreligious institutors, faith amongst the rest●…, than (saith he) that holy seat of temples shall become a sepulchre of dead bodies. As if men should not die unless these things were demolished, or being dead, should be buried any where save in the earth? Truly the more time that passeth, the more carcases shall still be buried & more graves made. But this (it seems) is his grief, that the memories of our Martyrs should have place in The Martyrs memory succeeded the Idols. their Temples: that the misunderstanding reader hereof might imagine that the Pagans worshipped gods in the Temples, and we, dead men in their tombs. For men's blindness doth so carry them headlong against (a) Mountains letting them not see till they be struck, that they do not consider that in all paganism, there cannot be a god found but hath been a man: but on will they, and (b) honour them as eternally pure from all humanity. Let Varro pass, that said, all that died were held gods infernal, (c) proving it by the sacrifices done at all burials, (d) there also he reckoneth the (e) funeral plays, as the greatest token of their divinity, plays being never presented but to the gods. Hermes himself (now mentioned) in his deplorative presage, saying: Then that holy seat of Temples shall become a sepulchre of dead bodies, doth plainly aver, that the Egyptian gods were all dead men: for having said that his fathers in their exceeding error, incredulity and neglect of religion, had found a mean to make gods; her eunto (saith he) they added a virtue out of some part of the world's nature, and conjoining these two, because they could make no souls, they framed certain Images, into which they called either Angels or devils, and so by these mysteries gave those Idols power to hurt or help them. Then he proceeds to examples. Thy (e) grandfather (Asclepius) saith he the first inventor of Physic, hath a temple (f) on mount Lybia, near the (g) Cracodile shore: there lieth his worldly man, his body, but his residue or his whole (if man be whole life) is gone up to heaven, helping all sick persons now by his deity as he did before by his Physic. Lo hear he confesseth a dead man worrshipped for a god, there Mercury's tomb. where his grave was: erring, and making others err, in saying, that he w●… ascended to heaven, and helpeth all sick persons by his deity. Nay he proceeds to another. My grandfather (h) Hermes (saith he) lying in the town of ay his Surname, doth he not assist and preserve all that implore his help, This was Hermes the elder Mercury, buried (they say) in Hermopolis, the town of his surname. Behold now, here are two men gods already, Aesculapius and Mercury (k) for the first, the opinion both of greeks and Latins confirm it. But the (l) second many think was never mortal: yet he saith here, that he was his grandfather, for (m) this is one and that another though both have one name. But this I stand not upon: he and Aesculapius were both made gods of men, by this great testimony of his nephew (n) Trismgiestus, who proceeds, and saith (o) Isis, the wise of Osiris doth much good (we see) being pleased, and being offended, much evil. And then to show that these are of that kind of gods that men make by this art, he giveth us to understand, that he thinks those devils to be souls of dead men, which he saith those erring, incredulous irreligious fellows called by art into statues: because these could make no souls: & when he hath spoken that of Isis, being offended, much hurt, he addeth: for earthly and worldly gods are soon offended, and moved to anger by reason they consist (p) of men, in both their natures: Both their natures, (saith he) taking the devil for the soul and the image for the body, whereupon it came to pass (saith he) that such and such creatures became holy in Egypt, and their souls were (q) adored in all the cities, that consecrated them in their lives, so far that they have part of their worship assigned them, and are called by their names. Where is now that sad complaint that Egypt the seat of temples should become a grave for carcases? see, the false spirit that made Hermes speak it, made him also confess that it was already filled with their carcases whom they held as gods. But in his complaint he was but the vent of the devils woe, because their eternal plagues were in preparing by the martyrs holy memories, for in such places are they often tormented, and forced to confess themselves, and to avoid the bodies possessed. L. VIVES. AGainst. (a) Mountains.] And such things as all men else could see and shun. (b) Honour them.] A diversity of reading: the old books have the sentence shorter, but the sense is The Necia pla●…es. not altered at all. (c) Proving it.] The Necia (saith Tully) or funeral sports, should not be called feasts as well as the other gods holy days are, but that men would have their dead ancestors accounted as gods, De leg. lib. 2. (d) Funeral.] Wherein were comedies acted. Terrences Adelphus was acted at Paulus Aemilius his funerals. P. Corn. Scipio, and Q. Fabius (two of his sons) being Aediles. They had also sword-plays: brought in by M. and D. junius Brutus, his sons at their father's funerals. App. Claud. Caudax, and M. Fuluius being Consuls. They fought in the beast market. Liu. lib. 11. Ualer. lib-2 Auson. in Gryph. Tresprimas Thracum pugnas, trihus ordine sell●…s juniadae Patri inferias misere sepulcro. Three chairs three fights, wherein the Thracians strove, Attended junius Brutus to his grave. They had also a banquetand a dole. (c) Grandfather (Asclepius).] Asclepius in greek is Esculapius: to this Asclepius, Augustine makes the Physician Aesculapius' grandfather, which Three Aesculapi●…. o●… ●…lly his 〈◊〉. desculapii this was, I know not: one of them (they say) was thunderstrucke, and buried at Cynosura in Achaia, Another near the river Lusius in Arcadia, the third was the second Mercury's brother, son to Ualens and Pheronis, and him the Arcadians have in much honour. Tacitus saith Osiris was called Aesculapius: it may be this. It is liker that Hermes speaketh The Crocodile. of him, than any other. (f) Mount Libya.] It runs along from the lowest part of Egypt vn●… 〈◊〉. Ptolemy takes it for many mountains, & calls it the Libyan coast. (g) Crocodile] A serpent that lays eges, four-footed, growing to seventeen cubits length, or more: he moveth his upper chap, and so doth no creature living besides him: devoureth man and beast, and lives part in the water and part on the dry. land. Herodot. Arist, & Plin. Senec. saith that it feareth one courageous, and insulteth over one that fears it. The Crocodile city is in the heart of Egypt near to the Libyan Mountain not far from Ptolemais, in the end of the sixth Parallel of the third climate. The Egyptians saith Porphyry worshipped a Crocodile, because he was consecrated to the Sun as the Ram, the Buzzard and the black beetle. (h) Hermes.] Cicero reckoneth five of them, two the Egyptians worrshipped: the first Nilus his son, whom it was sa●…dgeto name: second he that killed Argus, was Egypt's king, taught them letters and The Mercury. laws, him they call Theut, after their first month. Euseb. lib. 1. saith that the Phaenician theologians held Trismegistus to be Saturn's secretary, Caelus his sons, and that he used his help in defending his mother, giving him at his going into the South, all Egypt. Dionysius saith he was counsellor to Isis and Osiris: and Osiris going forth to war, left him at home to direct his wife Isis: that he was of singular prudence, and taught the world much knowledge in arts and sciences. This (I think) was grandfather to this Hermes that wrote thus: and that he was called Theut, the Daemon (as Plato saith in his Phaed.) that invented Mathematics, letters, and dice, and taught them to ●…hamus King of Egypt afterward called Hammon. (f) T●…e of his surmane.] Hermopolis, a great city in Epipt, A mark (saith Ptolemy) to those that travel from the West of Nile unto our sea: beyond Crocadilopolis. in the seventh Parallel Hermopolis. the therd climate. (k) For the first.] For he is but held a semigod, diefied for his merits, as Hercules, Bacchus, and Romulus, were, Theodoretus saith that in Homer's time he was held no God: for he maketh Paeon cure Mars, not Aesculapius, And speaking of Machaon, he calls him the Son of Aesculapius an absolute Physician, (l) Second, many.] He is one of the perpetual God's counsellors (m). This is one.] The famous Mercury was son to jove and Maia, Atlas his Grandchild, for there were two other as I said, Egyptians, and two more, one the Son of Calus and Die, the other, of Ualens and Phoronis: the first they picture with Erected privities for having beheld Proserpina: the later, the Laebadians worship in a cave, and call him Trophonius. (n) Trismegistus,] As the French say trespuissant, and we, thrice mighty. But the latter wrote not Trismegistus, but his grandfather did: yet both were called Hermes Trismegistus. Trismegistus. The first, Theut, was a great king, a great Priest &, a Philosopher. Thus it pleaseth some to describe his greatness. (o) Isis.] Isis & Osiris do much good (saith Hermes his book.) (p) In both their natures.] Hermes had it without nature: extra naturam. (q) Adored.] The Egyptians had innumerable things to their gods. Garlic and Onions, by which they swore as Pliny saith: and many creatures, after whom they named their cities, Crocodilopol●…s, Lycopolis, Leontopolls, and L●…polis. upon the crocodyle, the wolf, the lion and the place-fish: So Apis first instituting the adoration of the Ox, was adored himself in an ox's shape, Mercury in a dogs, Isis in a cows, Diodorus write●…h that their leaders wore such crests on their helmets, Anubis a dog, Alexander the great a wolf. etc. whence the reverence of those creatures first arose, and thereupon those Princes being dead, they ordained them divine worships in those shapes. This is that which Mercury saith, their souls were adored that in their lives had ordained honour to those creatures, as indeed the Princes wearing them on their helms and shields, made them venerable, and respected: and the simple people thought that much of their victories came from them, and so set them up as deities. Of the Honour that Christians give to the Martyrs. CHAP. 27. YEt we erect no temples altars nor sacrifices to the martyrs, because not they, but their god is our God, we honour their memories, as God's Saints, standing till death for the truth, that the true religion might be propagated, and all Idolatry demolished: whereas if any others had believed right before them, yet fear forbade them confess it. And who hath ever heard the Priest at the altar, that was built up in god's honour, and the martyrs memories, say over the body, I offer unto thee Peter or unto thee Paul, or (a) Cyprian? he offers to God, in the places of their memorials, whom God had made men, and martyrs, and advanced them into the society of his Angels in heaven, that we at that solemnity may both give thanks to God for their victories, and be encouraged to endeavour the attainment of such crowns and glories as they have already attained: still invocating him at their memorials: wherefore all the religious performances done there, at the martyrs solemnities, are ornaments of their memories, but no sacrifices to the dead, as unto gods, and (b) those that bring banquets thither, which notwithstanding the better Christians do not, not is this custom observed in most places, yet, such as do so, setting them down, praying over them, and so taking them away to eat, or bestow on those that need: all this they do only with a desire that these meats might be sanctified, by the martyrs, in the god of martyrs name. But he that knoweth the only sacrifices that the Christians offer to God, (c) knoweth also that these are no sacrifices to the Martyrs: wherefore we neither worship our Martyrs with God's honours nor men's crimes, neither offer them sacrifices nor turn their (d) disgraces into any religion of theirs; As for Isis Osiris his wife, and the Egyptian goddess and her parents, that have been recorded to have been all mortal, to whom she sacrificing (e) found three grains of barley, and showed it unto her husband and Hermes her counsellor: and so they will have her to be Ceres also, what gross absurdities are hereof recorded, not by Potes, but their own Priests (as Leon showed to Alexander and he to his mother Olimpia) let them read that list, and remember that have read: and then but consider, unto what dead people and dead persons works their divinest honours were exhibited. God forbid they should in the least respect compare them with our Martyrs, whom nevertheless we account no gods we make no priests to sacrifice unto them, it is unlawful, undecent, and Gods proper due: neither do we please them with their own crimes, or obscene spectacles: whereas they celebrate both the guilt that there gods incurred who were men, and the feigned pleasures of such of them as were flat devils. If Socrates had had a god, he should not have been of this sort: But such perhaps as loved to excel in this damnable art of making gods, thrust such an one upon him being an innocent honest man, and unskilful in this their pernicious practice. What need we more? none that hath his wits about him will now hold that these spirits are to be adored for the attainment of eternal bliss in the life to come. Perhaps they will say that all the gods are good, but, of these spirits some are good and some bad: and that by those that are good we may come to eternity, and therefore aught to adore them: well, to rip up this question, the next book shall serve the turn. L. VIVES. OR (a) Cyprian.] Bishop of Carthage, most learned, as witness his holy works. He●… received the crown of Martyrdom under Ualerian, so Pontius his Deacon writeth. (b) Cyp●…. Th●…se] A great custom in Africa. Aug. confess. lib. 6. where he saith that his mother at Milan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…otage, and bread and wine to the martyrs shrines, and gave them to the porter: B●… Ambrose forbade her, both for that it might be an occasion of gluttony, and for the resemblance it had with paganism. (c) Knoweth also.] Many Christians offend in not distinguishing between their worship of God and the Saints: nor doth their opinion of the Saints want much of that the Pagans believed of their gods, yet impious was Uigilantius to bar the Martyrs, all honour, and fond was Eunomius to forbear the Churches lest he should be compelled to adore the dead. The Martyrs are to be reverenced, but not adored, as god is. Hieron c●…tra vigilant. (d) Disgraces] [But now, even at the celebration of Christ's passion and our Martyrs not to be adored.] redemption, it is a custom to present plays almost as vile as the old stage-games: should I be ●…lent the very absurdity of such shows in so reverend a matter, would condemn it sufficiently. There judas playeth the most ridiculous Mimike, even then when he betrays Christ. There the Apostles run away, and the soldiers follow, and all resounds with laughter. Then comes Plays of the passion of jesus Christ, unlawful. Peter, and cuts off Malchus care, and then all rings with applause, as if Christ's betraying were now revenged. And by and by this great fighter comes and for fear of a girl, denies his Master, all the people laughing at her question, and hissing at his denial: and in all these revels and ridiculous stirs Christ only is serious and severe: but seeking to move passion and 〈◊〉 in the audience, he is so far from that, that he is cold even in the divinest matters: to the great guilt, shame, and sin both of the priests that present this, and the people The Lovanists want this. [Isis. Ceres. that behold it. But we may perhaps find a fitter place for this thaeme] (e) Found the grain of barley] And wheat also saith Diodor. lib. 1. and thereupon some Cities present them both in her ceremonies. But Osiris her husband first observed their profit, and taught the world it, chiefly barley that maketh ale in such countries as want wine: and is now used in the North parts. But they made meat of it in old time. Plin. lib. 18. out of an Athenian ceremony that Wheat put barley out of credit. Menander reporteth; proving it of elder invention than wheat. For had they found wheat sooner (saith Pliny) barley would have been out of request for bread, as it was presently upon the finding of wheat, thenceforth becoming meat for beasts. Finis lib. 8. THE CONTENTS OF THE ninth book of the City of God. 1. The scope of the aforepassed disputation, and what is remaining to treat of. chapter 1. 2. Whether amongst the spirits of the air that are under the gods there be any good ones that can further a man in the attainment of true blessedness. 3. What qualities Apuleius ascribeth unto the devils, to whom he giveth reason but no virtue. 4. The opinions of the stoics and Peripatetics concerning perturbations of the mind. 5. That the Christians passions are causes of the practice of virtue, not Inducers unto vice. 6. What passion the spirits that Apuleius maketh Mediators between the Gods & Men are subject unto, by his own confession. 7. That the Platonists do but seek contentions in saying the Poets defame the gods, whereas their imputations pertain to the devils and not the gods. 8. Apuleius his definition of the gods of heaven, spirits of air, and men of earth. 9 Whether eyrie spirits can procure a man the God's friendships. 10. Plotines' opinion that men are less wretched in their mortality, than the devils are in their eternity, 11. Of the Platonists that held men's souls to become Daemons after death. 12. Of the three contraries whereby the Platonists distinguish the devils natures from the Mens. 13. How the devils if they be neither blessed with the Gods, nor wretched with Men, may be in the mean betwixt both without participation of either. 14. Whether mortal men may attain true happiness. 15. Of the mediator of God and Man, the Man Christ jesus. 16. Whether it be probable that the Platonists say, that the gods avoiding earthly contagion have no commerce with men, but by the means of the airy spirits. 17. That unto that be atitude that consisteth in participation of the chiefest good, we must have only such a Mediator as Christ, no such as the devil. 18. That the devils under colour of their intercession, seek but to draw us from God. 19 That the word Daemon is not used as now of any Idolater in a good sense. 20. Of the quality of the devils knowledge, whereof they are so proud. 21. In what manner the Lord would make himself known to the devils. 22. The difference of the holy angels knowledge, and the devils. 23. That the Pagan Idols are falsely called gods, yet the scripture allows it to Saints and Angels. FINIS. THE NINTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD. Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. The scope of the aforepassed disputation, and what is remaining to treat of. CHAP. 1. IN these controversies of the gods, some have held deities of both natures, good and evil: others (of better minds) did the gods that honour to hold them all good. But those (a) that held the first, held the eyrie spirits to be gods also, and called them gods, as they called the gods, spirits, but not so ordinarily. Indeed they confess that jove the Prince of all the rest was by Homer (b) called a Daemon. But such as affirmed all the gods were good ones, and far better than the best men, are justly moved by the arts of the airy spirits, to hold firmly that the gods could do no such matters, and therefore of ●…ce ●…re must be a difference between them and these spirits: and that what ever ●…asant affect, or bad act they see caused, wherein these spirits do show th●… 〈◊〉 power, that they hold is the devils work, and not the gods. But yet 〈◊〉 ●…ey place these spirits as mediators between their gods and men (as if 〈◊〉 ●…an had no other means of commerce) to carry and recarry prayers & 〈◊〉 the one to the other, this being the opinion of the most excellent ●…ers the Platonists, with whom I choose to discuss this question, whe●…●…ration of many gods be helpful to eternal felicity? In the last book 〈◊〉 how the devils (delighting in that which all wise and honest men ab●… 〈◊〉 in the foul, enormous, irreligious fictions of the gods crimes (not 〈◊〉 in the damnable practice of Magic) can be so much nearer to the gods, that 〈◊〉 must make them the means to attain their favours: and we found it ●…terly impossible. So now this book (as I promised in the end of the other) must 〈◊〉 ●…cerne the difference of the gods betwixt themselves (if they make any 〈◊〉) ●…or the difference of the gods and spirits (the one being far distant from men (as they say) and the other in the midst between the gods and men) but of the difference of these spirits amongst themselves. This is the present question. L. VIVES. THese (a) that held] Plato held all the gods to be good, but the Daemons, to be neither good not evil, but neuters. But Hermes hath his good angels and his bad. And Porphery In convivio. 〈◊〉 ●…s helpful Daemons, and his hurtful: as some of the Platonists hold also. (b) Homer cal●…] Daemons. Pl●…arch (de defect. Oracul.) saith that Homer confounded the deities and Demons toge●…r, ●…ng both names promiscually: He calls jove a Daemon: which word as one interpreteth it, is sometimes used for good, and sometimes bad. And Iliad. 1. he saith, jove with the other dae●…, calling all the gods by that name: upon which place his interpreter saith: He calleth 〈◊〉 Daemons either for their experience, wisdom, or government of man. So saith julius 〈◊〉: Homer called the Gods, Daemons, and Plato calleth the world's Architect the great Daemon: for Deity & Daemon are both taken in one sense: This Daemon Plato mentioneth. De republs. But it is a question whether he mean the Prince of all the world, or the devils Prince: for they have their Hierarchy also. Every spirit (saith Proclus De anima et daemone) in respect of that which is next under it is called a Daemon: and so doth jupiter (in Orpheus) call his father Sa●…. And Plato himself calls those gods that govern propagation, and protect a man without mediation, Daemons. To declare (saith he in Timaeus) the generation and nature of the other Daemons, were more than man can comprehend: for each power that protecteth a man without another's mediation, is a daemon, be it a God, or less than a God. Thus far Proclus. Whether amongst the spirits of the air that are under the gods, there be any good ones, that can further a man in the attainment of true blessedness. CHAP. 2. FOr many useto say there are some good devils and some bad: but whether this opinion be Plato's or whose soever, it is not to be omitted, because no man shallbe deluded in honouring those spirits as if they were good, or such as whilst he thinketh should by their place be a mean of reconciliation betwixt them and the gods, and desireth their furtherance, to be with them after death, do inveigle him and draw him in with deceit, quite from the true God, with whom only and in whom only, and from whom only, every reasonable soul, must expect and enjoy beatitude. What qualities Apuleius ascribeth to the devils, to whom he giveth reason but no virtue. CHAP. 3. HOw is this difference of good and evil then extant, when as Apuleius the Platonist, disputing so much hereof, and attributing so much to those airy powers, yet never speaketh a word of their virtues, which he would have done if they had had any? He shows not the cause why they are happy, but the signs of their misery he openeth at full: confessing that though they have reason, they want virtue, that do not give way to unreasonable passions, but (as fools use to be) they are often perturbed with tempestuous and unquiet motions. His words are these. Of these Daemons, the Poets (not much amiss) do feign some to be haters, and some lovers of some particular men: preferring some, and dejecting others; So that pity, anger, joy, and all humane effects are easily accidents unto them: and so is their mind exposed to the dominion of all perturbations, which the gods (whose minds are quiet, and retired) are not. Here you hear plainly that the devils souls as well as mortals are subject to all disturbance of passion, and thereby not to be compared D●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pas●…. unto wise men, who can curb and suppress those exorbitant affects, however accident unto them by reason of their humanity; giving then no predominance to work any unreasonable effect, opposite to justice: But they are more like (not to say worse) unto fools, & wicked persons, not in bodies, but qualities, elder they are indeed, and incurably tortured, still floating in the sea of perturbation, having no hold at all of verity, or virtue, which are the means to repress all outrageous affections. The opinions of the stoics and Peripatetics concerning perturbations of the mind. CHAP. 4. COncerning motions of the mind which the greeks call 〈◊〉, and some of 〈◊〉 Tully) Perturbations others Affects, or affections, and some more ex●…●…m the Greek, Passions, there be two opinions of the Philosophers: 〈◊〉 that they may befall a wise man, yet so as they are still awed by rea●… by the rule of the mind, obliged to what conditions discretion impos●…●…olders of this are Platonists, or Aristotelians, for Aristotle, the first 〈◊〉 was Plato his scholar. But others (as the stoics) exempt a wise man 〈◊〉 ●…ouch of those passions. And (a) those, Tully in his books De finibus, 〈◊〉 to be rather materially then formally opposite unto the Platonists or ●…ques: because the stoics (b) will not admit the external helps of the 〈◊〉 ●…ate, to the name of goods, reserving that only for virtue, as the art 〈◊〉 ●…ixed in the mind. But the (c) others, following the common fashion, 〈◊〉 goods, marry of small value in respect of virtue: So then howsoever 〈◊〉 in their name, they concur in their esteem, nor do the stoics show 〈◊〉 in this controversy but novelty of phrase: So that I hold directly, that ●…estion, (d) whether a wiseman may have passions of mind or no, their 〈◊〉 ●…sie is rather verbal, then real: for I am persuaded they are just of the 〈◊〉 and Peripatetics mind herein, though their words pretend a diffe●… This proof, I will show fair to avoid the tediousness of a longer dis●… (e) A Gellius, an (f) eloquent and excellent scholar, writeth in his No●… that he was at sea in the company of a famous Stoic. This Philoso●… ●…llius tells at large, but I in brief) seeing the ship in great peril by 〈◊〉 dangerous and dreadful tempest, was pale for very fear: which some 〈◊〉 by (being even in the chaps of death so curiously observeth whether An history of a Philosopher tha●… was in a sto●… at sea. 〈◊〉 ●…pher were preturbed or no) did perceive the storm ending, and fear 〈◊〉 tongues lose, a rich glutton (g) of Asia fell a scoffing the Stoic 〈◊〉 so terribly afraid of that brunt which himself had passed without a●… at all: but he (h) replied as Aristippus the Socratist did, upon the like 〈◊〉 the other having but the soul of a base knave, needed not care for it, but he ●…ll for the soul of Aristippus. This answer packed away the rich chuff, 〈◊〉 Gellius asked the Philosopher (not desiring to offend, but to learn) 〈◊〉 the cause of his fear. Who desiring to satisfy a man so desirous to 〈◊〉 pulleth out of his scrip the book of ay Epictetus, a Stoic, contay●… Axioms of Zeno and Chrysippus, Stoicismes founders: wherein Gellius 〈◊〉) showed him this position, That the (k) minds apprehensions (they call 〈◊〉 ●…ies) arising from fearful and terrifying objects, can neither be hindered 〈◊〉 ●…ing a wise man, nor from moving his mind when they do befall: that he 〈◊〉, or be sad, a little by these passions too hasty intrusion upon his reason: Yet 〈◊〉 far that they leave an opinion or consent, of the mind unto their effect, be●…: for this they keep free, as the difference between the fool and the wise: 〈◊〉 consenteth to his passions: the wise man though he suffer them, yet keeps 〈◊〉, and his reprobation of them all, firm and free. Thus much from A. 〈◊〉 ●…o better, but briefer than his own relation of that with himself read ●…etus, from the positive doctrine of the stoics. Which being true, 〈◊〉 small difference between them and other Philosophers in this point of 〈◊〉. For both do quit man's reason from being overruled by passion. 〈◊〉 ●…haps therefore the stoics deny a wise man to feal them, because they 〈◊〉 not, nor hurt his wisdom. But they (m) befall him (not moving his 〈◊〉) in the respects of the commodities or discommodities of this life 〈◊〉 notwithstandig he will not call goods, or evils. For if the Philosopher had not e●…ed that which he doubted to lose by that shipwreck, namely his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bodily safety, he would never have been pale for the matter: 〈◊〉 his mind stand fixed for all that external pallor, and he still hold firm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…d bodily safety, which their he feared to lose, were not of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make their possessors good, as virtue doth. But in that they say they 〈◊〉 not to be called goods at all, but only commodities, in this their mind is ●…re upon the word than the matter. For what care is there of their name, when as their loss leaves both Stoic and Peripatetique alike affected? proving thereby their equal esteem of them, call them what they list? If the danger of these goods or commodities should draw either of them to mischiefs, or else to be lost: they both join in this; rather to abjure the use of bodily benefits then to transgress the rules of justice. Thus is the mind still fixed, holding steadfastly that no passion (though it insult upon the soul's meaner parts) can domineer o●…: but reason over them, excercising virtues sovereignty over them by opposition, nor by consent. For such an one doth Virgil say Aeneas was. Mens immota manet, Lachrymae voluuntur inanes. His mind stood fixed, yet fruitless tears must out. L. VIVES. TH●…se (a) Tully] De finib. lib. 3. Cato Minor is for the stoics, in the question of the highest good: all whose arguments Tully himself (lib. 4) refuteth, proving their controversy with the Pl●…ists and Peripatetics to be only verbal: whose principal founder Zeno was. (b) Will not] Cic. de finib. calls them esteemables: and Acad quest. lib. 1. saith thus. Zeno placed all the 〈◊〉 of beatitude, in virtue only: nor reckoned aught good, but what was honest, that being the ●…ple and only good. The rest (though not bad, yet) some are natural, some against ●…re, 〈◊〉 mean between both. The natural he holds are to be held in some esteem, and contrary of the contrariety. The mean, he leaves as neuters, not to be held at, any esteem: make degrees of esteem in the natural also: the more esteemable he called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 preferred, the less 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, rejected, and these words Tully useth de finib. lib. 3. (c) Others, Plato the l●…g. lib. 4. maketh goods triplet: corporal, mental, external: the first and last, being secluded 〈◊〉 of 3. 〈◊〉. from virtue: he maketh useless, hurtful and dangerous, the middlemost, are divine, and happy adjuncts of the wise man only, making man happy of themselves alone: the other properly 〈◊〉 not goods, but respectively: nor unto all, but the just only: to whom that which the vulgar calleth evil, is a truer good, than these are to the wicked, serving them only as instruments of more mischief. This is common in Plato, who gave original to almost all the stoics rare and admired paradoxes: as, that honest things are only good: only a wise man is rich & free: the 〈◊〉 Pa●… good man it happy the bad miserable: to bear a wrong is more felicity then to offer one. Yet did Plato call those corporal and external benefits, goods: because (as Apuleius saith Dog. Pla.) their use is necessary in common life: yet so are they goods, as virtue must better them, and a●…pt them to the fit prosecution of happiness. So, good they are (saith Plato) when they are ver●… 〈◊〉, and serve in her ministry: when otherwise, they are direct plagues & destructi●…. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle also held. (d) Whether a wise] Of affects Tully discourseth at lage (Tusc. quaest. 〈◊〉) 〈◊〉, & what they are that a wise man must not be exposed unto, in Stoicism. But the Pla●…●…d ●…d their most general followers the Peripatetics say that they are naturally engrafted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ●…remoouable and only to be repressed. (e) A. Gellius] He lived in Adrian's time and 〈◊〉 wrote his Noctes Atticae. He was very familiar with Phavorinus and Taurus, both 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Apollinaris and Probus, Grammarians: of his learning and wit, take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, whom the most, nay rather all the Grammarians do second: perhaps because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of their profession (sufficeth it to say thus) though by Augustine's le●… I think him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. But of this elsewhere. The place here quoted is. lib. 19 cap. 1. (f) El●…] Or of quick ●…tion. (g) Of Asia] Which word addeth to his luxury, for from Asia it first arose. (h) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristippus.] Who had the like chance in sailing to Corinth. Laert●…. (〈◊〉) 〈◊〉] A 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…opolis, servant to Epaph●…s, Nero's chamberlain, 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 unto the Antonines, of him was made this distich. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. Borne was I slave, and Epictete my name: Beloved of God; as Irus poor; and lame. 〈◊〉 he was indeed. Sustine & abstine, was much in his mouth, which Gellius saith often: 〈◊〉 not much: nothing of his was extant in Suidas times: His Manuel was his schol●… 〈◊〉, not his. The book that this Philosopher pulled out of his s●…rip was the fifth of his 〈◊〉. (k) Minds] Fantasies of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to imagine. Tully translates it, a thing seen, it is Phantasie. 〈◊〉 that the mind frames itself after any object, arising of the external impulsion which 〈◊〉 by consent or resistance, so begetting opinion. But the opinions condemned by 〈◊〉, seem rather to be the affections that we do procure ourselves from our own 〈◊〉 ●…dgements and opinion: sorrow they called an opinion of a great evil present: joy Opinion. 〈◊〉 good: desire an opinion of a great future good: fear, of an evil. Thence do they 〈◊〉 opinion troubleth us more than real causes: and we are oftener feared then hurt 〈◊〉 touched already. They held further that an ungrounded opinion, or weak assent 〈◊〉 consideration doth not befall a wise man. (l) Not so far] Arrianus in his En●…●…ddes a wise man as soon as any terrible object presents itself unto him, to con●…●…s but a phantasm, and not such as it appeareth. (m) Befall] Plato saith that af●… 〈◊〉 man as like nerves, or little strings whereby nature draws us forward, into Affects how 〈◊〉 man. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 themselves are contraries: but he that hath given his reason once dominion o●…●…all find their force of no effect worth esteeming. ●…at the Christians passions are causes of the the practice of virtue, not inducers unto vice. CHAP. 5. 〈◊〉 is no need to stand upon a large discovery what the christians scriptures 〈◊〉 in this point of affects: It doth subject the whole mind to God's go●… 〈◊〉 and assistance, and all the passions unto it, in that manner that they are 〈◊〉 seem the increase of justice, finally our doctrine inquires not so much 〈◊〉 be angry, but wherefore? Why he is sad, not whether he be sad, and 〈◊〉 For anger with an offender to reform him: pity upon one afflicted 〈◊〉 him: fear for one in danger to deliver him, these no man, not mad, can 〈◊〉. The stoics (a) indeed use to reprehend pity. But that Stoic might ●…estly have pitied another man's danger then have feared his own. 〈◊〉 far more humanity and piety said Tully (b) in Caesar's praise: Of all thy Pyey 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 none more admired, nor applauded then thy mercy: What is mercy but a 〈◊〉 ●…on, in our own heart of another's misfortunes, urging us as far as our 〈◊〉 ●…tcheth to releove him? This affect serves reason, when our pity offend●…●…stice, either in relieving the poor or forgiving the penitent. This (c) 〈◊〉 ●…ent Cicero stuck not to call a virtue, which the stoics reckon with the 〈◊〉 doth Epictetus out of the doctrines of Zeno and Chrysippus, the first pa●… this sect, allow these passions unto a man, whom nevertheless they must 〈◊〉 keep from all vice, and consequently these passions that befall a wise 〈◊〉 ●…s they do not offer any prejudice to his reason or virtue, are no vices, 〈◊〉 stoics, Platonists and Peripatetics do all agree in one. But (as (d) Tul●…●…he Grecians (of old) affect verbosity of contention rather than truth: But now it 〈◊〉 question whether it be coherent unto the infirmity of this present life 〈◊〉 these affections in all good offices how ever, whereas the holy Angels, 〈◊〉 they punish such as gods eternal providence appointeth with anger, 〈◊〉 they help those that they love out of danger, without any fear, and suc●…●…retched without feeling any compassion, are notwithstanding said (af●…●…rase of speaking) to be partakers of those passions, because of the simili●… Angels why called after the affect that their offices rele●…e. 〈◊〉 their works, not any way because of their infirmity of affections: And so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the scripture is said to be angry; yet far is he from feeling affect, the 〈◊〉 of his revenge did procure this phrase, not the turbulence of his passion. L. VIVES. ST●…es (a) indeed] Cic. pro Muren. A many come to you in distress and misery; you shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in taking any compassion upon them. This in disgrace of Stoicism hath Tully. (b) 〈◊〉 Pro Q. Ligario. (c) This now] intimating that he had more words than wisdom, as 〈◊〉 said of Catiline: wisdom indeed being peculiar to those that serve the true God, the K●…g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ole universe, and his wisdom, his so●…e, (d) Tully saith] Crassus his words of the greeks op●…ion of an orator. De oratore lib. 1. What passion the spirits that Apuleius maketh mediators between the gods and men are subject unto, by his own confession. CHAP 6. But to defer the question of the holy Angels awhile, let us see how the Platonists teach of their mediating spirits, in this matter of passion. If those Daemons ou●… ruled all their affects with freedom and reason, than would not Apuleius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they are tossed in the same tempestuous cogitations that men's 〈◊〉 ●…eete in. So their mind then, their reasonable part, that if it had any 〈◊〉 ●…ted in it should be the dominator over these turbulent affects of the 〈◊〉 parts: this very mind floateth (say the Platonists) in this sea of perturbation. Well, than the devils minds lie open to the passions of lust, fear, wrath, and the rest. What part then have they free, wise, and unaffected, whereby T●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sub●…s ●…o pas●…. to please the gods, and converse with good men, when as their whole mind is so ●…ated unto affects, & their vices, that their whole reason is eternally emploi●… 〈◊〉 deceit & illusion, as their desire to endamage all creatures is eternal? 〈◊〉 th●… Platonists do but seek contentions in saying the Poets de fame the go●…s, whereas their imputations pertain to the devils, and not to the gods. CHAP. 7. I●… 〈◊〉 say the Poets tolerable fictions that some gods were lovers or haters of 〈◊〉 men, were not spoken universally but restrictively, respecting the evil 〈◊〉 whom Apuleius saith, do float in a sea of turbulent thoughts: how can this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when in his placing of them in the midst between the gods and us, he sai●… 〈◊〉, some, for the evil, but (a) all, because all have airy bodies? for this he saith is a ●…on of the Poets that make gods of those spirits, and call them so, making ●…m friends to such or such men, as their own loose affects do put in their heads to 〈◊〉: whereas indeed the gods are far from these in place, blessedness 〈◊〉 quality. This is the fiction then, to call them gods that are not so: and to set 〈◊〉 at odds, or at amity with such or such particular men, under the titles of 〈◊〉. But this fiction (saith he) was not much: for though the spirits be cal●… 〈◊〉 as they are not, yet they are described as they are. And thence (saith he) 〈◊〉 ●…ers tale of Minerva, that staid Achilles from striking in the midst of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 host. That this was Minerva, he holds it false, because she (in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (c) a goddess highly placed amongst the greatest deities, far from 〈◊〉 with mortals. Now if it were some spirit that favoured the 〈◊〉 Troy, as Troy had diverse against them, one of whom he calls (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mars, who indeed are higher gods then to meddle with such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirits contended each for his own side, than this fiction is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. For it was spoken of them whom he himself hath testified subject to 〈◊〉, as mortal men are: so that they might use their loves and hates not according to justice, but even (e) as the people do in hunt and 〈◊〉 each one do the best for his own party: for the Philosophers care it 〈◊〉 was this, to prevent the imputation of such acts upon the gods (whose 〈◊〉 the Poets used) and to lay them upon the spirits to whom of right they 〈◊〉. L. VIVES. B●…●…all] all are mean between gods and men, not in substance, but nature and place. ●…ers] Iliaed, 1. She stayed Achilles from striking Agamemnon, upon ill words past be●…●…m. (c) A goddess] One of the twelve counsellor-gods that Ennius hath in his di●… good, powerful, and invisible. (d) Venus] They think) saith Plutarch De defect. 〈◊〉 ●…one of these calamities which the gods are blamed for, were their doings, but the 〈◊〉 certain wicked spirits. (e) As the people] In the greater circuit, they had horse●…●…tings: and the riders were attired either in white, blue, green or red: and so 〈◊〉 were there. Martial mentions two of their colours, Prasine, & Venetian, that is, The Circian colours. 〈◊〉 blue. Some hold those four colours dedicated to the four seasons of the year. 〈◊〉 ●…aith Suetonius) added two more, golden and purple: The blue was sacred to the 〈◊〉 green to the verdant spring: white to the Autumn frosts, and red to the sum●… P●…ie writeth thus hereof: I wonder to see so many thousands of people gazing at a sort 〈◊〉 ●…ding about like boys, if they did either respect the horses speed or the horsmans' skill, it 〈◊〉, but their mind is all upon the colour, and if they change colours in the midst of their 〈◊〉 spectators favour changeth also: and those whom they knew but even now a far of, and 〈◊〉 upon their names, presently, they have done with, they: Such favour, such credit, followeth 〈◊〉: Not in the vulgars' judgement only (which is not worth a tatter) but even in the 〈◊〉 graver sort, hath this foolery gotten residence. Epist. lib. 8. Apuleius his definition of the gods of heaven, spirits of air, and men of earth. CHAP. 8. 〈◊〉 of his definition of spirits? it is universal and therefore worth inspec●…. They are (saith he) creatures, passive, reasonable, aerial & eternal: In all 〈◊〉 there is no community, that those spirits have with goodmen, but they 〈◊〉 bad also. For making a large description of man, in their place, being 〈◊〉 the gods are the first, to pass from commemoration of both their 〈◊〉, unto that which was the mean between them, viz. these devils, thus Apule●… his description of ma●… 〈◊〉 Men, joying (a) in reason, perfect in speech, mortal in body, immortal in 〈◊〉 ●…onate and unconstant in mind, brutish and frail in body, of discrepant con●…●…d conformed errors, of impudent boldness, of bold hope, of indurate labour, 〈◊〉 ●…taine fortune, particularly mort●…ll, generally eternal, propagating one ano●… of life, slow of wisdom, sudden of death and discontented in life, these dwell 〈◊〉. In these generals (common to many) he added one, that he knew was false 〈◊〉 (b) slow of wisdom: which had he omitted, he had neglected to perfect ●…ription. For in his description of the gods, he●… saith, that that beatitude 〈◊〉 men do seek by wisdom, excelleth in them, so had he thought of any 〈◊〉 devils, their definition should have mentioned it, either by showing them ●…ticipate some of the gods beatitude, or of man's wisdom. But he hath no ●…ion between them and wretches: though he be favourable in discoue●…●…eir malevolent natures, not so much for fear of them, as their servants 〈◊〉 ●…ould read his positions: To the wise he leaves his opinion open enough, 〈◊〉 ●…hat theirs should be: both in his separation of the gods from all tem●… of affect, and therein from the spirits, in all but eternity: and in his ●…tion that their minds were like men's, not the gods, nay and that not 〈◊〉 wisdom, which men may partake with the gods, but in being prove to passions, which rule both in the wicked and the witless: but is over ruled by the wise man, yet so as he had (c) rather want it, then conquer it, for if he seek to make the devils to communicate with the gods in eternity of mind only, not of body, then should he not exclude man, whose soul he held eternal, as well as the rest: and therefore he saith that man is a creature mortal in body, and immortal in soul. L. VIVES. Joying (a) in reason.] Or contending by reason, Cluentes, of Cluo, to strive. (b) Slow.] Happy ●…s he that gets to true knowledge in his age. Plato. (c) Rather want.] A wise man hath rath●… have no passions of mind: but seeing that cannot be, he taketh the next course, to keep the●… under, and have them still in his power. Whether the airy spirits can procure a man the gods friendships. CHAP. 9 Wherefore, if men by reason of their mortal bodies have not that participation of eternity with the gods, that these spirits by reason of their immortal bodi●… ha●…e: what mediators can their be between the gods & men that in their best part, their soul, are worse than men, and better, in the worst part of a creature, the body? for, all creatures consisting of body and soul, have the (a) soul for the better part, be it never so weak and vicious, and the body never so firm and perfect: because it is of a more excelling nature, nor can the corruption o●… vice deject it to the baseness of the body: but like base gold, that is dearer th●… the best silver, so far doth it exceed the body's worth. Thus than those jolly mediators, or posts from heaven to earth, have eternity of body with the gods and corruption of soul with the mortals, as though that religion that must make god and man to meet, were rather corporal then spiritual! But what guilt or sentence hath hung up those juggling intercedents by the heels, and the head downward, that their lower parts their bodies participate with the higher powers: and their higher, their souls with the lower, holding correspondence with the Gods in their servile part, and with mortals in their principal? for the body (as Sallust saith) is the soul's slave: at least should be in the true use▪ and he proceeds: the one we have common with beasts, the other with gods: speaking of man whose body is as mortal as a beasts. Now those whom the Philosophers have put between the gods and us, may say thus also: We h●… body and soul, in community with gods and men: but then (as I said) they are bound with their heels upward having their slavish body common with the gods, and their predominant soul common with wretched men: their worst part aloft and their best underfoot, wherefore if any one think them eternal with the gods, because they never die the death with creatures, let us not understand their bo●… to be the eternal palace wherein they are blessed, but (b) the eternal pri●… wherein they are damned: and so he thinketh as he should. L. VIVES. TH●… 〈◊〉 (a) f●….] For things inherent never change their essential perfection, and I do wond●… that 〈◊〉 the Peripatetique school of Paris would make any specifical difference of soule●…▪ (b) D●….] Not in the future tense: for they are damned eversince their fall. Plo●…ines opinion that men are less wretched in their mortality then the di●…lls are in their eternity. CHAP. 10. IT is said that Pl●…, that lived but (a) lately, understood Plato the best of any▪ He seaking of men's souls, saith thus: (b) The father out of his mercy bound them 〈◊〉 f●…r a season, So that in that men's bonds, (their bodies) are mortal, he impu●… The devils miserable immortality. it ●…o God the father's mercy, thereby freeing us from the eternal tedious●… of this life. Now the devils wickedness is held unworthy of this favour 〈◊〉 passive souls have eternal prisons, not temporal as men's are, for they 〈◊〉 happier than men, had they mortal bodies with us, and blessed souls with the Gods. And men's equals were they if they had but mortal bodies to their ●…hed souls: and then could work themselves rest after death by faith and 〈◊〉. But as they are they are not only more unhappy than man in the wretchedness of souls, but far more in eternity of bondage in their bodies, (c) he would 〈◊〉 have men to understand that they could ever come to be gods, by any grace or wisdom, seeing that he calleth them eternal devils. L. VIVES. B●… (a) Lately.] In Probus his time, not 200. years ere Hon●…rius his reign. In Plotine 〈◊〉 saith, him thought Plato's academy revived. Indeed he was the plainest and pu●… Plotine. ●…ists that ever was. Plato and Plotinus, Princes of the Philosophers Macrob. Porphiry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrote his life, and prefixed it unto Plotines' works. (b) The father. Plato said this of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gods in Timaeo: but Plotine saith it was the mercy of the father, to free man from this lives 〈◊〉, his words are these. jove the father pitying our souls la●…s prefixed an expiration 〈◊〉 ●…ds wherein we labour▪ and granted certain times for us to remain without bodies, there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 world's soul r●…leth eternally, out of all this trouble. De dub. animae. (c) For he.] Apuleius, 〈◊〉 ●…th that which followeth. 〈◊〉 the Platonists that held men's souls to become Daemons after death. CHAP. 11. 〈◊〉 saith (a) also that men's souls are Daemons, and become (b) Lar if their 〈◊〉 be good: if evil, (c) Lemures, goblins: if different, (d) Manes. But ●…tious this opinion is to all goodness, who sees not; for be men never so ●…ous, hoping to become Lemures, or Man●…s, the more desirous they are 〈◊〉▪ the worse they turn into, and are persuaded that some sacrifices will call 〈◊〉 to do mischief when they are dead, and become such: for these Laruae (〈◊〉 ●…e) are evil Daemons that have been men on earth. But here is another 〈◊〉: let it pass: he saith further, the greeks call such as they hold bles●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, good Daemons: herein confirming his position that men's souls Eudemon●…. 〈◊〉 Daemons after death. L. VIVES. HE saith (a)] Having often named Genius, and Lar▪ giu●… me leave (good reader) to handle 〈◊〉 here a little. Apuleius his words are these. In some sense, the soul of man while it is in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be called a Daemon. — Dii ne hunc ardorem mentibus addunt, Euriale, an sua cu●…que deus sit dira Cupido, Causen the gods (Euryalus) these fires, Or been those gods which men call loose desires. S●… th●… good desire is a good god in the mind. Some therefore think they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Gen●…. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, whose soul is purest perfect. I know not if I may translate it the Genius be●…se that god which is each man's soul though he be immortal▪ yet hath original after 〈◊〉 manner with each man: and thither tend the prayers we offer to our genius at car●…●…iunctions. Some assign the body and soul severed (whose conjunction produceth 〈◊〉) so that the second sort of Daemons is men's souls acquit from the bonds of body and Lare●…. 〈◊〉: these the ancient Latin call Lemures: and such of these as have a care of their pro●…▪ 〈◊〉 stays quietly about the house, are called Lares. But s●…ch as for their bad lives, are bound to wander▪ and use to amaze good men with idle apparitions▪ 〈◊〉. but to hurt the evil men call Laruae. But when their merits are indifferent between the Lar▪ and the Larua, than they are called Manes, and for honours sake are surnamed gods. For such as lived orderly and honestly, of those persons, were first graced with divine titles by their successors, and so got admittance into the temples, as Amphiarus in Boeotia, Mopsus in afric, 〈◊〉 in Egypt, others elsewhere, and Aesculapius every where. And thus are gods that have been mortal men divided. Thus far out of Apuleius from a most unperfect copy though printed by one of good credit: Plato also calls our souls least part, a Daemon: l●… Cratil. His words: you know whom Hesiod calls Daemons, even those men of the golden age: for of them he saith. — men's an daemon. The golden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. At genus hoc postquam fatalis condidit hora. Demons high puri terr●…stres tunc vocitantur, Custode▪ hominum faelices, qui mala pellunt. — A Daemon or a mind, But when set fate called hence this glorious kind, Then height they Earthly Daemons and pure. Man's happy guides from ill, and guards most sure. I think they were called golden (not that they were worth gold) because they were just and virtuous, and in that respect are we called Iron. But any good man of those days shall stand in the rank of Hesiodes' golden men also. And who is good, but the wise? I hold therefore that he called them Daemons for their wisdom & experience, as the word imports: wherefore well wrote he and whosoever wrote it A good man dying is advanced and made a Daemon, Daemon. in his wisdom. So say I that a wise man dying and living so, becometh a good Daemon, as 〈◊〉 also affirmeth. Thus far Plato, in his Timaeus, whence] doubt not but Origen had his error, that men's souls become Daemons, and so contrariwse. Plutarch. Orig. Porphiry also saith that a proper part of the soul, viz, the understanding is a Daemon, which he that hath wise, is a happy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: and he that hath not, is unhappy: that evil souls become wicked spirits and liars and deceivers like them: But Proclus distinguisheth of a Daemon and makes all plain. It is true (saith he) that Plato saith there is a Daemon in the reasonable soul: but that is comparatively true, not simply, for their is a Daemon essential, a Daemon in respect, and a Dae●… in habit. Every thing in respect of the inferior as a Daemon, is called a Daemon: so jupiter calls his father Saturn in Orpheus. And Plato calls them gods that have the immediate disposition of generation Daemons: to declare the nature and generation of the other Daemons, were more than man can comprehend (saith he:) for each power that affordeth a man immediate protection, be it a god less or more, is called a Daemon. Now the habitual Daemon is the soul that hath practised itself wholly in actions rather divine then human and so hath had seciall dependence thereupon: and in this sense Socrates calls the souls that lived well, and are preferred to better place and dignity, Daemons. But the essential Daemon hath not his name from habit, or respect, but from the propriety of his own nature: and is distinct from the rest in essence, proprieties, and actions. But indeed in Tym●…us each reasonable soul is called a D●…. Thus far Pr●…clus who liketh not that a soul should be called a Daemon simply: for that he restrains only to that essence that is a mean between the gods & us, nor will have any thing but our soul called a Daemon compa●…atiue: not that which worketh the chie●…e in it, be it reason or affect, in mi●…ds sound or pe●…turbed wherein Apuleius and he agree not▪ for that w●…ch Virgil saith (it is indeed a riddle, or a problem) is like this of Plato: law to the good 〈◊〉 is his god, lust to the evil. Servius expounds Virgil thus. Plotine and other Philosopher's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…stion, whether our mind move of itself unto affects or counsels, or be l●…d by s●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? first they said, it is moved itself, yet found they afterwards that our fa●…iliar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…stigator to all goodness, and this we have given us at our birth: but f●… affecti●…s 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in those we are our own guides; for it is impossible that the good gods sh●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto evil. Thus much Servius. But surely the affects that do move us, Plato calleth also Daemons. And it is a wonder to see the controversies of men of one sect in the question of gods and Daemons, Apuleius he contradicted p●…, Pl●… him, Porphyry all of them, nor can jamblichus and he agree, nor Proclus and jamblichus, 〈◊〉 themselves setting difference amongst them as they please to teach them. (b) Lares] L●…res. 〈◊〉 with the Genti saith Apuleius: and Censorinus showeth it in an old opinion. De die. not. 〈◊〉 ●…slates Daemons by Lar: marry with a condition, If I may say so. Capella calls them 〈◊〉, and Angeli, and Servius (in Aeneid. 6.) Manes: it is said each man hath his good Geni●…●…is ●…is bade▪ viz: reason that effecteth good, and lust evil. This is the Larua the evil 〈◊〉: that the Lar, the good one. If the Larua overrule a man in this life, then is he 〈◊〉 by it in the life to come, and punished for his folly: if the Lar conquer, he is puri●…●…d carried upppe to bliss, by the said Lar. Plato also is of the same opinion, saying 〈◊〉 go to judgement. De rep Vltimo. (c) Lemures] The peaceable dead souls are Lares, Lemures. 〈◊〉 ●…ull Laruae or Lemures: and those they trouble or possess, Laruati. All the air saith Cap●…▪ (N●…ptiar. lib. 2,) from the Moon is in Pluto's power, otherwise called Summanus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 summus: the Prince of devils: and the Moon that is next the air is therefore 〈◊〉 Proserpina, under whom the Manes of all conception are subject, who delight after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those bodies, and if they lived honestly in their first life, they become Lar of houses ●…tties: if not they are made Laruae, and walking Ghosts: so that here are the good and ●…ll Manes which the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. here also are their Go●… Mana and Maturna, and the Gods called Aquili, fura also, Furina, and mother 〈◊〉 and other Agents of the gods do live here. Thus much Capella. There (saith 〈◊〉) are the Lemures, Ghosts that affright and hurt men, presaging their death: called 〈◊〉 quasi Remures of Remus; for expiation of whose murder Romulus offered and in●… the Lemuralia to be kept the third day of May, at such time as February was un-ad 〈◊〉 the year. Thereupon it is sin to marry in May. (In horat. Epist. lib. 2.) This he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ovid. Faster. 5. (d) Manes] As if they were good. Fest. For they used Mana 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, also mother Matuta, and Poma Matura ripe apples. These were adored for Ma●…s. 〈◊〉 ●…ath, and called the Manes; as it were good, whereas they were rather Imma●…●…nstrous ●…nstrous evil. Of the three contraries whereby the Platonists distinguish the devils natures from the men's. CHAP. 12. 〈◊〉 now to those creatures whom he placeth properly between the god's 〈◊〉 men, being reasonable, passive, aereal and immortal. Having placed the 〈◊〉 the highest, and the men the lowest, here (saith he) are two of your crea●…●…he gods and men much differing in height of place, immortality and 〈◊〉, the habitations being immeasurably distant, and the life there eter●… and perfection here, frail and (a) faltering: their wits advanced to 〈◊〉, ours dejected unto misery. here now are three contraries between 〈◊〉 two uttermost parts, the highest & the lowest: for the three praises of the 〈◊〉, he compareth with the contraries of man's. Theirs are height of 〈◊〉▪ eternity of life, perfection of nature. All these are thus opposed by him 〈◊〉 ●…manity: the first height of place unmeasurably distant from us: the second 〈◊〉 of life, poized with our frail and faltering state: the third perfection of 〈◊〉 and wit, counterpoized by our wit and nature, that are dejected 〈◊〉 misery. Thus the gods three, height, eternity, beatitude: are con●… in our three Baseness, mortality and misery; now the devil being 〈◊〉 midway between them and us, their place is known, for that must needs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 midde-distance between the highest and the lowest. But the other two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 better looked into, whether the devils are either quite excluded from 〈◊〉, or participate as much of them as their middle posture require: excluded 〈◊〉 them they cannot be: for (b) we cannot say that they are neither happy nor wretched (as we may say that the mid-place is neither the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lowest) beasts and unreasonable creatures neither are so. But such as have 〈◊〉 must be the one: Nor can we say they are neither mortal nor eternal: for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aline are the t'one. But he hath said they are eternal. It remaineth then that they have one part from the highest, and another from the lowest, so being the ●…eane themselves. For if they take both from either, their mediocrity is ouerthro●…n, and they rely wholly upon the lower part or the higher. Seeing therefore they cannot want these two qualities abovesaid, their mediation ariseth from their partaking one with either. Now eternity from the lowest they cannot have: for there it is not: so from the highest they must have that: So than is there nothing to participate for their mediety sake between them and mortals, but misery. L VIVES. And (a) faltering] Subcisiva with Apuleius, or Succidua, with some Copies of Augustine, the later is more proper and significant. (b) We cannot] Contradictories in opposites admit no mean: as one must perforce either run or not run. Other opposites do, as black and white, contraries and other colours the means between them. Some admit it not in particulars: As living and dead in creatures: Seeing and blind, at nature's fit times. Arist. Categor. How the devils if they be neither blessed with the gods nor wretched with men, may be in the mean betwixt both without participation of either. CHAP. 13. SO then according to the Platonists, the gods are in eternal blessedness, or blessed eternity, and men are in mortal misery or miserable mortality: And the spirits of the air between both, in miserable eternity, or eternal misery. For in his five attributes given them in their definition, is none that showeth (as he promised) their mediety: this community with us including their reason, their being creatures, and their being passive, and holding community with the gods only in eternity: Having their airy nature, common with neither. How are they means then, having but one from the higher, and three from the lower? Who sees not how they are thrust from the mean to the lower side? But thus they may be found to be in the midst: they have one thing proper to themselves only, their airy bodies, as the gods have their celestial, and man his 〈◊〉: and two things they have common to both: their being creatures and their gift of reason: For he speaking of the gods and men, said: here 〈◊〉 you two creatures: Nor do they affirm but that the gods have reason. Two then remains: their passiveness, and their eternity, one common with the lower and the other with the higher, so being proportioned in the mean place that they decline to neither side. Thus then are they eternally miserable or miserably eternal. For incalling them passive he would have called them miserable, but for offending them that served them. Besides, because the world is not ruled by rash chance but by (a) God's providence: these spirits The di●… eternally miserable. should never have 〈◊〉 eternally miserable, but that they are extremely malicious: wherefore if the 〈◊〉 be blessed, than is it not they that are in this mediety between Gods & men: where is their place then, admitting their ministry between gods and men. If they be good and eternal, then are they blessed. If blessed, then ●…ot in the midst, but nearer to the gods and further from men: frustrate then is all their labour that seek to prove the mediety of those spirits being good, immortal▪ and blessed, between the gods immortal and blessed, and men mortal and w●…ched. For having beatitude and immortality, both attributes of the gods, and ●…her proper unto man, they must need hold nearer correspondence with gods t●… men. For if it were otherwise, their two attributes should communicate with one upon either side, not with two upon one side: as a man is in the midst be●…ne a beast and an Angel: a beast being unreasonable and mortal, an Angel ●…sonable and immortal, a man mortal and reasonable, holding the first with a 〈◊〉, the second with an Angel, and so stands mean; under Angels above 〈◊〉. Even so in seeking a mediety between immortality, blessed and mo●…lity wretched, we must either find mortality blessed, or immortality ●…ched. L. VIVES. B●… (a) God's providence] So Plato affirmeth often: that the great father both created and ●…ed all the world: Now he should do unjustice in afflicting an innocent with eter●…●…ery: for temporal affliction upon a good man is to a good end, that his reward may ●…ee the greater and he more happy by suffering so much for eternal happiness. Whether mortal men may attain true happpnesse. CHAP. 14. 〈◊〉 great question whether a man may be both mortal and happy: some (a) ●…ering their estate with humility, affirmed that in this life man could not ●…y, others extolled themselves and avouched that a wise man was happy: 〈◊〉 it be so, why are not they made the means, between the immortally ●…nd the mortally wretched? Hold their beatitude of the first, and their mor●… the later? Truly if they be blessed they envy no man For (b) what is more ●…ed then envy? And therefore they shall do their best in giving wretched 〈◊〉 good council to beatitude, that they may become immortal after death 〈◊〉 joined in fellowship with the eternal blessed Angels. L. VIVES. S●… (a) considering] Solon of Athens held, none could be happy till death. Plato excepted a 〈◊〉: But Solon grounded upon the uncertain fate of man: For who could say Priam was 〈◊〉 before the war, being to suffer the misery of a ten years siege? Or Croesus in all ●…h, being to be brought by Cyrus to be burnt at a stake? Now Plato respected the ●…ty of attaining that divine knowledge in this life, which makes us blessed. (b) What 〈◊〉 is all the good that envy hath, that it afflicteth those extremely that use it most, as Enuy. 〈◊〉 ●…eeke author saith. Of the Mediator of god and man, the man Christ jesus. CHAP. 15. 〈◊〉 if that be true (which is far more probable) that all men of necessity 〈◊〉 Bee (a) miserable whilst they are mortal, then must a mean be found 〈◊〉 is God as well as man, who by the mediation of his blessed mortality may 〈◊〉 us out of this mortal misery unto that immortal happiness: And 〈◊〉 mean must be borne mortal, but not continue so. He became mortal not by any weakening of his Deity, but by taking on him this our frail flesh: he remained not mortal, because he razed himself up from death: for the fruit of his mediation is, to free those whom he is mediator for, from the eternal death of the flesh: So than it was necessary for the mediator between God and us, to have a temporal mortality, and an eternal beatitude, to have correspondence with mortals by the first, and to transfer them by eternity to the second. Wherefore the good Angels cannot have this place, being immortal and blessed. The evil may, as having their immortality, and our misery: And to these is the good mediator opposed, being mortal for a while, and blessed for ever, against their immortal misery. And so these proud immortals, and hurtful wretches, lest by the boast of their immortality they should draw men to misery, hath he by his humble death and bountiful beaitude expelled from swaying of all such hearts as he hath pleased to cleanse and illuminate by faith in him: what mean the shall a wretched mortal, far separate from the blessed immortals, choose to attain their societies? The devils immortality is miserable: But Christ's mortality hath nothing undelectable. There we had need beware of eternal wretchedness: here we need not fear the death (which cannot be eternal) and we cannot but love the happiness which is eternal for the me an that is immortally wretched aims all at keeping us from immortal beatitude, by persisting in the contrary misery: but the mean that is mortal & blessed, intends after our mortality to make us immortal (as he shewewed in his resurrection) and of wretches to make us blessed, with he never wanted. So that there is an evil mean that separateth friends, and a good that reconciles them: & of the first sort (b) is many, because the blessedness that the other multitude attaineth, comes all from participating of one God: whereof the miserable multitude of evil Angels being (c) deprived, with rather are opposite to hinder, then interposed to further, doth all that in it lieth to withdraw us from that only one way that leadeth to this blessed good, namely the word of God, not made, but the maker of all: yet is he no mediator as he is the word: for so is he most blessed, and immortal, far from us miserable men. But as he is man: therein making it plain that to the attainment of this blessed, and blessing good, we must use no other mediators whereby to work: God himself, blessed and blessing all, having graced our humanity with participation of his deity: for when he freeth us from misery and mortality, he doth not make us happy by participation of blessed Angels but of the trinity, in whose participation the Angels themselves are blessed▪ and therefore (d) when he was below the Angels in form of a servant, than we also above them in Phil, 2. form of a god: being the same way of life below, and life itself above. L. VIVES. BE (a) miserable] Homer calls men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is miserable, and so do the Latins. (b) Is many] Virtue is simple, and singular, nor is there many ways to it. Vice is confused, and infinite paths there are unto it. Arist. Ethic. So the devils have many ways to draw a man from God, but the Angels but one to draw him unto him by Christ the Mediator. (c) Deprived] As darkness is the privation of light, so is misery of beatitude. But not contrariwise. (d) When he was] Plin. 2. Who being in the form GOD, thought it no robb●… to be equal with GOD, but made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant. These are Paul's words proving that though CHRIST were most like to his father, yet never professed himself his equal here upon earth, unto us that respected but his manhood: Though he might lawfully have done it: But the LORD of 〈◊〉 pu●…te on him the form of a servant, and the high GOD debased himself into one degree with us, that by his likeness to ours, he might bring us to the knowledge of his power & essence, and so estate us in eternity before his father: and that his humanity might so invite us, that his Divinity did not terrify us, but take hold of our acceptance of this invitation, and so translate us into joy perpetual. But he could neither have been invited nor alured to this, but only by one like ourselves: nor yet could we be made happy, but only by God the fountain of happiness. So then there is but one way, Christ's humanity by which all access lieth to his Deity, that is life eternal and beatitude. Whether it be probable that the Platonists say, That the gods avoiding earthly contagion, have no commerce with men, but by the means of the airy spirits. CHAP. 16. FOr it is false that this Platonist saith Plato said: God hath no commerce with man: and maketh this absolute separation, the most perfect note of their glory and height. So then the Devils are left to deal, and to be infected by man's conversation, and therefore cannot mundify those that infect them, so that both become unclean, the devils by conversing with men, and then men by adoration of the devils. Or if the devils can converse with men, and not be infected, then are they better than the gods: for they cannot avoid this inconvenience: for that he makes the gods peculiar, to be far above the reach of man's corruption. But (a) God the Creator (whom we call the true God) he maketh such an one (out of Plato) as words cannot describe at any hand, nay and that the wisest men in their greatest height of abstractive speculation, can have but now and then a sudden and (b) momentary glimpse of the (c) understanding of this God. Well then if this high God (d) afford his ineffable presence unto wise men, sometimes in their abstracti●…e speculation: (though after a sudden fashion) and yet is not contaminate God not polluted by being present unto wise men. thereby: why then are the gods placed so far off, for fear of this contamination▪ As though the sight of those ethaereal bodies that light the earth were not sufficient. And if our sight of the stars (whom he maketh visible gods) do not ●…minate them, than no more doth it the spirits, though seen nearer hand. Or●… man's speech more infectious than his sight, and therefore the gods (to keep themselves pure) receive all their requests at the delivery of the devils? What shall I say of the other sen●…s? Their smelling would not infect them if they were below, or when they are below as devils, the smell of a quick man is not infect●…s at all, if the steam of so many dead carcases in sacrifices infect not. Their taste is not some craving of them as they should be driven to come and ask their meat of men: and for their touch, it is in their own choice. For though (e) handling Bee peculiar to that sense indeed, yet may they handle their business with men, to see them and hear them without any necessity of touching: for men would dare to desire no further then to see and hear them: and if they should, what man can touch a God or a Spirit against their wills: when we see one cannot touch a sparrow, unless he have first taken her? So then in sight, hearing & speech the gods might have corporeal commerce with man. Now if the devils have thus much without infection, and the gods cannot, why then the gods are subject to contamination: and not the devils? But if they be infected also, then what good can they do a man unto eternity, whom (being themselves infected) they cannot make clean, nor fit to be adjoined with the gods, between whom and men they are mediators? And if they cannot do this, what use hath man of their mediation? Unless that after death they live both together corrupted, and never come nearer the gods; nor enjoy any beatitude, either of them. Unless some will make the spirits like to sponges, fetching all the filth from others, and retaining i●… in themselves: which if it be so, the gods converse with spirits that are more unclean than the man whose conversation they avoid for uncleanness sake. Or can the gods mundify the devils from their infection, uninfected and cannot do so with men? Who believes this that believeth not the devils illusions? Again, if the looks of man infect, than those visible gods, the (f) worlds bright eyes, and the other stars, are liable to this infection, and the devils that are not seen but when they list, in better state than they. But if the sight of man (not his) infect, then let them deny that they do see man, we seeing their beams stretched to the very earth. Their beams look uninfected through all infection, and themselves cannot converse purely with men only, though man stand in never so much necessity of their help, we see the Suns and Moons beams to reflect upon the earth without contamination of the light. But I wonder that so many learned men, preferring things intelligible evermore before sensible, would mention any corporal matter in the doctrine of beatitude. Where is that saying of (g) Plotine: Let us fly to our bright country, there is the father, and there is all? What flight is that? (h) to become like to GOD. If then the liker a man is to GOD the nearer he is also, why then the more unlike, the farther off: And man's soul the more it looks after things mutable and temporal, the more unlike is it to that essence that is immutable and eternal. L. VIVES. GOD (a) the Creator.] Apul. de d●…o S●…crat. & Dog. Platon. GOD is celestial, ineffable, and un-name-able, whose nature is hard to find ', and harder to declare▪ God incomprehensible words The of Plato are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To find God is hard, but to comprehend him impossible. Thus far Apuleius. Plato in his Timaeus, that to find out the father of this universe is a hard matter, but to express his full nature to another, utterly impossible. And in his Parmenides, disputing of that One, He saith it can neither be named, defined, 〈◊〉 comprehended, seen nor imagined: (b) Momentary. Signifieth that the dim light suddenly withdraweth itself, leaving a slender species, or light impression thereof only, in the minds of such as have seen it: yet such an one as giveth ample testimony, of the ●…ensity and lustre thereof. (c) Understanding] In the world there are some marks whereby the 〈◊〉▪ Maker may be known, but that a far off, as a light in the most thick and spacious d●…ke: and not God is to be partly kno●…ne of his creatures. by all, but only by the sharpest wits that give themselves wholly to speculation thereof. (d) Afford his] Nor doth the knowledge of God leave the wise mind, but is ever present when it is purely sought, and holily. (e) Handling] Contrectation, of Tracto to handle. (f) Worldet bright] Apulei▪ de deo Socrat. For as their majesty required, he dedicated heaven to the immortal gods, whom partly we see, and call them celestial: as, you the world's bright eye that guides the times: Vos O Clarissima mundi Lumina, saith Virgil of the Sun and Moon. Georg. 1. (g) Plotine] Plato saith he, Coleyne copy. (h) To become] The sentence is Plato 〈◊〉 we rehearsed it in the last book. He calls heaven our country, because hence we are exiled: Our bright country, because all things there are pure, certain and illustrate, here soul, fickle and obscure: There is the father of this universe, and all things about him as the King of all, as Plato writes to Dyonisius. How shall we get thither, being so far, and the way unpasseable by our bodies? Only one direct and ready way there is to it, to follow God with all our indea●…r of imitation. This only elevateth us thither. That unto that beatitude that consisteth in participation of the greatest good, we must have only such a mediator as Christ, no such as the devil. CHAP. 17. TO avoid this inconvenience, seeing that mortal impurity cannot attain to the height of the celestial purity, we must have a Mediator, not one bodily mortal as the gods are, and mentally miserable as men are, for such an one will rather malign then further our cure; but one adapted unto our body by nature, and of an immortal right eousnesse of spirit, whereby (not for distance of place but excellence of similitude) he remained above, such an one must give us his truly divine help in our ●…ure from corruption and captivity. far be it from this incorruptible GOD to fear the corruption of (a) that man which he put on, or of those men with whom as man he conversed. For these two Documents of his incarnation are of no small value, that neither true divinity could be contaminate by the flesh, nor that the devils are our bettets in having no flesh; This as the Scripture proclaimeth, is the Mediator between GOD and man, the man CHRIST JESUS, of whose Divinity, equal with the father, and his humanity, like unto ours: this is now no fi●…e place to dispute. L. VIVES. OF (e) that man] The Phrase of Hierome, Augustine and all the Latin Fathers: The greeks use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in CHRIST that is man, nor have they any other Phrase God assumed man. to use for the Son of GOD his assumption of man: The later Divines (as if they only were Divines and had found out all CHRIST'S Deity and humanity) say that it was not All this commen●…ary the Lovanists do l●…aue quite out. m●…n, but manhood that he took upon him: And this (say they) is the best ground against here●…. As if Augustine and Hierome were no body. I but they meant manhood (say these) though they said man. Well then, speak you as they did, and think so too. But you are the neat Polishers of the rude ancient Latin and Greek. Marry the best jest is, you will 〈◊〉 none to contradict the fathers, and give them the first opposition yourselves, and in this you think you show rare acuteness: But if an other do but leave your ●…ripples, and stick to the fathers, you presently proclaim him an Heretic. For if any of your learners of Di●…inity, desiring to seem more religious, and almost attaining it, should say that CHRIST assured man, he is presently thrust from the Lecture for an heretic. O but (say they) man is but the name of the subject, but manhood declares the nature. Good God 〈◊〉 Her etique will not think you would deride him if he use it thus: And would not de●…ide us if we should use it so. That the devils under colour of their intercession, seek but to draw us from God. CHAP. 18. But those false and deceitful mediators the devils, wretched in uncleanness of spirit, yet working strange effects by their aerial bodies, seek to draw us from profit of soul, showing us no way to GOD, but sweeting to conceal that wholly from us: For in the corporal way, which is most false and erroneous; a way that righteousness walks not (for our ascent to GOD must be by this spiritual likeness, not by corporal elevation) but (as I said) in this corporal way that the devils servants dream doth lie through the Elements, the devils are placed in the midst between the celestial Gods and the earthly men, and the gods have this pre-eminence that the distance of place keepeth them from contagion of man: so that rather they believe that the devils are infected by man, than he mundified by them, for so would he infect the gods (think they) but for the far distance that keeps them clean. Now who is he so wretched as to think any way to perfection, there, where the men do infect, the spirits are infected, and the gods subject to infection? And will not rather select that way where the polluted spirits are abandoned, and men are purged from infection by that unchangeable God, and so made fit persons for the fellowship of the Angels ever unpolluted. That the word Daemon is not used as now of any Idolater in a good sense CHAP. 19 But to avoid controversy concerning words, because some of these Daemonseruers, and Labeo for one, say, that (a) whom they call▪ Demons, others call Angels: now must I say somewhat of the good Angels, whom indeed they deny not, but had rather call them Daemons than Angels. But we (as scripture and consequently Christianity instructs us) acknowledge Angels both good Daemon used always in the scripture on the worst part. and evil; but no good Daemons. But whersoever in our scripture Daemon or Daemonium is read, it signifieth an evil and unclean spirit: and is now so universally used in that sense, that even the (c) Pagans' themselves that hold multitude of gods and Daemons to be adored, yet be they never such scholars, dare not say to their slave as in his praise: thou hast a Daemon: who-soever doth say so, knoweth that he is held rather to curse then commend. Seeing therefore that all ears do so dislike this word: that almost none but taketh it in ill part, why should we be compelled to express our assertion further, seeing that the use of the word Angel will 〈◊〉 abolish the offence that the use of the word Daemon causeth. L. VIVES. WH●… (a) they] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a messenger: and thence in the Greekès we read often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 ●…t it is. the messengers face. Euripid. Iphgen. So the Daemons being held the god's messengers and interpreters, are called Angeli, and so is Mercury for his office: Trismegistus and Capella both call him so, and aver the dueness of his name as declaring our secret thought to the higher powers. (b) We (as Scripture] The Gospel speaks much of good Angels, and Christ nameth the devils Angels. (c) Pagans'] I said before, that after Christ was borne, the name of a Daemon grew into suspect, and so into hatred, as the epithet of an evil essence, as well to the vulgar as the Philosophers. Of the quality of the devils knowledge, whereof they are so proud. CHAP. 20. YEt the original of this name (if we look into divinity) affords somewhat ●…th observation, for they were called in Greek, (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for their know●… Now 〈…〉. the apostle speaking in the holy spirit, saith: Knowledge puffeth up, 〈◊〉 ●…ifieth: that is knowledge is then good when it linketh with charity: ot●… i●…●…uffeth up, that is filleth one with vain glory. So then: In the devils is th●…●…owledge without charity, and thence they are puffed so big & so proud, that th●… 〈◊〉 honours which they well know to be Gods due, they have ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…em-selues, and as far as they can do so still. Now what power the 〈◊〉 o●… C●…●…hat came in form of a servant, hath against this devils pride (as men deserved) ●…ered in their hearts, men's wretched minds being diveleshly as yet puffed up, can by no means (because of their proud tumour) comp●…hend or conceive. L. VIVES. Greek (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the old greek was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to know. Thence came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the author of the great Etymology, All knowing. And 〈◊〉 of the same mind, for their knowledge: In Cratylo. Capella followeth him, and so ●…ers, Lactantius also (lib. 2.) gives them this name for their understanding: And so Daem●…. doth ●…lcidius upon Plato his Timaeus. In what manner the Lord would make himself known to the Devils. CHAP. 21. FO●… the devils had this knowledge, they could say to the Lord in the flesh: 〈◊〉 have we to do with thee, O jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us Ma●…. 1. ●…4. 〈◊〉 time? Here is a plain knowledge without charity: they fear to be pla●…y him, but loved not the justice in him. Their knowledge was bounded ●…is will, and his will with convenience: But they knew him not as the Angel's 〈◊〉 him, that participate of his Deity in all eternity, but unto their terror, out of 〈◊〉 clutches, he quit those that he had predestinated to his Kingdom of true eter●…y, and eternal glorious truth. The devils therefore knew him not as he 〈◊〉 life eternal, the unchangeable light, illuminating all the godly who re●…hat light to the purification of their hearts by faith, but they knew him by ●…mporall effects of his presence, and secret signs of his virtue, which the di●… angelical senses might easilier observe than man's natural infirmity: ●…gnes when he suppressed, the Prince of devils made question of his Dei●…empted him for the (b) trial of his Deity, trying how far he would ●…m-selfe to be tempted, in (c) adapting his humanity unto our imitati●… (d) after his temptation when the good and glorious Angels (whom ●…els extremely feared) came and ministered unto him; then the devils got Math, 4. ●…nd more knowledge of him, and not one of them durst resist his command, 〈◊〉 he seemed infirm and (e) contemptible in the flesh. L. VIVES. Angelical (a) senses] Christ's miracles were more admired of the Angels and Devils then of men, because they knowing the causes of things, saw nature's power con●… Christ's miracles. and transcended. Now men though they saw them strange, yet wanted there not 〈◊〉 to say he cast out devils by Beelzebub, their Prince: not so much believing this indeed, ●…g that the simple multitude should believe it. And others of later time have false●…ged him with art Magic, against whom (by GOD'S help) I will deal at large 〈◊〉 books De sapientia Christiana. (b) For trial] The Devil generally tempts man to 〈◊〉, but here he aimed not so much at sin (for he knew his sanctity at least near inex●…ble) but his fetch was to see whether the Deity were in this humane form. (c) A●…g] Because he would not seem exempted (by passing untempted) from humane con●…: Nor should his servants after him, think much to be tempted, seeing that old 〈◊〉 ●…nemy of man did not spare CHRIST himself. (d) After temptation] This Temptation. ●…mplary also: For as none shall pass untempted, so if none yield to the temptation, 〈◊〉 shall all enjoy the solace and ministry of Angels, as Hierome saith. (e) Contemptible] 〈◊〉, needy, of mean birth and place, far from ostentation, and having his society of such like as he was. The difference of the holy Angel's knowledge and the Devils. CHAP. 22. Unto the good Angels, the knowledge of all temporal things (that puffs up the Devils) is vile: not that they want it, but in that they wholly respect the love of that God that sanctifieth them, in comparison of which ineffable and unchangeable glory with the (a) love of with they are inflamed, they contemn all that is under it, that is (b) not it, yea and even themselves, that all their good may be employed in enjoying that only good: And so came they to a more sure knowledge of the world, viewing in God the principal causes of the world's creation, which The devils knowledge causes do confirm this, frustrate that, and dispose of all: now the (c) devils are fat from beholding those eternal and fundamental causes in the wisdom of God, only they can extract a notion from certain secret signs which man is ignorant in, have more experience, and therefore may oftener presage events. But they are The devils o●…en decemed. often deceived, marry the Angels never. For it is one thing to presage changes & events from changeable and casual grounds, and to confound them by as changeable a will (as the devils are permitted to do) & another thing to foresee the changes of times, and the will of God in his eternal unalterable decrees most (d) certain & (most powerful) by the participation of his divine spirit, as the Angels are vouchsafed by due gradation to do. So are they eternal and blessed He is their God that made them, for his participation and contemplation, they do (e) continually enjoy. L. VIVES. THe (a) love] Love always worketh on beauteous objects. Socrates in Plato's Phado saith Love of f●…e obi●…s. that if corporal eyes could behold the face of honesty and wisdom, they would hold it most dear and amiable. What then if we could see God's face, whose fairness ((saith the book of wisdom) appears even in this, that our fairest objects are of his making. Diotina in Plato's Conui. (as we said above) holds but one pulchritude worthy the love of an honest man that desires beatitude. (b) Is not] all that is not God, being vile in respect of God, the Angels contemn both all and themselves in respect of him, which cogitation fasteneth them so firm in Union with God, that his beatitude sufficeth without all other appendances to make them eternally blessed. (c) The devils] For they cannot behold the pole or foundation whereupon all causes are grounded and turned, nor the fount whence they arise: but only (by their pregnancy and wit, surmounting ours, as also by experence, more than ours (being immortal) they have a quick conceit of things present, and a surer presage in things to come then we have. Whereby conjecturing events not from the proper cause, but their own conjectures, they are oftentimes deceived, & lie, when they think they speak most true, boasting that they know all things. Nor do the unpure devils fail herein only, but even the gods themselves, saith Porphyry. (d) Most certain] God's will hath this certainty, it effecteth what it pleaseth, else were it not certain, as not being in his power, but all effects being in his hand, it is most certain. That is, nothing can fall out, but he willeth it, because he willeth nothing but must fall so out. And therefore they that observe his will, observe the sure cause of all effects, because all effects have production from his will, so that rightly doth Augustine call his will most certain, and most powerful, his power being the cause of his wills certainty. This will the Angels and Saints beholding, know as much as the proportion of their beatitude permitteth. For all of them have The cert●…y of God's w●…, no●… the same knowledge, but gradually, as they have beatitude, as he saith. (e) Continually] Continual is their speculation of God, lest the least intermission should make them wretched: yet doth not the fear of that, cause them continue the other, but that beatitude doth wholly transport them from the cogitation and desire of all other things, they enjoying all goodness in him that is the fountain of them all. That the Pagan Idols are falsely called gods, yet the scripture allows it to Saints and Angels. CHAP. 23. NOw if the Platonists had rather call these gods, than Daemons, and ro●…on them amongst those whom the father created (as their Master Plat●… writ●…ch) let them do so: we will have no verbal controversy with them: If they call them immortal, and yet God's creatures, made immortal by adherence with him, & not by themselves, they hold with us, call them what they will. And the best Platonists (if not all) have left records that thus they believed: for whereas they call such an immortal creature a god, we (b) contend not with them, our scriptures saying ●…s. 50. 1. P●… 130. 2. ●…s. 95 3. ●…s 96 4 5. The God of gods, even the Lord hath spoken: again: Praise yea the God of Gods: Again: A great King above all gods: And in that it is written: He is to be feared above all gods: The sequel explains it: For all the gods of the people are Idols: but the Lord made the bea●…ens. He calleth him over all gods, to wit the people's, those that the Nations Mar. 1. 24. called their gods being Idols, therefore is he to be feared above them all, and in this fear they cried: Art thou come to destroy us before our time? But whereas it is written. The God of gods, this is not to be understood, the God of Idols, or devils: and God forbid we should say, A great King above all Gods, in reference to his kingdom over devils: but the scripture calleth the men of God's family, gods, I have said you are gods, and all children of the most High: of these must the God of gods be understood, Ps. 82. 6. Men called Gods, Why. and over these gods, is King, The great King above all gods. But now one question: If men being of God's family, whom he speaketh unto by men or Angels, be called gods, how much more are they to be so called that are immortal, & enjoy that beatitude which men by God's service do aim at? We answer that the scripture rather calleth men by the name of gods, than those immortal blessed creatures whose likeness was promised after death, because our unfaithful infirmity should not be seduced by reason of their supper eminence to make us gods of them: which inconvenience in man is soon avoided. And that men of God's family are the rather called gods, to assure them that he is their God that is the God of gods: for though the blessed Angels be called gods: yet they are not called the Gods of Gods, that is of those servants of God of whom it is said, You are gods, & all children of Cor, 1. 8. ver, 5. 6, the most High. Here-upon the Apostle saith: though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be many gods, and many Lords: yet unto us there is but one God which is the father: of whom are all things and we in him: and one Lord jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by him. No matter for the name them, the matter being thus past all scruple. But whereas we say from those immortal quires, Angels are sent with God's command unto men, this they dislike, as believing that this business belongs not to those blessed creatures whom they call gods, but unto the Daemons, whom they dare not affirm blessed but only immortal: or so immortal and blessed as good Daemons are, but not as those high gods whom they place so high and so far from man's infection. But (though this seem a verbal controversy) the name of a Daemon is so detestable, that we may by no means attribute it unto our blessed Angels. Thus then let us end this book. Know all that those blessed immortals (how ever called) that are creatures, are no means to bring miserable man to beatitude, being from them (c) doubly different. Secondly those that partake immortality with them, and miserable (for reward of their malice) with us, can rather envy us this happiness, then obtain it us therefore the fautors of those Daemons can bring no proof why we should honour them as The diuel●… not to be worshipped. God, but rather that we must avoid them as deceivers. As for those whom they say are good, immmortall and blessed, calling them gods and allot●…ing them sacrifices for the attainment of beatitude eternal, In the next book (by God's help) we will prove that their desire was to give this honour not to them, but unto that one God, through whose power they were created, and in whose participation they are blessed. LVIVES. And (a) reckon] Plato saith that that great God the father created all the rest. In Timaeo. (b) We contend not No man denieth (saith Cypryan) that there are many gods by participations. Boethius calls every happy man a god, but one only so by nature, 〈◊〉 the rest by participation. And to us hath Christ given power to be made the sons of God. (〈◊〉 Doubtly, By, from our misery and mortality: which two words, some copies add unto the t●…xt. The sense is all one, implied in the one and expressed in the other. Finis, lib. 9 THE CONTENTS OF THE tenth book of the City of God. 1 That the Platonists themselves held that One o●…ly God was the giver of all beatitude ●…to Men and Angels; but the controversy is, whether they that they hold are to be worshipped for this end, would have sacrifices offered to themselves, or resign all unto God. 2. The opinion of Plotine the Platonist concer●…ing the supernatural illumination. 3. Of the true worship of God, wherein the Plato●…ts failed in worshipping good or evil Angels though they knew the world's Creator. 4. That sacrifice is due only to the true God. 5. Of the sacrifices which God requireth ●…ot, and what be requireth in their signification. 6. Of the true and perfect sacrifice. 7. That the good Angels do so love us, that thy desire we should worship God only, and ●…ot them. 8. Of the miracles whereby God hath confir●…d his promises in the minds of the faithful, by the ministry of his holy Angels. 9 Of unlawful Arts concerning the devils worship, whereof Porphery approveth some and d●…eth others. 10. Of Theurgy that falsely promiseth to ●…ie the mind, by the invocation of devils. 11. Of Porpheries epistle to Anebuns' of Aeg●…t, desiring him of instruction in the seuer●… k●…des of Daemons. 12. Of the miracles that God worketh by his Angel's ministry. 1●…. How the invisible God hath often made ●…selfe visible, not as he is really, but as we c●…ld be able to comprehend his sight. 14. How but one God is to be worshipped for all things temporal and eternal, all being in the p●…er of his providence. 15. Of the holy Angels that minister to God's providence. 16. Whether in this question of Beatitude we 〈◊〉 tr●…st those Angels that refuse the divine ●…ship and ascribe it all to one God, or those th●… require it to themselves. 17. Of the Ark of the Testament, and the miracles wrought to confirm the law and the promise. 18. Against such as deny to believe the scriptures, concerning those miracles shown to God's people. 19 The reason of that visible sacrifice that the true religion commands us to offer to one God. 20. Of the only and true sacrifice which the mediator between God and Man became. 21. Of the power given to the devils, to the greater glorifying of the Saints that have suffered martyrdom and conquered the airy spirits, not by appeasing them, but by adhering to God. 22. From whence the Saints have their power against the devils, and their pure purgation of heart. 23. Of the Platonists principles in their purgation of the soul. 24. Of the true only beginning that purgeth and reneweth man's whole nature. 25. That all the Saints in the old law, and other ages before it, were justified only by the mystery and faith of Christ. 26. Of Porphery his wavering between confession of the true God, and adoration of the Devils. 27. Of Porphery his exceeding Apuleius in impiety. 28. What persuasions blinded Porphery from knowing Christ the true wisdom. 29. Of the inearnation of our Lord jesus Christ, which the impious Platonists shame to acknowledge. ●…0. What opinions of Plato, Pophery confuted and corrected. 31. Against the Platonists holding the soul coeternal with God. 32. Of the universal way of the soul's freedom, which Porphery sought amiss, and therefore found not: That only Christ hath declared it. FINIS. THE TENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. That the Platonists themselves held, that One only God was the giver of all beatitude unto men and Angels: but the controversy is, whether they that they hold are to be worshipped for this end, would have sacrifices offered to themselves, or resign all unto God. CHAP. 1. IT is perspicuous to the knowledge of all such as have use of reason, that man desireth to be happy: But the great controversies arise upon the inquisition whence or how mortal infirmity should attain beatitude: in which the Philosophers have bestowed all their time & study, which to relate were here too tedious, and as fruitless. He that hath read our 8. book, wherein we selected with what Philosophers to handle this question of beatitude, whether, it were to be attained by serving one God, the maker of the rest, or the others also need not look for any repititions here, having 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 memory: if it fail him, we choose the Platonists, as worthily held the most ●…thy Philosophers, because as they could conceive that the reaso●…ble 〈◊〉 soul of man could never be blessed, but in participation of the light of God the world's creator: so could they affirm that beatitude (the aim 〈◊〉 all 〈◊〉) was un-attainable without a firm adherence in pure love, vn●…●…hangeable One: that is GOD. But because they also gave way to Pag●… 〈◊〉 (becoming vain (as Paul saith) in their own imaginations) and belee●… (〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 o●… would be thought to believe) that man was bound to honour many gods, and some of them extending this honour even to devils, (whom we have indifferently confuted:) it re●…eth now to examine (by gods grace) how these immortal and blessed creatures in heaven (be they in thrones, (a) dominations, principalities, or powers) whom they call gods, and some of them good Daemons, or ●…gels as we do, are to be believed to desire our preservation of truth in religion 〈◊〉 piety: that is (to be more plain) whether their wills be, that we should off●…r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sacrifice, or consecrate ours or ourselves unto them, or only to god, 〈◊〉 i●… both their God & ou●…: the peculiar worship of the divinity or (to spea●…e ●…preslie) the deity, because I have no one fit Latin word to express 〈◊〉: ●…d, I will use the Greek (b) Latria, which our brethren (in all translati●…) do translate, Service. But that service wherein we serve men, 〈◊〉 by the Apostle in these words, Servants, be obedient to your 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, expressed by another Greek word. But Latria, as our Euangeli●… 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 ●…her wholly or most frequently, signifieth the honour due unto GOD. I●… 〈◊〉 therefore translate it 〈◊〉 of Colo, to worship or to ti●…, w●… 〈◊〉 it with more than God, for we (c) worship [coli●…] 〈◊〉 men of honor●… memory or presence: besides Colo in general use, is prop●…●…o (d) things under us, as well as those whom we reverence or adore▪ 〈◊〉 ●…omes the word Colonus, for a husbandman, or an inhabitant. And the ●…lled Caelicolae, of Caelum, Heaven: and Colo, to inhabit, not to adore, or 〈◊〉 yet (e) as husbandmen, that have their name from the village of the ●…ossesse, but as that rare Latinist saith, Vrbs antiqua fuit, (f) Tyrij tenuêre 〈◊〉 being here the inhabitants, not the husbandmen. And hereupon the 〈◊〉 have been planted and peopled by other greater cities (as one hive ●…duceth diverse) are called colonies. So then we cannot use Colo with ●…o God without a restraint of the signification, seeing it is communi●…●…o many senses: therefore no one Latin word that I know is sufficient 〈◊〉 the worship due unto God. For though Religion signify nothing so 〈◊〉 the worship of GOD, and thereupon so we translate the Greek 〈◊〉 yet because in the use of it in Latin, both by learned and ignorant, ●…erred unto lineages, affinities, and all kindreds, therefore it will not ●…oyde ambiguity in this theme: nor can we truly say, religion is no●…t God's worship: the word seeming to be taken originally, from hu●… and observance. So Piety also is taken properly for the worship of 〈◊〉 the greeks use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: yet is it attributed also unto the duty towards 〈◊〉: and ordinarily used for (ay) the works of mercy, I think because ●…ands it so strictly, putting it in his presence (k) for, and (l) before 〈◊〉 Whence came a custom to call God, Pious. Yet the greeks never 〈◊〉) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, though they use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for mercy, or piety often. But in some 〈◊〉 more distinction) they choose rather to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God's worship, ●…lainely, worship, or good worship. But we have no one fit word ●…sse either of these. The Greek, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we translate, service, but with 〈◊〉 it only to God: their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we turn it, Religion, but still with a ●…ence to God: their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have no one word for, but we may 〈◊〉 worship: which we say is due only to him that is the true God, and ●…uants gods. Wherefore if there be any blessed immortals in hea●…●…ther love us, nor would have us blessed, them we must not serve: but God's servants. 〈◊〉 love us, and wish us happiness, then truly they wish it us from the 〈◊〉 they have it. Or shall theirs come from one stock, and ours from 〈◊〉 L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 dominations] jamblichus divides the supernal powers into Angels, Archan●…s, Heroes, Principalities and Powers, and those he saith do appear in diverse ●…ions. In mister. All the other Platonists make them but gods and Daemons. 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to serve: but it grew to be used for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to worship. Suidas. But La●…. ●…e the service of men called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for the place he quoteth is: 〈◊〉, etc. Ephes. 6. 5. Hence ariseth the dictinction of adoratio, Latria, Dulia and ●…lla makes Latria and Dulia both one, for service or bondage, and showeth it 〈◊〉 of Suidas: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Service or bondage is mercenary. For an ●…h in Xenophon: I would redeem this woman from slavery or bondage (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) 〈◊〉, O Cyrus. Cyripaed. lib. 3. then the wife replied: Let him redeem himself from bon●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) With his own life. Ibid. The scriptures also use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for to be servile, 〈◊〉, You shall do no servile work (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.) And again, Thou shall make 〈◊〉 to b●… slave to thy Prince, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.) And in job, a beggar is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 have the last syllable but one, long. (c) We worship] And so doth holy ●…tion. (d) Things under us] Rightly: for Col●… is to handle or exercise: so Dul●…. 〈◊〉 all that we use or practise, learning, arms, sports, the earth, etc. It is also to inhabit. (〈◊〉) 〈◊〉.] Such as till hired grounds are called coloni, as they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in hired houses in cities, and husbandmen that till their own ground, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…nt forth to inhabit any where, are called coloni. Thereupon grew the name of 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…olonies, to omit the greeks and Asians. The towns that send out the colonies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Metropolitan cities thereof. (f) Tyrii.] The Tyrian●… built Carthage, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Dido Elisa, that ●…ed from Pig●…lion, after the death of Sichaeus her husband. This 〈◊〉 is as common as a 〈◊〉▪ (g▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.] All one with Latria (saith Suidas) and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 are all one, belonging to the gods. For Orp●…, they say, first taught the mysteries of religion, and because h●…e was 〈◊〉 Thracian he called this duty, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: or else of Thre●… (〈◊〉 〈◊〉. o●… word) to see (h) It is ref●…rred.] Being taken for piety: which is referred to our country, p●…rents and ki●…d. ay The works.] The vulgar call the merciful godly, mercy godliness: So do the Spani●…ds, and French, that speak Latin th●… 〈◊〉▪ (k) Fore and.] These two words some copie●… 〈◊〉 (〈◊〉) 〈◊〉.] Whereupon it is said. I will have mercy and no sacrifice. Os●…. 6. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.] None of the learned use it in that sense indeed. The opinion of Plotine the Platonist, concerning the supernal. illumination. CHAP. 2. But we and those great Philosophers have no conflict about this question: for they well saw, and many of them plainly wrote that both their beatitude, ●…dours had original from the participation of an intellectual light, which they ●…nted God▪ and different from themselves: this gave them all their light, and by the 〈◊〉 of this, they were perfect & blessed▪ (a) in many places doth Plotine ex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which we call the soul of this universe, hath the beati●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with us ●…ly a light which it is not, but which made it: & 〈…〉 it hath all the intelligible splendour. This he ar●… 〈…〉 from the visible celestial bodies compared with these 〈…〉 the 〈◊〉 for (b) one, and the Moon for another, for 〈…〉 held to proceed from the reflection of the Sun. So (saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the reasona●… or intellectual soul, of whose nature all the 〈…〉, that are contained in Heaven, hath no essence above it, b●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 creat●…d both it, and all the world; nor have those supernal cre●…tures their 〈◊〉 or understanding of the truth from any other orig●…ll then ours hath: herein truly agreeing with the scripture, where it is wri●…, (〈◊〉) There was a man sent from God whose name was john, the same came for a witness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 to bear witness of the light, that almen (d) through him might believe, (e) He 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the light but 〈◊〉 to bear witness of the light. That was the true light (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (〈◊〉) that cometh into the world, which difference showeth, that 〈◊〉 ●…sonable soul which was in john could not be the own light, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…tion of ●…ther, the true light. This john himself confessed in his 〈◊〉▪ where he said, Of ●…is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all we received. L. VIVES. 〈…〉 the contemplation of that good father ariseth all beatitude. Pl●… 〈…〉 saith that our souls after their temporal labours shall enjoy 〈◊〉 〈…〉, with the soul of the universe. (b) For one.] For the Prince 〈◊〉 〈…〉 ariseth, & the M●… for the world's soul. (c) Ther was.] A 〈◊〉 〈…〉 〈◊〉 ●…ger from 〈◊〉 (& consequently john an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he could bring no such news from any but God. (d) Through him] not in him 〈◊〉 (for cursed is the man that trusteth in man) but in the light, by his testimony, yet Hier. 17 〈◊〉 cannot be distinguished to either side. (e) He was not] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: 〈◊〉, Th●…ophilact will have a mystery. The Saints are lights. You are the light of the Mat. 5. 14 Christ. for they are derived from his light. Thence followeth that: That was the true 〈◊〉 (saith Augustine?) because that which is lightened ab externo is light also, 〈◊〉 true light that enlighteneth. Or the article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, may have relation to the prece●…●…the sense be, john was not that light of which I spoke. (f) Which lighteneth] not that 〈◊〉 ●…ghtned, but because none are enlightened but by this light, or as chrysostom 〈◊〉 each man as far as▪ belongs to him to be lightened. If any do shut their ●…st the beams, the nature of the light doth not cause the darkness in them, but 〈◊〉 ●…licious depriving themselves of such a good, otherwise so generally spread 〈◊〉 word. (g) That cometh] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Origen allegorizeth upon it: it lighteneth 〈◊〉 into the world of virtues not of vices. 〈◊〉 worship of God, wherein the Platonists failed in worshipping good or evil angels, though they knew the world's creator. CHAP. 3. 〈◊〉 thus, what Platonist, or other Philosopher soever had held so, and 〈◊〉 God, and glorified him as God, and been thankful, and not become 〈◊〉 conceits, nor have been an author of the people's error, nor winked at ●…re: they would have confessed, that both the blessed immortals and 〈◊〉 mortals are bound to the adoration of one only GOD of gods, 〈◊〉 God and ours. That sacrifice is due only to the true God. CHAP. 4. 〈◊〉 owe that Greek Latria, or service, both in ourselves and sacrifices, 〈◊〉 all his temple, and each one his temples, he vouchsafing to inhabit 〈◊〉 ●…mme, and each in particular, being no more in all, then in one: for he 〈◊〉 ●…ltiplied nor diminished (b) our hearts elevated to him are his altars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 son is the priest by whom we please him: we offer him bloody sa●… we shed our blood for his truth: and incense when we burn in 〈◊〉, (c) the gifts he giveth us, we do in vows return him: his benefits 〈◊〉 unto him in set solemnities, lest the body of time should bring 〈◊〉 ungrateful oblivion: we offer him the sacrifices of humility & praises 〈◊〉 of our heart in the fire offeruent love: for by the sight of him (as we may 〈◊〉 to be joined with him, are we purged from our guilty & filthy affects 〈◊〉 ●…ted in his name: he is our blessed founder, & our desires accomplish●… we elect, or rather re-elect, for by our neglect we lost him: him there●… re-elect (whence religion is derived) and to him we do hasten with the 〈◊〉, to attain rest in him: being to be blessed by attainment of that fi●…●…tion: for our good (whose end the Philosophers jangled about) is no●… to adhere unto him, and by his intellectual and incorporeal embrace, 〈◊〉 grows great with all virtue (e) and true perfection. This good are we ●…loue with all our heart, with all our soul, and all our strength. To this 〈◊〉 ●…ught to be lead by those that love us, and to lead those we love. So is 〈◊〉 ●…mandements fulfilled, wherein consisteth all the law and the Pro●… Thou shalt love (g) thy (h) Lord thy ay God (k) with all thine heart, with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ and with all thy mind: and (l) Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 〈◊〉 a man how to love himself, was this end appointed, whereunto to refer all his works for beautitude for he that loves himself, desireth but to be blessed. And the end of this is, coherence with god. So then the command of loving his neighbour, being given to him that knows how to love himself, (m) what doth it but command and commend the love of God unto him? This Gods true worship, true piety, true religion, and due service to God only, wherefore what immortal power soever (virtuous or otherwise) that loveth us as itself, it desires we should but be his servants for beatitude, of whence it hath beautitude by serving him. If it worship not God, it is wretched, as wanting God: if it do, then will not it be worshipped for God. It rather holds, and loves to hold as the holy scripture writeth. He that sacrificeth to any gods, but the one god shall be rooted out, for to be silent in other points of religion there is none dare say a sacrifice is due, but unto god alone. But much is taken from divine worship and thrust into human honours, either by excessive humility or pestilent flattery: yet still with a reserved notice that they are men, held worthy indeed of reverence and honour, or at most (n) of adoration. But who ever sacrificed but to him whom he knew, or thought, or feigned to be a God: And how ancient a part of God's worship a sacrifice is, Cain and Abel do show full proof, God almighty rejecting the elder brother's sacrifice, and accepting the yongers. L. VIVES. ALL (a) in sum. The Church. (b) Our hearts.] Thereupon are we commanded in divine service to lift up our hearts, at the preparation to communion. Herein being admonished to put off all worldly thought, and meditate wholly upon god, lifting all the powers of our soul to speculate of his love, for so is the mind quit from guilts and lets, and made a fit temple for God. (b) His only son.] Some read, we and the priest please him with his only son, read which you like. (c) The gifts.] What we give to God, is his own, not ours, nor can we please him better, then refer what he hath given us unto him again, as the fount whence they slowed. What shall I render over to the Lord (saith the Psalmist) for all his benefits towards ●…ee? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. This is the only relation of Psa. 116. 12 13. R●…ligon. grace, if thou hast grace. (d) Re-elect.] Tully derives religion of relegendo, reading again, and calls it the knowledge of GOD, as Trismegistus doth. Lactantivis had rather derive it of religando, binding, because the religious are bound to God in bonds of Piety: Augustine of religendo, re-electing. I think because it was fittest for his present allusion. (e) True perfection.] Plato saith that a happy man by speculation of the divine pulchritude shall bring forth The sum of ●…lle eligion. true virtues, not any forms only. In convivio. (f). Thou shalt love.] O what a few laws might serve man's life! how small a thing might serve to rule (not a true Christian, but) a true man! (indeed he is no true man that knoweth not and worshippeth not Christ) What needeth all these Digests, Codes, glosses, counsels, and cautels? In how few words doth our great Master show every man his due course. Love thee that which is above aswell as thou canst, and that which is next thee like thyself, which doing thou keepest all the laws, and hast them perfect, which others attain with such toil & scarcely keep with so many ivitations and terrors. Thou shalt then be greater than Plato or Pythagoras with all their travels and numbers: then Aristotle with all his quirks and syllogisms: what can be sweeter than love? thou ●…rt taught neither to fear, fly, nor shrink. (g) Thy.] God to many, yet the most properly to his servants: and yet ever common. (h) Lord.] And therefore to be reverenced. ay God.] And only God. (k) Withal thine heart.] Love God with all thine heart (saith Augustine de doctri Christian.) that is, refer all thy thoughts: with all thy soul, that is, refer all thy life: with all thy mind that is, refer all thine understanding, unto him of whom thou hadst them all. He leaves no part of us to be given to another, but will have the fruition ofall himself. Origen explains the hart, viz the thought, work, and memory: the soul, to be ready to lose it for God's sake. The mind, to profess, or speak nothing but Godly things. (l) Thou shalt] Augustine de Doct. xp●…n, saith that all men are neighbours one to another. And so saith Christ in the first precept: for as Chysostome saith, Man is God's Image: so that he that loves man, seems to love Neighbours who be they. God. This precept is so congruent to man's nature, that the Philosophers approved it. For Nature (say they) hath joined all men in league and likeness together. And it is the first in the laws of friendship, to love our friend as ourself: for we hold him our second self. (m) What doth it] Man's desire being all upon happiness, if he love his friend as himself, he ought Our friend our second self. to de●…e to lead him the same way he goeth himself. (n) Of adoration.] For even men in the scrip●…es have a kind of reverend adoration allowed them. Of the sacrifices which God requireth not, and what he requireth in their signification. CHAP. 5. But who is so fond to think that God needeth any thing that is offered in sac●…ce? The scripture condemns them that think so diversly, one place of the Psalmist (to make short) for all: I said unto the Lord, thou art my God (a) because thou needest none of my goods. Believe it therefore God had no need of Psal. 15. 2 man's cattle, nor any earthly good of his, no not his justice: but all the worship that he giveth God, is for his own profit, not Gods. One cannot say he doth the fountain good by drinking of it, or the light, by seeing by it. Nor had the patriarchs ancient sacrifices (which now God's people (b) read of, but use not) any other intent, but to signify what should be done of us in adherence to God, and charity to our neighbour for the same end. So then an external offering, is a visible sacrament of an invisible sacrifice, that is, an holy sign. And thereupon the penitent man in the Prophet (or rather the penitent Prophet) desiring God to pardon his sins: Thou desirest no sacrifice though I would give it (saith he:) b●… thou delightest not in burnt offering: The sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit: a Psa. 51, 16, 17. 〈◊〉 br●…ken and humbled heart (O GOD) thou (c) wilt not despise. Behold here he saith, God will have sacrifices, and God will have no sacrifices. He will have no slaughtered beast, but he will have a contrite heart. So in that which he denied, was implied that which he desired. The Prophet then saying he will not ha●…e s●…ch, why do fools think he will as delighting in them? If he would not h●…e had such sacrifices as he desired (whereof a contrite heart is one) to have been signified in those other (wherein they thought he delighted) he would not have gi●…en any command concerning them in Leviticus: but there are set times appointed for their changes, least men should think he took pleasure in them, or accepted them of us otherwise, then as signs of the other: Therefore (saith another Psalm:) If I be hungry I will not tell thee for all the world is mine, and all that th●… in is: will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats, as who should say, if I Psal. 50, 1●… 13. would I would not beg them of thee having them in my power. But than addeth be their signification. Offer praise to God, and pay thy vows to the most high; And call Ver. 14, 15 upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt (d) glorify me. And in (e) another Prophet: wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my Mich. 6, 6, 7. 8 self before the high GOD? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, and with C●…es of a year old? W●…ll the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams, or with ten t●…sand rivers of Oil? Shall I give my first borne for the transgression, even the fruit of ●…y body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee O man what is good, and what the Lord requireth of thee: surely to do justice and to love mercy, and to humble ●…y self, and to walk with thy God. In these words are both the sacrifices plainly distinct, and it is showed that God respecteth not the first, that signify those he respecteth. as the Epistle (f) entitled to the Hebrews saith: To do good and to distribute forget not: for with such Heb. 13. 16 sacrifices (g) God is pleased. And as it is elsewhere: I will have Mercy and not sacrifice: this showeth that the external sacrifice is but a type of the better, and that Mercy. which men call a sacrifice is the sign of the true one. And mercy is a true sacrifice, whereupon it is said, as before: With such sacrifices God is pleased. Wherefore all the precepts concerning sacrifices, in the Tabernacle and the Temple have all reference to the love of God and our neighbour. For in these two (as is said (h) is contained all the law and the Prophets. L. VIVES. BEcause (a) thou] He is his true Lord that needeth not his goods, when the other needs his. (b) Read] So is the best copies. (c) Thou wilt] The Septuagints read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. in the third person, and so doth Augustine's text, but not the vulgar [nor our translation.] (d) Some say magnify: some honour: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Greek, and so Hierome translateth it. The difference is nothing. (e) Another Prophet] Micah. 6. careful to walk with thy God, saith Hierome from the hebrew: Theodotion hath it, take diligent heed, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, stand firm, to walk with thy God. (f) Entitled] Intimating the uncertainty concerning the author thereof. (g) God is pleased] The old copies say, let God be pleased: better than our vulgar God is deserved, promeretur. The greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: propiciatur, or placatur, is appeased. (h) Is contained] For this is the end and scope of all the law, and Prophet's precepts. Of the true, and perfect sacrifice. CHAP. 6. EVery work therefore tending to effect our beatitude by a sinful inherence with God, is a true sacrifice. Compassion shown upon a man, and not for God's sake, is no sacrifice. For a sacrifice (though offered by a man) is a divine thing and so the ancient Latinists term it: whereupon a man, consecrated wholly to God's name, to live to him, and die to the world, is a sacrifice. For this is mercy shown upon himself. And so is it written: Pity thine own soul, and please GOD. ●…el. 30. 23 And when we chastise our bodily abstinence, if we do it as we should, not making our members instruments of iniquity, but of God's justice, it is a sacrifice, whereunto the Apostle exhorteth us, saying: I beseech you therefore brethrenby the mercies of GOD that you give up your bodies, a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto GOD, which is your reasonable serving of GOD. If therefore the body being Rom. 12, 1 but servant and instrument unto the soul, being rightly used in God's service, be a sacrifice, how much more is the soul one, when it relieth upon God, and being inflamed with his love looseth all form of temporal concupiscence, as is framed according to his most excellent figure, pleasing him by perticipating of his beauty? This the Apostle adjoins in these words: And fashion not yourselves like this world, but be ye changed in newness of heart, that ye may prove what is the goodwill of God, and what is good, acceptable and perfect. Wherefore seeing the works of mercy being referred unto God, (be they done to ourselves or our neighbours) Verse 2. are true sacrifices: and that their end is nothing but to free us from misery and make us happy, by that God (and none other) of whom it is said: It is good for me to adhere (a) unto the Lord: Truly it followeth that all the whole and holy society Psam. ●…3, 28 The christ●…ans sacrifice. of the redeemed and sanctified City, be offered unto God by that (b) great Priest who gave up his life for us to become members of so great an head in (c) so mean a form: this form he offered, & herein was he offered, in this is he our priest or mediator and our sacrifice, all in this. Now therefore the Apostle having exhorted us to give up our bodies a living sacrifice, pure & acceptable to God, namely our reasonable serving of God, and not to fashion ourselves like this ●…orld, but be changed in newness of heart, that (d) we might prove what is the will of God, and what is good, acceptable and perfect, all which sacrifice we ●…re: For Isay (quoth he) through the grace that is given to me, to every one among yo●…, that no man presume to (e) understand more than is meet to understand: but that he understand according to sobriety, as GOD hath dealt to every man the measure of faith: for as we have many members in one body, and all members have not on●… office. So we being many, are one body in Christ, and every one, one another's members, having divers gifts according to the grace that is given us etc. This is the christians sacrifice: we 〈◊〉 one body with Christ, as the church celebrateth in the sacrament The sacrament of the altar. of the altar, so well known to the faithful, wherein is showed that in that oblation, the church is offered. L. VIVES. ADhere (a)] It is the greatest good. (b) Great priest] Christ, of Melchisedeochs order, not of Aaron's: He went but once to sacrifice, & that with only (to wit his crucified body) bought our peace of God. (c) So mean] Christ's manhood is the church's head: his Godhead, the life & soul. (d) We might prove] So Augustine useth this place wholly Epist. 86. which Eras●…s wonders at: the greek referring good, and acceptable, and perfect, all to the will of God. B●…t Augustine referreth them either to the sacrifice, or useth them simply without respect. And in the later sense Ambrose also useth it. (e) Understand] Or think of himself, his bre●…hren, or other matters. (f) Sobriety] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. A mediocrity of the whole life is Sobriety 〈◊〉 Tully Offic. 1. out of Plato. Sometime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (saith Tully elsewhere) is translated temp●…e, moderation, and sometimes modesty: but he doubts whether he may call it frugality T●…sc. 3. That the good Angels do so love us, that they desire we should worship God only, and not them. CHAP. 7. WOrthily are those blessed immortals placed in those celestial habitations, reioyeing in the participation of their Creator, being firm, certain and holy, by his eternity, truth & bounty: because they love us mortal wretches with a●…alous pity, and desire to have us immortally blessed also, and will not have us sacrifice to them, but to him to whom they know both us and themselves to be sacrifices. For we both are inhabitants of that in the psalm: Glorious things are Psal. 87. 2 spoken of thee, thou City of GOD: part whereof is pilgrim yet with us, and part assis●…th us with them. From that eternal city where God's unchanging will is all their-law: and from that (a) supernal court (for their are we cared for) by the ministry of the holy Angels was that holy scripture brought down unto us, that saith. He that sacrificeth to any but God alone, shallbe rooted out. This scripture, this precept is confirmed unto us by so many miracles, that it is plain enough, to whom the blessed immortals, so loving us, and wishing as themselves, would have us to offer sacrifice. L. VIVES. THat supernal (a) Court] Whence the Angels descend and minister us safety & protection. Of the Miracles whereby God hath confirmed his promises in the minds of the faithful by the ministry of his holy Angels. CHAP. 8. I Should seem tedious in revolving the Miracles of too abstruse antiquity: with what miraculous tokens God assured his promises to Abraham that in his seed Gen. 17, 1●… should all the earth be blessed, made many thousand years ago? Is it not miraculous for Abraham's barren wife to bear a son, she being of age both past childbirth & conception? that (a) in the same Abraham's sacrifices, the fire came down from Gen. 21 heaven between them as they lay divided? that the Angels foretold him their destruction of Sodom, whom he entertained in men's shapes, & from them had God's promise for a son? and by the same Angels was certified of the miraculous Gen●…s delivery of his brother Lot., hard before the burning of Sodom? whose Ge●… 9 wife being turned into a statue of salt for looking back, is a great mystery, that none being in his way of freedom should cast his eyes behind him? And what stupendious miracles did Moses' effect in Egypt by God's power for the freedom of God's people? Where pharao's Magicians (the Kings of Egypt that held God's people in thrall) were suffered to work some wonder, to have the more admired foil: for they wrought by charms and enchantments (the delights of the devils:) but Moses had the power of the God of heaven & earth, (to whom the good Angels do serve,) and therefore must needs be victor: And the Magicians failing in the third plague, strangely & mystically did Moses' effect the other 7. following: and then the hard▪ hearted Egyptians, & Pharaoh yielded Exod. 14 God's people their passage. And by and by repenting, and pursuing them, the people of God passed through the waters (standing for them, as rampires) and the Egyptians left all their lives in their depth, being then re-joined. Why should I rehearse the ordinary miracles that God showed them in the desert: the sweetening of the bitter waters by casting wood therein, the Manna from heaven, that Exod. 15 rotten when one gathered more than a set measure: yet gathering two measures the day before the Sabbath (on which they might gather none) it never putrefied at all: how their desire to eat flesh was satisfied with fowls that fell in the tents sufficient (O miracle) for all the people, even till they loathe them! how the holding up of Moses' hands in form of a cross, and his prayer, caused that not an Hebrew fell in the fight: & how the seditious, separating themselves from the society ordained by God, were by the earth swallowed up quick, to invisible pains, ●…od. 23 for a visible example. How the rock burst forth into streams being struck with Moses' rod, and the serpent's deadly bitings being sent amongst them f●…r a just plague, were cured by beholding a brazen serpent set up upon a pole, herein being both a present help for the hurt, and a type of the future destruction of death by death in the passion of Christ crucified! The brazen serpent, being for this memory reserved, and afterward by the seduced people adored as an Idol, Ezechias a religious King, to his great praise, broke in pieces. L. VIVES. IN (a) the same] This Augustine (Retract. lib. 2.) recanteth. In the tenth book (saith he speaking of this work) the falling of the fire from heaven between Abraham's divided sacrifices, is to be held no miracle. For it was revealed him in a vision. Thus far he. Indeed it was 〈◊〉 miracle because Abraham woudered not at it, because he knew it would come so to pass, and so it was no novelty to him. Of unlawful arts concerning the devils worship, whereof Porphyry approveth some, and disalloweth others. CHAP. 9 THese, and multitudes more, were done to commend the worship of one God unto us, and to prohibit all other. And they were done by pure faith and confident piety, not by charms and conjuration tricks of damned curiosity, by Magic, or (which is in name worse) by (a) Goetia or (to call it more honourably) (b) Theurgy, which who so seeks to distinguish (which none can) they say that the damnable practices of all such as we call witches, belong to the Goetie, marry the effects of Theurgy they hold laudable. But indeed they are both damnable, and bound to the observations of false filthy devils, in stead of Angels. Porphyry indeed promiseth a certain purging of the soul to be done by Theurgy, but he (d) f●…ers and is ashamed of his text: he denies utterly that one may have any recourse to God by this art: thus floateth he between the surges of sacrilegious curiosity, and honest Philosophy: For, now, he condemneth it as doubtful, perilous, prohibited, and gives us warning of it: and by and by, giving way to the praisers of it, he saith it is useful in purging the soul: not in the intellectual part that apprehendeth the truth of intelligibilities abstracted from all bodily forms: but the (e) spiritual, that apprehendeth all from corporal objects. This he saith may be prepared by certain Theurgike consecrations called (f) Teletae, The Teletae. to receive a spirit or Angel, by which it may see the gods. Yet confesseth he that these Theurgike Teletae profit not the intellectual part a jot, to see the own God and receive apprehensions of truth. Consequently, we see what sweet apparitions of the gods these Teletae can cause, when there can be no truth discerned in these visions. Finally he saith the reasonable soul (or, as he liketh better to say, the intellectual) may mount aloft, though the spiritual part have no Th●…ke preparation: and if the spiritual do attain such preparation, yet it is thereby made capable of eternity. For though he distinguish Angels and Daemons, placing these in the air, and those in the (g) sky, and give us counsel to get the amity of a Daemon whereby to mount from the earth after death, professing no other means for one to attain the society of the Angels, yet doth he (in manner, openly) profess that a Daemons company is dangerous: saying that the soul being plagued for it after death, abhors to adore the Daemons that deceived it. Nor can he deny that this Theurgy (which he maketh as the league between the Gods and Angels) dealeth with those devilish powers, which either envy the soul's purgation, or else are servile to them that envy it: A Chaldaean (saith he) a good man, complained that all his endeavour to purge his soul was frustrate, by reason a great Artyst envying him this goodness, a diured the powers (he was to deal with) by holy invocations, and bound them from granting him any of his requests. So he bound them, (saith he) and this other could not lose them. Here now is a plain proof that Theurgy is an art effecting evil as well as good both with the gods and men: and that the gods are wrought upon by the same passions and perturbations that Apuleius lays upon the devils, and men, alike: who notwithstanding (following Plato in that) acquits the gods from all such matters by their height of place, being celestial. L. VIVES. BY (a) Goetia] It is enchantment, a kind of witchcraft. Goetia, Magia, and Pharmacia Goetia, (saith Suidas) are divers kinds: invented all in Persia. Magic, is the invocation of devils, but those to good ends, as Apollonius Tyaneus used in his presages. Goetie worketh upon Magic. the dead by invocation, so called of the noise that the practisers hereof make about graves. Pharmacia, worketh all by charmed potions thereby procuring death: Magic, and Astrology, Pharmacy. Magusis (they say) invented: And the Persian Mages had that name from their countrymen, and so had they the name of Magusii. Thus far Suidas. (b) Theurgy] It calleth out the superior Theurgy. gods, wherein when we err (saith jamblichus) then do not the good gods appear, but bad ones in their places. So that a most diligent care must be had in this operation, to observe the priests old tradition to a hairs breadth. (c) Witches] Many hold that witches, and charms never can hurt a man, but it is his own conceit that doth it: Bodies may hurt bodies naturally (saith Plato de leg lib. 11.) and those that go about any such mischief with magical enchantments, or bonds, as they call them, think they can hurt others, and that others by art Goetique, may hurt them. But how this may be in nature, is neither easy to know, not make others know: though men have a great opinion of the power of Images: and therefore let this stand for a law. If any one do hurt another by empoisoning, though not deadly, nor any of his house or family, but his cattle, or his bees, if he hurt them howsoever, being a Physician, and convict of the guilt; let him die the death: if he did it ignorantly, let the judges fine or punish him at their pleasures. If any one be convicted of doing Plato's law, such hurt by charms, or incantations, if he be a priest, or a soothsaier, let him die the death: but if any one do it that is ignorant of these arts, let him be punishable as the law pleaseth in equity. Thus far Plato, de legib. lib 11. Porphyry saith that the evil Daemons are evermore the effectors of witchcrafts: and that they are chiefly to be adored that overthrow them. These devils have all shapes to take, that they please, and are most cunning and cozening in their prodigious shows, these also work in these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those unfortunate loves: all intemperancy, covetise and ambition, do these supply men with, and especially with deceit: for their propriety most especial is lying. De animal. abst. lib. 2. (d) Falters] As seeing the devils tricks in these works, selling themselves to us by those illusive operations. But jamblichus being initiate and (as he thought) more religious, held, that the art was not wholly reprovable, (being of that industry and antiquity) because that sometimes it gulls the artist: the priests must therefore divide the spirits into Classes, and remember that no good spirit will brag of his cunning. (e) Spiritual] Wherein are the abstracts of external objects, all reserved, and sent to the common sense, the fantasy, the estimation, and the memory: these, beasts have aswell as we, being common receipts of the sensible objects in both: but then we have the mind, and the ponderative judgement of reason, consisting of the two intellects the Recipient, and the agent: last of all is the will. (g) Sky] Plato to begin with the King in this rank) saith that the first kind of gods have invisible bodies: the second spread through heaven, and visible: the third the Daemons bodies, Plato's gods. twofold: the first ethereal, more pure than the other in substance: the second airy, and more grosser, but neither of these entirely visible: there are also the Semigods with marry bodies, seen, and unseen when they list, and when we see them their transparent light forms make us wonder. In Epinom. Psellus. (Out of one Mark a skilful Daemonist▪ relateth six kinds of Daemons. First the fiery, called in Barbarian Batleliureon, and these wander in the top of the airy region (for he keeps all the Daemons as profane creatures (out of a temple) under Psellus his Daemons. the moon). 2. the airy, nearer unto us. 3. the earthly, dwelling upon the earth, perilous foes unto mankind. 4. watery, dwelling in rivers, lakes and springs, drowning men often, raising storms at sea, and sinking ships. 5. the subterrene, that live in caves, and kill well-diggers, and miners for metals, causing earthquakes, and eruptions of flames, and pestilent winds. 6. nightwalkers, the dark and most inscrutable kind, striking all things they meet with cold passions. And all those devils (saith he) hate both gods and men but some worse than others. Then he proceeds to describe how they hurt men, too tediously for me to dilate. Porphyry reckoneth gods that are either heavenly, ethereal, airy, watery, earthly, or infernal, and assigns every one their proper sacrifice. The earthly must have black beasts upon alta●… so must the infernal, but in graves: the watery gods will have blackbirds thrown into the Porphyries gods. sea, the airy, white birds, killed. The celestial and aetherial white sacrifices also that must 〈◊〉 be diminished, and much more of this madness hath he in his book called Resp. ex orac. Apoll. Nor are they new inventions, but drawn all from Orpheus and Mercury, Mercury left saith jamblichus,) an hundred books of the Empyreal: an hundred of the Ethereal: and a thousand of the celestial. Proclus divides the devils into five regiments rather than siue kinds destinguishing them by their functions. But of this, enough. Augustin out of Porphyry calls their fiery gods Empyreal, whom both Plato and Porphyry seem not to distinguish from the celestial, whom they make of fiery nature. Of Theurgy that falsy promiseth to mundify the mind by the invocation of devils. CHAP. 10. BEhold now this other (and they say more learned) Platonist Porphyry, with his own Theurgy makes all the gods subject to passion and perturbation. For they may by his doctrine, be so terrifying from purging souls by those that envy their purgation, that he that meaneth evil may chain them for ever from benefiting him that desires this good, and that by this art Theurgique: that the other can never free them from this fear and attain their helps, though he use the same Art never so: Who seeth not that this is the devils mere cozenage but he that is their mere slave, and quite bard from the grace of the Redeemer? If the good gods had any hand herein, surely the good desire of Man that would purge his soul should vanquish him that would hinder it. Or if the gods were just and would not allow him it, for some guilt of his, yet it should be their own choice, not their being terrified by that envious party, nor (as he saith) the fear of greater powers that should cause this denial, ●…nd it is strange that that good Chaldean that sought to be thus purged by Theurgy could not find some higher GOD, that could either terrify the other worse, and so force them to further him, or take away their terror, and set them free from the others bond to benefit him: and yet so should this good Theurgike still have lacked the rites wherewith to purge these gods from fear first ere they came to purge his soul: For why should he call a greater GOD to terrify them, and not to purge them? Or is there a GOD that heareth the malicious, and so frights the lesser gods from doing good, and none to hear the well-minded, and to set them at liberty to do good again? O goodly Theurgy! O rare purgation of the mind! where impure envy doth more than pure devotion! No, no, avoid these damnable The devils apparitions. trap-falls of the devil, fly to the healthful and firm truth: For whereas the workers of these sacrilegious expiations do behold (as he saith) some admired shapes, of Angels, or Gods, as if their spirits were purged: why 2. Cor. 11. 14 if they do; ask the Apostles reason: For (a) Satan tranformeth himself into an Angel of light. These are his Apparitions, seeking to chain men's poor deluded souls in fallacies, and lying ceremonies, wresting them from the true, and only purging and perfecting doctrine of GOD: and as it is said of (b) Proteus, he turns himself to all shapes; pursuing us as an enemy, fawning on us as a friend, and subverting us in both shapes. L. VIVES. FOr (a) Satan] Confessed by Porphyry and jamblichus both. The devils most especial property is lying, and still they assume the faces of other Gods, saith the first. De sacrifice lib. 2. Their evil spirits often assume the shapes of good, coming with brags and arrogance to men saith the second. In mister. (b) Proteus'] Son (saith Hesiod) to Oceanus, and T●…tis: a great prophet, and as Virgil saith skilled in all things past, present and to come. Ho●…er feigneth that he was compelled to presage the truth of the Trojan war to Agam●…, and Virgil saith that Aristeus served him so also. Valerius Probus, saith he was an Egipti●…, and called Busyris for his tyranny: Virgil calls him Pallenius, of a town in Macedonia, and there was he borne (saith Servius) marry reigned (as Virgil saith) in Carpathum. Herodotus, saith he was of Memphis, and King there when Paris and Helen came into Egypt, Pro●…. and for their adultery he would let them stay there but three days. In Euterpe. Diodor●… saith that the Egyptians called him Caeteus' whom the greeks called Proteus, that he was Lib. 2. a good Astronomer, and had skill in many arts, and reigned in Egypt in the time of the Trojan war. The Egyptian Kings used always to give the half Lion, or the Bull, or Dragon for their arms, and thence the greeks had this fiction. I think he changed his escutcheon often. Of Porphyryes Epistle to Anebuns' of Egypt, and desiring him of instruction in the several kinds of Daemons. CHAP. 11. TRuly Porphyry showed more wit in his Epistle to (a) Anebuns' of Egypt, where between learning and instructing he both opens and subvertes all these sacrileges. Therein he reproveth all the Daemons that because of their foolishness do draw (as he saith) the (b) humid vapours up, unto them: and therefore are not in the sky but in the air, under the Moon, and in the moons body. Yet dares he not ascribe all the vanities to all the devils, that stuck in his mind: For some of them he (as others do) calls good: whereas before he had called them all fools. And much is his wonder why the gods should love sacrifices, and be compelled to grant men's suits. And if the gods and Daemons be distinguished by corporal, and uncorporall, why should the Sun, Moon, and other Stars visible in Heaven (whom he avoutcheth to be bodies) be called gods? and if they be gods, how can some be good, and some evil? Or being bodies, how can they be joined with the gods that have no bodies? Furthermore, he maketh doubts whether the soul of a diui●…r, or a worker of strange things, or an external spirit, cause the effect. But he conjectureth on the spirits side the rather of the two, because that they may be bound, or loosed, by (c) herbs and stones, in this or that strange operation. And some therefore, he saith, do (d) hold a kind of spirits, that properly hear us, of a subtle nature, and a changeable form, counterfeiting both gods, Daemons, and dead souls, and those are agents in all good or bad effects: But they never further man in good action, as not knowing them, but they do entangle and hinder the progress of virtue, by all means; they are rash and proud, lovers of fumigations, taken easily by flattery, and so forth of those spirits that come externally into the soul, and delude man's senses sleeping and waking: yet all this he doth not affirm; but conjectures, or doubts, or saith that others affirm, for it was hard for so great a Philosopher to know all the devils vileness fully, and to accuse it freely, which knowledge no Christian Idiot ever seeketh, but fully detesteth. Perhaps he was afraid to offend Anebuns' to whom he wrote, as a gre●… Priest of such Sacrifices, and the other (e) admirers of those things as appurtenances of the divine honours. Yet maketh he as it were an inquisitive proceeding in those things which being well pondered will prove attributes to none but malignant spirits. He asketh (f) why the best gods being inuo●…ed, are commanded as the worst, to fulfil men's pleasures: and why they will not hear one's prayers that is stained with venery, when as they have such 〈◊〉 contracts amongst themselves, as examples to others? Why they forbid their priests the use of living creatures lest they should be polluted by their smells, when as they are invoked, and invited with continual fuffumigations, and smells of sacrifices? And the sooth-saver (g) is forbidden to touch the carcase, when as their religion lies wholly upon carcases. Why the charmer threateneth not the gods, or Daemor●…s, or dead men's souls but (h) the Sun or the Moon, or such celestial bodies, fetching the truth out by this so false a terour? They will threaten to knock down the sky, and such impossibilities, that the gods being (like foolish babes) afraid of this ridiculous terror, may do as they are charged. He saith farther that one Chaeremon, one of the sacred (or rather sacrilegious) priests, hath written, that that same Egyptian Chaeremon report of ay Isis, or her husband Osiris, is most powerful in compelling of the gods to do men's pleasures, when the invoker threatens to reveal them, or to cast abroad the members of Osiris, if he do not dispatch it quickly. That these idle fond threats of man, yea unto the gods and heavenly bodies the Sun, the Moon, etc. should have that violent effect to force them to perform what men desire, Porphyry doth justly wonder at, nay rather under colour of one admiring and enquiring, he showeth these to be the actions of those ●…its whom he described under shadow of relating others opinions, to be such deceitful counterfeiters of the other gods, marry they are devils themselves without dissembling: As for the Herbs, Stones, Creatures, Sounds, Words, Characters, and (k) constellations, used in drawing the powers of those effects, all these he ascribes to the devils delight in deluding and abusing the souls that serve and observe them. So that Porphyry either in a true doubt, describeth such of those acts, as can have no reference to those powers by which we must aim at eternity, but convince themselves the false devils peculiars: or else he desireth by his humility in enquiring, not by his contentious opposing, to draw this Anebuns' (that was a great Priest in those ceremonies, and thought he knew much) unto a due speculation of these things, and to detect their detestable absurdity unto him. Finally in the end of his Epistle he desireth to be informed what doctrine of beatitude the Egyptians held. But yet he affirms that such as converse with the gods and trouble the deity about fetching again of thieves, buying of lands, marriages, bargains or such like, seem all in a wrong way to wisdom. And the gods they use herein, though they tell them true, yet teaching them nothing concerning beatitude are neither gods nor good Daemons, but either the false ones, or all is but a figment of man. But because these arts effect many things beyond all humane capacity, what remaineth, but firmly to believe, and credibly to affirm that such wonders (in word or deeds) as have no reference to the confirmation of their worship of that one God, (to whom to adhere (as the Platonists affirm) is the only beatitude) are only seducements of the deceitful fiends, to hinder man's progress to virtue, and solely to be avoided and discovered by true zeal and piety. L. VIVES. TO (a) Anebuns'] Or Anebon. (b) Humid vapours] He saith they love fumes, and smells of flesh, which fatten their spiritual bodies, which live upon vapours, and fumigations, and 〈◊〉 diversly strengthened by their diue●…sity: jamblichus (the truer Daemonist) seeing him put 〈◊〉 as an expression of the devils nature, denies it all. For Porphyry directly affirmed that all such spirits as delighted in slaughtered offerings, were evil Daemons, and liars: and consequently 〈◊〉 Porphyryes 〈◊〉 of the gods that love sacrifices. were all his gods to whom he divideth sacrifices in his Responsa, mentioned in our Co●… upon the ninth chapter of this book. Thus was he tossed between truth, and inveterate 〈◊〉, daring nei●…her affirm them all good, nor all evil, for fear of his scholars, his disciplines authority, and the devil himself. (c) Herbs] Porphyry maruells that men have the gods so obsqous, as to give presages in a little meal. This admiration, and question jamblichus (as he useth) answers with a goodly front of words, which any one may read, but neither the Egyptians, nor he himself can probably declare what they mean. The gods (saith he) exceeding in power and goodness, and the causes containing all, are wretched if they be drawn down by meal: fond were their goodness, if they had no other means to show it; and abject their nature, if it were bound from contemning of meal: which if they can do why come they not into a good mind, sooner than into good meal? (d) Do hold] Porphyry saith those evil Demons deceive both the vulgar, and the wise Philosophers, and they by their eloquence, have given propagation to the error. For the devils are violent, false, counterfeits, dissemblers & seek to embezzle gods worship. There is no harm but they love it, and put on their shapes of gods to lead us into devilish errors. Such also are the souls of those that die wicked. For their perturbations of Ire, concupiscence and mallce leave them not, but are used by these souls being now become devils, to the hurt of mankind. They change their shapes also, now appearing to us, and by and by vanishing: thus illuding both our eyes and thoughts; and both these sorts possess the world with covetise, ambition pride, and lust, whence all wars and conflicts arise: and which is worst of all, they seek to make the rude vulgar think that these things are acceptable to the gods. And poesy with the sweetness of phrase hath helped them p●…tily forwards. Thus far Porphyry de Abstin. anim. lib. 2. not in doubtful or enquiring manner, as he doth in his writing to the priest, but positively, in a work, wherein he showeth his own doctrine. (e) admirers] The Philosophers whom he saith erred themselves concerning the gods natures, some in favour of the gods, and some in following of the multitude. (f) Why the best] Thus he begins, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. etc. Of those that are called gods but are 〈◊〉 wicked D●…mones. (g) The soothsayer] Epoptes, the proper word for him that looks on th●…r sacrifice. (h) The Sun] So saith Lucan his Thessalian witch, that she can force the gods 〈◊〉 what she list. Lucan's. ay Isis or] These are the Sun and Moon. Their secret ceremonies being Isis. most beastly and obscene, the devils fear to have them revealed (as Ceres did) 〈◊〉 else delude their worship by counterfeit fear, and so make use of their fond error. This Osiris. of Isis and Osiris belongs to the infernals also; for Porphyry saith the greatest devil is called Serapis and that is Osiris, in Egypt, and Pluto in Greece, his character is a three headed dog, signifying the devils of the earth, air and water. His Isis, is Hecate or Proserpina: so it is plain that this is meant of the secrettes of hell, which have mighty power in magical practices. These doth Erichtho in Lucan threaten to the Moon, the infernals, and Ceres sacrifices. The Poet expresseth it thus. — Miratur Erichtho, Has satis licuisse moras, iratàque, morti Uerberat immotum vivo serpent cadaver. Perque cavas terrae quas egit carmine r●…mas Manibus illatrat, regnique silentia rumpit. Ty●…iphone, vocisque meae secura Megaera, Non agitis s●…uis Erebi per inane flagellis Infelicen animam? I am vos ego nomine ver●…, Eliciam, stigiasque canes in luce superna Destituam: per busta sequar: per funera custos Expellam tumulis, abigam vos omnibus urnis. Teque this, ad quos alio procedere vultu. Ficta soles Hecate, pallenti tabida formae Ostendam, faciemque Erebi mutare vetabo▪ Eloquar immenso terrae sub pondere, quae te Contineant Ennaea dapes, quo foedere moestum, Regem noctis ames, quae te contagia passam, Noluerit revocare Ceres: tibi pessimé mundi, Arbiter immittam ruptis I itana cavernis, Et subito feriere die. — Erichtho wonders much, At fates de●…ay, and with a living snake She lashed the slaughtered corpse, making death quake, Een-through the rifts of earth, rend by her charms, She barks in hell's broad ear these black alarms, Stone-deaf Megaera and Tisiphone, Why scourge yea not that wretched soul to me From hell's huge depths? or will you have me call ye, By your true names, and leave ye? (foul befall ye) You Stygian dogs, I'll leave you in the light, And see the graves and you disseverd quite. And Hecate, thou that art never known But in false shapes, I'll show thee in thine own: Whole heaven (perforce) shall see thy putrid hue▪ And from earth's guts will I rip forth to view The feasts, and means that make thee Pluto's whore, And why thy mother fet thee thence no more, And thou (the world's worst King) al-be thou dead In darkness, I will break through all, and send Strange light amid thy caves. And Porphiry (in Respons.) brings in Hecate compelled to answer the magician▪ — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. — Why do●… thou blind us so Theodamas, what wouldst thou have us do. Apollo also confesseth that he is compelled to tell truth against his will▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. I answer now perfore, as bound by Fate, An●… by and by calleth to be loosed:— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. loose the left ring. Porphiry also said (as jamblicus writeth in Mister) that the Priests were wont to use violent threats against the Go●…s, as thus: if you do not this, or if you do that, I will break down Heaven I will reveal Isis her secrets, and divulge the mystery hid in the depth: I will stay the Baris (a sacred shipin Egypt) and cast Osiris' members to Typhon. Now jamblichus saith those threats tend not to the gods, but there is a kind of spirits in the world, confused, undiscreet, and inconsiderate, that heareth from others, but no way of itself and can neither discern truths nor possibilities from the contraries. On these do those threatenings work, and force them to all duties. Perhaps this is them that Porphiry giveth a foolish will unto: jamblichus proceedeth to the threats▪ read them in him. (k) Constellations.] Prophiry writeth out of Chaeremon, that that astrology is of man incomprehensible: but all these constellated works, and prophecies, are taught him by the devils. But jamblichus opposeth him in this, and in the whole doctrine of devils. The man is all for this prodigious superstition, and laboureth to answer Prophyry for Anebuns'. Of the miracles that God worketh by his Angel's ministry. CHAP. 12. But all miracles (done by angels or what ever divine power) confirming the true adoration of one God unto us, (in whom only we are blessed) we believe truly are done by God's power working in them immortals that loue●…s in true piety. Hear not those that deny that the invisible God worketh visible miracles: is not the world a miracle? Yet visible, and of his making. Nay, all the mi●…les done in this world are less than the world itself, the heaven and earth Man a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. and all therein, yet God made them all, and after a manner that man cannot conceive nor comprehend. For though these visible miracles of nature, be now no more admired, yet ponder them wisely, and they are more admirable than the strangest: for man is (a) a greater miracle than all that he can work. Wherefore God that made heaven and earth (both miracles) scorneth not as yet to work miracles in heaven and earth, to draw men's souls that yet affect visibilities, unto the worship of his invisible essence. But where and when he will do this, his unchangeable will only can declare: (b) at whose disposing all time past hath been, and to come, is. He moveth all things in time, but time adoreth not him, nor moveth he future effects otherwise then present. Nor heareth our prayers otherwise then he foreseeth them ere we pray for when his Angels here them, he heareth in them, as in his true temples (not made with hands) & so doth he hold all things effected temporally in his Saints, by his eternal disposition. L. VIVES. MAn is a (a) greater] The saying is most common in Trismegistus: Man is a great miracle. (b) At whose disposing] Paul saith all things lie open and bare unto God's knowledge, for all time is neither past nor to come, but present to him. So doth he determine, and dispose of all things as present, nor doth yesterday, or this day, pass or come with him, as it doth with us. His power and essence admitreth no such conditions, nor restraintes: All eternity is present to All time 〈◊〉 to God. him, much more our little parcel of time: yet he that made our souls, adapted them times fit for their apprehensions: and though he see how we see and know, yet he neither seeth nor knoweth like us. Shall we run on in a Philosophical discourse hereof, wanting rather words then matter, or is it bett●…r to burst out with Paul into admiration, and cry out. O the altitude of the riches, wisdom, and knowledge of God! How the invisible God hath often made himself visible, not, as he is really but as we could be able to comprehend his sight. CHAP. 13. NOr hurteth it his invisibility to have appeared (a) visible oftentimes unto the fathers. For as the impression of a sound of a sentence in the intellect, is not the same that the sound was: so the shape wherein they conceived Gods invisible nature, was not the same that he is: yet was he seen in that shape, as the sent●…e was conceived in that sound, for they knew that no bodily form could (b) contain God. He talked with Moses, yet Moses entreated him (a) If I have found 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy fight, show mee thy face, that I may (d) know thee. And seeing it behou●… the law of God to be given from the mouths of Angels with terror, not to 〈◊〉 33 〈◊〉. a 〈◊〉 of the wisest, but to a whole nation, great things were done in the mount 〈◊〉 ●…he said people, the law being given by one, and all the rest beholding the ●…ble and strange things that were done. For the Israelites had not that confidence in Moses that the Lacedæmonians had in (d) Lycurgus, to believe that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his laws from jove or Apollo. For when that law was given the people, that enjoins the worship of one God, in the view of the same people were strange proo●… shown (as many as God's providence thought fit) to prove that that was the Creator whom they his creatures ought to serve in th●… 〈◊〉. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) visible] john in his Gospel saith, that no man hath ever seen God: and Paul con●… Whether the Father's ●…aw God or no. it, yet jacob saith, He saw the Lord face to face. And Exod. 33. it is said Moses' 〈◊〉 God face to face, as one friend with another: which many places of Scripture te●… 〈◊〉 is so sure that man cannot behold Gods invisible nature, that some have said that 〈◊〉 Angels nor Archangels do see him. Chrysost. and Gregor. The fathers therefore 〈◊〉 such Majesty of form as they thought was divine: for that the Angels spoke 〈◊〉 ●…ers, and gave them the law, Paul affirmeth to the Hebrews in these words. If Heb 2. 2. 〈◊〉 ●…ken by Angels was steadfast, etc. The same saith Steven. Acts. 7. Now this was no 〈◊〉, (for none he hath) saith chrysostom, that Christ saith the jews never saw, 〈◊〉 was that visible shape that the Angels (by God's appointment) take upon them, so Io 5 37. 〈◊〉 ●…ing ordinary shapes, that it seems divine, and is a degree to the view of the 〈◊〉 (saith he) Christ saith they had not seen, though they thought they had Exo. 19 〈◊〉] A diverse reading in the Latin. (c) If I have] It is plain saith Gregory that 〈◊〉 life, man may see some images of God, but never himself in his proper nature: as 〈◊〉 ●…pired with the spirit, seemeth some figures of God, but can never reach the view of 〈◊〉. Hence it is that jacob seeing but an Angel, thought he had seen God: And 〈◊〉 for all he was said to speak with him face to face, yet said: Show me thy face that I 〈◊〉: whence it is apparent that he desired to behold that clear uncircumscribed 〈◊〉 ●…ch he had but yet beheld in shadows and figures. Moralan job. lib. 17. But the An●… 〈◊〉 deputy) answered Moses thus: Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man Exo. 33. 20 ve●…se 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l●…e. But a little after: Thou shalt see my back parts: but my face thou shalt not see. 〈◊〉 of the deity left in his creatures we may see, and so aspire towards his invisibility: 〈◊〉 knowledge thereof as God gives more grace. But his true essence is more am●… weak sense and intellect can comprehend: or then can be so far debased. But 〈◊〉 ●…th God it is not so, nor do I think it impious or absurd to hold that God spoke 〈◊〉 ●…he Fathers, and after Christ to many of the Saints: God, even that God of hea●… 〈◊〉; it is not against his Majesty, but congruent to his infinite goodness. His face 〈◊〉 as Augustine declares. (d) Know thee] Or see thee knowingly. (e) Lycurgus] Lycurgus. 〈◊〉 King of Sparta, and Dionassa, brother to king Polibites, or (Plutarch) Poli●… 〈◊〉 whose death, he reigned until his brother's wife proved with child: for than he 〈◊〉 ●…o the child unborn, if it were a son, and proving so, he was protector. He gave 〈◊〉 ●…nians sharp laws, and therefore feigned to have them from Apollo of Delphos: 〈◊〉 jove, because he went into Crete, (to avoid the malevolence of some of his 〈◊〉) and there they say, learned he his laws of jove, that was borne there; justine 〈◊〉 in Crete: But the Historiographers do neither agree of his birth, laws, nor 〈◊〉 Plutarch) nor of his time, nor whether there were diverse so called. Timaeus 〈◊〉, and both Lacedæmonians: but saith that both their deeds were referred to the 〈◊〉 ●…e elder lived in Homer's time, or not long after. Of Lycurgus' laws, I omit to 〈◊〉 seeing they are so rife in Plutarch and Zenophon, common authors both. 〈◊〉 but one God is to be worshipped for all things, temporal and eternal: all being in the power of his providence. CHAP. 14. 〈◊〉 true religion of all mankind (referred to the people of God) as well 〈◊〉 hath had increase, and received more and more perfection, by the suc●… and continuance of time, drawing from temporalities to eternity, and ●…ges visible to the intellectual: so that even then when the promise of ●…wards was given, the worship of one only God was taught, lest man●…●…ld be drawn to any false worship for those temporal respects: for he is 〈◊〉 denieth that all that men or Angels can do unto man, is in the hand of ●…ghty: Plotine the Platonist (a) disputes of providence, proving it to be de●…●…om the high, ineffable & beauteous God, (b) unto the meanest creature on earth, (c) by the beauty of the flowers, and leaves: all which so transitory, momentary things, could not have their peculiar, severally-sorted beauties, but from that intellectual and immutable beauty forming them all. This our Saviour showed, saying: Learn how the Lilies of the field do grow: they labour not, neither 〈◊〉, yet say I unto you that even (d) Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like M●…. 6. 2●…. 29. 30. one of these: Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field which is to day, and 〈◊〉 ●…orrow is cast into the Oven, shall not he do much more unto you; O you of little faith? Wherefore though the mind of man be weak, and clogged with earthly affects, and desires of those things that are so frail and contemptible in respect of the blessings celestial (though necessaries for this present life) yet doth it well to desire them at the hands of one only GOD, and not to depart from his service to obtain them elsewhere, when they may soon attain his love by neglect of such trifles, and with that love all necessaries both for this life, and the other. L. VIVES. PLatonist (a) disputeth] In four books, showing that the least part of this inferior world is respected by the Prince of nature, and that by the intelligible world, which is with God, this world of ours was made: many that the depression hath altered it, that the other simple God●… pro●…. world produced this multiplied, and dispersed. (b) Unto the meanest] For some held that God's providence descended no lower than heaven. This same opinion some say was Aristotle's, of which elsewhere: Others held that the Gods meddled only with the greatest affairs on earth, and (as Kings) meddled not with petty matters: whereupon Lucan maketh C●…sar speak thus to his mutinous soldiers: — Nunquam se cura deorum Sic premit, ut vestra vitae, vestraeque saluti Fata vacent: procerum motus haec cuncta sequuntur. H●…i paucis vinit genus.— etc. — The gods do not respect Your good so much, as to permit the fates To tend on that: they manage greater states, Mankind may live with small.— etc. (c) By the beauty] Every flower hath such an apt form, growth, bud, seed, and spring, that he that observes it, must needs say, the workman of this, is none but God. God's providence (saith Proclus) descends from above unto each parcel of the creation, omitting none. B●… seeing Plato is for us, what need we cite his followers? He affirms God's providence to dispose of every little thing, and every great. In Epniom. having disputed of it, De legib. lib. 10. The sum whereof is this: Seeing there are gods, they must not be thought idle: therefore they look to humane affairs: and knowing all, they know both little and great: being far from 〈◊〉 and sluggishness: nor is their power a whit less, in the least businesses, nor do they think it vn●…thy their majesty to respect them, for they are degrees to the highest. Therefore they regard all things, great and small. (d) Solomon] What purple, silk, or die (saith Hierome upon this place) 〈◊〉 ●…le to the flowers? what is so white as the Lily? what purple exceeds the Violet? Let 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather judges in this, than the tongue. Thus far he. And truly Art can never attain 〈◊〉 perfection, imitate how it can: though our esteem prefer it, and seeing it get a 〈◊〉 by ●…lation, attribute much more to it. Of the holy Angels that minister to God's providence. CHAP. 15. IT ●…sed the divine providence therefore so to dispose of the times, that as I said, and we read in the acts, the law should be given (a) by the angels mouths, concerning the worship of the true God, wherein God's person (not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proper substance, which corruptible eyes can never see, but by certain ●…sitions of a creature for the creator) would appear, and speak syllabi●… a man's voice, unto us: even he that in his own nature speaketh not ●…lly but spiritually, not sensibly but intelligibly, not temporally, but (as 〈◊〉 ●…y) aeternal, neither beginning speech, nor ending: whom his blessed ●…ortall messengers and ministers heard not with ears, but more sincere●… intellects: and hearing his commands after an ineffable manner, they in●…●…nd easily frame to be delivered us in a visible and sensible manner. 〈◊〉 was given (as I say) in a division of time, first having all earthly pro●…●…hat were types of the goods eternal, which many celebrated in visible 〈◊〉, but few understood. But there the true religious worship of one 〈◊〉 God, is directly and plainly taught and testified, not by one of the peo●… by him that made heaven and earth, and every soul and spirit that is not 〈◊〉: for he maketh them that are made, and have need of his help that 〈◊〉, in all their existence. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 Angels mouths] Or by their disposing, as God's ministers in those miracles. Of ●…-after. Whether in this question of beatitude we must trust those Angels that refuse the divine worship, and ascribe it all to one God, or those that require it to themselves. CHAP. 16. 〈◊〉 Angels shall we trust then in this business of eternal bliss. Those 〈◊〉 require mortal men to offer them sacrifice and honours, or those 〈◊〉 it is all due unto GOD the Creator, and will us most piously, to give 〈◊〉 it all, as one, in the only speculation of whom we may attain 〈◊〉 ●…inesse. For the sight of GOD, is a sight of that beauty, and worthy 〈◊〉, that Plato (a) did not doubt to call him that wanted this, unhappy, 〈◊〉 ●…euer such store of goods besides. Seeing then that some Angel's re●… this religious worship to him, and some would have it themselves: 〈◊〉 ●…fusing all part of it, and the second not daring to forbid him of part 〈◊〉 the Platonists, Theurgiques', (or rather (b) Periurgikes, for so may all Periurgikes 〈◊〉 be fitly termed) or any other Philosophers answer which we 〈◊〉 ●…llow. Nay let all men answer that have any use of naturalll reason, ●…her we shall sacrifice to these Gods or Angels that exact it, or to 〈◊〉 to whom they bid us, that forbid it both to themselves and the 〈◊〉 If neither of them did any miracles, but the one side demanded sacri●…, and the others said no, GOD must have all, than aught piety to discern 〈◊〉 the pride of the one and the virtue of the other. Nay, I will say 〈◊〉, if these that do claim sacrifice should work upon men's hearts with 〈◊〉, and those that forbid it, and stand all for GOD, should not have 〈◊〉 at all to work the like, yet their part should gain more by reason, 〈◊〉 others by sense: But seeing that GOD, to confirm his truth, hath 〈◊〉 ministery, that debase themselves for his honour, wrought more great, clear, and certain miracles, than the others, lest they should draw wea●…e hearts unto their false devotion by inveigling their senses with amazements▪ who is so grossly fond, as will not choose to follow the truth, seeing it T●… 〈◊〉 excel the Pagans. confirmed with more miraculous proves? for the recorded miracles of the Pagan gods (I speak not of such as time and natures secret causes by God's providence, have produced beyond custom, as monstrous births, sights in the air and earth, fearful, or hurtful also, (c) all which the devils subtlety persuaded the world, they both procured and cured) I mean of such as were their evident acts, as the (d) remoovall of the gods (that Aeneas brought from Troy) from place to place by themselves: (e) Tarquins cutting of a Whetstone (f) the Epidaurian serpents (g) accompanying Esculapius in his transportation to Rome: the (h) drawing on of the ship that brought Berecynthia's statue from Phrygia (being otherwise not to be moved by so huge strength of men and beasts) by one woman with her girdle, in testimony of her chastity: and the (ay) carrying of water from Tiber in a siue by a (k) vestal, thereby acquitting herself from an accusation of adultery. These, nor such as these, are comparable to those, done in presence of the people of GOD, either for rarity or greatness. How much less than the strange effects of those arts which the Pagans themselves did legally prohibit, namely of Magic and Theurgy, (l) many whereof are mere Deceptiones visus, and flat falsehoods indeed, as the (m) fetching down of the Moon, till (saith Lucan) she spume upon such herbs as they desire. Now though some in their art seem to come near others of the Saints wondrous deeds, yet their end that discerneth the latter ones far to excel the first, theirs. For their multitude, the more sacrifi●…ices they desire, the fewer they deserve. But ours do but prove unto us one, that needeth no such, as he hath showed both by his holy writ, and whole abolishment of them ceremonies afterwards. If therefore these Angels require sacrifice, then are these their betters that require none, but refer all to God: for herein they show their true love to us, that they desire not our subjection to them, by sacrifice, but unto him in contemplation of whom is their felicity, and desire to see us joined to him from whom they never are separate. But suppose the other Angels that seek sacrifices for many, and not for one only, would not have them for themselves, but for the gods they are under; The angel's 〈◊〉 god. yet for all this are the other to be preferred before them, as being under b●… one GOD, to whom only they refer all religion, and to none other: and the other no way daring to forbid this GOD all worship, to whom the former ascribe all. But if they be neither good Angels nor GOD'S, (as their proud falseness proveth) but wicked devils, desiring to share divine honours with that one glorious GOD, what greater aid can we have ag●…inst them then to serve that GOD, to whom those good Angels serve, that ch●…ge us to sacrifice not to them but unto him, to whom ourselves ought to be a sacrifice? L. VIVES. PLato (a) did●… It i●…●…is in many places: all things without virtue, and the knowledge of the true 〈◊〉 is vile and abject. (b) Per-●…gikes] Of 〈◊〉, to burn, most like●… (c) All which] By sacrifice (saith Ualerius) are the presages of visions and thunders procured. The Etrurians used the art, and Numa brought it to Rome. It is much mentioned in 〈◊〉, Seneca, Livy, and other Latin authors. Procurare is in this place to sacrifice to such a Procurare. 〈◊〉 (as fitteth the time) to make the event prosperous. (d) Remoovall) Ual. lib. 1. They were brought to Lavinium, and placed there by Aeneas, and being borne to Alba by Ascanius, the●…●…ned to their other seat again: and because they might be perhaps se●…retly rem●…▪ they were brought to Alba again, and they departed the second time. (e) Tarquins] He ●…ing to increase the number of his trained soldiers, Actius Naevius the Augur forb●… Actius Naevius, Augur ●…till he had beheld the Auguries. Tarquin, to scoff his art: Presage by th●… art (〈◊〉 he) whether my thoughts shall come to pass: It shall (quo●…h Actius, out of his 〈◊〉:) 〈◊〉 this Whetstone (quoth Tarquin) with this razor. He did ●…t in that full presence, and whilst he lived ever after was honourably respected, and had a statue erected h●… in that 〈◊〉 where it was done (namely the Consistory) with a Whe●…tone and a r●…zor, as te●… of the fact. Liu. lib. 1. G●…ero de divinat lib. 1. but they say Actius cut it, not Tarquin. (f) 〈◊〉 Epidaurian] This is that Aesculapius that was brought from his Temple (five miles 〈◊〉 ●…aurus) to Rome, in form of a Serpent. The great devil it was surely (saith Lactan●…●…out ●…out The 〈◊〉 ●…pent. dissembling: for the Scriptures call him a Serpent, and ●…herecides the Syrian 〈◊〉 ●…y all have serpentine feet. (g) Accompanying] Nay the serpent itself was Aes●…, unless they held him invisible, and this serpent his companion visible. Aesculapius' 〈◊〉 ●…ted with a Serpent wound about a rod, and called Ophinchus, that is, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was a statute also that Physicians should use Snakes. Higin. Histor. Caelest. Plini●… t●…kes the Snake was sacred to him, because it is so medicinable: but Macrobius saith, be●… is so quicksighted. Horace. Cur in amicorum vitium tam cernis acutum, Quam aut aquila, aut serpens Epidaurius? Why dost into thy friends ill carriage pry, With a quick Eagles, or a Serpent's eye? 〈◊〉 ●…ing] The ship that came from Pessinuns with the Mother of the gods, sticking im●… in Tiber, on ground, Q. Claudia a Vestal, (slandered for incontinency because Claudia a Vestal. 〈◊〉 to go handsome) took her girdle, and knitting it to the ship, prayed Berecyn●…●…ee ●…ee knew her chaste to follow her, and so she did, whereupon Claudia had a statue 〈◊〉 the goddesses temple, that stood safe when the Temple was twice burned, Liu. l. 2. 〈◊〉. Ualer. Maximus. ay Carrying of water] A diverse reading: but of no mo●… (〈◊〉) A Vestal] Turria. Ualer. lib. 8. (l) Many] men's thoughts often make them 〈◊〉 see that which they see not indeed, and this is often done by a Phant●…sme, or ap●…▪ And hence is most of our reports of spirits walking, arisen. Yea the spirits them●… deceive our senses: which is no wonder, seeing that our jugglers can do the like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 main, which if another should do, you should have some make a miracle of: Iugler●…. 〈◊〉 doings truly are admirable, and their manner very hard to conceive. Some 〈◊〉 are not done but by the devils means: not so: they are but the quick conuey●… and exercise, their swift motion preventing our eye-sights: So doth he that 〈◊〉 bread and blows forth meal: and he that drinks, and lets it out at his throat. 〈◊〉 ●…ople will marvel to see them eat daggers, spew heaps of needles, laces, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak of the tricks of natural Magic, making men look headless, and 〈◊〉 like Asses●…●…nd spreading a Vine all over the room. Many know the reasons hereof: 〈◊〉 ●…e written of and easily done by men, much more by the devils, that are such cunning 〈◊〉. That the Pagans suspected their gods miracles to be but illusions, or saigned ●…tions, Ualerius showeth plainly, lib. 1. I know (saith he) the doubtful opinion of 〈◊〉, concerning the god's speech and apparitions, objected to men's ●…ares and eyes, but 〈◊〉 they are old traditions, let us believe their authors, and not detract from the autho●… reverend and antic doctrine. And Livy saith in diverse places that the dangerous Illusion●…. 〈◊〉 men's thoughts so scrupulous, that they believed and reported far more myra●… were true. (m) Fetching down] Of the Magician's power Lucan writeth thus. — Illis et Sydera Primum, Praecipiti deducta polo Phaebeque serena, Non aliter diris verborum obsessa venenis, Palluit et nigris, terrenisque ignibus arsit. Quam si fraterna prohiberet imagine tellus, I●…sereretque s●…as flammis c●…lestibus umbras. Et patitur tant●…s cantu depress●… labores, Do●…ec suppositas propior despumet in herbas. — They first disrobed the spheres, Of their clear greatness, and Phoebe in her station, With black enchantments and damned Invocation, They strike as red, or pale, and make her fade, As if the Sun casting earth's sable shade Upon her front, this alteration made, So plague they her with harms, till she come nigher, And spume upon such herbs as they desire. So in Virgil, a witch saith she can turn the course of the stars. Aeenid. 4. And Apuleius his witch could weaken the gods, and put out the stars. And Ovid saith of Medea. Illa reluctantem cursu deducere lunan Nititur, & tenebras addere solis ●…quis. She works to fetch swift Phoebe from her chair, And wrap the suns bright steeds in darkened air. For they believed that charms would fetch the Moon down from heaven. Uirg. Pharma●…. Carmin●…●…el ●…lo possunt deducere lunan: Charms force the silver Moon down from her sphere: And Phaedra's nurse in Seneca's Hippolytus, worshippeth the Moon in these terms. Sic te Lucidi vultus ferant, Et nube ruptâ, cornibus puris eas: Sic te gerentem frena nocturni ●…theris, Detrab●…re nunquam Thessali cantus queant. So be thy face unshrouded, And thy pure horns unclouded! So be thy silver chair far from the reach Of all the charms that the Thessalians teach. And in these troubles they held that making of noise helped the moon, and kept her from hearing the enchanters words: whereupon they sounded cymbals, and bet upon drums and b●…sens: for this, they thought a singular help. Propert. Cantus et é curru lun●…m deducere tentant, Et facerent, si non aer●… repulsa sonent. Charms seek to draw down Phoebe from her seating, And would, but for the noise of basins beating. And I●…all speaking of a woman that was an everlasting prater, saith: Vn●… laboranti, p●…terit succurrerre lunae. Her only voice would keep the moon from charms. They used it also in Eclipses, not knowing their cause. Pliny speaking of the first declarers hereof saith: 〈◊〉 ●…n, and learned that discovered much in the law of nature, more than others, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of s●… stars or some mischief to beefall them in their eclipses, Pindarus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (both great scholars) were subject to this fear, the failing of the Sun and moons light▪ 〈◊〉 (said they) the power of witchcraft upon them, and therefore men b●… it from them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…d confused sounds. Nor is it any wonder those learned men shoul●… A●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 t●…e 〈◊〉. believe that the Moon was set from heaven, when as there was a sort of men (since we co●… remember) that believed that an ass had drunk up the moon, because drinking in the 〈◊〉 where it shun, a cloud came on the sudden, and covered it: so the ass was impriso●…▪ 〈◊〉 ●…ing had a very lawful, and orderly trial, was ripped up, to have the Moon 〈◊〉 of his belly, to shine in the world again. (n) She spumed] This they held was the 〈◊〉 of Cerberus dog unto the Moon, Hecate, or Proserpina, and the Enchantresses, 〈◊〉 it much in their witchcrafts. Of the Ark of the testament and the miracles wrought to confirm this law and promise. CHAP. 17. 〈◊〉 we of God, given by the Angels, commanding the worship of one God, and forbidding all other, was put up in an Ark called the Ark of the 〈◊〉: Whereby is meant that GOD (to whose honour all this was 〈◊〉 was not included in that place or any other, because he gave them 〈◊〉 answers from the place of the Ark, and showed miracles also from 〈◊〉: but that the Testament of his will was there: The law (that was 〈◊〉 upon tables of stone and put in the Ark) being there: Which 〈◊〉 in their travel, carried in a Tabernacle, gave it also the name of 〈◊〉 ●…nacle of the Testament, which the Priests with due reverence did 〈◊〉▪ And their sign was a pillar of a cloud in the day, which shone in the night Exod. 13. 〈◊〉▪ and when it removed, the tents removed, and where it stayed, they rested. 〈◊〉, the law had many more great testimonies given for it, besides what I have 〈◊〉 besides those that approached out of the place where the Ark stood: for 〈◊〉 ●…ey and the Ark were to pass jordan, into the land of promise, The water's 〈◊〉 lef●… them a dry way▪ Besides having borne it 7. times about the first City ●…os 4. jos. 6. 1 King●…. 5. th●… 〈◊〉 their foe, and (as the ●…and was then) slave to Paganism, the walls fell flat 〈◊〉 ●…thout ruin or battery. And when they had gotten the land of Promise, & 〈◊〉 Ark (for their sins) was taken from them, and placed by the victor Idola●…●…ir▪ chief gods temple, and locked fast in, coming again the next day, 〈◊〉 ●…nd their Idol thrown down and broken all to pieces: and being terrifi●…●…se prodigies (besides a more shameful scourge) they restored the Ark 〈◊〉 they took it from. And how? They set it upon a carriage yoking kine in 〈◊〉 ●…eifers▪) whose calves they took from them, and so (in trial of the divine 〈◊〉 ●…rn'd them loose to go whether they would: They without guide came ●…ght to the Hebrews, never turning again for the bleating of their Calves, but ●…ought home this great mystery to those that honoured it: These and such like ●…thing to God, but much to the terror and instruction of man. For if the Phi●…ers (chiefly the Platonists) that held the providence of God to extend 〈◊〉 thing great and small, by the proof drawn from the several forms ●…auties of herbs and flowers as well as living creatures, were held to be more 〈◊〉 persuaded then the rest: How much more do these things testify the Deity ●…ing to pass at the hour when this religion was taught, that commandeth ●…tion of one God, the only loving and beloved God, blessing all, limi●…●…hese sacrifices in a certain time, and then changing them into better by 〈◊〉 Priest: and testifiing hereby that he desireth not these, but their signifi●…, not to have any honour from them neither, but that we by the fire of 〈◊〉 might be inflamed to adore him, and adhere unto him, which is all for our 〈◊〉 good, and addeth nothing to his. Against such as deny to believe the scriptures, concerning those miracles shown to God's people. CHAP. 18. Will any one say there was no such miracles; all is lies? He that saith so and takes a way the authority of scripture herein, may as well say that the Gods The devils work wonders for their worship. respect not men. For they had no mean but miracles, to attain their worship, wherein their Pagan stories show how far they had power to prove themselves always rather wonderful then useful. But in this our work (whereof this is the tenth book) we deal not against Atheists, nor such as exclude the gods from dealing in man's affairs, but with such as prefer their gods, before our God, the founder of this glorious City: knowing that he is the Creator invisible & im●…table of this visible and changeable world, and the giver of beatitude, from none of his creatures, but from himself intyrely. For his true Prophet saith: It is good for me to adhere unto the Lord. The Philosophers contend about the final good Ps. 72. (a) to which all the pains man takes hath relation. But he said not, it is good for me to be wealthy, honourable or invested a King: Or (as some of the Philosophers shamed not to say) It is good for me to have fullness of bodily pleasure: Or (as the better sort said) It is good for me to have virtue of mind: But he said: It is good for me to adhere unto God. This had he taught him, unto whom: only both the Angels, and the (b) testimony of the law do reach all sacrifice to be due: So that the Prophet became a sacrifice unto him, being inflamed with his intellectual fire, and holding a fruition of his ineffable goodness in a holy desire to be united to him. Now if these men of many gods in the discourse of their miracles, give credence to their histories and magical; Or (to speak to please them) Theurgicall books, why should not the scripture be believed in these other, who are as far beyond the rest as he is above the others, to whom only these our books teach all religious honour to be peculiar? L. VIVES. TO (a) which all Tully (stoically) divided man's offices or duties into two parts, absolute, referred to the absolute virtues, wisdom, etc. and so to good ends, and this the greeks call Offices. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Latins rectum, a thing well done, containing all virtuous acts: the other is referred to the rules of common life, and hath always a probable reason why it hath this effect rather than that. This is called medium, a mean or community, possible to be drawn to a wise or to a foolish event. Such actions concern common weals▪ honours, riches. etc. (b) Testimony of] Miracles, saith one copy, and another otherwise, all comes to one purpose. The reason of that visible sacrifice that the true religion commands us to offer unto one God. CHAP. 19 But as for those that think visible sacrifices pertain to others, and invisible to him, as only invisible, as greater to the greater, and better to the better, (〈◊〉: the duties of a pure heart, and an holy will) verily these men conceive not that the other are Symbols of these, as the sound of words, are significations of things. Wherhfore as in our praises and prayers to him, we speak vocal words, but offer the contents of our hearts, even so we in our sacrifice, know that we must offer thus visibly to none but him to whom our hearts must be an invisible sacrifice For then the Angels, and predominate powers do (a) rejoice with us and further us with all their power and ability. But if we offer unto them, they are not willing to take it, and when they are personally sent down to men, they expressly forbid it. And this the (b) Scriptures testify: Some held that the Angels were either to have adoration, or (that which we owe The Angels refuse honours. Apoc. 19 only to God) sacrifice: but they were forbidden, and taught that all was only Gods & lawfully given him. And those Angels the Saints did follow (c) Paul & Barnabas being in Lycaonia, the people (for a miraculous cure) held them gods, and Acts. 〈◊〉 would have sacrificed unto them, but they humbly and godlily denied it, and preached that God unto them in whom they believed But the wicked spirits do affect it only because they know it to be gods only due. For (as Porp●…yry and others think) it is the divine honours, not the smells of the offerings that they delight in. For those smells they have plenty, and may procure themselves more if they list. So then these arrogant spirits affect not the smoke ascending from a body, but the honours given them from the soul, which they may deceive and domineer over, stopping man's way to God, and keeping him from becoming God's sacrifice, by offering unto other then God. L. VIVES. Rejoice (a) with] The Angels rejoice at man's righteousness. 〈◊〉. 15. (c) Scriptures] Ioh●… would have worshipped the Angel that was sent him, but he sorbad him, willing him rather to worship God, whom he (as his fellow servant) served. Apoc. 19 (c) Paul] Being in Lyaconia (a part of Asia) preaching Gods word, and curing a lame man by God's power, the people said they were gods, calling Barnabas jove, & Paul (that preached) Mer●…ury the pretended God of speech. So they prepared them sacrifices, but the Apostles were angry, and ●…orbad it, fearing to take to themselves, the due of God. Of the only and true sacrifice, which the Mediator be tween God and man became. CHAP. 20. WHerefore the true Mediator, being in the form of a servant, made Mediator between God and man, the man Christ jesus, taking sacrifices with his father, as God, yet in in the servile form choose rather to be one then to take any, lest some hereby should gather that one might sacrifice unto creatures, By this is he the Priest, off●…ring, and offerer. The true Sacrament whereof is the Churches daily sacrifice: which being the body of him the head, (a) learneth to offer itself by him. The ancient sacrifices of the Saints were all divers types of The church a sacrifice. How: this also, this being figured in many and divers, as one thing is told in many words, that it might be commended (b) without tediousness. And to this great and true sacrifice, all false ones gave place. L. VIVES. LEarneth (a) to] Or saith she offereth by him, so the Coleyne & Bruges copies have it: but the other is good also. (b) Without tediousness] For variety easeth that, and in discourse he that repeateth one thing twice of one fashion, procureth loathing, but vary it a thousand ways, and it will still pass pleasing. This is taught in Rhetoric. And it is like that which Q. Flam●…ius in Livy, saith of the divers sauces: Therefore the types of the old law that signified one thing, were divers, that men might apprehend the future salvation with less surfeit, and the 〈◊〉 persons, amongst so many might find one whereby to conceive what was to come. Of the power given to the devils, to the greater glorifying of the Saints that have suffered martyrdom, and conquered the airy spirits, not by appeasing them, but adhering to God. CHAP. 21. THe Devils had a certain temporary power allowed them, whereby to excite such as they possessed, against GOD'S City, and both to accept sacrifices of the willing offerers, and to require them of the vnwil●…g, yea even to extort them by violent plagues: nor was this at all prejudicial, but very commodious for the Church, that the number of Mar tirs might be fulfilled: whom the City of God holds so much the dearer, because they spe●… their blood for it against the power of impiety: these now (if the church admi●… the words use) we might worthily call our (a) Heroes. For this name came from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, juno, and therefore one of her sons (I know not which) was called He●…▪ the mystery being, that juno was Queen of the air, where the Heroes (the well deserving souls) dwell with the Daemons. But ours (if we might use the word) The Mart●…rs the devils conquerors. should be called so, for a contrary reason, namely not for dwelling with the Daemons in the air, but for conquering those Daemons, those aereal powers, and in them, all that is called juno: whom it was not for nothing, that the Poets made so envious, and such an opposite to (c) good men being deified for their virtue. But unhappily was Virgil overseen in making her first to say, Aeneas conquers men, and then to bring in Helenus' warning Aeneas, as his ghostly father in these words. junoni cane vota libens, dominamque potentem, Supplicibus supera donis— Purchased great junos' (d) wrath with willing prayers and (e) conquered her with humble gifts— And therefore Porphyry (though not of himself) holds that a good God or Genius never cometh to a man till the bad be appeased: as if it were of more powe●… than the other, seeing that the bad can hinder the good for working, and must be entreated to give them place, whereas the good can do no good unless the others list, and the others can do mischief maugre their beards. This is no tract of true religion▪ our Martyrs do not conquer juno, that is the airy powers, that malice their virtues, on this fashion: Our Heroes (If I may say so) conquer no●… Her●… by humble gifts but by divine virtues. Surely (f) Scipio deserved the name of African rather for conquering Africa, then for begging or buying his honour of his foes. L. VIVES. Our (a) Heroes] Plato in his order of the gods, makes some less than airy Daemons, and more than men, calling them demigods: now certainly these be the Heroes: for so 〈◊〉 Heroes and Semigods. they called that are begotten of a god and a mortal, as Hercules Dionysius, Aeneas, Aesc●…pius, Romulus, and such: one of whose parents being a god, they would not call them bare men, but somewhat more, yet less than the Daemons. And so holds jamblicus. Hierocles the S●… (relating Pythagoras his verses, or as some say Philolaus his) saith that Angels and Heroes (as P●…to saith) are both included in the rank of Daemons: the celestial are Angels, the earthly He●…▪ the mean Daemons. But Pythagoras held (quoth he) that the god's sons were called He●… Daemons: And so they are, in that sense that Hesiod calls the men of the golden age, Ter●… Daemons: for he putteth a fourth sort of men, worse than the golden ones but better than the third sort, for the Heroes. But these and the other also he calleth men, and Semigods: saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.— A blessed kind of Heroes they were Surnamed Semigods— To wit, those that Plato meaneth: for these are more ancient & venerable than they that ●…ailed 〈◊〉 jason in the fatal ship, & sought in the war of Troy. For Hesiod calls them warlike, and thence 〈◊〉 Me●…der saith) were they held wrathful, & violent: if any one went by their temples (called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 must pass in reverend silence, lest he should anger the Heroes, and set altogether by the He●…. ●…es. And many such temples were er●…cted in Greece. 〈◊〉 mentioneth divers to Vliss●…s, T●…talus, and Acrisius. The Latins had them also: Plin. lib. 19 mentioneth of one. Pla●…o derives Heros, of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Love: because the love between a god or goddess and a mortal▪ produced the Heroes. Some draw it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to speak, because they were eloquent statesmen. Hierocles allows the derivation from love, but not in respect of the birth, but their singular love of the gods, inciting us to the like. For Ia●…blichus says they rule over men, giving us life▪ reason, guarding and freeing our souls at pleasure. (But we have shown these to be the powers of the soul, and each one is his own Daemon) Some derive it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, earth, they being earthly Daemons. For so Hesiod calleth the good souls departed, and Pythagoras also, bidding 〈◊〉 ●…orship the earthly Daemons. Homer's interpreter liketh this derivation. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (saith he) in one language is earth: and of earth was mankind made. Capella (Nupt. lib. 2.) saith that all between us and the Moon, is the Kingdom of the Manes and father Dis. But in the highest part are the Heroes, and the Manes below them: and those Heroes, or semigods, have souls and holy minds in men's forms, and are borne to the world's great good: So was Hercules, Dionys▪ Tryptole●…s etc. and therefore the name comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, juno because she rules the air, whither the good souls ascend, as Hierocles witnesseth in these verses of Pythagoras or Philolaus, relating their opinion herein. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If quit from earthly dross to heaven thou soar Then shalt thou be a God, and die no more. But Plato thinketh them to become Sea-goddes: I believe because he holds them grosser bodied then the Daemons whom he calleth purely a●…reall: and so thought fit to give them h●…bitation in the most appropin quate part of nature, the water. Hera also the Latins use for a Lady or a Queen: V●…rg. Aen. 3. and so Heroes, if it derive from Hera, may be taken for ●…ords or Kings. (b) One of her sons] I think I have read of this in the Greek commenta●…es, but I cannot remember which: these things (as I said before) are rather pertinent to chance then scholarship. (c) Good men's] As to Hercules, Dionysius and Aeneas. (d) Great] The translation of Hera. For Proserpina whom Charo●… (Aeneids 6.) calls Lady, is the infernal juno. And I●… the celestial is called the great, and the infernal also (saith Servius.) For father Dis, is called jupiter infernal. So Claudian sings in the silent ring of the spirits, at the wedding of Or●…s and Proserpina. Nostra parens juno, tuque●…germane tona●…tis Rap●…. Prose●…p. lib. 2. Et gener, unanimis con●…ortia d●…cite somni M●…tuaque alternis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. juno our mother, and thou Jove's great son And brother, sweetly may you take your rest, Linked in each others arms▪ and breast to breast. And Protesilaus in Lucian, calls Plato, jupiter. (e) Conquer] Showing (saith Donate) that the greatest enemies are sooner conquered by ob●…ysance then opposition. (f) Scipio] The first general Scipio African. that ever got sur name from his provincial conquests, was P. Cornelius Scipio, Publius his son. He subdued Af●…ica▪ and s●…buerted Hannibal, and was instiled African. I speak of Generals and provincial conquests: Coriolanus had that name from the conquest of a town, and Sergius Fi●…enas, was so surnamed for subduing the Fidenates. From whence the Saints have their power against the devils and their pure purgation of heart. CHAP. 22. GOdly men do expel the aerial powers opposing them, from their possession by (a) exorcisms, not by pacification: and break their Temptations by prayer, not unto them but unto God, against them. For they conquer nor chain no man but by the fellowship of sin. So that his name the took on him humanity, and lived without sin, confounds them utterly. He is the Priest Sin only ●…euers man from God. and sacrifice of the remission of sins: He the Mediator between G●… Da●… man, even the man Christ jesus by whom we are purged of sin, and re●…led unto God: for nothing severs man from God but sin, which not our me●…, but God's mercy wipeth off us: it is his pardon, not our power, for all the po●… that is called ours, is ours by his bountyous goodness; for we should think 〈◊〉 well of our flesh, unless we lived (b) under a pardon all the while we are in the flesh. Therefore have we our grace by a Mediator, that being polluted by the flesh, we might be purged by the like flesh. This grace of God wherein his great mercy is shown us, doth rule us by faith in this life, and after this life is ended, wi●… transport us by that unchangeable truth unto most absolute perfection. L. VIVES. BY (a) exorcism] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is to admire: Augustine translate sit so, and Exorcista, an ad●…rer: Exorcism. and Exorcismus, admiration. The Exorcist expelleth the devil from the Chatecum●…nist, ere he be baptized. August. Symbol. It is the third of the lesser orders of the church: they are 〈◊〉 all seven. Of this and of Exorcism before Baptism read Petrus Lumbardus: Sentent. lib. 4. 〈◊〉 8. & 24. (b) Under a pardon] Under the law of sin and infirmity, lest any one should exto●… himself. All the good we do, comes from God, by whose pardon we are unhusked of the old man, sin: and by him we live in justice. Of the Platonists principle in their purgation of the soul. CHAP. 23. POrphyry saith that the Oracles said that neither the Suns nor Moons Teletae could purge us, and consequently, the Teletae of no gods can. For if the Suns and Moons (the chief gods) cannot, whose is more powerful? But the Oracles answered (quoth he) that the beginnings may: lest one should think that upon the denial of this power to the Sun and Moon, some other God of the multitude might do it. But what beginnings he hath as a Platonist, we Porphyry his opinion of the Trinity. know. For he speaks (a) of God the father, the Son called in greek the Fathers intellect: but of the spirit, not a word: at least not a plain one: though what he meaneth, by a mean between the two, I cannot tell: for if he follow (c) Plotin●… in his discourse of the three privy essences, and would have this third, the soul's nature: he should not have put it as the mean between the father and the son. For Plotine puts it after the father's intellect, but Porphyry in calling it the mean, interposeth it between them. And this he saith as well as he could, or would: but we call it neither the father's spirit alone, nor the sons, but both. The Philosophers speak freely, never fearing to offend religious ears in those incomprehensible mysteries: but we must lay our words to a (d) line, that we produce no impious error, by our freedom of speech concerning these matters. Wherefore Heed must be had of discourse of the Trinity. when we speak of God, we neither talk of two principles, nor three as ●…e may not say there were two gods or three, though when we speak of the father, the son or the holy ghost, we say that each of these is God. Nor say we with the Sabellian heretics, that he that is the father is the son, and he that is the holy ghost is the father and the son, but the father is the son's father, and the The Sabellian Heretics. son the father's son, and the holy spirit both the fathers and the sonne●…, but neither father nor son. True then it is that man is purged by none but the ●…ginning, but this beginning is by them too variably taken. L. VIVES. OF (a) God the] It is a question that hath troubled many, Whether the Philosopher Whether the Philosophers kne●… the ●…inity. had any notion of the▪ Trinity? First, we ourselves, to whom the mystery of redemp●…on is revealed, have but a small glance (God knows) of that radiant light. But what the Philosophers of old wrote hereof is easily apparent that they spoke it▪ rather than knew what they spoke, it is so obscure. These secrets belonged not to their discovery. It sufficed them to attain the unity of God: And if (by God's inspiration) they spoke oughtt concerning the Trinity, it was rather to serve as a testimony of the future truth against their masters op●…ns▪ then to express any understanding they had thereof themselves. Aristotle writes (de 〈◊〉 et mund●… l. 2) that the Pythagorists placed perfection in three, the beginning, midst, and end: and this nu●… b●… they used in religion. Thence some hold that Theocritus his witch said, To three I offer, three I holy call: But Virgil more plain: Terna tibi haec primum triplici diversa colore Lycia circundo, terque haec altaria circum Effigiem duco●…numero deus impare gaudet First wrap I these three thorns (to frame my spell) Three times about the shape: the altars than We compass thrice: God loves odd numbers well. And Zeno calleth Logos, fate, necessity, God, and Jove's soul. But Plato seems far more plain: for (Socrates in his de Re p l. 6.) having disputed sufficiently of the nature of good, and affirmed that he held it too great a theme for any man's discourse to contain, saith thus: But O you happy men, let us leave to say what is good until another time: For I hold it utterly incomprehensible of man's mind. But my desire at this time is to express what the son of this good is, which is most like to good itself: If you will I will proceed, if not let it alone. Then Glaucus replied that he should go on with the son and leave the father till another time. So he proceeds to discourse of the birth, and son of good, and after some questions, saith: that good, is as the sun, and the son is as the light we have from the sun. And in his Epistle to Hermias he speaketh of such as were sworn to fit studies, and (the Muse's sister) learning by God, the guide & father of all things past, and to come. And in his Epinomis he saith that by that most divine Word, was the world and all therein created. This word, did so ravish the wise man with divine love, that he conceived the means of beatitude. For many say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is meant of the Word, not of the world, and so we have used it in the eighth book, speaking of Plato's opinion of beatitude. So that Plato mentions the father and the son expressly, marry the third he thought was indeclareable. Though he hold that in the degrees of Divinity, the soul of the world, the third proceedeth from the beginning, and the begininnings son, men's▪ which soul (if one would stand for Plato) might easily be defended to be that spirit that moved upon the waters, which they seem to diffuse through the whole mass, and to impart life and being to every particular. And this is the Trine in divinity of which he writeth to Dionysius enigmatically, as himself saith. All things are about the King of all, and by him have existence: the seconds about the second, and the thirds about the third. I omit to write what Trismegistus saith, & jamblichus from him: we are all for the Platonist: but I cannot omit Serapis his answer to Thules (the King of Egypt in the Trojan wars) who inquyring of him who was most blessed, had this answer. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. etc. First God and then the son, and next the spirit, All coëternall, one in act, and merit. Serapis his answer. (b) The son] Porphyry (explaining Plato's opinion, as Cyril saith against jultan) puts three essences in the Deity: 1 God almighty. 2. the Creator. 3. the soul of the world: nor is the deity extended any further. Plato & he both, call the Creator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the father's intellect, with the Poets (though obscurely) touch at, call Minerva 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, borne without a mother, the wisdom brought forth out of the father's brain▪ (c) Plotine] he w●…ote a book of the three persons or substances: y●. first he maketh absolute, and father to the second, that is also eternal and perfect. Plotine. He calleth the father men's also in another place, as Plato doth: but the word arose from him: For he saith (De prou●…d. lib. 2.) in the beginning all this whole universe was created by the men's (the father) and his word. (d) Alme] religion tieth us to have a care how we speak herein. (e) Sabellians] They said that the person of the father, and ●…f the Son 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉▪ 24. was all one, because the scripture saith: I and the Father am one Of the true only beginning that purgeth and reneweth man's whole nature. CHAP. 24. But Porphyry being slave to the malicious powers (of whom he was ashamed, yet durst not accuse them) would not conceive that Christ was the beginning▪ by whose incarnation we are purged, but contemned him in that flesh Pride 〈◊〉 one from light of the mystery of redemption. which he assumed to be a sacrifice for our purgation, not apprehending the great sacrament, because of his divell-inspired pride, which Christ the good Mediator by his own humility subverted, showing himself to mortals in that mortal state which the false Mediators wanted, and therefore insulted the more over men's wretcheds souls: falsely promising them succours from their immortality. But our good and true Mediator made it apparent, that it was not the fleshly substance, but sin that is evil: the flesh and soul of man may be both assumed, kept, and put off without guilt, and be bettered at the resurrection. Nor is death, though it be the punishment of sin (yet paid by Christ for our sins) to be annoyed by sin, but rather, if occasion serve, to be endured for justice. For Christ's dying, and that not for his own sin, was of force to procure the pardon of all other sins. That he was the beginning, this Platonist did not understand, else would he have confessed his power in purgation. For neither the flesh nor the soul was the beginning, but the word, all creating. Nor can the flesh purge 〈◊〉 by itself, but by that word that assumed it, when the word became flesh & dwells in us. For he speaking of the mystical eating of his flesh (and some that understood not being offended at it, and departing, saying: This is a hard saying, Io. 1. 14. who can hear it?) Answered to those that stayed with him: It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. Therefore the beginning, having assumed flesh and Io. 6. 60. soul, mundifieth both in the believer. And so when the jews asked him who he was, he answered them, that he was the (a) beginning, which our flesh and blood being encumbered with sinful corruption, can never conceive, unless he Io. 8. 25. by whom we were, and were not, do purify us. We were men, but just we were not. But in his incarnation our nature was, and that just, not sinful: This is the mediation that helpeth up those that are fallen, and down: This is the seed that the Angels sowed, by dictating the law wherein the true worship of one God was taught and this our Mediator truly promised. L VIVES. THe (a) beginning] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Augustine will have the Son to be a beginning, but no otherwise then the father, as no otherwise GOD. And this he takes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for, Valla The 〈◊〉. and Erasmus say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can be no noun here, but an adverb, as, in the beginning. I will speak my mind here of briefly: though the phrase be obscure and perhaps an hebraism, as many in the new Testament are: Christ seemeth not to say he is the beginning: but being asked who he was, he having no one word to express his full nature to all their capacities, left it to each one's mind to think in his mind what he was, not by his sight but by his words: and to ponder how one in that bodily habit, could speak such things. It was the Deity that spoke in the flesh, whence all those admirable acts proceeded. Therefore he said, I am he 〈◊〉 the beginning, and I speak to you using a mortal body as an instrument, giving you no more precepts by angels, but by myself. This answer was not unlike that, given to Moses; I am that I am: but that concerned Gods simple essence and majesty, this was more later, and declared God in the f●…me of man. That all the saints in the old law, and other ages before it, were justified only by the mystery, and faith of Christ. CHAP. 25. By the faith of this mystery might the ancient Saints of God also be justified (together with godly life) not only before the law was given the hebrews, (for they wanted not Gods instructions nor the Angels) but also in the very 〈◊〉 of the law, though they seemed to have carnal promises in the types of spyr●…al things, it being therefore called the old Testament. For there were Prop●…s then that taught the promise as well as the Angels, and one of them was he ●…se sacred opinion of man's good, I related before: It is good for me to adhere vn●…. ●…s. 73. 28. In which Psalm the two Testaments are distinguished. For first, he ●…ng those earthly promises abound so to the ungodly) saith his (b) feet slipp●…, and that he was almost down, as if he had served God in vain, seeing that ●…ty that he hoped of God was bestowed upon the impious: and that he laboured sore to know the reason of this, and was much troubled until he entered into the sanctuary of God, and there beheld their ends whom he, (in error) thought happy. But then (c) as he saith, he saw them east down in their ex●…on, and destroyed for their iniquity, and that all their pomp of temporal 〈◊〉 was become as a dream, leaving a man when he is awake, frustrate of ●…ed joys he dreamt off. And because they showed great here upon 〈◊〉 (saith he) In thy City thou shalt make their Image be held as nothing. 〈◊〉 good it was for him to seek those temporalties at none but God's hands ●…weth ●…aying, I was as a beast before thee, yet was I always with thee as a beast ●…erstanding. For I should have desired such goods as the wicked could not 〈◊〉 with me: but seeing them abound with goods, I thought I had served thee 〈◊〉 end, when as they that hated thee enjoyed such felicity. Yet was I always with 〈◊〉 fought no other gods to beg these things upon. And then it follow●…. Thou hast holden me by my right hand, thou hast guided me by thy will, and hast as●… into glory. As if all that which he saw the wicked enjoy were belonging 〈◊〉 left hand, though seeing it, he had almost fallen. What have I in heaven but 〈◊〉 (saith he?) And would I have upon earth but thee? Then he doth check him●… justly, for having so great a good in Heaven (as afterwards he understood) 〈◊〉 yet begging so transitory, frail and earthen a thing of God here below: (d) 〈◊〉 heart faileth, and my flesh, but God is the God of mine heart. A good failing, to 〈◊〉 the lower and elect the loftyer. So that in another Psalm he saith: My soul Ps. 83. ●…geth and fainteth for the Courts of the Lord. And in another: My heart fainteth 〈◊〉 thy saving health. But having said both heart and flesh fainteth: he rejoined The flesh is cleansed by the heart. not, The God of mine heart and flesh, but the God of my heart: for it is by the heart that 〈◊〉 ●…sh is cleansed, (as the Lord saith) Cleanse that which is within, and then that 〈◊〉 is without shall be clean: Then he calleth God his portion, not any thing of 〈◊〉, but himself. God is the God of my heart, and my portion for ever. Because 〈◊〉 men's manifold choices, he chose him only. For (e) behold (saith he) they 〈◊〉 ●…thdraw themselves from them, shall perish: (f) thou destroyest all them that go 〈◊〉 from thee, that is, that make themselves prostitute unto many gods: and then ●…owes that which is the cause I have spoken all this of the Psalm: As for me, it is good for me to adhere unto GOD, not to withdraw myself, nor to go a whoring. And then is our adherence to God perfect, when all is freed that should be freed. But as we are now, the hold is, I put my trust in the Lord God, for hope that is seen, is no hope, how can a man hope for that which he seeth, sauth the Rom. 8. 24. Apostle. But when we see not our hope, than we expect with patience: wherein let us do that which followeth, each one according to his talon becoming an Angel, a messenger of God, to declare his will, and praise his gracious glory. That I may declare all thy works (saith he) in the gates of the daughter of Zion: This is that glorious City of God, knowing and honouring him alone: This the Angels declared, inviting us to inhabit it, and become their fellow Citizens in it. They like not that we should worship them as our elected Gods, but with them him that is God to us both: Nor to sacrifice to them: but with them, be a sacrifice to him. Doubtless then, (if malice give men leave to see the doubt cleared) all the blessed immortals that envy us not (and if they did, they were not blessed) but rather love us, to have us partners in their happiness, are far more favourable and beneficial to us, when we join with them in sacrificing ourselves to the adoration of the Father, the Son and the holy Spirit. L. VIVES. WHich (a) Psal. 73. divinely soluing of this question of the Philosophers: Why (one God ruling all) have the good so often hurt, and the bad so much good? Or Epicurus his Dilemma: If there be a God, whence is evil? If none, whence is good? Augustine recites some verses, and we will briefly interpose here and there a word. (b) Feet slipped] or moved by the unworthy event, to take another way, it seeming to him to have done so little good in this. (c) Them] All things (saith the wise man) are secret until the end, but then the good life helps, and the bad, hurts: the one rewarded and the other plagued: for then all appeareth in truth. (d) My heart.] A sanctified man in all his troubles and faintings of strength and counsel, still keeps heart-hold of God, making him his portion for ever: lose he all things, God he will never lose. Augustine (me thinks) applieth this to the defect of spirit, through the vehement desire of celestial comforts. For the soul will languish into much love, and lose all the self in entire speculation of that it affecteth. Or he may mean, that although all bodily means of strength or state, do fail a good man, yet his mind will still stick firmly unto God, and entertain a contempt of all worldly wealth, and all gifts of wit, or fortune, in respect of this God, this only riches, and heritage. (e) Behold] Therefore is it good to adhere to him from whom who-soever departeth, perisheth. (f) Thou destroyest] We ought to keep our soul chaste, as the spouse of God: which if it go a whoring, after the desires and lusts of the world, neglecting God, he casteth it off as a man doth his dishonest wife, and divorceth it from him. And this is the death of the soul, to leave the true life thereof. Of Porphyry his wavering between confessing of the true God, and adoration of the devils, CHAP. 26. Me thinks Porphrry (I know not how) is ashamed of his Theurgicall acquaintance. He had some knowledge of good, but he durst not defend the worship of one God, against the adoration of many. He said there were some Angels, that came down and taught Theurgike practisers things to come: and others that declared the will of the Father upon earth, and his altitude and immensity. Now whether would he have us subject to those Angels that declare the will of the Father vyon earth, or unto him whose will they declare. 'tis plain, he biddeth us rather imitate them then invocate them: why then we need not fear to give no sacrifices to these blessed immortals, but refer it all freely unto God. For questionless that which they know to be due to that God only in whose participation they are blessed, they will never ascribe to themselves either by figures or significations. This is arrogance proper to the proud and miserable devils, from which the zeal of God's subjects and such as are blessed b●… coherence with him, aught to be far separate. To which blessed coherence it behou●…●…e Angels to favour our attainment, not arrogating our subjection to 〈◊〉, but declaring God the mean of both our coherences unto us. Why fea●… thou now (Philosopher) to censure these adverse powers, enemies both to the true God and true virtue? Thou saidst but (a) now that the true Angels that re●…le Gods will, do differ from them that descend unto men that use Theurgicall●…rations ●…rations. Why dost thou honour them so much as to say they teach divine ●…ges? How can that be, teaching not the will of the Father? (a) Those now are they whom the malicious Theurgike bound from purging the soul of the good 〈◊〉 Whom he could not lose, for all that they desired to be let loose, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him some good. Doubtest thou yet that those are wicked devils? Or dost 〈◊〉 ●…ssemble for fear of offending the Theurgikes, whose curiosity inveigled 〈◊〉 so, that they made thee believe they did thee a great pleasure in teaching 〈◊〉 this damnable cunning? Darest thou extol that maliciousplague (no pow●… 〈◊〉 is a slave, and no regent over the envious, above the air, into Heaven, and do the starry gods, or the stars themselves such, foul disgrace as to place it amongst them. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) but now] The old copies read Distinxisti for Dixisti: but the sense is not alte●… a tittle. (b) Those now] He had said before that the evil Daemon hinders the 〈◊〉 ●…at the first must depart ere the latter could come to work effect. And of the Chal●…●…ome another malicious fellow hindered from being purged in soul. Of Porphyry his exceeding Apuleius in impiety. CHAP. 27. ●…w much more tolerable was the error of Apuleius thy fellow sectary who ●…on fessed (spite of his teeth, for all his honouring of them) that the devils 〈◊〉 the Moon only were subject to perturbation! quitting the Gods aethere●…●…th ●…th visible as the Sun, Moon, etc. And invisible also from these affects, by all 〈◊〉 arguments he could devise. Plato taught thee not this thine impiety, but thy 〈◊〉 masters, to thrust up mortal vices amongst the ethereal powers, that the gods might instruct your Theurgike in divinity: which notwithstanding thou in thine intellectual life makest thyself excel: putting art Theurgike as not necessary for thee, but for others that will be no philosophers, yet thou teachest it, to repay 〈◊〉 masters, in seducing those to it that affect not Philosophy, yet holding it of 〈◊〉 use for a Philosopher as thou thyself art: So that all that fancy, not Phylo●…, (which being hard to attain is affected by few) might by thine autho●… inquire o●…t Theurgikes, and of them attain (no intellectual but) a spiritual ●…cation. And because the multitude of those, do far exceed the Phyloso●…, therefore more are drawn to thy unlawful Magical masters, then to 〈◊〉 schools, for this the unclean Devil (those counterfeit aethereall●…es ●…es whose messenger thou art become) promised thee, that such as were purged by Theurgy should never return to the father, but inhabit 〈◊〉 Christ 〈◊〉 upon h●…m whole m●…n. air amongst the ethereal gods. But those whom Christ came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those devilish powers, endure not this doctrine. For in him have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 merciful purification of body, soul and spirit. For therefore put he on 〈◊〉 man without sin, to cleanse whole man from sin: I wish thou hadst kno●… 〈◊〉 him, and laid the cure of thyself upon him rather than upon thine o●…ne fra●…e, weak virtue, or thy pernicious curiosity. For he which your own (a) Oracles (as thou writest) acknowledged for holy and immortal, would never have deceived thee. Of whom also that famous Poet saith (Poetically indeed) as under a another person, but with a true reference to him, (b) Te duce si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri Irritaperpetua soluent formidine terras. Thy conduct all sins marks from man shall clear, And quit the world of their eternal fear. Speaking of those steps of sin (if not sins) which by reason of our infirmity may have residence in the great proficients of righteousness, and are cured by none but Christ, of whom the verse speaketh. For Virgil (c) spoke it not of himself, as he showeth about the fourth verse of his Eglogue, where he saith Vltima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas: Virgil. E●…. 4. Time, and Sibylla's verse are now new met. Plainly showing he had it from Sibylla Cumaea. But those Theurgikes (or rather fiends in the shapes of gods) do rather putrify the purify men's hearts by their false apparitions, and deceitful illusion in change of forms. For how should they cleanse another, being unclean themselves? Otherwise could they not be bound by the charms of the envious, either to fear to infect, or to envy to bestow the good they seemingly were about to do. But it sufficeth that thou The Theurgikes cannot purge or cleanse 〈◊〉 sp●…. confessest that neither the souls intellectual part is made pure, nor the spiritual, (that is under the other part) eternal by art theurgike. But Christ promiseth this eternity, and therefore (to thy own great admiration, and deep grief) the World flocketh to him (d). What of that that thou canst not deny that the Theurgikes do often err and draw others into the same blindness, and that it is a most plain error to become suppliant to those Angelical power? And then (as though thou hadst not lost thy labour in the former assertion) thou sendest such as live not intellectually to the Theurgikes to be purged in the minds spiritual part. L. VIVES. YOur (a) Oracles] Of this in the 20. book. (b) Te duce] Servius refers all this eglogue to the civil wars in Assinius Pollio's Consulship, that in his time they should end, and all the fear be exti●…ct. But they out-lasted him. He was Consul with Domitius Aenobarb●…, the fourth veare of his Triumvirship. (c) Spoke it not] The whole eglogue is nothing but Sy●… verses, which being Enygmatically spoken of Christ, and the time touched in certain misti●… tokens, Virgil observing it to be near hand, thought they meant some of the Rom●… Princes, and ●…o attributes them to Saloninus Pollio's son. (d) What of] Or, which because thou canst not deny, thou dost so falter in thy doctrine, and contrary thyself, that first th●… teachest that the Theurgikes etc. And this is the better reading of the two. What persuasions blinded Porphiry from knowing Christ the true wisdom. CHAP. 28. THus drawest thou men into most certain error, and (a) art not ashamed of it being a professor of virtue and wisdom, which if thou truly respected, thou wouldest have known Christ the virtue, and wisdom, of god the father, and not (b) have left his saving humility for the pride of vain knowledge. Yet thou confessest that the virtue of (c) continence only, without Theurgy, and with those Teletae (thy frutlesse studies) is sufficient to purge the soul spiritually. And once thou saidst that the Teletae elevate not the soul after death as they do now, nor benefit the spiritual part of the soul after this life: and this (d) thou tossest, and tumblest, only (I think) to show thyself skilful in those matters, and to please curious ears, or to make others curious. But thou dost well to say this art is dangerous both (e) for the laws against it, and for the (f) performance of it. I would to God that wretched men would hear thee in this, and leave the gulf, or never come near it, for fear of being swallowed up therein. Ignorance (thou sayst) and many vices annexed thereunto, are not purged away by any Teletae but only by the father's intellect, his men's, that knoweth his will. But that this is Christ thou believest not: contemning him for assuming flesh of a woman; for being crucified like a felon, because thou thinkest it was fit that the eternal wisdom should contemn those base things, and be embodied in a most elevated substance. I but he fulfils that of the prophet, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, 1. Cor. Abd. 1. Esay. 33. and cast away the understanding of the prudent. He doth not destroy his wisdom in such as he hath given it unto, but, that which others ascribe to themselves, who have none of his, and therefore the Apostle follows the prophetical testimony, thus, where is the wise? Where is the Scribe? where is the (g) disputer of the 〈◊〉 ●…ath not God made the wisdom of this world foolishness? for seeing the world The wisdom of the word foolishness. by wisdom knew not God in the wisdom of God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Seeing also that the jews require a sign, and the Grecians seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block unto the jews, and foolishness unto the Grecians. But unto them that (h) are called both jews and Grecians we preach Christ, the power, and wisdom of God: for the ay foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. This now the wise and strong in their own conceit do account as foolish, and weak. But this is the grace that cures the weak, and such as boast not proudly of their false happiness, but humbly confess their true misery. L. VIVES. ARt not (a) ashamed. An old phrase in the latin, malum non te pudet. (b) Have left.] For he was first of our religion, and afterwards fell from it, and railed at it like a mad man. (c) C●…ce.] De abst. animal. Continence and frugality elevate the soul and adjoin it unto God. But Plato is far more learned and elegant upon this point in his Charmides: showing 〈◊〉 temperance purgeth the mind, and is the only cure of an infected conscience, that no ●…er enchantments can cleanse the soul from corruption. (d) Tossest.] Porphyry is most ab●… in his Tantologies, as we may see in that common book of his de predicabilibus. (e) For the laws.] Plato for bad it, and the civil laws do so also, sub pana. (f) Performance.] Being ●…gerous if it be failed in: for the Devils will be angry, and do the unperfect magician much mischief, as many horrible examples have testified: for they love perfect impiety, from 〈◊〉 there is no regress unto piety. Therefore they terrify men there unto. (g) Disputer 〈◊〉 and naturalist, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and is referred to the Philosophers immoderate iang●…▪ (h) 〈◊〉 To godliness and piety, and made Citizens of God, ay Foolishness] Uulgarius 〈◊〉 cross foolish, because it seemed so: yet is it wiser than men; for the Philosophers kept a 〈◊〉 about trifles and superfluities, whilst the cross produced the world's redemption. An●… 〈◊〉 deity seemed weak in being nailed to the cross: yet is it far more strong than 〈◊〉 not only because the more we seek to suppress it, the more it mounteth and sprea●… but also because the strongest devil was bound and crushed down by CHRIST in 〈◊〉 weak form. Of the Incarnation of our Lord jesus Christ, which the impious Platonists shame to acknowledge. CHAP. 29. THou teachest the Father and his Son, calling him his intellect, and their mean (by which we think thou meanest the holy spirit) calling them after your manner, three Gods. Wherein though your words be extravagant, yet you have a little glimpse of that we must all rely upon. But the incarnation of the unchangeable Son, that saveth us all, and bringeth us all to that other which we believe and rely upon, that you shame to confess. You see your true country (though a long, long way off) and yet you will not see which way to get thither. Thou confessest that the grace to understand the deity, is given to a very few. Thou sayest not, few like it, or few desire it; but, is given to a few, fully confessing the gift of it to lie in God's bounty, and not in man's sufficiency. Now thou playest the true (a) Platonist and speakest plainer, saying, That no man in this life can come to perfection of Wisdom: yet that God's grace and providence doth fulfil all that the understanding lacketh, in the life to come. O hadst thou known God's grace resident in jesus Christ our Lord! O that thou couldst have discerned his assuming of body and soul to be the greatest example of grace that ever was! But what? in vain do I speak to the dead: But as for those that esteem thee for that wisdom or curiosity in arts, unlawful for thee to learne●… perhaps this shall not be in vain. God's grace could never be more grace●…y extolled, then when the eternal son of God, came to put on man, and made man the mean to derive his love to all men: whereby all men might come to him, who was so far above all men, being compared to them, immortal to mortal, unchangeable to changeable, just to unjust, and blessed to wretched. And because he hath given us a natural desire to be eternally blessed, he remaining blessed, and putting on our nature, to give us what we desired, taught us by suffering to contemn what we feared. But humility, humility a butthen unacquainted with your stiff necks, must be the mean to bring you to credence of this truth. For what, can it seem incredible to you (that know such things, and aught to enjoin yourselves to believe it) can i●… seem incredible to you, that GOD should assume man's nature and body? you give so much to the intellectual part of the soul (being b●… humane) that you make it consubstantial with the Father's intellect, which you confess is his Son. How then is it incredible for that Son●… to assume one intellectual soul to save a many of the rest by? Now nature teacheth us the coherence of the body and the soul to the making of a f●… man. Which if it were not ordinary were more incredible than the other. For we may the more easily believe that a spirit may cohere with a spirit (being both incorporcall, though the one humane, and the other divine) then a corporal body with an incorporeal spirit. But are you offended at the strange childbirth of a Virgin? This ought not to procure offence, but rather pious admiration, that he was so wonderfully borne. Or dislike you that he changed his body after death and resurrection into a better, and so carried it up into heaven being made incorruptible, and immortal? This perphappes you will not believe, because Porphyry saith so often in his work De regressu aniae, (whence I have cited much) that the soul must leave the body entirely, ere it can be joined with God. But that opinion of his ought to be retracted, seeing that both he and you do hold such incredible things of the world's soul animating the huge mass of the bodily universe. For Plato (b) teacheth you to call the world a creature, a blessed one, and you would have it an eternal one. Well then how shall it be eternally happy, and yet never put off the body, if your former rule be true? Besides, the Sun, Moon, and Stars, you all say, are creatures, which all men both see, and say also. But your skill (you think) goeth farther: calleth them blessed creatures, and eternally with their bodies. Why do you then forget or dissemble this, when you are invited to Christianity, which you otherwise teach and profess so openly? why will you not leave your contradictory opinions (subverting themselves) for christianity, but because Christ came humbly, and you are all pride? Of what quality the Saints bodies shall be after resurrection, may well be a question amongst our greatest christian doctors, but we all hold they shall be eternal, (c) and such as Christ showed in his resurrection. But how-so-ever seeing they are taught to be incorruptible, immortal, and no impediment to the soul's contemplation of God, and you yourselves say that they are celestial bodies immortally blessed with their souls; why should you think that we cannot be happy without leaving of our bodies, (to pretend a reason for avoiding christianity) but only as I said, because Christ was humble, and you are proud? Are you ashamed to be corrected in your faults? a true character of a proud man. You that were Plato's (d) learned scholars, shame to become Christ's, who by his spirit taught a fisher wisdom to say, In the beginning 〈◊〉 the word, and the word was with God and GOD was the word. The same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by it, and without it was made nothing (e) that was made. In it was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. (f) Which beginning of Saint john's Gospel, a certain Platonist (as old holy (g) Simplictanus afterwards Bishop of Milan told me) said was fit to be written in letters of gold, and set up to be read in the highest places of all Churches. But those proud fellows scorn to have GGD their Master, because the word became 〈◊〉, and dwelled in us. Such a thing of nothing it is for the wretched to be sick and weak, but they must axalt themselves in their sickest weakness, and shame to take the only medicine that must cure them: nor do they this to rise, but to 〈◊〉 a more wretched fall. L. VIVES. TRue (a) ●…latonist Plato in Phaed. & Epinon, hereof already, book the 8. (b) Teacheth in his Timaeus. (c) And such.] Sound, incorruptible, immortal, partaking with the soul in happiness. Philip. 3. We look for the saviour, even the Lord jesus Christ who shall change our vile body that 〈◊〉 may be fashioned like unto his glorious body. etc. ver. 21. (d) Learned.] What an insolent thing is it to boast of wisdom? As if Plato were ashamed of his Master Socrates that said, he knew nothing? and did not glory in all his life that he was scholar to that stone cutters son, and that all his wisdom whatsoever was his Masters? And as if Socrates himself (in Plato and Xenophon chief founders of that discipline) did not refer, much of his knowledge to Aspasia and Diotima his two women instructors, (e) That was made.] The point is so in the greek as we have lest it: as if the world should become nothing but for the care of the creator, as the Philosophers held. The Coleyn copy also pointeth it so, but we must let this alone, as now. (f) Which beginning.] Augustine Confess. lib. 8. saith that he had read the beginning of Saint john's Gospel. In the beginning was the word, In Plato, but not in the same words. Amelius the Platonist saith. And this was that word, by which all things were made, that were made, yet being eternal (as Heraclitus saith) and disposed in their order and dignity with god (as the other Barbarian held) that word was God, and with God, and by it was all things made, and it was the life and being of all things that were made, thus far Amelius, calling Saint john a barbarian. But we teach it out of Plato, that by the word of God were allthings made, and out of Plotine that the Son of God is the creator: Numerius will not have the first; God to be the creator, but the second. (g) Simplicianus.] Bishop of Milan, a friend of Augustine's, between whom many letters were written. He being but as yet a Priest, exhorted, Augustine, to use his wit in the study of holy writ. Gennad. Catolog. viror▪ illustr. What opinions of Plato, Prophiry confuted, and corrected. CHAP. 30. IF it be unfit to correct aught after Plato, why doth Porphiry correct such, and so many of his doctrines? (a) Sure it is that Plato held a transmigration of men's souls into beasts: yet though (b) Plato the learned held thus, Porphiry his scholar justly refuted him, holding that men's souls returned no more to the bodies they once left, but into other human bodies. He was ashamed to believe the other, lest the mother, living in a mule, should carry her son; but never shamed to believe the later, though the mother living in some other maid might become her sons wife. But how far better were it to believe the sanctified and true Angels, the holy inspired prophets; him that taught the coming of Christ, and the blessed Apostles, that spread the gospel through the world? how far more honestly might we believe that the souls return but once into their own bodies: rather than so often into others? But as I said, Porphiry reclaimed this opinion much in subverting those bestial transmigrations, and restraining them only to humane bodies. He saith also that God gave the world a soul, that it learning the badness of the corporal substance by inhabiting it, might return to the father, and desire no more to be joined to such contagion. Wherein though he err something (for the soul is rather given to the body to do good by, nor should it learn any evil but that it doth evil,) yet herein he exceeds, corrects all the Platonists, in holding that the soul being once purified and placed with the father, shall never more suffer worldly inconvenience. Where he overthrows one great Platonisme: viz. that the dead are continually made of the living & the living of the dead: proving that (c) Platonical position of Virgil false, where he saith that the souls being purified. & sent unto th' Elysian fields (under which fabulous name they figured the joys of the blessed) were brought to drink of the river Lethe that is to forget things past. Scilicet immemores supera ut convexa revisent Rursus & incipiant in corpora velle reverti. The thought of heaven is quite out of the brain. Now gi'en the wish to live on earth again. Porphiry justly disliked this, because it were foolish to believe that men being in that life which the only assurance of eternity maketh most happy, should desire to see the corrupton of mortality, as if the end of purification were still to return to n●…w pollution, for if their perfect purification require a forgetfulness of all evils: and that forgetfulness produce a desire in them to be embodied again, and consequently to be again corrupted, Truly the height of happyinesse, shall be the cause of the greatest unhappiness: the perfection of wisdom the cause of foo●…nesse, and the fullness of purity, mother unto impurity. Nor can the ●…oule e●…r be blessed, being still deceived in the blessedness: to be blessed it must be se●…e: to be secure it must believe it shallbe ever blessed, and that falsely, because it must sometimes be wretched: wherefore if this joy must needs rise of a false cause, how can it be truly joyful? This Prophiry saw well, and therefore held that the souls once fully purified returned immediately to the Father, lest it should be any more polluted with the contagion of earthly and corruptible affects. L. VIVES. SV●… (a) it is.] Plato, Pythagorizing, held that the souls after death passed into other bo●… ●…n his Timaeus, an●… his last de Repub. and in his Phaedrus also, in which last he pro●…ds the necessity of the Adrastian law, commanding every soul, that hath had any true sp●…lation of God to pass strait to the superior circle without impediment: and if it persever there, then is it to become blessed eternally, continuing the former course, but if it ●…ge that, and fall under the touch of punishment, then must it return to a body. And if it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 come to those aforesaid degrees, than the knowledge maketh it a Philosopher, the next degree under it, a King, Emperor, or valiant man: the third, a magistrate, or the father of a 〈◊〉: the fourth, a Physician or chirurgeon: the fifth, a Priest or a Prophet, the sixth, a poet, the ●…nth a tradesman, or an husband man: the eight, a Sophister, or guilder, the ninth a ty●…. Thus do souls pass unto life and passing that well, are exalted, if not depressed, for it is 10000 years ere the soul return to his first state: no soul recovereth his broken wings be●… that time, but he that hath been a true Philosopher; for he that passeth three courses so, shall be reinstalled at 3000. years end: for the rest, some of them shall be bound under the earth in pains, and others invested with bliss in heaven, at the prefixed time of iudgm●…, but all shall return to life after a 1000 years, and each one shall have his choice, so that some that were men before, become beasts, and some that were beasts before, men, if so be that they were ever men before: for that soul that never looked upon truth, shall never have 〈◊〉 form. This is Platonisme. Now Plato speaking of these choices, in his last de repub, saith that their election still flolloweth the fashions of their former lives. So that Orpheus his soul chose a swan to live in, nor would become a woman for his hate of them. Thamiris soul went 〈◊〉 a nightingale, and a swans soul went into a man: ajax into a lion, Agamemnon into 〈◊〉 ●…gle, and Thersites into an ape. (b) Plato.] Some read, Plotine. Prophyry writes that in the 〈◊〉 year of Gallienus his reign he came into Italy, Plotine being then fifty years of age, 〈◊〉 that he heard him five years. And Plotine was a direct Platonist in this theme of trans●…gration of souls. So that both their names may well be recited in the text. (c) Platonical.] Plato de Rep. li. 10. saith, that the souls go into the l●…thean field, wherein groweth nothing, and there they all lie down and drink of the river Amelita, and those that drink largely, forget all things. (Amelita indeed is oblivion, or neglect of things past,) this done they fall a sleep, and about midnight, a great thunder awaketh them, and so they return to life. Anchises in Virgil Amelita. speaketh of these in this manner. Has omnes ubi mill rotam volvere per annos, Lethaum ad flwium Deus evocat, agmine maguo, Scilicet immemores etc.— And when the thousand years are come and gone, God calls them all to Letha, every one. So they forget what is past, and respect not what is to come: and this they do not willingly but of necessity. Against the Platonists holding the soul coeternal with God. CHAP. 31. But altogether erroneous was that opinion of some Platonists importing the continual and (a) necessary revolution of souls from this or that, and to it again: which if it were true, what would it profit us to know it? unless the Platonists will prefer themselves before us, because we know not that they are to be made most wise in the next life, and blessed by their false belief? If it be absurd and foolish to affirm this, then is Porphyry to be preferred before all those transporters of souls from misery to bliss, and back again: which if it be true, then here is a Platonist, refuseth Plato for the better: and seeth that which he saw not, not refusing correction after so great a master, but preferring truth before man, and man's affection. Why then do we not believe divinity in things above our capacity, which teacheth us that the soul is not coeternal with God, but created by God? The Platonists refuse, upon this (seeming sufficient) reason, that that which hath not been for ever, cannot be for ever. I but Plato saith directly that both the world, and the gods, made by that great GOD in the world, had a beginning, but shall have no end, but by the will of the creator, endure for ever. But they have a (b) meaning for this, they say this beginning concerned not time, but substitution: for (c) even as the foot (say they) if it had stood eternally in the dust, the footstep should have been eternal also, yet no man but can say, some foot made this step; nor should the one be before the other, though one were made by the other: So the world, and the God there-in have been ever coeternal with the creators eternity, though by him created. Well then, put case the soul be and hath been eternal; hath the soul's misery been so also? Truly if there be something in the soul that had a temporal beginning, why might not the soul itself have a beginning also? And then the beatitude, being firmer by trial of evil, and to endure for ever, questionless had a beginning, though it shall never have end. So then the position that nothing can be endless that had a temporal beginning, is quite overthrown. For the blessedness of the soul hath a beginning but it shall never have end. Let our weakness therefore yield unto the divine authority, and us trust those holy immortals in matter of religion, who desire no worship to themselves, as knowing all is peculiar to their and our God: nor command us to sacrifice but unto him to whom (as I said often) and must so still) they and we both are a sacrifice to be offered, by that priest that took our manhood, and in that this priesthood upon him, and sacrificed himself even to the death for us. L. VIVES. ANd (a) necessary] Plato subjects the soul both in the body, and without the body unto the power of the fates, that after the revolution of life, death must come: and after the purification of the soul, life again: making our time in the body, uncertain, but freeing us from the body a 1000 years. This revolution they held necessary, because God creating but a se●…nūber of souls in the beginning the world should otherwise want men to inhabit it, it being so 〈◊〉, and we so mortal. This, Virgil more expressly calls a wheel, which being once turned about, restores the life that it abridged: and another turning, taking it away again, both br●… things to one course. This from death to death, that, from life to life: but that worketh by death, and this by life. (b) A meaning] It is well known that Plato held that God created Plato's opinion of th●… world's crea●…on. the world. But the question is, whether it began temporally, some years ago, or had no tem●…ll beginning. Plutarch, Atticus, and Severus held that Plato's world had a beginning ●…porall, but was never to have end: But Crantor, Plotine, Porphyry, jamblichus, Proculus and 〈◊〉 (all Platonists) thought that it never began, nor never should have end. So doth 〈◊〉, adjoining this and Pythagoras his opinion in one, for Plato, Pythagorized in all na●… questions. This Cicero, justine Martyr and Boetius do subscribe unto also. Plato (●…th Apuleius de deo▪ Socrat.) held all these gods to be true, incorporeal living and eternal: 〈◊〉 neither beginning nor end. Yet Apuleius in his Dogma Platonis, affirms that Pla●… taught uncertainly concerning the world's beginning, saying one while, it had an origi●…, and another while, it had none. (c) Even as] Our Philosopher's disputing of an 〈◊〉 that is coequal in time and being with the cause, compare them to the Sun and the 〈◊〉 light. Of the universal way of the soul's freedom, which Porphyry sought amiss, and therefore found not: that only Christ hath declared it. CHAP. 32. THis is the religion that contains the universal way of the soul's freedom: ●…or no where else is it found but herein. This is the (a) Kings high way that leads The King's l●…gh way. to the eternal dangerless Kingdom, to no temporal or transitory one. And ●…reas Porphyry saith in the end of his first book, De regressu animae, that there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one sect yet, either truly Philosophical, (b) Indian or Chaldaean that teachet●… this universal way: and that he hath not had so much as any historical rea●… of it, yet he confesseth that such an one there is, but what it is he knoweth 〈◊〉 (So insufficient was all that he had learned, to direct him to the souls true ●…me and all that himself held, or others thought him hold: for he obser●… want of an authority fit for him to follow) But whereas he saith that 〈◊〉 of the true Philosophy ever had notice of the universal way of the soul's 〈◊〉, he shows plain that either his own Philosophy was not true, or else 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wanted the knowledge of this way, and then, still, how could it be true? for 〈◊〉 universal way of freeing the souls is there but that which freeth all souls, 〈◊〉 connsequently without which none is freed? But whereas he addeth Indian or Chaldaean, he gives a clear testimony, that neither of their doctrines contai●… this way of the soul's freedom yet could not he co●…ceale, but is still a telling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the Chaldaeans had he the divine oracles. What universal way 〈◊〉 doth he mean, that is neither received in Philosophy nor into those Pa●… disciplines that had such a stroke with him in matters of divinity, (because 〈◊〉 with them did the curious fond superstition, invocation of all Angels) 〈◊〉 which he never had so much as read of? What is that universal way, not peculiar to every particular nation but common to (c) all the world and given to it by the power of God? Yet this witty Philosopher knew that some such way there's was. For he believes not that God's providence would leave mankind without a mean of the soul's freedom. He saith not, there is no such, but that so great and good an help is not yet known to us, nor unto him: no marvel: for Prophyry was yet all (d) for the world, when that universal way of the soul's freedom, christianity, was suffered to be opposed, by the devils and their servants earthly powers, to make up the holy number of Martyrs (e) that is, witnesses of the truth, who might show that all corporal tortures were to be endured for advancement of the truth of piety. This Porphyry saw, and thinking persecution would soon extinguish this way, therefore held not this the universal, not conceiving that that which he stuck at, and feared to endure in his choice, belonged to his greater commendation and confirmation. This therefore is that universal way of the soul's freedom, that is granted unto all nations out of God's mercy, the knowledge whereof cometh, and is to come unto all men: we may not, nor any hereafter, say, why (f) cometh it, so soon, or, why so late, for his wisdom that doth send it, is unsearchable unto man. Which he well perceived when he said, it was not yet received, or known unto him: he denied not the truth thereof, because he as yet, had it not. This I say is the way that will free all believers, wherein Abraham trusting, received that divine promise, In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed. Abraham●… as a Chaldaean, Genes. 22 but for to receive this promise, that the seed which was disposed by the Angels in the mediators power, to give this universal way of the soul's freedom unto all nations, he was commanded to leave his own land and kindred, and his father's house. And then was he first freed from the Chaldaean superstitions, and served the true God, to whose promise he firmly trusted. This is the way recorded in the Prophet. God be merciful unto us and bless us: and show us the light of his countenance and be merciful unto us. That thy way may be known upon earth: thy Psalm. 60 saving health among all nations. And long aft●…r. Abraham's seed being incarnate, Christ saith of himself, I am the way, the truth and the life. This is the universal way, mentioned so long before by the Prophets. It shallbe in the last days that the john 14 Esay 2 (g) mountain of the house of the Lord shallbe prepared in the top of the mountains, and shallbe exalted above the hills and all nations shall fly unto it. And many people shall go and say, come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of jacob, and he will teach us his way, and we will walk therein. For the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from jerusalem. This way therefore is not peculiar to some one nation but common to all. Nor did the law, and word of God stay in jerusalem, or Zion, but come from thence to overspread all the world. Thereupon the mediator being risen from death said unto his amazed and amated disciples. All things must be fulfilled which are written of me in the law, the Prophets and the Psalms. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, saying, thus it behoved CHRIST to suffer and to rise again from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of Luk. 24 sins should be preached in his name amongst all nations beginning at jerusalem. This then is the universal way of the soul's freedom, which the Saints and Prophets (being at first but a few as God gave grace, and those all Hebrews, for that estate was in a (h) manner consecrated) did both adumbrate in their temple, sacrifice and Priesthood, and foretold also in their prophecy, often mystically, and sometimes plainly. And the Mediator himself and his Apostles, revealing the grace of the new testament, made plain all those significations, that success of precedent times had retained, as it pleased God, the miracls which I spoke of before evermore giving confirmation to them. For they had not only angelical visions, and saw the ministers of heaven, but even these simple men relying wholly upon God's word, cast out devils, cured diseases, (ay) commanded wild-beasts, waters, birds, trees, elements, and stars, raised the dead. I except the miracles, peculiar to our Saviour, chiefly in his birth, and resurrection, showing in the first, the mystery of (k) maternal virginity, and in the other the example of our renovation. This way cleanseth every soul, and prepareth a mortal man in every part of his, for immortality. For least that which Prophyry calls the intellect should have one purgation, the spirital another, and the body another, therefore did our true and powerful Saviour take all upon him. Besides this way, (which hath never failed mankind, either (l) in prophecies, or in their (m) performances) no man hath ever had freedom, or ever hath or ever shall have. And whereas Porphyry saith he never had any historical notice of this way, what history can be more famous than this that looks from such a towering authority, down, upon all the world? or more faithful, since it so relateth things past, as it prophesieth things to come: a great part whereof we see already performed, which giveth us assured hope of the fulfilling of the rest. Porphyry, nor ever a Platonist in the world can contemn the predictions of this way, (albe they concern but temporal affairs) as they do all other prophecies and divinations of what sort soever: for them, they say they neither are spoken by worthy men, nor to any worthy purpose: true, for they are either drawn from inferior causes, as 〈◊〉 can presage much (n) concerning health, upon such or such signs: or cl the unclean spirits foretell the arts that they have already disposed of, (o) confirming the minds of the guilty and wicked, with deeds fitting their words, or words fitting their deeds, to get themselves a domination in man's infirmity. But the holy men of this universal way of ours never respect the prophesying of those things, holding them justly, trifles: yet do they both know them and often foretell them to confirm the faith in things beyond sense, and hard to present unto plainness. But they were other, and greater matters which they, (as God inspired them) did prophecy: namely the incarnation of Christ, and all things thereto belonging, and fulfilled in his name, repentance and conversion of the will unto God, remission of sins, the grace of justice, faith, and increase of believers throughout all the world, distinction of Idolatry, temptation for trial, mundifying of the proficients, freedom from evil, the day of judgement, resurrection, damnation of the wicked, and glorification of the City of GOD in 〈◊〉 eternal Kingdom. These are the prophecies of them of this way: many are fulfiled, and the rest assuredly are to come. That this straight way, leading to the knowledge and coherence of GOD, lieth plain in the holy scriptures, upon whose truth it is grounded: they that believe not (and therefore know not) may oppose this but can never overthrow it: And therefore in these ten books I 〈◊〉 spoken (by the good assistance of GOD) sufficient in sound judgements, (though some expected more) against the impious contradictors, that prefer 〈◊〉 gods before the founder of the holy city whereof we are to dispute. The 〈◊〉 five of the ten, opposed them that adored their gods for temporal respects: A rec●…pitulation of the former ten book●…. 〈◊〉 five later, against those that adored them for the life to come. It remains now according as we promised in the first book, to proceed in our discourse of the two cities that are confused together in this world and distinct in the other, of whose original, progress and consummation, I now enter to dispute, e●…●…oking the assistance of the almighty. L. VIVES. Kings (a) high] or road: the Kings, the Pr●…tors, and the soldiers way the laws held holy. (b) Indian] The Gymnosophists, and the brahmin's, much recorded for admirable deeds and doctrine. (c) All the world] Therefore is our faith called Catholic, because it was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. taught to any peculiar nation, as the jews was, but to all mankind excluding none: all may be saved by it, and none can without it: nor hath every nation herein (as they have in Paganism) a several religion. But for the other, the romans had those gods and this worship, and the Grecians others: the French others from theirs, Spain, Scythia, India, Persia, all several. B●… all that profess CHRIST have one GOD, and one sacrifice (d) All for the world] Living under Diocletian, a sore persecutor of Christianity. (e) Witnesses] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is a witness. (f) ●…hy c●…eth] Why came it not ere now? or so. (g) Mountain] Some books, leave out, of 〈◊〉 ●…se▪ the 70. read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. the mount of the Lord and house of our God. (h) I●…●…er] It was the beginning, or seminary of God's Church. ay Commanded] Some add, the devils to depart: but it is needless. (k) Maternal] The mystery is that nothing that o●… Saviour touched, is stained, or corrupted. (l) In prophecies] In Moses' law. (m) Performances] In our law, by Apostles, and other holy Preachers. (n) Concerning health] Or, to befall the health, better. (o) Confirming] or, the rule of which they challenge to themselves, in fitting wicked a●…fections with correspondent effects. For they can use their powers of nature far m●…re knowingly then we, in procuring health or sickness. Finis lib 10. THE CONTENTS OF THE eleventh book of the City of God. 〈◊〉. Of that part of the work wherein the de●…ion of the beginnings and ends of the ●…es, the Heavenly and Earthly are de●… 〈◊〉 Of the knowledge of God, which none can 〈◊〉, but through the Mediator between ●…d Man, the Man Christ jesus. 〈◊〉 Of the authority of the canonical scrip●…●…de by the spirit of God. 〈◊〉 ●…at the state of the world is neither e●…, nor ordained by any new thought of 〈◊〉 ●…f he meant that after, which he meant ●…re. 〈◊〉 ●…at we ought not to seek to comprehend ●…te spaces of time or place ere the world 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 That the World and Time had both one ●…g, nor was the one before the other. 〈◊〉 Of the first six days that had morning, ●…g ere the Sun was made. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must think of Gods resting the 〈◊〉 ●…fter his six days work. 〈◊〉 ●…is to be thought of the qualities of 〈◊〉 ●…ording to scripture. 〈◊〉 ●…e uncompounded unchangeable 〈◊〉 Father, the Son and the Holy 〈◊〉 God in substance and quality, ever 〈◊〉 same. 〈◊〉 ●…ether the Spirits that fell did ever 〈◊〉 the Angels in their bliss at their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 happiness of the just, that ●…as yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reward of the divine promise com●… the first men of Paradise, before sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whether the Angels were created in 〈◊〉 of happiness that neither those that 〈◊〉 ●…hey should fall, nor those that perseue●…●…ew they should persever. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this is meant of the devil. He a●… in the truth, because there is no 〈◊〉 him. 〈◊〉 Th●… meaning of this place. The devil 〈◊〉 from the beginning. 〈◊〉 Of the different degrees of creatures, 〈◊〉 ●…ble use and reasons order do differ. 17. That the vice of malice is not natural but against nature, following the will not the Creator in sin. 18. Of the beauty of this universe, augmented by God's ordinance, out of contraries. 19 The meaning of that. God separated the light from the darkness. 20. Of that place of scripture, spoken after the separation of the light and darkness. And God saw the light, that it was good. 21. Of God's eternal unchanging will and knowledge, wherein he pleased to create all things in form, as they were created. 22. Concerning those that disliked some of the good Creator's creatures, and thought some things naturally evil. 23. Of the error that Origen incurreth. 24. Of the divine Trinity, notifying itself (in some part) in all the works thereof. 25. Of the tripartite division of all philosophical discipline. 26. Of the Image of the Trinity, which is in some sort in every man's nature, even before his glorification. 27. Of Essence, knowledge of Essence, and love of both. 28. Whether we draw nearer to the Image of the holy Trinity in loving of that love, by which we love to be, and to know our being. 29. Of the angels knowledge of the Trinity in the Deity, and consequently, of the causes of things in the Archetype, ere they come to be effected in works. 30. The perfection of the number of six, the first is complete in all the parts. 31. Of the seventh day, the day of rest, and complete perfection. 32. Of their opinion that held Angels to be created before the world. 33. Of the two different societies of Angels, not unfitly termed light, and darkness. 34. Of the opinion that some held, that the Angels were meant by the severed waters, and of others that held waters uncreated. FINIS. THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD. Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of that part of the work wherein the demonstration of the beginnings and ends of the two Cities, the heavenly and the earthly, are declared. CHAP. 1. WE give the name of the City of GOD unto that society whereof that scripture beareth witness, which hath gotten the most excellent authority & pre-eminence of all other works whatsoever, by the disposing of the divine providence, not the affectation of men's judgements. For there it is said: Glorious things are spoken of thee, thou City of God: 〈◊〉. ●…7. 2 〈◊〉. 4●…. 1 and in an other place, Great As the LORD, and greatly to be praised, in the City of our God even upon his holy mountain, increasing the joy of all the earth. And by and by in the same Psalm: As we have heard so have we seen in the City of the Lord of Hosts, in the City of our God: God ●…th established it for ever and in another. The rivers streams shall make glad the City of God, the most high hath sanctified his tabernacle, God is in the midst of it, vn●…ed. 〈◊〉. ●…6 These testimonies, and thousands more, teach us that there is a City of God, whereof his inspired love maketh us desire to be members. The earthly citizens prefer their Gods before this heavenly cities holy founder, knowing not that he is the God of gods, not of those false, wicked, and proud ones, (which wanting his light so universal and unchangeable, and being thereby cast into an extreme needy power, each one followeth his own state, as it were, and begs peculiar honours of his servants) but of the Godly, and holy ones, who select their own submission to him, rather than the worlds to them, and love rather to worship him, their God, then to be worshipped for gods themselves. The foes of this holy City, our former ten books (by the help of our Lord & King) I hope have fully ●…ffronted. And now, knowing what is next expected of me, as my promise, viz. to dispute (as my poor talon stretcheth) of the original, progress, and consummation of the two Cities that in this worldly confusedly together: 〈◊〉 the assistance of the same God, and King of ours, I set pen to paper: intending 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 show the beginning of these two, arising from the difference between 〈◊〉 ●…gelical powers. Of the ●…ledge of God, which none can attain but through the mediator between God and man, the Man Christ jesus. CHAP. 2. IT is a gr●…, and admirable thing for one to transcend all creatures corporal or incorporal, frail and mutable, by speculation; and to attain to the Deity itself, and learn of that, that it made all things that are not of the divine essence. For so doth God teach a man, speaking not by any corporal creature vn●… 〈◊〉 ●…erberating the air between the ear, and the speaker: nor by any 〈◊〉 ●…ature, or apparition, as in dreams, or otherwise. For so he doth How God speaketh unto man. 〈◊〉 ●…nto bodily ears, and as by a body, and by breach of air and distance. 〈◊〉 are very like bodies. But he speaketh by the truth, if the ears of the 〈◊〉 ready, and not the body. For he speaketh unto the best part of the 〈◊〉 and that wherein God only doth excel him, and understand a man 〈◊〉 fashion, you cannot then but say, he is made after God's Image, being 〈◊〉 God only by that part wherein he excelleth his others, which he ●…ed with him by beasts. But yet the mind (a) itself (wherein reason and 〈◊〉 ●…ding are natural inherents) is weakened, and darkened by the mist of in●…●…ror, and diss-enabled to enjoy by inherence (b) nay even to endure that 〈◊〉 light, until it be gradually purified, cured, and made fit for such an 〈◊〉 therefore it must first be purged, and instructed by faith, to set it the 〈◊〉 ●…in, truth itself, God's Son, and God, taking on our man without 〈◊〉 godhead ordained that faith, to be a pass (c) for man to God, by 〈◊〉 ●…at was both God and man. (d) for by his manhood, is he mediator, No Godhead of the sons wasted in his assumption of man. 〈◊〉, is he our way. For if the way lie between him that goeth, and the 〈◊〉 ●…ch he goeth, there is hope to attain it. But if (e) one have no way, nor 〈◊〉 way to go, what booteth it to know whether to go? And the one●…, infallible high way is this mediator, God and Man: God, our iour●… Man our way unto it. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) itself] We call the mind man's purest and most excellent part, by which 〈◊〉 ●…stand, argue, collect, discourse●…, apprehending things simply, or comparing 〈◊〉 ●…g all arts and disciplines, managing the whole course of life, and inventing 〈◊〉 the mind. (b) Nay even to endure] So is the best reading] (c) For by his] This 〈◊〉, but all added by some other, unto the chapters end. Of the authority of the canonical Scriptures, made by the spirit of God. CHAP. 3. 〈◊〉 having spoken what he held convenient, first by his Prophets, than 〈◊〉 ●…fe, and afterwards by his Apostle, made that scripture also, which 〈◊〉 ●…icall, of most eminent authority, on which we rely in things that Faith concerns things invisible. 〈◊〉 ●…nderstanding, and yet cannot be attained by ourselves. For if things 〈◊〉 either to our exterior or interior sense (we call them things present) 〈◊〉 own in our own judgements (b) we see them before our eyes, and 〈◊〉 as infallible objects of our sense: then truly in things that fall not in 〈◊〉 of sense, because our own judgements do fail us, we must seek out 〈◊〉 ●…rities, to whom such things (we think) have been more apparent, 〈◊〉 we are to trust. Wherefore, as in things visible, having not seen them 〈◊〉 we trust those that have▪ (and so in all other objects of the senses:) e●…●…ngs mental, and intelligible, which procure a notice or sense, in man, 〈◊〉 ●…omes the word, sentence:) that is (c) in things invisible to our exteri●…e must needs trust them, (d) who have learned then of that incorpo●…, or (e) behold them continually before him. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sensible] That power in man or other creature whatsoever that discerneth any Sens●…. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 called sense. Five exterior senses there are, and one within, the mind, or soul, feeli●… 〈◊〉 of sorrow, or of aught that the exteriors present, joy, praise, glory, virtue, vice, hope, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the exteriors, as thus: we say, what do you think of this wine? this music? this ●…ure▪ & of such a man's judgement or wisdom, Philosophy, divinity, or policy? Thus much because our Philosophers will not endure the mind should be called sense, directly against Augustine. But what hath a Philosopher of our time to do with the knowledge of speech, 〈◊〉 is (as they interpret it) with grammar? (b) We see them] So it must be, prae sensibus, before o●… senses, not pr●…sentibus (c) In things invisible] Visible cometh of Videre to see, that that is To see. common to all the senses. Saw you not what a vile speech he made? saw you ever worse wine? and so the greeks use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. So doth Augustine use invisible here, for that which is no object to any exterior sense. (d) Who have learned] The Saints, of God their Master. (e) Behold] The holy Angels. Th●… 〈◊〉 state of the world is neither eternal, nor ordained by any new thought of gods, as if he meant that after, which he meant not before. CHAP. 4. OF things visible, the world is the greatest, of invisible, God. But the first we see, the second we but believe. That God made the world, whom shall we believe with more safety them himself? Where have we heard him? never better than in the holy scriptures, where the Prophet saith. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Was the Prophet there when he made it? no. But God's wisdom, whereby he made it, was there, and that doth infuse itself into holy souls, making Prophets and Saints, declaring his works unto them inwardly, without any noise. And the holy Angels that eternally behold the face of the Father, they come down when they are appointed, and declare his will unto them, of whom he was one that wrote, In the beginning God created heaven and earth, and who was so fit a witness to believe God by, that by the same spirit that revealed this unto him, did he prophesy the coming of our faith. But (a) what made God create heaven and earth, then, not sooner: (b) they that say this to import an eternity of the world, being not by God created, are damnably, and impiously deceived and infected. For (to except all prophecy) the very (c) order disposition, beauty and change of the world and all therein proclaimeth itself to have been m●…de (and not possible to have been made, but) by God, that ineffable, invisible great one, ineffably & invisible bea●…teous. But they that say God made the world, and yet allow it no temporal, but only a formal original, being made after a manner almost incomprehensible, they seem to say somewhat in God's defence from that chanceful rashness, to take a thing into his head that was not therein before, viz▪ to make the world, and to be subject to change of will, he be●…g wholly unchangeable and for ever. But I see not how their reason can stand in ●…er respects, chiefly (d) in that of the soul, which if they do coeternize with 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 can never show how that misery befalleth it anew, that was never acci●… 〈◊〉 it before. (e) If they say that the happiness & misery have been coeternale●… then must they be so still, & then follows this absurdity, that the soul being 〈◊〉, shall not be happy in this, that it forseeth the misery to come. If it 〈◊〉 foresee their bliss nor their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is it happily a false vnderstand●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most fond assertion. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they hold that the misery and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ed each other from all eternity, but that afterwards the soul be●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no more to misery, yet doth not this save them from being c●…ed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was never truly happy before; but then beginneth to enjoy 〈◊〉 new, & vncert●… happiness: & so they confess that this so strange & unexpected 〈◊〉 thing bef●…ls the soul then, that never befell it before: which new changes cause 〈◊〉 ●…y deny that God eternally foreknew, they deny him also to be the author of that 〈◊〉: (which were wicked to do.) And then if they should say that he 〈◊〉 resolved that the soul should not become eternally blessed, how far 〈◊〉 ●…m quitting him from that mutability which they disallow? But if 〈◊〉 ●…ledge, that it had (f) a true temporal beginning, but shall never 〈◊〉 ●…ral end, & having once tried misery, and gotten clear of it, shall never 〈◊〉 ●…ble more, this they may boldly affirm with prejudice to God's immu●… will. And so they may believe that the world had a temporal origi●… 〈◊〉 that God did not alter his eternal resolution in creating of it. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) made] Epicurus his question. C●…c. de nat. dear. 1. Uelleius reasons of it. (b) They 〈◊〉 This is a main doubt, mightily divided and tossed into parts by great wits, and 〈◊〉 ●…tes. Some hold the world never made, nor ever ending, so do the Peripateti●…●…y ●…y Whether the world be created. Latins (as Pliny, and Manilius) follow them: Cato the elder saith that of the 〈◊〉 ●…me said it was created, but must be eternal, as they (in the other book) said Pla●… said it was from eternity, but must have an end. Some, that God made it corrup●…●…dlesse, as preserved by the divine essence, and these are Pythagoreans. Some say it 〈◊〉 beginning and must have an end: the Epicureans, Anaxagoras, Empedocles and the 〈◊〉 this. Of these Plut. de Plac. Philoso. Galen. Histor. Philosoph. (if that book be his.) 〈◊〉 die not. Macrobius, and others do write. Aphrodiseus stands to Aristotle, be●…●…inion was the most battered at. Galen made the senses judges of all the whole 〈◊〉 because we see the same world, all in the same fashion, therefore it was vncrea●… be eternal. For as Manilius saith. The Father sees not one world; the Son ano●… of them that make it eternal, say that God made it. Some give it no cause of bee●… it cause of itself, and all besides. Arist. de caelo & mundo. (c) Order] Chance 〈◊〉 ●…ke so singularly an ordered work, nor any other reason or workman, but beau●… could produce so beauteous an object. All the Philosopher's schools that smelled of 〈◊〉, held directly that nothing proved the world to be of Gods creating, so much 〈◊〉 ●…ll beauty thereof. Plato, the stoics, Cicero Plutarch, and Aristotle were all thus 〈◊〉 Cic. de nat. de. lib. 2. (d) In that of the soul] Plato thrusts their eternal souls into 〈◊〉 ●…nto prisons for sins committed. (e) If they] They must needs say they were either ever 〈◊〉 ever wretched, or successively, both: which if it be, the alteration of the souls na●…●…use it, perforce. For what vicissitude of guilt and expiation could there be for so 〈◊〉 ●…sand years of eternity, so constant, as to make the souls now blessed and now mi●… A true] Some read, a beginning as number hath; number begins at one, and so runs 〈◊〉: the great number may still be increased, nor can you ever come to the end of num●… hath no end, but is justly called infinite. 〈◊〉 we ought not to seek to comprehend the infinite spaces of time or place, ere the world was made. CHAP. 5. 〈◊〉 then let us see what we must say to those that make God the world's 〈◊〉 and yet examine the time: and what they will say to us, when we exa●… of the place. They ask why it was made then, and no sooner, as we ●…ke,, why was it made in this place and in no other? for if they imagine in●…●…paces of time before the world, herein they cannot think that God did 〈◊〉, so likewise may they suppose infinite spaces of place besides the world, 〈◊〉 if they do not make the Deity to rest and not operate, they must fall to 〈◊〉 (a) his dream of innumerable worlds, only this difference there willbe, 〈◊〉 all his worlds of the (b) casual coagulation of Atoms, and so by their 〈◊〉 dissolves them: but they must make all theirs, God's handiworkes, if the, will not let him rest in all the inter-mirable space beyond the world, and have none of all them worlds (no more than this of ours) to be subject to dissolution. (c) fo●… we now dispute with those that do as we do, make God the incorporeal Creator of all things that are not of his own essence. For those that stand for many gods, they are unworthy to be made disputants in this question of religion. The other Philosophers have quite (d) outstripped all the rest in fame and credit because (though they werefarre from the truth, yet) were they nearer than the rest. Perhaps they will neither make God's essence dilatable, not limmitable, but (as one should indeed hold) will affirm his incorporeal presence in all that spacious distance besides the world, employed only in this little place (in respect of his immensity) that the world is fixed in: I do not think they will talk so idly. If they set God on work in this one determinate (though greatly dilated) world: that reason that they gave why God should not work in all those infinite places beyond the world, let them give the same why God wrought not in all the infinite times before the world. But as it is not consequent that God followed chance rather than reason in placing of the world's frame where it now standeth, & in no other place, though this place had no merit to deserve it before the infinite others: (yet no man's reason can comprehend why the divine will placed it so:) even so no more is it consequent, that we should think that it was any chance made God create this world than, rather than at any other time, whereas all times before had their equal course, and none was more meritorious of the creation than another: But if they say, men are fond to think there is any place besides that wherein the world is: so are they (say we) to imagine any time for God to be idle in, since there was no time before the worlds creation. L. VIVES. EPicurus (a) his dream] Who held not only many worlds, but infinite: I showed it elsewhere. M●…odorus. Metrodorus saith it as absurd to imagine but one world, in that so infinite a space as to say that but one care of corn grows in a huge field. This error Aristotle & the Sto●…kes beat quite down, putting but that one for the world, which Plato, and the wisest Philosophers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the universe. (b) Casual] Great ado the Philosophers keep about nature's principles: Democritas makes all things of little bodies that fly about in the void places, having form and magnitude, yet indivisible, and therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Atoms, Epicurus gave them weight also, more than Democritus did: and made those indivisible diversly-formed things, to 〈◊〉 about 〈◊〉. (of divers quantities and weights) up and down casually in the void and shuffling together in divers forms, thus produce infinite worlds, and thus infinite worlds do arise continue and end, without any certain cause at all: and seeking of a place, without the world, we may not take it as we do our places, circumscribing a body: but as a certain continuance, before the world was made, wherein many things may possibly be produced and live. So though their be nothing without this world, yet the mind conceiveth a space wherein God may bo●… place this, and infinite worlds more. (c) For we] With the Plat●…nists, he means. (d) Out 〈◊〉] The ancients held the Platonists and Stoics in great respect and reverence. Cicero. That the world and time had both one beginning, nor was the one before the other. CHAP. 6. FOr if eternity and time be well considered, time (a) never to be extant without motion, and (b) eternity to admit no change, who would not see that time could not have being before some movable thing were created; whose motion, & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alteration (necessarily following one part another) the time might run 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore that God whose eternity altars not, created the world, and 〈◊〉 can he be said to have created the world in time, unless you will say 〈◊〉 something created before the world, whose course time did follow? 〈◊〉 holy and most true scriptures say that: In the beginning God created hea●…●…h, to wit, that there was nothing before then, because this was the Be●… which the other should have been if aught had been made before, 〈◊〉 the world was made with Time, & not in Time, for that which is made 〈◊〉 ●…s made both before some Time, & after some. Before i●… is Time past, af●…●…me to come: But no Time passed before the world, because no creature 〈◊〉 by whose course it might pass. But it was made with the Time if mo●… Times condition, as that order of the first six or seven days went, 〈◊〉 were counted morning & evening until the Lord fulfilled all the work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sixth day, and commended the seventh to us in the mystery of sanctifi●…▪ Of what fashion those days were, it is either exceeding hard, or altoge●…●…possible to think, much more to speak. L. VIVES. I●… 〈◊〉 ●…euer] Aristotle defined time the measure of motion, making them utterly inse●…. Time. Some Philosophers define it, motion, so do the stoics. (b) Eternity) So saith Au●…●…en ●…en, Boetius also, Nazianzen, and others all out of Plato, these are his words. When 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this great movable and eternal universe, beheld his work, he was very well pleased, 〈◊〉 ●…ake it yet a little liker to the Archetype. And so, even as this creature is immortal, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make the world eternal, as near as the nature thereof would permit: but his na●…●…ll, and squared not with this made work. But he conceived a movable form of e●… Eternity. together with ornament of the heavenly structure, gave it this progressive eternal I●…●…ity: which he named Time, dividing it into days, nights, months and years: all which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heaven, and none of them were before heaven. Thus Plato in his Timaeus: Time (saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of eternity: but time moveth, and eternity moveth not, being naturally fixed ●…able: towards it doth time pass, and endeth in the perfection thereof, and may be dissolved 〈◊〉 ●…orlds creator will. In dogm. Platon. Of the first six days that had morning, and evening, ●…re the Sun was made. CHAP. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordinary (a) days, we see they have neither morning nor evening but 〈◊〉 ●…e Sun rises and sets. But the first three days of all, had no Sun, for 〈◊〉 made the fourth day. And first, God made the light, and severed it from 〈◊〉 ●…nesse, calling it day, and darkness, night: but what that light was, and 〈◊〉 ●…nne a course to make morning and night, is out of our sense to judge, 〈◊〉 we understand it, which nevertheless we must make no question but be●…▪ (b) for the light was either a bodily thing placed in the world's highest pa●… far from our eye, or there where the Sun was afterwards made: (c) or 〈◊〉 the name of light signified that holy city, with the Angels and spirits whereof the Apostle saith: jerusalem which is above is our eternal mother in heaven. Gal. 4. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 another place he saith: ye are all the children of light, and the sons of the 〈◊〉 ●…re not sons of night and darkness. (d) Yet hath this day the morn and e●…, because (e) the knowledge of the creature, compared to the Creators, is 〈◊〉 ●…ery twilight: And day breaketh with man, when he draweth near the love and praise of the Creator. Nor is the creature ever be nighted, but when the love of the Creator forsakes him. The scripture orderly reciting those days, never mentions the night: nor saith, night was, but, the evening and the morning were the first day, so of the second, and soon. For the creatures knowledge, of itself, is as it were far more discoloured, then when it joins with the Creators, as in the Knowledge of a creature. art that framed it. Therefore, even, is more congruently spoken then night, yet when all is referred to the love, & praise of the Creator, night becomes morning: and when it comes to the knowledge of itself it is one full day. When it comes to the Firmament that separateth the waters above and below, it is the second day. When unto the knowledge of the earth, and all things that have root thereon, it is the third day. When unto the knowledge of the two lights the greater and the less, the fourth: when it knows all water-creatures, fowls and fishes, it is the fifth, and when it knows all earthly creatures, and man himself it is the sixth day. L. VIVES. ORdinary (a) days] Coleynes copy reads not this place so well. (b) For the] The school men Sent. 2. dist. 24. dispute much of this. But Augustine calleth not the light a body here: but saith God made it either some bright body, as the Sun, or e●…s the contraction of the incorporeal light, made night, and the extension, day, as Basil saith, moving like the Sun, in the egress making morning, in the regress evening. Hug. de. S. Victore, de Sacram. lib. 1. (c) Or else] Aug. de genes ad lit. lib. 1. (d) Yet hath] A divers reading, both to one purpose. (e) The knowledge] De genes. ad lit▪ lib. 4. Where he calleth it morning when the Angels by contemplating of the creation in themselves (where is deep darkness) lift up themselves to the knowledge of God: and if that in him they learn all things (which is more certain than all habitual knowledge) then is it day: It grows towards evening when the Angels turn from God to contemplate of the creatures in themselves, but this evening never becometh night for the Angels never prefer the work before the work man: that were most deep, dark night. Thus much out of Augustine, the first mentioner of mornings & evenings knowledges. What we must think of Gods resting the seventh day after his six days work. CHAP. 8. But whereas God rested the seventh day from all his works, & sanctified it, this is not to be childishly understood, as if God had taken pains; he but spoke the word, and (a) by that i●…telligible and eternal one (not vocal nor temporal) were all things created. But God's rest signifieth theirs that rest in God, as the gladness of the house signifies those that are glad in the house, though something else (and not the house) be the cause thereof. How much more than if the beauty of the house make the inhabitants glad, so that we may not only call it glad using the continent for the contained, as, the whole Thea●…er applauded, when it was the men: the whole meadows bellowed, for, the Oxen, but also using the efficient for the effect, as a merry epistle; that is, making the reader's merry. The●…fore the scripture affirming that God rested, meaneth the rest of all things in God, whom he by himself maketh to rest: for this the Prophet hath promised to all such as he speaketh Gods rest not personal but efficient. unto, and for whom he wrote, that after their good works which God doth in them or by them, (if they first have apprehended him in this life by faith) they shall in him have rest eternal. This was prefigured in the sanctification of the Sabbath by God's command in the old law, whereof, more at large in due season. L. VIVES. BY (a) that intelligible] Basil saith that this word is a moment of the will▪ by which we conceive better of things. What is to be thought of the qualities of Angels, according to scripture. CHAP. 9 NOw having resolved to relate this holy Cities original, & first of the angels who make a great part thereof so much the happier in that they never (a) were pilgrims, let us see what testimonies of holy wri●…t concern this point. The scriptures speaking of the world's creation speak not plainly of the Angels, when or in what order they were created, but that they were created, the word heaven includeth. In the beginning God created heaven and earth, or rather in the world Light, whereof I speak now, are there signified: that they were omitted, I cannot think, holy writ saying, that God rested in the seventh day from all his works, the same book beginning with, In the beginning God created heaven and earth: to show that nothing was made ere then. Beginning therefore with heaven & earth, and earth the first thing created▪ being as the scripture plainly saith, without form and void, light being yet un made, and darkness being upon the deep: (that is upon a certain confusion of earth and waters) for where light is not darkness must needs be, than the creation proceeding; and all being accomplished in six days, how should the angels be omitted, as though they were none of God's works, from which he rested the seventh day? This though it be not omitted, yet here is it not plain: but elsewhere it is most evident. The three chil●… sung in their hymn, O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, amongst which they reckon the angels. And the Psalmist saith: O praise God in the heavens, 〈◊〉 him in the heights: praise him all ye his angels, praise him all his hosts; praise 〈◊〉 s●…e and Moon, praise him sta●…res and light. Praise him ye heavens of heavens, 〈◊〉 the waters that be above the heavens, praise the name of the Lord, for he spoke the 〈◊〉 and they were made: he commanded & they were created: here divinity calls the ●…ls Gods creatures most plainly: inserting them with the rest, & saying of all: He sp●…ke the word and they were made: who dares think that the Angels were made after the six days: If any one be so fond, harken, this place of scripture confounds him utterly, (e) When the stars were made, all mine angels praised me with a job. 38. 7●… loud voice. Therefore they were made before the stars, and the stars were made the fourth day. what? they were made the third day, may we say so? God forbid. That days work is fully known, the earth was parted from the waters, and two ●…nts took forms distinct, and earth produced all her plants. In the second day then? neither. Then was the firmament made between the waters above and below, and was called Heaven, in which firmament the stars were created the fourth day. (c) Wherefore if the angels belong unto Gods six days work, they are that light called day; to commend whose unity, it was called, one day, not the first day, nor differs the second or third from this, all are but this one, doubled v●…to 6. or 7. six of God's works, the 7. of his rest. For when God said: Let there be light, & there was light; if we understand the angel's creation aright herein, they are made partakers of that eternal light, the unchangeable wisdom of God, all-creating, namely, the only be gotten son of God, with whose light they in their creation were illuminate, and made light, & called day in the participation of the unchangeable light & day, that Word of God by which they & all things else were created. For the true light that lighteneth every man that cometh into this world, this also lighteneth every pure angel, making it light, not in itself, but in God, from whom if an Angel fall, it becometh impure, as all the unclean spirits are, being no more a light in God, but a darkness in itself, deprived of all participation of the eternal light: for Evil hath no nature; but the loss of good, that is evil. L. VIVES. Never were (a) pilgrims] But always in their country: seeing always the face of the father. (b) When the stars] job. 38 7. So the Septuagints do translate it, as it is in the te●…t. (c) Wherefore if] The Greek divine put the creation of spirituals, before that of things corporal, making God use them as ministers in the corporal work: and so held Plato▪ Hierome following Gregory and his other Greek Masters held so also. But of the greeks, Basil and Dionysius, and almost all the Latins, Ambrose, Bede, Cassiodorus, and Augustine in this place holds, that God made allthings together, which agreeth with that place of Ecclesiasticus, chap. 18. vers. 1. He that liveth for ever, made allthings together. Of the uncompounded, unchangeable Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy spirit, one God in substance and quality, ever one and the same. CHAP. 10. GOod therefore (which is God) is only simple, and consequently unchangeable. This good created all things, but not simple, therefore changeable. I say created, that is made, not begot. For that which the simple good begot, is as simple as it is, and is the same that begot it. These two we call Father and son both which with their spirit, are one God: that spirit, being the fathers and the Unity in 〈◊〉. sons, is properly called in scriptures, the holy spirit, (a) it is neither father nor son, but personally distinct from both, but it is not really: for it is a simple and unchangeable good with them, and coeternal. And this trinity is one God: not simple because a trinity (for we call not the nature of that good, simple, because the father is alone therein, or the son, or holy ghost alone, for that name of the trinity is not alone with personal subsistence, as the (b) Sab●…llians held) but it is called simple, because it is one in essence & the same one in quality (excepting their personal relation: for therein the father hath a son, yet is no son, & the son a father, yet is no father. (c) But in consideration each of itself, the quality and essence is both one therein, as each liveth, that is▪ hath life, an●… is life itself. This is the reason of the nature's simplicity, wherein nothing adheareth that can be lost, nor is the continent one & the thing contained another, as vessels & liquors, bodies and colours, air and heat, or the soul and wisdom are: for those are not coessential with their qualities: the vessel is not the liquor, nor the body the colour, nor air heat, nor the soul wisdom: therefore may they all loo●… these adjuncts, and assume others: the vessel may be empty, the body discoloured, the air cold, the soul foolish. But (d) the body being one incorruptible (as the saints shall have in the resurrection) that incorruption it shall never lose, yet is not that incorruption one essence with the bodily substance. For it is a like in all parts of the body, all are incorruptible. But the body is greater in who●…e then in part, and the parts are some larger, some lesser, yet neither enlarging or lessening the incorruptibility. So then (e) the body being not entire in itself, & incorruptibility being entire in itself, do differ: for all parts of the body have inequality in themselves, but none in incorruptibility. The finger is less than the hand, but neither more nor less corruptible than the hand: being unequal to themselves, their incorruptibility is equal. And therefore though incorruptibility be the bodies inseparable inherent, yet the substance making the body, & the quality m●…ing it incorruptible, are absolutely several. And so it is in the adjunct aforesaid of the soul, though the soul be always wise, (as it shall be when it is delivered from misery to eternity) though it be from thence evermore wise yet it is by participation of the divine wisdom, of whose substance the soul is not. For though the air be ever light, it followeth not that the light and the air should be all one. (I say not this (f) as though the air were a soul as some that (g) could not conceive an uncorporal nature, did imagine. But there is a great similitude in this disparity: so that one may fitly say, as the corporeal air is lightened by the corporeal light, so is the incorporeal soul by gods wisdoms incorporeal light, & as the air being deprived of that light, becomes dark, (h) corporeal darkness being nothing but air deprived of light, so doth the soul grow darkened, by want of the light of wisdom) According to this then, they are called simple things, t●…at are truly and principally divine, because their essence and (ay) their quality are indistinct, nor do they partake of any deity, substance, wisdom, or be●…titude, but are all entirely themselves. The scripture indeed calls the Holy Ghost, the manifold spirit of wisdom, because the powers of it are many: but all one with the essence, and all included in one, for the wisdom thereof i●…, not manifold, but one, and therein are infinite and unmeasurable (k) treasuries of things intelligible, wherein are all the immutable and inscrutable causes of all things, both visible, and mutable, which are thereby created: for God did nothing unwittingly, (l) it were disgrace to say so of any humane artificer. But if he made all knowing, then made he but what he knew. This now produceth a wonder, but yet a truth in our minds: that the world could not be unto us, but that it is now extant: but it could not have been at all (m) but that God knew it. L. VIVES. IT is (a) Neither.] Words I think ad little to religion, yet must we have a care to keep the old path and received doctrine of the Church, for divinity being so far above our reach, Religious phrases. how can we give it the proper explanation? All words, are man's invention for human uses, and no man may refuse the old approved words to bring in new of his own invention, for when as proprieties are not to be found out by man's wit, those are the fittest to declare things by, that ancient use hath le●… us, and they that have recorded most part of our religion. This I say for that a sort of smattering rash fellows impiously presume to cast the old forms of speech at their heels, and to set up their own maisters-ships, being gr●…ssly ignorant both in the matters and their bare forms, and will have it law●…ull for them, at their fond like to 〈◊〉 or fashion the phrases of the fathers in mat●…er of religion, into what form they list, like a 〈◊〉 of wax. (b) Sabellians. Of them before▪ The h●…ld no persons in the Ternity. (c) But in c●…deration.] The Bruges copy reads it without the sentence precedent in the copy that Uives commented upon, and so doth Paris, Lovaines and Basills all] (d) The body.] Proving accidents both separable and inseparable to be distinct from the substance they do adhere unto. (e) The body being not.] The body cons●…sts of parts: ●…t cannot stand without them, combined and co●…gulate in one: the hand is not the body of his whole, nor the magnitude▪ yet the incor●…bility of the hand is no part of the body's incorruptibility, for this is not divisible, though it be in the whole body, but so indivisible, that being all in all the body, it is also all in 〈◊〉 part: and so are all spiritual things, Angels▪ souls, and God; their natures possess no place so that they may say, this is on my rig●…t ha●…d, this on the left, or this above, and this below, but they are entirely whole in every particle of their place, and yet fa●…le not to fill the whole; whether this be easilier spoken or understood ●…udge you. (f) As though.] So Anaximenes of Miletus, and Diogenes of Apollonia held. Ana●…as held the soul was like an air. Heraclitus, produced all souls out of respiration, thereupon calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to refrigerate. Plato in Cratyl. The ancients took our 〈◊〉 we draw, for the soul▪ whereupon the Poet said, uxoris anima 〈◊〉. My wives breath stinks. They called all air also the soul. Virgil Semina terrarum animaeque marisq●… 〈◊〉. As they had been the seeds of earth, air, sea, etc. (g) Could not.] C●…c. Tusc. q●…st. lib. 1. They could not conceive the soul that lives by itself, but sought a shape for it. (h) C●…●…kenesse.] Arist, de anima. lib. 2. Darkness is the absence of light from a transpare●… body, by which we see. ay Their quality.] The greeks call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Tully in his academikes taketh this for a body. But Augustine here calleth all adherences to the substance (which Philosophers call accidents) qualities. Quintil, and others, show the name of Quality to be general, and both in the abstract, and conceit, appliable to all accidents. (k) Treasuries.] Storehouses, or treasures themselves. (l) It were.] All were he a bungler, and had no skill, the word is, any, (m) But that God.] Whose care upholds, or else would it stand but a while. But he cannot care for that he knows not: nor any workman supports a work he is ignorant in, or perfometh any such. Whether the spirits that fell did ever partake with the Angels, in their bliss at their beginning. CHAP. 11. WHich being so, the Angels were never darkness at all, but as soon as ever they were made they were made light: yet not created only to live, and be as they listed, but live happily and wisely in their illumination, from which some of them turning away, were so far from attaining that excellence of blessed wisdom which is eternal, with full▪ security of the eternity that they (a) fell to a life, of bare foolish reason only, which they cannot leave although they would: how they were partakers of that wisdom, before their fall, who can define? How can we say they were equally partakers with those that are really blessed by the assurance of their eternity, whom if they had been therein equal, they had still continued in the same eternity, by the same assurance? for life indeed must have an end, last it never so long, but this cannot be said of eternity, for it is life, because of living; but it is eternity of never ending: wherefore though all eternity, be not blessed (for hell fire is eternal) yet if the true beatitude be not without eternity their beatitude was no such as having end, and therefore being not eternal, whether they knew it, or knew it not: fear keeping their knowledge, and error their ignorance from being blessed. But if their ignorance built not firmly upon uncertainty, but on either side, wavering between the end, or the eternity of their beatitude; this protraction proves them not partakers of the blessed angels happiness, (b). We ty not this word, beatitude, unto such strictness, as to hold it Gods only peculiar: yet is he so blessed as none can be more: In compariso●… of which (be the Angels as blessed of themselves as they can) what is all the beatitude God ●…ly 〈◊〉. of any thing, or what can it be? L. VIVES. THey fell (a) to a life.] The Devils have quick, and subtle wits, yet are not wise, knowing 〈◊〉 themselves nor their Father as they ought, but being blinded with pride and envy▪ 〈◊〉 most ●…ondly into all mischief. If they were wise, they should be good, for none is wicked in 〈◊〉 ignorance rules not, as Plato and Aristotle after him, teacheth. (b) We tie 〈◊〉.] The 〈◊〉 defined beatitude. A numerically perfect state in all good, peculiar to God, in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Angels and Saints are blessed. 〈…〉. The happiness of the i●…st that as yet have not the reward of the divine promise, compared with the first man of paradise, before sins original. CHAP. 12. NEither do we only call (a) them blessed, respecting all reasonable intellect●… 〈◊〉, for who dares deny that the first man in Paradise was blessed before his 〈◊〉 ●…ough he knew not whether he should be so still or not. He had been so 〈◊〉; had he not sinned: for we call them happy (b) whom we see live well in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hope of the immortality to come, without (c) terror of conscience, 〈◊〉 ●…rue attainment of pardon for the crimes of our natural imperfection. 〈◊〉 ●…ough they be assured of reward for their perseverance, yet they are not 〈◊〉 ●…seuer. For what man knoweth that he shall continue to the end in acti●…●…crease of justice, unless he have it by revelation from him, that by his 〈◊〉 ●…ouidence instructeth few (yet fa●…leth none) herein? But as for present 〈◊〉, our first father in Paradise was more blessed than any just man of the 〈◊〉 but as for his hope, every man in the miseries of his body, is more blessed: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom truth (not opinion) hath said that he shall be rid of all molesta●… partake with the Angels in that great God, whereas the man that lived 〈◊〉 ●…se, in all that felicity was uncertain of his fall or continuance therein. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) them blessed] This reading is best approved. Augustine means that the Angel's 〈◊〉 they were uncertain of their fall or continuance, yet were (in a sort) blessed, only 〈◊〉 ●…gh glorious nature: as Adam was in those great gifts of God before his fall. (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] Christ calls them blessed. Mat. 8. (c) Terror of conscience] The greatest bliss A pure conscience. 〈◊〉 a pure conscience: as Horace saith, to blush for guilt of nothing, and the greatest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…uilty conscience▪. This was that the Poets called the furies. Cic. contra Pisonem 〈◊〉. ●…er the Angels were created in such a state of happiness, that neither 〈◊〉 those that fell, knew they should fall, nor those that persevered, foreknew they should persever. CHAP. 13. 〈◊〉 ●…fore now it is plain, that beatitude requires both conjoined: such 〈◊〉 ●…tude I mean, as the intellectual nature doth fitly desire: that is, to 〈◊〉▪ the unchangeable good, without any molestation, to remain in him 〈◊〉 without delay of doubt, or deceit of error. This we faithfully believe 〈◊〉 Angels have: but consequently that the Angels that offended, and 〈◊〉 lost that light, had not, before their fall: some beatitude they had, but 〈◊〉 knowing: this we may think, if they (a) were created any while be●…y sinned. But if it seem hard to believe some Angels to be created 〈◊〉 ●…ore-knowledge of their perseverance or fall, and othersome to have 〈◊〉 ●…cience of their beatitude, but rather that all had knowledge alike in their 〈◊〉 and continued so, until these that now are evil, left that light of good●… verily it is harder to think that the holy Angels now are in them●… certain of that beatitude, whereof the scriptures afford them so 〈◊〉 ●…einty, and us also that read them. What Catholic Christian but 〈◊〉 that no Angel that now is, shall ever become a devil: nor any devil 〈◊〉, from henceforth? The truth of the Gospel tells the faithful, that 〈◊〉 be like the Angels, and that they shall go to life eternal. But if 〈◊〉 ●…re never to fall from bliss, and they be not sure, we are above 〈◊〉 like them: but the truth affirming (and never erring) that we 〈◊〉 their like, and equals, then are they sure of their blessed eternity: whereof those other being uncertain (for it had been eternal had they been certain of it) it remains that they were not the others equals, or if they were, these that ●…ood firm, had not this certainty of knowledge, until afterwards. Unless we will say that which Christ saith of the Devil: He hath been a murderer 〈◊〉 ●…he beginning, and abode not in the truth, is not only to be understood from joh. 8. 44. the beginning of mankind, that is since man was made, whom he might kill by deceiving; but even from the beginning of his own creation: and therefore because of his aversion from his creator, and (b) proud opposition (herein both erring and seducing) was d●…bard ●…uen from his creation, from happiness, because he could not delude the power of the Almighty. And he that would not in piety hold with the truth, in his pride counterfeits the truth, that the Apostle john's saying, The devil sinneth from the beginning, may be so understood also: that is, ever 〈◊〉. 1. 3. 8. since his creation, he rejected righteousness: which none can have, but a will subject unto God. Whosoever holds thus, is not of the heretics opinion, called the (c) Manichees, nor any such damnations as they, that hold that the Devil had a wicked nature given him in the beginning: they do so dote that they conceive not what Christ said, He abode not in the truth, but think he said, He was made enemy to th●… truth: But Christ did intimate his fall from the truth, wherein if he had remained, he had perticipated it with the holy Angels, and been eternally blessed with them. L. VIVES. WEr●… (a) created] The time between their creation and rebellion, was so little, that it seemed Th●… 〈◊〉. none, (b) Proud opposition]. So the approved copies do read. (c) Manichees] Hearing that the Devil sinned from the beginning, they thought him created sinful and vicious by nature rather than will: for that is natural and involuntary in one, which the creator in●…eth him with in his creation. How this is meant of the Devil, He abode not in the truth, because there john. 8. 44 is no truth in him. CHAP. 14. BUT Christ set down the reason, as if we had asked why he stayed not in the truth? because, there is no truth in him. Had he stood in it, truth had been in him. The phrase is improper: it saith, He abode not in the truth, because there is 〈◊〉 truth in him, whereas it should renuerse it, & say, there is no truth in him because ●…e abode not therein. But the Psalmist useth it so also. I have cried, because thou h●… Ps●…. 17. 16. ●…ard 〈◊〉 o God: whereas properly it is: Thou hast heard me o God because I have cried. But he, having said, I have cried: as if he had been asked the reason, adjoined the cause of his cry in the effect of gods hearing: as if he said. I show that I cried, bec●…use thou hast heard ●…e, o God. The meaning of this place, The Devil sinneth from the beginning. CHAM 15. ANd that that john saith of the Devil, The (a) devil sinneth from the beginning, 〈◊〉 ●…hey (b) make it natural to him, it can be no sin. But how then will they 〈◊〉 the Prophets, as esay's prefiguring the Prince of Babylon saith: How art t●… 〈◊〉 ●…rom heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? and Ezechiel: Thou hast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. ●…4. 12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's garden, every precious stone was in thy raiment? This proves him 〈◊〉. 28. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so doth that which follows more plainly: Thou wast perfect i●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…y t●… waste created, etc. Which places if they have none other 〈◊〉. 15. fit●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ do prove that he was in the truth, but abode not therein: & that 〈◊〉 place, H●… 〈◊〉 not in the truth, proves him once in the truth, but not per●…uering, ●…nd that also; He sinneth from the beginning, meaneth the beginning of 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 from his pride, but not from his creation. Now must the place of job, con●…●…he devil, (He (c) is the beginning of God's works, to be deluded by the Angels: job. 40. Psal. 104 〈◊〉 ●…f the Psalm, this dragon whom thou hast made to scorn him:) are to be ta●… God had made the devil at first, fit for the Angels to deride, but y● that 〈◊〉 ●…ned for his punishment after his sin. He is the beginning of God's works, 〈◊〉 is no nature in the smallest beast, which God made not, from him is all 〈◊〉 ●…sistence and order: wherefore much more must the creature that is an●… by the natural dignity have their pre-eminence of all Gods other works. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) devil▪ We may not draw nay wrist) the gospel to those gramm●…ticismes. A mo●… or two breaks no square in this phrase from the beginning. So we say, Envy in bro●… from the beginning: a little time doth not prove this false. (b) They] The Mani●…●…as, and those that say the Angels could not sin in the moment of their creati●… it, because otherwise the author of their work should bear the blame rather than 〈◊〉 work. And so Origen seems to hold saying. The serpent opposed not the truth, nor was 〈◊〉 go upon his belly, ever from the point of his creation But as Adam and Eve were, a while 〈◊〉▪ ●…o was the serpent no serpent, one while of his being in the Paradise of delight, for 〈◊〉 not malice. In Ezechiel. So Augustine thought, that the first parents offended not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were created. (c) He is] job. 44. the words, to be deluded by the Angels, are 〈◊〉 Septuagints. Of the different degrees of creatures, wherein profitable use and reasons order do differ. CHAP. 16. 〈◊〉 ●…ll things that God made, and are not of his essence, the living is before ●…ad: the productive before these that want generation, & in their living, ●…ue before the senseless, as beasts etc. before trees, & in things sensitive, ●…able before the unreasonable, as Man before beasts: & in things rea●…●…mortalls before mortals, as Angels before men, but this is by nature's 〈◊〉 they esteem of these, is peculiar and different, as the divers uses are: 〈◊〉 some senseless things are preferred before some sensitive, so far, that 〈◊〉 power, we would root the later out of nature, or (whether we know or 〈◊〉 what place therein they have) put them all after our profit. For who ●…ther have his pantry full of meat them mice, or possess pence than fleas. 〈◊〉: for man's esteem (whose nature is so worthy) will give more often●… a horse then for a servant, for a ring then a maid. So that in choice, 〈◊〉 of him that respects the worth often controls him that respects his ●…de or pleasure, nature pondering every thing simply in itself, and 〈◊〉 thing respectively for another: the one valuing them by the light of 〈◊〉, the other by the pleasure, or use of the sense: And indeed a certain 〈◊〉 love, hath gotten such predominance in reasonable natures, that al●… Good 〈◊〉 better 〈◊〉 bad Angels. generally, all Angels excel men in nature's order, yet by the law of ●…nesse good men have gotten place of preferment before the evil 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 the vice of malice is not natural, but against nature, following the will, not the creation in sin. CHAP. 17. 〈◊〉 in respect of the devils nature, not his will, we do understand 〈◊〉 place a right, He was the beginning of God's works. For where the vice of job. 40 〈◊〉 in, the nature was not corrupted before: (a) vice is so contrary to 〈◊〉 that it cannot but hurt it. (b) therefore were it no vice, for that nature that 〈◊〉 God, to do so, but that it is more natural to it to desire adherence with God (c) The ●…ill will then is a great proof that the nature was good. But as God is the 〈◊〉▪ Creator of good natures, so is he the just disposer of evil wills: that when they use good natures evil, he may use the evil wills, well. Thereupon he 〈◊〉 that the devils good nature, and evil will, should be cast down, and de●…d by his Angels, that is that his temptations might confirm his Saints, whom the other, sought to iniur●…. And because God in the creating of him, foresaw both his evil will, and what good, God meant to effect thereby; therefore the Psalmist saith: this Dragon whom thou hast made for a scorn: that, in that very creation that it were good by God's goodness, yet had God foreknowledge how to make use of it in the bad state. L. VIVES. THe (a) vice] Socrates and the Stoics held virtue, natural, vice unnatural. For, follow the conduct of the true purity of our nature, separated from depraved opinion, & we shall never sin. (b) Therefore] If it did the nature, that offendeth, more real good to offend, then forbear, it were no offence, nor error, but rather a wise election, and a just performance. (c) The evil will] 〈◊〉 ●…ill. Thence arise all sins, and because they oppose nature, nature resisteth them: whereby offending pleases their will but hurts the nature, the will being voluntarily evil, their nature forced to it: which were it left free, would follow the best (for that it loves) and go the direct way to the maker, whose sight at length it would attain. Of the beauty of this universe, augmented, by God's ordinance, out of contraries. CHAP. 18. FOr God would never have foreknown vice in any work of his, Angel, or Man, but that he knew in like manner, what good use to put it unto, so making the worlds course, like a fair poem, more gracious by Antithetique figures. Antitheta, (a) called in Latin, opposites, are the most decent figures of all elocution: some, more expressly call them Contraposites. But we have no use of this word, though for the figure, the latin, and all the tongues of the world use it. (b) S. Paul useth it rarely upon that place to the corinths where he saith. By the arm●… of righteousness on the right hand, and the left: by honour and dishonour, by evil report C●… 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. and good, as deceivers, and yet true, as unknown and yet known, as dying, and behold 〈◊〉 li●…e, as chastened, and yet not killed, as sorrowing and yet ever glad, as poor, and yet make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rich, as having nothing, yet possessing allthings. Thus as these contraries opposed do give the saying an excellent grace, so is the world's beauty composed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 th●… 〈◊〉. of contrarieties, not in figure, but in nature. This is pla●…e in Ecclesiasticus, in this verse? Against evil, is good, and against death is life, so is the Godly against the sinner: 〈◊〉 look for in all thy works of the highest, two and two, one against one. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. VIVES. AN●…a (a) are] Contraposites, in word, and sentence. Cic. ad Heren. lib. 4. calleth it 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉. Co●…position (saith Quintilian) con●…tion, or 〈◊〉, is diversly used. First in opposition of 〈◊〉 ●…o one: as, fear yielded to boldness, shame to lust: it is not out wit b●… your help. Secondly of sentence to sentence: as, He may rule in orations, but must yield in judgements Louvaine copy defective.] 〈◊〉. There also is more to this purpose, so as I see no reason why Augustine should say the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with us. (b) S. Paul] Augustine makes Paul a Rhetorician. [Well it is tolerable, 〈◊〉 saith i●…d one of us said so, our ears should ring of heresy presently, 〈◊〉 are so ready 〈◊〉 some men's ●…ongue ends, because indeed they are so full of it themselves.] The meaning of that place, God separated the light from darkness. CHAP. 19 ●…erefore though the hardness of the Scriptures be of good use in produ●…ing many truths to the light of knowledge, one taking it thus and another ●…et so as that which is obscure in one place be explained by some other 〈◊〉 by manifest proofs: Whether it be that in their multitude of opini●…e light on the authos meaning, or that it be too obscure to be at●…nd yet other truths, upon this occasion, be admitted) yet verily I think ●…urdity in God's works to believe the creation of the Angels, and the se●… of the clean ones from the unclean, then, when the first light (Lux) ●…de: Upon this ground: And God separated the light from the darkness: ●…od called the light day, and the darkenkesse he called night. For he only was Gen 1. 4. 5. 〈◊〉 discern them, who could fore-now their fall ere they fell, their de●… of light, and their eternal bondage in darkness of pride. As for the 〈◊〉 we see, viz: this our natural light and darkness, he made the two 〈◊〉 lights, the Sun and the Moon to separate them. Let there be lights (saith 〈◊〉 firmament of the Heaven, to separate the day from the night. And by and 〈◊〉 God made two great lights, the (a) greater light to rule the day, and the 〈◊〉 rule the night: He made both them and the stars: And God set 〈◊〉 the firmament of heaven (b) to shine upon the earth, and to rule in the 〈◊〉 night, and to separate the light from darkness, but between that light 〈◊〉 the holy society of Angels, shining in the lustre of intelligible truth, 〈◊〉 opposite darkness: the wicked Angels, perversely fallen from that light 〈◊〉 ●…ee only could make separation, who fore-knoweth, and cannot but 〈◊〉 all the future evils of their wills, not their natures. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉] The greater light to rule or to begin the day. [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] So the Septuagints trans●… 〈◊〉 both rule & beginning: & principium is used sometimes for rule, as in Ps. 110. v. 3. 〈◊〉 or, that they might shine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: Some of the Latins have used the infinitive 〈◊〉 the conjunction. Pestis acerba boum, pecorumque aspergere virus. saith Virgil. Of that place of scripture spoken after the separation of the light and darkness, And God saw the light that it was good. CHAP. 20. 〈◊〉 may we overslip that these words of God; Let there be light, & there was light, 〈◊〉 immediately seconded by these: And God saw the light that it was good: not 〈◊〉 ●…ad separated the light and darkness, and named them day and night, lest ●…d have seemed to have shown his liking of the darkness as well as the light. ●…ras the darkness, which the conspicuous lights of heaven divide from the 〈◊〉 inculpable: therefore it was said after it was, & not before, And God saw that 〈◊〉. And God (saith he) Set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the ●…d to rule in the day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and 〈◊〉 that it was good: Both those he liked, for both were sinless: but having said 〈◊〉 be light, and there was so, he adjoines immediately, And God saw the light 〈◊〉 good. And then followeth: God separated the light from the darkness, and 〈◊〉 the light day, and the darkness, night: but here he addeth not, And God 〈◊〉 it was good: lest he should seem to allow well of both, the one being ●…turally but) voluntary evil. Therefore the light only pleased the Creator: the Angelical darknesses, though they were to be ordained, were not to be approved. L. VIVES. IMmediately (a) seconded] The Scripture speaking of the spiritual light, the Angels, before the part of this light, that is part of the Angels became dark, God approved the light, that is all the Darkness. Angels whom he had made good, & light: but speaking of our visible light, made the fourth day: God approveth both light and darkness: for that darkness God created, and it was not evil as the Angels that became dark were, & therefore were not approved, as the fourth days darkness was. Of God's eternal unchanging will and knowledge wherein he pleased to create all things in form as they were created. CHAP. 21. WHat means that saying that goeth through all, and God saw that it was good, but the approbation of the work made according to the workman's art, God's wisdom? God doth not see it is good, being made, as if he saw it not so Gen. 1. ere it was made: But in seeing that it is good being made, which could not have been made so but that he foresaw it, he teacheth (but learneth not) that it is good. Plato (a) durst go further: and say That God had great joy in the beauty of the Universe. He was not so fond to think the newness of the work increased God's joy: but he showed that that pleased him being effected which had pleased his wisdom to foreknow should be so effected, not that God's knowledge varieth, or apprehends diversly of things past, present and future. He doth not foresee things to come as we do, nor beholds things present, or remembers things past as we do: But in a manner far different from our imagination. He seeth them not by change in thought, but immutably, be they passed or not past, to come or not to come, all these hath he eternal present, nor thus in his eye and thus in his mind (he consisteth not of body and soul) nor thus now, and otherwise hereafter, or heretofore: his knowledge is not as our is, admitting alteration by circumstance of time, but (b) exempted from all change, and all variation of moments: For his intention runs not from thought to thought; all things he knows are in his unbodily presence. He hath no temporal notions of the time, nor moved he the time by any temporal motions in himself. Therefore he saw that which he had made was good, because he foresaw that he should make it good. Nor doubted his knowledge in seeing it made, or augmented it, as if it had been less ere he made it: he could not do his works in such absolute perfection, but out of his most perfect knowledge. Wherefore if one urge us with, who made this light? It sufficeth to answer, God: if we be asked, by what means; sufficeth this, God said let there be light and there was light: God making it by his very word. But because there are three necessary questions of every creature, who made it how he made it, and wherefore he made it? God said (quoth Moses) let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light that it was good. Who made it? God. How? God said but let it be, and it was: wherefore? It was good. No better author can there be then God, no better art than his Word, no better cause why, then that a good God should make a good creature. And this (c) Plato praised as the justest cause of the world's creation: whether he had read it, or heard it, or got it by speculation Plato. of the creatures, or learned it of those that had this speculation. L. VIVES. PLato (a) durst not] In his Timaeus. The father of the universe, seeing the beauty of it, and the forms of the eternal gods, approved it, and rejoiced. (b) Expelled from all] james, 1. 17. in whom is no variableness, nor shadowing by turning. Hierome (contra jovin.) reads it, in whom is no difference or shadowing by moment. Augustine useth moment also whether referring it to time, or quality, I know not. For neither retires at all from his light to a shadow, nor is any the least shadow intermixed with his light. Momentum is also a turning, a conversion or a changeable motion, coming of moveo to move: it is also an inclination, as in balances. This place may mean that God entertains no vicissitude or pass from contrary to contrary, as The just cause of the world's creation. we do. (c) Plato] Let us see (saith he) What made the worlds Creator go about so huge a work: Truly he excelled in honesty, and honesty envieth not any m●…an, and therefore he made all things like himself, being the justest cause of their original. Concerning those that disliked some of the good Creator's creatures, and thought some things naturally evil. CHAP. 22. YEt this good cause of the creation, God's goodness: this just, fit cause, which being well considered would give end to all further investigation in this kind, some heretics could not discern, because many things, by not agreeing with this poor fray le mortal flesh (being now our just punishment) do offend, and hurt it, as fire, cold, wild beasts, etc. These do not observe in what place of nature they live, and are placed, nor how much they grace the universe (like a fair state) with their stations, nor what commodity redounds to us from them, if we can know how to use them: in so much that poison (a thing one way pernicious) being conveniently ministered, procureth health: and contrary wise, our meat, drink, nay the very light, immoderately used, is hurtful. Hence doth God's providence advise us not to dispraise any thing rashly, but to seek out the use of it warily, and where our wittte and weakness fails, there to believe the rest that is hidden, as we do in other things past our reach: for the obscurity of the use, either excerciseth the humility, or beats down the pride, nothing (a) at all in nature being evil, (evil being but a privation of good) but every thing from earth to heaven ascending in a degree of goodness, and so from the visible unto the invisible, unto which all are unequal. And in the greatest is God the great workman, yet (b) no lesser in the less: which little things are not to be measured to their own greatness being near to nothing, but by their maker's wisdom: as in a man's shape, shane his eyebrow, a very nothing to the body, yet how much doth it deform him, his beauty consisting more of proportion and parilyty of parts, than magnitude. Nor is it a wonder that (c) those that hold some nature bad, and produced from a bad beginning, do not receive GOD'S goodness for the cause of the creation, but rather think that he was compelled by this rebellious evil of mere necessity to fall a creating, and mixing of his own good nature with evil in the suppression and reforming thereof, by which it was so foiled, and so toiled, that he had much ado to recreate and mundify it: nor can yet cleanse it all, but that which he could cleanse, serves as the future prison of the captived enemy. This was not the Manichees foolishness, but their madness: which they should abandon, would they like Christians believe that God's nature is unchangeable, incorruptible, impassable, and that the soul (which may be changed by the will, unto worse, and by the corruption of sin be deprived of that unchangeable light) is no part of God nor God's nature, but by him created of a far inferior mould. L. VIVES. NOthing (a) at all] This Augustine repeats often, and herein do all writers of our religion, (besides Plato, Aristotle, Tully, and many other Philosophers) agree with him, Plato in his Nothing ●…aturaly ●…ell Timaeus, holds it wicked to imagine any thing that God made evil, he being so good a God himself: for his honesty envied nothing, but made all like himself. And in his 2. the rep.. he saith: The good was author of no evil but only of things good: blaming Hesiod and Homer for making jove the author of mischief; confessing God to be the Creator of this universe & thereby showing nothing to be evil in nature. I will say briefly what I think: That is good as Aristotle saith i●…●…s ●…etorik) which we desire either for itself, or for another use And the just contrary is evil w●…efore in the world, some things are useful and good: some avoideble & bad. Some 〈◊〉 and indifferent, and to some men one thing is good, and to others bad: yea unto one man, at several times, several, good, bad, or neuter, upon several causes. This opinion the weakness of our judgements & respects of profit do produce. But only that is the divine judgement which so disposeth all things, that each one is of use in the world's government. And he knoweth all without error, that seeth all things to be good, and useful in their due seasons, which the wise man intimates, when he saith, That God made all things good, each in the due time. Therefore did he bless all with increase and multiplication. If any thing were always unprofitable, it should be rooted out of the creation. (b) No less] Nature is in the least creatures, pismires, gnats, bees & spiders, as potent, as in horses, ox●…n, whales, or elephants and as admirable. Pliny. lib. 11. (c) Those] This heresy of the Manichees, Augustine declareth De heres. ad Quod vult deum. Contra Faust. Manich. De Genes. ad litter. Of the error that Origen incurreth. CHAP. 23. But the great wonder is that some hold one beginning with us, of all things, and that God created all things that are not of his essence, otherwise they could never have had being: And yet will not hold that plain & good belief of the World's simple and good course of creation, that the good God made all things good. They hold that all that is not GOD, after him, and yet that all is not good which none but God could make. But the (a) souls they say (not part, but creatures of God) sinned in falling from the maker: & being cast according to their deserts, into divers degrees, down from heaven, got certain bodies for their prisons. And thereupon the world was made (say they) not for increase of good, but restrrint of bad, and this is the World. Herein is Origen justly culpable, for in his Periarchion, or book of beginnings, he affirms this; wherein I have much marvel, that a man so read indivine scriptures, should not observe, first how contrary this was to the testimony of scripture, that confirmeth all God's works with this. And God saw that it was good: And at the conclusion, God saw all that he made, and lo, it was very good. averring no cause for this creation, but only, that the good God should produce good things: where if no man had sinned, the world should have been adorned and filled (b) only with good natures. But sin being committed, it did not follow that all should be filled with badness, the far greater part remaining still good, keeping the course of their nature in heaven: nor could the evil willers, in breaking the laws of nature, avoid the just laws of the al-disposed God For as a picture showeth well though it have black colours in divers places so the Universe is most fair, for all these stains of sins, which notwithstanding being weighed by themselves do disgrace the lustre of it. Besides Origen should have seen (and all wise men with him) that if the world were made only for a penal prison for the transgressing powers to be embodied in, each one according to the guilt, the less offenders the higher and lighter, and the greater ones the base and heavier: that then the Devils (the worst prevaricators) should rather have been thirst into the basest, that is earthly bodies, than the worst men. But that we might know that the spirits merits are not repaid by the body's quality: the worst devil hath an (c) airy body, and man (though he be bad,) yet of far less malice and guilt, hath an earthly body, yea & had ere his fall. And what can be more fond, then to think that the Sun was rather made for a soul to be punished in as a prison, rather than by the providence of God, to be one, in one world as a light to the beauty, and a comfort to the creatures? Otherwise, two, ten, or en hundred souls sinning all a like, the world should have so many Suns: To avoid which we must rather believe that there was but one soul sinned in that kind, deserving such a body rather than that the Maker's miraculous providence did so dispose of the Sun, for the light & comfort of things created: It is not the souls whereof speak they know not what, but it is their own souls that are so far Questons' in the consideration of nature. from truth, that they must needs be attanted and restraned. Therefore these three I commended before, as fit questians of every creature, viz: who made it, how, and why, the answer to which is, GOD by his word, because he is good whether the holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the holy Ghost do imitate this unto us from their mystical body, or there be some places of Scripture that doth prohibit us to answer thus, is a great question and not fit to be opened in one volume. L. VIVES. THe (a) souls] Origen in his first book Periarchion, holds that GOD first created all things incorpore all, and that they were called by the names of heaven and earth, which afterward were given unto bodies. Amongst which spirituals, or souls (Mentes) were created, who declining (to use Ruffinus his translation) from the state and dignity, became souls as their name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 declareth, by waxing cold in their higher state of being mentes. The mind fryling of the divine heat, takes the name and state of a soul, which if it arise and ascend unto again, it gains the former state of a mind. Which were it true, I should think that the minds of men, unequally from God some more and some less, some should rather be souls then other some: some retaining much of their mental vigour and some little or none. But these souls (saith he) being for their soul falls to be put into grosser bodies, the world was made, as a place large enough to exercise them all in, as was appointed: And from the diversity, and in-equality of their fall from him did God collect the diversity of things here created. This is origen's opinion. Hierom reciteth it ad avitum. (b) which good] We should have been Gods freely without any trouble. (c) Any airy body] Of this hereafter. Of the divine Trinity, notifying itself (in some part) in all the works thereof CHAP. 24. WE believe, (a) & faithfully affirm, that God the Father begot the world, his wisdom by which all was made, his only Son, one with one coeternal, most good and most equal: And that the holy spirit is both of the Father and the 〈◊〉, consubstantial, & coeternal with them both: & this is both a Trinity in respect of the persons, and but one God in the inseparable divinity & one omnipotent in the unseparable power, yet so, as every one of the three be held to be The holy spirit, 〈◊〉 perso●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. God omnipotent: and yet altogether are not three Gods omnipotents, but one God omnipotent: such is the inseparable unity of three persons, and so must it be ta●… off. But whether the spirit, being the good Fathers, and the good Sons may ●…e said to be both their goodnesses, (c) here I dare not rashly determine: I durst rather call it the sanctity of them both: not as their quality, but their substance and the third person in Trinity. For to that, this probability leadeth me, that the Father is holy, and the Son holy, and yet the Spirit is properly called holy, as being the substantial, and consubstantial holiness of them both. But if the divine goodness be nothing else but holiness; then is it but diligent reason, and no bold presumption to think (for exercise of our intentions sake) that in these three questions of each work of God, who made it, how, and why the holy Trinity is secretly intimated unto us: for it was the Father of the word that said, Let it be made; and that which was made when he spoke, doubtless was made by the word: and in that, where it is said, And God saw that it was good, it is plain that neither necessity nor use, but only his mere will moved God to make what was made, that is, Because it was good: which was said after it was done, to show the correspondence of the good creature to the Creator, by reason of whose goodness it was made. If this goodness be now the holy spirit, then is all the whole Trinity intimate to us in every creature: & hence is the original, form, and perfection of that holy City whereof the Angels are inhabitants. Ask whence it is; God made it: how hath it wisdom. God enlightened it. How is it happy? God whom it enjoys hath framed the existence, and illustrated the contemplation, and sweetened the inherence thereof in himself, that is, it seeth, loveth, rejoiceth in God's eternity, shines in his truth, and joyeth in his goodness. L. VIVES. W●… (a) believe] Let us believe then and be silent, hold, and not inquire, preach faithfully, and not dispute contentiously. (b) begot] What can I do here but fall [Lou●…aine copy defective] to adoration? What can I say but recite that saying of Paul, in admiration: O the deepness of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! (c) here I dare not] [Nor I though many divines call the spirit the Father's goodness, and the Son his wisdom. Who dare affirm aught directly, in those deep mysteries.] (d) Because it] or, because it was equally good. Of the tripartite division of All Philosophical discipline. CHAP. 25. HEnce was it (as far as we conceive) that Philosophy got three parts: or rather that the Philosophers observed the three parts. They did not invent them, but they observed the natural, rational and moral, from hence. These are the Latin names, ordinarily used, as we showed in our eighth book: not that it followeth that herein they conceived a whit of the Trinity: though Plato were the first that is said to find out and record this division: and that unto him none but God seemed the author of all nature, or the giver of reason, or the inspirer of honesty. But whereas in these points of nature, inquisition of truth, and the final good, there are many divers opinions, yet all their controversy lieth in those three great, and general questions: every one maketh a discrepant opinion from another in all three, and yet all do hold, that nature hath some cause, knowledge, 〈◊〉, and life some direction and sum. For three things are sought out in The parts of a work man. 〈◊〉, nature, skill and practise, his nature to be judged off by wit, 〈◊〉 ●…y knowledge, and his practice (a) by the use. (b) I know well that ●…elongs to fruition properly, and use to the user: (And that they seem to ●…ently used, fruition of a thing which being desired for itself only, de●… us: and use of that which we seek for another respect: in which sense we ●…her use, then enjoy temporalityes, to deserve the fruition of eternity: ●…e wicked enjoys money, and useth GOD, spending not money for 〈◊〉 ●…ut honouring him for money) Yet in common phrase of speech we 〈◊〉 ●…ruition, and enjoy use. For fruits properly are the fields increase, 〈◊〉 ●…ppon we live: So then thus I take use in three observations of an ar●… nature, skill and use. From which the Philosophers invented the seue●…●…lines, tending all to beatitude: The natural for nature, the rational 〈◊〉 ●…e, the moral for use. So that if our nature were of itself, we should 〈◊〉 own wisdom, and never go about to know it by learning, ab exter●… if our love had original of itself, and returned upon itself; it would 〈◊〉 unto beatitude, exempting us from need of any other good. But seeing 〈◊〉 hath being from GOD our author, doubtless we must both 〈◊〉 to teach us true wisdom, and to inspire us with the means to be●…●…essed, by his high sweetness. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) by the use] [vsu●…, I translate, practice, fructus use: otherwise] Here seems to be an 〈◊〉 of the word use, for whereas he saith, workmanships stands on three grounds, na●…●…d Use. Fruit. Fruiti●…. use, use is here practise. But he wrested it to his meaning, namely the practice of e●…●…eferred to use or profit, & thereby judged. (b) I Know] we have fruition of that we de●…●…er end: therefore saith Aug. We only enjoy God, and use all things else. Of this read ●…tr. Christ. In 80. quest. De trinit: where he ties fruition, to eternal felicity, use to the 〈◊〉 him had Peter Lombard enough: Sent. l. 1. & the schoolmen, even more then enough. Of the Image of the Trinity which is in some sort in every man's nature, even before his glorification. CHAP. 26. 〈◊〉 we have in ourselves an image of that holy Trinity which shall be perfec●…●…y reformation, and made very like it: though it be far unequal, and far 〈◊〉 from it, briefly neither coeternal with God, nor of his substance, yet is it 〈◊〉 ●…est it of any creature, for we both have a being, know it, and love both our ●…d knowledge. And in these three no false appearance ever can deceive us. 〈◊〉 not discern them as things visible, by sense as we see colours, hear 〈◊〉 ●…scent smells, taste savours, and touch things hard and soft: the (a) abstacts of 〈◊〉 ●…bleś we conceive, remember & desire in incorporeal forms most like 〈◊〉 ●…ther: in those three it is not so; I know (b) without all fantastical imagi●…●…at I am myself, that this I know and love. I fear not the (c) Academike 〈◊〉 ●…s in these truths, y● say, what if you er? (d) if I er, I am. For he that hath no 〈◊〉 ●…ot er: and therefore mine error proves my being: which being so, how 〈◊〉 ●…holding my being? for though I be one that may er, yet doubtless in that 〈◊〉 being, I er not: & consequently, if I know that I know my being: & lo●…e two, I adjoin this love as a third of equal esteem with the two. 〈◊〉 not err in that I love, knowing the two things I love, without 〈◊〉 they were false, it were true that I loved false things. For how could I be justly checked for loving of false things if it were false that I loved them? But ●…ing the things loved, are true, and sure, how can the love of them be b●… true and sure? And there is no man that desireth not to be, as there is none de●… not to be happy: for how can he have happiness, and have no being? L. VIVES. THe (a) abstracts] For shut our eyes, and taste, our thought tells us what a thing whiteness and sweetness is, whereupon our dreams are fraught with such things, and we are able to judge of them without their presence. But these are in our exterior senses, our imagination, our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. common sense, and our memory, all which beasts have as well as we, and in these many things are rashly observed, which if we assent unto, we err: for the senses are their weak, dull and unsure teachers, teaching those other to apprehend things often false, for true. But the reasonable mind, being proper only to man, that ponders all, and useth all diligence to avoid falsehoods 〈◊〉. for truth, warning us to observe well ere we judge. (b) Fantastical] Of fancy, already. (c) Academics] These took away the trust of the senses, and held that nothing was known. If you said, I know this stone to move; because I see it, or touch it: they replied: What if you err? Did you never think you saw somewhat move, that stood still, (as in sailing, or riding?) Did you never think somewhat moved that moved not, under your touch? There you were deceived, so may you be now. Restrain your assent, nothing offends wisdom more than consent before full knowledge. (d) If I err] Therefore our Philosophers upon Aristotle's Posteriora, say, that this proposition is of the greatest evidence. Of essence, knowledge of essence, and love of both. CHAP. 27. SO (a) naturally doth this delight, that very wretches, for nothing else but this, would rather leave their misery, than the World, knowing themselves wretches tho, yet would they not die. And the most wretched of all, either in wise judgements (for (b) their foolishness;) or in theirs that hold themselves blessed (for their defect hereof:) If one should proffer them an immortality of misery, and tell them if they refused it, they should become just nothing, and lose all being, verily they would rejoice and choose an eternal misery before a millity of being. This our common sense testifieth. For why do they fear to end their misery by death rather than continue it, but that nature still wisheth to hold a being? And therefore seeing they know they must die, they do make such great account of a long life in their misery, ere they die: Wherein doubtless they show how thankful they will be for immortality, though it had not end of their misery. And what of brute beasts that understand not this, from the Dragon to the worm? Do they not show their love of being, by avoiding death all ways possible? The trees and plants that have no sense of death nor means to avoid it, do they not put forth one sprig into the air, & another (c) deeper into the earth, whereby to attract nutriment and preserve their being? Nay, the very bodies that 〈◊〉 neither sense nor vegetation, by their very motion upwards, downwards, or middle suspension, move to the conservation of their essence and nature. Now then may be gathered how much man's nature is beloved, and loath to be deceived, from hence, that man had rather (d) lament in a sound mind, than rei●… in folly. Which power is in no mortal creature but man: others have sharper sights than we, yet not any can behold the incorporeal light, which in some sort lighteneth our minds, producing a true judgement of all these things, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we are capable of it. But though the unreasonable creatures sen●…●…eine no knowledge, yet some similitude of knowledge there is in them. 〈◊〉 ●…er corporal creatures, having no sense in themselves, are but the obi●… of others senses, therefore called sensible: and the growth and power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the trees draw nutriment, this is like their sense. But these and all oth●…●…porall bodies causes, are hid in nature, marry their forms in the diuer●… 〈◊〉 parts of the world's structure) are apparent to us, seemingly professing a 〈◊〉 be known since they could not know themselves: but our bodily sen●…●…ge not of them though they apprehend them. That is left unto a far 〈◊〉 ●…cellent interior sense, discerning just and unjust, (f) just, by the intelli●…●…rme, unjust, by the privation thereof. The office of this sense, neither the 〈◊〉 ear, the smell, the taste, nor the touch can perform. By this I know 〈◊〉 ●…ng, and I know this knowledge, and I love them both, and know that I 〈◊〉 both. L. VIVES. SO (a) naturally] A Stoical and Academical disputation handled by Tully, (Offic. 1. & de 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. Stoically, and (De fin. 5.) Academically. (b) For their] Foolishness is the greatest 〈◊〉 ●…nd wisdom the good. So held the stoics. (c) Deeper] A diverse reading: the text 〈◊〉 both. (d) Antisthenes the first Cynics choice. His reason was because to rejoice in ●…d mind, was base, and cast down the mind from the true state. Socrates in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alcibiades, that possessions without wisdom, are not only fruitless, but hurtful. (e) ●…re] It is not then our wit or toil, but GOD'S bounty that instructs us in the 〈◊〉 ●…ourse of nature, and sharpens the judgement: which bounty the good man attaining 〈◊〉 bad, must needs be wiser, though less learned, or popularly acute. Therefore saith 〈◊〉 Into an evil soul, wisdom will not come. The same that Socrates said, Only good men 〈◊〉 (f) Just, by] By a form, left in my mind by seeing justice done, and the due con●…●…ing thereto: which, be it absent, I conceive what injustice is, by seeing the fair 〈◊〉 ●…ent harmony subverted; I build not upon hurts, violence, injuries, or reproaches, 〈◊〉 no privations, but may be justly done upon due command of the magistrate, or with ●…ent: but upon this, I see the virtues decorum broken. Form is neither to be taken ●…pes or abstracts of things, reserved in the soul, and called motions, say some: Well, 〈◊〉 they either want wit or knowledge: And because they cannot make themselves 〈◊〉 by things really extant: they must fetch their audiences ears up to them by pursuing 〈◊〉, & non entia: this is our schoole-mens best trade now a days.] ●…ther we draw nearer to the image of the holy trinity, in loving of that love by which we love to be, and to know our being. CHAP. 28. 〈◊〉 we have spoken as much as needeth here, of the essence and knowledge, 〈◊〉 much we ought to respect them in ourselves, and in other creatures vn●…●…ough we find a different similitude in them. But whether the love that 〈◊〉 ●…e them in, be loved, that is to declare. It is loved: we prove it, because it i●…●…d in all things that are justly loved. For he is not worthily called a good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 knows good, but he that loves it. Why then may we not love that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 selves, whereby we love that which is to be loved. They may both 〈◊〉 ●…e man: and it is good for a man that his goodness increasing, his ●…d decrease, even to the perfection of his cure, and full change into 〈◊〉: for if we were beasts, we should love a carnal sensitive life: 〈◊〉 good would suffice our nature (b) without any further trouble; if 〈◊〉 ●…ees, we should not indeed love any thing by motion of sense: yet should we seem to affect fruitfulness and growth, if we were stones, water, wind, fire, or so, we should want sense, and life, yet should we have a natural appeti●…e unto our due (c) places, for the (d) motions of weights are like the body's loves: go they upward or downwards; for weight is to the body, as love is to the ●…ule. But because we are men, made after our creators image, whose eternity is true, truth eternal: charity, true and eternal; neither confounded nor severed, we run through all things under us, (which could not be created, form, not ordered without the hand of the most essential, wise, and good God) & so through all the works of the creation: gathering from this (e) more plain, and from that less apparent marks of his essence: and beholding his image in ourselves (f) like the prodigal child, we recall our thoughts home, and return to him from whom we fell. There our being shall have no end, our knowledge no error, our love no offence. But as now, though we see these three sure, trusting not to others, but observing it ourselves, with our certain interior sight, yet because of ourselves we cannot know how long they shall last, when they shall end, whither they shall go, doing well or evil, therefore here we take other witnesses, of the infallibility of whose credit we will not dispute here, but hereafter. In this book of the City of God, that was never pilgrim, but always immortal in heaven, being compounded of the Angels eternally coherent with God, and never ceasing this coherence: between whom and their darkness, namely those that forsook him, a separation was made as we said at first by God, now will we (by his grace) proceed in our discourse already begun. L. VIVES. FOr that (a) is love] There is a will in us arising from the corruption of the body, which reason ruleth, not as it doth the better will, but it haileth it and traileth it to good: it flies all good properly, and seeketh evils, bodily delights and pleasures: These two Paul calleth the law of the flesh, the law of the spirit, sometimes flesh and spirit. The first, brutish, foul, hated of good men, who when they can cannot expel it, they compel and force it unto God's obedience: otherwise it produceth a love of things unmeet. (b) Without] Either in this life, or unto our bodies. (c) Places] Or orders, and forms of one nature: the preservation of which each thing desires for itself, helping itself against external violence, if it be not hindered. (d) 〈◊〉] of this before: the Latin word is, momenta. (e) More plain] Our reason pl●…ceth an Image rather than a mark of God in us. Man hath the sight of heaven and the knowledge of God bestowed upon him, whereas all other creatures are chained to the earth Wherefore the spirit overlooking the creation, left his image in our erected nature, in the rest, whom he did as it were put under foot, he left only his marks. Take this now as a figurative speech. (f) Pr●…digall] Luc. 15. Of the Angel's knowledge of the Trinity in the Deity, and consequently, of the causes of things in the Archetype, ere they come to be effected in works. CHAP. 29. THese holy Angels learn not of God by sounds, but by being present wi●… th●… ●…geable truth, his only begotten word, himself, and his holy spirit, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of substantial persons: yet hold they not three Gods, but one, 〈◊〉 this th●…y (a) ●…ow plainer than we know ourselves. (b) The creatures also 〈◊〉 they know 〈◊〉 in the wisdom of God, the workman's draft, then in the thing●… produced: and consequently themselves in that, better than in th●…-selues, though ●…ing their knowledge in both: for they were made, & are not of 〈◊〉 ●…nce that made them. Therefore in him their knowledge is day, in 〈◊〉, (as we said) twilight. But the knowledges of a thing, by the means 〈◊〉 and the thing itself made, are far different. (c) The understanding 〈◊〉 a figure doth produce a perfecter knowledge of it, than the draft 〈◊〉) dust: and justice is one in the changeless truth, and another in the 〈◊〉 ●…oule. And so of the rest, as the firmament between the waters above 〈◊〉, called heaven, the gathering of the waters, the appearance of land, 〈◊〉 ●…f plants, creation of fowls and fishes, of the water, and four foo●…ed 〈◊〉 ●…he earth, and last, of man the most excelling creature of all. All these the 〈◊〉 ●…scerned in the Word of God, where they had their causes of their pro●…●…mmoueable and fixed, otherwise, then in themselves: clearer in him, 〈◊〉 in themselves: yet referring all those works to the Creator's praise, 〈◊〉 ●…ke morning in the minds of these contemplators. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) plainer] They have both sharper wits than we, and the light whereby they 〈◊〉 ●…he ●…rinity is far brighter than that by which we know ourselves. crea●…●…owing ●…owing the effect better in the cause, then in itself, (c) The understanding] Mathe●…●…ciples give better knowledge of times and figures, than draughts, which can ne●…●…ct as to present the thing to the eye, truly, as it is: and better conceive we by 〈◊〉 a strait line is the shortest draft from point to point, and that all lines drawn 〈◊〉 ●…ter to the circle are equal, by the precepts of Geometry, rather than by all the 〈◊〉 ●…f dust? nay) of Parrhasius or Apelles. (d) Dust] The old Mathematicians drew ●…tions in dust, wi●…h a compass, the better to put out or in what they would. This 〈◊〉 was a doing when Syracuse was taken. Liu. Tully calleth it, learned dust. De nat. 〈◊〉 secto in pulvere metas, saith Persius, Lines in divided dust. satire. 1. 〈◊〉 perfection of the number of six, the first is complete in all the parts. CHAP. 30. ●…ese were performed in six days because of the perfection of the (a) 〈◊〉 of six, one being six times repeated: not that God was tied unto time, 〈◊〉 not have created all at once, and af●…erwards have bound the motions 〈◊〉 ●…ngruence, but because that number signified the perfection of the 〈◊〉 six is (b) the first number that is filled by conjunction of the parts, the 〈◊〉 ●…ird and the half: which is one, two, and three; all which conjoined 〈◊〉 ●…arts in numbers are those that may be described of how (c) many they 〈◊〉 ●…alfe, a third, a fourth, and so forth. But four being in nine, yet is no just 〈◊〉 one is the ninth part, a●…d three the third part. But these two parts, one 〈◊〉, are far from making nine the whole. So four is a part of ten, but no 〈◊〉 ●…one is the tenth part, two the fif●…, & five the second: yet these three parts 〈◊〉 & 5; make not up full ten, but eight only. As for the number of twelve, 〈◊〉 exceed it. For there is one the twelve part, six the second, four the third, 〈◊〉 fourth, and two the sixth. But one, two, three, four and six, make above 〈◊〉 ●…mely sixteen. This by the way now to prove the perfection of the 〈◊〉 of fix, the first, (as I said) that is made of the conjunction of the parts: 〈◊〉 did God make perfect all his works. Wherefore this number is not to ●…d, but hath the esteem apparently confirmed by many places of scrip●…●…r was it said in vain of God's works, Thou madest all things in number, W●…. 1●…. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 measure. L. VIVES. THe (a) number] Pythagoras, and Plato after him, held all things to be disposed by numbers, teaching them so mysteriously, that it seemed they sought to conceal them from the express professors, not only the profane vulgar. Our divines both Greek & Latin put many mysteries in numbers. But Hierome the most of all, affirming that the Evangelist omitted some of Christ's progeny, to make the rest fall in a fit number. (b) For six] The perfection of a number is to consist of all the parts: such are scarce in Arithmetic, and such is six only within The number of six. ten, and twenty seven within a hundred: for this latter consists of 1. 2. 4. 7. and 14. The mystery of the creation is contained in the number of six Hier. in Ezech. (c) Of how many] as an half, a fourth, a fifth, sixth, etc. four in nine, is neither half, three nor four, and so up to the ninth, as far as nine goeth. For the least quantitative part, nameth the number, as the twelfth of twelve: the twentieth in twenty, and that is always an unite. This kind of part we call an aliquote. Euclid calleth an aliquote only, a part, the rest parts. For his two definitions, (his third and his fourth) are these. A part is a less number dividing a greater. Parts, are they that divide not. And so the old writers used these words. Of the seventh day, the day of rest and complete perfection. CHAP. 31. But in the seventh day, that is, the (a) seventh repetition of the first day (which number hath perfection also in another kind) God rested, and gave the first rule of sanctification therein. The day that had no even, God would not sanctify in his works but in rest. For there is none of his works, but being considered first in God, and then in itself, will produce a day knowledge, and an evens. Of the perfection of seven, I could say much, but this volume groweth big, and I fear I shall be held rather to take occasion to show my small skill, then to respect others edification. Therefore we must have a care of gravity and moderation, least running all upon number, (b) we be thought neglecters of weight and measure. (c) Let this be a sufficient admonition, (d) that three is the first number, wholly, odd, and four wholly even, and these two make seven, which is therefore oftentimes put for (e) all: as here; The just shall fall seven times a day, and arise again, that is, how oft soever he fall, he shall rise again. (This is not meant of iniquity, but of tribulation, drawing him to humility.) Again, Seven Pro. 24. 16. times a day will I praise thee: the same he had said before: His praise shall be always in my mouth. Many such places as these the Scripture hath, to prove the number of seven to be often used for all, universally. Therefore is the holy spirit called oftentimes (f) by this number, of whom Christ said, He shall teach us all truth. There is God's rest, wherein we rest in God: In this whole, in this perfection is rest, in the part of it was labour: Therefore we labour, because we know as yet but in part, but when perfection is come, that which is in part shall be abolished. This makes us search the scriptures so laboriously. But the holy Angels, (unto whose glorious congregation our toilsome pilgrimage casts a long look) as they have eternal permanence, so have they easy knowledge, and happy rest in God, helping us without ttouble, because their spiritual, pure and free motions are without labour. L. VIVES. THe (a) seventh] Signifying all things created at once. (b) We be thought] alluding to the precedent, saying, God made allthings in number, weight & measure: that if he should say too much of number, he should seem both to neglect his own gravity and measure, and the The number of ●…auen. wiseman's. (c) Let this] The jews in the religious keeping of their Sabbath, show that 7. was a number of much mystery. Hierome in Esay. Gellius. lib. 3. and his emulator Macrobius (in Somn. Scip. lib. 1.) record the power of it in Heaven, the Sea, and in Men. The Pythagorists, as Chalcidius writeth, included all perfection, nature & sufficiency herein. And we Christians hold it sacred in many of our religious mysteries. (d) That 3. is▪ An even number (saith Euclid) is that which is divisible by two: the odd is the contrary. Three, is not divisible into two, nor any: for one is no number: Four is divided into two, and by unites: and this four was the first number that got to halves, as Macrobius saith, who therefore commendeth 7. by the same reason that Aug. useth here. (e) For all] Aug. in Epist. ad Galat. (f) By this number] Serm. de verb, dom. in monte. This appellation ariseth from the gifts, shown in Esay, Chap. 32. Of their opinion that held Angels to be created before the world CHAP. 32. But if some oppose, and say that that place, Let there be light and there was light, was not meant of the Angel's creation, but of some (a) other corporal light, and teach that the Angels were made not only before the firmament dividing the waters, and called heaven, but even before these words were spoken: In the beginning God made heaven and earth: Taking not this place as if nothing had been made before, but because God made all by his Wisdom and word, whom the Scripture also calleth a (a) beginning, as answered also to the jews when they inquired what he was: I will not contend, because I delight so in the intimation of the Trinity in the first chapter of Genesis. For having said: In the beginning God Ps. 104. made heaven and earth: that is the Father created it in the Son, as the Psalm saith: O Lord how manifold are thy works! In thy wisdom madest thou them all: presently after he mentioneth the Holy Spirit. For having showed the fashion of earth, and what a huge mass of the future creation God called heaven and earth: The earth was without form & void, and darkness was upon the deep: to perfect his mention of the Trinity he added, (c) And the spirit of the Lord moved upon the waters. Let each one take it as he liketh: it is so profound that learning may produce divers opinions herein, all faithful and true ones: so that none doubt that the Angels are placed in the high heavens, not as coeternals with God, but as sure of eternal felicity: To whose society Christ did not only teach that his little ones belonged, saying: They shall be equal with the Angels of God: but shows further, the Mat. 18. 10. very contemplation of the Angels, saying: See that you despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you, that in heaven, their Angels always behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven. L. VIVES. SOme (a) other corporeal] Adhering to some body. (b) Beginning] I reprove not the divines A beginning. in calling Christ a beginning. For he is the mean of the world's creation, and chief of all that the Father begot. But I hold it no fit collection from his answer to the jews. It were better to say so because it was true, then because john wrote so, who thought not so. The heretics make us such arguments, to scorn us with, at all occasion offered. But what that wisely and freely religious Father Hierome, held of the first verse of Genesis, I will now relate. Many (as jason in Papisc. Tertull. contra Praxeam, and Hillar. in Psalm.) Hold that the Hebrew text hath, In the Son God made Heaven and earth which is directly false. For the 70. Symachus, and Theodotion translate it, In the beginning: The Hebrew is Beresith, which Aquila translates in Capitulo, not Ba-ben, in the Son. So then the sense, rather than the translation giveth it unto Christ, who is called the Creator of Heaven and earth, as well in the front of Genesis (the head of all books) as in S. john's Gospel. So the Psalmist saith in his person: john, 13. In the head of the book it is written of me, viz. of Genesis, and of john: All things were made by it, & without it was made nothing, etc. But we must know, that this book is called Beresith, the Hebrews using to put their books names in their beginnings Thus much word for word out of Hierome. (c) And the spirit] That which we translate Ferebatur, moved (saith Hierome) the Hebrews read Marahefet, forwhich we may fitly interpret, incubabat, brooded, or cherished as the hen doth heregges with heat. Therefore was it not the spirit of the world, as some think, but the holy spirit that is called the quickener of all things from the beginning: If the Quickener, than the maker, Ps. 104. 30. if the Maker than the God: If thou send forth thy word (saith he) they are created. Of the two different societies of Angels, not unfitly termed light and darkness. CHAP. 33. THat some Angels offended, and therefore were thrust into prisons in the world's lowest parts until the day of their last judicial damnation, S. Peter testifieth plainly, saying That God spared not the Angels that had sinned, but cast them down into hell and delivered them into (a) chains of darkness to be kept unto damnation. Now whether God's prescience separated these from the other, who doubteth? that he called the other light, worthily, who denieth? Are not we hear on earth, by faith, and hope of equality with them, already ere we have it, called light by the Apostle? Ye were once darkness, (saith he) but are now light in the Lord. And well do these perceive the other Apostatical powers are called darkness, who consider Eph. 5. 8. them rightly, or believe them to be worse than the worst unbeliever. Wherefore though that light, which GOD said should be, and it was, be one thing and the darkness from which GOD separated the light be another: yet the obscurity of this opinion of these two societies, the one enjoying GOD, the other swelling in (b) pride: the one to whom it said: Praise GOD all ●…ee his Angels, the other whose Prince said: All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me: the one inflamed with GOD'S love, the other, blown big with self-love (whereas it is said) God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the lowly:) the one in the highest heavens, the other in the obscurest air: Iame●…. 4. the one, piously quiet, the other madly turbulent: the one punishing or relieving according to Gods (c) justice and mercy: the other raging with the over unreasonable desire to hurt and subdue: the one allowed GOD'S Minister to all good, the other restrained by GOD from doing (d) the desired hurt: the one scorning the other for doing good against their wills by temptations: the other envying this, the recollection of the faithful pilgrims: the obscurity (I say) of the opinion of these two so contrary societies (the one good in nature and will, the other good in nature also, but bad by will) since it is not explained by other places of scripture, that this place in Genesiis of the light and darkness, may be applied as Denominative unto them both (though the author had no such intent) yet hath not been unprofitably handled: because though we could not know the authors will, yet we kept the rule of faith, which many other places make manifest. For though God's corporal works be here recited, yet have some similitude with the spiritual, as the Apostle saith: you are all the children of the light, and the children of the day: we are no sons of the night nor darkness. But if this were the author's mind, the other disputation hath attained perfection: that so wise a man of God, nay the spirit in him, in reciting the works of God, all perfected in six days, might by no means be held to leave out the Angels, either in the beginning, that is because he had made them first, or (as we may better understand, In the beginning) because he made them in his only begotten Word, in which beginning God made heaven and earth: Which two names either include all the creation spiritual and temporal, which is more credible: Or the two great parts only as continents of the lesser, being first proposed in whole, and then the parts performed orderly according to the mystery of the six days. L. VIVES. INto (a) chains] This is plain in Saint Peter's second Epistle and Saint judes also. The Angels (saith the later) which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation hath he reserved in everlasting chains, under Darkness, unto the judgement of the great day. Augustine useth prisons, for places whence they cannot pass, as the horses were enclosed and could not pass out of the circuit until they had run. (b) Pride] Typhus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is Pride, and the Greeks use Typhon (of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be proud and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to burn) for the fiery devil: So saith Plutarch of Typhon, Osiris his brother, that he was a devil that troubled all the world with acts of malice, and torment. Augustine rather useth it then the Latin, for it is of more force, and was of much use in those days: Philip the Priest useth it in his Commentaries upon job. (c) justice] For God doth justly revenge, by his good Ministers. He maketh the spirits his messengers, & flaming fire his Ministers. Ps. 103. (d) The desired] There is no power on the earth like the devils job. 40. Which might they practise as they desire, they would burn, drown, waste, poison, torture and utterly destroy man and beast: And though we know not the devils power directly, where it is limited, and how far extended: yet are we sure they can do us more hurt than we can ever repair. Of the power of Angels read August●… de Trinit. lib. 3. Of the opinion that some held, that the Angels wee meant by the several waters, and of others that held the waters uncreated. CHAP. 34. YEt some there (a) were that thought that the (b) company of Angels were meant by the waters: and that these words, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters, meant by the upperwaters Gen. 1. the Angels, and by the lower, either the nations, or the devils. But if this be so, there is no mention of the Angel's creation, but only of their separation. (c) Though some most vainly, and impiously deny, that God made the waters, because he never said, Let there be waters. So they may say of earth: for he never said Let there be earth. I but say they: it is written God created both heaven and earth. Did he so? Then is water included therein also, for one name serves both: for the Psalm saith: The sea is his, and he made it, and his hands prepared the dry land: but the (d) elementary weights do move these men to take the waters above, for the Angels, Ps. 95. because so an element cannot remain above the heavens. No more would these men, if they could make a man after their principles, put phlegm, being (e) in stead of water in man's body, in the head: (f) but there is the seat of phlegm, most fitly appointed by God: but so absurdly in these men's conceits, that if we know not (though this book told us plain) that God had placed this fluid, cold and consequently heavy humour in the uppermost part of man's body, these world-weighers would never believe it. And if they were subject to the scriptures authority, they would yet have some meaning to shift by. But seeing that the consideration of all things that the Book of God containeth concerning the creation, would draw us far from our resolved purpose, let us now (together with the conclusion of this book) give end to this disputation of the two contrary societies of Angels, wherein are also some grounds of the two societies of mankind, unto whom we intent now to proceed, in a fitting discourse. L. VIVES. SOme (a) there were] as Origen for one, who held that the waters above the heavens were no waters but Angelical powers, and the waters under the heavens, their contraries, devils. Epiph. ad joan. Hierosol. Episc. (b) Companies] Apocal. The peaple are like many waters, and here-upon, some thought the Psalm meant, saying: You waters that be above the heavens praise the name of the Lord: for that belongs only to reasonable creatures to do. (c) Though some] Augustine reckoneth this for an heresy to hold the waters coeternal with God: but names no author. I believe Hesiods Chaos and Homer's all producing waters were his originals. (d) Elementary] I see all this grows into question, whether there be waters above the heavens, and whether they be elementary as ours are. Of the first there is less doubt. For if (as some hold) Waters above heaven. the firmament be the air, than the separation of waters from waters was but the parting of the clouds from the sea. But the holy men, that affirm the waters of Genesis to be above the starry firmament, prevail. I guess now in this great question, that a thick cloud, commixed with air was placed betwixt heaven and earth, to darken the space between heaven and us: And that part of it, being thickened into that sea we see, was drawn by the Creator, from the face of the earth, to the place where it is, & that other part was borne up by an unknown power, to the uttermost parts of the world. And hence it came that the upper still including the lower, heaven the fire, fire the air, air the water, this water includeth not the earth, because the whole element thereof is not under the Moon, as fire and air is. Now for the nature of those waters, Origen, (to begin with the eldest) holds them resolved into most pure air: which S. Thomas dislikes, for such bodies could never penetrate the fire, nor the heavens. But he is too Aristotelique, thinking to bind incomprehensible effects to the laws of nature, as if this were a work of nature strictly taken, and not at the liberty of GOD'S omnipotent power, or that they had forced through fire and heaven by their condensed violence: Some disliked the placing of an element above heaven, and therefore held the Crystalline heavens composed of waters, of the same show, but of a far other nature than the Elementary Both of them are transparent, both cold, but that is light and ours heavy. Basill saith those waters do cool the heat of the heavens. Our Astronomical divines, say that Saturn's frigidity proceedeth from those waters: ridiculous as though all the stars of the eighth spear are not cooler than Saturn! These waters (saith Rede) are lower than the spiritual heavens, but higher than all corporeal creatures: kept (as some say) to threaten a second deluge: But (as others hold better) to cool the heat of the stars. De nat●…rer. But this is a weak conjecture. Let us conclude as Augustine doth, upon Genesis: How, or what they are we know not: there they are we are sure, for the scriptures authority weigheth down man's wit. (c) In stead of] Another question tossed like the first: How the elements are in our bodies. In parcels and Atoms peculiar to each of the four, saith Elements how commixtures. Anaxagoras, Democritus, Empedocles, Plato, Cicero, and most of the Peripatetics, Arabians averroes, and Avicen: parcels enter not the body's composition, saith another, but natures only. This is the school opinion, with the leaders, Scotus and Occam, Aristole is doubtful (as he is generally) yet holds the ingress of elements into compounds. Of the Atomists, some confound all, making bodies of coherent remaynders, Others destroy all substances. Howsoever it is, we feel the Elementary powers, heat and drought in our gall, or choler of the fire: heat and moisture, airy, in the blood: cold and moist, watery in the phlegm: Cold and dry, earthly, in the melancholy: and in our bones solydity is earth, in our brain and marrow water, in our blood, air: in our spirits chiefly of the heart, fire. And though we have less of one than another, yet have some of each. (f) But there] And thence is all our troublesome The seat of the brain phlegm derived: Fitly it is seated in the brain, whether all the heat aspireth. For were it below, whither heat descendeth not so, it would quickly grow dull, and congeal: Whereas now the heat keeps it in continual act, vigour and vegetation. Finis, lib. II. THE CONTENTS OF THE twelfth book of the City of God. 1. Of the nature of good and evil Angels. 2. That no essence is contrary to God, though all the world's frailty seem to be opposite unto this immutable eternity. 3. Of god's enemies not by nature, but will, which hurting them, hurteth their good nature, because there is no vice but hurteth nature. 4. Of useless and reasonless natures, whose order differeth not from the Decorum held in the whole universe. 5. That the Creator hath deserved praise, in every form and kind of Nature. 6. The cause of the good Angel's bliss, and the evils misery. 7. That we ought not to seek out the cause of the vicious will. 8. Of the perverse love, whereby the soul goeth from the unchangeable to the changeable good. 9 Whether he that made the Angel's natures, made their wills good also, by the infusion of his love into them, through his holy Spirit. 10. Of the falseness of that History, that saith the world hath continued many thousand years. 11. Of those that hold not the Eternity of the world, but either a dissolution and generation of innumerable worlds, or of this one at the expiration of certain years. 12. Of such as held Man's Creation too lately effected. 13. Of the revolution of times at whose expiration some Philosophers held that the Universe should return, to the state it was in at first 14. Of Man's temporal estate, made by God out of no newness, or change of will. 15. Whether (to preserve Gods eternal domination) we must suppose that he hath always had creatures to rule over, and how it may be held always created which is not coeternal with God. 16. How we must understand that God promised Man life eternal before all eternity. 17. The defence of God's unchanging will, against those that fetch Gods works about from eternity, in circles from state to state. 18. Against such as say things infinite are above God's knowledge. 19 Of the worlds without end, or Ages of Ages. 20. Of that impious assertion, that souls truly blessed, shall have diver s revolutions into misery again. 21. Of the state of the first Man and Mankind in him. 22. That God foreknew that the first Man should sin, and how many people he was to translate out of his kind into the Angel's society. 23. Of the nature of Man's soul, being created according to the Image of God. 24. Whether the Angels may be called Creators, of any the least creature. 25. That no nature or form of any thing living hath any other Creator but God. 26. The Platonists opinion, that held the Angel's God's creatures, & Man the Angels. 27. That the fullness of Mankind was created in the first Man, in whom God foresaw, both who should be saved, and who should be damned. FINIS. THE TWELFTH BOOK▪ OF THE CITY OF GOD Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of the nature of good and evil Angels. CHAP. 1. BEfore I speak of the creation of man, wherein (in respect of mortal reasonable creatures) the two Cities had their original, as we showed in the last book of the Angels: (to show as well as we can) the congruity and convenience of the society of Men with Angels: and that there are not four, but rather two societies of Men and Angels qualitied alike, and combined in either, the one consisting both of good Angels and Men, and the other of evil: that the contrariety of desires between the Angels good and evil arose from their divers natures and beginnings, we may at no hand believe: God having been alike good in both their creations, and in all things beside them. But this diversity ariseth from their wills: some of them persisting in God, their common good, and in his truth, love and eternity: and other some delighting more in their own power, as though it were from themselves, fell from that common al-blessing good to dote upon their own: and taking pride for eternity, vain deceit for firm truth, and factious envy for perfect love, became proud; deceitful and envious. The cause of their beatitude was their adherence with GOD; their must their miseries cause be the direct contrary, namely, their not adherence with GOD. Wherefore if when we are asked why they are blessed, and we answer well, because they stuck fast unto GOD, and being asked why they are wretched, we answer well, because they stuck not unto GOD: Then is there no beatitude for any reasonable or understanding creature to attain, but in God. So then though all creatures cannot be blessed, for beasts, trees, stones, etc. are incapable hereof; yet those that are, are not so of themselves, being created of nothing, but they have it from the Creator. Attaining him they are happy, losing him, unhappy: But he himself is good only of himself, and therefore cannot lose his good, because he cannot lose himself. God the only immutable good. Therefore the one, true blessed God, we say is the only immutable good: and those things he made, are good also, because they are from him, but they are ●…able because they were made of nothing. Wherefore though they be not the chief goods, God being above them, yet are they great, in being able to adhere unto the chief good, and so be happy, without which adherence, they cannot but bewrteched Nor are other parcels of the creation better, in that they cannot be wretched: For we cannot say our other members are better than our eyes in that they cannot be blind▪ but even as sensitive nature in the worst plight, is better than the insensible stone: so is the reasonable (albeit miserable) above the brutish, that cannot therefore be miserable. This being so, than this nature created in such excellence, that though it be mutable yet by inherence with God that unchangeable good, it may become blessed: Nor satisfieth the own need without blessedness, nor hath any means to attain this blessenesse but God, truly committeth a great error and enormity in not adhering unto him. And all sin is against nature and hurtful thereunto. Wherefore that nature differeth not in Nature, from that which adhereth unto God, but in Vice: And yet in that Vice is the Nature itself laudable still. For the Vice being justly discommended, commendeth the Nature: The true dispraise of Vice being, that it disgraceth an honest nature: So therefore even as when we call blindness a fault of the eyes, we show that sight belongeth to the eye: And in calling the fault of the ears deafness, that hearing belongs to the ear: So likewise when we say it was the Angel's fault not to adhere unto God, we show that that adherence belonged to their natures. And how great a praise it is to continue in this adherence, fruition & living in so great a good without death, error or trouble, who can sufficiently declare or imagine? Wherefore since it was the evil angels To adhere v●…o God. fault not to adhere unto GOD (all vice being against nature:) It is manifest that GOD created their nature's good: since it is hurt only by their departure from him. That no essence is contrary to GOD, though all the world's frailty seem to be opposite to his immutable eternity. CHAP. 2. THis I have said lest some should think that the Apostatical (a) pours whereof we speak, had a different nature from the rest, as having another beginning; and (b) not GOD to their author. Which one shall the sooner avoid by considering what GOD said unto Moses by his Angels, when he sent him to the children of Israel: I am that I am. For God being the highest Exod. 3. essence, that is eternal and unchangeable: gave essence to his creatures, but not such as his own: (d) to some more and to some less: ordering natures existence by degrees; for as wisdom is derived from being wise, so is essence ab ipso esse, of having being: the word is new not used of the old Latinists, but taken of late into the tongue, to serve for to explain the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which it expresseth word for Essence word. Wherefore unto that especial, high essence, that created all the rest, there's no nature contrary, but that which hath no essence: (f) For that which hath being is not contrary unto that which hath also being. Therefore no essence at all is contrary to GOD the chief essence, and cause of essence in all. L VIVES. Apostatical (a) powers] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, A forsaker, of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; The devils are such that fall from GOD. Theodoret writing of Gods and Angels, saith the Hebrew word is Satan; the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hierome interpreteth it an adversary, or transgressor. (b) Apo●…a. Not GOD] Least some should think GOD created not their nature. (c) I am] Of this already in the eight book. (d) To some] Arist de mundo. The nearest unto GOD (saith Apuleius▪) do gain from his power the most celestial bodies, and every thing the nearer him, the more Divine, and the farther, the lesser. Thus is GOD'S goodness, derived gradually from Heaven unto us. And our belief of this extension of GOD'S power, we must think that the nearer, or farther off that he is, the more, or less benefit nature feeleth. Which the Philosopher gave him to understand when he said That God's essence is communicated to some more, and to some less. For in his predicaments, he directly affirmeth that essence admitteth neither intention nor remission, more nor less. A stone hath essence as well as an Angel. This therefore is referred to the excellence and qualities adherent or infused into the essence, which admit augmentation, and diminution. (e) The word is.] Not so new but that Flavius Sergius used it before Quintilian, but indeed it was not in general use till of late, when Philosophy grew into the latin tongue. (f) For that.] Nothing (saith Aristotle) is contrary to substance: taking contrary, for two opposites of one kind: as black and white, both colours, for he reckoneth not privations, nor contradictories, for contraries, as he showeth in his division of opposites into four species. Of God's enemies, not by nature, but will, which hurting them, hurteth their good nature: because their is no vice but hurteth nature. CHAP. 3. THe scripture calleth them Gods enemies, because they oppose his sovereignty not by nature but will, having no power to hurt him, but themselves. Their will to resist, not their power to hurt, maketh them his foes, for he is unchangeable God's enemies. and wholly incorruptible: wherefore the vice that maketh them oppose God, is their own hurt, and no way Gods: only, because it corrupteth their good nature. Their nature it is not, but there vice that contratieth God: evil only being contrary to good. And who denies that God is the best good? so then vice is contrary unto God, as evil is unto good. The nature also which it corrupteth is Good, and therefore opposed by it: but it stands against God as evil only against good; but against this nature, as evil and hurt also, for evil cannot hurt GOD, but incoruptible natures only, which are good by the testimony of the hurt that evil doth them, for if they were not good, vice could not hurt them, for what doth it in hurting them but a bolish their integrity, lustre, virtue, safety, and what ever vice can diminish or root out of a good nature? which if it be not therein, vice taketh it not away, and therefore hurteth not: for it cannot be both a vice, and hurtless, whence we gather that though vice, cannot hurt that unchangeable good, yet it can hurt nothing but good: because it is not, but where it hurteth. And so we may say that vice cannot be in the highest good, nor cannot be but in some good. Good therefore may be alone, but so cannot evil: because the natures that an evil will hath corrupted, though as they be polluted they are evil, yet as they are natures, they are good. And when this vicious nature is punished, there is this good besides the nature, that it is not unpunished, for this is just, and what is just is questionless good, and no (a) man is punished for the faults of his nature, but of his will, for that vice that hath gotten from a custom into an habit, and seemeth natural, had the original from corruption of will: for now we speak of the vices of that nature wherein is a foul capable of the intellectual light, whereby we discern between just and unjust. L. VIVES. NO (a) man.] Vice or a fault, generally, is a declining from the right. So that there are of them natural, as if we have gotten any custom of any act against the Decorum of that Vice and 〈◊〉. kind, or have it by nature: as to have more, or fewer members than we should: stammering of speech, blindness, deafness, or any thing against perfection: be it in men, beasts, trees, 〈◊〉 or whatsoever. Then there is salt of manners, and fault of art, when the workman 〈◊〉 erred from his science. (b) Natural.] So that is dominereth, and playeth the tyrant in a 〈◊〉, seeking to compel him to do thus: whereupon many say in excuse of sins, that they cannot do withal, whereas their own will nousles it up in them, and they may oppose it if they 〈◊〉 Though it be not so easily expelled as admitted, yet the expulsion is not impossible, and unless you expel it, you shall not be acquit of the guilt. Of lifeless, and reasonless natures, whose order differeth not from the decorum held in the whole Universe. CHAP. 4. But it were a sottishness to think that the faults of beasts, trees, and other unreasonable, senseless, or lifeless creatures, whereby their corruptible nature is damnified, are damnable: for the creators will hath disposed of those, thus, to perfect the inferior beauty of this universe by this (a) successive alteration of them. For earthly things are not comparable to heavenly: yet might not the world want those, because the other are more glorious. Wherefore, in the succession of those things one to another in their due places, and in the (b) change of the meaner into qualities of the better, the order of things transitory consisteth. Which order glory we delight not in, because we are annexed to it, as parts of mortality, we cannot discern the whole Universe, though we observe how conveniently those parcels we see, are combined: whereupon in things out of our contemplations reach, we must believe the providence of the Creator, rather than be so rash as to condemn any part of the world's F●…brique, of any imperfection. Though if we mark well, by the same reason, those unvoluntary, and unpunishable faults to those creatures, commend their natures unto us: none of whom nath any other maker but GOD: because we ourselves dislike that that nature of theirs which we like should be defaced by that fault: unless men will dislike the natures of things that hurt them, not consider their natures, but their o●…ne profit as (c) of those creatures that plagued the pride of Egypt. But so they might dispraise the Sun, for some offenders, or Exod. 8 unjust deteiners of others right, are by the judges condemned (d) to be set in the hot Sun. Wherefore it is not the consideration of nature in respect of our profit, but in itself that glorifieth the Creator. The nature of the eternal fire is assuredly laudable, though the wicked shallbe therein everlastingly tormented. For what is more fair than the bright, pure and flaming fire? what more useful to heat, cure, or boil withal? though not so hurtful in burning. Thus that (e) being penally applied, is pernicious, which being orderly used, is, convenient: (f) for who can explain the thousand uses of it in the world? Hear Nature's absolute excellence even in things that punish man. them not (g) that praise the fires light and dispraise the heat: respecting not the nature of it but their own profit and disprofit: they would see, but they would not burn. But they consider not that this light they like so, being immoderately used, hurteth a tender eye: and that in this heat which they dislike so, many (h) creatures do very conveniently keep, and live. L. VIVES. THe (a) successive] One decaying, and another succeeding. (b) Change of the] He toucheth the perpetual alteration of elements and elementary bodies, where some are transmuted into the more powerful agent, and sometimes the agent puts on the nature of the passive. Air Punishment of malefactor▪ in the sun. continually taketh from water, and water from air: So doth fire from air and air from fire, but in diuer●… places. (c) Of those] The frogs, and ●…nats. (d) To be set▪ A ●…inde of punishment, especially infamous, yet, not without pain. The bawds in Spain are thus punished: set in the stocks, and anointed all with honey, which draws all the Bees, F●…es and Wasps in a Country, unto them. (e) Being penally] So we read it for the best. (f) ●…or who▪ Thence is the common proverb of a thing of common use: We have as much use of it, as of fire or water: as T●…lly saith of friendship. Lael. And to forbid one fire and water, (man's two chief necessaries) is as it were to expel him of all humane society. Uitrwius saith that the coming t●…her unto the fire brought men first to talk together, and so produced commerce, societies and cities lib. 2. Lactantius proveth man a divine creature, because he only of all creatures useth the fire. (g) That praise] Taught by Plutarch's Satire that loved Prometheus his The goodness of fire. new found fire, so that he fell a kissing of it, and burning his lips threw it down, and ran ●…way. Such a tale tells Mela of the sea-bordering Africans, to whom Eudoxus carried fire. (h) C●…res] In Cyprus in the brass furnaces, where they burn red Virrioll many daye●… together, are produced winged creatures, a little bigger than the greatest flies, and those live i●… the fire. Arist. Hist. animal. lib. 5. The Salamander they say not only lives in th●… fire unburned, Salamander. but also putteth it out, with his very touch. That the Creator hath deserved praise in every form and kind of nature. CHAP. 5. WHerefore all natures are good, because they have their form, kind, and a certain rest withal in themselves. And when they are in their true posture of nature, they preserve the essence in the full manner as they received it: and that, whose essence is not eternal, followeth the laws of the creator that swayeth it, and changeth into better, or worse, tending (by God's disposition) still to that end which the order of the universe requireth: so that that corruption which bringeth all nature's mortal unto dissolution, cannot so dissolve that which was, but it may become that afterwards which it was before, or that which it should be: which being so, then God, the highest being, who made all things that are not himself, (no creature being fit for that equality, being made of ●…othing) and consequently being not able to have been, but by him) is not to be discommended through the taking offence at some faults, but to be honoured upon the due consideration of the perfection of all natures. L. VIVES. A (a) certain] Every thing keeping harmonious agreement both with itself and others, without corrupting discord: which made some ancient writers affirm, that the world 〈◊〉 upon love: The cause of the good angels bliss, and the evils misery. CHAP. 6. THE true cause therefore of the good angels bliss, is their adherence to that most high essence: and the just cause of the bad Angel's misery, is their departure from that high essence, to reside upon themselves, that were not such: which vice what is it else but (a) pride? For pride is the root of all sin. Eccl. 10. These would not therefore stick unto him, their strength, and having power to be more (b) perfect by adherence to this highest good, they preferred themselves that were his inferiors, before him. This was the first fall, misery and vice of this nature, which all were it not created to have the highest being, yet might it have beatitude by fruition of the highest being: but falling from him, not be ●…de nothing, but yet less than it was, and consequently miserable. Seek the c●…e of this evil will, and you shall find just none. For what can cause the wills 〈◊〉, the will being sole cause of all evil? The evil will therefore causeth evil works, but nothing causeth the evil will. If there be, then either it hath a will or ●…one. If it have, it is either a good one or a bad: if good, what fool will say, a good will is cause of an evil will? It should if it caused sin: but this were extreme absurdity to affirm. But if that it have an evil will, than I a●…ke what caused this evil will in it? and to limit my questions, I ask the cause of the first evil will. For not that which an other evil will hath caused, is the first evil will, but that which none hath caused: for still that which causeth is before the other caused. If I be answered, that nothing caused it, but it was from the beginning, I ask then whe●…er it were in any nature: If it were in none, it had no being: if it were in any, it corrupted it, hurt it, and deprived it of all good: and therefore this Vice could not be in an evil nature, but in a good, where it might do hurt: for if it could not hurt, it was no vice, and therefore no bad will: and if it did hurt, it was by privation of good, or diminishing of it. Therefore a bad will could be from eternity in that wherein a good nature had been before, which the evil will destroyed by hurt. Well if it were not eternal, who made it? It must be answered, something that had no evil will: what was this inferior, superior, or equal unto it? If it were the superior, it was better, and why then had it not a will, nay, a better will? This may also be said of the equal: for two good wills never make the one the other bad: It remains then that some inferior thing that had no will was cause of that vicious will in the Angels. I but all things below them, even to the lowest earth, being natural, is also good, and hath the goodness of form and kind in all order: how then can a good thing produce an evil will? how can good be cause of evil? for the will turning from the superior to the inferior, becomes bad, not because the thing whereunto it turneth is bad, but because the division is bad, and perverse. No inferior thing than doth deprave the will, but the will depraves itself by following inferior things inordinately. For if two of like affect in body and mind should behold one beauteous parsonage, and the one of them be stirred with a lustful desire towards it, and the others thoughts stand chaste, what shall we think was cause of the evil will in the one and not in the other? Not the seen beauty: for it transformed not the will in both, and yet both saw it alike: not the flesh of the beholder's face, why not both? nor the mind we presupposed them both alike before, in body and mind. Shall we say the devil secretly suggested it into one of them, as though he consented not to it in his own proper will? This consent therefore, the cause of this assent of the will to vicious desire, is that we seek. For, to take away one let more in the question, if both were tempted, and the one yielded, and the other did not, why was this, but because the one would continue chaste, and the other would not? whence then was this secret fall but from the proper will, where there was such parity in body and mind, a like sight, and a like temptation? So then he that desires to know the cause of the vicious will in the one of them, if he ma●…ke i●… well shall find nothing. For if we say that he caused it, what was he ere his vicious will, but a creature of a good nature, the work of GOD, that unchangeable good? Wherefore he that saith that he that consented to this lustful desire which the other withstood, (both being before alike affected, and beholding the beautiful object alike) was cause of his own evil will, whereas he was good before this vice of will; Let him ask why he caused this? whether from his nature, or for that he was made of nothing; and he shall find that his evil will arose not from his na●…ure, but from his nothing: for if we shall make his nature the effecter of his vicious will, what shall we do but affirm that good is the efficient cause of evil? But how can it be that nature (though it be mutable) before it have a vicious will, should do viciously, namely in making the will, vicious? L. VIVES. But (a) pride] Scotus holds that the Angel's offence was not pride, I think only because he will oppose Saint Thomas, who held (with the Fathers) the contrary. (b) Perfect] in essence and exellence. That we ought not to seek out the cause of the vicious will. CHAP. 7. LEt none therefore seek the efficient cause of an evil will: for it is not efficient but deficient, nor is there effect but defect: namely falling from that highest essence, unto a lower, this is to have an evil will. The causes whereof (being not efficient but deficient) if one endeavour to seek, it is as if he should seek to see the darkness, or to hear silence: we know them both, this by (a) the ear, and that by the eye: but not by any forms of theirs, but privation of forms. Let none then seek to know that of me which I know not myself: unless he will learn not to know what he must know that he cannot know: for the things that we know by privation and not by form, are rather (if you can conceit me) known by not knowing: and in knowing them, are still unknown. For the bodies eye coursing over bodily objects, sees no darkness, but when it ceaseth to see. And so it belongs to the ear, and to no other sense to know silence, which notwithstanding is not known but by not hearing. So our intellect doth speculate the intelligible forms, but where they fail it learneth by not learning: for who can understand his faults? This I know, that God's nature can never fail in time, nor in part: but all things that are made of nothing may decay: which Psal. 19 The divine essence never can fail. do notwithstanding more good, as they are more essential: for then do they something when they have efficient causes: but in that they fail, and fall off, and do evil, they have deficient causes: and what do they then but vanity? L. VIVES. BY the (a) ear] Contraries are known both by one method, say the Philosophers, and the primative is known only by separation of the knowledge of the Positive. Of the perverse love, whereby the soul goeth from the unchangeable to the changeable good. CHAP. 8. I Know besides that wherein the vicious will is resident, therein is that done, which if the will would not, should not be done: and therefore the punishment falls justly upon those acts which are wills and not neces●…ities. It is not the (a) thing to which we fall, but our fall that is evil: that is: we fall to no evil natures, but against nature's order, from the highest to the lower: and therefore evil. Covetise is no vice in the gold, but in him that perversely leaveth justice to T●… inordinate love of things bad, not the things ●…selues. love gold, whereas justice ought always to be preferred before riches. Nor is lust the fault of sweet bautious bodies, but the souls that runs perversely to bodily delights, neglecting temperance, which scorns all company with those, & prepares us unto far more excellent and spiritual pleasures. Vainglory is not a vice proper to humane praise, but the souls, that perversely affecteth praise of men, not respecting the consciences testimony. Nor is pride his vice that giveth the power, but the souls, perversely loving that power, contemning the justice of the most mighty. By this then, he that perversely affected a good of nature, though he attain it, is evil himself in this good; and wretched, being deprived of a better. L. VIVES. THE (a) thing] It is not the action, but the quality and manner thereof that is vicious, said Plato. Whether he that made the Angel's natures, made their wills good also, by the infusion of his love into them through his holy spirit. CHAP. 9 SEeing therefore there is no natural nor (a) essential cause, effecting the evil of will, but that evil of mutability of spirit, which depraveth the good of nature, ariseth from itself: being effected no way but by falling from God, which falling also hath no cause: If we say also that good wills have no efficient cause we must beware lest they be not held uncreated and coeternal with God. But seeing that the Angels themselves were created, how can their wills but be so also? Besides being created, whether were they created with them, or without them first? if with them, then doubtless he that made one, made both: and (b) as soon as they were created, they were joined to him in that love wherein they were created. And therein were they severed from the other, because they kept their good-wills still, and the other were changed by falling in their evil will, from that which was good, whence they needed not have fallen unless they had listed. But if the good Angels were at first without good wills, and made those wills in themselves without Gods working, were they therefore made better of themselves then by his creation? God forbid. For what were they without good wills, but evil. Or, if they were not evil because they had no evil wills neither, nor fell from that which they had not, how-so-ever they were not as yet so good, as when they had gotten good wills. But now if they could not make themselves better than God (the best workman of the world) had made them: then verily could they never have had good wills but by the operation of the creator in them. And these good wills, effecting their conversion (not to themselves who were inferiors, but) to the supreme God, to adhere unto him, and be blessed by fruition of him, what do they else but show, that the best will should have remained poor, in desire only, but that he who made a good nature of nothing capable of himself, (e) made it better by perfecting it of himself, first having made it more desirous of perfection? for this must be examined: whether the good Angels created good will in themselves, by a good will or a bad, or none: if by none, than none they created. If by a bad, how can a bad will produce a good? if by a good, then had they good wills already. And who gave them those, but he that created them by a good will, that is in that chaste love of their adherence to him, both forming them nature, and giving The fall from good the cause of evil. them grace? Believe it therefore the Angels were never without good will, that is God's love: But those that were created good, and yet became evil by their proper will, (which no good nature can do but in a voluntary defect from good, that, and not the good being the cause of evil) either (d) received less grace from the divine love, than they that persisted therein, or if the had equal good at their creation, the one fell by the evil wills, and the other having further help attained that bliss, from which they were sure never to fall, as we showed in our last book. Therefore, to gods due praise we must confess that the diffusion of God's love is be●…owed as well upon the Angels, as the Saints, by his holy spirit bestowed upon them: and that that Scripture: It is good for me to adhere unto God, was peculiar Psal. 73. at first to the holy Angels, before man was made. This good they all participate with him to whom they adhere, and are a holy city, a living sacrifice, and a living temple unto that God. Part whereof, namely that which the Angels shall gather and take up from this earthly pilgrimage unto that society, being now in the flesh, upon earth, or dead, and resting in the (e) secret receptacles of souls, how it had first original, must I now explain, as I did before of the Angels. For of God's work, The first man, came all man kind, as the scripture saith, whose authority is justly admired throughout the earth and those natures, whom (amongst other things) it prophesied should believe it. L. VIVES. OR (a) Essential.] As having essence. (b) As soon.] He plainly confesseth that the Angels were all created in grace. De corrept, et great. Before they fell they had grace. Hierome also The creation of the Angels. upon Os●…a affirms that the Devils were created with great fullness of the holy spirit. But Augustine De genes. ad lit, seems of another mind, saying the angelical nature was first created unformall. The Divines here upon are divided: some following Lombard Sent. 2. dist. 4. Alice, and B●…nture deny that the Angels were created in grace. Saint Thomas holds the contrary. I dare not, nor have not where withal to decide a matter so mightily disputed and of such moment. Augustine in most plain words, and many places, holds that they were created in grace as that of Exechiel seems also to import: Thou sealest up the sun, and art full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. (c) Made it.] Showing that God gave them more grace when they showed Eze. 28. 12 their obedience (of this I see no question made:) in such measure, as he assured them of eternity of bliss. (d) Received less.] If all the Angels had grace given them, it than should have been distributed with respect of persons, to some more, and to some of the same order less. But it was given gradually to the orders not to each particular Angel: whereupon some of the same order fell, and some stood, though both had grace given them alike. (e) Secret.] He The dgree●… of grace. doubts not of the glory, but of the glories place before the judgement; for they may be blessed any where, God, in whose fruition they are blessed being every where. Of the falseness of that History that saith the world hath continued many thousand years. CHAP. 10. LEt the conjectures therefore of those men that fable of man's and the world's original they know not what pass for us: for some think that men 〈◊〉 been always, as of the world; as Apuleis writeth of men: Severally mortal, but generally, eternal, (b) And when we say to them: why if the world hath always been, how can your histories speak true in relation of who invented this or that, who brought up arts and learning, and who first inhabited this or that region? they answered us: the world hath at certain times been so wasted by fires, and deluges, that the men were brought to a very few: whose progeny multiplied again: and so seemed this as man's first original, whereas indeed it was but a reparation of those whom the fires and floods had destroyed: but that man cannot have production but from man. They speak now what they think, but not what they know: being deceived by a sort of most false writings, that say the world hath continued a many thousand years, where as the holy scriptures giveth us not account of (c) full six thousand years since man was made. To show the falseness of these writings briefly, and that their authority is not worth a rush herein, (d) that Epistle of Great Alexander to his mother, containing a narration of things by an Egyptian Priest unto him, made out of their religious mysteries: containeth also the Monarchies, that the Greek histories record also: In this Epistle (e) the Assyrian monarchy lasteth five thousand years and above. But in the Greek history, from Belus the first King, it continueth but one thousand three hundred years. And with Belus doth the Egyptian story begin also. The Persian Monarchy (saith that Epistle) until Alexander's conquest (to whom this Priest spoke thus) lasted above eight thousand years: whereas the Macedonians until Alexander's death lasted but four hundred four score and five years, and the Persians until his victory two hundred thirty & three years, by the Greek●… story. So far are these computations short of the Egyptians, being not equal with them though they were trebled. For (f) the Egyptians are The Egyptian years. said once to have had their (g) years but four months long: so that one full year of the greeks or ours, is just three of their old ones. But all this will not The Greek histories 〈◊〉 th●…n the Egiptian●… in the computation of the Monarchies make the Greek and Egyptian computations meet: and therefore we must rather trust the Greek, as not exceeding our holy scriptures account. But if this Epistle of Alexander being so famous, differ so far from the most probable account, how much less faith than ought we to give to those their fabulous antiquities, fraught with leasings, against our divine books, that foretold that the whole world should believe them, and the whole world hath done so: and which prove that they wrote truth in things past, by the true occurrences of things to come, by them presaged. L. VIVES. Severally (a) mortal] Apuleius Florid. l. 2. cunctim, generally, or universally, of cunctus, all, (b) And when] Macrobius handleth this argument at large. De somn. scip. and thinks he puts it off with that that Augustine here reciteth. Plato seems the author of this shift in his Timaus, where Critias relating the conference of the Egyptian Priest and Solon, saith, that we know not what men have done of many years before; because they change their country, or are expelled it by floods, fires, or so, and the rest hereby destroyed. Which answer is easily confuted, foreseeing that all the world can neither be burned nor drowned (Arist. Meteor.) the remainders of one ancient sort of men might be preserved by another, and so derived down to us, which Aristotle seeing (as one witty, and mindful of what he saith) affirmeth that we have the relics of the most ancient Philosophy left us. Metaphys. 12. Why then is there no memory of things three thousand years before thy memory. (c) Full six thousand] Eusebius whose account Augustine followeth, reckoneth from the creation unto the sack of Rome by the Goths 5611. years▪ following the Septuagints. For Bede out of the Hebrew reserveth unto the time The liberty that the old wri●…ers used in computation of time. of Honorius and Theodosius the younger (when the Goths took Rome) but 4377. of this different computation hereafter. (d) That Epistle] Of this before, book eight. (e) The Assyri●…] Hereof in the 18. book more fitly. Much liberty do the old chroniclers use in their account of time. Plin. lib. 11, out of Eudoxus, saith that Zoroaster lived 6000. years before Plato's death. So faith Aristotle. Herimippus saith he was 5000. years before the Trojan war. Tully writes that the Chaldees had accounts of 470000. years in their chronicles. De divinat 1. 〈◊〉 saith also that they reckoned from their first astronomer until great Alexander 43000. years. (f) The Egyptians] Extreme liars in their years. Plato writes that the City Sais in Egypt had chronicles of the country's deeds for 8000. years space. And Athens was built 1000 years before Sais. Laertius writes that Vulcan was the son of Nilus, and reckoneth 48863. years between him and Great Alexander:: in which time there fell 373. eclipses of the Sun, and 832. of the Moon. Mela lieth alittle lower: saying that the Egyptians reckon 330. Kings before Amasis, and above 13000. years. But the lie wanted this subsequent, that since they were Egyptians, Heaven hath had four changes of revolutions, and the Sun hath set twice where it riseth now. Diodorus also writeth that from Osiris unto Alexander that built Alexandria, some reckon 10000 and some 13000. years: and some fable that the Gods had the Kingdom of Isis: and then that men reigned afterward very near 15000. years, until the 180. Olympiad, when Ptolemy began to reign. Incredible was this ab●… vanity of the Egyptians who to make themselves the first of the creation, lied so many thousand years. Which was the cause that many were deceived, and deceived o●…hers also as conc●…ning the world's original. Tully follows Plato and maketh Egypt infinitely old, and so doth ●…ristotle. Polit 7. (g) Years but] Pliny lib. 7. saith the Nations divided their years some The monthly years. by the Summer, some by the Winter, some by the quarters as the Archadians whose year was three months, some by the age of the Moon, as the Egyptians. So that some of them have lived a thousand of their years. Censorinus saith that the Egyptians most ancient years was two months. Then King Piso made it four, at last it came to thirteen months and five days. Diodorus saith that it being reported that some of the ancient Kings had reigned 1200. years, being to much to believe, they found for certain that the course of the Sun being not yet known, they counted their years by the Moons. So then the wonder of old 〈◊〉 ceaseth, some dividing our year into four as divers of the greeks did. Diodorus saith also that the Chaldees had months to their years. But to show what my conjecture is of these numbers of years amongst the nations, I hold that men being so much gi●…n to the stars, counted the course of every star for a year. So that in 30. years of the S●…e, are one of Saturn, five of jupiter, six of Mars, more than 30. of Venus' and Mercury, and almost 400, of the Moon. So they are in all near 500 Of those that hold not the eternity of the World, but either a dissolution and generation of inumera●…le Worlds, or of this one at the e●…piration of certain years. CHAP. 11. But others there are, that do not think the World eternal, and yet either imagine it, not to be one (a) world but many: or (b) one only, dissolved and regenerate at the date of certain years. Now these must needs confess, that there were first men of themselves, ere any men were begotten. (c) For they cannot think that the whole world perishing, any man could remain, as they may do in those burnings, & inundations which left still some men to repair mankind: but as they hold the world to be re-edified out of the own ruins, so must they believe that mankind first was produced out of the elements, and from these first, as man's following propagation, as other creatures, by generation of their like. L. VIVES. NOt to be one (a) world] Which Democritus and Epicurus held. (b) One only] Heraclitus, Hippasus and the Stoics held that the world should be consumed by fire, and then be re●…ed. (c) For they cannot] Plato and Aristotle hold that there cannot be an universal deluge, or burning. But the Stoics (as Tully saith) believed that the World at length should become all on fire, and the moisture so dried, as neither the earth could nourish the plants, nor the air be drawn in breadth ●…or produced, all the water being consumed. So that Plato and Aristotle still reserved 〈◊〉 then for propagation: these, none, but destroyed All, to re-edify All. Of such as held Man's Creation too lately effected. CHAP. 12. WHerefore our answer to those that held the world to have been ab aeterno, against Plato's express confession, though some say he spoke not as he thought, the same shallbe our answer still to those that think Man's Creation too lately effected, having let those innumerable spaces of time pass, and by the scriptures authority been made but so late, as within this six thousand years. If the b●…ity of time be offensive, and that the years since Man was made seem so few, let them consider that (a) nothing that hath an extreme, is continual: and that all the definite spaces of the World being compared to the interminate Nothing co●…uall that hath an extreme. Trinity, are as (a very little: Nay as) just nothing. And therefore though we should reckon five or six, or sixty, or six hundred thousand years, and multiply them so often till the number wanted a name, and say then GOD made man, yet may we ask why he made him no sooner? For GOD'S pause before Man's Creation being from all eternity was so great, that compare a definite number with it, of never so unspeakable a quantity, and it is not so much, as one half drop of water being counterpoised with the whole Ocean: for in these, though the one be so exceeding small, and the other so incomparably great, yet (b) both are definite. But that time which hath any original, run it on too never so huge a quantity, being compared unto that which hath no beginning, I know not whether to call it small, or nothing. For, withdraw but moments from the end of the first, and be the number never so great, it will (as if one should diminish the number of a man's days from the time he lives in, to his birth day) decrease, until we come to the very beginning. But from the later abstract (not moments, nor days, nor months nor years, but as much time as the other whole number contained, (lie it out of the compass of all computation) and that as often as you please, prevail you when you can never attain the Beginning, it having none at all? Wherefore that which we ask now after five thousand years and the ouerp●…s, our posterity may as well ask after six hundredth thousand years, if our mortality should succeed, and our infirmity endure so long. And our forefathers, presently upon the first man's time might have called this in question. Nay the first man himself, that very day that he was made, or the next might have asked why he was made no sooner? But when soever he had been made, this contro●…ie of his original and the worlds should have no better foundation than is 〈◊〉 now. L. VIVES. NOthing (a) that] Cic. de senect. When the extreme comes, then that which is past, is gone (b) Both are] Therefore is there some propertion between them, whereas between definite, and indefinite there is none. Of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Times at whose expiration some Philosophers held that the V●… should 〈◊〉 to the state it was in at first. CHAP. 13. NOw these Philosophers believed that this world had no other dissolution, 〈◊〉 renewing of it continually at certain (a) revolutions of time, wherein the 〈◊〉 of things was repaired: and so passed on a continual (b) rotation of age's 〈◊〉 and coming: whether this fell out in the continuance of one world, or the 〈◊〉 arising, and falling gave this succession, and date of things by the own re●…ion, from which ridiculous mocking they cannot free the immortal nor the 〈◊〉 ●…oule, but it must still be tossed unto false bliss, & beaten back into true mi●… how is that bliss true, whose eternity is ever uncertain, the soul either 〈◊〉 ●…gnorant of the return unto misery, or fearing it in the midst of felicity? But 〈◊〉 from misery to happiness never to return, then is some thing begun in 〈◊〉 ●…hich time shall never give end unto, and why not then the world? and why 〈◊〉 made therein; (to avoid all the false tracts that deceived wits have de●… distract men from the truth): for (c) some will have that place of Ecclesias●… Ecc. 1. 9 10 〈◊〉 ●…hat is it that hath been that (which shallbe: what is it that hath been made? 〈◊〉 ●…ch shall be made. (d) And there is no new thing under the sun: nor any thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may say, behold this is new: it hath been already in the time that was before 〈◊〉 be understood of these reciprocal revolutions, whereas he meant either 〈◊〉 things he spoke of before, viz, the successive generations; the suns mo●…, the torrents falls; or else generally of all transitory creatures; for there were 〈◊〉 ●…ore us, there are with us, and there shallbe after us, so it is of trees, and 〈◊〉. Nay even monsters, though they be unusual, and divers, and some have 〈◊〉 ●…t but once, yet as they are generally wonders, and miracles, they are ●…st and to come: nor is it news to see a monster under the Sun. Though 〈◊〉 ●…ll have the wise man to speak of God's predestination that fore-framed 〈◊〉 therefore that now there is nothing new under the Sun. But far be 〈◊〉 from believing that these words of Solomon should mean those reuolu●… they do dispose the world's course and renovation by: as Plato the A●… Philosopher taught in the Academy that in a certain unbounded 〈◊〉▪ yet definite, Plato himself, his scholars, the city and school should after 〈◊〉 ages meet all in that place again and be as they were when he taught 〈◊〉 God forbid I say that we should believe this. For Christ once died for our Rome 6. 〈◊〉. Thess. 4. Psal. 12. 7. 〈◊〉 and rising again, dieth no more, nor hath death any future dominion over him, 〈◊〉 after our resurrection shallbe always with the Lord, to whom now we say 〈◊〉 the Psalm: Thou wilt keep us O Lord and preserve us from this generation for 〈◊〉 The following place I think fits them best: The wicked walk in a circuit: 〈◊〉 cause their life (as they think) is to run circularly, but because their false do●… runs round in a circular maze. L. VIVES. ●…lutions (a) Of.] Platonisme holding a continual progression and succession of causes 〈◊〉 effects, and when heaven hath revolved itself fully, and come to the point whence it Revolution of times. 〈◊〉 first, then is the great year perfect, and all shall be as they were at first. (b) Rotation.] 〈◊〉, a ●…it word of Uoluo to roll. (c) Some.] Origen, Periarch. lib. 2. I will follow Hierome 〈◊〉 then R●…s in citying origen's dogmatical doctrines, and that for good reasons: we 〈◊〉 Origen) that there was a world ere this, & shallbe another after it: will you hear our 〈◊〉 for the later? Here Esay saying I will create new heavens, and a new earth; to remain in Is●…. 65. 17. 〈◊〉, for the first Ecclesi●…stes: What is it that hath been? that which shallbe. etc. for all things 〈◊〉, as they are in the old ages before us. Thus Origen, yet he doubts whether these 〈◊〉 shallbe alike, or somewhat different. (d) And there is no.] Simmachus hath translated 〈◊〉 than Hierome, referring it unto God's prescience, that all things of this world were first in the Creator's knowledge, though Augustine a little before, take it as meant of the generality of things, and toucheth Hieromes exposition. Of Man's temporal estate, made by God, out of no newness or change of will. CHAP. 14. But what wonder if these men run in their circular error, and find no way forth, seeing they neither know mankind's original nor his end? being not able to pierce into God's depths: who being eternal, and without beginning yet gave time a beginning, and made Man in time whom he had not made before, God eternal. yet not now maketh he him by any sudden motion, but as he had eternally decreed. Who can penetrate this (a) inscrutable depth, wherein GOD gave Man a Psal. 11. temporal beginning and had none before: and this out of his eternal, unchangeable will; multiplying all mankind from one? for when the Psalmist had said, Thou shalt keep us OLORD, and preserve us from this generation for ever, than he reprehendeth those whose fond and false doctrine reserve no eternity for the soul's blessed freedom, in adjoining, The wicked walk in a Cy●…cuite: as who should say, what dost thou think or believe? Should we say that God suddenly determined to make Man, whom he had not made in all eternity before, and yet that God is ever immutable, and cannot change his will, lest this should draw us into doubt, he answereth God presently, saying: In thy deep wisdom didst thou multiply the sons of men. Let men think talk or dispute, as they will (saith he) and argue as they think, In thy deep wisdom, which none can discover, didst thou multiply mankind. For it is most deep, that GOD should be from eternity, and yet decree that Man should be made at this time, and not before, without alteration of will. L. VIVES. THis inscrutable] The text is investigabilem, put for the just contrary minime inuestigabi●… unsearchable, as indolere and invocare in latin is used both for affirmative and negative. Whether (to preserve Gods eternal domination) we must suppose that he hath always had creatures to rule over, and how that may be held always created, which is not coeternal with God. CHAP. 15. But I, as I dare not deny God's domination (a) eternal from ever, so may I not doubt but that Man had a temporal beginning before which he was not. But when I think, what God should be Lord over from eternity, here do I fear Rom. 11. 14 to affirm any thing, because I look into myself, and know that it is said, Wh●… can know the Lords counsels? or who can think what God intendeth? Our cogitations are fearful, and our forecasts are uncertain. The corruptible body suppresseth the soul, and the earthly mansion keepeth down the mind that is much occupied. Therefore of these which I revolve in this earthly mansion, they are Wis●…. 3. many, because out of them all I cannot find that one of them or besides them which perhaps I think not upon, and yet is true. If I say there hath been creatures ever for God to be Lord off who hath been ever, and ever Lord: but th●… they were now those; and than others by success of time (lest we should make some of them coeternal with the Creator, which faith and reason reproveth) This must we look that it be not absurd for a mortal creature to have been ●…uely from the beginning, and the immortal creature to have had a tem●… original in this our time, and not before, wherein the Angels were created ●…her they be meant by the name of light, or, heaven, of whom it is said, 〈◊〉 ●…inning God created heaven and earth:) and that they were not from the be●…g, until the time that they were created: for otherwise they should be co●…ll with God. If I say they were not created in time, but before it, that God 〈◊〉 be their Lord, who hath been a Lord for ever. Then am I demanded, 〈◊〉 they were before all time, of how could they that were created be from 〈◊〉? And here I might perhaps answer how that which hath been for the 〈◊〉 of all time, may not be unfitly said to have been always, and they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all time, that they were before all time, if Time began with heavens 〈◊〉, and they were before heaven. But if time began not so, but were be●…uen not in hours, days, months or years (for sure it is that these dimen●…, properly called times, began from the stars courses, as God said when Times. 〈◊〉 them: Let them be for signs, and seasons and days, and years) but in some 〈◊〉 wondrous motion whose former part did pass by, and whose later, succee●…, it being impossible for them to go both together: If there were such a 〈◊〉 in the angels motions, and that as soon as they were made, they began to 〈◊〉 thus, even in this respect have they been from the beginning of all 〈◊〉 Time, and they having original both at once. And who will not say that ●…th been for all. Time, hath been always? But if I answer thus; some 〈◊〉 ●…to me, why are they not then coeternal with the Creator if both he and ●…ue been always? What shall I say to this? That they have been always, 〈◊〉 that time & they had original both together, and yet they were created? 〈◊〉 deny not that time was created, though it hath been for all times conti●…; otherwise, there should have been a time that had been no time, but ●…oole will say so? we may say, there was a time when Rome was not: when ●…lem was not: Abraham, or Man himself, or so, when they all were not. N●… the world itself being not made at times: beginning but afterwards, we 〈◊〉 say; there was a time when the world was not. But to say, there was a time when time was not, is as improper, as to say there was a Man when there was no 〈◊〉, or a world, when the world was not. If we mean of divers perti●…, we may say, this Man was when that was not: and so this Time was when 〈◊〉 not; true. But to say Time was, when no Time was, who is so sottish? 〈◊〉 as we say Time was created, and yet hath been always, because it 〈◊〉 been whilst Time hath been, so is it no consequent then that the An●… that have been always, should yet be uncreated, seeing they have been ●…s, only in that they have been since Time hath been: and that because 〈◊〉 could not have been without them. For whereno creature is whose mo●…lay proportion Time forth, there can be no Time: and therefore though 〈◊〉 ●…ue been always they are created, and not coeternal with the Creator: 〈◊〉 he hath been unchangeable from all eternity, but they were created, and 〈◊〉 said to have been always, because they have been all Time, that could 〈◊〉 without them. But Time, being transitory, and mutable, cannot be co●…ll with unchanging eternity? And therefore though Angels have no bodi●…●…tation, nor is this part passed in them and the other to come, yet their 〈◊〉, measuring Time, admitteth the differences of past and to come: And therefore they can never be coeternal with their Creator, whose motion admitteth neither past, present, nor future. Wherefore GOD having been always a Lord, hath always had a creature to be Lord over, not begotten by him, but created out of nothing by him, and not coeternal with him, for he was before it, though in no time before it: nor foregoing it in any space, but in perpetuity. But if I answer this to those that ask me, how the Creator should be always Lord, and yet have no creature to be Lord over: or how hath he a creature that is not coeternal with him, if it hath been always: I fear to be thought rather to affirm what I know not, then teach what I know? So that I return to the Creators revealed will; what he allows to wiser knowledges, in this life, or reserveth for all unto the next, I profess myself unable to attain to. But this I thought to handle without affirming, that my readers, may see what questions to for bear as dangerous: and not to hold them fit for farther inquiry: rather following the Apostles wholesome counsel, saying: I say through the grace that is given me, unto every one amongst you, presume not to understand more than is meet to understand, 〈◊〉. 12 but understand according to sobriety, as God hath dealt unto every man (c) the measure of faith, for (d) if an infant be nourished according to his strength, he will grow up, but if he be strained above his nature, he will rather fade then increase in growth and strength. L. VIVES. DOmination (a) eternal] He had no servants to rule, in respect of whom he might be called a Lord: for Lord is a relative: and it fitted not the Son and the Holy Ghost to call him Lord. (b) He hath been] His continuance, is, but we abuse the words: and say he was, and shallbe: not being able in out circumscribed thoughts to comprehend the eternity. (c) 〈◊〉 measure] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The greeks use the Accusative often of our ablative, or rather for the seventh case Paul meaneth the proportionating of wisdom to the measure of faith. (d) If an infant] Quintilian hath such another family: pour water easily into a narrow mouthed glass, and it willbe filled: but power to fast, and it will run by, and not go in. Institut. lib. 1. How we must understand that God promised Man life eternal, before all eternity. CHAP. 16. WHat revolution passed ere man's creation, I confess I know not: but sure I am, no creature is coeternal with the Creator. The Apostle speaketh of eternal times, not to come, but (which is more wondrous) past. For thus he saith, under the hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, hath promised before all eternity (a) of time: but his word he hath manifested in time. Behold he talketh of 〈◊〉. 2 Time's eternity past, yet maketh it not coeternal with GOD. For he was not only himself before all eternity, but promised eternal life before it, which he manifested in his due Time: that was, his word: for that is eternal life. But how did he promise it unto men that were not before eternity, but that in his eternity and coeternal world, he had predestinated what was in Time to be manifested. L. VIVES. BBfore (a) all eternity.] Tit. 1. 2. Hi●…ome expounds it thus. We may not omit to decl●… The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what they are. how GOD that cannot lie, promised life, before eternity. Even since the world (as it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) ●…s made, and time ordained to pass in days, months & years, in this course the times pass 〈◊〉 come being past or future. Whereupon some Philosophers held no time present, but all either past or to come: because all that we do, speak, or think, either passeth as it is a doing, or is so come if it be not done. We must therefore believe an eternity of continuance, before these ●…ldly times: in which, the Father was, with the Son and the Holy Ghost, and if I may say so, all ●…ity is one Time of Gods: nay innumerable Times, for he being infinite was before time, and shall exceed all Time: our world is not yet 6000. years old: what eternities what huge Times and originals of ages may we imagine was before it, wherein the A●…gells, Thrones, Dominations and other hosts served God, and subsisted by God's command, ●…out measure or courses of Times? So then, before all these Times, which neither the tongue 〈◊〉 declare, the mind comprise, or the secret thought once touch at, did GOD the Father of wisdom promise his Word and Wisdom, and Life to such as would believe upon this promise: Thus far Hierome. Peter Lombard objecting this against himself, maketh Hierome speak it as confuting others, not affirming himself. Sent. lib. 2. So doth he with Augustine also is many places: an easy matter, when great authors oppose aught that we approve. Augstine against the Priscillianists saith that them times were called eternal, before which there was no time, as if one should say, from the creation, our common reading is: before the world began, the greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The defence of God's unchanging will against those that fetch Gods works about from eternity, in circles, from state to state. CHAP. 17. NO●… do I doubt that there was no man before the first man's creation: but deny the (I cannot tell what) revolution of the same man I know not how often, or of others like him in nature, nor can the Philosophers drive me from this, by objecting (acutely they think) that nullum (a) infinitum est scibile, infinite th●…s are beyond reach of knowledge. And therefore God (say they) hath definite forms Arguments against the creation of things, in time. in himself of all the definite creatures that he made: nor must his goodness be ever held idle, nor his works temporal, as if he had had such an e ternity of leisure before, and then repented him of it and so fell to work: therefore, say they, is this revolution necessary: the world either remaining in change (which though it hath been always yet was created) or else being dissolved, and re-edified in this circular course: otherwise giving Gods works a temporal beginning we seem to make him disallow and condemn that leisure that he rested in from all eternity before as slothful, and useless. But if he did create from eternity, now this and then that, and came to make man in time, that was not made before, then shall he seem not to have made him by knowledge (which they say contains nothing infinite) but at the present time, by chance as it came into his mind. But admit those revolutions (say they) either with the world's continuance in change, or circular revolution, and then we acquit GOD both of this (so long and idle seeming) cessation, and from all operation in rashness and chance. For if the same things be not renewed, the vati●…ion of things infinite are too incomprehensible for his knowledge or prescience. These batteries the ungodly do plant against our faith, to win us into their circle: but if reason will not refute them, faith must deride them. But by God's grace reason will lay those circularities flat enough. For here is these men's error: running rather in a maze then stepping into the right way, that they proportionate the divine unchangeable power, unto they humane frail and weak spirit, in mutability and apprehension. But as the Apostle saith: (b) Comparing themselves to themselves, they know not themselves. For because their 2. Cor. 10, 1●…. actions that are suddenly done, proceed all from new intents, their minds being mutable, they do imagine (not GOD, for him they cannot comprehend, but) themselves for GOD, and compare not him to himself, but themselves (in his stead) unto themselves. But we may not think that GOD'S rest affects him one way, and his work another, he is never affected, nor doth his God's working & his resting. nature admit any thing that hath not been ever in him. That which is affected, suffereth, and that which suffers, is mutable. For his vacation is not idle, slothful nor sluggish, nor is his work painful, busy, or industrious. He can rest working, and work resting. He can apply an eternal will to a new work, and begins not to work now because he repenteth that he wrought not before. But if he rested first and wrought after (which I see not how man can coceive) this first and after were in things that first had no being, and afterwards had. But there was neither precedence nor subsequence in him, to alter or abolish his will, but all that ever he created, was in his unchanged fixed will eternally one and the same: first willing that they should not be, and afterwards willing that they should be, and so they were not, during his pleasure, and began to be, at his pleasure. Wondrously showing to such as can conceive it, that he needed none of these creatures, (but created them of his pure goodness) having continued no less blessed without them, from all un-begunne eternity. L. VIVES. NV●… infinitum (a)] Arist. metaphies. 2. and in his first of his posterior Analitikes, he saith 〈◊〉. that then know we a thing perfectly, when we know the end; and that singularities are infinite b●…●…rsalities most simple. So as things are infinite they cannot be known, but as they are defi●…, they may. And Plato having divided a thing unto singularities, forbids further progress for they are infinite and incomprehensible. (b) Comparing] Cor. 2. 10. This place, Erasmus saith, Augustine useth often in this sense. Against such as say that things infinite are above God's knowledge. CHAP. 18. But such as say that things infinite are past God's knowledge, may even aswell Number 〈◊〉. leap headlong into this pit of impiety, and say that God knoweth not all numbers. That numbers are infinite, it is sure, for take what number you can, and think to end with it let it be never so great and immense, I will add unto it, not one, nor two, but by the law of number, multiply it unto ten times the sum it was. And so is every number composed, that one (a) cannot be equal to another, but all are different, every particular being definite, and all in general, infinite. (b) Doth not GOD then know these numbers because they are infinite, and can his knowledge attain one sum of numbers, & not the rest? what mad man would say so? nay they dare not exclude numbers from God's knowledge, Plato having so commended God for using them in the world's creation: and our Scripture saith of God. T●… 〈◊〉 ordered all things in measure, number, and weight: and the Prophet saith. He 〈◊〉 the world: and the Gospel saith: All the heirs of your heads are W●…. 11, 17 numbered. M●…. 10, 30 God forbid the that we should think that he knoweth not number: whose wisdom 〈◊〉 ●…standing is in numerably infinite as David saith: for the infiniteness of 〈◊〉 ●…hough it be beyond number is not unknown to him whose know●… infinite. Therefore if whatsoever be known be comprehended in the 〈◊〉 that knowledge, then is all infiniteness bounded in the knowledge of 〈◊〉 ●…ecause his knowledge is infinite, and because it is not vncomprehensi●… 〈◊〉 knowledge. Wherefore if numbers infiniteness, be not infinite vn●… knowledge, nor cannot be, what are we mean wretches that dare pre●…●…mit his knowledge, or say that if this revolution be not admitted in 〈◊〉 renewing, God cannot either foreknow allthings ere he made them, 〈◊〉 them when he made them? whereas his wisdom being simply and ●…ly manifold, can comprehend, all incomprehensibility, by his incom●…le comprehension, so that whatsoever thing that is new and unlike to all 〈◊〉 should please to make, it could not be new, nor strange unto him, nor 〈◊〉 ●…ore-see it a little before, but contain it in his eternal prescience. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉] Two men, two horses or whatsoever, make both one number. I inquire not 〈◊〉 ●…hether the number and the thing numbered be one or no: the schools ring of that ●…gh. (b) Doth not] The best reading. Of the worlds without end, or ages of ages. CHAP. 19 〈◊〉 doth so, and that there is a continual connexion of those times which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 ●…lled Secula (a) seculorum, ages of ages, or worlds without end: running 〈◊〉 indestinate difference: only the souls that are freed from misery, re●…●…ernally blessed, or that these words, Secula seculorum do import the 〈◊〉 remaining firm in God's wisdom and being the efficient cause of ●…ory world, I dare not affirm. The singular may be an explication of 〈◊〉, as if we should say, Heaven of heaven, for the Heavens of heavens. ●…D calls the firmament above which the waters are, Heaven, in the sin●… 〈◊〉, and yet the Psalm saith, and you waters that be above the Heavens, 〈◊〉 of the LORD. Which of those two it be, or whether Secula 〈◊〉 Genes. 〈◊〉 Psal. 148 another meaning, is a deep question. We may let it pass, it belongs 〈◊〉 proposed theme: but whether we could define, or but observe 〈◊〉 discourse, let us not adventure to affirm aught rashly in so obs●…●…ouersie. Now are we in hand with the circulary persons that 〈◊〉 ●…ings round about till they become repaired. But which of these opini●… be true concerning these Secula seculorum, it is nothing to these reuo●…●…cause whether the worlds of worlds be not the same revolued, but o●…●…uely depending on the former (the freed souls remaining still 〈◊〉 ●…lesse bliss) or whether the Worlds of worlds, be the forms 〈◊〉 ●…sitorie ages, and ruling them as their subjects: yet the circulari●…●…o place here howsoever: The Saints (b) eternal life overthroweth 〈◊〉. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a)] The scriptures often use these two words both together. Hierome (in ●…p. ad Gal. expounds them thus, we 〈◊〉▪ (saith he) the difference between Seculum, Seculum Secu●…, Secula 〈◊〉. and secula seculorum. Seculu●… sometimes a space of time: sometimes eternity, the hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. and when it is written with the letter van before it, it is eternity: when otherwise, it is 50. years or, a jubilee. And therefore the Hebrew servant that loved his Master for his wife and children, had his care bored, and was commanded to serve an age, Seculum, 50. 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉. years. And the Moabites and Amonites enter not into the Church of God until the 15. generation, and not until an age: for the year of jubilee quit all hard conditions. Some say that Seculum seculorum hath the same respect that Sanctu Sanctorum, & Caelum Caelorum, the Heavens of heavens had, or as the Works of works, or Song of songs. That difference that the heavens had to those whose heavens they were, and so the rest, the holy above all holy, the song excelling all songs etc. So was secula seculorum the ages excelling all ages. So they say that this present age includeth all from the world's beginning unto the judgement: And then they go further, and begin to graduate the ages past, before and to come after it, whether they were or shallbe good or ill, falling into such a forest of questions, as whole volumes have been written, only of this kind. (b) Eternal] Returning no more to misery: nor were that happy without certeynty of eternity: nor eternal if death should end it. Of that impious assertion that souls truly blessed, shall have divers revolutions into misery again. CHAP. 20. FOr what (a) Godly ears can endure to hear, that after the passage of this life in such misery, (if I may call it a life, (b) being rather so offensive a death, and yet (c) we love it rather than that death that frees us from it) after so many intolerable mischiefs, ended all at length by true zeal and piety, we should be admitted to the sight of God, and be placed in the fruition and participation of that incorporeal light and unchangeable immortal essence with love of which we burn, all upon this condition, to leave it again at length, and be re-infolded in mortal misery amongst the hellish immortals, where GOD is lost, where truth is sought by hate, where blessedness is sought by uncleanness, and be cast from all enjoying of eternity, truth, or felicity: and this not once but often, being eternally revolved by the course of the times from the first to the later: and all this, because by means of these circularities, transforming us and our false bea●…des in true miseries, (successively, but yet eternally) GOD might come to ●…ow his own works. Whereas otherwise he should neither be able to rest from working, not know aught that is infinite? Who can hear or endure this? Which were it true, there were not only more wit in concealing it, but also (〈◊〉 speak my mind as I can) more learning in not knowing it: (d) for if we shalb●…●…ssed in not remembering them there, (e) why do we aggravate our misery 〈◊〉 knowing them here? But if we must needs know them there, yet let us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 selves ignorant of them here, to have the happier expectation, than the 〈◊〉 that we shall attain: here expecting blessed eternity, and there 〈◊〉 only bliss, but with assurance that it is but transitory. But if they ●…y that no man can attain this bliss unless he know the transitory revolutions thereof, ere he leave this life, how then do they confess that the more one loves GOD, the easilier shall he attain bliss, and yet teach the way how 〈◊〉 ●…ll this loving affect? 〈◊〉 will not but love him lightly whom he knows he must leave, and 〈◊〉 ●…st his truth and wisdom, and that when by the perfection of his bliss, 〈◊〉 to the full knowledge of him? (f) one can never love his friend faith●… know that he shall become his enemy. But God forbid that this ●…g of theirs that our misery should never be ended, but only interrup●… and then by false happiness, should be true. For what is falser than 〈◊〉, wherein we shallbe either wholly ignorant in such light or otherwise ●…ly afraid of the loss of it, being on the top of felicity? If we 〈◊〉 ●…hat we shall become wretched, our misery here is wiser than hap●…●…ere. But if we shall know it, (g) then, the wretched soul had better ●…serable state and go from thence to eternity, then in a blessed to fall ●…ce to misery. And so (h) our hope of happiness is unhappy, and of ●…ppie: and consequently, we suffering miseries here, and expecting them 〈◊〉 rather wretched then blessed in truth. But piety crieth out, and truth ●…h this to be false. The felicity promised us is true, eternal, and wholly True felicity. ●…pted by any revolution to worse. 〈◊〉 follow Christ, our right way, & leave this circular maze of the impious. ●…phyry the Platonist refused his masters opinion in this circumrotation 〈◊〉, being moved hereto either by the vanity of the thing, or by fear 〈◊〉 Christians arguments; and had rather affirm (as I said in the tenth 〈◊〉 that the soul was sent into the world to know evil, that being pur●… it, it might return to the Father, and never more suffer any such 〈◊〉: how much more than ought we to detest this impiety, this enemy ●…ith and christianity? These circles now being broken, there is no●…th us to think that man had no beginning, because (I know not 〈◊〉 ●…olutions have kept allthings in such a continual course of up and 〈◊〉 ●…at nothing can be new in the world. For if the soul be freed, 〈◊〉 ●…o more return to misery, it being never freed before, there is an 〈◊〉 a great one, new begun, namely the soul's possession of eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this fall out in an immortal nature without any circumvolution, why ●…s possible in mortal things? If they say that bliss is no new thing to 〈◊〉 because it returneth but unto that which it enjoyed always before: 〈◊〉 freedom new then, for it was never freed before, being never mise●…d the misery is new unto it, that was never miserable before. Now ●…nesse happen, not in the order that God's providence allotted, but by 〈◊〉 ●…here are our revolutions that admit nothing new, but keep all in ●…e? But if this novelty be within the compass of God's providence, ●…ule (〈◊〉) given from heaven, or fallen from thence, there may be new 〈◊〉 that were not before, and yet in the order of nature. And if the soul 〈◊〉 procure itself new misery (which the divine providence fore●… included in the order of things, freeing it from thence also by this 〈◊〉 power) how dare flesh and blood then be so rash as to deny that ●…y may produce things new unto the world (though not to himself) ●…ugh he foresaw, yet were never made before? If they say it is no ●…t the freed souls return no more to misery, because there are some ●…d daily freed from thence, why then they confess that there is still ●…es created, to be new freed from new miseries. For if they say they 〈◊〉 new fowls, but have been from eternity, which are daily put into new bodies, and living wisely, are freed, never to return: then they make the so●…ies of eternity, infinite: for imagine a number of souls never so large, they could not suffice for all the men of these infinite ages passed, if each soul as soon as it was quit, flew up, and returned no more. Nor can they show new there may be an infinite (k) sort of souls in the world, and yet debar GOD from knowing of things infinite. Wherefore seeing their revolutions of bliss and misery are cashiered, what remains but to aver that GOD can when his good pleasure is create what new thing he will, and yet because of his eternal foreknowledge never change his will? And whether the number of those freed, and not returning souls may be increased, look they to that, who will keep infiniteness out of the world: we shut up our disputation on both sides. If it may be increased, why deny they that that may be made now, that had no being before, if that number of freed souls that was before, be not only increased now, but shallbe for ever? But if there be but a certain number of souls to be freed, and never to return, and that number be not increased, whosoever it shallbe, it is not the same yet that it must be, nor can it increase, to the consummation but from a beginning, which being not before man, that man was made to begin, before whom was no other. L. VIVES. WHat (a) Godly] The Platonists have a great stir amongst themselves whether the soul shall return to her star whence she was taken, or follow the revolutions, from body to body. Plato in his Phadrus, and his Resp. maketh it eternally happy. Thence do P●…rphyry and 〈◊〉 deny the return of it after purgation. Proclus and Plotine, take Plato's eternity but for a great space of time: and submit the purest soul to the period of revolution. (b) Being] Cic. De repub. lib. 6. saith (after Plato) that our life being involved in such kill misery, is rather to be called a death. (c) We love it] This is a chief one in this bodies inconveniences, it blinds our reason so far that it allures us all to love it, and maketh us Our life 〈◊〉 to death. hate and abhor all that oppose it, whereas were our reason and judgement sound, and not over-borne by the body, they would desire to leave this living death, and ●…ghing, say with the Apostle, Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. (d) For if] We shall all drink of 〈◊〉 they say. (e) Why do] Fear of evil is a great torture, and Rom. 7. one had better die secure then live in fear. (f) One can] Scipio in Tully's Laelius, denies that there can be a saying so prejudicial to a●…itie, as to say that I love him now but I shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: nor will he believe that B●…s ever said such a word (as it was said) being one of the ●…en sages. But some ambitious unhonest fellow that desiired to have all in his own power might say so. For how can he be friend to him whom he thinks he can be foe to? This rule who soever gave it tends to the abolishment of friendship: but in deed we 〈◊〉 more need observe this in our friendships, not to begin to love him whom we could ever hate. Thus Cicero. (g) Then the wretched] For happiness is far better after 〈◊〉 than misery after happiness. For the feeling of misery is lessened by hope of happiness, and happiness is as much lessened by fear of misery. My mother Blanch, a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ had w●…t to tell me wh●…n I was a child, that the Sirens sung 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ and 〈◊〉 in fair wether: hhoping the later in the first, and fearing the first in the 〈◊〉 (〈◊〉) Our hope] Not of unhappiness, but unhappy, of the happiness to come. (〈◊〉) G●… from] He toucheth the Platomists controversy: some holding the souls given of GOD, 〈◊〉 others that they were cast down for their guilt, and for their punishment, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ (k) sports of souls] A diversity of reading but let us make good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Of the state of the first man, and mankind in him. CHAP. 21. ●…rd question of God's power to create new things without change of 〈◊〉 because of his eternity, being (I hope) sufficiently handled, we may 〈◊〉 that he did far better in producing mankind from one man only, 〈◊〉 had made many: for whereas he created some creatures that love to be 〈◊〉 in deserts, as Eagles, Kites, Lions, Wolves, and such like: and others, 〈◊〉 rather live in flocks and companies, as Doves, stars, Stags, (a) 〈◊〉 and such like: yet neither of those sorts did he produce of one alone, 〈◊〉 many together. But man, whose nature he made as mean between An●…asts, that if he obeyed the Lord his true creator, and kept his hests, 〈◊〉 be transported to the Angel's society: but if he became perverse in The goodness of obedience. 〈◊〉 offended his Lord God by pride of heart, then that he might be cast ●…h like a beast, and living the slave of his lusts after death be destinate ●…all pains, him did he create one alone, but meant not to leave him ●…th-out another humane fellow: thereby the more zealously commend●… concord unto us, men being not only of one kind in nature, but also ●…dred in affect: creating not the woman he meant to join with man, ●…did man, of earth, but of man, and man whom he joined with her, not of 〈◊〉 of himself, that all mankind might have their propagation from one. L. VIVES. (〈◊〉) Da●… in the diminutive, because it is a timorous creature, neither wild, no●… 〈◊〉▪ God foreknew that the first Man should sin, and how many people he was to translate, out of his kind into the Angel's society. CHAP. ●…22. 〈◊〉 was not ignorant that Man would sin, and so incur mortallitye 〈◊〉 for himself and his progeny: nor that mortals should run on in 〈◊〉 of iniquity that brute (a) beasts should live at more atonement 〈◊〉 between themselves; whose original was out of water and earth, 〈◊〉 whose kind came all out of one, in honour of concord: for lions ne●… among themselves, nor Dragons, as men have done. But God foresaw 〈◊〉 that his grace should adopt the godly, justify them by the holy spirit, ●…ir sins, and rank them in eternal peace with the Angels, the last 〈◊〉 dangerous death being destroyed: and those should make use of Gods●…g ●…g all mankind from one, in learning how well God respected unity in 〈◊〉. L. VIVES. (〈◊〉) 〈◊〉] Any place will hold bruit-beasts without contention, sooner than 〈◊〉 m●…n is Wool●…e to man as the Greek Proverb saith. Pli●…. lib. 7. and all other Dis●… amongst men wor●…. ●…gree among themselves, and oppose strangers. The stern Lion fights not with 〈◊〉 nor doth the Serpent sting the Serpent: the beasts and fishes of the sea a●… with their own kind. But man doth man the most mischief. Dic●… (saith Tully) wrote a book of the death of men: (He is a free and copious Peripatetique) and herein having reckoned up inondations, plagues, burning, exceeding abundance of bea●… and other external causes, he compares then with the wars and seditions wherewith man hath destroyed man: and finds the later far exceeding the former. This war amongst men did Christ desire to have abolished, and for the fury of wrath to have grafted the heat of zeal and charity. This should be preached, and taught, that Christians ought not to be as wars, but at love one with another, and to bear one with another: men's minds are already to forward to shed blood, and do wickedly: they need not be set on. Of the nature of man's soul, being created according to the image of God. CHAP. 23. THerefore God made man according to his (a) image and likeness, giving him a soul whereby in reason and understanding he excelled all the other Gen. 2. creatures, that had no such soul. And when he had made man thus of earth, and either (b) breathed the soul which he had made, into him, or rather made that breath one which he breathed into him (for to breath, is but to make a breath) Breathing in his face. then (c) out of his side did he take a bone, whereof he made him a wife, and an help, as he was God, for we are not to conceive this carnally, as we see an artificer work up any thing into the shape of a man, by art: God's hand is his power working visible things invisibly. Such as measure God's virtue and power that can make seeds of seeds by those daily and usual works, hold this rather for a fable then a truth: But they know not this creation, and therefore think unfaithfully thereof as though the works of ordinary conception, and production, are not strange to those that know them not, though they assign them rather to natural causes, then account them the deities works. L. VIVES. HIs (a) Image.] Origen thinks that man is Christ's image and therefore the scripture calls man God's image, for the Son is the father's image, some think the Holy Ghost is meant in the simyly. But truly the simyly consists in nothing but man, and the likeness of God. A man (saith Paul) is God's image. It may be referred to his nature and in that he is God's likeness, 1. Cor. 11. may be referred to his gifts, immortality, and such, wherein he is like God. (b) Breathed. It is a doubt whether the soul were made before, & infused after, or created with the body. Aug de gens. ad lit. li. 7. saith that the soul was made with the other spiritual substances, & infused afterwards, and so interpreteth this place, He breathed into his face the breath of life. Others take it as though the soul were but then made, and so doth Augustine here. (c) Out of his.] Why the woman was made after the man, why of his rib when he was a sleep, and how of his rib, read Magister sentent. lib. 2. Dist. 18. Whether the Angels may be called creators, of any, the least creature. CHAP. 24. But here we have nothing to do with (a) them that hold the divine essence not to meddle with those things at all. But (b) those that follow Plato in affirming that all mortal creatures, of which man is the chief, were made by the lesser created Gods, through the permission or command of the creator, and not by himself that framed the world, let them but absure the superstition wherein thy seek to give those inferiors just honours, and sacrifices, and they shall quickly avoid the error of this opinion, for it is not lawful to hold any creature, be it never so small, to have any other Creator than God, even before it could be understood. But the Angels (whom they had rather call Gods) though (c) at Angels the creators of nothing. his command they work in things of the world, yet we no more call them creators of living things, than we call husbandmen the creators of fruits and trees. L. VIVES. WIth (a) ther●….] With the Epicurists, that held allthings from chance, or from mere nature without GOD (allthings I mean in this subl●…ary world:) which opinion some say was A●…les, or with the heretics, some of whom held the devils creators of all things corporal. (b) Those that.] Plato in his Timaeus brings in God the Father commanding the lesser Gods to make the lesser living creatures: for they are creatures also: and so they took the immortal beginning of a creature, the soul, from the stars: imitating the Father, and Creator: and borrowing parcels of earth, water and air from the world, knit them together in one: not as they were knit, but yet in an insensible connexion, because of the combination of such small parts, whereof the whole body was framed. One Menander a Scholar of Simon Magus, said the Angels made the world: Saturninus said that 7. Angels made it beyond the Father's knowledge. (c) Though.] The Angels as Paul saith, are God's ministers, and deputies, and do ●…y things upon earth at his command: for as Augustine saith, every visible thing on earth is under an Angelical power, and Gregory saith that nothing in the visible would but is ordered angels Gods deputies and ●…rs. by a visible creature. I will except Miracles, if any one contend. But Plato, as he followeth M●…s in the world's creation, had this place also of the creation of living things from the Scriptures, for having read that God this great architect of so new a work, said: ●…et us make 〈◊〉 after our own Image, thought he had spoken to the Angels, to whose ministry he supposed Gen. 1. man's creation committed: But it seemed unworthy to him that God should use them in ●…king of man the noblest creature and make all the rest, with his own hands: and therefore he thought the Angels made all, whose words if one consider them in Tully's translation (which I use) he shall find that Plato held none made the soul but God, and that of the stars, which ●…ully de 〈◊〉. 1. confirms out of Plato, saying that the soul is created by God within the elementary body which he made also: and the lesser Gods did nothing, but as ministers, c●…e those which he ●…ad first created: and form it into the essence of a living creature. Seneca explanes Pla●… more plainly saying. That when God had laid the first foundation of this rare and excellent frame of nature, and begun it, he ordained that each peculiar should have a peculiar governor and though himself ●…ad modeled, and dilated the whole universe, yet created he the lesser gods, to be his ministers, 〈◊〉 vicegerents in this his kingdom. That no nature or form of any thing living hath any other Creator but God. CHAP. 25. WHereas there is one form given externally to all corporal substances according to the which Potters, Carpenters and other shape antiques, and figures of creatures: and another that containeth the efficient causes hereof in the secret power of the uniting and understanding nature, which maketh not only the natural forms, but even the living souls, when they are not extant. The first, each artificer hath in his brain, but the later belongs to none but God, who form the world and the Angels without either world or Angels, for from that (〈◊〉) all dividing, and all effective divine power, which cannot be made, but makes, and which in the beginning gave rotundity both to the Heavens & Sun, from the same, had the eye the apple, and all other round figures that we see in nature their rotundity not from any external effective, but from the depth of that creators power that said. I fill heaven and earth: and whose wisdom reacheth from end to end, ordering all in a delicate Decorum: wherefore what use he made of the Angels in the creation, making all himself, I know not. I dare neither ascribe them more than their power, nor detract any thing from that. But with their favours, I attribute the estate of allthings as they are natures unto God, only of whom they thankfully acknowledge their being: we do not then call husbandmen the creators of trees or plants, or any thing else: for we read, Neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but God, that giveth the increase. No, not 〈◊〉. Cor. 37. the earth neither, though it seems the fruitful mother of all things that grow: for 1. Cor. 1538 we read also. God giveth bodies unto what he will, even to every seed his own body. Nor call we a woman the creatrixe of her child, but him that said to a servant of his. Before I form thee in the womb I knew thee: & although the woman's soul Hier. 1. being thus or thus affected, may put some quality upon her burden (b) as we read that jacob coloured his sheep diversly by spotted sticks: yet she can no more make the nature that is produced, than she could make herself: what seminal causes then soever that Angels, or men do use in producing of things living or dead, or (c) proceed from the copulation of male and female, (d) or what affections soever of the mother dispose thus or thus of the colour or feature of her conception, the natures, thus or thus affected in each of their kinds are the works of none but God: whose secret power passeth through all, giving all being to all what soever, in that it hath being: (e) because without that he made it, it should not be thus, nor thus, but have no being at all, wherefore if in those forms external, imposed upon things corporal, we say that (not workmen, but) Kings, Romulus was the builder of Rome, and Alexander of (f) Alexandria, because by their direction these cities were built: how much the rather ought we to call God the builder of nature, who neither makes any thing of any substance but what he had made before, nor by any other ministers but those he had made before: and if he withdraw his (g) efficient power from things, they shall have no more being than they had ere they were created: Ere they were, I mean in eternity, not in time: for who created time, but he that made them creatures, whose motions time followeth. L. VIVES. THat (a) all-dividing.] All dividing may be some addition, the sense is good without it. (b) Pli●…ib. 8. As we.] Pliny, saith that look in the Rams mouth, and the colour of the veins under his tongue, shallbe the colour of the lamb he getteth: if divers, divers: and change of waters varieth it. Their shepehards then may have sheep of what colour they will: which jacob knew well enough, for he liking the particolours cast white streaked rods into the watering places, at Ramming time, that the sight of them might form the Images of such colours in the conception, and so it did. Gen. 30. (c) Proceed.] The same Pliny. lib 7. saith that the mind hath are▪ collection of similitudes in it, wherein a chance of sight, hearing or remembrance is of much effect, the images taken into the conceit at the time of conception are held to be powerful in framing the thing conceived: and so is the cogitation of either party, how swift soever it be: whereupon is more difference in man then in any other creature, but the swiftness of thought, and variety of conceits formeth us so diversly: the thoughts of other creatures being immovable and like themselves in all kinds. Thus much Pliny. The Philosophers stand wholly upon imagination in conception. At Hertzogenbosh in Brabant on a certain day of the year whereon they say there chief Church was dedicated) they have public plays unto the honour of the Saints as they have in other places also of that country, some act Saints and some A child like a d●…uill. devils, one of these devils spying a pretty wench, grew hot, & in all haste, danceth home, & casting his wife upon a bed, told her he would beget a young diu●…l upon her, & so lay with her, the woman conceived, & the child was no sooner borne, but it began to dance, & was rust of the shape that we paint our devils in. This Margueret of Austria Maximilians' Daughter, Charles the 〈◊〉, told john Lamuza, King Ferdinand's grave ambassador, and now Charles his 〈◊〉 in Arragon, a man as able to discharge the place of a Prince as of a Lieu●…enant (d) What john Lamuza. women's longing that are with child. ●…ctions.] Childbearing women do often long for many evil things, as coals, and ashes. I 〈◊〉 one long for a bit of a young man's neck, and had lost her birth but that she bit of his ●…ke until he was almost dead, she took such hold. The Physicians write much hereof, ●…d the Philosophers somewhat. Arist de animal. They all ascribe it to the vicious humours in the stomach, which if they happen in men, procure the like distemper. (e) Because. So read the old books. (f) Alexandria.] Asia, Sogdia, Troas, Cilicia, India, and Egypt have all cities called Alexandria, built by Alexander the great, this that Augustine means of, is that of Egypt the most famous of all: sytuate upon the Mediterrane sea, near Bicchieri, the mouth of Nile: called Alexandria now Scanderia, or Scandaroun. (g) Efficient.] Fabricativam: pertaining to composition and diui●… of matter: in things created by itself, for these are not the works of creation. angels 〈◊〉, beasts, and lifeless things, can effect them. The Platonists opinion that held the angels God's creatures, and man the Angels. CHAP. 26. ANd Plato would have the lesser Gods (made by the highest) to create all other things, by taking their immortal part from him, and framing the mortal themselves: herein making them not the creators of ourselves but our bodies only. And therefore Porphiry in holding that the body must be avoided ere the soul be purged, and thinking with Plato, and his sect, that the souls of bad livers were for punishment thrust into bodies (into beasts also saith Plato but into man's only saith Porphiry) affirmeth directly that these gods whom they will have us to worship as our parents & creators, are but the forgers of our prisons, and not our formers, but only our jailers, locking us in those dolorous grates, and wretched setters: wherefore the Platonists must either give us no punishment in our bodies: or else make not those gods our creators, whose work they exhort us by all means to avoid & to escape: though both these positions be most false, for the souls are neither put into bodies to be thereby punished; no●… hath any thing in heaven or earth any creator but the maker of heaven and earth. For if there be no cause of our life, but our punishment, how (a) is it that Plato saith the world could never have been made most beautiful, but that it was filled with all kind of creatures? But if our creation (albe it mortal) be the work o●… God; how i●… i●… punishment then to enter into God's benefits, that is our bodies? (b) and if God as Plato saith often) had all the creatures of the world in his prescience, why then did not he make them all? would he not make some, and yet in his unbounded knowledge, knew how to make all? wherefore our true religion rightly affirms him the maker both of the world, and all creatures therein, bodies, and souls, of which, in earth man, the chief Piece was made alone, after his Image, for the reason showed before, if not for a greater: yet was he not left alone, for there is nothing in the world so sociable by nature, and so jarring by vice, as man is; nor can man's ●…re speak better either to the keeping of discord whilst it is out, or expelling it when it is entered; then in recording our first Father, whom God created single, (from him to propagate all the rest) to give us a true admonition to preserve an union over greatest multitudes. And in that the woman was made of his rib, was a plain intimation of the concord that should be between man and wife. These were the strange works of God for they were the first. He that believes them not, must utterly deny all wonders: for if they had followed the usual course of nature, they had been no wonders. But what is there in all this whole work of the divine providence, that is not of use, though we know it not? The holy Psalm saith: Come and behold the works of the Lord, what wonders he hath Psal. 46. 8. wrought upon the earth. Wherefore, why the Woman was made of Man's rib, and what this first seeming wonder prefigured, if God vouchsafe I will show in another place. L. VIVES. HOw (a) is it that Plato] His words are these. GOD speaketh to the lesser Gods. Marks In Timaeo. what I say unto you: we have three kinds remaining: all mortal: which if we omit, the creation will not be perfect: for we shall not comprehend all kinds of creatures in it, which we must needs do to have it fully absolute. (b) And if GOD] There also he saith, that God hath the Ideas of all creatures, mortal and immortal in himself, which he looked upon: the immortal ones when he made the things that should never perish; the mortal, in the rest. I ask Marriage commended in the creation not here whether that God be those Ideae, or whether they be something else: the Platonists know not themselves. (c) The concord that should] Because the woman was not made of any external parts, but of man's self, as his daughter, that there might be a fatherly love of his wife in him, and a filial duty towards him in the wife: she was taken out of his side, as his fellow: not out of his head as his Lady, nor out of his feet as his servant. That the fullness of mankind was created in the first man, in whom God foresaw both who should be saved, and who should be damned. CHAP. 27. But now because we must end this book; let this be our position: that in the first man, the foresaid two societies or cities, had original; yet not evidently, but unto God's prescience: for from him were the rest of men to come: some to be made fellow citizens with the Angels in joy: and some with the Devils in torment, by the secret, but just judgement of God. For seeing that it is written: All the ways of the Lord be mercy and truth, his grace can neither be unjust, nor his Psa. 25. 10 justice cruel. Finis, lib. 12. THE CONTENTS OF THE thirteenth book of the City of God. 1. Of the first Man's fall, and the procurement of mortality. 2. Of the death that may befall the immortal soul and of the body's death. 3. Whether death propagated unto all men from the first, be punishment of sin to the Saints. 4. Why the first death is not withheld from the regenerate from sin by grace. 5. As the wicked use the good law evil, so the good use death which is evil, well. 6. The general evil of that death, that severeth soul and body. 7. Of the death that such as are not regenerate do suffer for Christ. 8. That the Saints in suffering the first death for the truth are quit from the second. 9 Whether a man at the hour of his death, may be said to be among the dead, or the dying. 10. Whether this mortal life be rather to be called death then life. 11. Whether one may be living and dead both together. 12. Of the death that God threatened to punish the first man withal if he transgressed. 13. What punishment was first laid on man's prevarication. 14. In what state God made Man, and into what state he fell by his voluntary choice. 15. That Adam forsook God ere God forsook him, and that the souls first death was the departure from God. 16. Of the Philosophers that held corporal death not to be penal, whereas Plato brings in the Creator, promising the lesser Gods that they should never leave their bodies. 17. Against the opinion, that earthly bodies cannot be corruptible, nor eternal. 18. Of the terrene bodies, which the Philosopher's hold cannot be in heaven, but must fall to earth by their natural weight. 19 Against those that hold that Man should not have been immortal, if he had not sinned. 20. That the bodies of the Saints now resting in hope, shall become better than our first fathers was. 21. Of the Paradise when our first parents were placed, and that it may be taken spiritually also, without any wrong to the truth of the history as touching the real place. 22. That the Saints bodies after resurrection shall be spiritual and yet not changed into spirits. 23. Of bodies animate and spiritual, these dying in Adam, and those being quickened in Christ. 24. How Gods breathing a life into Adam, and Christ's breathing upon his Apostles when he said; Receive the holy spirit, are to be understood. FINIS. THE THIRTEENTH BOOK: OF THE CITY OF GOD Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of the first Man's fall, and the procurement of mortality. CHAP. 1. Having gotten through the intricate questions of the world's original, and mankinds; our method now calleth us to discourse of the first man's fall, nay the first fall of both in that kind, and consequently of the original and propagation of our mortality; for God made not man as he did Angels, that though they sinned, yet could not die: but so, as having (a) performed their course in obedience, death could not prevent them from partaking for ever of blessed and Angelical immortality: but having left this course, death should take them into just damnation, as we said in the last book. L. VIVES. Having (a) performed] Every man should have lived a set time upon earth, and then being confirmed in nature by tasting of the tree of life, have been immortally translated into heaven. Here are many questions made: first by Augustine, and then by Lombard. dist. 2. What [The Lovaynists are deaf on this side, but not blind, they can see to leave out all this.] man's estate should have been, had he not sinned: but these are modest and timorous inquirers; professing they cannot find what they seek [But our later comments upon Lombard, fly directly to affirmative positions, upon very conjectures, or grounds of nature. I hear them reason, but I see them graveled and in darkness: where yet they will not feel before them ere they go, but rush on despite of all break-neck play. What man hath now, we all know to our cost: what he should have had, it is a question whether Adam knew, and what shall we then seek? why should we use conjectures in a things so transcendent, that it seems miraculous to the heavens? as if this must follow nature's laws, which would have amazed nature, had it had existence then.] What light Augustine gives, I will take, and as my power and duty is, explain: the rest I will not meddle with. Of the death that may befall the immortal soul, and of the bodies death. CHAP. 2. But I see I must open this kind of death a little plainer. For man's soul (though it be immortal) dieth a kind of death. (a) It is called immortal, because it can never leave to be living, and sensitive: and the body is mortal, because it may be destitute of life, and left quite dead in itself. But the death of the soul is, when God leaveth it: & the death of the body is when the soul leaveth it: so that the death of both, is when the soul being left of God, leaveth the body. And this The forsaking of God ●…e death of the soul Ma●…. 10. 28 death is seconded by that which the Scripture calls the (b) second death. This our Saviour signified, when he said, fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell: which coming not to pass before the body is joined to the soul, never to be separated, it is strange that the body can be said to die by that death, which severeth not the soul from it, but torments them both together. For that ●…all pain (of which we will speak hereafter) is fitly called the soul's dea●…, because it liveth not with God: but how is it the bodies which liveth with the soul? for otherwise it could not feel the corporal pains that expect it after the resurrection: is it because all life how-so-ever is good, and all pain evil, that the body is said to die, wherein the soul is cause of sorrow rather than life? Therefore the soul liveth by God, when it liveth well: (for it cannot live without God, working good in it:) and the body liveth by the soul, when the soul liveth in the body, whether it live by God or no. For the wicked have li●…●…body, but none of soul: their souls being dead (that is, forsaken of God) l●…g power as long as their immortal proper life fails not, to afford them 〈◊〉, but in the last damnation, though man be not insensitive, yet this sense of 〈◊〉 ●…ing neither pleasing nor peaceful, but sore and painful, is justly termed 〈◊〉 death than life: and therefore is it called the second death, because it fol●…th the first breach of nature, either between God and the soul, or this and the ●…dy: of the first death therefore we may say, that it is good to the good, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the bad But the second is bad in all badness, unto all, & good to none. L. VIVES. IT (a) is called] Bruges copy differs not much: all is one in substance. (b) Second death] 〈◊〉. 2. 11. and 21 8. Whether death propagated unto all men from the first, be punishment of sin to the Saints. CHAP. 3. ●…ere's a question not to be omitted: whether the first death be good to 〈◊〉 ●…ood? If it be so, how can it be the punishment of sin? for had not our 〈◊〉 sinned, they had never tasted it: how then can it be good to the vp●… cannot happen but unto offenders? and if it happen but unto offender's 〈◊〉 not be good, for it should not be at all unto the upright: for why should Death by sin. 〈◊〉 punishment that have no guilt? We must confess then, that had not 〈◊〉 parents sinned, they had not died: but sinning; the punishment of death ●…cted upon them and all their posterity: for they should not produce 〈◊〉 ●…ng but what themselves were, and the greatness of their crime depraved 〈◊〉 ●…ture: so that that which was penal in the first man's offending, was made 〈◊〉 in the birth of all the rest: for they came not of man, as man came of the 〈◊〉. The dust was man's material: but man is man's parent. That which is earth is 〈◊〉 flesh, though flesh be made of earth: but that which man the father is, man the 〈◊〉 is also. For all mankind was in the first man, to be derived from him by the 〈◊〉, when this couple received their sentence of condemnation. And that 〈◊〉 man was made, not in his creation, but in his fall and condemnation, that Psal 49 ●…0. Infant's weaker the●… the young of any other creature. 〈◊〉 ●…got, in respect (I mean) of sin, and death. For his sin (a) was not cause of 〈◊〉 weakness in infancy, or whiteness of body, as we see in infants: those God would have as the original of the younglings, whose parents he had cast down to 〈◊〉 mortality, as it is written: Man was in honour and understood not but became 〈◊〉 the beasts that perish, unless that infants be weaker in motion and appetite 〈◊〉 all other creatures, to show man's mounting excellence above them all, com●…le to a shaft that flieth the stronger when it is drawn farthest back in the 〈◊〉. Therefore man's presumption and just sentence, adjudged him not to those ●…lities of nature: but his nature was depraved unto the admission of con●…entiall in-obedience in his members against his will: & thereby was bound to death by necessity, and to produce his progeny under the same conditions that his crime deserved. From which band of sin, if infants by the mediators grace be freed, they shall only be to suffer the first death, of body, but from the eternal, penal second death, their freedom from sin shall quit them absolutely. L. VIVES. HIs sin (a) was not.] Here is another question, in what state men should have been borne, had they not sinned: Augustine propounds it in his book. De baptis. paruul. some think they should have been borne little, and presently become perfect men. Others, borne little, but in perfect strength only not groweth; and that they should presently have followed the mother as we see chickens, and lambs. The former give them immediate use of sense, and reason: the later, not so, but to come by degrees, as ours do. Augustine leaves the doubt as he finds it: seeming to suppose no other kind of birth, but what we now have. Why the first death is not withheld from the regenerate from sin by grace. CHAP. 4. IF any think they should not suffer this, being the punishment of guilt, and Why death remaineth after baptis●…. there guilt cleared by grace, he may be resolved in our book called De baptismo paruulorum. There we say that the separation of soul and body remaineth to succeed (though after sin) because if the sacrament of regeneration should be immediately seconded by immortality of body, our faith were disannulled, being an expectation of a thing unseen. But by the strength and vigour of faith was this fear of death to be formerly conquered, as the Martyrs did: whose conflicts had had no victory, nor no glory, nay had been no conflicts if they had been deified and freed from corporal death immediately upon their regeneration: for if it were so who would not run unto Christ to have his child baptized, lest he should die? should his faith be approved by this visible reward? no, it should be no faith, because he received his reward immediately. But now the wonderful grace of our Saviour hath turned the punishment of sin, unto the greater good of righteousness. Then it was said to man, thou shalt die if thou sin, now it is said to the Martyr, die, to avoid sin. Then, if you break my laws, you shall die, now, if you refuse Gen. 2. to die, you break my laws. That which we feared then if we offended, we must now choose, not to offend. Thus by God's ineffable mercy the punishment of sin is become the instrument of virtue, and the pain due to the sinner's guilt, is the just man's merit. Then did sin purchase death, and now death purchaseth righteousness: I mean, in the Martyrs whom their persecutors bad either renounce their faith or their life, and those just men chose rather to suffer that for believing which the first sinners suffered for not believing: for unless they had sinned they had not died, and Martyrs had sinned if they had not died. They died for sin, these sin not because they die. The others crime made death good, which before was evil, but God hath given such grace to faith that death which is life's contrary, is here made the ladder whereby to ascend to life. As the wicked use the good law, evil, so the good use death, which is evil, well. CHAP. 5. FOr the Apostle desiring to show the hurt of sin being unprevented by grace, doubted not to say that the law which forbids sin, is the strength of sin. The sting 〈◊〉 (saith he) is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. Most true: for (a) forbidding of unlawful desires, increase them in him, where righteousness is not 1. Cor. 15. 50. of power to suppress all such affects to sin. And righteousness can never be l●…d without gods grace procure this love. But yet to show that the law is not evil, though he calls it the strength of sin, he saith in another place, in the 〈◊〉 question: The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was Rom. 7. that than which is good (saith he) made death to me? GOD forbid: bu●… sin that it might appear sin, wrought death in me by that which is good, (b) that si●…e might be out of measure sinful by the commandment. Out of measure, 〈◊〉, because prevarication is added, (c) the law being also contemned 〈◊〉 the lust of sin. Why do we recite this? Because as the law is not 〈◊〉 ●…en it exciteth concupiscence in the bad, so earth is not good when it in●…th the glory of the good: neither the law when it is forsaken by sinners and 〈◊〉 them Prevaricators: nor death when it is under-taken for truth, and ma●… them Martyrs. Consequently, the law forbidding sin is good, and death 〈◊〉 the reward of sin, evil. But as the wicked use all things, good and evil, badly, so the just use all things, evil and good, well. Therefore the wicked use the 〈◊〉 that is good, badly, and the use death that is bad, well. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) of] It is natural unto exorbitant minds, the more a thing is forbidden them We follow things forbidden. 〈◊〉 to affect it: as women (whose minds are most unstaid) desire that only that 〈◊〉 ●…hibited. So that whereas men knew not what it was to go to the stews, nor 〈◊〉 upon it, in comes the law, and saith, thou shalt not go, and so taught them all 〈◊〉 to go, setting their depraved natures upon pursuit of those unlawful acts. I 〈◊〉 (saith Paul) what concupiscence was, until the law told me, Thou shalt not covet. 〈◊〉 that Sol●… set down no law against parricide: which being unknown, he was 〈◊〉 to declare then punish. Pro Ros. Amerin. (b) That sin] The old books read, 〈◊〉 ●…ner. Augustine ad Simplic. an. lib 1. quotes it thus: that the sinner might be out 〈◊〉 a sinner etc. but his quotations are both false: For thus it should be read indeed: 〈◊〉 ●…er might be out of measure sinful, etc. Sinner, being referred to sin. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ith the Greek: unless you will make sinful a noun, and no participle, as Sallust ●…tens, and Terence, Fugitans. (c) The law] All the terrors of the law being contem●… such as have turned their custom of sin into their nature. The general evil of that death that severeth soul and body. CHAP. 6. WHerefore, as for the death that divides soul and body, when they suffer it whom we say are a dying, it is good unto none. For it hath a sharp (a) ●…rall sense by which nature is wrung this way and that in the composition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 living creature, until it be dead, and until all the sense be gone wherein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and body was combined. Which great trouble, one stroke of the bo●…, or one rapture of the soul oftentimes preventeth, and out runneth sense, in ●…tnesse. But whatsoever it is in death, that takes away (b) our sense with so ●…ous a sense, being faithfully endured, it augmenteth the merit of paci●…●…ut taketh not away the name of pain. It is sure the death of the first man, ●…pagate, though if it be endured for faith and justice, it be the glory of ●…nerate. Thus death being the reward of sin, sometime quitteth sin 〈◊〉 ●…ll reward. L. VIVES. Unnatural (a) sense,] Sense, for passion. (b) Our sense with so grievous a sense.] The first active, the second passive, the great passion, taketh away our power of ience. Of the death of such as are not regenerate do suffer for Christ. CHAP. 7. FOr whosoever he is that being not yet regenerate, dieth for confessing of Christ, it freeth him of his sin, as well as if he had received the sacrament of martyrdom to the unbaptized in the steed of baptism. john. 3. Math 16. john. 12. Psal, 116. Baptism. For he that said, Unless a man be borne again of water, and of the holy spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God, excepteth these elsewhere, in as general a saying: whosoever confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my father which is in heaven: And again. He that looseth his soul for me shall find it. Hereupon it is that, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the Saints. For what is more dear, than that death wherein all a man's badness is abolished, and his good augmented? Those t'had die daptized, because they could live no longer, are not of that merit that those that die willingly, where as they might have lived longer, because these had rather die in confessing of Christ, then deny him, and so come to baptism: (a) Which if they had done, this sacrament would have for given it, because they denied him for fear of death. For in it even their (b) villainy was forgiven that murdered Christ. (c) But how cold they love Christ so dearly as to contemn life for him, but by abounding in the grace of that spirit, that inspireth where it pleaseth? Precious therefore is the death of those Saints who took such gracious hold of the death of Christ that they stuck not to engage their own souls in the quest of him, and whose death showed that they made use of that which before was the punishment of sin, to the producing of a greater harvest of glory. But death ought not to seem good, because it is God's help, and not the own power that hath made it of such good use, that being once propounded as a penalty laid upon sin, it is now elected, as a deliverance from sin, and an expiation of sin, to the crowning of justice with glorious victory. L. VIVES. WHich (a) if] Intimating that no guilt is so great but Baptism will purge it. (b) The●… villainy] It is like he means of some that had holpen to crucify Christ, and were afterwards converted. (c) But how] It could not be but out of great abundance of grace that they should love Christ, as well as those that were baptised already in him. That the Saints in suffering the first death for the truth are quit from the second. CHAP. 8. FOr if we mark well, in dying well and laudably for the truth, is a (worse) death ●…oyded, and therefore we take part of it, lest the whole should fall upon 〈◊〉 and a second, that should never have end. We undertake the separation of the body from the soul, lest we should come to have the soul severed from God and then from the body: and so man's first death being passed, the second, that endless one, should fall presently upon him. Wherefore the d●…th as I say that we suffer (a) when we die, and causeth us die, is good unto Death, good to the good, and bad to the bad. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but it is well tolerated, for attaining of good. But when men once are in death, and called dead, than we may say that it is good to the good, and bad to the bad. For the good souls, being severed from their bodies, are in rest & the evil in torment, until the bodies of the first rise to life eternal, and the later unto the eternal, or second death. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) when] The dead, and the dying are said both to be in death: death being both in 〈◊〉 departure and after, in the first as a passion, in the second as a privation. Both are of 〈◊〉 the authors. Virg. 〈◊〉 ●…amus quanquam media iam morte tenetur, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lies now in midst of death.— that is a dying: and the 〈◊〉 Morte Neoptolemi regnorum reddita cessit.— pars Heleno. 〈◊〉 Pyrrhus death got Helenus, that part that now he holds.— that is, after his death. Whether a man at the hour of his death may be said to be amongst the dead or the dying. CHAP. 9 〈◊〉 now for the time of the soul's separation from the body (be it good or 〈◊〉▪ whether we say it is in death, or after it? if it be after death, it is not 〈◊〉 ●…en being past and gone, but rather the present life of the soul, good or 〈◊〉 the death was evil to them whilst it was death, that is, whilst they, 〈◊〉 ●…ffered it, because it was a grievous passion (though the good use this 〈◊〉): How then can death being past, be either good or bad? Again if we 〈◊〉 ●…ell, we shall find that that grievous passion in man is not death. For (a) as 〈◊〉 we feel, we live: & as long as we live, we are before death, & not in it: for 〈◊〉 ●…ath comes, it taketh away all sense, yea even that which is grieved by 〈◊〉 ●…pproach. And therefore how we may call those that are not dead, but in 〈◊〉 ●…ges of deadly affliction, dying, is hard to explain, though they may be 〈◊〉 ordinarily so: for when death is come, they are no more in dying, but in 〈◊〉 or, death. Therefore is none dying but the living: because when one is in Who may be said to be dysng. 〈◊〉 ●…atest extremity, or (b) passage, as we say ' if his soul be not gone, he is 〈◊〉 alive then. Thus is he both living and dying: going to death and from life, 〈◊〉 living as long as the soul is in the body: and not yet in death, because the 〈◊〉 is undeparted. And when it is departed, than he is not in death, but rather 〈◊〉 death: who then can say who is in death? no man dying is, if no man can be 〈◊〉 ●…ng and dying at once: for as long as the soul is in the body we cannot 〈◊〉 ●…at he lives. (c) But if it be said that he is dying who is drawing towards 〈◊〉, and yet that the dying and the living cannot be both in one at once, then know not I who is living. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉) long] But death is a temporally effected separation of soul and body, and as soon 〈◊〉 members begin to grow cold, he begins to die, the departure of the soul is Death what it is. 〈◊〉 ●…ance of death, the one is no sooner gone but the other is there. (b) Passage] Mart. 〈◊〉 ●…d agas. A●…le agas animam. Ago to do, agere animam, to die: because the ancient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the soul was but a breath: and so being breathed out, death followed. (c) But if] If he be said to die that draws towards death, than all our life is death: for 〈◊〉 soon as ever we are borne, the body begins to seek how to thrust out the soul, and 〈◊〉 life, and by little do expel it. Which made some Philosophers say, that we died in ou●… 〈◊〉 and that that was the end of death which we call the end of life, either because then we began to live, or because death was then ended, and had done his worst. Whether this mortal life be rather to be called death then life. CHAP. 10. FOr as soon as ever man enters this mortal body, he begins a perpetual journey unto death. For that this changeable life enjoins him to, if I may call the course unto death a life. For there is none but is nearer death at the years end then he was at the beginning: to morrow, then to day: to day then yesterday, by & by then just now, & now then a little before; (a) each part of time that we pass, cuts off so much from our life, and the remainder still decreaseth: The time of life is a course unto death. so that our whole life is nothing but a course unto death, wherein one can neither stay nor slack his pace: but all run in one manner, and with one speed. For the short liver, ran his course no faster than the long: both had a like passage of time, but the first had not so far to run as the later, both making speed alike. It is one thing to live longer, and another to run faster. He that lives longer, runneth farther but not a moment faster. And if each one begin to be in death as soon as his life begins to shorten, (because when it is ended he is not then in death but after it) then is every man in death as soon as ever he is conceived. For what else do all his days, hours and minutes declare, but that they being done, the death wherein he lived, is come to an end: and that his time is now no more in death (he being dead,) but after death? Therefore if man cannot be in life and death both at once, he is never in life as long as he is in that dying rather then living body. Or is he in both? in life that is still diminished, and in death because he dies, whose life diminisheth? for if he be not in life, what is it that is diminished, until it be ended, and if he be not in death, what is it that diminisheth the life? for life being taken from the body until it be ended, could not be said now to be after death, but that death end●…d it and that it was death whilst it diminished. And if man be not in death, but after it, when his life is ended, where is he but in death whilst it is a diminishing? L. VIVES. EAch (a) part] All our life flows off by unspied courses, and dieth every moment of this hasting times. Quintilian. Time still cuts part of us off: a common proverb. Poets and Philosophers all say this, and Seneca especially, from whom Augus●…ine hath much of that he relateth here. Whether one may be living and dead, both together. CHAP. 11. But if it be absurd to say a man is in death before he came at it (for what is it that his course runs unto, if he be there already?) chiefly because it is (〈◊〉) too strange to say one is both living and dying, sith we cannot say one is both sleeping and waking, we must find when a man is dying. Dying before death come, he is not, then is he living: dying when death is come, is he not, for than is he dead. This is after death, and that is before it. (b) When is he in death then? for than is he dying, to proportionate three things, living, dying, and dead, unto three times, before death, in death, and after. Therefore when he is in death, that is neither living, or before death, nor dead, or after death, is hard to be defined. For whilst the soul is in the body (especially with sense) man lives assured, as yet being soul and body, and therefore is before death, and not in it. But when the soul and sense is gone, then is he dead, and after death. These two then take away his means of being in death, or dying, for if he live he is before death, and if he cease to live, he is after death. Therefore he is never dying nor in death. For this is sought as present in the change of the times, and is found the one passing into the other without the least interposed space. Do we not see then that by this reason the death of the body is nothing? If it be, how is it any thing, being in nothin, and wherein nothing can be? for if we live, it is not any thing yet, because we are before it, not in it: if we live not, it is nothing still, for now we are after it and not in it. But now, if death be nothing before nor after, what sense is there in saying, before, or after death? I would to God we had lived well in Paradise that death might have been nothing indeed. But now, there is not only such a thing but it is so grievous with us, as neither tongue can tell, nor reason avoid. Let us therefore speak according to (c) custom: for so we should, and call the time ere death come, before death: as it is written (d) judge none blessed before his death. Let us call the Eccl. 11. 28. 〈◊〉 when it is already come, after death: this or that was after his death: and let us speak of the present time, as we can: he dying, gave such a legacy, he dying left thus much, or thus much, though no man could do this but the living, and rather before his death, then at, or in his death. And let us speak as the holy scripture speaketh of the dead, saying they were not after death but in death For in death there is no remembrance of thee: for until they rise again they are Psal. 6. 5 justly said to be in death as one is in sleep until he awake. Though such as are in sleep we say are sleeping, then may we not say that such as are dead are dying. For they that are once separate wholly from them bodies, are past dying the bodily death, (whereof we speak) any more. But this that I say, one cannot declare, how the dying man may be said to live, or how the dead man can be said to be in death: for how can he be after death, if he be in death, since we cannot call him, dying, as we may do he that is in sleep, sleeping, or he that is in languor, ●…guishing, or he that is in sorrow, sorrowing, or in life, living? But the dead until they arise are said to be in death, yet we cannot say they are dying. And therefore I think it was not for no cause (perhaps God decreed it) that mortor, the latin word for to die, could not by any means be brought by (e) grammartians unto the form of other verbs. (f) Ortor, to arise, hath ortus in the preterperfect tense, and so have other verbs that are declined by the participle of the pretertense. But Morior must have mortuus for the preterperfect tense, doubling the letter V. for Mortuus ends like fatuus, arduus conspicuus, and such like that are no preterperfect tenses, but nouns, declined without tenses, 〈◊〉 times: and this as if it were a noun decsinable, that cannot be declined, is put for the participle of the present tense. So that it is convenient, that as it cannot effect the signification by act, no more should the name be to be (g) declined by art. Yet by the grace of Our Redeemer, we may decline (that is, avoid) the second death. For this is the sore one, and the worst of evils, being no separation but rather a combination of body and soul unto eternal torture. Therein s●…all none be a fore death nor after death, but eternally in death: never living, never The second death. dead, but ever dying. For man can never be in worse death, then when the death he is in, is endless. L. VIVES. TOo (a) strange] Insolens for insolitum, un-accustomed. Salusts' word (that antiquary) and [Louvaine copy defective, as I do think it may very lawfully in this:] Gellius, his ape. (b) When is he] Oh Saint Augustine, by your favour, your wits edge is too blunt! here you not our rare school divines? the first is, the first is not, the last is, the last is not: death is not in this instant for now it is done: conceive you not? Why thus: It was but now, and now it is not: not yet? then thus— but you must into the schools, and learn of the boys: for those babbles are fitter for them then for men. But you and I will have a great deal of good talk of this, in some other place.] (c) Custom] The mistress of speech, whom all arts ought to observe. (d) judge none] Like Solon's saying. No man can be called blessed, and he be dead: because he knows not what may befall him. (e) Grammarians] You are too idle in this chapter, Saint Augustine: First in commanding us to apply our speech to the common sense: and secondly, in naming grammarians in a matters of divinity: how much more in drawing any argument pertaining to this question from them. If any smatterer of our divines had done it, he should have been hissed out of our schools: but you follow the old discipline, and keep the arts combined: mixing each others ornament and no way disjoining them. (f) Orior] That comparison holds in grammar it is a great Comparison, or analogy. question, and much tossed. Aristarchus, a great grammarian defended it, and Crates building upon Chrysippus his Perianomalia, did oppose it. Varro's fragments hereupon, lay down both their reasons: and Quintilian disputes of it. Caius Caesar wrote also to Cicero concerning Analogy. Doubtless it must be allowed in many things but not in all: otherwise, that art cannot stand, nor hardly worldly discourse. (g) Declined] Alluding to the ambiguity of the word, declinari: it cannot be declined, that is avoided, nor declined, that is varied by cases. Of the death that God threatened to promise the first man withal if he transgressed. CHAP. 12. IF therefore it be asked what death GOD threatened man with all upon his transgression and breach of obedience, whether it were bodily or spiritual, or that second death: we answer, it was, all: the first consisteth of two, and the second entirely of all: for as the whole earth consists of many lands, and the whole Church of many Churches, so doth the universal death consist of all the first consisting of two, the bodies, and the souls, being the death wherein the soul being forsaken of GOD, forsaketh the body, and endureth pains for the time: but the second being that wherein the soul being forsaken of GOD endureth pains for ever. Therefore when GOD said to the first man that he placed in Paradise, as concerning the forbidden fruit. Whensoever thou eatest thereof thou sha●… die the death, he comprehends therein, not only the first part of the first death, wheresoever the soul looseth God, nor the later only, wherein the soul leaneth the body, and is punished after that separation but also that last part, or the second which is the last of deaths, eternal, and following after all: all this is comprehended in that commination. What punishment was first laid on man's prevarication. CHAP. 13. FOr after mankind had broken the precept, he was first, forsaken of God's grace and confounded with his ownenakednesse: and so with the fig leaves Genes. 〈◊〉. (the first perhaps that came to hand,) they covered their nakedness a●…d shame: their members were before as they were then, but they were not (a) shameful before, whereas now they felt a new motion of their disobedient flesh, as the reciprocal (b) punishment of their disobedience, for the soul being now delighted with perverse liberty and scorning to serve GOD, could not have the body at the former command: & having willingly forsaken GOD the superior, i●… could not have the inferior so serviceable as it desired, nor had the flesh subject as it might have had always, had itself remained God's subject. For then the flesh began to covet, and contend against the spirit, and (c) with this contention are we all borne, (d) drawing death from our original, and bearing nature's corruption, and Rom. 8. contention, or victory in our members. L. VIVES. NOt (a) shameful] Not filthy nor procuring shame, they had not been offenside, had we 〈◊〉 sinned, but had had the same use that or feet, our hands now, but having offended, there was an obscene pleasure put in them, which maketh them to be ashamed of, and covered. (b) Reciprocal] Which disobedience reflected upon them: as they obeyed not GOD, to 〈◊〉 nature subjecteth them, so should they find a rebel, one of the members, against the rule of reason. (d) With this Some books adds something here, but it is needless. (d) Drawing 〈◊〉] That is, upon the first sin, arose this contention between the mind and their affects which is perpetually in us; wherein the mind is sometimes victor, and sometimes 〈◊〉: some read without victory, implying that the affections cannot be so suppressed, but then they will still rebel against reason, and disturb it. This is the more subtle sense, and seemeth best to me. In what state GOD made Man, and into what state he feil by his voluntary choice. CHAP. 14. FOr GOD (the Creator of nature and not of vice) made man upright: who being willingly depraved and justly condemned, be got all his progeny under the 〈◊〉 depravation and condemnation: for in him were we all, when as he being ●…ced by the woman, corrupted (a) us all: by her that before sin was made of himself. We had not our particular forms yet, but there was he seed of 〈◊〉 natural propagation, which being corrupted by sin must needs produce man of that same nature, the slave to death & the object of just condemnation: and therefore this came from the bad using of (b) free will, thence aro●… all this team of calamity, drawing all men on into misery (excepting God's Saints) from their corrupted original, even to the beginning of the second death which hath no end. L. VIVES. COrrupted (a) us all] A diversity of reading. Augustine's meaning is that we being all potentially in him, and he being corrupted by sin, therefore we, arising all from him as our first fountain, draw the corruption a long with us also. (b) Free will] For our first parents abused the freedom of it, having power aswell to keep God's hests eternally, as to break them. That Adam forsook GOD ere GOD for sook him, and that the souls first death was the departure from GOD. CHAP. 15. WHerefore in that it was said You shall die the death, because it was not said, the deaths, if we understand that death, wherein the soul leaveth the life, that is GOD (for it was not forsaken ere it forsook him, but contrary, the own will being their first leader to evil, but the Creators will being the first leader to good, both in the creation of it, before it had being, and the restoring of it when it had fallen:) wherefore if we do understand that God meant but of this death, where he saith, whensoever thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death: as if he had said: whensoever you forsake me in disobedience, I will forsake you in justice: Genes. 2, 17. yet verily do all the other deaths follow the denunciation of this death. For in that the soul felt a disobedient motion of the flesh, and thereupon covered the bodies secret parts, in this was the first death felt, that is the departure of the soul from God. Which was signified in that, that when the man in mad fear had gone and hid himself, God said to him, Adam where art thou? not ignorantly seeking him, but watchfully warning him to look well where he was, seeing God was not with him. But when the soul forsaketh the body decayed with age, then is the other death felt, whereof God said in imposing man's future punishment, earth thou wast, and to earth thou shalt return: That by these two, the first death which is of whole man, might be accomplished, which the second should second, if God's grace procure not man's freedom from it: for the body which is earth, returns not to earth but by the own death, that is the departure of the soul from it. Wherefore all christians (b) holding the Catholic faith, believe, that the bodily death lieth upon mankind by no law of nature, as if GOD had made man for to die, but as a (c) due punishment for sin: because God in scourging this sin, said unto man, of whom we all are descended, Earth thou wast and 〈◊〉 earth thou shalt return. L. VIVES. EArth (a) thou wast] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, say the Septuagints, by the later article, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implying the element of earth, the grave of allthings dying. (b) Holding the] Augustine often averreth directly, that man had not died, had he not sinned: nor had had a body subject to death or disease: the tree of life should have made him immortal. And S. Thomas Aqui●…as, the best school divine holds so also. But Scotus, either for faction, or will, denies it all, making m●… in his first state subject to diseases, yet that he should be taken up to heaven ere he died: but if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 had not died. he were left on earth, he should die at length: for that the tree of life could not eternize h●… but only prolong his life. (c) A due] deserved by his guilt. Of the Philosophers that held corporal death not to be penal, whereas Plato brings in the Creator promising the lesser gods that they should never leave their bodies. CHAP. 16. But the Philosophers against whose calumnies we defend this City of God, 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 church, think they give us a witty scoff for saying that the soul's separation from the body is to be held as part of the punishment, when as they affirm 〈◊〉 ●…n (a) is the soul perfectly blessed when it leaveth the body, and goeth up p●… and naked unto God. If I should find no battery against this opinion out of their own books I should have a great ado to prove not the body, but the corruptibility of the body to be the soul's burden: whereupon is that which we 〈◊〉 in our last book, A corruptible body is heavy, unto the soul. In adding, cor●…le, Wis 9 15 he showeth that this being inflicted as sins punishment, upon the 〈◊〉 not the body it sel●…e, is heavy to the soul: and if he had not added it, yet 〈◊〉 have understood it so. But Plato affirming plainly that the gods that the ●…or made, have incorruptible bodies, & bringing in their maker, promising 〈◊〉 as a great benefit) to remain therein eternally, and never to be separated 〈◊〉 them, why then do those never (b) dissemble their own knowledge, to 〈◊〉 ●…ristianity trouble: and contradict themselves in seeking to oppose against ●…to's words (c) Tully translateth thus: bringing in the great GOD, speaking 〈◊〉 the gods he had made: (d) You that are of the gods original, whom I have ●…d, attend: (e) these your bodies, by my will, are indissoluble: although every 〈◊〉 ●…ay be dissolved. But (f) it is evil, to desire to dissolve a thing (g) compounded by 〈◊〉 but seeing that you are created, you are neither immortal, nor indissoluble: yet 〈◊〉 never be dissolved, nor die: these shall not prevail, against my will, which is a 〈◊〉 assurance of your eternity, than all your forms, and compositions are. Behold, 〈◊〉 ●…ith that their gods, by their creation and combination of body and soul 〈◊〉 ●…all, and yet immortal, by the decree and will of him that made them. If 〈◊〉 it be pain to the soul, to be bound in any body, why should God seem 〈◊〉 ●…way their fear of death, by promising them eternal immortality? not 〈◊〉 of their nature, which is compounded, & not simple, but because of his 〈◊〉▪ which can eternize creatures, and preserve compounds immortally, frō●…on: whether Plato hold this true of the stars, is another question. For (h) 〈◊〉▪ not consequently grant him that those globous illuminate bodies, 〈◊〉 ●…ht & day upon earth, have each one a peculiar soul whereby it lives, 〈◊〉 ●…ed and intellectual, as he affirmeth directly of the world also. But this, as 〈◊〉 no question for this place. This I held fit to recite against those that 〈◊〉 the name of Platonists, are proudly ashamed of the name of christians, 〈◊〉 ●…e communication of this name with the vulgar, should debase the 〈◊〉 (because small) number of the (ay) Palliate. These seeking holes in the coat ●…stianity, bark at the eternity of the body, as if the desire of the soul's 〈◊〉 the continuance of it in the frail body, were contraries, whereas their 〈◊〉 Plato holds it as a gift given by the great GOD to the lesser, that they 〈◊〉 not die, that is, be severed from the bodies he gave them. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) is] Philolaus the Pythagorean held that man having left his body, became an 〈◊〉 God, and Plato saith our body depresseth our thoughts, and calls it away from 〈◊〉 ●…emplations: that therefore we must leave it, that in this life also as well as we can, 〈◊〉 ●…her life where we shallbe free, we may see the truth & love the good. Hereupon 〈◊〉 ●…th a man cannot be happy without he leave the body, and be joined unto God. (d) 〈◊〉] An imitation of Terence, t●… si sapis quod scis, nescias. (a) Tully translateth] Tully's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is a piece of Plato's Timaeus, the whole work is very falty in Tully. He that will read Plato himself, the words begin thus: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. Plato had it out of Timaeus of Locris his book, after whom he named his dialogue: for thus saith Timaeus: God desiring to d●…e an excellent work, created, or begot this God, who shall never die, unless it please that God that made him, to dissolve him. But it is evil to desire the dissolution of so rare a work (d) You that are of] Deorum satu orti. (e) These your] Tully hath this sentence: a depraved sense by reason of the want of a negative. (f) It is evil] Or, an evil man's part. (g) Compounded] Or, combined. (h) We may not] Augustine durst never decide this question. Origen it seems followed Plato, and got a many of the learned unto his side. ay Palliate] The Romans Toga, or gown, Palli●…i. was the greeks Pallium: and they that would seem absolute Grecians, went in these Pallia, or cloaks: and such were observed much for their Graecisme in life and learning. For as we teach all our arts in latin, now, so did they in greek then. They were but few, and therefore more admired. Against the opinion, that earthly bodies cannot be corruptible, nor eternal. CHAP 17. THey stand in this also, that earthly bodies cannot be eternal, and yet hold the whole earth which they hold but as a part of their great God (though not of their highest) the world to be eternal. Seeing then their greatest GOD, made another God, greater than all the rest beneath him, that is, the world, and seeing they hold this is a creature having an intellectual soul included in it by which it lives, having the parts consisting of 4 elements, whose connexion that great GOD (lest this other should ever perish) made indissoluble, and eternal: why should the earth then, being but a mean member of a greater creature, be eternal, and yet the bodies of earthly creatures (God willing the one as well as the other) may not be eternal? I but say they, earth (a) must be returned unto earth, whence the bodies of earthly creatures are shapen, & therefore (say they) these must of force be dissolved, and die, to be restored to the eternal earth from whence they were taken. Well if one should affirm the same of the fire, & say that all the bodies taken thence, should be restored unto it again, as the heavenly bodies, thereof consisting, were not that promise of immortality, that Plato said God made unto those gods, utterly broken by this position? Or can it not be so, because it pleaseth not God, whose will as Plato saith is beyond all other assurance? why may not God then have so resolved of the terrene bodies, that being brought forth, they should perish no more, once composed, they should be dissolved no more, nor that which is once taken from the elements should ever be restored? and that the souls being once placed, the bodies should never for sake them, but enjoy eternal happiness in this combination? why doth not Plato confess that God can do this? why cannot he preserve earthly things from corruption? Is his power as the Platonists, or rather as the christians avouch. A likely Conjecture deceiveth the Philosophers. matter! the Philosophers know Gods counsels, but not the prophets! nay rather it was thus, their spirit of truth revealed what God permitted unto the Prophets: but the weakness of conjecture in these questions, wholly deluded the Philosophers. But they should not have been so far besotted in obstinate ignorance as to contradict themselves in public assertions, saying first that the soul cannot be blessed without it abandon all body, whatsoever, & by & by after (b) that the gods have blessed souls, & yet are continually tied unto celestial & fiery bodies: & as for jupiter's (the worlds) soul, that is eternally inherent in the 4 elements composing this universe. For Plato holds it to be diffused, from the midst of earth, geometrically called the (c) centre, unto the extremest parts of heaven through all the parts of the world by (d) mystical numbers: making the world, a blessed creature, whose soul enjoyeth full happiness of wisdom & yet leaveth not the body, & wose body liveteh eternally by it, and as though it consist of so many different 〈◊〉, yet can neither dull it nor hinder it. Seeing then that they give their con●…res this scope, why will they not believe that God hath power to eternize 〈◊〉 bodies, wherein the souls without being parted from them by death, or 〈◊〉 ●…rdened by them at all in life may live most in blessed eternity, as they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gods do in fiery bodies, and their jupiter in all the four elements? If 〈◊〉 ●…es cannot be blessed without the bodies be quite forsaken, why then let 〈◊〉 ●…ods get them out of the stars, let jupiter pack out of the elements: if they 〈◊〉 go, then are they wretched. But they will allow neither of these: they 〈◊〉 ●…uerre that the Gods may leave their bodies, lest they should seem to ●…ip mortals: neither dare they bar them of bliss, lest they should con●…●…em wretches. Wherefore all bodies are not impediments to beatitude, but 〈◊〉 the corruptible, transitory and mortal ones: not such as God made man 〈◊〉 but such as his sin procured him afterwards. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) must] This is scripture, that the body is earth, and must become earth. Homer Gens. 3. 〈◊〉 it the Grecians: for he calls Hector's carcase, earth. Phocylides, an ancient writer 〈◊〉 thus. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. Our body is of earth, and dying must, Return to earth: for Man is made of dust. 〈◊〉 ●…er hath also the like, recited by Tully, Tusc. qu. 1. wherein the words that Augustine 〈◊〉 ●…xtant. Mors est finitas omnibus quae generi humano angorem, Nec quicquam afferunt: reddenda est terra terra. Of all the pains wherein Man's soul sojourns, Death is the end: all earth to earth returns. 〈◊〉 ●…t the gods] Some books read, terrene gods: falsely, Augustine hath nothing to do The Centre. 〈◊〉 ●…e gods in this place. (c) Center] A centre is that point in the midst of a spherical 〈◊〉 ●…m whence all lines drawn to the circumference are equal. It is an indivisible point, 〈◊〉 ●…d parts, neither should it be all in the midst, nor the lines drawn from it to the cir●… In Timaeo. equal, as not being all drawn from one part. Plato placeth the worlds 〈◊〉 the centre, and so distends it circularly throughout the whole universe: and then 〈◊〉 ●…ng his position, makes the divine power above, diffuse itself downward, even 〈◊〉 ●…ter. (d) Musical numbers] Hereof see Macrobius, Chalcidins, and Marsilius Ficinus, 〈◊〉 ●…at of Plato's Timaeus, which he either translated, or reform from the hand of an●…●…ese numbers for their obscurity are grown into a proverb. Of the terrene bodies which the Philosophers hold, cannot be in heaven, but must fall to earth by their natural weight. CHAP. 18. 〈◊〉 but (say they) an earthly body is either kept on earth, or carried to 〈◊〉 ●…th by the natural weight, and therefore cannot be in heaven. The first 〈◊〉 ●…de were in a woody, and fruitful land, which was called Paradise. But 〈◊〉 we must resolve this doubt, seeing that both Christ's body is already as●…d, and that the Saints at the resurrection shall do so also, let us ponder these earthly weights a little. If man's art, of a metal that being put into the water, sinketh, can yet frame a vessel, that shall swim, how much more credible is it for God's secret power, whose omnipotent will, as Plato saith, can both keep things produced, from perishing, and parts combined from dissolving, (whereas the combination of corporal and uncorporeall is a stranger and harder operation then that of corporals with corporals) to take (a) all weight from earthly things, whereby they are carried downwards, and to qualify the bodies of the blessed souls so, as though they be terrene, yet they may be incorruptible, and apt to ascend, descend, or use what motion they will, with all celerity. Or, (b) if the Angels can transport bodily weights whether they please, must we think they do it with toil, and feeling of the burden? Why then may we not believe that the perfect spirits of the blessed can carry their bodies whither they please, and place them where they please? for whereas in our bodily carriage of earthly things, we feel, that the (c) more big it is, the heavier it is, and the heavier, the more toilsome to bear: it is not so with the soul: the soul carrieth the bodily members better when they are big, and strong, then when they are small, and meager, and whereas a big sound man is heavier to others shoulders, than a lean sick man, yet will he move his healthful heaviness with far more agility than the other can do his crazy lightness, or then he can himself if famine or sickness have shaken off his flesh. This power hath good temperature more than great weight in our mortal, earthly & corruptible bodies. And who can describe the infinite difference between our present health, and our future immortality? Let not the Philosophers therefore oppose us with any corporal weight or earthly ponderosity. I will not ask them why an earthly body may not be in heaven as well as (d) the whole earth may hang alone without any supportation: for perhaps they will retire their disputation to the centre of the world unto which all heavy things do tend. But this I say, that if the lesser Gods (whose work Plato maketh Man & all other living things with him) could take away the quality of burning from the fire, and leave it the light, (e) which the eye transfuseth: shall we then doubt that that GOD, unto whose will he ascribes their immortality, the eternal coherence and indissolubility of those strange and divers combinations of corporealls and incorporeals, can give man a nature that shall 〈◊〉. Cor. 15 make him live incorruptible, and immortal, keeping the form of him, and avoiding the weight? But of the faith of the resurrection, and the quality of the immortal bodies, more exactly (God willing) in the end of the work. L. VIVES. ALL (a) weight] These are Gods admirable works, and it is the merit of our faith that we owe unto God to believe them. I wonder the schoolmen will inquire of these things, & define them by the rules of nature. (b) If the Angels] To omit the schools, and natural reasons, herein is the power of an Angel seen, that in one night God smote: 80000 men of the Assyrians camp by the hand of an Angel 4. Kings 19 Now let Man go brag of his weakness. (c) The world big. Here is no need of predicamental distinctions: he useth big, for the ma●… weight, not for the quantity. (d) The whole earth] It hangs not in nothing for it hangs in the air: yet would air give it way, but that it hath gotten the middlemost place of the world, and keeps there in the own nature, immovable. The Philosophers marveled that the earth fell not, seeing it hung in the air: but that which they thought a fall, should then be no fall but an ascending, for which way soever earth should go, it should go towards the heaven: and as it is no marvel that our Hemisphere ascendeth not, no more is it of any else, for the motion should be all one, above and beneath being all alike in a globe. But is a thing to be admired and adored, that the earth should hang so in the air, being so huge a mass, as Ouid●…ith ●…ith. Terra pila similis nullo fulcimine nixa, Aëre suspenso, tam grave pendet onus. Earth's massy globe in figure of a ball, Hangs in the air; upheld by nought at all. (●…) With the eye] Plato in his Timaeus, speaking of man's fabric saith, that the eyes were endow●…●…th part of that light that shines & burns not: meaning the suns: for the Gods commanded 〈◊〉 ●…re fire (brother to that of heaven) to flow from forth the apple of the eye: and there●… when that, and the days light do meet, the conjunction of those two so well acquainted 〈◊〉, produceth sight: And lest that the sight should seem effected by any other thing 〈◊〉 ●…re in the same work, he defineth colours to be nothing but fulgores e corporibus ma●…s: fulgors, flowing out of the bodies wherein they are. The question whether one seeth How man seeth. 〈◊〉 ●…ission, or reception, that is whether the eye send any beam to the object, or receive a●…●…om it, is not here to be argued. Plato holds the first. Aristotle confuteth him in his 〈◊〉 De sensoriis, and yet seems to approve him, in his Problems. The Stoics held the first 〈◊〉 whom Augustine (De Trinitate) and many of the Peripatetics, follow. Aphrodiseus' held 〈◊〉 the eye sends forth spirits: Pliny saith it receiveth them. Haly the Arabian maketh the 〈◊〉 to go from the eye and return suddenly, all in a moment: the later Peripatetiques●…ing ●…ing Occam, and Durandus, admit no Species on either side. But of this in another place. 〈◊〉 both would have the eye send something forth, and receive something in. Against those that hold that man should not have been immortal if he had not sinned. CHAP. 19 〈◊〉 now let us proceed with the bodies of the first men, who if they had not ●…ed, had never tasted of that death which we say is good only to the good: 〈◊〉 ●…s all men know, a separation of soul and body, wherein the body of the 〈◊〉 that had evident life, hath evident end. For although we may not doubt, 〈◊〉 ●…he souls of the faithful that are dead, are in rest: yet (a) it were so much 〈◊〉 for them to live with their bodies in good state, that they that hold it most 〈◊〉 to want a body, may see themselves convinced herein directly. For 〈◊〉 man dare compare those wise men, that have either left their bodies, or are to 〈◊〉 them, unto the immortal gods to whom the great GOD promised perpe●… of bliss, and inherence in their bodies. And Plato thought it the greatest ●…ing man could have, to be taken out of the body (after a course virtuously 〈◊〉) and placed in the bosoms of those gods, that are never to leave their 〈◊〉. Scilicet immemores supra ut convexa revisant, Virg Aen●… ad. 6. Rursus & incipiant in corpora velle reverti. The thought of Heaven is quite out of their brain, Now 'gan they wish to live on earth again. Which Virgil is commended for, speaking after Plato. So that he holds, that 〈◊〉 ●…oules of men can neither be always in their bodies, but must of force be ●…d from them: nor can they be always without their bodies, but must be 〈◊〉 successively, now to live, and now to die, putting (b) this difference that 〈◊〉 men when they die are carried up to the stars, and every one stays a while in 〈◊〉 fit for him, thence to return again to misery, in time: and to follow the 〈◊〉 of being embodied again, & so to live again in earthly calamity, but your 〈◊〉, are bestowed after their deaths in other bodies, of men or beasts, accor●…g to their merits. In this hard and wretched case placeth he the wisest souls, who have no other bodies given them, to be happy in, but such as they can neither be eternally within, nor eternally abandon. Of this Platonisme, Porphyry (as I said elsewhere) was ashamed because of the christian times, excluding the souls not only from the bodies of beasts, and from that revolution, but affirming them (if they lived wisely) to be set free from their bodies, so as they should never more be incorporate, but live in eternal bliss with the Father. Wherefore least he should seem in this point to be exceeded by the Christians that promised the Saints eternal life, the same doth he give to the purified souls: and yet, to contradict Christ, he denies the resurrection of their bodies in incorruptibility; and placeth the soul in bliss without any body at all. Yet did he never teach that these souls should be subject unto the incorporated gods in matter of religion. Why so? because he did not think them better than the Gods, though they had no bodies. Wherefore if they dare not (as I think they dare not) prefer humane souls before their most blessed though corporeal gods, why do they think it absurd for christianity to teach that our first parents had they not sinned, had been immortal, this being the reward of their true obedience? and that the Saints at the resurrection shall have the same bodies that they laboured in here, but so, that they shallbe light, and incorruptible as their bliss shallbe perfect and unchangeable. L. VIVES. YEs (a) were it] If the following opinion of Plato concerning them were true. (b) This difference] Plato saith that some creatures follow God well, are like him, and are revolved with the sphere of heaven until they come below and then they fall: Some get up again: some are overwhelmed: these are the foolish, and those the wise: the mean, have a middle place. So the wise soul is elevated to heaven, and sits there, until the revolution bring it down again, from seeing of truth, others voluntarily break their wings and fall ere the time be expired. The Philosopher's souls at the end of 3000. years, return to the star whence they came: the rest must stay 10000 years ere they ascend. That the bodies of the Saints now resting in hope, shall become better than our first Fathers was. CHAP. 20. THe death that severeth the souls of the Saints from their bodies is not troublesome unto them, because their bodies do rest in hope, and the efore they seemed senseless of all reproach here upon earth. For they do not (as Plato will have men to do) desire to forget their bodies, but rather, rememb●…ing what the truth that deceiveth none, said unto them (a) that they should not lose an hair of their head, they desire and wait for the resurrection of their bodies wherein they suffered such pains and are never to suffer more. (b) For if they hated not their flesh when they were feign to bind it from rebelling by the law of the spirit, how much shall they love it, becoming wholly spiritual? for if we may justly call the spirit serving the flesh, carnal, then so may we call the flesh serving the spirit, spiritual, (c) not because it shallbe turned into the spirit (as some think, because it is written: It is sown a natural body but it aris●…th a spiritual body): 1. Cor. 15 but because it shall serve the spirit in all wonderful, and ready obeisance, to the fulfilling of most secure will of indissolluble immortality, all sense of trouble, heaviness, and corruptibility being quick taken from it. For it shall not be so bad, as it is now in our best health: nor as it was in our first pa●…ts before sin; for they (though they had not died but that they sinned) What bodies our first parents had. 〈◊〉 ●…aine to eat corporal meat as men do now: having earthly, and not spiritual bodies: and though they should never have grown old and so have died (the 〈◊〉 of life that stood in the midst of Paradise, unlawful for them to taste of, affording them this estate by GOD'S wonderful grace) yet they eat of more 〈◊〉 than that one: (which was forbidden them, because it was bad but 〈◊〉 their instruction in pure and simple obedience, which is a great virtue in a ●…ble creature placed under God the creator, for though a man touched no 〈◊〉 ●…et in touching that which was forbidden him, the very act was the sin 〈◊〉 obedence,) they lived therefore of other fruits, and eat, lest their carnal 〈◊〉 should have been troubled by hunger, or thirst: but the taste of the tree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was given them, to confirm them against death, and weakness by age, 〈◊〉 rest serving them for nutriment, and this one for a sacrament: the tree of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earthly paradise, being as the wisdom of God is in the heavenly, whereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…itten: It is a tree of life to them that embrace it. Pro. 3. 18. L. VIVES. VN●… them. (a) That] Luc. 21. 7. (b) For if.] Ephes. 5. 29 no man ever yet hated his own flesh. (c) Not because Saint Origen faith that all our corporal nature shall become spiritual, and all 〈◊〉 ●…ance shall become a body purer and clearer than the light, and such an one as man can●…●…ine: God shall be all, in all, so that every creature shall be transmuted into that which 〈◊〉 then all, namely into the divine substance, for that is the best. Periarch. Of the Paridise wherein our first parents were placed, and that it may be taken spiritually also without any wrong to the truth of the history as touching the real place. CHAP. 21. Whereupon some referred that (a) Paradise wherein the first man was placed as the scripture recordeth, all unto a spiritual meaning taking the trees, to 〈◊〉 ●…es, as if there were (b) no such visible things, but only that they were 〈◊〉 signify things intelligible. As if there were not a real Paradise, because 〈◊〉 understand a spiritual one: as if there were not two such women as Agar 〈◊〉, and two sons of Abraham by them, the one being a bond woman and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free, because the Apostle saith that they signified the two Testaments: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Rock gushed not forth in water, when Moses' smote it, because that 〈◊〉 ●…ay prefigure Christ, the same Apostle saying the rock was Christ! No man 〈◊〉 that the Paradise may be understood, the bliss of the Saints the (c) four 〈◊〉, four virtues; prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice: the trees, all 〈◊〉 ●…sciplines: the tree of life, wisdom the mother of the rest: the tree of the ●…edge of good and evil, the trial of transgression, for God decreed a pu●…nt for sin, justly, and well, if man could have made use of it to his own 〈◊〉. These things may also be understood of the Church, and that in a better 〈◊〉, as prophetic tokens of things to come, Paradise may be taken for the Church, as we (d) read in the canticles thereof. The four floods are the four gospels: the fruitful trees, the Saints: their fruits, their works: the tree of life, the holy of holies, Christ: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, free election of will, for if man once forsake Gods will, he cannot use himself, but to his own destruction: and therefore he learneth either to adhere unto the good of all goods, or to affect his own only, for loving himself, he is given to himself, that being in troubles, sorrows, and fears (and feeling them withal) he may sing with the Psalmist, My soul is cast down within me: and being reform? I will Psal. 42. 6. Psal. 59 9 wait upon thee O God, my defence. These and such like, may be lawfully understood by Paradise, taken in a spiritual sense, so that the history of the true and local one be as firmly believed. L. VIVES. PAradise. (a)] Augustine super Genes. ad. lit. lib. 8. recites three opinions of Paradise: 1. Spiritual only: 2. local only: third spiritual and local both: and this he approves for the likeliest. Paradise. But where Paradise was, is a main doubt in authors. josephus placeth it in the east, and so doth Bede, adding withal that it is a region, severed by seas from all the world, and lying so high that it toucheth the moon, Plato in his Phaedo placeth it above the clouds, which others disallow as unlikely. Albertus Grotus herein followeth Avicen, and the elder writers also as Polybius, and Eratosthenes, imagining a delicate and most temperate region under the equinoctial, 'gainst the old Position, that the climate under the equinoctial was inhabitable. The equinoctial divides the torrid Zone in two parts, touching the Zodiac in two points, Aries, and Libra. There did he think the most temperate clime having twelve hours day, and twelve night, all the year long, and there placed he his Paradise. So did Scotus: nor doth this control them that place it in the east, for there is cast and west under the equinoctial line. Some say that the sword of fire signifieth that burning climate, wherein as Arrianus saith, there is such lightning and so many fiery apparitions, where Paradise was, Hierome thinketh that the Scriptures doth show, and though the Septuagintes translate in Eden, from the east: Oriens is a large signification. Hierome saith thus for Paradise there is Ortus: Gan. Eden Eden. is also Deliciae, pleasures, for which Symmachus translateth Paradisus florins. That also which followeth Contra Orientem, in the Hebrew Mikkedem. Aquila translateth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: we may read it, from the beginning Symmachus hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and Theodotion, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both which signify beginning, and not the east, whereby it is plain that God had made Paradise before he made heaven and earth, as we read also in the Hebrew. God had planted the Paradise Eden from the beginning. This out of Hierome. (b) No such.] No man denieth that Paradise may be spiritually understood, excepting Ambrose in his book De Paradiso. But all the Fathers profess that Paradise was a real pleasant place, full of trees, (as Damascene saith) and like to the Poets imaginary Elysium. Away with their foolery (saith Hierome upon Daniel) that seek for figures in truths, and would overthrow the real existence of trees, and rivers in Paradise, by drawing all into an Allegory. This did Origen, making a spiritual meaning of the whole hi●…ory, and placing the true Paradise in the third heaven, whither the Apostle Paul was rapt. (c) Four rivers.] Nile of Egypt. Euphrates and Tigris of Syria; and Ganges of India. There heads are unknown, The rivers of Paradise. and they run under the Ocean into our sea: and therefore the Egyptian priests called Ni●…, the Ocean. Herodot. (d) Read in the.] Cant, 4 12. My sister, my spouse is as a garden enclosed as a spring shut up, and a fountain sealed up, their plants are as an orchard of pomegranates with sweet fruits. etc. That the Saints bodies after resurrection shallbe spiritual, and yet not changed into spirits. CHAP. 22. THe bodies of the Saints in the resurrection shall need none of the tree of life to preserve them in life, health or strength, nor any meat to keep away hunger and thirst: They shall have such an every way absolute immortality, that they shall never need to ear: power they shall have to do it if they will, but no ●…ssity. For so the Angels did appearing visibly and sensibly, not of necessity, 〈◊〉 of power and will to afford their ministery unto man in more congruence. Genes. 18. 〈◊〉 we may not think that when (a) they lodged in men's houses, they did but ear (b) seemingly: though they seemed to eat with the same appetite that the 〈◊〉 did, who knew them not to be Angels. And therefore the Angel saith in Tobi●…n saw me eat, but you saw it but in vision: that is, you thought I had eaten as Tob. 12. 〈◊〉 did, to refresh my body. But if the other side may be probably held of the Angels, yet verily we doubt it not to be true (c) of Christ, that he in his spiritual flesh after his resurrection (yet was it his true flesh) eat and drank with his disciples: The need only, not the power, is taken from those glorified bodies which are spiritual, not because they cease to be bodies, but because Luc. 23. they subsist by the quickening of the spirit. L. VIVES. THey (a) lodged] In the houses of Abraham, Lot, and Tobias. (b) Eat seemingly] They did not eat as we do, passing the meat from the mouth to the stomach through the throat, 〈◊〉 so decoct it, and disp●…rse the juice through the veins, for nut●…iment, nor yet did they de●… men's eyes, by seeming to move that which they had for their chaps, and yet moving 〈◊〉 not, or seeming to chaw bread, or flesh, and yet leaving it whole. They did eat really, 〈◊〉 ●…ere not nourished by eating. (c) Of Christ] Luke the 23. The earth (saith Bede upon 〈◊〉 ●…ce) drinketh up water one way, and the sun another: the earth for need: the sun 〈◊〉 power. And so our Saviour did eat, but not as we eat: that glorious body of his took ●…te, but turned it not into nutriment, as ours do. Of bodies animate and spiritual, these dying in Adam, and those being quickened in Christ. CHAP. 23. 〈◊〉 ●…s the bodies that have a living soul (though as yet unquickned by the ●…it) are called animate, yet are our souls but bodies: so are the other cal●…tuall: yet God forbid we should believe them to be spirit, or other then ●…tiall fleshly bodies, yet uncorruptible, and without weight, by the quick●… of the spirit. For man shall not then be earthly but celestial, not that he shall 〈◊〉 his earthly body, but because he shall be so endowed from heaven, that he 〈◊〉 ●…habite it with loss of his nature, only by attaining a celestial quality. 〈◊〉 ●…st man was made earth of earth, into (a) a living creature, but not into (b) ●…ing spirit: as ●…ee should have been, had he persevered in obedience. ●…lesse therefore, his body needing meat and drink against hunger and 〈◊〉 and being not kept in youth, & from death by indissoluble immortality, but 〈◊〉 by the Tree of life, was not spiritual, but only anima●…e: yet should it not 〈◊〉 ●…ied, but that it incurred Gods heavy sentence by offending. And though he 〈◊〉 take of other meats out of Paradise, yet had he been (c) ●…bidden to touch 〈◊〉 of life, he should have been liable to time & corruption, in that life only; 〈◊〉 had he continued in spiritual obedience, though it were but merely ani●…, might have been eternal in Paradise. Wherefore though by these words 〈◊〉, (d) When soever you eat thereof you shall die the death; we understand by 〈◊〉, the separation of soul and body, yet ought it not seem absurd, in that 〈◊〉 died not the very day that they took this deadly meat, for that very 〈◊〉 their nature was depraved, and by their just exclusion from the Tree 〈◊〉, the necessity of death entered upon them, wherein we all are brought forth. And therefore the Apostle saith not: The body shall die for sin, but The body is dead because of sin, and the spirit is life for justice sake. Rom. 8. 10 And then he addeth: But if the spirit of him that raised up jesus from the dead d●… in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit dwelling in you. Therefore then as the Apostle saith shall be in quickening of the spirit, which is now in the life of soul, and yet dead, because it must necessarily die. But in the first man, it was in life of soul, and not in quickening of spirit, yet could it not be called dead, because had not he broken the precept, he had not been bound to death. But whereas God signified the death of the soul in leaving of him, saying Adam where art thou? and in saying, Earth thou art, and to earth thou shalt go, signified the death of the body in leaving of the soul, therefore we must think he spoke not of the second death, reserving that secret because of his new testament, where it is plainly discovered: that the first which is common to all, might be shown to proceed from that sin, which one man's act made common to all: but that the second death is not common to all, because of those holy only whom he hath foreknown and predestinated (as the Apostle saith) to be made like the image of his son, that he might be the first borne of many brethren, whom the grace of God by this mediator had saved from the second Rom. 8. 29 death. Therefore the first man's body was but animate, as the Apostle witnesseth, who desiring our animate body now, from those spiritual ones, that they shall become in the resurrection: It is sown in corruption (saith he) but shall rise again 1. Cor. 15. 42 incorruptible: it is sown in reproach, but it is raised in glory: it is sow●…n in weakness, but raised in power: it is sown an animated body, but shall arise a spiritual body. And then to prove this, he proceeds. for if there be a natural (or animated) body, 44 there is also a spiritual body. And to show what a natural body is, he saith: The first man Adam was made a living soul. Thus then showed he what a natural 45 body is, though the scripture do no●… say of the first man Adam, when God br●…athed in his face, the breath of life, that man became a living body, but man became a living soul. The first man was made a living soul, saith the Apostle, meaning a natural body. But how the spiritual body is to be taken, he she●…eth also, adding, but the last man, a quickening spirit: meaning Christ assuredly, who rose from death to die no more. Then he proceedeth saying: That was not first made which is spiritual but that which is natural, and that which is spiritual afterwards. Here he showeth most plainly that he did mean by the living soul, the natural body, and the spiritual, by the quickening spirit. For the natural body that Adam had, was first, (though it had not died but for that he sinned) and such have we now, one nature drawing corruption and necessity of death, from him and from his sin: such also did Christ take upon him for us: not needfully, but in his power: but the spiritual body is afterwards: and such had Christ our head in his resurrection, such also shall we his members have in ours. Then doth the Apostle describe the difference of these two, thus. The first man is of the earth earthly; the second is of heaven, heavenly; as the earthly one was so are all the earthly: and as the heavenly one is, such shall all the heavenly ones be. As we have borne the Image of the earthly, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly. This the Apostle infers upon the sacrament of regeneration, as he saith elsewhere: All ye that are baptised into Christ have put on Christ: which shall then be really performed, when that which is natural in our birth, shall become spiritual in our resurrection, that I may use his own words: for we are saved by hope. We put on the Rom. 8. 〈◊〉. image of the earthly man, by the propagation of sin and corruption, adherent Christ the heavenly man. unto our first birth; but we put on that of Heavenly man by grace, pardon and promise of life eternal, which regeneration assureth us by the mercy only of the mediator between God and man, the man Christ jesus, whom the Angel calls the Heavenly man because he came from Heaven to take upon him the shape of earthly mortality, and to shape it into heavenly immortality. 1 Co. 15. 22 He calleth the rest, heavenly also, because they are made members of Christ by grace they and Christ being one, as the members and the head is own body. This he averreth plainly in the chapter aforesaid, by a man came d●…h, and by a man came the resurrection from the dead: for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive: and that into a quickening spirit, that is a spiritual body: not that all that die in Adam shall become members of Christ, for many more of them shall fall into the eternal second death: but it is said, all, and all, because as none die natural, but in Adam, so none shall revive spiritual but in Christ, we may not then think that our bodies at the rusurrection shall be such as adam's was at the creation, nor that this place, As the earthly one was, so are all the earthly, is meant of that which was effected by the transgression: for we may not think that Adam had a spiritual body ere he fell, and in his fall was made a natural one: he that conceiveth it so, gives but little regard to that great teacher, that saith. If there be a natural body, then is there also a spiritual; as it is also written, the first man Adam was made a living soul, was this done after sin, being the first estate of man, from whence the blessed Apostle took this testimony of the 〈◊〉 to show what a natural body was. L. VIVES. A Living (a).] Or with a living soul, but the first is more usual in holy writ. (b) A quickening] ●…ssed and joined with God: b●… which conjunction it imparteth integrity and immor●…●…to the body. (c) Forbidden.] Out of much diversity of reading I hold this the best: for, 〈◊〉 ●…oule that liveth and the quickening spirit that giveth life. (d) When soever.] Symmachus 〈◊〉 Hierome) expounds this place better, thou shalt be mortal. But ind●…ed we die as soon 〈◊〉 borne as Manilius saith. Nascentes morimur, finisque, ab origine pendet. Being borne we die: our ends hangs at our birth: How Gods breathing life into Adam, and Christ's breathing upon his Apostles when be said, receive the holy spirit, are to be understood. CHAP. 24. S●…e therefore do unadvisedly think that God, when he breathed in his face the ●…th of life and man became a living soul, did (a) not then give him a soul but by the holy spirit only quickened a soul that was in him before. They ground 〈◊〉 Christ's breathing upon his Apostles after his resurrection and saying, 〈◊〉 the Holy spirit: thinking that this ●…was such another breathing, so that 〈◊〉 ●…angelist might have said, they became living souls, which if he had 〈◊〉 it would have caused us to imagine all reasonable souls dead that are 〈◊〉 ●…kned by God's spirit, though their bodies seem to be a live. But it 〈◊〉 so when man was made, as the Scripture showeth plain, in these words (〈◊〉 ●…d GOD form man being dust of the Earth: which some thinking to 〈◊〉, translate. (c) And GOD framed man of the Loam of the Earth because it was said before, amist went up from the earth and watered all the earth: that lome should seem to be produced by this mixture of earth and water for immediately followeth. And God framed man being dust of the earth, as the Greek translations (d) whence our latin is, do read it: but whether the Gree●…e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, be form, or framed, it maketh no matter: (e) framed, is the more proper word, but they that used form thought they avoided ambiguity, because Man form. that fingo, in the latin is used (f) commonly for to feign, by lying or illuding. This man therefore being framed of dust, or lome, (for lome is moistened dust) that this dust of the earth (to speak with the scripture more expressly) when it received a soul was made an animate body, the Apostle affirmeth saying, the man was made a living soul: that is, this dust being form was made a living soul. I (say they) but he had a soul, now, already, otherwise he could not have been man being neither soul only, nor body only, but consisting of both. 'tis true, the soul is not whole man, but the better part only, nor the body whole man but the worse part only, and both conjoined make man, yet when we speak of them disjoined, they lose not that name; for who may not follow custom, and say, such a man is dead? such a man is now in joy, or in pain, and speak but of the soul only? or such a man is in his grave, and mean but the body only? will they say the scripture useth no such phrase? yes, it both calls the body and soul conjoined by the name of man and also dividing them, calls the soul the inward man, and the body the outward, as if they were two men, and not both composi●…gone. And mark in what respect man is called God's image and man of earth, returning to earth, the first is in respect of the reasonable soul which God breathed or inspired into man, that is, into man's body: and the la●…er is in respect of the body which God made of the dust, and gave it a soul, whereby it became a living body, that is, man became a living soul: and therefore whereas Christ breathing upon his Apostles, said, receive the holy spirit: this was to show that the spirit was his, aswell as the Fathers, for the spirit is the Fathers, and the Sons, making up the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, being no creature, but a creator? That breath which was carnally breathed, was not the substantial nature of the Holy Man how created. Spirit, but rather a signification (as I said) of the sons communication of the spirit with his Father, it being not particular to either, but common to both. The scriptures in Greek calleth it always 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Lord called it here, when by signifying it with his breath, he gave it to his disciples: and I never read it otherwise called in any place of God's book. But here, whereas it is said Isa. 57 16. that God form man being dust of the earth, and breathed in his face the spirit (or breath) of life: the Greek is (g) not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: which word is read oftener for the creature than the creator: and therefore some latinists (for difference sake) do not interpret this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirit, but breath, for so it is in Esay, where God saith (h) I have made all breath: meaning doubtless every soul. Therefore that which the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we do sometimes call breath; sometime spirit, sometime inspiration, and aspiration, and sometimes (ay) soul: but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never but spirit, either of man, as the Apostle saith, what man knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man which is in him: or of a beast as we read in the I Co●…. 2. 11 Eccl●…3. 21. Psa. 148. 8. preacher: Who knoweth whether the spirit of man ascendeth upwards, and the spirit of the beast downwards to the earth? or that bodily spirit which we call wind, as the Psalm saith, fire, hail, snow, Ice, and the spirit of tempests: or of no creature, but the creator himself: whereof our Saviour said in the Gospel: Receive the holy 〈◊〉: signifying it in his bodily breath: and there also where he saith, Go, and b●…ise all nations in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, plainly and excellently intimating the full Trinity unto us: and there also where we read; God is a spirit, and in many other places of scripture. In all those places of Script●…, john. 4. 24. the Greek we see hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and the Latin, flatus, and not spi●…us. And therefore if in that place, He breathed into his face the breath of life, t●… Greek had not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (as it hath) but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, yet were it no consequent that we should take it for the holy spirit, the third person in Trinity, because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is v●… for a creature, as well as the creator, and as ordinarily. O but (●…ay they) he ●…ld not have added vitae, of life, but that he meant that spirit: a●…d whereas 〈◊〉 s●…id; Man became a soul, he would not have added living, but that he meant the soul's life; which is given from above by the spirit of God: for the soul ha●…g a proper life by itself, why should he add living, but to intimate the 〈◊〉 given by the holy spirit? But what is this but folly to respect conjecture, and 〈◊〉 to neglect scripture? for what need we go further than a chapter, and be●…old: let the earth bring forth the living soul: speaking of the creation of all e●…ly creatures: and besides for five or six Chapters only after, why might 〈◊〉 ●…ot observe this: Every thing in whose nostrils the spirit of life did breath, Genes, 7. 22. ●…soeuer they were in the dry land, died; relating the destruction of every living 〈◊〉 upon earth, by the deluge? If then we find a living soul, and a spirit of life in beasts, as the Scripture saith plainly, using 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in this very 〈◊〉 place: why may we not as well say, why added he living there, seeing 〈◊〉 soul cannot be unless it live? and why added he, Of life, here, having ●…d spirit? But we understand the Scriptures ordinary usage of the living 〈◊〉 and the spirit of life, for animated bodies, natural, and sensitive: and yet 〈◊〉 this usual phrase of Scripture, when it cometh to be used concerning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of man: Whereas it implieth that man received a reasonable soul of 〈◊〉 ●…ated by his breath, (k) not as the other were, produced out of water and 〈◊〉 and yet so, that it was made in that body to live therein, and make it an ani●… body, and a living soul, as the other creatures were, whereof the Scripture said: Let the earth bring forth a living soul: and that in whose nostrils was the ●…rit of life, which the Greek text calleth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, meaning not the holy spirit, but their life. But we (say they) do conceive God's breath to come from the mouth of God; now if that be a soul, (l) we must hold it equal, 〈◊〉 ●…substantiall with that wisdom, or word of GOD, which saith, I am come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mouth of the most high. Well: it saith not, that it was breathed from Eccl, 24. 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 ●…outh, but came out of it And as we men (not out of our own nature, but) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 air about us, can make a contraction into ourselves, and give it out 〈◊〉 in a breath, so Almighty GOD (not only out of his own nature, or of 〈◊〉 ●…feriour creature, but) even of nothing can make a breath, which he may 〈◊〉 most fitly said to breath or inspire into man, it being as he is, incorporeal, 〈◊〉 ●…ot as he is, immutable, because it is created, as he is not. 〈◊〉 to let those men see that will talk of Scriptures, and yet mark not what 〈◊〉 do intend, that something may be said to come forth of GOD'S mouth 〈◊〉 that which is equal and consubstantial with him, let them read or hear 〈◊〉 own words: Because thou art luke warm, and neither cold nor hot, it will 〈◊〉 to pass that I shall spew thee out of my mouth. Therefore we have to contra●… the Apostles plainness in distinguishing the natural body wherein we now are, from the spiritual wherein we shall be: where he saith; It is sown a natural body, but ariseth a spiritual body: as it is also written: The first man Adam was made a living soul, and the last Adam, a quickening spirit. The first was of earth, earthly, the second of heaven, heavenly: as is the earthly, such are all the earthly, and as the heavenly is, such are the heavenly. And as we have borne the Image of the earthly, so shall we bear the Image of the heavenly. Of all which words, we spoke before. Therefore the natural body wherein man was first made, was not made immortal: but yet was made so that it should not have died, unless man had offended. But the body that shall be spiritual and immortal, shall never have power to die, as the soul is created immortal, who though it do in a manner lose the life, by losing the spirit of God, which should advance it unto beatitude, yet it reserveth the proper life, that is, it liveth in misery for ever, for it cannot die wholly. The Apostatical Angels, after a sort, are dead by sinning: because they forsook God, the fountain of life, whereat they might have drunk The Apostatical Angels. eternal felicity: yet could they not die so, that their proper life and sense should leave them, because they were made immortal; and at the last judgement they shall be thrown headlong into the second death, yet so as they shall live therein for The devil at the judgement shall be cast into the second death. ever, in perpetual sense of torture. But the Saints (the Angel's fellow-cittizens) belonging to the grace of God, shall be so invested in spiritual bodies, that from thenceforth they shall neither sin nor die: becoming so immortal (as the Angels are) that sin can never subvert their eternity, the nature of flesh shall still be theirs, but quite extracted from all corruption, unweeldynesse and ponderosity. Now followeth another question, which (by the true Gods help) we mean to decide; and that is this; If the motion of concupiscence arose in the rebelling members of our first parents, immediately upon their transgression, whereupon they saw, that is, they did more curiously obser●…e their own nakedness, and because the unclean motion resisted their wills, covered their privy parts; how should they have begotten children, had they remained as they were created, without prevarication? But this book being fit for an end, and this question not fit for a too succinct discussion, it is better to leave it to the next volume. L. VIVES. DId not (a) then] This the Manichees held. Aug. de Genes. ad lit. lib. 2. Ca●…. 8. (b) And GOD formed] They do translate it, And God framed man of earth taken from the earth: I think Augustine wanteth a word, taken or taking: Laurinus his copy teadeth it as the Septuagints do. Yet the Chaldee Thargum, or paraphraze, reading it as Augustine hath it; and so it is in the Bible that Cardinal Ximenes, my patron, Cr●… his predecessor, published in four languages being assisted by many learned men, but for the greek especially by john Vergara, a deep uprightly judicious, and unvulgar Scholar. 〈◊〉 Verg●…ra. 〈◊〉 Co●…li. Their Pentateuch, Lewis Coronelli lent me forbearing all the while that I was in hand with this work, for the common good. (c) And God framed] Hieromes translation. (d) Whence 〈◊〉] Showing that in his time, the Church used the Latin translation, from the seventy, and no●… Hi●…s. I wonder therefore that men should be excluded from sober using of diverse translations. (e) 〈◊〉] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Greek is, we use it of those that form any thing out of clay: that is [●…gere] and great authors use it concerning men. He made them [finxit] greedy and gluttonous. Sallust. He made thee [finxit] wise, temperate, etc. by nature. Cic. 〈◊〉 M●…. speaking of Cato Mai●…r. To form I think is nothing but to give form property. (f) Commonly] [If a modern divine had played the Grammarian thus, he should have heard of it. But Augustine may: but if he and Paul lived now adays, he should be held a Pedant, [The Louvain copy defective. 〈◊〉 a petty orator, and Paul a mad man, or an heretic.] Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.] The Chaldees read, a speaking spirit. Here Augustine shows plainly how necessary the true knowledge of the mea●…gs of words is in art and discipline. (h) I have made] I say. 57 16. the 70. also read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all breath. Many of the Latinist's animus, and anima, for air, and breath. Uirg. Semina terrarumque animaeque marisque fuissent. They had been seeds of earth, of air and sea: And Tully in his Academikes useth it for breath: Si unus & simplex, utrum sit ignis, an anima, 〈◊〉 s●…guis: If it be simply one, whether is it fire, breath, or blood. Terenc. Compressi animam: I 〈◊〉 my breath. Plaut. Faetet anima uxoris tuae. Your wives breath stinks, and Pliny Anima 〈◊〉 virus grave: A Lion's breath is deadly poison. ay Soul] I like this reading better than B●…es copies: it squares better with the following Scriptures. (k) Not as the] If we say that Augustine held man's soul created without the body, and then infused, as Aristotle seems to ●…rre, De generat. animal, S. Thomas, and a many more modern authors go down the wind. But if we say it is not created as the mortal ones are, that are produced out of the ●…osition of the substances wherein they are: but that it is created from above, within man, ●…out all power of the material parts, to work any such effect, this were the most common opinion, and Aristotle should be thus understood: which seems not to agree with this assertion, that it cometh ab externo: nor with his opinion that holdeth it immortal, and inborn, if I understand his mind aright, whereof I see his interpreters are very uncertain, (l) We must hold] There were not only a many Pagans (as we have shown) but some Chri●… also that held the soul to be of God's substance: nor were these heretics only, as 〈◊〉 ●…risilliannists, and some others, but even that good Christian Lactantius: not that I, or Lanctantius. 〈◊〉 wiser than I, will approve him in this, but in that he seemeth to stand zealously ●…d unto Christ. His words are these: Having made the body, he breathed into it a soul, out of 〈◊〉 l●…ing fountain of his own spirit, which is eternal. Institut. divin. lib. 2. wherein he seems 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that man's soul was infused into him from the spirit of God. Finis, lib. 13. THE CONTENTS OF THE fourteenth book of the City of God. 1. That the inobedience of the first man had drawn all mankind into the perpetuity of the second death, but that God's grace hath freed a-many from it. 2. Of the carnal life apparent in the soul's viciousness, as well as the bodies. 3. That sin came from the soul, and not the flesh, and that the corruption which sin hath procured is not sin but the punishment of sin. 4. What it is to live according to man, and to live according to God. 5. That the Platonists teach the natures of soul and body, better than the Manichees, yet they err in ascribing sin, unto the nature of the flesh. 6. Of the quality of man's will, unto which all affections, Good and Bad, are subject. 7. That Amor and Dilectio are of indifferent use in the Scriptures both for Good and Evil. 8. Of the three passions that the stoics allow a wiseman, excluding sadness as foe to a virtuous mind. 9 Of the perturbations of mind, which the just do moderate, and rule aright. 10. Whether Man had those perturbations in Paradise, before his fall. 11. The fall of the first Man, wherein Nature was made good, and cannot be repaired but by the Maker. 12. Of the quality of Man's first offence. 13. That in Adam's offence, his Evil will was before his evil work. 14. Of the pride of the transgression, which was worse than the transgression itself. 15. Of the just reward that our first parents received for sin. 16. Of the evil of lust, how the name is ge●…rall to many vices, but proper unto venereal concupiscence. 17. Of the nakedness that our first parents discovered in themselves after their sin. 18. Of the shame that accompanieth copulation, as well in common, as in marriage. 19 That the motions of wrath and lust are so violent, that they do necessarily require to be suppressed by wisdom, and that they were not 〈◊〉 our Nature, before our fall depraved it. 20. Of the vain obscaenity of the Cynikes. 21. Of the blessing of multiplication before sin, which the transgression did not abolish, but only linked to lust. 22. That God first instituted and blessed the band of marriage. 23. Whether if man had not sinned, he should have begotten children in paradise, and whether there should there have been any contention, between chastity and lust. 24. That our first parents had they lived without sin, should have had their members of generation as subject unto their wills as any of the rest. 25. Of the true beatitude, unattayne abl●… 〈◊〉 this life. 26. That our first parents in Paradise mig●… have produced mankind without any sham●… appetite. 27. That the sinners, Angels, and men, ca●…not with their perverseness disturb God's providence. 28. The state of the two Cities the Heavenly and the Earthly. FINIS. THE FOURTEENTH BOOK: OF THE CITY OF GOD Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. That the inobedience of the first man had drawn all mankind into the perpetuity of the second death, but that God's grace hath freed a many from it. CHAP. 1. WE said in our precedent books that it was God's pleasure to propagate all men from one, both for the keeping of humane nature in one sociable similitude, and also for to make their unity of original be the means of their concord in heart. Nor should any of this kind have died but the first two (the one whereof was made of the other, and Death propagate by sin. the other of nothing) had incurred this punishment by their disobedience: in committing so great a sin, that their whole nature being hereby depraved, was so transfused through all their offspring in the same degree of corruption, and necessity of death; whose kingdom here-upon became so great in man, that all should have been cast headlong in the second death, that hath no end, by this due punishment, but the undue (a) grace of God acquitted some from it: whereby it comes to pass, that whereas mankind is divided into so many nations, distinct in language, discipline, habit, and fashion: yet is there but two sorts of men that do properly make the two cities we speak of: the one is, of men that live according to the flesh, and the other of those that live according to the spirit, either in his kind: and when they have attained their desire, either do live in their peculiar peace. L. VIVES. Undue (a) grace] For God owes no man any thing, and therefore it is called grace, because it comes gratis, freely, and because it maketh the receiver gratum, thankful. Who hath gi●… Grace. unto him first and he shall be recompensed? Rom. 11. 35. If it were due, he should not then give, but restore it. Not by the works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his 〈◊〉 he saved us. Tit. 3. 5. Of the carnal life, apparent in the soul's viciousness as well as the bodies. CHAP. 2. WE must first then see what it is to live according to the flesh, and what, according to the spirit. The raw and inconsiderate considerer hereof, not attending well to the scriptures, may think that the Epicureans were those that lived according to the flesh, because ●…hey made bodily pleasure that summum bo●…, and all such as any way held corporal delight to be man's chiefest good: as the vulgar also, which not out of Philosophy, but out of their own proneness to lust, can delight in no pleasures, but such as are bodily and sensible: but that the Stoics that placed this summum bonum in the mind, live according to the spirit: (for what is man's mind but his spirit?) But the Scriptures prove them both to follow the courses of the flesh, calling the flesh not only an earthly animate body, as it doth saying. All flesh is not the same flesh; for there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another of fishes, and another of birds: but it 1. Cor. 15. 39 Flesh used for man. useth the word in far other significations, amongst which one is, that it calleth whole man, that is, his entire nature, flesh, using the part for the whole: as By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. What means he by no flesh, Rome 3. 20 but no man? he explaineth himself immediately: a man is justified by faith without the works of the law. And in another place: No man is justified by the law. Gala. 3. 11 The word was made flesh. What is that but man? Some misconceiving this place, john. 1. 13 held that Christ had no humane soul. For as the part is taken for the whole in these words of Mary Magdalene. They have taken away my Lord, and I know joh. 20. 13 not where they have laid him: Meaning only the flesh of Christ, which she thought they had taken out of the Sepulchre: so is the part taken for the whole, when we say flesh, for Man, as in the quotations before. Seeing therefore that the Scripture useth flesh in so many significations (too tedious here to recollect.) To find what it is to live according to the flesh (the course being enil when the flesh is not evil,) let us look a little diligently into that place of the Apostle Paul to the Galathians, where he saith, The works of the flesh are manifest, Gal. 5. 19▪ 20, 21. The works of the flesh which are adultery, fornication uncleanness, wantonness, Idolatry, Witchcraft, hatred, debate, emulation, (b) wrath, contentions, seditions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, gluttony, and such like, whereof I tell you now, as I told you before, that they which do those things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. The due consideration of this place of the Apostle, will presently give us sufficient demonstration (as far as here needeth) what it is to live according to the flesh, for in the works of the flesh which he saith are manifest, rehearsing and condemning them, we find not only such as appertain to bodily and luxurious delight, as fornications, uncleanness, luxury, and drunkenness, but such also as discover the viciousness of the mind, truly distinct from fleshly pleasures. For who conceiveth not that Idolatry, Witchcraft, enmity, contention, emulation, wrath, envy, sedition, The mental vices ascribed to the flesh. and heresy, are rather mental vices th●…n corporal? A man may for very reue●…ence, of some Idolatrous or heretical error, abstain from the lusts of the body, and yet though he do so, by the Apostles words, he lives according to the flesh: and in avoiding the works thereof, committeth most damnable works thereof. Who hath not enmity in his heart? or who saith to his enemy, or him that he thinks his enemy, you have an evil flesh against me? none; you have an evil mind against me. Lastly, as all men that should hear those carnal vices recited, would affirm they were meant of the flesh, so none that heareth those mental crimes, but referreth them all to the mind? ●…hy then do●…h this true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles, call them The works of the flesh, but in that he taketh flesh for man, as the part for the whole? L. VIVES. SOme (a) misconceiving] Those were the Apollinarists. Aug●…n joan. Serm. in Arrium, 83. Q●…. The Cerdonians also, & the Apelli●… held so. de har ad quod vult Deum. (b) Wrath] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 H●… reads it, irae, but animus is used also for wrath. Sallust, You saw last year how wrathfully [quantis animis] Lucutlus opposed L. Quintius, hereof comes the word animositas, that Augustine useth Animosity. for wrath. Virgil calls them East winds Animosi, wrathful. Macrobius in Som. Scip. 2. useth it so too. That anger that the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is momentary and of no continuance. Tully calls it excandescentia, a fury now beginning, and presently ceasing, there is in this text of Paul, ●…ixae, scold, or altercations, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which Augustine addeth not. That sin came from the soul, and not the flesh: and that the corruption which sin hath procured, is not sin, but the punishment of sin. CHAP. 3. IF any man say that the flesh is cause of the viciousness of the soul, he is ignorant in man's nature, for the corruptible body doth but burden the soul: therefore the Apostle speaking of this corruptible body whereof he had said before, although our outward man be corrupted: we know (quoth he) that if our earthly house of habitation be aestroyed, we have a building given of God, an house not made 1. Cor. 5. 〈◊〉 2, 3, 4. with hands, but an eternal one in heaven, therefore we sigh, desiring to be clothed with that habitation which we have in heaven: notwithstanding if we be clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this habitacle, sigh, and are burdened, because we would not be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might b●… swallowed up of life. We are therefore burdened with this corruptible body, and yet knowing that it is not the body's nature, but corruption, that causeth this burden, we would not be despoiled of it, but be clothed upon it, with the immortality thereof. It shall then be a body still, but burden some to us no more, because it is become incorruptible: so then, as yet the corruptible body is heavy Wis. 9, 15 unto the soul and the earthly mansion keepeth down the comprehensive mind. But yet such as think that the evils of the mind arise from the body, do err. For though that Virgil do seem to express a plain (a) Platonisme in these verses. Igneus est ollis vigour & celestis origo, Seminibus, quamtum non noxia corpo●…a tardant, Terrenique hebetant artus, moribundaque membra. Those seeds have fiery vigour, heavenly spring, So far as bodies hinder not with fullness, Or earthly dying members clog with dullness. Seeming to derive the four known passions of the mind, (b) Desire, Fear, joy and Sorrow, as the originals of all guilt, wholly from the body, by these verses following. Hinc metuunt, cupiuntque, dolent, gaudentque, nec aura●… Suscipiunt, clausae tenebris & carcere caeco. Heare-hence they fear, desire, displeased, content, Nor look to heaven, in darke-blinde prison penned. Yet our faith teacheth us otherwise. For this corruption that is so burdensome to the soul, is the punishment of the first sin, not the cause●… the corruptible flesh made not the soul to sin, but the sinning soul made the flesh corruptible: from which corruption although there do arise some incitements unto sin, & some vicious desires, yet are not all the sins of an evil life to be laid upon the flesh, otherwise, we shall make the devil, that hath no flesh, sinless: for though we cannot (c) call him a fornicator, a drunkard, or by any one of those carnally vicious names, (though he be a secret provoker of man unto all those) yet is he truly s●… most proud and envious, which vices have possessed him so far, as therefore The devils have no flesh yet have they fleshly works. is he destinate unto eternal torment in the prisons of this obscure air. Now those vices that domineer in him the Apostle calleth the works of the flesh, though sure it is that he hath no flesh. For he saith that enmity, contention, emulation, wrath, and envy are the works of the flesh: to all which, pride giveth being, yet rules pride in the fleshless devil. For who hates the Saints more than he? who is more envious, contentious, emulating, and wrathful against them than he? Doing all this without the flesh, how are these the works of the flesh, but because they are the works of man, whom as I said before, the Apostle meaneth by flesh? for man became like the devil not in being in the flesh (for so was not the devil) but in living according to his own lust, that is according to the fleshly man: for so chose the devil to do, when he left the truth, to become a liar, not through GOD, but through himself, who is both a liar, and the father of lying. For he lied first, and from him, sinning and lying had their beginning. 10. 5. L. VIVES. Plain (a) Platonisme] No more than Pythagorisme, both alike: but of this in the 8. book. (b) Desire] There are four chief affects of the mind, two, delightful, and two sorrowful The minds four affects. Of the first, the one belongs to things present: joy, and is, an opinion of a present good the other, desire, unto future: and is, an opinion of a future good. Of the two sad ones, sorrow, is an opinion of a present evil, and fear, of a future, and of these affects, come all the rest, Envy, Emulation, Detraction, Pity, Vexation, Mourning, Sadness, Lamentation, Care, Doubt, troublesomeness, Affliction, Desperation: all these come of sorrow: and Sloth, Shame, Error, Timorousness, Amazement, Disturbance, and Anxiety, from fear. And then, Exultation, Delight and Boasting of joy, with Wrath, Fury, Hatred, Enmity, Discord, Need, and Affectation, all of Desire. Cic. Tusc. quest. lib. 4. (c) Cannot call him] Of this hereafter. What it is to live according to Man, and to live according to God. CHAP. 4. THerefore a man living according to man, and not according to God, is like the devil: because an Angel indeed should not live according to an Angel, but according to God: to remain in the truth, and speak truth from him, and not lies from himself. For the Apostle speaks thus of man. If the truth of GOD hath abounded through my lying: calling lying his, & the truth of God. Therefore he that lives according to the truth, lives according unto God, not according to Rom. 3. 7 himself. For God said, I am the truth: But he that liveth not so, but according to himself, liveth according to lying: not that man (whom God that never createdlie, did create) is the author of lying, but because man was created upright, to live according to his creator and not himself, that is, to do his will rather than his own. But not to live, as he was made to live, this is a lie. For he (a) would be blessed, and yet will not live in a course possible to attain it: (b) What can there be more lying then such a will? And therefore it is not unfitly said every sin, is a lie. For we never sin but with a will to do ourselves good, or no●… to do ourselves hurt. Therefore is it a lie when as that we think shall do us good turns unto our hurt: or that which we think to better ourselves by, makes us worse, whence is this, but because that man can have his good but only from God, whom he forsaketh in sinning: and none from himself in living according to whom, he sinneth? Whereas therefore we said that the contrariety of the two cities arose hereupon, because some lived according to the flesh, and others according to the spirit we may likewise say it is because some live according unto Man, and other some unto God. For Paul saith plainly to the Corinthians, Seeing there is 1. Cor. 3. 〈◊〉 emulation, and contention amongst you, are you not carnal, and walk accord●…ng to man. To walk therefore according to man, is carnal, man being understood in his, inferior part, flesh. For those which he calls carnal here, he calleth natural before, saying: (c) What man knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man, which 1 Cor 2, 11, 12, 13, 14. is in him? even so, no man knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God. Now we have not received the spirit of the Word, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that God hath given us, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but (d) being taught by the spirit comparing spiri●…ll things with spiritual things. But the natural man perceiveth not the things of the spirit of God: (e) for they are foolishness unto him. Unto those natural men he spoke this a little afterwards: I could not speak unto you brethren as unto spiritual men, but as unto carnal. And here is that figure in speech that useth the part for the whole to be understood: for the whole man may either be meant by the soul, or by the flesh: both which are his parts: and so a natural man and a carnal man, are not several, but all one, namely one that liveth according to man: according as those places aforecited do intend. By the works of the law (f) shall no flesh be justified: and that where it is said that (g) Seventy five souls v●…ent down with jacob into Rom. 3. 10 Gen. 46, 27. Egypt, in the former by flesh, is meant, man, and in the later, by 75. souls, are meant 75. persons. And in this, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, he might have said: which carnal wisdom teacheth: as also, according to the flesh, for according unto man, if he had pleased. And it was more apparent in the subsequence: for when one saith, I am Paul's, and another, I am Apollo's, are you not men? That which he had called natural, and carnal before, he now more 1. Cor, 3, 4 expressly, calleth man: meaning, you live according to Man, and not according to God, whom if you followed in your lives, you should be made gods of men. L. VIVES. HE (a) would] No man liveth so wickedly, but he desireth beatitude: though his course lead him quite another way, directly unto misery. (b) What can] There is nothing more deceitful than the wicked. For it deludeth him extremely in whom it ruleth. (c) What man] This place is cited otherwise, & more expressly in the latin text of the first book. (d) Taught by the sp●…it] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. But some read, by the Doctrine of the spirit (e) For they are] The spiritual things of GOD seem fooleries unto carnal and unsettled men: as the Pagans ●…dome and virtues were scorned of the rich gnoffes that held shades for substances, and virtues for mere vanities. Thence hath Plato his cave wherein men were used to shapes ●…d appearing shadows that they thought their had been no other bodies. Derep. lib. 7. (f) shall no flesh] Some read it in the present tense, but erroneously: the greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abitur. (g) Seventy five souls] Soule, for man, is an hebraical phrase: for life, a greek Soul, 〈◊〉 man. phrase: used also by the latin. Nonius Marcellus saith Virgil useth it for bodies, there where he saith. Intereasocios, inhumataque corpora terrae, Mandemus, qui solus honos Acheronte sub imo est: Ite ait egregias animas quae sanguine nobis, Hanc patriam peperere suo.— Mean while th' unburied bodies of our mates, Give we to Grave, sole honour after Fates, Go honour those brave souls with their last dues. Who with their blood purchased this land for us. Whether it be so or no, let him look to it: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed in the Greek is sometimes used for the whole creature. That the Platonists teach the natures of soul and body better than the Manichees, yet they err in ascribing sin unto the nature of the flesh. CHAP. 5. WE should not therefore injure our creator in imputing our vices to our flesh: the flesh is good, but to leave the creator and live according to this created good, is the mischief: whether a man do choose to live according to the body or the soul or both, which make full man, who therefore may be called by either of them? For he that maketh the soul's nature, the greatest good, and the bodies the greatest evil, doth both carnally affect the soul, and carnally avoid the flesh: conceiving of both as humane vanity, not as divine verity teacheth: him indeed the (a) Plotonists are not so mad as the Manichees, that hate the carnal body, as the natural cause of all mischief, and yet make God the creator of all the elements, parts and qualities that this visible world is composed of. Yet the Platonists hold that these our mortal members, do produce the affects of fear, desire, joy, and sorrow in our bodies: from which four perturbations (as Tully calls them) or passions (as other translators give them) the whole inundation of man's enormities have their source and spring. If this be so, why doth Aeneas in Virgil hearing by his father that the souls were to return back into bodies, wonder at this opinion, and cry out. O pater anne aliquas ad caelum hinc ire putandum est, Sublimes animas, iterumque ad tarda reverti Corpora? quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido? What father do you think the souls are ta'en To heaven, and thence, to this dull flesh return. What dire affect should urge them to their pain. Is this same dire affect as yet remaining in the soul, being now quit from the carnal burden in such a commended purity! doth he not say they are purged from all bodily infection, when as they desire to return into the body again, if it were so then (as it is most vain to hold so) that there were an eternal revolution of the pollution, and the purgation, then can it not be truly said that all vicious affects are the effects of the flesh: for as this (b) noble speaker saith, that dire affect which doth compel the soul being purged from all earthly (c) contagion 〈◊〉 desire the body again, is not of the body. And therefore they confess that all the souls ill affects arise not from the flesh: as desire, fear, joy, and (d) sorrow: but it may have those passions of itself. L. VIVES. THe (a) Manichees] They held all flesh the work of the devil, not of GOD, and therefore they forbade their hearers to kill any creatures, lest they should offend the Princes of darkness from whom they said all flesh had original: and if they used their wives, yet must they avoid generation, lest the divine substance which goeth into them by their nourishment should bebound in the fleshly bonds of the child begotten. Aug: ad Quod vult deum. The Prisci●…ianists held thus also. (b) Noble spe●…ker] So he called Tully before, and Virgil now. (c) contagion] Or, habitacle. (d) Sorrow] Tully calls it egritudo, Tusc. 3. Of the quality of man's will, unto with all affections, good, and bad, are subject. CHAP. 6. But the quality of man's will, is of some moment, for if it be bad, so are all those motions, if good, they are both blameless, and praiseworthy: for there is (a) a will in them all: nay they are all direct wills: what is desire, and joy, but a will (b) consenting to that which we affect: and what is fear, and sorrow, but a will contrary unto what we like? But when we consent to the desire of any thing, that is desire, and when we consent in enjoying any thing, this is delight: ●…o, when we dislike a thing, and would not have it come to pass, this will, is fear: when we dislike it being come to pass, this is grief or sorrow. And this according to the variety of the things desired and avoided, as the will consents, or dislikes so are our diversity of passions. Whereof a Man that maketh GOD a●…d no●… Man the steersman of his life, aught to love good: and consequently, to hate evil: and because none is evil by nature, but all by vice: he that liveth after God's love, oweth his (c) full hate unto the Evil: not to hate the man for his Lawful hate. vice, nor to love the vice for the man, but hate the vice and love the man: for the vice being cured, he shall find no object of his hate, but all for his love. L. VIVES. (a) A Will] The Stoics hold that only to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (which Tully translates will) when a thing is firmly and constantly desired, therefore it is defined, a desire of any thing Will. with reason which is in a wise man only: but that which is against reason, is called a lust, or an inordinate desire being resident in all fools. The Peripatetics call both these wills, the one good and the other bad: the controversy (as I said elsewhere is but verbal. For the Stoics call affects wills also, nor skilleth it whether Will, follow Na●…e or Reason: for it is evermore Will, though that be properly called Will, wherein is that freedom of election, and is harbour to Vice, or Virtue. (b) Consenting] To believe a thing to be, or not to be, is no consent, or dissent, but Knowledge, Faith, or Opinion, (Arist. in Analyt. Posterior.) but to will, or not to will in any thing that belongs to the will, which pertaineth to the mind, and as it were, appoints and decrees what is to be done or not done. (c) Full hate] explaining that of the Psalm 139. 22. I hate them with a perfect hatred. That amor, and dilectio, are of indifferent use in the scriptures, both for good and evil. CHAP. 7. FOr he that is resolved to love GOD, and his neighbour according unto God and not Man: for this love, is called a Man of a good will, and this is called more commonly, charity, in the scriptures, though sometimes it be called love therein also. For the Apostle will have his magistrate to be a lover of good. And our LORD ask Peter thus: Simon the son of jonah, lovest thou me (a) more than these, he answered, Lord, (b) thou knowest that I love thee: he asked him so again, and he answered so again, than they asked him the third time, by 〈◊〉, amo whereas he had used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, diligo, in the other two, only to show, that diligere, and amare were both one, to love, as Peter had used the one, in all the three questions. This I thought, worth recital, but some say (c) dilectio, charity, is one thing, and amor, love, another: and that the first is (d) used in the good, and the later in the bad: But sure it is that the profane authors never used them so. But let the Philosophers look to their distinctions. For their books use amor love, in good senses, and in reference to GOD, most frequently. But we were to (e) show that our scriptures whom we place far above their authorities, do not use amor and dilectio with any such distinct difference: for we have shown that they use amor in a good sense. If any one think, it is used both in good respect and bad, and dilectio, only in the good, let him look in that of the Psalm: He that loveth [diligit] iniquity hateth his own soul: here is diligo, upon Psa. 11 1 Io. 2 a bad subject. And here the Apostle john: If any man love [Dilexerit] the world, the love [dilectio] of the Father is not in him. Behold here dilectio in one place, in both the respects. But if any one seek to know whether amor be used in evil (we have shown it in good,) let him read this: Men shallbe lovers of themselves, 2. Tim. 3, 2 4. etc. Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of GOD. For, an up right will is good love, and a perverse will is bad love. Love then desiring too enjoy that it loveth is desire: and enjoying it, is joy: flying what it hateth it is fear, feeling it, it is sorrow. These are evils if the love be evil: and good if it be good. What we say let us prove by scripture. The Apostle aesires to be dissolved, and to be with Christ: And, My heart breaketh for the continual desire I have unto thy judgements. Phil. 1 Psa. 119, 20 (f) Or if this be better: My soul hath coveted to desire thy judgements? And, desire of wisdom leadeth to the Kingdom: yet custom hath made it a law, that where Wis. 6, 20 concupiscentia, or cupiditas is used without addition of the object, it is ever taken Psa. 31 in a bad sense. But joy, or Gladness the Psalm useth well: Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice you righteous, and thou hast given gladness to mine heart, and, Psa. 4 In thy presence is the fullness of joy. Fear, is also used by the Apostle in a good Psal. 16, 11 sense: Work out your salvation with fear, and trembling: and, Be not high minded, but fear: and, But I fear least as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so Rom. 11. 20 that your minds should be corrupted from the chastity that is in Christ. But as for that sorrow (which Tully had rather call (g) egritude, and Virgil, dolour; where he saith, dolentque, gaudentque, yet (h) I had rather call it tristitia, sadness, because egritude, and dolour, are oftener used for bodily affects: the question whether it be used in a good sense or no, is fit to be more curiously examined. L. VIVES. MOre (a) than these] Then these do: to avoid ambiguity. (b) Than kn●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is here translated diligo, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, am●…, both to love. (c) Some] Orig. h●…. 1. 〈◊〉 C●…. The scripture (I think) being careful (saith he) to keep the readers in the tract of true understanding it, for the capacity of the weaker, called that Charity, or Dilectio, which they think wise men called love. (d) Is used.] The Latinists use these two words far otherwise: ●…ing Diligo for a light love, and amo for a servant one. Dol obellam antea diligebam, nunc 〈◊〉, ●…ith Tully, and elsewher, more plainly Clodius Tribu. Pleb. valde me diligit, seu ut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amo and Di●…o, diff●…. 〈◊〉 addam, valde me amat. I grant that amor is the meaner word, and oftener used in ob●…y then dilectio. The same difference that the latins put between amo and diligo, the same 〈◊〉 the greeks put between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (e) To show.] The places here cited prove nothing unless that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be both used in a good or an evil sense: for the latin translation is the 〈◊〉 of the interpreter not of the author: But perhaps he desired to show it, because he dealt ag●… Grecian, namely, Origen. (f) Or, if.] For so the 70. translated it. Here begins he to show that none of the four affects are bad of themselves. (g) Egritude.] Tusc quaest. 3. and 4. (h) I had rather. Tully (a) Tusc. qu. 2.) calleth bodily vexation, dolour, and (jusc 4.) defendeth egritudo, to be in the mind, as egrotatio is in the body: and affirmeth (lib. 3.) that it hath not any distinct name from sorrow. Of the three passions that the Stoics allow a wiseman, excluding sadness, as foe to a virtuous mind. CHAP. 8. THose which the greeks call (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and Tully, Constantiae, the Stoics make to be three, according to the three perturbations in a wiseman's mind, ●…ng will for desire, (b) joy for exultation, and wariness for fear: but instead of ●…at egritude or dolour which we to avoid amphibology call sadness, they ●…y that a wise mind can entertain any thing: for the will, (say they) affecteth good: which a wiseman effecteth: joy, concerneth the good he hath attained, 〈◊〉 wariness avoideth that he is to avoid: but seeing sadness ariseth from 〈◊〉 ●…ill cause, already fallen out, (and no evil happineth to a wiseman) there●… wisdom admits nothing in place thereof. Therefore (say they) none but ●…en can will, rejoice, and beware, and none but fools can covet, exult, 〈◊〉 ●…nd be sad. The first are the three constancies (saith Tully,) and the later 〈◊〉 four perturbations. The greeks, as I said call the three, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and these 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. In (c) seeking the correspondency of this, with the phrase of holy writ, I found this of the prophet. There is no (c) joy (saith the Lord) unto the ●…ed, as if the wicked might rather exult, then have joy, in their mischiefs, for Esay. 57 12 ●…y is properly peculiar to the good and Godly: That also in the gospel: What Mat. 7. 12. soever ye would that men should d'ye unto you, even so do ye to them: this seems to ●…imate that a man cannot will any evil thing but covet it: by reason of which ●…ome of interpretation, some translators added good, What good soever. etc. for ●…y thought it fit for man to desire that men should do them no dishonesty, and ●…rfore put in this, lest some should think that in their luxurious banquets (to be silent in more obscene matters) they should fulfil this precept, in doing to others as others did unto them. But (e) good, is not in the original the greek, but only, as we read before: What soever ye would. etc. for in saying ye would, he meaneth good. He said not, whatsoever you coue●…, yet must we not always tie our phrases to this strictness, but take leave at needful occasions, and when we read those that we may not resist, we must conceive them so, as the true sense 〈◊〉 no other passage, as for example sake, in the saved places of the Prophet and the Apostle who knoweth not that the wicked exult in pleasure? and yet there is no joy (saith the LORD) to the wicked. Why? because joy is properly and strictly used in this place. So may some say that precept, Whatseover 〈◊〉 would etc. is not well delivered: they may pollute one another with uncleanness, or so: Notwithstanding, the command is well given: and is a most true and healthful one. Why? because will, which properly cannot be used in evil, is put in the most proper signification in this place. But as for ordinary usage of speech, we would not say, Have no will to tell any ●…e: but that there is a bad will also, distinct from that which the Angels praised saying: (f) Peace in earth to men of good will. Good were here superfluous, if that there were no will but good, and how coldly had the Apostle praised Luc. 2, 14 charity, in saying that it rejoiceth not in iniquity, but that envy rejoiceth therein: For the Pagan authors do use these differences. (g) I desire (saith Tully) Fathers 1 Cor. 13, 6 conscript, I desire to be merciful. here he useth Cupio in a good sense, and who is so perverse to say he should have used Volo rather? And T●…rence his lascivious youth: (h) I would have none but Philumena saith he. That this will was lust, his (ay) ancient servants answer declareth, saying to his Master: How much better were it for you, to cast this love out of your heart rather than Andr. act. 2 S●…. 1 seek to inflame it more therein? That they used joy in an evil sense, Virgil's verse of the four perturbations doth record. Hinc metuunt, cupiuntque, dolent, gaudentque, Here-hence they fear, desire, displeased, content. And the same author in another place saith. Mala mentis gaudia. The minds bad joys. So then both good and evil do will, beware, and take joy, and to rehearse them in other terms, the good and bad, do desire, fear, and rejoice: marry, those do it well, and these badly according as their wills are. And that sadness, for which the Stoics can afford a wise man just nothing, is apparent in good men, especial of our profession. For the Apostle praiseth the Corinthians for that they were Godly sorrowful. I but (may some say) the Sadness according to God. Apostle congratulateth their sorrow in repentance, and that is proper to none but sinners: for his words run thus. I perceive well that the same Epistle made you sorry though it were but for a season, but I now rejoice not that you were sorry but that you sorrowed unto repentance: 2 Cor. 7, 8 9, 10, 11 for you sorrowed Godly, so that in nothing you were hurt by us. For Godly sorrow causeth (k) repentance unto salvation, not to be repent of: but the worldly sorrow causeth death: for behold this Godly sorrow, what great care it hath wrought in you. verily the Stoics may answer for themselves, that this sorrow seemed useful unto their repentance, but it cannot be in a wise man because he cannot do an act sinful or worthy of repentance, nor can admit any thing that should procure sadness in him. For they say that (l) Alcibiades (if I have not forgotten the man's name) thinking himself happy, and (m) Socrates disputing against it and proving him miserable, because he was not Alcibiades his sadness. wise, fell a weeping. So here was his want of wisdom cause of this good sorrow, whereby he grieved that he was as he should not be, but a wise man (say the Stoics) can never have this sorrow. L. VIVES. E●… (a) and] Tusc. lib. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is a good affect, and may be understood two way either arising of pleasure, whose contrary is sorrow: or it may derive from that purified Erapathia. will which the Stoics held: for I said before that the Stoics held that wills were only good, as Tully plainly relateth. (b) joy for euxltation] It is need to joy, but not to exult, wariness also is a judicious avoidance of evil: fear, an amazed and reasonless dejection. (c) Seeking the] I see not unto what so long a discourse of words only out of the translation can 〈◊〉: if he produced them out of their original there were some reason for it. (d) joy] Peace, saith the vulgar, but the 70. joy. (e) Good is not] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. It were too idle to use many words in persuading all men in what doubts soever, to have recourse to the scriptures: This Hierome urgeth, and Augustine here warneth, confirming it by his example. We have opposers that say it is far more sure in the latin then in the originiall: but I will never trouble myself to answer them, they are few, and those are fools and time will either stop their mouths (seeing their breath is vainly spent) or the consent of the learned, will silence their ●…sh clamours. (f) Peace in earth] The greek is, and good will unto men. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. but all is to one purpose. (g) I desire] In Calilni. 1. and Tully useth Cupio six hundred times in this sense: And this Argument of Augustine's out of the latin writers is fitter to his purpose then all those out of the scriptures: and that not so much against the greeks Stoics, as Tully the Latinist. (h) Philumena. I ●…ld] Charinus his words in Terence's Andria,. Philumena, quasi beloved of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, she was supposed the daughter of Chremes. [My commentator hath held his peace a great many [The Louvain copies defective.] books through, but here he hath got his tongue again. Philumena (saith he) was a Whore. Troth, this is no honest man's part, to make a chaste Virgin, an Whore: oh but he ●…keth as many of our times do also, that there is no man speaks in the Poets, but thieves and Panders: nor any woman but Whores and Bawds. And Philumena being found in a ●…-house, what could this dove-eyd innocent Preaching Friar do less than take her for Whore?] (i) Ancient] Or, miser? For Charinus was not wise enough in his love. This was 〈◊〉 ●…n Birrhia. (k) Repentance unto] So we read commonly. The old copies, and Bruges books read, unto the impenitent, for salvation: falsely, the Coleyne readeth it the best [as we have translated it] For the greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. (l) Alcibyades] Kinsman to Pericles' Prince of Athens, to whose tuition he was left. He was the most beautiful parsonage of Alcibiades. the world, of wondrous wit, and most industrious in art military, he was the Athenians general in their wars against Lacedaemon and Sicylie. No man had ever a more flexible wit to the two greatest diversities; height of virtue, and height of vice: of his life, Plutarch, Emilius Pr●…s, and justine, (known authors) do write. (m) Socrates] Who taught him, and made show of love to him, to keep him from the unchaste love of others. Plato mentions him often. Socrates would sometimes cherish him, when he obeyed him, and sometimes, chide him sharply, when he broke out into exorbitances. As ye may read in Plato's, Alcibiades of the nature of man. Socrates (saith Tully) having persuaded him that he had nothing that was man in him, and that high borne Alcibiades diffred nothing from a common porter, he grew into great grief, and beseeched Socrates to teach him virtue, and abolish this his baseness. Tusc. 4. Of the perturbations of mind which the just do moderate, and rule aright. CHAP. 9 But concerning these questions of perturbations, the Philosophers are already answered in the 9 book, in which we show that theircontention is rather verb●… then real. But according to our religion and scriptures, the citizens of GOD, as long as they are pilgrims, and in the way of GOD, do fear, desire, rejoice and sorrow. But their love being right, streighteth all those affects. They feet eternal pain, and desire eternal joy: They sorrow for the present, because as Rom. 8, 23 yet they sigh in themselves, waiting for their adoption, even the redemption of their bod●…s: they rejoice in hope, because that shall be fulfilled which is written: Death is swallowed up into victory. They fear to offend, and desire to persever: 1. Cor. 15, 54 they sorrow for sin, and rejoice in doing good, they fear to sin, because; for that iniquity shallbe increased the love of many shallbe could, they desire to persever, Mat. ●…4, 12 Mat. 10 22 1 Io. 1, 8 2 Cor. 9, 7. because: He that endureth to the end shallbe saved: they sorrow for sin, because If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and there is no truth in us: they rejoice in good works, for GOD loveth a cheerful giver. And as they are strong or weak, so do they desire, or fear to be tempted: rejoicing, or sorrowing in temptations: they fear to be tempted, for If any man fall into a fault by any occasion, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one with the spirit of meek●…nesse, considering Gal 6 1 Psal. 2●…, 2 thyself also, lest thou be tempted: they desire to be tempted, for, Prove me O LORD and try me, examine my reins and mine heart said David: They sorrow in temptations, for they hear how Peter wept: they rejoice in them, for Brethren, count it exceeding joy when ye fall into divers temptations, saith James. And they do not feel affects for themselves only, but for others also, whom they desire should be freed, and fear lest they perish, sorrowing at their fall and rejoicing at their deliverance: for if we that are come from (a) Paganism to Christianity may give an especial instance in that worthy and dauntless man that boasted of his infirmities, that teacher of faith and truth to the nations, that toiler above all his fellow Apostles, that edifier of God's people by sermons, being present, and by more Epistles than they all, being absent, that blessed Man Paul (I mean) CHRIST'S Champion, (b) taught by him, (c) anointed from him, (d) crucified with him (e) glorified in him, (f) in the Theatre of this World where he was made a spectacle, to GOD, Angels and Men, fighting a (g) lawful, and (h) great fight, and following hard towards the ay mark for the (k) prise of the high calling: How gladly do we with the eyes Philip. 3, 14 Rom. 12, 15 2 Cor. 11, 3 of faith behold him, weep with them that weep, and rejoice with them that rejoice, (l) fightings without, and terrors within, desiring to be dissolved and to be with CHRIST, desiring to see the romans, and to receive fruit from them as well as the others, being jealous over the Corinthians, and fearing lest their minds should be corrupted; from the chastity with is in CHRIST, having great sadness, and continual sorrow of heart for Israel that being ignorant in GOD'S justice, would erect one of their own, and not be subject unto gods: and denouncing his lamentation for divers that had not repen●…d them of their fornication and uncleanness. If these affects, arising from the love of good, be vicious, then let true vices be called virtues: But seeing 〈◊〉 Cor. 11. 〈◊〉 their use is leveled by the rule of reason, who dare call them frail or imperfect passions of the mind? Our LORD himself, living in the form of a servant (yet without sin) used them when he thought it requisite: for we may not think that having man's essential body, and soul, he had but seeming affects. And therefore his sorrow for jerusalem's hardness of heart, his joy for the believers, his tears for Lazarous, his desire to eat the Passeover with his disciples, Mat. 3 john 11 Luk ●…2 Mat 26 and his deadly heaviness of soul upon the approach of his passion, these are no feigned narrations. But these affects of man he felt when it pleased him, as he was made man when it pleased him. Wherefore we confess that those affects, in their best kind are but pertinent to this present life, not unto that which we hope for hereafter: and that we are often over-pressed by them: a laudable desire or charity may move us: (m) yet shall we weep whether we will or no. For we have them by our humane infirmity, but so had not CHRIST (n) for he had his very infirmity itself, from his own power. But as long as we live in this infirmity, we shall live worse if we want those affects. For the Apostle dispraiseth and detests (o) such as want natural affect. And so doth the Psalm, saying, I looked for some to pity me, and there was none. For to want the Rom. 1, 30 Psal. 69, 20 sense of sorrow in this mortal life (as a (p) great scholar held) never be-falls, a man without great stupidity of body, and barbarism of mind. (q) Therefore the greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or impassibility being meant of the mind, and not the body, if it be understood as a want of those perturbations only which disturb the mind, and resist reason, it is to be defended, and desired. For the Godly wise and holy men (not ordinary ranglers) say all directly, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us. But if a man had this same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (meant as before) he had no sin indeed in him. But it is well if we can live here without (r) crime: but he that thinks he lives without sin doth not avoid sin but rather excludes all pardon. But now if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, be an utter abandoning of all mental affects whatsoever, who will not say such a stupidity is not worse than sin? We may fitly say indeed that true happiness shallbe utterly void of fear and sorrow: but who can say it shallbe void of love, and joy, but he that professeth to oppose the truth? but if this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, be a freedom from fear, and sorrow, we must not aim at it in this life, if we mean to live after the law of GOD. But in the other promised life of eternity (s) all fear shallbe excluded from us. For that fear whereof the Apostle john saith. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth 1. joh. 4, 18 〈◊〉 fear, and he that feareth is not perfect in love, is not that kind of fear whereof the Apostle Paul feared the fall of the Corinthians, for love hath this fear in it, and nothing hath it but love: but the other fear is not in love, whereof the same Apostle Paul saith, for ye have not received the spirit of Psal 9, 9 bondage to fear again. But that chaste fear, remaining world without end, if it be in the world to come (and how else can it remain world without end?) shall be no fear terrifying us from evil, but a fear keeping us in an inseparable good. For where the good attained is unchangeably loved, there is the fear to lose it inseparably cheined. For by this chaste fear is meant the will that we must necssarily have, to avoid sin: not with an ungrounded carefulness lest we should sin, but being founded in the peace of love, to beware of sin. But if that firm and eternal security be acquit of all fear, and conceive only the fullness of joy, than the fear of Lord is pure, and endureth for ever, is meant as that other place is: The patience of the afflicted shall not perish for ever. Psal. 9 1●… Their patience shall not be eternal, such needeth only where miseries are to be eternally endured. But that which their patience shall attain, shall be eternal. So it may be that this pure fear is said to remain for ever, because the scope whereas it aims is everlasting: which being so, and a good course only leading to beatitude, then hath a bad life bad affects, and a good life good ones. And the eternal beatitude shall have both joy and love, not only right, but firm, and unmooving: but shallbe utterly quit of fear, and sorrow. Hence is it apparent what courses GOD'S Cities ought to run, in this earthly pilgrimage, making the spirit, not the flesh, GOD, and not humanity the lanterae to their paths: and here also we see their estate in their immortal future instalement. But the City of the impious that sail after the compass of carnality, and in their most divine matters, reject the truth of GOD, and rely upon the (t) instructions of men, is shaken with these affects, as with earthquakes, and infected with them as with pestilent contagions. And if any of the citizens seem to curb themselves from these courses, (u) they grow so impiously proud and vainglorious, that the less their trouble is by these passions the bigger their tumour. And if any of them be so rarely vain, and barbarous, as to embrace a direct stupidity, beecomming insensible of all affect, they do rather abjure true manhood then attain true peace. Roughness doth not prove a thing right, nor (x) can dullness produce solid soundness. L. VIVES. FRom (a) Paganism] So did not Paul, for he was an Israelitie of the tribe of Benjamin, and therefore some books do falsely read, He that came from paganism etc. (b) Taught] There were masters of fence that taught these champions. Aug. alludeth to them. (c) Anoyn●…d from] Some read, bound unto in, as Paul himself saith: and this is more proper: though his allusion run through the anointing, exercise and fashions of the champions. (d) Crucified] For they had certain bounds that they might not pass in any exercise. e) Glorified] Victorious. (f) In the Theatre] Before a full and honourable view. (g) Lawful] The champions had their laws, each might not play that would. (h) Great fight] They had their lesser fights and their greater, as had the runners, and the wrestlers. ay The mark] That being perfect and having passed daily more and more contentions, he might at length become Master of the five exercises, and have his full degree. Paul's words are in the Epistle to the Philippians. 3. 13. 14. (l) Fightings] He reckoneth Paul's affects being all good. (m) Yet shall we weep] Either suddenly, or forcibly, for joy, or sorrow. (n) For he] He was God and Man, and therefore had his affects in his power to extend or repress at pleasure: ours are violent, and whirl us with them through all obstacles, by reason of our own impotent infirmity: and therefore we say our mind is impotent in yielding hereunto. (o) Such as want] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, such as are sence●…se of misery, or happiness in themselves or friends: and those stupidities much like the greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of whom read Pliny lib. 7. Socrates they say was never seen to change his ●…ance: this continual fixation of mind sometimes turneth into a rigid sourness of 〈◊〉, abolishing all affects from the soul, and such men the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (p) A great sch●…] Crantors' opinion the Academike in Tully, Tusc. quest. 3. (q) Therefore the] S●…. Epist. lib. 1. Explain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with one word, and call it impatience we cannot, witho●… 〈◊〉. For so we may come to have our meaning to be thought just contrary to what 〈◊〉. it is. We mean one that is senseless of all evil, and we may be thought to mean one that i●… too sensible of the least, think then whether we may better say invulnerable, or impatient. This is that difference between us and the Epicureans. Our wiseman feels 〈◊〉 but subdues them ●…l; theirs are acquit from feeling them. Thus Seneca. 〈◊〉 ●…rime. The difference between crime, and sin he declareth. Tract. 41. sup. joan, thus a 〈◊〉 (saith he) is an act worthy of accusation and comdemnation. And therefore the Apostle Crime. 〈◊〉 ●…der for the election of Priests, Deacons, or other Churchmen, saith not, if any of you 〈◊〉 sin, for so he should exclude all Mankind from being elected; but if any be 〈◊〉 ●…ime: as man slaughter, whoredom, some kind of envy, adultery, theft, fraud, sacrilege, and 〈◊〉. Thus to explain this place. (s) All fear.] Or, this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be expected, (t) In●….] Some arts the devils taught men, as Magic, Astrology, and all divination excep●…●…phecy. Plato saith that a devil called Theut invented Arithmetic, Geometry, Astro●…●…d Theut. Dicyng, and taught them to Thamus, King of Egypt. I doubt not but that Logic 〈◊〉 ●…uills invention also, it teacheth the truth's opposition, and obstinacy in falseness, so ●…ly, delighting to put verity to the worse, by deceit. (u) They grow so.] Pride was ●…on vice almost of all the Philosophers. (x) Stupidity, or dullness.] The Physicians when 〈◊〉 cure an hurt member, do apply their stupes, to avoid the sense of pain only but 〈◊〉 ●…sease of the part which they are often fayn●…●…ut of. Whether man had those perturbations in Paradise, before his fall. CHAP. 10. 〈◊〉 is a good question whether our first parent, or parents (for they were 〈◊〉 in marriage) had those natural affects ere they sinned, which we shallbe ●…ed of when we are perfectly purified. If they had them, how had they that ●…ble bliss of Paradise? who can be directly happy that either fears or for●… & how could they either fear or grieve in that copious affluence of bliss, 〈◊〉 they were out of the danger of death and sickness having allthings that a ●…ll desired, and wanting allthings that might give their happiness just The state of our first parents. 〈◊〉 ●…fence? Their love to God was unmoved, their union sincere, and 〈◊〉 exceeding delightful having power to enjoy at full what they loved. 〈◊〉 in a peaceable avoidance of sin, which tranquillity kept out all ex●…●…oyance. Did they desire (think ye) to taste the forbidden fruit, and yet 〈◊〉 die? God forbid we should think this to be where there was no sin, 〈◊〉 a sin to desire to break God's command, and to forbear it rather for 〈◊〉 ●…unishment than love of justice. God forbid I say that ere that sin was, 〈◊〉 be verified of the forbidden fruit which Christ saith of a woman: whosoever 〈◊〉 ●…ter a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his 〈◊〉 How happy were our first parents, being troubled with no perturbations 〈◊〉 nor no sickness of body! even so happy should all mankind have been 〈◊〉 not transfused that misery which their sin incurred, into their poste●… any of their seed had committed an act worthy of codemnation. And 〈◊〉 remaining, until, by the words increase and multiply, the number of 〈◊〉 ●…nat were fulfilled, then should a better have been given us, namely 〈◊〉 the Angels have, wherein there is an eternal security from sin 〈◊〉: and so should the Saints have lived then after no taste of labour, sor●… death, as they shall do now in the resurrection, after they have endured 〈◊〉. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉.] The desire is a sin aswell as the act not only by the Scriptures, but by the ●…ct discipline of humanity also. Cic. Philippic. 2. Though there be no law against it, for 〈◊〉 ●…th not, if this man desire thus much land, let him be fined, as Cato the elder pleaded 〈◊〉 ●…odians. The fall of the first man, wherein nature was made good, and cannot be repaired but by the maker. CHAP. 11. But God, foreknowing allthings, could not but know that man would fall: therefore we must ground our City upon his prescience and ordinance, not upon that which we know not, and God hath unrevealed For man's sin, could not disturb God's decree, nor force him to change his resolve: God foreknew and prevented both, that is, how bad man (whom he had made) should become and what good he meant to derive from him, for all his badness. For though God be said to change his res●… (as the scriptures (a) tropically say that he repented, etc.) Yet this is in respect of man's hope, or nature's order, not according to his own prescience. So then God made man, upright, and consequently well-willed: otherwise he could not have been upright. So that this good will, was God's work, man being therewith created. But the evil will, which was in man before his evil work, was rather a failing from the work of God to the own works, than any work at all. And therefore were the works evil, because they were according to themselves, and not to God, this evil will being as a tree bearing such bad fruit, or man himself, in respect of his evil will. Now this evil will, though it do not follow, but oppose nature, being a fault: yet is it of the same nature that vice is, which cannot but be in some nature: but it must be in that nature which God made of nothing, not in that which he begot of himself, as his word is, whereby allthings were made: for although God 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. made man of dust, yet he made dust of nothing, and he made the soul of nothing, which he joined with the body, making full man. But evils are so far under that which is good, that though they be permitted to be for to show what good use God's provident justice can make of them, yet may that which is good, consist without them, as that true and glorious God himself, and all the visible resplendent heavens do, above this darkened & misty air of ours: but evils cannot consist but in that which is good, for all the natures wherein they abide being considered as mere natures, are good. And evil is drawn from nature, not by abscission of any nature contrary to this or any part of this, but by purifiying of that only, which was thus depraved. Then (b) therefore is the will truly free, when it serveth neither vice nor sin. Such God gave us, such we lost, and cannot recover but by him that gave it: as the truth saith: If the son free you, you shallbe joh. 〈◊〉. truly freed, it is all one as if he should say: If the son save you, you shallbe truly saved, (c) for he is the freer, that is the Saviour. Wherefore (d) in Paradise both local, and spiritual man made God his rule to live by, for it was not a Paradise local, for the bodies good, and not spiritual for the spirits: nor was it a spiritual 〈◊〉 the spirits good, and no local one for the bodies: No, it was both for both. But after that (e) that proud, and therefore envious Angel, falling through that pride from God unto himself, and choosing in a tyrannical vain glory ra●…r to rule then to be ruled, fell from the spiritual paradise, (of whose fall, and 〈◊〉 fellows, that thereupon of good Angels became his, I disputed in my ninth book 〈◊〉 God gave grace and means) he desiring to creep into man's mind by his ill-perswading suttlely, and envying man's constancy in his own fall chose the serpent, one of the creatures that as then lived hurtless with the man 〈◊〉 ●…oman in the earthly paradise, a beast slippery, and movable, wreatchd ●…ots, and fit (f) for his work, this he chose to speak through: abusing it, 〈◊〉 subject unto the greater excellency of his angelical nature, and making it 〈◊〉 ●…rument of his spiritual wickedness, through it he began to speak deceit●… unto the woman: beginning at the meaner part of mankind, to invade the 〈◊〉 by degrees: thinking the man was not so credulous, nor so soon deluded 〈◊〉 would be, seeing another so served before him, for as Aaron consented not by ●…sion, but yielded by compulsion unto the Hebrews idolatry, to make Exod 32. Kin. 11. 〈◊〉 an Idol, nor Solomon (as it is credible) yielded worship to idols of his own ●…ous belief, but was brought unto that sacrilege by his wives perswa●…: So is it to be thought, that the first man did not yield to his wife in this ●…ession of God's precept, as if he thought she said two; but only being ●…elled to it by this social love to her, being but one with one, and both of 〈◊〉 ●…ture and kind, for it is not in vain that the Apostle saith: Adam was not 〈◊〉 ●…iued: but the woman was deceived: but it showeth that the woman did 1. Ti. 2. 14. 〈◊〉 the serpent's words true, but Adam only would not break company 〈◊〉 ●…is fellow, were it in sin, and so sinned wittingly: wherefore the Apostle 〈◊〉 not, He sinned not: but, He was not seduced, for he showeth that he sinned Rome 5. 12. 14. 〈◊〉: by one man sin entered into the world; and a little after more plainly: after ●…er of the transgression of Adam. And those he means are seduced, that 〈◊〉 the first to be no sin, which he knew to be a sin, otherwise why should 〈◊〉, Adam was not seduced? But he that is not acquainted with the divine se●… might therein be deceived to conceive that his sin was but venial. And 〈◊〉 in that the woman was seduced he was not, but this was it that (ay) decei●…, that he was to be judged, for all that he had this excuse. The woman 〈◊〉 gavest me to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat, what need we 〈◊〉 then? though they were not both seduced, they were both taken in sin Gen. 3. 12. 〈◊〉 the devils captives. L. VIVES. ●…ally. (a) Say.] Figuratively. A trope (saith Quintilian, is the translation of one word 〈◊〉 the fit signification of another, from the own: that God repented, is a Metaphor, a Trope. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 figure that who so knows not and yet would learn, for the understanding of scrip●… not go unto Tully, or Quintilian, but unto our great declamers, who knowing not y● 〈◊〉 between Gramar and Rhetoric, call it all by the name of grammar. (b) Than there●… 〈◊〉 that it is otherwise not free: for suppose it had not sinned: but because then it is ●…m the burden of all crimes, from all evil customs, and is no more molested by the 〈◊〉 invasions of vice. (c) He is the.] They are both only from God. (d) In Paradise,] Par●… Paradise. ●…asure and delight. Man being placed in earthly Paradise had great joy corporally, 〈◊〉 greater spiritually: for without this, the bodies were painful rather than pleasing: 〈◊〉 is the fountain of delight, which being sad, what joy hath man in any thing. (e) 〈◊〉.] Envy immediately succeedeth pride by nature, for a proud man so loveth himself ●…eues that any one should excel him, nay equalize him, which when he cannot avoid ●…es them: whence it comes that envy ●…itts chiefly amongst the highest honours, 〈◊〉 the people's favour doth not always grace the Prince alone. Swetonius saith that Cali●… 〈◊〉 the meanest, some for that the people favoured them, others for their form or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the devil envy man's holding of so high a place, and this envy brought death 〈◊〉 ●…d, (f) Fit for.] He saith supper genes. ad. lit. that the devil was not permitted to 〈◊〉 other creature but this: that the woman might learn that from a poisonous crea●… 〈◊〉 nothing but poison, Pherecides the Syrian saith the devils were cast from hea●… 〈◊〉, and that their chief was Ophioneus, that is, Serpentine. (g) Subject] The devil took the serpent's body, and therefore was the serpent held the most subtle creature of all, as Augustine saith upon Genesis. (h) social love] Necessitudo, is oftne●… taken for love and kindred then for need or necessity. ay Deceived him] Adam was deceived in 〈◊〉, that he thought he had a good excuse to appease God's wrath withal, in saying that he did it to gratify his fellow, and such an one as God God had ordained to dwell with him. Of the quality of man's first offence. CHAP. 12. But if the difference of motion to sin, that others have from the first man, do trouble any one, and that other sins do not alter man's nature, as that first transgression did: making him liable to that death, torture of affect, and corruption which we all feel now, and he felt not at all nor should have felt, but that It was not the fruit but disobe●… that o●…threw Adam. he sinned: If this (I say) move any one, he must not think therefore, that it was a light 〈◊〉 that he committed in eating of that fruit which was not (a) hurtful at all, but only as it was forbidden. For God would not have planted any hurtful thing in that delicate Paradise. But upon this precept was grounded obedience, (b) the mother and guardian of all the other virtues of the soul: to which it is good to be subject, & pernicious to leave (leaving with it the Creator's will) and to follow ones own. This command then of for bearing one fruit when there were so many besides it, being so easy to observe; and so short to remember (chiefly when the affect opposed not the will) which followed upon the transgre●…on) was the more unjustly broken, by how much it was the easier to keep. L. VIVES. NO●… (a) hurtful] Of itself. (b) The mother] GOD lays nothing upon his creatures, men or angels, as if he needed their help in any thing, but only desireth to have them in obedience to him. Thence is the rule: Obedience is better than sacrifice. Hierome upon the eleventh Chaper of jeremy, Verse, 3. Cursedis the man that heareth notthe words of this contract: Not for the privilege of the nation (saith he) nor the wrong of Obedience the mother of all 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉, nor the leisure of the Sab●…th: But for obedience it is that God is Israel's God, and they his people. Likewise in Isai. Chap. 44. Augustine wrote a work called De obedientia & hu●…. What ●…e hath said here he repeateth often. Contra advers. leg. & Proph. l. 1. & de b●… 〈◊〉. That in Adam's offence his evil will was before his evil work. CHAP. 13. But evil began within them secretly at first, to draw them into open disobedi●…ce afterwards. For there had been no evil work, but there was an evil will before i●…: and what could begin this evil will but pride, that is the beginning Pride. ●…e. 10. of all ●…rme? And what's pride but a perverse desire of height, in forsaking him to whom the soul ought solely to adhere, as the beginning thereof, to make the self 〈◊〉 the own beginning. This is when it likes itself too well, or when it 〈◊〉 itself so, as it will abandon that unchangeable good which ought to be more delightful to it then itself. This defect now is voluntary: For if the will remained firm in the love of that superior firmest good which gave it light to see it, and zeal to love it; it would not have turned from that, to take delight in 〈◊〉 ●…fe, and thereupon have be come so (a) blind of sight, and so (b) could of 〈◊〉 that either (c) she should have believed the serpent's words as true, or 〈◊〉 (d) he should have dared to prefer his wives will before God's command, 〈◊〉 to think that he offended but (e) venially, if he bore the fellow of his life ●…pany, in her offence. The evil therefore, that is, this transgression, was no●… 〈◊〉 but by such as were evil before, such eat the fordidden fruit: there could b●…●…ill ●…ll ●…kes done by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…l persons. fruit, but from an evil tree, the tree was made evil against nature, for it 〈◊〉 become evil but by the unnatural viciousness of the will: & no nature can be ●…praued by vice, but such as is created of nothing. And therefore in that it is 〈◊〉 it hath it from God: but it falleth from God in that it was made of nothing. 〈◊〉 ●…n was not made nothing upon his fall, but he was lessened in excellence by ●…ing to himself, being most excelling, in his adherence to God: whom he ●…g, to adhere to, and delight in himself, he grew (not to be nothing, but) 〈◊〉 nothing. Therefore the scripture called proud men, otherwise, (f) ●…es of themselves. It is good to have the heart aloft, but not unto ones 〈◊〉 ●…hat is pride: but unto God, that is obedience, inherent only in the Humility. 〈◊〉. ●…ility therefore there is this to be admired, that it elevates the heart: and in ●…is, that it dejecteth it. This seems strangely contrary, that elevation should 〈◊〉, and dejection aloft. But Godly humility subjects one to his superior: and 〈◊〉 ●…boue all; therefore humility exalteth one, in making him Gods subject. ●…de the vice, refusing this subjection, falls from him that is above all, and ●…es more base by far (than those that stand) fulfilling this place of the Psal. 73. 〈◊〉 hast cast them down in their exaltation. He saith not when they were 〈◊〉 they were dejected afterwards: but, in their very exaltation were they 〈◊〉, their elevation was their ruin. And therefore in that humility is so 〈◊〉 in, and commended to the City of God that is yet pilgrim upon earth, ●…hly extolled by (g) Christ, the King thereof; and pride, the just con●…en by holy writ, to be so predominant in his adversays the devil and 〈◊〉: in this very thing the great difference of the two cities the Godly, and ●…ly, with both their Angels accordingly, lieth most apparent: Gods ●…ing in the one, and self-love in the other. So that the devil had not 〈◊〉 ●…nkinde to such a palpable transgression of God's express charge, but 〈◊〉 will and) self-love had gotten place in them before, for he deligh●… Gen. 3. 5. which was said (h) you shallbe as Gods: which they might sooner have 〈◊〉 obedience and coherence with their creator then by proud opinion 〈◊〉 ●…ere their own beginners, for the created Gods, are not Gods of them 〈◊〉 by participation of the God that made them, but man desiring more 〈◊〉, and chose to be sufficient in himself, fell from that all-suffici●… ●…en is the mischief, man liking himself as if he were his own ●…d away from the true light, which if he had pleased himself with ●…ght have been like: this mischief (say I) was first in his soul, and 〈◊〉 drawn on to the following mischievous act, for the scripture is Pro. 16. 18. 〈◊〉, Pride goeth before destruction, and an high mind before the fall: the 〈◊〉 ●…s in secret, fore runneth the fall which was in public, the first being 〈◊〉 fall at all, for who taketh exaltation to be ruin, though the defect 〈◊〉 ●…e place of height. But who seeth not that ruin lieth in the express breach of God's precepts? For therefore did GOD forbid it, that being done, (ay) all excuse and avoidance of justice might be excluded. And therefore I dare say it is good that the proud should fall into some broad and disgraceful sin thereby to take a dislike of themselves, who fell by to much liking themselves: for Peter's sorrowful dislike of himself, when he wept, was more healthful to his soul then his unsound pleasure that he took in himself when he presumed. Therefore saith the Psalm: fill their faces with shame, that they may seek thy name O Lord: that is that they may delight in thee and seek thy name, who before, delighted Ps. 83. in themselves, and sought their own. L. VIVES. SO (a) blind] Losing their light. (b) Cold] Losing their heat. (c) She should] Here she lacked her light, was blind and saw not. (d) He should] Here he wanted his heat, and was cold, in neglecting Gods command for his wives pleasure. But indeed, they both want both: the woman had no zeal, preferring an apple before God: the man had no light, in casting himself and us headlong he knew not whether. (e) Uenially] I do not mean to dispute here whether Adam's sin were venial or no: As Bonaventure and Scotus do. I know his sin was capital, and I am thereby wretched. (f) Pleasures of] Pet. 2. 2. 10. (The greeks call them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but it is not so in Peter: I only name it from the latin.) Wis. 6. This vice therefore is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-love; Socrates calls it the root of all enormity: It is the head of all pride, and the base of all ignorance. (g) Christ] Who was made obedient to his father even unto death, to which he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb when it is clipped, he was silent, neither threatening those that smote him, nor reproaching those that reproached him: All hail thou example of obedience, gentleness, mansuetude and modesty, imposed by thy father unto our barbarous, brutish, ingrateful, impious mankind. (h) You shall be] Fulfil thy mind (proud woman) advance thyself to the height: What is the uttermost scope of all ambitious desire? To be a God: why eat, and thou shalt be one. O thou fonde●… 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 accuse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 of thy sex, hopest thou to be deified by an apple? ay All excuse] No pretence, no show, no imaginary reason of justice would serve the turn. For the eye of God's justice cannot be blinded, but the more colour that one lays upon guilt before him, the fouler he makes his own soul and the more inexcusable. Of the pride of the transgression, which was worse than the transgression itself. CHAP. 14. But pride that makes man seek to colour his guilt, is far more damnable than the guilt itself is, as it was in the first of mankind. She could say, the serp●… beguiled me, and I did eat. He could say: The woman thou gavest me, she g●… 〈◊〉 of the tree, and I did eat: Here is no sound of ask mercy, no breath of de●…ng help: for though they do not deny their guilt, as Cain did, yet their p●…e seeks to lay their own evil upon another, the man's upon the woman, and hers upon the Serpent. But this indeed doth rather accuse them of worse than acquit them of this, so plain and palpable a transgression of God's command. For the woman's persuading of the man, and the serpents seducing of the 〈◊〉 to this, doth no way acquit them of the guilt: as if there (a) were 〈◊〉 thing to be believed, or obeyed before God, or rather than the highest. L. VIVES. AS if there (a) were] There is nothing to be believed rather than God, or to be este●… 〈◊〉 God but the woman believed the Serpent rather than God, and the man preferred his 〈◊〉 God. Of the just reward that our first parents received for their sin. CHAP. 15. ●…refore because God, (that had made man, according to his image, placed 〈◊〉 in Paradise, above all creatures, given him plenty of allthings, and laid 〈◊〉 nor long laws upon him, but only that one brief command of obe●… to show that himself was Lord of that creature whom free (a) service 〈◊〉 ●…itted) was thus contemned: thereupon followed that just condemnation 〈◊〉 ●…h, that man, who might have kept the command, and been spiritual 〈◊〉, became now carnal in mind: and because, he had before delighted 〈◊〉 ●…ne pride, now he tasted of God's justice: (b) becoming not as he de●…●…lly in his own power, but falling even from himself, became his slave 〈◊〉 ●…ght him sin, changing his sweet liberty into wretched bondage, be●…●…gly dead in spirit, and unwilling to die in the flesh, forsaking eternal 〈◊〉 condemned to eternal death, but that God's good grace delivered him. 〈◊〉 holds this sentence too severe, cannot proportionate, the guilt incurring 〈◊〉 (c) the easiness of avoiding it: for as Abraham's obedience is highly extol●…●…cause the kill of his son (an hard matter) was commanded him, so Abraham's obedience. 〈◊〉 ●…ir disobedience in Paradise, so much the more extreme, as the precept 〈◊〉 to perform. And as the obedience of the second was the more rarely 〈◊〉, in that he kept it unto the death: so was that disobedience of the first 〈◊〉 more truly detestable, because he broke his obedience to incur death: The punishment of disobedience. 〈◊〉 the punishment of the breach of obedience is so great, and the pre●…●…ly kept, who can at full relate the guilt of that sin that breaketh it, 〈◊〉 ●…ither in awe of the commanders majesty, nor in fear of the terrible 〈◊〉 following the breach? 〈◊〉 to speak in a word, what reward, what punishment is laid upon diso●…, but disobedience? What is man's misery, other than his own diso●… to himself: that seeing (e) he would not what he might, now he cannot Psa. 144. 4 〈◊〉 would? for although that in Paradise, all was not in his power during 〈◊〉 ●…dience, yet than he desired nothing but what was in his power, and so did 〈◊〉 would. 〈◊〉 ●…w, as the Scripture saith, and we see by experience, man is like to vanity, 〈◊〉 can recount his innumerable desires of impossibilities, the flesh, and the 〈◊〉, that is himself, disobeying the will, that is himself also, for his mind 〈◊〉 ●…led, his flesh pained, age and death approacheth, and a thousand other 〈◊〉 seize on us against our wills, which they could not do, if our nature were 〈◊〉 obedient unto our will. And the flesh suffereth (g) something, that hin●…●…e service of the soul, what skilleth it whence, as long as it is God's al●… justice, to whom we would not be subject, that our flesh should not be 〈◊〉 to the soul, but trouble it whereas it was subject wholly unto it before, 〈◊〉 we in not serving God, do trouble ourselves and not him? for he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ice, as we need our bodies▪ and therefore it is our 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 body, not any hurt to him in that we have made it such a body. Be 〈◊〉 those that we call fleshly pains, are the soul's pains, in, and from the flesh, for what can the flesh either feel, or desire without the soul? But when we say the flesh doth either, we mean either the man (as I said before) or Pains of the flesh, & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. some part of the soul that the fleshly passion affecteth, either by sharpness, procuring pain and grief, or by sweetness producing pleasure. But fleshly pain is only an offence given to the soul by the flesh, and a (h) dislike of that passion that the flesh produceth: as that which we call sadness, is a distaste of things befalling us against our wills: But fear commonly forerunneth sadness, & that is wholly in the soul, and not in the flesh: But whereas the pain of the flesh is not forerun by any fleshly fear, felt in the flesh before the pain: (ay) pleasure indeed is ushered in by certain appetites felt in the flesh, as the desires thereof: such is hunger & thirst and the venereal affect usually called lust: whereas (k) lust is a general 〈◊〉 a ge●…ll name 〈◊〉 all vici●… effects name to all affects that are desirous: for (l) wrath is nothing but a lust of revenge, as the ancient writers defined it: although a man sometimes without sense of revenge will be angry at senseless things; as to gag his pen in anger when it writes badly, or so: But even this is a certain desire of revenge, though it be reasonless, it is a certain shadow of returning evil to them that do evil. So then wrath is a lust of revenge, avarice a lust of having money, obstinacy a lust of getting victory, boasting a lust of vain glory; and many such lusts there are: some peculiarly named, and some nameless: for who can give a fit name to the lust of sovereignty, which notwithstanding the tyrants show by their intestine wars, that they stand well affected unto? L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (a) service] For to be God's servant is to be free, nay to be a King. (b) Becoming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…he best reading. (c) the easiness] my friend Nicholas Valdaura told me that he had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…hor (I know not whom) that the fruit that Adam eat was hurtful to the body; 〈◊〉 was rather an aggravation of Adam's sin, than any likelihood of truth. (d) Second man] Christ called by Paul, the second man, of heaven, heavenly, as Adam the first was of earth, earthly. (e) He would not] Torences' saying in Andria: since you cannot have that you desire, desire that which you may have. (f) Mind] There is in the soul (men's) belonging to the reasonable part, and animus, belonging to the sensual, wherein all this tempest of affects doth rage. (g) Something] Weariness and slowness of motion, whereby it cannot go cheer●… to work, nor continue long in action. (h) A dislike] Or a dislike of the evil procured by the passion. ay Pleasure] Hereupon saith Epiourus, Desire censureth pleasure, pleasures are best being: but seldom used, saith junenall; voluptates commendat rarior usus. (k) Lust 〈◊〉 a general] We showed this out of Tully, it comes of libet, that extended itself unto all de●… that are not bounded by reason. (l) Wrath is] Tusc. quest. 4. Wrath is a desire to punish 〈◊〉 by whom one thinketh he is wronged. It is a grieving appetite of seeming revenge, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Rhet. lib 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 evil of lust: how the name is general to many vices, but proper unto venereal concupiscence. CHAP. 16. ALthough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there be many lusts, yet when we read the word, 〈◊〉, alone, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the object, we commonly take it for the unclean 〈◊〉 of the generative parts. For this doth sway in the whole body, moving 〈◊〉 ●…ole man, without, and within, with such a commixtion of mental af●…●…d carnal appetite, that hence is the highest bodily pleasure of all prod●…d: So that in the very (a) moment of the consummation, it ouer-whel●… almost all the light, and power of cogitation. And what wise and godly 〈◊〉 there, who being married, and knowing (as the Apostle saith) how 〈◊〉 his vessel in holiness and honour, and not in the lust of concupiscence, as 〈◊〉 ●…es do which know not God, had not rather (if he could) beget his 1 Thess. 4. 4. 5. d●…n without this lust: that his members might obey his mind in this act 〈◊〉 ●…pagation, as well as in the lust, and be ruled by his will, not compelled 〈◊〉 ●…upiscence? But the lovers of these carnal delights themselves can●…●…e this affect at their wills, either in nuptial conjunctions, or wic●…●…purities: The motion willbe sometimes importunate, against the will, 〈◊〉 ●…e-times immovable when it is desired: And being fervent in the 〈◊〉, yet willbe frozen in the body: Thus wondrously doth this lust sail 〈◊〉 both in honest desire of generation, and in lascivious concupiscence: ●…imes resisting the restraint of the whole mind, and sometime ●…ng itself, which being wholly in the mind, and no way in the bo●…●…e same time. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) moment] Therefore Hypocrates said that carnal copulation was a little Epilepsy, Carnal copulation. ●…ng sickness. Architas the Tarentine to show the plague of pleasure, bad one to ima●… man in the greatest height of pleasure that might be: and averred that none would 〈◊〉 to be void of all the functions of soul, and reason as long as delight lasted. Of the nakedness that our first parents discovered in themselves after their sin. CHAP. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 man ashamed of this lust, and justly are those members (which lust 〈◊〉 or suppresses against our wills, as it lusteth) called shameful: before ●…ed they were not so. For it is written, they were both naked and were not 〈◊〉, not that they saw not the nakedness, but because their nakedness was Gen, 2. 25. 〈◊〉 shameful: for lust did not as yet move these parts against their wills: 〈◊〉 the disobedience of the flesh as yet made a testimony of the disobedi●… 〈◊〉. They were not made blind as (a) the rude vulgar think, for the 〈◊〉 the creatures whom he named, & the woman saw, that the tree was good 〈◊〉 and pleasing to the eyes. Their eyes therefore were open, but they were Gen, 3. 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 opened, that is, occupied, in beholding what good the garment of 〈◊〉 ●…estowed upon them, in keeping the knowledge of the members rebel●…●…inst the will from them: which grace being gone, that disobedience 〈◊〉 be punished by disobedience, there entered a new shame upon those 〈◊〉 motions that made their nakedness seem undecent: This they obser●…●…d this they were ashamed off Thence it is, that after that they had 〈◊〉 the command, it was written of them, Then the eyes of them both ●…ed, and they knew that they were naked, and they sowed figtree Gen, 3. 7. 〈◊〉 together and made themselves breeches. Their eyes were opened, not to see, for they saw before: but to discern between the good that they had lost and the evil that they had incurred. And therefore the tree was called the tr●… What was meant by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. of the knowledge of good and evil, because if it were tasted of against the precept by them, it should let them see this difference, for the pain of the disease being known, the pleasure of health is the sweeter. So, they knew that they were naked: naked of that grace that made their bodily nakedness innocent, and unresting the will of their minds. This knowledge they got, happy they if they had kept God's precepts, and believed him, and never come to know the hurt of faithless disobedience. But then being ashamed of this fleshly disobedience that upbraided theirs unto God, they sowed fig-tree-leaves together, and made them breeches, or covers for their privities. The latin word is (b) Campestria, taken C●…pestra from the vestures wherewith the youths that wrestled, or exerced themselves naked in the field (in campo) did cover their genitories withal, being therefore called by the vulgar, campestrati. Thus their shamefastness wisely covered that which lust disobediently incited as a memory of their disobedient wills justly herein punished: And from hence, all mankind, arising from one original, have it naturally in them to keep their privities covered; that even some of the (c) Barbarians will not bathe with them bare, but wash them in their covertures. And whereas there are some philosophers called Gymnosophists because the live naked in the (d) close deserts of India; yet do they cover their genitals, whereas all the rest of their bodies, are bare. L. VIVES. THe (a) rude vulgar.] Because it is written He did eat: and then the eyes of them both were opened. Gen. 3. (b) Campestria.] So learned writers call breeches. Horace. in Epist. Penula solst it io, campestre nivalibus auris. A cloak for heat, and bretches for the cold. Acron upon this place saith it covereth nothing but the privities. Cato sat in judgement (saith one) without a coat, only having on a pair of bretches under his gown, because it was summer: and so went he down into the court, and pleaded. Ascon. in Orat. pro M. Scaur. Some take Capistrum for campestre, being nothing near it. Nor can I see why Petrus do ●…talibus in his Historia Scholastica should say that bretches were not invented in noah's time. (c) Barbarian,] It was a foul shame for a Lydian or any other Barbarian to be seen naked by his fellows. Herodot, in Clio. The romans never washed the father with the son in law nor the father with his own son if he were not above fifteen years of age. This was an old custom Cic. Offi. li. 1. (d). Close deserts.] Close and deserts, both, to commend their shamefastness, for nothing need be ashamed of the sons sight, much less of a dark and ●…y desert, But how come these Gymnosophists in India. Philostratus placing them in Ethiopia, near to Nilus. (In vita Appollonii Elianci.) And Hierome also follows him saying. Returning The Gym●…. to Alexandria, he went into Ethyopia, to see the Gymnosophists, and that famous table of the 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 the sand. But Pliny, Solinus, Strabo, Apuleius, Prophiry and others, place the Gy●…sophists in India near unto the river Indus, in the region called Indoscythica, yet Philostratus is not deceived, for their original is from India, wherein Strabo saith there were two sorts of Philosophers. The civil, or such as used the cities, called brahmin's, (and those wore linen, and beasts skins: they bathed with Apolonius, as Phylostratus saith, and one of them took a letter out of his cap and gave it to a woman whose son was-troubled with an evil spirit:) The 〈◊〉 were such as lived in the woods, naked, or sometimes clothed with leaves, and barks of 〈◊〉 ●…hey called them herman's, or Gymnosophists, and from those came they of Ethiopia. For 〈◊〉 ●…bitants upon Indus are reported to have come upon Ethiopia with an huge power, & 〈◊〉 to have taken up dwellings upon Nilus' banks: and this they named India also, and 〈◊〉 their herman's or Gymnosophists thither: so that the name grew common to both ●…dorus lib. 4. relating the Ethiopians customs, saith that some went all naked, some 〈◊〉 their privities with Fox tails, and some had breeches made of hair: And Strabo●…th ●…th a story of eight slaves that the Ambassadors of those countries gave unto Caesar, all 〈◊〉 for their privities, which they covered with breeches. Of the shame that accompanieth copulation, as well in common as in marriage. CHAP. 18. 〈◊〉 the act of lust, not only in punishable adulteries, but even in the use of ●…lots which the (a) earthly city alloweth, is ashamed of the public 〈◊〉 although the deed be liable unto no pain of law: and the stews them●…●…ue their secret provisions for it, even because of natural shame: Thus 〈◊〉 ●…asier for unchasteness to obtain permission, then for impudence to give 〈◊〉 ●…ke practice. Yet such as filthy themselves, will call this filthiness, and 〈◊〉 they love it, yet (b) dare not profess it. But now for copulation in mar●…●…hich according to the laws of matrimony, must be used for propaga●…●…ke: doth it not seek a corner for performance, though it be honest, and 〈◊〉? Doth not the Bridegroom turn all the feast-maisters, the attendants, ●…que, and all other out of his chamber, before he begin to meddle with 〈◊〉. And as (c) that great author of Roman eloquence said, whereas all Tusc. lib, 3. 〈◊〉 deeds desire the light, that is love to be known: This only 〈◊〉 so to be known, that it shameth to be seen. For who know●… what the man must do to the woman to have a child begotten, seeing the 〈◊〉 solemnly married for this end? But when this is done, the children them●…, if they have any before, shall not know. For this act doth desire 〈◊〉) ●…ight of the mind, yet so as it flieth the view of the eye: why, but 〈◊〉 because that this lawful act of nature, is (from our first parents) ac●…nied with our penal shame? L VIVES. 〈◊〉 ●…thly (a) City] For it was lawful to have an whore, or a concubine. De Concub. ●…t. lib. 25. Augustine showeth plainly that Rome's old civil law allowed much that 〈◊〉 prohibited. This they gainsay that seek to adapt Heatheisme to Christianity, and 〈◊〉 so long, that corrupting both, and disliking either, they will prove neither good 〈◊〉 good Christians. (b) Dare not profess] This is Cicero's proof, that pleasures are not 〈◊〉 all good loves to be published, and he that hath it may glory in it: but none dare 〈◊〉 bodily pleasures. (c) That great author] [Our Passavantius hath said nothing along ●…ere he speaks: who this was (saith he) mine expositor sets not down: nor can I tel●… [The Lovanists defective here. P●… in french is go onfo●…d. 〈◊〉, or I'll not believe ye: yet, faith, who can be so hard hearted as not to believe him 〈◊〉 swearing, when he confesseth plainly he knows not, chiefly in that which we 〈◊〉 ●…ily believe he knew not indeed, though he should swear never so fast that he 〈◊〉 troth mine honest Passavant, thou mightst do better to have followed thy▪ names 〈◊〉, and have made no stand at all here.] But Lucan lib. 7. calls Tully thus, and the 〈◊〉 quoted by Augustine are his. Tusc. q. l. 3. (d) Sight] That the minds but not the eyes 〈◊〉 behold and judge of the effect. That the motions of wrath and lust are so violent that they do necessarily require to be suppressed by wisdom: and that they were not in our nature, before our fall depraved it. CHAP. 19 Heere-uppon the most acute and judicious Philosophers held wrath, and lust to be two vicious parts of the mind: because they moved man without all order and measure to acts uncondemned by wisdom, and therefore needed to be over-swayed by judgement and reason: which (a) third part of the soul, they placed as in a tower, to be sovereign over the rest, that this commanding, and they obeying, the harmony of justice might be fully kept in man. These parts which they confess to be vicious in the most wise, and temperate man, so that the mind had need still to tie them from exorbitance to order: & allow them that liberty only which wisdom prescribeth, as (b) wrath in a lust repulse of wrong, and lust in propagation of ones of spring: these I say were not vicious at all in man whilst he lived sinless in Paradise. For they never aimed at any thing besides rectitude, reason directing them without rains. But now when-soever they move the just and temperate man they must be hampered down by restraint, which some do easily, and others with great difficulty: They are now no parts of a sound, but pains of a sick nature. And whereas shamefastness covereth not wrath, nor other affects, in their immoderate acts, as it doth lusts: what is the reason but that it is not the affect but the assuming will that moves the other members, performing those affectionate acts, because it ruleth as chief in their use? For he that being angry, rails, or strikes, could not do it but that the tongue and the hand are appointed to do so by the will, which moves them also when anger is absent; but in the members of generation, lust is so peculiarly enfeoffed, that they cannot move, if it be away, nor stir unless it (being either voluntary, or forcibly excited) do move them. This is the cause of shame and avoidance of beholders in this act: and the reason why a man being in unlawful anger with his neighbour, had rather have a thousand look upon him, than one when he is in carnal copulation with his wife. L. VIVES. WHich (a) third part] Plato in his Timaeus following Timaeus the Locrian, & other Pythagorists divides the soul into three parts: and in his De Rep. He places anger in the heart, The parts of the soul concupiscence in the liver and spleen, and reason the Lady and governess of the work (as Claudian saith) in the brain, (b) Wrath in a just] It was called the whetstone of valour, & the raiser of just and vehement affects against the foe, or a wicked Citizen. Cicero. Seneca de Ira. Of the vain obscaenity of the Cynikes. CHAP. 20. THis the dogged Philosophers, that is, the Cynikes observed not, averring, that truly dogged, unpure and impudent sentence against man's shamefastness, D●…. that the matrimonial act being lawful, is not shame, but aught, if one lust, to be done in the street. Even very natural shame subverted this soul error. For though Diogenes is said to do thus once, glorying that his impudence would make his sect the more famous: Yet afterwards the Cynikes le●…t it, and shame prevailed more with them, as they were 〈◊〉▪ then that absurd error to become like dogs. And therefore I think that 〈◊〉, or those that did so, did rather show the motions of persons in copulation ●…o Natural shame. the beholders that saw not what was done under the cloak, than that 〈◊〉 performed the venereal act in their view indeed. For the Philosopher's 〈◊〉 not ashamed to make show of copulation there, where lust was ashamed to ●…e them. We see there are Cynikes to this day, (b) weareing cloaks, ●…aring clubs, yet none of them dare do this: if they should, they would 〈◊〉 all the street upon their backs either with stones, or spittle. Question 〈◊〉 therefore man's nature is justly ashamed of this act: for that disobedience, whereby the genital members are taken from the wills rule and given ●…s, is a plain demonstration of the reward that our first Father had for his 〈◊〉: and that ought to be most apparent in those parts, because thence is 〈◊〉 ●…ture derived which was so depraved by that his first offence: from which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is freed, unless that which was committed for the ruin of us all (we 〈◊〉 then all in one) and is now punished by God's justice, being expiated in 〈◊〉 one by the same God's grace. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) Cynikes] Of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Dog. Antisthenes', Socrates his scholar was their author. ●…ir fashions were to revile, and bark at all men, to be obscene in public, without Cynikes. ●…g, and to beget all the children they could: finally, what ever we are ashamed to do 〈◊〉 secret, that would they do openly: yet were they great scorners of pleasures, and of 〈◊〉 matters, yea even of life. Of this sect were (as I said) Antisthenes, the author, Diogenes 〈◊〉, Crates of Thebes, and Menippus of Phaenice. Tully saith their manners were 〈◊〉 ●…ill and abominable. In office (b) Wearing cloaks] The cloak was the greeks 〈◊〉 ●…t, The cloak. as the gown was the Romans. The Cynikes wore old tattered cloaks, and 〈◊〉 in their hands: Augustine calls them clubs. Herein they boast that they are like 〈◊〉, their tattered rob being like his Lyons-skin, their staff like his club, and their 〈◊〉 ●…sures, as his were monsters. Lucian, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. There are Epistles under Diogenes 〈◊〉, that say these garments are unto him in the same stead that a Kings are to him: his 〈◊〉 his mantle, and his staff, his sceptre. The Donatists, and the Circumcelliones (being The donatians and Circumcelliones. 〈◊〉 both of one stamp) in Augustine's time went so cloaked, and bare clubs, to destroy 〈◊〉 Christians withal. Of the blessing of multiplication before sin, which the transgression did not abolish but only linked to lust. CHAP. 21. ●…D forbid then that we should believe, that our parents in Paradise should ●…e fullfilled that blessing. Increase and multiply, and fill the earth: in that Genesis 1. 〈◊〉 made them blush and hide their privities: this lust was not in them until 〈◊〉 ●…ne: and then, their shame fast nature, having the power and rule of the 〈◊〉▪ perceived it, blushed at it, and covered it. But that blessing of marriage, Lust g●…oing upon sin. ●…rease, multiplication, and peopling of the earth; though it▪ remained in 〈◊〉 after sin, yet was it given them before sin to know, that procreation of 〈◊〉 ●…onged to the glory of marriage, & not to the punishment of sin. But the 〈◊〉 are now on earth, knowing not that happiness of Paradise, do think ●…dren cannot be gotten, but by this lust which they have tried, this is that 〈◊〉 honest marriage ashamed to act it. 〈◊〉 (a) rejecting & impiously deriding the holy scriptures that say they were ●…d of their nakedness after they had sinned, & covered their privities, and (b) others though they receive the scriptures, yet hold that this blessing, Increase and multiply, is meant of a spiritual, and not a corporal faecundity: because the Psalm saith, thou shalt multiply virtue in my soul, and interpret the following words of Genesis, And fill the earth and rule over it, thus: earth, that is the flesh Psal. 138, 3 which the soul filleth with the presence, and ruleth over it, when it is multiplied in virtue: but that the carnal propagation cannot be performed without that lust which arose in man, was discovered by him, shamed him, and made him cover it, after sin: and that his progeny were not to live in Paradise, but without it, as they did: for they begot no children until they were put forth of Paradise, and then they did first conjoin, and beget them. L. VIVES. OThers (a) rejecting] The Manichees, that rejected all the old Testament, as I said elsewhere. The Adamites. (b) Others though] The Adamites that held that if Adam had not sinned there should have been no marrying. (c) Thou shalt multiply] The old books read, Thou shalt multiply me in soul, by thy virtue. And this later is the truer reading, I think, for Aug. followed the 70. and they translate it so. That God first instituted, and blessed the band of Marriage. CHAP. 22. But we doubt not at all, that this increase, multiplying and filling of the earth, was by God's goodness bestowed upon the marriage which he ordained in the beginning, ere man sinned, when he made them male and female; sexes evident in the flesh. This work was no sooner done, but it was blessed: for the scripture having said. He created them male, and female, addeth presently: And God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply etc. (a) All which though they may not The distinction o●… sexes in the cr●…tion. unfitly be applied spiritually, yet male and female can in no wise be appropriate to any spiritual thing in man: not unto that which ruleth, and that which is ruled: but as it is evident in the real distinction of sex, they were made male and female, to bring forth fruit by generation, to multiply and to fill the earth. This plain truth none but fools will oppose. It cannot be meant of the spirit ruling, and the flesh obeying, of the reason governing and the affect working: of the contemplative part excelling, and the active serving, nor of the minds understanding and the body's sense: but directly, of the band of marriage, combining both the sexes in one. Christ being asked, whether one might put away his wife for any cause, because Moses by reason of the hardness of their hearts suffered them to give her a bill of divorce, answered saying, Have you not read, that he which made Mat. 19, 4 them at the beginning, made them male and female? and said for this cause shall ●…man leave father and mother and sleeve unto his wife, and they twain shallbe one flesh? So that now they are no more two but one. Let no man therefore sunder what God hath coupled together. Sure it 'tis therefore that male and female were ordained at the beginning in the same form, and difference that mankind is now in. And they are called one, either because of their conjunction, or the woman's original, who came of the side, of man: for the Apostle warns all married men by this example, to love their wives. L. VIVES. ALL (a) which] There is nothing in the scripture but may be spiritually applied: yet must we keep the true, and real sense, otherwise we should make a great confusion in religion: for the Heretics, as they please, wrest all unto their positions. But if God, in saying Increase, etc. had no corporal meaning, but only spiritual, what remains but that we allow this spiritual increase unto beasts, upon whom also this blessing was laid? Whether if man had not sinned, he should have begotten children in Paradise, and whether there should there have been any contention between chastity and lust. CHAP. 23. But he that saith that there should have been neither copulation nor propagation but for sin, what doth he else, but make sin the original of the holy number of Saints? for if they two should have lived alone, not sinning, seeing sin (as these say) was their only mean of generation, then verily was sin necessary, to make the number of Saints more than two. But if it be absurd to hold this, it is fit to hold that, that the number of God's cittizen●… should have been as great, then, if no man had sinned, as now shallbe gathered by God's grace out of the multitude of sinners, as long (a) as this worldly multiplication of the sons of the world (men) shall endure. And therefore that marriage that was held fit to be in Paradise, should have had increase, but no lust, had not sin been. How this might be, here is no fit place to discuss: but it need not seem incredible that one member might serve the will without lust then, so many serving it now. (b) Do we now move our hands and feet so lazily when we will unto their offices, without resistance, as we see in ourselves, and others, chiefly handicraftsmen, where industry hath made dull nature nimble; and may we not believe that those members might have served our first father unto procreation, if they had not been seized with lust, the reward of his disobedience, as well as all his other served him to other acts? doth not Tully, disputing of the difference of goverments (in his books of the Commonweal) and drawing a simyly from man's nature, say, that they (c) command our bodily members as sons, they are so obedient, and that we must keep an harder form of rule over our minds vicious parts, as our slaves? In order of nature the soul is above the body, yet The soul's power over the body. is it harder to rule then the body. But this lust whereof we speak is the more shameful in this, that the soul doth neither rule itself therein, so that it may not lust; nor the body neither, so that the will rather than lust might move these parts, which if it were so were not to be ashamed of. But now, it shameth not in other rebellious affects, because when it is conquered of itself, it conquereth itself, (although it be inordinately and viciously) for although these parts be reasonless, that conquer it, yet are their parts of itself, and so as I say, it is conquered of itself. For when it conquereth itself orderly, and brings all the parts under reason, this is a laudable and virtuous conquest, if the soul be God's subject. But it is less ashamed when it obeyeth not the vicious parts of itself, then when the body obeyeth not it, because it is under it, dependeth of it, and cannot live without it. But the other members being all under the will, without which members nothing can be performed against the will, the chastity is kept unviolated: but the delight in sin is not permitted. (d) this contention, fight, and altercation of lust and will, this need of lust to the sufficiency of the will, had not been laid upon the wedlock in Paradise, but that disobedience should be the plague to the sin of disobedience: other wise these members had obeyed their wills aswell as the rest. (e) the seed of generation should have been sown in the vessel, as corn is now in the field. What I would say more in this kind, modesty bids me forbear alittle, and first ask (f) pardon of chas●…e ears: I need not do it, but might proceed in any discourse pertinent to this theme, freely, and without any fear to be obscene, or imputation of impurity to the words, being as honestly spoken of these as others are of any other bodily members. Therefore he that readeth this with unchaste suggestions, let him accuse his own guilt, not the nature of the question: and observe he the effect of turpitude in himself, not that of necessity in us: which the chaste and religious reader will easily allow us, to use in confuting of our experienced (not our credulous) adversary, who draws his arguments from proof not from belief. For he that abhorreth not the Apostles reprehension of the horrible beastliness of women, who perverted the natural use and did against nature, will read this without offence, especially seeing we neither rehearse nor reprehend that damnable bestiality, that he condemns, but are upon discovery of the affects of humane Rom. 1, 26. generation, yet with avoidance of obscene terms, as well as he doth avoid them. L. VIVES. AS long (a) as] In this world, the sons thereof beget, and the sons thereof are begotten: but by Christ's mercy they become the sons of the Kingdom, they are generate, by sin, and regenerate by grace. (b) Do we not] This is the common opinion of the schools. Sent. lib. 2. dist. 20. But some of the greeks do hold, that generation should have been both without sin and copulation: which is not likely. For to what end then was the difference of sex and the members of generation given. (c) Command] For we do far more easily rule our body then the rebellious affects of the soul, which war perpetually with reason, so that the soul rules the body with more ease than it doth the inferior part of itself. (a) This contention] Aquinas doth not deprive the marriage in Paradise of all pleasure, but alloweth it that which is pure, and chaste, and far unlike to our obscene and filthy delight in copulation. The gene●… field. (r) vessel] or generative field: put for the place of conception: as Virgil doth. Hoc faciunt, nimio ne luxu obtusior usus, Sit genitali aruo. (f) Pardon] So we do being to speak of obscene matters: with such words as these, saving your reverence, or, saving your presence. So doth Pliny in his preface, being to insert words of barbarism, rusticity, and bluntness, into his work. That our first Parents, had they lived without sin, should have had their members of generation as subject unto their wills, as any of the rest. CHAP. 24 MAn therefore should have sown the seed, and woman have received it, as need required, without all lust, and as their wills desired: for as now we are, our articulate members do not only obey our will, our hands, or feet, or so, but even those also that we move, but by small sinews, and Tendones, we contract and turn them as we list: as you see in the voluntary motions of the mouth and face. And the (a) lungs, the softest of all the entrails but for the marrow, and therefore placed in the arches of the breast far more safely to take in and give out the breath, and to proportionate the voice, do serve a man's will entirely, like a pair of Smiths, or Organs bellows: to breath, to speak, to cry, or to sing. I omit that it is natural in some creatures if they feel any thing bite them, to move the skin there where it bites, and no where else: shaking off not Extraordin●…ies powers of motion in some perons. only flies, but even darts or shafts by this motion of the skin. Man cannot do this: what then? could not God give it unto what creatures he listed? Even so might man have had the obedience of his lower parts, which his own disobedience debarred. For GOD could easily have made him withal his members subjecteth to his will, even that which now is not moved but by lust: for we see some men's natures far different from other some: acting those things strangely in their bodies, which others can neither do nor hardly will believe. (c) There are that can move their ears, one or both, as they please: there are that can move all their hair towards their forehead, and back again, and never move their heads. There are that can swallow ye twenty things whole, and contracting but their guts a little, give you every thing up as whole as if they had but put it into a bag. (d) There are that can counterfeit the voices of birds & other men, so cunningly, that unless you see them you cannot discern them for your hearts. (e) There are that can break wind backward so artificially, that you would think they sung. (f) I have seen one sweat when he listed, and it is sure that (g) some can weep when they list, and shed tears, plentifully. But it is wonderful that divers of the brethren (h) tried of late in a Priest called Restit●…tus, of the (ay) village of (k) Calamon, who when he pleased (and they requested Restitus his ecstasy. him to show them this rare experiment) (l) at the feigning of a lamentable sound 〈◊〉 himself into such an ecstasy, that he lay as dead, sencles of all punishing, ●…cking, nay even of burning, but that he felt it sore after his awaking. And this 〈◊〉 was found to be true, and (m) not counterfeit in him, in that he lay still without any breathing: yet he sa●…d afterward, that if one spoke aloud, he thought he heard him, as if he were a far off. Seeing therefore that in this 〈◊〉 of ours, the body serveth the will in such extraordinary affects; why should we not believe that before his disobedience, the first man might have had his means and members of generation without lust? But he taking delight in himself, was left by God unto himself, and therefore could not obey himself, because he would not obey GOD. And this proves his misery the plainer, in that he cannot live as he would: for if he would do so, he might think himself ●…ppy: (n) yet living, in obscenity, he should not be so indeed. L. VIVES. TH●… (a) lungs] The marrow is not usually taken for any part of the entrails. It is observed that Tully, and the most learned Latinists, use Pulmo continually in the plural number: I 〈◊〉 it is because it is parted into two fillets or lappets: but Celsus, Persius and Lactantius The lungs. 〈◊〉 it in the singular. (b) To take in] For there goeth a pipe from the lungs into the mouth, cal●… As●…ra arteria by Celsus, and Gurgulio by Lactantius [the weasand-pipe] and through this 〈◊〉 breath goeth in and out: for that is the proper function thereof. Arist. Histor. animal. lib. 〈◊〉 (c) There are] Aristotle saith that man only of all creatures cannot move his ears, that is, he 〈◊〉 move them voluntarily, as horses, etc. do. (d) There are that] Plutarch talks of one Parme●…●…t ●…t could imitate the voices of all creatures rarely, whence the proverb, Nihil ad Parmenonis 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉. (e) There are that can break] There was such an one, a German, about Maximilians' 〈◊〉 ●…d his son Phillips, that would have rehearsed any verse whatsoever with his tail. (f) 〈◊〉] And when I was sick of a Tertian, at Bruges, as often as the Physician told me that it was goo●… to sweat, I would but hold my breath a little and cover myself over head in the 〈◊〉, and I sweat presently. They that saw it, wondered at my strange constitution, but they would ha●…e wondered more had they seen Augustine's sweater, that sweat as easily as I can spit. (g) Some] The hired mourners in Italy, and almost all womenkind. (h) Tried of late] Such like hath Pliny of one Hermotimus of Clazomene, whose soul would leave his body and go into same Hermotimus, of Clazomene. countries, and then come back and tell what he had seen. ay village] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is a neighbourhood, a dwelling together. They that dwell in divers hemispheres under one parallel, are called Paraeci. But Parochia, is an other matter, and used now for a parish. Augustine meant of the other. (l) Calaman] Calamisus, was a town in Italy: Calamo was in Phoenicia, and that I think Augustine meant of: unless there were some village in Africa called so: as being bu●… by the Phoenicians, who once possessed almost all Africa. (l) At the feigned] Some feigned mourning, whereupon his fantasy took the conceit, and produced the rapture, or he feigned such a sound himself, and so put of his external senses thereby. (m) Not counterfeit] He did not oppose himself wittingly to those punishings and burnings, but was senseless of them indeed. (n) Yet living] Felicity is not in opinion, but really solid: not in shade, or imagination, but in esse, and truth. Nor was that noble Argive happy, who as Horace saith, thought he had seen five tragedies acted. In vacuo solus sessor, plausorque, Theatro. Aplauding loud when none were on the stage. Of the true beatitude: unattainable in this life. CHAP. 25. But if we observe aright: none lives as he list, but he is happy, and none is happy, but he is just, yet the just, liveth not as he list, until he attain, that sure, eternal, hurtless, undeceiving state. That he naturally desireth, nor can he b●…e perfect, until he have his desire. But what man hereupon earth can say he lives as he list, when his life is not in his own hand? he would live feign, and he must die. How then liveth he as he list, that liveth not as long as he list? But if he list to die, how can he live as he list that will not live at all? and if he desire to die, not forego all life, but to change it for a better, then liveth he not yet as he list, but attaineth that by dying. But admit this, he liveth as he list, because he hath forced himself, and brought himself to this, to desire nothing but what is in his power, as Terence saith: (a) Since you cannot have what you would have, desire th●… which you may have: Yet is he not blessed, because he is a patient wretch. For beatitude is not attained unless it be affected. And if it be both attained and affected, then must this affect needs surmount all other, because all other things are affected for this. And if this be loved as it ought to be (for he that loves not beatitude as it ought to be loved cannot be happy) then cannot it choose but be desired to be eternal. So that the blessed life must needs be joined with ete●…. L. VIVES. SI●…ce (a) you] This was an old saying. Plato, de rep.. That our first parents in Paradise might have produced mankind, without any shameful appetite. CHAP. 26. THerefore man lived in Paradise as he desired, whilst he desired but 〈◊〉 God commanded, he enjoyed God, from whence was his good: he lived without need, and had life eternal in his power, he had meat for hunger, drink for The first man's felicit●… er●… he●… sinned. thirst, the tree of life to keep off age, he was free of all bodily corruption and sensible molestation: he feared neither disease within nor violence without: Height of health was in his flesh, and fullness of peace in his soul, and as Paradise was neither fiery nor frosty, no more was the inhabitants good will offended either with desire, or fear: there was no true sorrow, nor vain joy, their joy continued by God's mercy, whom they loved with a pure good conscience and an unfeigned faith: their wedlock love was holy and honest, their vigilance and custody of the precept without all toil or trouble. They were neither weary of leisure, nor unwillingly sleepy. And can we not in all this happiness suppose that they might beget their children without lust, and move those members without concupiscential affect, the man (a) being laid in his wives lap (b) without corruption of integrity? God forbid. Want of experience need not drive us from believing that their generative parts might be moved by will only, without exorbitance of hotter affect: & that the sperm of the man might be conveyed into the place of conception without corruption of the instrument receiving as well as a virgin now doth give forth her (c) menstruous flux without breach of virginity. That might be cast in as this is cast forth. For as their child birth should not have been forerun by pain, but by (d) maturity, which should open a way for the child without torment: so should their copulation have been performed without lust full appetite, only by voluntary use. This theme is immodest, and therefore, let us conjecture as we can, how the first Parents of man were, ere they were ashamed: needs must our discourse hereupon, rather yield to shamefastness then trust to eloquence: the one restrains us much, and the other helps us little For seeing they that might have tried, did not try this that I 〈◊〉 said, deserving by sin to be expelled Parradise, ere they had used 〈◊〉 means of propagating man how can man now conceive it should be done, 〈◊〉 by the means of that headlong lust, not by any quiet will? This is that 〈◊〉 stops my mouth, though I behold the reason in mine heart. But howso●…: Almighty God, the Creator of all nature, the helper and rewarder of all good wills, the just condemner of the bad, and the ordainer of both, wanted not a prescience how to fulfil the number of those whom he had destinate to be of his city, even out of the condemned progeny of man, distinguishing them not by their merits, (for the whole fruit was condemned in the corrupted 〈◊〉) but by his own grace, freeing them both from themselves, and the slavish 〈◊〉, and showing them what ●…ee bestowed on them: for each one now ac●…ledgeth that it is not his own deserts, but God's goodness that hath freed 〈◊〉 from evil, and from their society with whom he should have shared a just ●…nation. Why then might not God create such as he knew would sin, ●…ereby to show in them and their progeny both what sin deserved, and what 〈◊〉 mercy bestowed? and that the perverse inordinate offence of them, under 〈◊〉, could not pervert the right order which he had resolved? L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) laid] So saith Virgil of Vulcan and Venus. Aeneid. 8. Optatos dedit amplexus, placid●…sque petivit, Coniugis effusus gremio per membra soporem. Embracing me, soft slumber on him crept, And in her lap he laid him down and slept. (b) Without corruption] Therefore should the place of conception be opened, saith T●…mas, and Bonaventure, for that must needs have been opened in childbirth: for bodies do not penetrate one another. And this were no breach of integrity no more then opening of the mouth. For the integrity depends upon the mind. Some hold that the ●…atrix should The monthly flowers in women. have opened at birth but keep shut at copulation as it doth in the effusion of the menstrual blood: and these hold with Augustine. (c) Menstruous] It begins in them when 〈◊〉 breasts begin to grow big: about the twelfth year of their age, it is like the blood of a beast new killed, and happeneth once a month, more or less, in some much, and in some small. Arist. Hist. animal. lib. 7. (d) Maturity] Which as yet, at childbirth, extendeth and openeth the bones of the lower part of the belly, which at any other time can hardly be cleft open with an hatchet: but than it should have been opened without pain, where as now the pain is extreme. That the Sinners, Angels and Men, cannot with their pervesnesse disturb God's providence. CHAP. 27. ANd therefore the offending Angels and Men no way hindered the great works of God, who is absolute in all that he willeth; his omnipotency d●…tributeth all unto all, and knoweth how to make use both of good and bad: and therefore why might not God using the evil angel (whom he had deserued●…y condemned for his evil will, and cast from all good) unto a good end, permit him to tempt the first man in whom he had placed an upright will? and who was so estated, that if he would build upon God's help, a good man should conquer an evil angel; but if he fell proudly from God, to delight in himself, he should be conquered, having a reward laid up for his uprightness of will assisted by God, and a punishment for his perverseness of will in forsaking of God. Trust upon God's help he could not unless God helped him: yet followeth it not, that he had no power of himself, to leave this divine help in relying wholly upon himself: for all we cannot live in the flesh without nourishment, yet may we leave the flesh when we list: as they do that kill themselves: even so, man being in Paradise Man hath no power of himself to avoid sin. could not live well without God's help: but yet it was in his power to live badly, and to select a false beatitude, and a sure misery. Why then might not God that knew this before hand, permit him to be tempted by the malicious wicked spirit? Not being ignorant that he would fall, but knowing withal, how doubly the devil should be overthrown by those that his grace should select out of man's posterity. Thus God neither was ignorant of the future event, neither compelled he any one to offend: but showed by succeeding experience both to Men and Angels, what difference there was between presuming of one's self, and trusting unto him. For who dare say, or think that God could not have kept both Men and Angels from falling? But he would not take it out of their powers, b●… showed thereby the badness of their pride and the goodness of his own grace. The state of the Two Cities, the Heavenly and the Earthly. CHAP. 28. TWo loves therefore, have given original to these two Cities: self loue●… contempt of God unto the earthly, love of God in contempt of ones self to the heavenly, the first seeketh the glory of men, and the later desireth God only as the testimony of the conscience, the greatest glory. That glories in itself, and this in God. That e●…alteth itself in the own glory: this saith to God: My glory and the lifter up of my head. That boasteth of the ambitious conquerors, led by the Psal. 3. 3 lust of sovereignty: in this every one serveth other in charity, both the (a) rulers in counseling and the subjects in obeying. That loveth worldly virtue in the potentates: this saith unto God, I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. And the wise men of that, follow either the goods of the body, or mind, or both: living Psal. 18. 1 according to the flesh: and such as might know God, honoured him not as GOD, nor were thankful but became vain in their own imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened: for holding themselves wise, that is extolling themselves proudly in their wisdom, they became fools: changing the glory of the incorruptible God to the likeness of the image of a corruptible Man, and of birds and four-footed beasts and serpents: for (b) they were the people's guides, or followers unto all those Idolatries, and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed for ever. But in this other, this heavenly City, (c) there is no wisdom of man, but only the piety that serveth the true God and expecteth a reward in the society of the holy Angels, and Men, that God may become all in all. L. VIVES. THe (a) rulers] Into how excellent a breviat hath he drawn the great discourses of a good commonweal, namely that the ruler thereof do not compel, nor command, but standing Augustine's Utopia. 〈◊〉 lo●…t like sentinels, only give warnings, and counsels, (thence were Rome's old Magistrates called Confulls:) and that the subjects do not repine nor resist, but obey with alacrity. (b) They were] Some of the Poets and Philosophers drew the people into great errors: and some followed them with the people. (c) There is no] No Philosophy, Rhetoric, or other art: the only art here is to know and worship God, the other are left to the world, to be admired by w●…ldings. Finis, lib. 14. THE CONTENTS OF THE fifteenth book of the City of God. 1. Of the two contrary courses taken by man's progeny from the beginning. 2. Of the Sons of the flesh and the sons of promise. 3. Of Saras barrenness, which God turned into fruitfulness. 4. Of the conflicts & peace of the earthly city. 5. Of that murderer of his brother, that was the first founder of the earthly City, whose act the builder of Rome paralleled in murdering his brother also. 6. Of the languors that God's citizens endure on earth as the punishments of sin during their pilgrimage, and of the grace of God curing them. 7. Of the cause & obstinacy of Cain's wickedness which was not repressed by Gods own words. 8. The reason why Cain was the first of mankind that over built a City. 9 Of the length of life and bigness of body that ●…en had before the deluge. 10. Of the difference that seems to be between the Hebrews computation ●…nd ours. 11. Of Mathusalems' years, who seemeth to have lived 14. years after the Deluge. 12. Of such as believe not that men of old Time lived so long as is recorded. 13. Whether we ought to follow the Hebrew computation, or the Septuagints. 14. Of the parity of years, measured by the same spaces, of old, and of late. 15. Whether the men of old abstained from women, until that time that the scriptures say they begot children. 16. Of the laws of marriage, which the first women might have different from the succeeding. 17. Of the two heads and Princes of the two Cities, borne both of one Father. 18. That the significations of Abel, Seth, and Enos, are all pertinent unto Christ, and his body the Church. 19 What the translation of Enoch signified. 20. Concerning Caines succession, being but eight from Adam, whereas Noah is the tenth. 21. Why the generation of Cain is continued down along, from the naming of his son Enoch, whereas the scripture having named Enos, Seths' son goeth back again, to begin Seths' generation at Adam. 22. Of the fall of the sons of God by loving strange women, whereby all (but eight) perished. 23. Whether it be credible that the Angels being of an incorporeal nature should lust after the women of earth, and marrying them, beget Giants of them. 24. How the words that God spoke of those that were to perish in the deluge. And their days shallbe an hundred and twenty years, are to be understood. 25. Of God's unpassionate and unaltering anger. 26. That Noah his Ark, signifieth, Christ and his Church in all things. 27. Of the Ark and the Deluge, that the meaning thereof is neither merely historical, nor merely allegorical. FINIS. THE FIFTEENTH BOOK: OF THE CITY OF GOD Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of the two contrary courses taken by man's progeny, from the beginning. CHAP. 1. OF the place, and felicity of the local Paradise together with man's life and fall therein, there are many opinions, many assertions and many books, as several men, thought, spoke, and wrote. What we held hereof, or could gather out of holy scriptures, correspondent unto their truth and authority, we related in some of our precedent books: If they be farther looked into, they will give birth to more questions, and longer dispu●… than this place can permit us to proceed in: our time is not so large as to 〈◊〉 us to stick scrupulously upon every question that may be asked by bu●…s that are more curious of inquiry then capable of understanding. I think 〈◊〉 sufficiently discussed the doubts concerning the beginning of the world, 〈◊〉, and mankind: which last is divided into two sorts: such as live accor●… Man, and such as live according to God. These, we mystically call, Cit●…●…cieties ●…cieties, the one predestinate to reign eternally with GOD: the other The two Cities. ●…ed to perpetual torment with the devil. This is their end: of which 〈◊〉. Now seeing we have said sufficient concerning their original, both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ngells whose number we know not, and in the two first Parents of man●… think it fit to pass on to their progression, from man's first offspring vn●…●…cease to beget any more. Between which two points all the time in●…▪ wherein the livers ever succeed the dyer's, is the progression of these two 〈◊〉 Cain therefore was the first begotten of those two that were mankinds P●…s: and he belongs to the City of man: Abel was the later, and he be●… to the City of GOD. For as we see that in that one man (as the Apostle 〈◊〉) that which is spiritual was not first, but that which is natural first, and 〈◊〉 ●…he spiritual, (whereupon all that cometh of Adam's corrupted nature must 〈◊〉 be evil and carnal at first, and then if he be regenerate by Christ, becom●… good and spiritual afterward:) so in the first propagation of man, and pro●… of the two Cities of which we dispute, the carnal citizen was borne first, 〈◊〉 the Pilgrim on earth, or heavenly citizen afterwards, being by grace pre●…, and by grace elected, by grace a pilgrim upon earth, and by grace a 〈◊〉 in heaven. For as for his birth, it was out of the same corrupted mass 〈◊〉 ●…as condemned from the beginning: but God like a potter (for this simyly th●…●…ostle himself useth) out of the same lump, made, one vessel to honour and 〈◊〉 to reproach. The vessel of reproach was made first, and the vessel of honour Rom. 9 2●…. ●…ards. For in that one man, as I said, first was reprobation, whence we 〈◊〉 ●…eeds begin (and wherein we need not remain) and afterwards, goodness, 〈◊〉 which we come by profiting and coming thither, therein making our abode. Whereupon it follows that none can be good that hath not first been evil, though all that be evil, became not good: but the sooner a man betters himself, the quicker doth this name follow him, abolishing the memory of the other. Therefore it is recorded of Cain that he built a City, but Abel was a pilgrim, and built none. For the City of the Saints is above, though it have citizens here upon earth, wherein it liveth as a pilgrim until the time of the Kingdom come, and then it gathereth all the citizens together in the resurrection of the body and giveth them a Kingdom to reign in with their King, for ever and ever. Of the Sons of the flesh, and the Sons of promise. CHAP. 2. THe shadow, and prophetical image of this City (not presenting it but signifying it) served here upon earth, at the time when it was to be discovered, and was called the holy City, of the significant image, but not of the express truth, wherein it was afterwards to be stated. Of this image serving, and of the free City herein prefigured the Apostle speaketh thus unto the Galatians: Tell Gal. 4. 21 22. 23. 24, 25. me you that willbe under the law have ye not (a) heard the law? for it is written that Abraham had two Sons, one by a bondwoman, and the other by a free: But the son of the bondwoman was borne of the flesh, and the son of the freewoman by promise. This is (b) allegorical: for these are the two Testaments, the one given (c) from Mount Syna, begetting man in servitude, which is Agar: for (d) Syna is a mountain in Arabia, joined to the jerusalem on earth, for it serveth with her children. But our mother, the celestial jerusalem, is free. For it is written, Rejoice thou barren that bearest not: break forth into joy, and cry out, thou that travelest not without Child, for the desolate hath more Children than the married wife, Isay 54. 1 but we, brethren, are the sons of promise according to Isaac. But as then he that was borne of the flesh, (e) persecuted him that was borne after the spirit, even so it is now. But what saith the scripture. Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the (f) bond-womans' son shall not be heir with the free woman's. Then brethren are not we the children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Thus the Apostle authorizeth us to conceive of the old and new Testament. For a part of the earthly City was made an image of the heavenly, not signifying itself, but another, and therefore serving: for it was not ordained to signify itself, but another, and itself was signified by another precedent signification: for Agar, Saras servant, and her sonnewere a type hereof. And because when the light comes, the shadows must avoid, Sara the freewoman, signifying the free City (which that shadow signified in another manner) said, cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the bond-womans' son shall not be heir with my son Isaac: whom the Apostle calls the free woman's son. Thus than we The earthly City in two forms. find this earthly City in two forms: the one presenting itself, and the other prefiguring the City celestial, and serving it. Our nature, corrupted by sin produceth citizens of earth: and grace freeing us from the sin of nature, maketh us celestial inhabitants: the first are called the vessels of wrath: the last, of mercy. And this was signified in the two sons of Abraham: th●… one of which being borne of the bondwoman, was called Ishmael, being the son of the flesh: the other, the free-woman's, Isaac, the son of promise. both were Abraham's sons: but natural custom begot the first, and gracious promise the later. In the first was a demonstration of man's use, in the second was acommendation of God's goodness. L. VIVES. NOt (a) heard] Not read saith the Greek better, and so doth Hierome translate it. (b) Allegorical] An allegory (saith Quintilian) showeth one thing in word and another in An allegory. s●…ce: sometimes the direct contrary. Hierome saith, that that which Paul calleth allegorical ●…ere, he calleth spiritual elsewhere. (c) From mount] So do Ambrose and Hierome read it. Sina th●…moun. (d) Syna is] I think it is that which Mela calls Cassius, in Arabia. For Pliny talks of a mount C●…s in Syria. That of Arabia is famous for that jupiter had a temple there, but more for Pom●… tomb. Some think that Sina is called Agar in the Arabian tongue. (e) Persecuted] In G●…sis is only mention of the children's playing together, but of no persecution, as Hierome●…eth ●…eth: for the two brethren Ishmael and Isaac, playing together at the feast of Isaac's wea●…g, Sara could not endure it, but entreated her husband to cast out the bondwoman & her ●…e. It is thought she would not have done this, but that Ishmael being the elder offered the y●…ger wrong. Hierome saith, that for our word playing, the Hebrews say, making of Idols, or ●…ing the first place in jest. The scriptures use it for fight, as Kin. 2. Come, let the children 〈◊〉 and play before us: whether it be meant of imaginary fight, or military exercise, or of a 〈◊〉 fight in deed. (f) Bond-womans' son] Genesis readeth, with my son Isaac, and so do 〈◊〉 ●…o. but Augustine citeth it from Paul. Galat. 4. 25. Of Sara's barrenness, which God turned into fruitfulness. CHAP. 3. FOr Sara was barren and despaired of having any child: and desiring to have 〈◊〉 child, though it were from her slave, gave her to Abraham to bring him ●…en, seeing she could bring him none herself. Thus exacted she her (a) due 〈◊〉 husband, although it were by the womb of another: so was Ishmael borne 〈◊〉 begotten by the usual commixtion of both sexes in the law of nature: and ●…-vpon said to be borne after the flesh: not that such births are not God's be●… or works, (for his working wisdom as the scripture saith, reacheth from Wisd. 8. 1. 〈◊〉 to end mightily, and disposeth all things in comely order:) but in that, that 〈◊〉 the signification of that free grace that God meant to give unto man, such a 〈◊〉 should be borne, as the laws and order of nature did not require: for na●… denieth children unto all such copulations as abraham's and Saras were, (b) 〈◊〉 and barrenness both swaying in her then: whereas she could have no child 〈◊〉 younger days, when her age seemed not to want fruitfulness, though fruit●…esse wanted in that youthful age. Therefore in that her nature being thus af●…d could not exact the birth of a son, is signified this, that man's nature be●… corrupted and consequently condemned for sin, had no claim afterward 〈◊〉 any part of felicity. But Isaac being borne by promise, is a true type of the ●…s of grace, of those free citizens, of those dwellers in eternal peace, where 〈◊〉 private or self-love shall be predominant, but all shall joy in that universal 〈◊〉, and (c) many hearts shall meet in one, composing a perfect model of ●…y and obedience. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) due] by law of marriage. (b) Age and] For she was both aged, and naturally bar●…. So some both men and women as Aristotle saith, are borne so. (c) Many hearts] that True concord. ●…e concord of the Apostles, of whom it is said: The multitude of the believers were of 〈◊〉. Acts. 4. 32. Of the conflicts, and peace of the earthly City. CHAP. 4. But the temporal, earthly city (temporal, for when it is condemned to perpetual pains it shall be no more a city) hath all the good, here upon earth, and therein taketh that joy that such an object can afford. But because it is not a good that acquits the possessors of all troubles, therefore this city is divided in itself, into wars, altercations, and appetites of bloody and deadly victories. For any part of it that warreth against another, desires to be the world's conqueror, whereas indeed it is vices slave. And if it conquer, it extols itself and so becomes the own destruction: but if we consider the condition of worldly affairs, and grieve at man's openness to adversity, rather than delight in the events of prosperity, thus is the victory deadly: for it cannot keep a sovereignty for ever where it got a victory for once. Nor can we call the objects of this cities desires, good, it being in the own humane nature, far surmounting them. It desires an earthly peace, for most base respects, and seeketh it by war, where if it subdue all resistance, it attaineth peace: which notwithstanding the adverse part, that fought so unfortunately for those respects, do want. This peace they seek by laborious war, and obtain (they think) by a glorious victory. Earthly peace a false good obtained ●…y war. And when they conquer that had the right cause, who will not gratulate their victory, and be glad of their peace? Doubtless those are good, and Gods good gifts. But if the things appertaining to that celestial and supernal city where the victory shall be everlasting, be neglected for those goods, and those goods desired as the only goods, or loved as if they were better than the other, misery must needs follow and increase that which is inherent before. Of that murderer of his brother, that was the first founder of the earthly city, whose act the builder of Rome paralleled, in murdering his brother also. CHAP. 5. THerefore this earthly cities foundation was laid by a murderer of his own brother, whom he slew through envy, being a pilgrim upon earth, of the heavenly city. Whereupon it is no wonder if the founder of that City which was to become the world's chief, and the Queen of the nation, followed this his first example or (a) archetype in the same fashion. One of their Poets records the fact in these words: (b) Fraterno primi mad●…erunt sanguine muri. The first walls steamed with a brother's blood. Such was Rome's foundation, and such was Romulus his murder of his brother 〈◊〉, as their histories relate: only this difference there is, these brethren were both citizens of the earthly city and propagators of the glory of Rome, for whose institution they contended. But they both could not have that glory, that if they had been but one, they might have had. For he that glories in dominion, must needs see his glory diminished when he hath a fellow to share with him. Therefore the one to have all, killed his fellow, and by villainy grew unto bad greatness, whereas innocency would have installed him in honest meanness. But those two brethren, Cain and Abel, stood not both alike affected to earthly matters: nor did this procure envy in them, that if they both should reign, he that could kill the other, should arise to a greater pitch of glory, for Abel sought no dominion in that city which his brother built, but that devil envy did all the ●…chiefe, which the bad bear unto the good, only because they are good: for the possession of goodness is not lessened by being shared: nay it is increased 〈◊〉 it hath many possessing it in one link and league of charity. Nor shall he 〈◊〉 have it, that will not have it common: and he that loves a fellow in it, shall h●… it the more abundant. The strife therefore of Romulus & Remus, showeth the ●…on of the earthly city in itself: and that of Cain & Abel show the opposition 〈◊〉 ●…he city of men & the city of God. The wicked oppose the good. But the good The good contend not one against another. 〈◊〉 ●…e perfect, cannot contend amongst themselves: but whilst they are vnper●…●…ey may contend one against another in that manner that each contends a●… himself, for in every man the flesh is against the spirit & the spirit against 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. So then the spiritual desire in one may fight against the carnal in ano●…, or contrary wise: the carnal against the spiritual, as the evil do against the g●…, or the two carnal desires of two good men that are inperfect may contend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bade do against the bad, until their diseases be cured, & themselves brought to ●…lasting health of victory. L. VIVES. A●…type. (a) It is the first patent, or copy of any work; the book written by the authors ●…e hand, is called the Archetype. Iwenall, An archetype. Et jubet archetypos iterum servare Cleanthas. And bids him keep Cleanthes, archetypes. (b) 〈◊〉.] Lucan. lib. 8. The history is known. (c) His brother built.] Did Cain build a city 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 means he the earthly city which vice and separation from God built? the latter I 〈◊〉 (d) The wicked.] This is that I say, vice neither agrees with virtue, nor itself: for amity 〈◊〉 ●…ongst the good, the bad can neither be friends with the good, nor with themselves. Of the langours of God's Citizens endure in earth as the punishments of sin, during their pilgrimage, and of the grace of God curing them. CHAP. 6. But the languor or disobedience (spoken of in the last book) is the first pu●…ment of disobedience, and therefore it is no nature but a corruption: for 〈◊〉 it is said unto those earthly prilgrimes and God proficients: Bear (a) ye 〈◊〉 ●…hers burdens, and so ye shall fulfil the Law of Christ: and again: admonish the Gal. 6. 2. 1. Th. 5. 14 Gal. 6. 1. Mat. 18. 15. 1. Ti. 5. 20 〈◊〉 ●…fort the feeble, be patient towards all, overcome evil with goodness, see that 〈◊〉 hurt for hurt: and again, If a man be fallen by occasion into any sin, you that 〈◊〉 ●…all restore such an one with the spirit of meekness considering thyself lest 〈◊〉 be tempted: and besides, let not the sun go down upon your wrath: and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gospel: If thy brother trespass against thee, take him and tell him his fault be●… 〈◊〉 and him alone. 〈◊〉 ●…cerning the scandalous offenders, the Apostle saith: Them that sin, rebuke 〈◊〉 the rest may fear: and in this respect many things are taught concerning ●…g. And a great charge is laid upon us to keep that peace there, where that 〈◊〉 of the (c) servants, being commanded to pay the ten thousand talents he ought, because he forcibly exacted his fellows debt of an hundred pence. Unto which simile the Lord jesus addeth this close. So shall mine heavenly father do unto you, except you forgive each one his brother's trespasses from your hearts. Thus are Gods citizens upon earth cured of their diseases, whilst they are longing for the celestial habitation. But the Holy spirit worketh within to make the salve Mat. 18. 35 work that is outwardly applied, otherwise though God should speak to mankind out of any creature, either sensibly or in dreams, and not dispose of our hearts with his inward grace, the preaching of the truth would not further man's conversion a whit. But this doth God in his secret and just providence, dividing the vessels of wrath and mercy. And it is his admirable and secret work, that sin (e) being in us rather the punishment of sin as the Apostle saith, and dwelling in our members, when it doth not reign in our mortal body, obeying the desires of it, and when we do not give up our members as instruments of iniquity to serve it, it is converted into a mind consenting not unto it in any evil, by God's government, and man that hath it somewhat quietly here, shall have it afterwards most perfectly settled, sinless, and in eternal peace. L. VIVES. Bear (a) ye] The Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (b) The spirit of meekness] Because of that which followeth: Considering thyself lest thou also be tempted. It is fit that one that corrects sin, should consider that he might sin himself: lest if he grow proud because he is more perfect than his brother, revenge be at hand, and make him fall worse. (c) The servants] Our Saviour treating of brotherly remission, reciteth this Parable. Math. 18. (d) Not disposing] Ecclesiastes the 7. 15. Behold the work of God: who can make straight that which he hath made crooked. And hence it is that a few rules serve to guide some in honesty, and none, othersome. If the mind be not inwardly moved to good, the outward words do but little good. (e) Being in us] for the proneness to badness that is in us all, is the punishment of the first man's sin, by which without great resistance, we are harried into all enormity. Besides there is no sin but vexeth him in whom it is. The first revenge (saith Iwenall) is, that no guilty man is quit by his own conscience. But this place is diversly read. But the true sense is, If that original promise to sin which we have all from Adam be not predominant over the whole man, nor reign not (as the Apostle saith) in our members, but be subjecteth ●…o the mind, and the mind unto God the governor, not consenting to that wicked proclivity, but rather peaceably restraining it, and coming unto the curing of GOD that good Physician, than that crazed affect becometh sound perfection, and with the whole man attaineth immortality. For this aptness or inclination to sin, which the schoole-divines call foams, is sin in us. Of the cause and obstinacy of cain's wickedness, which was not repressed by Gods own words. CHAP. 7. But that same speaking of God unto Cain in the form of some of his creatures (as we have showed that he used to do with the first men) what good did it do him? did he not fulfil his wicked intent to murder his brother, after GOD had warned him? who having distinguished both their sacrifices, rejecting the one and receiving the other (no (b) doubt by some visible sign) and that because the one wrought evil and the other good, Cain grew exceeding wroth, and his look was dejected. And God said unto him: Why is thy look dejected▪ (c) ●…f thou offer well, and dividest not well, (d) hast thou not sinned? be quiet (e) unto thee shall his desire be subject and thou shalt rule over him. In this admonition of God unto Cain, because the first words. If thou offer well and dividest no●… 〈◊〉▪ hast thou not sinned, are of doubtful understanding, the translators have ●…ne it unto divers senses, each one seeking to lay it down by the line How a sacrifice should be off●…ed. 〈◊〉 ●…h. A sacrifice that is offered to the true God, to whom only such are 〈◊〉 well offered. But the division may be evil made upon a bad distinction of 〈◊〉 ●…es, place, offering, offrers or of him to whom it is offered, or of them to 〈◊〉 the offering is distributed: meaning here by division, a discerning be●… offering at due times, in due places▪ due offerings, due distributions and the 〈◊〉 of all these: As if we offer, where, when and what we should not: or 〈◊〉 better to ourselves than we offer to God: or distribute the offering to the ●…ctified, herein profaning the sacrifice. In which of these Cain offended 〈◊〉 we cannot easily find. But as the Apostle john said of these two brethren; 〈◊〉 Cain who was of the wicked, and slew his brother, and wherefore slew he him? 〈◊〉 his own works were evil and his brothers good. This proveth that God res●…d not his gifts; for that he divided evil, (f) giving God only some of ●…ll, and giving himself to himself, as all do that leave Gods will to 〈◊〉 their own, and living in perverseness of heart, offer gifts unto God as 〈◊〉 to buy him, not to cure their vicious affects but to fulfil them. This is the ●…ty of the earthly City to worship one, or many Gods for victory, and ●…striall peace, never for charitable instruction, but all for lust of soueraigne●…▪ The good use this world to the enjoying of God, but the wicked just con●… wise, would use God to enjoy the world, (g) such I mean as hold God to 〈◊〉 to have to do in humanity: for there are that are far worse and believe 〈◊〉. So then Cain knowing that God respected his brother's sacrifice and 〈◊〉, aught to have changed himself and fallen to imitation of his good bro●… not to have swollen up in envy against him. But because he was sad, and 〈◊〉 cast down, this grief at another's good, chiefly his brothers, God 〈◊〉 ●…nde great fault with, for thereupon he asked him saying: Why art thou sad 〈◊〉 is thy countenance cast down? His envy to his brother, God saw, and re●…ded. Man, that knoweth not the heart, might well have doubted whe●…●…ee was sad for his own badness that displeased God, or for his brother's 〈◊〉, for which God accepted his sacrifice. But God giving a reason why 〈◊〉 ●…ould not accept his, that he might have juster cause to dislike himself 〈◊〉 his brother, having not divided, that is, not lived well, and being not wor●… to have his sacrifice accepted, doth show that he was far more unjust, 〈◊〉, that he hated his just brother for no cause: yet he sendeth him not away 〈◊〉 a good and holy command: Be quiet quoth he: for unto thee shall his 〈◊〉 ●…ee subject and thou shalt rule over him. What over his brother? God for●… no, but over sin: for he had said before, hast thou not sinned? and now ●…ddeth, be quiet for unto thee. etc. Some may take it thus, that sin shall ●…ned upon man, so that he that sinneth, shall have none to blame for it 〈◊〉 himself: for this is the wholesome medicine of repentance, and the fit plea ●…rdon, that these words of God be unsterstood as a percept, and not as a pro●…: for than shall every man rule over sin, when he doth not support it by ●…ce, but subdue it by repentance: otherwise he that becomes the protec●… it, shall sure become prisoner to it. But if we understand this sin to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carnal concupiscence whereof the Apostle saith: The flesh coveteth a●… the spirit, amongst whose works, envy is reckoned for one, which in●… Cain to his brother's murder, than we may well take these words 〈◊〉: It shallbe turned unto thee, and thou shalt rule over it, for the carnal part being moved (which the Apostle calls sin, saying, I do not this but the sin which dwelleth in me:) which part the Philosophers call the vicious part of the soul, that ought not to rule but to serve the mind, and be thereby kerbed from unreasonable acts: when this moveth us to any mischief, if we follow the Apostles counsel, saying, give not your members as weapons of unrighteousness unto Rom. 6. 13. sin, then is this part conquered and brought under the mind and reason. This rule God gave him that maliced his brother, and desired to kill him whom he ought to follow: be quiet quoth he, that is, keep thine hands out of mischief, let not sin get predominance in thy body, to effect what it desireth, nor give thou thy members up as weapons of unrighteousness thereunto, for unto thee shall the desires thereof become subject, if thou restrain it by supression and increase it not by giving it scope. And thou shalt rule over it: Permit it not to perform any external act, and thy goodness of will shall exclude it from all internal motion. Such a saying there is also of the woman, when God had examined and condemned our first parents after their sin, the devil in the serpent, and man and woman in themselves: I will greatly increase thy sorrows and thy conceptions (saith he): in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children: and then he addeth, And thy desire shallbe subject to thine husband and he shall rule over thee: thus what was to Cain concerning sin or concupiscence, the same was said here to the offending woman: where we must learn, that the man must govern the woman, as the soul should govern the body. whereupon the Apostle said, he that loveth his wife loveth himself, for no man ever hated his own flesh. These we must cure, as 〈◊〉. 5. our own, not cast away, as strangers. But Cain, conceived of God's command like a malevolent reprobate, and yielding to his height of envy, lay in wait for his brother and slew him. This was the founder of the fleshly City. How he further-more was a Type of the jews, that killed Christ the true shepherd prefigured in the shepherd Abel I spare to relate, because it is a prophetical Allegory, and I remember that I said somewhat hereof in my work against Faustus the Manichee. L. VIVES. HE (a) used.] Sup. Gen. ad lit. lib. 8. He inquireth how God spoke to Adam, spiritually, or corporally▪ and he answereth that he spoke to him as he did to Abraham, Moses. etc. in a corporal shape, thus they heard him walking in Paradise in the shade. (q) No doubt.] How could Cain know (saith Hierome) that God accepted his brother's sacrifice and refused his, but that it is true that Theodotion doth say: the Lord set Abel's sacrifice on fire, but Caines he did not, that ●…ire had wont to come down from heaven upon the sacrifice, Salomon's offering at the 〈◊〉 of the temple, and Elias his upon mount Carmel do testifie●… Thus far Hierom. (c) If thou.] So do the seventy read it: our common translation is: If thou do well shalt thou not be accepted, 〈◊〉 if thou do not well, sin lieth at the door. Hierome rehearseth the translation of the seventy and saith thus: the Hebrew and the Septuagintes do differ much in this place. But the Hebrew read it as our vulgar translations have it: and the seventy have it as Augustine readeth it. (d) Be quiet.] Run not headlong on, neither be desperate of pardon; sins original is adherent unto all men, but, it is in man's choice to yield to it or no. (e) Unto thee shall.] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, say the seventy. Aquila hath Societas, and Sy●…achus Appetitus, or Impetus. The ●…g ●…ay be either that sin shallbe our fellow, or that sins violence shallbe in our power to 〈◊〉, as the sequel declareth, and this later is the likelier to be the true meaning. (f) Gi●… God.] God respects not the gift but the giver, and therefore the sacrifices of the wicked 〈◊〉, and neither acceptable to God nor good men, as Plato saith. (g) Such I mean.] For 〈◊〉 some Atheists: but such wicked as believe a God, think that they can mean God by 〈◊〉 to return them the same again, tenfold, be it gold or silver. As Sylla and Crassus of●… Hercules the tenth part of their good, that they might be hereby enriched. The reason why Cain was the first of mankind that ever built a city. CHAP. 8. 〈◊〉 now must I defend the authority of the divine history that saith, that this 〈◊〉 man built a city, when there were but three or four men upon earth, 〈◊〉 had killed his brother, there were but Adam, the first father, Cain him●… his son Enoch, whose name was given to the city. But they that stick 〈◊〉 consider not that the Scriptures (a) need not name all the men that were 〈◊〉 earth at that time: but only those that were pertinent to the purpose. 〈◊〉 ●…pose of the Holy Ghost in Moses was to draw a pedigree, and genealo●… Adam, through certain men, unto Abraham, and so by his seed unto the 〈◊〉 of God: which being distinct from all other nations, might contain all 〈◊〉 and prefigurations of the eternal City of Heaven and Christ the king and 〈◊〉: all which were spiritual and to come: yet so, as the men of the Earthly 〈◊〉 ●…ad mention made of them also; as far as was necessary to show 〈◊〉 ●…saries of the said glorious city of God. Therefore when the Scrip●…●…on up a man's time, and conclude, he lived thus long, and had sons 〈◊〉 ●…ers, must we imagine that because he names not those sons and daugh●… might be in so many years as one man lived in those times, as many 〈◊〉 gotten and borne, as would serve to people divers cities? But it 〈◊〉 ●…o God, who inspired the spirit by which the scriptures were penned, 〈◊〉 ●…guish these two states, by several generations, as first, that the several 〈◊〉 ●…gies of the carnal Citizens, and of the spiritual unto the deluge, might 〈◊〉 ●…cted by themselves where they are both recited: their distinction, in 〈◊〉 one is recited down from the murderer Cain, and the other from 〈◊〉 ●…ous Seth, whom Adam had given for (b) him whom Cain had murdered, 〈◊〉 conjunction, in that all men grew from bad to worse, so that they de●…●…o be all over whelmed with the flood, excepting one just man called 〈◊〉 wife, his three sons and their wives: only these eight persons did 〈◊〉 ●…chsafe to deliver in the Ark, of all the whole generation of mankind, 〈◊〉 therefore it is written. And Cain knew his wife which conceived and bare 〈◊〉 (c) and he built a city and called it by his sons name, Henoch: this pro●… that he was his (d) first son, for we may not think that because 〈◊〉 here, that he knew his wife, that he had not known her before, for this is 〈◊〉 Adam also, not only when Cain was begotten, who was his first son, 〈◊〉 Seth, his younger son was borne also. Adam knew his wife and she 〈◊〉 and bare a son and called his name Seth. Plain it is then that the Scrip●…●…th this phrase in all copulations, and not only in those wherein the first 〈◊〉 are borne. Nor is it necessary that Henoch should be Cain's first son, 〈◊〉 the city bore his name, there might be some other reason why his fa●…●…ed him above the rest (e), For judas, of whom the name of Iud●…, and 〈◊〉 ●…me, was not Israel's first borne: but admit Henoch, was this bvilder's 〈◊〉, it is no consequent that his father named the city after him as soon as he was borne, for than could not he have founded a city, which is nothing else but a multitude of men combined in one band of society. Therefore when What a City is. this man's children & family grew populous, than he might sort them into a city, and call it after his first son, for the men lived so long in those days, that of all that are recorded together with their years, he that lived the least time (f) lived 753. years. And some exceeded 900. yet all were short of a 1000 (g) Who maketh any doubt now that in one man's time, mankind might increase to a number able to replenish many cities more than one? It is a good proof hereof, that of Abraham's seed only, the Hebrew people in less than 500 years grew to such a number that their went 600000. persons of them, out of Egypt, and those all warlike youths: to omit the progeny of the Idumaeans that Esau begot, and the (h) nations that came of Abraham's other son, not by Sara: for these belong not to Israel. L. VIVES. NEeded (a) not.] No they say, had a son called jonicus, a great astronomer: Moses nameth jonicus. him not. (b) For him.] Thereupon was he called Seth. Gen. 4. 25. (c) And he built. The humanists cannot agree about the first city-founder. Some (with Pliny) say Cecrops, who built that which was first called Arx Cecropia, and afterwards Acropolis: Staho saith 〈◊〉 built Argos (which Homer calls Pelasgicon) first. The Egyptians claim all themselves, and The first City. make their Diospolis, or Thebes the eldest city of all: But this Henochia as joseph noteth which Cain built is the eldest of all, Cain being plagued with terror of conscience for the death of hi●… brother built it, and walled it about. It was a type of this world, and the society of devils. Henochia. Hi●…on ad Marcellam. (d) First son.] josephus saith he was, but he taketh the scriptures at the first sight. (e) For judas.] He was Jacob's fourth soon by Lea. juda was first called Canaan of Cham's son, and afterwards juda of judas Jacob's son. josephus. So saith justine. lib. 36. who reckoneth judea. but ten sons of Israel, but he errs in this, as he doth there where he saith that, the whole nation were called jews by Israel himself after his son judas, who died after the division, but before his father. Lactantius saith that they took this name in a certain desert of Syris where they rested, because judas had been the captain of that company, & the land where they had dwelled, had been called judea. lib. 4. But I think that both the nation got the name, and the tribe of judah the Kingdom, for that in passing of the read sea, all the tribes stopping, judah made first way out after Moses, which the Hebrews say is meant by that of jacob unto judas, Thou hast come up from captivity my son, for so do they read it, (f) Lived 753.] I think this Gen. 49. 9 was Lamech, noah's father, who as the Hebrew saith lived 757. years, and the Septuagins 753. (g) Who maketh.] In my father's time their was a town in Spain, every dweller whereof was descended from the children of one man who was then a live: yet were there an hundred houses in the town, so that the youngest knew not by what name of kindred to call the old man, for our language hath names no higher than the great grandfather. (h) The nations.] From Is●…ael Abraham's son by Agar. Of the length of life, and bigness of body that men had before the deluge. CHAP. 9 THerefore no wiseman need doubt that Cain might build a City, and that a large one, men living so long in those days: unless some faithless will take occason of incredulity from the number of years which our authors recite men to have lived, and say it is impossible: And so also they may deny the bigness of men's bodies in those days to have far exceeded ours: whereof their famous Poet (a) Virgil gives a testimony of a bounder stone, that a valiant man caught up in fight, and running upon his foe, threw this at him. Uix illud lecti bis sex cervise tulissent, Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus. It passed the power of twelve strong men to raise, That stone from ground: as men go now adays. (b) Intimating that m●…n of elder times were of far larger bodies: How much more than before that famous deluge in the world's infancy? This difference of growth is convinced out of old Sepulchers which either ruins, or ruiners, or 〈◊〉 ●…hance have opened, and wherein have been found bones of an incredible ●…e. Upon the shore of Utica, I myself and many with me, saw a man's (c) 〈◊〉 ●…oth of that bigness, that if it had been cut into pieces, would have 〈◊〉 an hundred of ours. But I think it was some Giant's tooth: for though the ●…ents bodies exceeds ours, the Giants exceeded all them: and our times 〈◊〉 seen some (though very few) that have overgrown the ordinary sta●… exceedingly. (d) Pliny the second, that great scholar, affirms that the 〈◊〉 the world lasteth, the lesser bodies shall nature produce: as Homer (he 〈◊〉) doth often complain: not deriding it as a fiction, but recording it as a 〈◊〉 of the miracles of nature. But as I said, the bones of the entombed 〈◊〉 have left great proofs of this unto posterity: but as for the continu●… their times, that cannot be proved by any of those testimonies: yet ●…e not derogate from the credit of holy Scriptures, nor be so impudent ●…g incredulous of what they relate, seeing we see those things have ●…taine events, that they foretell. Pliny (e) saith that there is as yet a 〈◊〉 wherein men live two hundred years. If then we believe that this 〈◊〉 of life which we have not known, is yet extant in some unknown 〈◊〉, why may we not believe that it hath been general in ancient ●…ls it possible that that which is not here may be in another place, and is it ●…ble that that which is not now, might have come at some other time? L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) gives] Aeneid. 12. of Turnus. Alluding to that fight of Diomedes and Aeneas 〈◊〉, where Diomedes takes up a stone which fourteen such men as the world 〈◊〉 (faith he) could not lift, and threw it at Aeneas, who being stricken down with 〈◊〉 ●…her covered him with a mist and so saved him. Iwenall toucheth them both, at 〈◊〉 Virgil and Homer. Sat. 15. Saxa inclinatus per humum quaesita lacertis Incipiunt torquere domestica seditione Tela, nec hunc lapidem quali se Turnus & ajax, Et quo Tydides percussit pondere coxam Aeneae, sed quam valeant emittere dextrae Illis dissimiles, & nostro tempore natae. Nam genus hoc vivo iam decrescebat Homero. Terra malos homines nunc educat atque pufillos, Ergo dous quicunque aspexit, ridet & odit, etc. They stooped for stones to cast, and kept a coil With those fit weapons for a scambling broil: Not such as Turnus threw, nor ajax tall, Nor that Aeneas haunch was hurt withal, But such as our weak arms to weald were able: far short of those: those worthies memorable Began to fail ere Homer failed his pen: And earth brings nothing forth but Pygmee-men, The Gods behold our growth with jesting scorn, etc. (b) Intimating] And in his Georgikes, lib. 1. Girandiaque eff●…ssis mirabitur ●…sse sepulchris. And gaze on those huge bones within the tomb. (c) Ax●…th] Upon Saint Christopher's day we went to visit the chief Church of our city, and there was a tooth shown us as big as my fist, which they say was Saint Christopher's. There was with me Hierom Burgarin●…, a man of a most modest and sober carriage, and Hier●…e Burgarin●…. an infatigable student: which he hath both from nature and also from the example of his father●… who though he were old, and had a great charge of family, yet gave himself to his book that his children might see him and imitate him. (d) Pliny] His natural history we Pliny the sec●…d. have. I need neither stand to commend this work, nor the author's learned diligence. This which Augustine citeth is in his seventh book: where also he saith, that in Crete there was a mountain rend by an earthquake, and in it, a body of forty six cubits long was found. Some said it was Otus his body, and some Orion's. Orestes his body was digged up by oracle, and found to be seven cubits long. Now Homer complained of the decrease of stature, very near a thousand years ago. Thus far Pliny: Cyprian writes hereof also to Demetrianus, and Vriell God's Angel spoke it also unto Esdras. Besides Gellius (lib. 3.) saith, that the ordinary stature of man was never above seven foot, which I had rather believe, than Herodotus that fabulous Historiographer, who saith that Orestes his body was found to to be seven cubits, which is twelve foot and ¼. unless as Homer think, the bodies of the ancients were larger than those of later times, who decline with the world's declining age: But Plato, Aristotle, and their followers, that held the world to be eternal, affirm that it neither diminisheth nor declineth. (e) Saith] Lib. 7. chap. 48. Hellanicus saith, that there is a race of the Epirotes in Etolia that live two hundred years, and Damastes holdeth so also, naming one Pistor●…s a chief man amongst them in strength, who lived three hundred years. Of the difference that seems to be between the Hebrews computation and ours. CHAP. 10. WHerefore though there seem to be some difference between the Hebrews computation and ours, I know not upon what cause, yet it doth not disprove that those men lived as long as we say they did. For Adam ere he begot Seth, is said by our (a) books, to have lived two hundred and thirty years, by the Hebrews, but one hundred and thirty. But after he had be gotten Seth, he lived seven hundred years by our account, and eight hundred by the Hebrews. Thus both agree in the main sum. And so in the following generations, the Hebrews are still at such or such an one's birth, an hundred years behind us in this father's age, but in his years after his sons birth, they still come up unto our general sum, and both agree in one. But in the ●…xt generation they differ not a letter. In the seventh generation wherein Henoch was (not he that died▪ but he that pleased GOD and was translated) there is the same difference of the one hundred years before he begot his son: but all come to one end still: both the books making him live three hundred sixty and five years ere his translation. The eight generation hath some difference, but of less moment, and no●… like to this. For Mathusalem having begotten Enoch, before he had his next s●…e whom the Scriptures name, is said by the Hebrews to have lived twenty years longer than we say he lived: but in the account of his years after this son, we added the twenty, and both do jump in one just sum. Only in the ninth generation, that is in the years of Lamech the son of Mathusalem and the father of Noah, we differ in the whole sum, but it is but sour and 〈◊〉 years, and that they have more than we: for his age, ere he begot Noah, in the Hebrew is six years less than in ours: and their sum of his years afterwards is thirty more than ours: which six taken from thirty, leaves four and twenty, as I said before. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) books] Meaning the Latin translations that the Church used then, out of the 70. 〈◊〉 Hieroms was either published or received. And by the Hebrew books he means the 〈◊〉 scriptures, and the Hebrew authors thereto agreeing. Adam (saith Hierome) lived 〈◊〉, and begot a son like himself and called his name Seth. Where we are to con●…●…t from Adam to the flood, where we read two hundred years and the overplus, the 〈◊〉 read only one hundred and the overplus. And the days of Adam after he had be●… Seth, were seven hundred years, because the translators had erred an hundred before, 〈◊〉 he puts but seven hundred, where the Hebrew hath eight hundred. Thus far Hierome, 〈◊〉 ●…cepts not at all at this manner of computation. Augustine omittes jareds begetting of 〈◊〉 in the sixth generation, but this indeed goeth not above two hundred years. Of Mathusalems' years, who seemeth to have lived fourteen years after the deluge. CHAP. 11. ●…here is a (a) notable question arising upon this difference between us 〈◊〉 ●…he Hebrews, where Mathusalem is reckoned to have lived fourteen 〈◊〉 ●…fter the deluge: whereas the Scripture accounteth but eight persons 〈◊〉 saved therein of all mankind, whereof Mathusalem was none. For in ●…kes, Mathusalem lived ere he begot Lamech, one hundred sixty seven 〈◊〉 and Lamech until he begot Noah, one hundred four score & eight years, 〈◊〉 joined, make three hundred fifty and five years, unto which add Noah's 〈◊〉 ●…dred years (for then begun the deluge) and so the time between Ma●… birth and the deluge is nine hundred fifty and five years. Now Ma●… days are reckoned to be nine hundred sixty and nine years: for 〈◊〉 hundred sixty▪ and seven years of age ere he begot Lamech▪ he 〈◊〉 hundred and two years after, which make in all nine hundred sixty 〈◊〉 from whence take nine hundred ●…iftie five (the time from his birth to 〈◊〉 ●…ge) and there remains fourteen, which he is thought to live after the 〈◊〉 whereupon some think that he lived this time (not upon earth 〈◊〉 was not a soul of those escaped▪ but) in the place to which his son 〈◊〉 ●…slated, with him until the deluge were come and gone: because they 〈◊〉 call the authority of these truths into question▪ seeing the Church 〈◊〉 ●…wed them, nor believe that the jews have the truth rather than we: 〈◊〉 that this should rather be an error in us▪ then in those o●… of whom 〈◊〉 it by the Greek. But say they, it is incredible that the seventy 〈◊〉 ●…ers, who translated all at one time, and in one sen●… could er●…, or would falsify in a thing impertinent unto them: but that the jews, envying out translations of their law and their Prophets, altered diverse things in their books, to subvert the authority of ours. This opinionative suspicion, every one may take as he please: but this is once sure, Mathusalem lived not after the deluge, but died in the same year, if the Hebrews account be true. Concerning the Septuagints translation, I will speak my mind hereafter, when I come (by God's help) to the times themselves, as the method of the work shall exact. Sufficeth it for this present question to have shown by both books, that the Fathers of old lived so long, that one man might see a number of his own propagation sufficient to build a city. L. VIVES. NOtable (a) question] Hierome saith it was famous in all the Churches. Hierom affirms that the 70. erred in their account, as they did in many things else: and gathers out of the jews and Samaritans books, that Mathusalem died in that year wherein the deluge began. Whereupon Augustine doth justly deride those that will rather trust the translation than the original: Of such as believe not that men of old time lived so long as is recorded. CHAP. 12. NOr is any ear to be given unto those that think that one of our ordinary years would make ten of the years of those times, they were so short: And therefore say they, nine hundred years of theirs, that is to say, ninety of ours: their ten is our one, and their hundred, our ten. Thus think they that Adam was but twenty and three years old when he begot Seth: and Seth but twenty and an half when he begat Enos, which the Scriptures calls two hundred and five years. For as these men hold, the Scripture divided one year into ten parts, calling each part a year: and each (a) part hath a sixefolde quadrate, because that in six days God made the world to rest upon the seventh, (whereof I have already disputed in the eleventh book.) Now six times six, (for six maketh the sixe-fold quadrate) is thirty six: and ten times thirty six is three hundred and sixty, that is twelve months of the Moon. The five days remaining and that quarter of a day, which (b) four times doubled is added to the leap year, those were added by the ancients afterwards to make up the number of other years, and the romans called them Dies intercalares▪ days enterposed. So Enos was nineteen years of age when he begot Cay●…n, the Scriptures saying he was one hundred fourscore and ten years. And so down through all generations to the deluge, there is not one in all our books that begot any son at an hundred, or an hundred and twenty years, or thereabouts, but he that was the youngest father was one hundred and three score years of age: because (say they) none can beget a child at ten years of age which that number of an hundred maketh: but at sixteen years they are of ability to generate, and that is as the Scriptures say, when they are one hundred and threescore year old. And to prove this diversity of years likely, they fetch the Egyptian years of four months, the Acarnans of six months, and the Latins of thirteen months. (c) Pliny having recorded that some lived one hundred and fifty years, some ten more, some two hundred years some three hundred, some five hundred, some six hundred, nay some eight hundred, held that all this grew upon ignorance in computation. For some (saith he) made two years of summer and winter▪ some made four years of the four quarters, as the Arcadians did with their year of three months. And the Egyptians (saith he) besides there little years of 4. months (as we said before) made the course of the Moon to conclude a year, every month. Thus amongst them (aith●…he) are some recorded to have lived a thousand years. These probabilities have some brought, not to subvert the authority of holy writ, but to prove it credible that the Partiarches might live so long, and persuaded themselves (thinking it no folly neither to persuade others so in like manner) that their years in those days were so little, that ten of them made but one of ours, & a hundred of theirs, ten of ours. But I will lay open the eminent falseness of this, immediately. Yet ere I do it, I must first touch at a more credible suspicion. We might overthrow this assertion out of the Hebrew books, who say that Adam was not two hundred & thirty, but a hundred and thirty years old when he begot his third son, which if they make but thirteen years, than he begot his first son, at the eleventh, or twelfth year of his age. And who can in natures ordinary course now, beget a child so young? But let us except Adam, perhaps he might have begotten one as soon as he was created: for we may not think that he was created a little one, as our children are borne. But now his son Seth, was not two hundred years old (as we read) but a hundred and fifty, when he begot Enos, and by their account but eleven years of age. What shall I say of Canaan who begot Malalehel at seventy, not at a hundred and seventy years of age, say the Hebrews? If those were but seven years, ●…at man can beget a child then? L. VIVES. EAch (a) part hath a] A number quadrate is that which is form by multiplication of itself, 〈◊〉 three times three, four times four, and six times six. The year hath 365. days and six A quadra●… in number. 〈◊〉: those computators did exclude the five days and six hours, and dividing the three ●…dred & sixty into ten parts, the quotient was, thirty six. (b) Four times] Of this read 〈◊〉 in Caesar. Censorin. Macrob. and B●…da. Before Caesar's time the year had three hundred ●…-fiue days. And observing that the true year required ten days and six hours more, it was put to the priests, at the end of February to interpose two and twenty days, and because that these six hours every fourth year became a day, than it was added, and this month was 〈◊〉 nothing but the intercalatory month. In the intercalary month saith Asconius, Tully Intercalation of days. 〈◊〉 for Milo. Now this confused interposition, Caesar being dictator took away, com●…ding them to keep a year of three hundred sixty five days, and every fourth year inter●… a day into the Calends of March, which was called Bissextile▪ because the sixth of the ●…ds of March was twice set down in such years▪ for the better adapting of these to the 〈◊〉▪ ●…e made a year of fifteen months interposing two months between No●…mber and ●…ber, with the intercalary month for that year: and this was to bring the month ●…nd 〈◊〉 to the course of the Sun: for the accounts made by winter and summer, they called the 〈◊〉 of confusion, for it contained 443. days, (c) Pliny] Lib. 7. cap. 48. Whether we ought to follow the Hebrew computation, or the Septuagints. CHAP. 13. BUT if I say thus, or thus▪ presently. I must be answered, it is one of the jews lies: of which before: for it is incredible that such (a) laudable and honourable fathers as the Septuagints were, would record an untruth. Now if I should ask them whether it be likely that a nation so large, and so far dispersed as the jews should all lay their heads together to forge this lie, and through their malice others credits, subvert their own truths, or that the seventy being Jews also, and all shut up in one place (for Ptolemy had gotten them together for that purpose) should envy that the gentiles should enjoy their scriptures, and put in those errors by a common consent, who seeth not which is easier to effect? But (b) God forbid that any wise man should think that the jews (how froward soever) could have such power, or so many and so far dispersed books, or that the seventy had any such common intent to conceal their histories truth from the Gentiles. One might easier believe that the error was committed in the transcription of the copy from Ptolemy's library, and so that it had a successive propagation through all the copies dispersed. This may welbe suspected indeed in Mathusalems' life, and in that other, where there is four and twenty years difference in the whole-sum. But in those where the fault is continued, so that an hundred years in the one are still overplus before the generations, and wanting after it, and in the other, still wanting before, and overplus after, still agreeing in the main: and this continued through the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh generation: this professeth a constancy in error, and intimateth rather industrious endeavour to make it so, than any negligent omission to let it pass so. So that this disparity in the greek and latin, from the hebrew where these years are first wanting, and then added, to procure the consent of both, is neither to be said the jews malice not the Septuagints diligence, but upon the transcribers error that copied it first from Ptolemy's library: for unto this very day, numbers, where they are either hard to be understood, or seem to denote a thing not very needful, they are negligently transcribed, and more negligently corrected: for thinketh he that he need learn how many thousand there was in every Tribe of Israel? it is held useless: how few is there that can discern what use to make hereof? But here, where in all these generations, here wants an hundred years, and here is an hundred too many: wanting, afterward when they exceeded before the birth of such or such a son, and exceeding afterwards when they wanted before: he that did this, desiring to pers●…ade us, that the fathers were to live so long because the years were so short: and desiring to show that by their maturity, when they were fit to generate: and hereby thinking to persuade the incredulous, that a hundred of those years were but ten of ours: this made him where he found an age which his account would disable for generation, to add an hundred years, and after the generation was past, to take it from the main sum of his days of life. For thus desired he to prove these ages co●…nient for generation (by his account) and yet not to diminish from the true computation of their whole years. Which because he did not in the sixth generation, this is that that persuades us the rather to think that he did it where it needed, because where it needeth not, he addeth not not altereth any thing. For there in the hebrew he found that Iared lived a hundred sixty and two years before he begot Henoch, which time comes to sixteen years, two months, and some odd days by his account, and that age is fit for generation, and therefore he would not add an hundred here, to make them up twenty six of our years by his reckoning: nor would he detract any thing from the time of Iared after 〈◊〉 birth. This was that made the sums of both books agree. Another persuasion is (c) because in the eight generation before that Mathusalem had begot Lamech, the Hebrews reading one hundred eighty two, our books have twenty years less, whereas ordinarily we use to find a hundred more: and after Lamech his birth they are added again to make up the sum, which is one in both the books. For if he would take a hundred and ●…ie years to be seventeen, because of the ability to get children: he should neither have added nor subtracted any thing from thence: for he found a time full enough here, for want of which he was feign to add a hundred years ●…where. Wherefore we should verily think that this error of the twenty years were occasioned by some fault in transcription, but that the sum of 10▪ is added to the grand-summe again, to make both books agree. Shall we think it was subtlety in him? to cover his addition and subtraction of those years when need was, by practising it also (not with hundreds, but with less sums) where he needed not? whether we think it was thus or no, or that the right is this or that, I make no question, the rightest course of all in all those controversies concerning computations, if the two books differ (seeing both cannot be true) yet (d) believe the original rather than the translation. For some of the Greek copies, besides a Latin one, and a Syrian one, affirm that Mathusalem died six years before the deluge. L. VIVES. LAudable (a) and] A diversity of reading: but of no moment. (b) God forbid] Thus may we answer those that say the jews have corrupted the old Testament, and the greeks the new, lest we should go to drink at truth's springhead. (c) Because in the] I conceive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaning here: Hierom and the seventy, read both that Mathusalem was a hundred eighty and seven when he begot Lamech: unless Augustine had read it otherwise in some other▪ (d) Believe] This Hierom admireth and reason inviteth us to●… no man of wit will gainsay it: but in vain do good judgements defend this, for blockishness lies against it like a rock, not that they only are ignorant in those tongues, for Augustine had no Hebrew, and very little Greek, but they want his modesty: he would ever learn, and they would never learn, but would teach that wherein they are as skilful as a sort of Cumane Asses. Of the parity of years, measured by the same spaces, of old, and of late. CHAP. 14. NOw let us see how plain we can show that ten of their years is not one of ours, but one of their years as long as one of ours: both finished by the course of the sun, and all their ancestors long lives laid out by that rec●…ng. It is written that the flood happened the three score year of Noah's 〈◊〉. But why do the Scriptures say: In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the s●…d month, and the twenty seventh day of the month, if the year were Gen. y. 11. but thirty six days? for so little a year must either have no months, or it 〈◊〉 have but three days in a month, to make twelve months in a year. How then can it be said, the six hundredth year, the second month, & the twenty seventh day of the month, unless their years and months were as ours is? How can it be otherwise said that the deluge happened the twenty seven of the ●…th? Again at the end of the deluge it is written. In the seventh month and the twenty seventh of the month, the Ark rested upon the Mountain Are are ●…t 〈◊〉 and the waters decreased until the eleventh month: & in the eleventh month, the first day, were the tops of the mountains seen. So than if they had such months, their years were like ours: for a three daied month cannot have 27. days: or if they diininish all proportionably, and make the thirteenth part of three days, stand for one day, why then that great deluge that continued increasing forty days, and forty nights, lasted not full 4. of our days. Who can endure this absurdity? Cast by this error then that seeks to procure the scriptures credit in one thing, by falsifying it in many. The day without all question was as great then as it is now, begun and ended in the compass of four and twenty hours: the month as it is now, concluded in one performance of the moons course: and the year as it is now, consummate in twelve lunary revolutions▪ Eastward, (a) five days and a quarter more, being added for the proportionating of it to the course of the Sun: six hundred of such years had Noah lived, two such months and seau●…n and twenty such days when the flood began, wherein the rain fell forty days continually, not days of two hours and a piece, but of four and twenty hours with the night, and therefore those fathers lived some of them nine hundred such years, as Abraham lived but one hundred and eighty of; and his son Isaac near a hundred and fifty, and such as Moses passed over to the number of a hundred and twenty, and such as our ordinary men now a days do live seventy, or eighty of, or some few more, of which it is said, their overplus is but labour and sorrow. For the discrepance of account between us and the Hebrews Psal 90. 20 concerns not the length of the patriarchs lives, and where there is a difference between them both, that truth cannot reconcile, we must trust to the tongue whence we have our translation. Which every man having power to do, yet (b) it is not for nought no man dares not adventure to correct that which the Seventy have made different in their translation from the Hebre●… for this diversity is no error, let no man think so: I do not: but if there be no fault of the transcriber, it is to be thought that the Holy Spirit meant to alter somethings concerning the truth of the sense, and that by them, not according to the custom of interpreters, but the liberty of Prophets: and therefore, the Apostles are found not only to follow the Hebrews, but them also, in citing of holy Testimonies. But hereof (if GOD will) hereafter: now to our purpose. We may not therefore doubt, that the first child of Adam living so long, might have issue enough to people a city (an earthly one I mean not that of Gods) which is the principal ground whereupon this whole work entreateth. L. VIVES. Five (a) days and] The Moons month may be taken two ways: either for the moons departure, and return to one and the same point, which is done in seven and twenty The month of the moon. days: or for her following of the sun until she join with him in the Zodiac: which is done in nine and twenty days, twelve hours, and four and forty minutes: for she never findeth the sun where she left him, for he is gone on of his journey, and therefore she hath two days and an half to overtake him; the jews allow her thirty days: and call this 〈◊〉 full month. (b) It is] Not without a cause. Whether the men of old abstained from women until that the scriptures say they ●…egot children. CHAP. 15. But will some say, is it credible that a man should live eighty, or ninety, n●…more than a 100 years without a woman, and without purpose of continency, and then fall a begetting children as the Hebrews record of them? or if they lifted, could they not get children before? this question hath two answers, for either they lived longer (a) immature than we do, according to the length of time exceeding ours, or else (which is more likely) their first borne are not reckoned, but only such as are requisite for the drawing of a pedigree down from Adam unto Noah, from whom we see a derivation to Abraham: and so until a certain period, as far as those pedigrees were held fit to prefigure the course of God's glorious Pilgrim-citty, until it ascend to eternity. It cannot be denied that Cain was the first that ever was borne of man and woman. For Adam would Gen. 4. 1 not have said, I have (l) gotten a man by the Lord, at his birth, but that he was the first man borne before the other two. Him, Abel was next whom the first or elder killed, and herein was prefigured what persecutions God glorious City should endure at the hands of the wicked members of the terrestrial society, those sons of earth, I may call them. But how old Adam was at the begetting of these two, it is not evident: from thence is a passage made to the generations of Cain, and to his whom God gave Adam in murdered Abel's seed, called Seth: of whom it is written, God hath appointed me another seed for Abel whom Cain slew. Seeing therefore that these two generations, Caines, and Seths, do perfectly insinuate the two cities: the one celestial, and labouring upon earth: the other earthly and following our terrestrial affects: there is not one of all Cain's progeny, from Adam to the eighth generation, whose age is set down when he begot his next son: yet is his whole generation rehearsed: for the Spirit of God would not record, the times of the wicked before the deluge, but of the righteous only, as only ●…orthy. But when Seth was borne his father's years were not forgotten though he had begotten others before, as Cain and Abel; and who dare say whether he had more besides them? for it is no consequent that they were all the sons he had, because they were only named for the fit distinction of the two generations: for we read that he had sons, and daughters, all which are unnamed, who dare affirm how many they were, without incursion of rashness? Adam might by God's instinct say at Seths' birth, God hath raised me up another seed for Abel, in that Seth was to fulfil Abells' sanctity, not that he was borne after him by course of time. And where as it is written, Seth lived 105. or 205. years, & begot E●…s, who but one brainless would gather from hence that Enos was Seths' first s●…n, to give us cause of admiration that Seth could live so long continent without purpose of continency, or without use of the marriage bed, unto generation? for it is writ of him. He begat sons and daughters and the days of Seth were 912. years, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 died. And thus, the rest also that are named, are all recorded to have had sons Gen. 5. 8. & daughters. But here is no proof that he that is named to be son to any of them, should be their first son: nor is it credible that their fathers lived all this while either immature, or unmarried, or unchilded, nor that they were their father's first ●…ome. But the scripture intending to descend by a genealogical scale from Ad●… unto Noah to the deluge, recounted not the first borne of every father, but only such as fell within the compass of these two generations. Take this example, to clear all further or future doubt: Saint Matthew the Evangelist intending to record the generation of the Man, CHRIST, beginning at Abrah●…, and descending down to David, Abraham (saith he,) begot Isaac: why not 〈◊〉? he was his first son? Isaac begot jacob: why not Esau? he was his first 〈◊〉 too. The reason is, he could not descend by them unto David. It followeth: jacob begat judas and his brethren. Why? was judas his first borne? judas begat Ph●…es and Zara. Why neither of these were judas his first sons, he had three before either of them. So the Evangelist kept only the genealogy that tracted directly down to David, and so to his purpose. Hence may we therefore see plain that the men's first borne before the deluge, were not respected in this account, but those only through whose loins the propagation passed from Adam to Noah the patriarch; And thus the fruitless and obscure question of their late maturity, is opened as far as needeth: we will not tyre ourselves therein. L. VIVES. LOnger (a) immature] Maturity in man, is the time when he is fit to beget children: when as hair groweth upon the immodest parts of nature in man or woman. (b) Got] Or possess Maturity. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, say the seventy. Cain, saith Hiero●… is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, possession. Of the laws of marriage, which the first women might have different from the succeeding. CHAP. 16. THerefore whereas mankind (after the forming of the first man out of clay, and the first woman out of his side,) needed conjunction of male and female, for propagation sake, it being impossible for man to be increased but by such means, the brethren married the sisters,: this was lawful then, through the compulsion of necessity: but now it is as damnable, through the prohibition of it in religion: for there was (a) a just care had of charity, that them to whom concord was most useful, might be combined together in divers bonds of kindred and affinity: that one should have many in one, but that every peculiar should be bestowed abroad, and so many, bias many, should be conglutinate in honest Affinity the propagator of charity. conjugal society. As, father, and father in law, are two names of kindred: So if one have both of them, there is a larger extent of charity. Adam is compelled to be both, unto his sons, and his daughters, who were matched together being brothers and sisters. So was evah both mother and stepmother to them both. But if there had been two women for these two names, the love of charity had extended further: The sister also here, that was made a wife, comprised two alliances in herself, which had they been divided and she sister to one, and wife to another the combination had taken in more persons then as now it could, being no mankind upon earth, but brothers and sisters, the progeny of the first created. But it was fit to be done as soon as it could, and that then wives and sisters should be no more one: it being no need, but great abomination to practise it any more. For if the first men's nephews, that married their cousin-germaines, had married their sisters, there had been three alliances (not two) includ●… in one: which three ought for the extension of love and charity to have been communicated unto three several persons: for one man should be father, stepfather, and uncle unto his own children, brother and sister, should they two marry together; and his wife should be mother, stepmother and aunt unto them and they themselves should be not only brother and sister, but (b) brother and sister's children also. Now those alliances that combine three men unto one, should conjoin nine persons together in kindred & amity if they were seuere●… one may have one his sister, another his wife, another his cousin, another his father, another his uncle, another his step father, another his mother, another his a●…te, and another his stepmother: thus were the social amity dilated, and not contracted all into two or three. And this upon the world's increase we may observe even in Paynims and Infidels, that although (c) some of their bestial laws allowed the brethren to marry their sister, yet better custom abhorred this bad liberty: and for all that in the worlds beginning it was lawful, yet they avoid it so now as if it had never been lawful: for custom is a g●…at matter to make a man hate or affect any thing: and custom herein suppressing the immoderate immodesty of concupiscence, hath justly set a brand of ignominy upon it, as an irreligious and unhumaine act: for if it be a vice to plow beyond your bounder, for greediness of more ground: how far doth this exceed it, for lust of carnality to transgress all bound, nay subvert all ground of good manners? And we have observed that the marriage of cousin-germaines, because of the degree it holdeth next unto brother and sister, to have been wonderful seldom in these later times of ours: and this now because of good custom otherwise, though the laws allowed it, for the law of GOD hath not forbidden it, (d) nor as yet had the law of man. But this, although it were lawful, is avoided, because it is so near to that which is unlawful: and that which one doth with his cousin, he almost thinketh that he doth with his sister: for these because of their near consanguinity, (e) are called brothers and sisters, and are ●…eed very near it. But the ancient fathers had a religious care to keep the ●…red with such limmites, lest it should spread unto nothing: binding of it back again into itself, when it was a little diffused, and calling it still to a new combination in itself. And hereupon when the earth was well replenished with 〈◊〉▪ they desired no more to marry brother unto sister, yet notwithstanding 〈◊〉 one desired a wife in his own kindred. But without all question the pro●… of cousin germans marriages is very honest: partly for the aforesaid 〈◊〉, because one person therein shall have two alliances, which two ought ra●… 〈◊〉 have, for the increase of affinity: and partly because there is a certain 〈◊〉 natural instinct, in a man's shamefastness, to obst●…ine from using that 〈◊〉 (though it tend unto propagation) upon such as propinquity hath bound 〈◊〉 ●…stly to respect, seeing that inculpable wedlock is ashamed of this very 〈◊〉. In respect of mankind therefore, the coupling of man and w●…man, is the 〈◊〉 of a city: and the Earthly City needeth only this, marry the Heavenly 〈◊〉 needeth a further matter, called regeneration, to avoid the corruption of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 generation. But whether there were any sign, or at least any corporal 〈◊〉 sign of regeneration before the deluge, or until circumcision was ●…ded unto Abraham, the scripture doth not manifest. That these first 〈◊〉 ●…ificed unto GOD, holy writ declareth, as in the two first brethren, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, after the deluge, when he came out of the Ark he is said to offer unto 〈◊〉▪ But of this we have spoken already, to show that the devils desire to be ●…ted Gods, and offered unto, only for this end, because they know that true 〈◊〉 is due to none but the true GOD. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) was] That alliance might be augmented by matches abroad, and not kept conti●… within the walls of one parentage, but intermixed with bloods, and lineages: thu●… is union dilated, and love sown through mankind. Cic. de finib. lib. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of two brethren are called Patrueles: of a brother and a sister, Am●…: of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…sobrini. The latins have three words for cousin germans. [generally, cousin germans they are all.] Marcellus de propriet. 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their] The Gods used it, Saturn married his sister Ops, and jupiter, juno. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Athenians allowed it. But the Romans, never. (d) Nor as yet] There was a law 〈◊〉 marrying of kindred (saith Plutarch) until at length it was permitted that father or 〈◊〉 marry his brothers or sisters▪ daughter: which arose hereupon: A good poor man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 people loved very well, married his brother's daughter: and being accused, and brought before the judge, he pleaded for himself so well, that he was absolved, and this la●…●…reed by 〈◊〉 universal consent. (e) Are called] So Abraham called Sarah. And Tully calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his uncles son, brother. De finib. lib. 5. Yet Augustine saith not, they are brothers etc. 〈◊〉 very near it. Of the two heads and Princes of the Two cities, borne both of one father. CHAP. 17. ADam therefore being the Father of both the progenies, belonging to the Earthly and Heavenly City, and Abel being slain, and in his death a wonderful (a) mystery commended unto us; Cain and Seth became the heads of the two parties: in whose sons such as are named, the Two Cities began to show themselves upon earth, in mankind: for Cain begot Enoch, and built an Earthly City after his name, no such City as should be a pilgrim in this earthly world, but an enjoyer of the terrestrial peace. Cain, is interpreted, Possession, whereupon either his father or his mother at his birth said, I have gotten a man by God. Henoch Cain, possession Henoc dedication. Seth resurrection. Enos, man. is interpreted, Dedication: for the earthly City is dedicated here below where it is built: for here is the scope and end that it affects and aims at. Now (b) Seth is called, Resurrection, and Enos his son is called, Man, not as Adam was: (for Adam is man, but in the Hebrew it is common to male and female: for it is written: Male and female made he them, and calleth their name Adam: so that 〈◊〉 doubtless was not so properly called evah but that Adam was a name indifferent to them both.) But (c) Enos is so properly a man, that it excludes all womankind (as the Hebrew linguists affirm) as importing the son of the resurrection where they shall not marry, nor take no wife. For regeneration 〈◊〉 exclude generation from thence. Therefore I hold this no idle n●…te, that in the Gen. 4, 19 20, 21, ●…2. whole generation drawn from Seth there is not one woman named as begotten in this generation. For thus we read it. Mathusaell begot Lamech and Lamec●… took unto him two wives: Adah, and Zillah, and Adah bare jabell, the father of such as lived in tents and were keepers of cattle; and his brother's name was ●…aball, who was the father of musicans. And Zillah also bore (d) Tobel, who wrought in brass and iron: and the sister of Tobel was Naamah. Thus far is 〈◊〉 generations recited being eight from Adam, with Adam seven to Lamech tha●… had these two wives, and the eight in his sons, whose sisters are also reckoned. This is an elegant note, that the Earthly City shall have carnal generatio●…s until it end: such I mean as proceed from copulation of male and female. And therefore the wives of him that is the last Father, here, are name●… by their proper names, and so is none besides them before the deluge, b●… evah. But even as Cain is interpreted Possession, of the Earthly cities fou●…der, and Henoch his son, interpreted, Dedication, who gave the City his name, d●… show that it is to have both an earthly beginning, & ending, in which there is no hope but of things of this world: so likewise Seth is interpreted the Resurrection, who being the father of the other generations, we must see what holy writ delivereth concerning his son. L. VIVES. A Wonderful (a) mystery] First of the death of Christ, and then of the martyrs, whom the worldly brother persecuteth. (b) Seth is] Hierome putteth it, position: Posuit. The table at the end of the Bible containing the interpretation of the Hebrew names, saith that Seth, is put, or set. (c) Enos] As Adam is (saith Hierome) so is Enos, a man. (d) Tobel] Augustine followeth the seventy, who read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: whereas the Hebrews read it, Tubalcain: who was the son of Zillah as josephus recordeth also. That the signification of Abel, Seth and Enos, are all pertinent unto Christ and his body, the Church. CHAP. 18. ANd Seth (saith the scripture) had a son, and he called his name Enos. This man hoped to call upon the name of the Lord, for the son of the resurrection Genes. 4. 26. liveth in hope, saith the truth, it is true: all the while that he continueth in his pilgrimage here below, together with the City of God, which ariseth out of the faith of Christ's resurrection: for by these two men, Abel, interpreted Sorrow, and Seth, Resurrection, is the death and rising again of Christ perfigured, of which faith the City of God hath original, namely in these men that (a) hoped to call upon the Lord God. For we are saved by hope saith the Apostle. But hope which is seen is no hope: for hopeth he for that he seeth? but if we hope for that which we Rom. 8. 24 25. see not, then do we with patience abide it: who can say that this doth not concern the depth of this mystery? Did not Abel hope to call upon the name of the Lord God when his sacrifice was so acceptable unto him? And did not Seth so also, of whom it is said, God hath appointed me another seed for Abel? Why then is this peculiarly bound unto Seths' time in which is understood the time of all the Godly, but that it behoved that in him who is first recorded to have been borne, to elevate his spirit from his father that begot him, unto a better father, the King of the celestial country, Man, that is, that society of man, who live in the hope of blessed eternity, not according to man, but GOD, be prefigured? It is not said, He hoped in God: nor he called upon God: but he hoped to call upon God. Why hoped to call? but that it is a prophecy that from him should arise a people who by the election of grace should call upon the name of the Lord GOD. This is that which the Apostle hath from another prophet, & showeth it to pertain unto the grace of God, saying, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shallbe saved. This is Rom. 10. 13. that which is said, He called his name Enos (which is, man) and then is added, This 〈◊〉 hoped to call upon the name of the Lord: wherein is plainly shown that man ought not to put his trust in himself. For cursed is the man that trusteth in man, as we read elsewhere, and consequently in himself: which if he do not, ●…e may become a citizen of that City which is founded above in the eternity of bliss, not of that which Cain built and named after his son, being of this ●…orld, wavering, and transitory. L. VIVES. TH●… (a) hoped] Some read it, Then men began to call upon the name of the LORD: referring to the time, and not to Seths' person. It is an ordinary phrase in authors. The 〈◊〉 approveth it, and so seems Hierome to do. The Hebrews think that, than they beg●… 〈◊〉 set up Idols in the name of the LORD. Hierome. But Augustine followeth the seventy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this man hoped to call upon etc. What the translation of Enoch signified. CHAP. 19 FOr Seths' progeny hath that name of dedication also for one of the sons, the seventh from Adam, who was called (a) Henoch, and was the seventh of that generation: but he was translated, or taken up because he pleased God, and lived in that famous number of the generation whereupon the Sabbath was sanctified, namely the seventh, from Adam: and from the first distinctions of the generations in Cain and Seth the sixth: in which number man was made, and all Gods works perfited. The translation of this Enoch is the prefiguration of our dedication which is already performed in Christ, who rose from death to die no more, and was assumed also. The other dedication of the whole house remaineth yet whereof Christ is the foundation, and this is deferred until the end, and final resurrection of all flesh to die no more. We may call it the house of God, the Church of God, or the City of God: the phrase will be borne. Virgil calls Rome (b) Assaracus his house, because the Romans descended from Troy and the Trojans from Assaracus: and he calls it Aeneas his house, because he led the Troyans' in to Italy, and they built Rome: Thus the Poet imitated the scriptures, that calleth the populous nations of the Hebrews, the house of jacob. L. VIVES. CAlled (a) Henoch] There were two henoch's, Cain begot one, Iared another of the st●…k Two Henoches. of Seth, of this he meaneth here. (b) Assaracus] He was son to Capys and father to Anchises, from whom Aeneas and the Romans are derived. (c) He led] Sallust. Co●…r. Ca●…. Concerning Caines succession, being but eight from Adam, whereas Noah is the tenth. CHAP. 20. ay But (say some) if the scripture meant only to descend down from Adam to Noah in the deluge, and from him to Abraham, where Matthew the Evangelist begun the generation of the King of the Heavenly City, Christ, what meant it to meddle with Cain's succession? I answer it meant to descend down to the deluge by Cain's progeny, and then was the Earthly City utterly consumed, though it were afterwards repaired by Noah's sons. For the society of these worldlings shall never be a wanting until the worlds end: of whom the scripture saith. The children of this world marry and are married. But it is r●…eneration Luc. ●…0. 34 that taketh the City of GOD from the pilgrimage of this world, and pl●…ceth it in the other, where the sons neither may nor are married. Thus then generation is common to both the Cities here on earth: though the City of G●… have many thousands that abstain from generation, & the other hath some c●…zens, that do imitate these, & yet go astray: for unto this City do the author's o●… 〈◊〉 heresies belong, as livers according to the world, not after God's prescription. The (a) Gymnosophists of India, living naked in the dese●…ts, are of this society also: and yet abstain from generation. For this abstinence is not good, unless it be in the faith of God, that great good. Yet we do not find any that professed it before the deluge, Enoch himself the seventh from Adam, whom GOD took up, and suffered not to die, had sons and daughters, of whom Mathusalem was the man through whom the generation passed downwards. But why then are so few of cain's progeny named, if they were to be counted down to the flood, and their length of years hindered not their maturity, which continued a hundred or more years without children? for if the author intended not to draw down this progeny unto one man, as he doth to Noah in Seths, and so to proceed, why omitted he the first borne to come unto Lamech, in wh●…e time there conjunction was made, in the eight generation from Adam, and the seventh from Cain; as if there were somewhat more to be added, for the descent down, either unto the Israelites, (whose terrestrial City jerusalem was a type of the City of God,) or down unto Christ's birth in the flesh, (who is that eternal GOD and blessed founder and ruler) when as all Cain's posterity were abolished? Whereby we may see that the first borne were reckoned in this recital of the progeny: why are they so few then? So few there could not be, unless the length of there father's ages stayed them from maturity an hundred years at the least. For to admit that they begun all alike to beget children at thirty years of age: eight times thirty (for there are eight generations from Adam to Lameches' children inclusively) is two hundred and forty: did they beget no children then, all the residue of the time before the deluge? what ●…as the cause then that this author reciteth not the rest: for our books account from Adam to the deluge (b) two thousand two hundred sixty two years, and the Hebrews, one thousand six hundred fifty six. To allow the lesser number for the truer, take two hundred and forty, from one thousand six hundred fifty six, and there remains one thousand four hundredth and sixteen years. Is it likely that Cain's progeny had no children all this time? But let him whom this troubleth observe what I said before, when the question was put, how it were credible that the first men could for bear generation so long: It was answered two ways: either because of their late maturity, proportioned to their length of life: or because that they which were reckoned in the descents were not necessarily the first borne, but such only as conveyed the generation of Seth through themselves down unto Noah. And therefore in Cain's posterity if such an one wants as should be the scope whereunto the generation (omitting the first borne, and including only such as were needful, might descend) we must impute it to the latelinesse of maturity, whereby they were not enabled to gene●…ation until they were above one ●…ndred years old, that so the generation might still pass through the first borne, and so descending through these multitudes of years, meet with the ●…oud: I cannot tell, there may be some more (c) secret course why the Earthly cities generation should be (d) rejected until Lamech and his sons, and 〈◊〉 the rest unto the deluge wholly suppressed by the author●…. And (to ●…de this late maturity) the reason why the pedigree descendeth not by t●…e first borne may be for that Cain might reign long in his City of He●…: and beget many Kings who might each beget a son to reign in 〈◊〉 own stead. Of these Cain, I sa●…, might be the first: Henoch his son the next: (for whom the City was built that he might reign, there:) 〈◊〉 the son of Henoch the third: (e) Manichel the son of Gaida●… the fourth, 〈◊〉 Mathusael the son of Manichel the fit: Lamech the son of Mathusael the sixth, and this man is the seventh from Adam by Caine. Now it followeth not that each of these should be their father's first begotten, their merits, virtue, policy, chance, or indeed their father's love might easily enthrone them. And the deluge might befall in Lameches reign, and drown both him and all on earth but for those in the Ark: for the diversity of their ages might make it no ●…der, that there should be but seven generations from Adam by Cain to the deluge, and ten, by Seth: Lamech as I said being the seventh from Adam, and Noah the tenth, and therefore, Lamech is not said to have one son▪ but many, because it is uncertain who should have succeeded him, had he died before the deluge. But howsoever Cain's progeny be recorded, by Kings, or by eldest sons, this I may not ' omit, that Lamech, the seventh from Adam, had as many children as made up eleven, the number of prevarication. For he had three sons and one daughter (His wives have a reference to another thing not here to be stood upon. For here we speak of descents: but theirs is unknown.) Wherefore seeing that the law lieth in the number of ten, as the ten commandments testify, eleven over-going ten in one, signifieth the transgression of the law, or sin. Hence it is that there were eleven haircloth veils made for the Tabernacle, or movable Temple of GOD during Exod 26. 7 the Israelites travels. For (g) in haircloth is the remembrance of sin included, because of the (h) goats that shallbe set on the left hand: for in repentance we prostrate ourselves in haircloth saying as it is in the Psalm, My sin is ever in thy sight. So then the progeny of Adam by wicked Cain, endeth Psal. 51. 4 in the eleventh, the number of sin: and the last that consuma●…eth the number, is a woman, in whom that sin began, for which we are all death's slaves: and which was committed, that disobedience unto the spirit, and carnal affects might take place in us. For ay Naamah Lameches daughter, is interpreted beautiful pleasure. But from Adam to Noah by Seth, ten, the number of the law, is consummate: unto which Noah's three sons are added two their father blessed, and the third fell off: that the reprobate being 〈◊〉, and the elect added to the whole, (k) twelve, the number of the patriarchs and Apostles might herein be intimate: which is glorious because of the multiplication of the parts of (l) seven producing it: for four times three, or three times four is twelve. This being so, it remaineth to discuss how these two progenies distinctly intimating the two two Cities, of the reprobate and the regenerate, came to be so commixed and confused, that all mankind but for eight persons, deserved to perish in the deluge. L. VIVES. THe (a) Gymnosophists] Strab. lib. 15. (b) 2262.] Eusebius and Bede have it from the S●…gints but 2242. it may be Augustine saw the last number. LXII. in these chara●…, and they had it thus XLII. with the X. before. The transcriber might easily commit 〈◊〉 an error. (c) Secret cause] I think it was because they only of Cain's generation should be named that were to be plagued for his brother's murder: for josephus writeth hereof 〈◊〉 these words: Cain offering unto God, and praying him to be appeased, got his great gu●… of homicide somewhat lightened: and remained cursed, and his offspring unto the s●…uenth generation, liable unto punishment for his desert. Besides Cain lived so long himself, and the author would not continue his generation farther than his death. (d Resided) Not commended, as some books read. (e) Manichel] Some read 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 hath Ma●…iel: the 〈◊〉: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (f) Mathusael] Eusebius, Mathusalem, the seventy, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (g) In hair clothe] The Prophets wore haircloth to ●…re the people to repentance. Hier. s●…p Zachar. The Penitents also wore it. (h) Goats] Christ saith▪ He wil●… gather the ●…Word▪ that is the just Haircloth. and simple men together, in the world's end, and set them on his right hand: and the Goats, the luxurious persons, and the wicked, on his left. This haircloth was made of goats hair, and called Cilicium, because (as Uarro saith) the making of it was first invented in Cilicia. ay Naamah] It is both pleasure and delicate comeliness▪ 〈◊〉. (k▪ 〈◊〉] Naamah. Of this read Hierome upon Ezechiel. lib. 10. (l) Seven] A number full of mysterious religion, as I said before. Why the generation of Cain is continued down along from the naming of his son Enoch, whereas the Scripture having named Enos, Seths' son, goeth back again to begin Seths generation at Adam. CHAP. 21. But first we must see the reason why cain's generation is drawn out along to the deluge, from the naming of his son Enoch, who was named before all his other posterity, and yet when Seths' son Enos is borne, the author doth not proceed downward to the flood, but goeth back to Adam in this manner: This is the book of the generation of Adam, In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness Gen 5, 12. of God made he him, male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam that day that they were created. This I hold is interposed, to go back to Adam, from him to reckon the times: which the author would not do in his description of the Earthly City: as also God remembered that without respecting the account. But why returns he to this recapi●…ulation after he hath named the (a) righteous son of Seth, who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord: but that he will lay down the two Citti●…s in this manner: one by an homicide until he come to an homicide (for Lamech confesseth unto his two wives that he had been an homicide) and the other by him that hoped to call upon the name of the Lord. For the principal business that God's City hath in 〈◊〉 pilgrima●… upon earth▪ is that which was commended in that one man, who was appointed a seed for him that was slain. For in him only, was the unity of the supernal City, not really complete, mystically comprised: ●…herefore the son of Cain, the son of possession, what shall he have but the name of the Earthly City on earth, which was built in his name? Hereof sings the Psalmist: (b) They have called their lands by their names: whereupon that followeth Psal. 49, 11 which he saith elsewhere: Lord thou shalt desperse their image to nothing in thy Psal. 73, 20 City. But let the son of the resurrection, Seths' son, hope to call upon the Lor●…s name, for he is a type of that society that saith: I shall be ●…ke a fruitful Olive in the house of God, for I trusted in his mercy. And let him not seek vainglory Psal. 52. 8 Psal. 40, 4 upon earth, for Blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust: and regardeth not vanity, and false fondness. Thus the two Cities are described to be seated: the one in worldly possession, 〈◊〉 other in heavenly hope, both coming out at the common gate of mortality, which was opened in Adam, out of whose condemned progeny, as out of a putrefied lump, God elected some vessels of mercy and some of wrath: giving due pains unto the one, and undue grace unto the other, that the citizens of God upon earth may take this lesson from those vessels of wrath, never to (d) rely on their own election, but hope to call upon the name of the Lord: because the natural will which God made (but yet here the changeless made it not changlesse) may both decline from him that is good, and from all good, to do evil, and that by freedom of will; and from evil also to do good, but that not without God's assistance. L. VIVES. THat (a) righteous] Enos, Seths' son, interpreted, man. (b) They have] This is the truest reading and nearest to the Hebrew: though both the seventy, and Hierom read it otherwise. (c) Giving] To show Gods just punishment of the wicked, and his free saving of the chosen. (d) Rely on their] As Pelagius would have men to do. Of the fall of the sons of God by loving strange women, whereby all (but eight) perished. CHAP 22. THis freedom of will increasing and partaking with iniquity, produced a confused comixtion of both Cities: and this mischief arose from woman also: but not as the first did For the women now did not seduce men to sin, but the daughters that had been of the Earthly City from the beginning, and of evil conditions, were beloved of the citizens of God for their bodily beauty: which is indeed a gift of God, but given to the evil also, lest the good should imagine it of any such great worth. Thus was the greatest good only pertaining to the good left, and a declination made unto the least good, that is common to the bad also, and thus the sons of God were taken with the love of the daughters of men, and for their sakes, fell into society of the earthly, leaving the piety that the holy society practised. And thus was carnal beauty (a gift of good indeed, but yet a temporal, base and transitory one) sinfully elected and loved before God, that eternal, internal, and sempiternal good: just as the covetous man forsaketh justice▪ and loveth gold, the gold ●…eeing not in fault but the man: even so is it in all other creatures. They are all good, and may be loved well, or badly: well, when our love is moderate, badly when it is inordinate: as (b) one wrote in praise of the Creator: Haec ●…ua sunt, bona sunt, quia tu bonus ista creasti, Nil nostrum est in eyes, nisi quod peccamus amantes, Ordine neglecto pro te quod conditur abs te. Those are thy goods, for thou (chief good) didst make them, Not ours, yet seek we them in steed of thee: Perverse affect in forcing us mistake them. But we love the Creator truly, that is, if he be beloved for himself, and nothing that is not of his essence beloved, for of him we cannot love any thing amiss. For that very love, where-by we love that is to be loved, is itself to be moderately loud in ourselves, as being a virtue directing us in honest courses. And t●…ore I think that the best and briefest definition of virtue be this, It is (c) a●…●…der of love: for which Christ's spouse the City of God saith in the holy can●…▪ He hath ordered his love in me. This order of love did the sons of God Cant. 2. 4 〈◊〉 neglecting him, and running after the daughters of men: in which two ●…s both the Cities are fully distinguished: for they were the sons of men by ●…ure, but grace had given them a new stile. For in the same Scripture, 〈◊〉 it is said that, The sons of God loved the daughters of men, they are also called the Angels of GOD. whereupon some thought them to be Angels and ●…ot men that did thus. L. VIVES. W●…ch (a) is indeed] Homer. Iliad. 3. (b) One wrote] Some read: as I wrote once in praise of a t●…per. I know not which to approve. (c) An order] That nothing be loved but 〈◊〉 which ought to be loved, as it ought, and as much as it ought. So doth Plato graduate the ●…easonable and mental love. (d) He hath ordered] This saith Origen is that which our S●…r saith, Thou shalt love thy Lord with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, 〈◊〉 ●…th all thy strength: And thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: but not with all thin●… 〈◊〉▪ and love thine enemies, (he saith not, as thyself, nor withal thine heart, but holds it ●…nt to love them at all.) In Cantic. Whether it be credible that the Angels being of an incorpore all nature, should lust after the women of earth, and marrying them, beget Giants of them. CHAP. 23. ●…is question we touched at in our third book, but left it undiscussed, whe●…er the Angels, being spirits, could have carnal knowledge of women: for 〈◊〉 ●…itten, He maketh his Angel's spirits: that (a) is, those that are spirits, he 〈◊〉 his Angels, by sending them on messages as he please: for the Greek Psal. 103 〈◊〉 ●…rd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which the Latins call (c) Angelus, is interpreted a messenger. 〈◊〉 ●…ether he meant of their bodies, when he addeth: And his ministers a fla●…, or that he intimate that God's ministers should burn with fiery zeal ●…ritie, it is doubtful: yet do the scriptures plainly aver that the An●… appeared both in visible and palpable figures. (b) And seeing it is so 〈◊〉 a report, and so many aver it either from their own trial or from 〈◊〉, that are of indubitable honesty and credit, that the Sylvans and 〈◊〉, commonly called (e) Incub●…, have often injured women, desiring and ac●…●…rnally with them: and that certain devils whom the Frenchmen call 〈◊〉, do continually practise this uncleanness, and tempt others to it, which ●…ed by such persons, and with such confidence that it were impudence 〈◊〉 it. I dare not venture to determine any thing here: whether the 〈◊〉 being embodied in air (for this air being violently moved is 〈◊〉 ●…lt) can suffer this lust, or move it so as the women with whom 〈◊〉 ●…ixe, many feel it (f) yet do I firmly believe that God's Angels could 〈◊〉 ●…ll so at that time: nor that the Apostle Peter did mean of them when he said: If God spared not the Angels that had sinned, but cast them down into hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness to be kept unto damnation: but rather of those that turned apostatas with the devil their prince at first, in him I mean that deceived mankind in the serpent. That men were also called the Angels of God the scripture testifieth also, saying of john: Behold, I send mine Angel before ●…hy face which shall prepare the way before thee. And Malachi the prophet by a peculiar grace given him, was called an Angel. But some stick at this, that in Mar●…. 1. Ma●… 3. 1. this commixtion of them that were called God's Angels with the women of earth there were Giants begotten and borne: as though that we have no such extraordinary huge statured creatures even in these our times. Was there not a woman of late at Rome, with her father and mother, a little before it was sacked by the Goths, that was of a giantlike height in respect of all other? It was wonderful to see the concourse of those that came to see her, and she was the more admired, in that her parents exceeded not our tallest ordinary stature. Therefore there might be giants borne before that the sons of God (called also his Angels) had any carnal confederacy with the daughters of men, such I mean, as lived in the fleshly course: that is ere the sons of Seth meddled with the daughters of Cain, for the Scripture in Genesis saith thus, So when men were multiplied upon earth, and there were daughters borne unto them, the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all that they liked. Gen. 6. Therefore the Lord said my spirit shall not always strive with man: because he is but flesh, and his days shallbe 120. years. There were Giants in the earth in those days, yea and after that the sons of God came unto the daughters of men, and they had borne them children, these were Giants, and in old time were men of renown. These words of holy writ show plainly that there were Giants upon earth when the sons of God took the fair daughters of men to be their wives, (g) for the scripture useth to call that which is fair good. But there were Giants, borne after this: for it saith. There were Giants upon earth in those days and after that the sons of God came unto the daughters of men: so that there were Giants both then and before: and whereas it saith. They begot unto themselves, this showeth that they had begotten children unto God before, and not unto themselves, that is not for lust, but for their duty of propagation, nor to make themselves up, any flaunting family, but to increase the Citizens of God, whom they (like God's angels) instructed to ground their hope on him, as the son of the resurrection, Seths' son did, who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord: in which hope, he and all his sons might be sons and heirs of life everlasting. But we may not take them to be such Angels as were no men: men they were without doubt, and so saith the Scripture: which having first said, the Angels of God s●… the daughters of men that they were good, and they took them wives of all whom they The sons of S●… called Ange●…●…ically. liked: addeth presently: And the Lord said, my spirit shall not always strive with m●… because he is but flesh. For his spirit made them his Angels, and sons, but they declined downwards, and therefore he calleth them men, by nature, not by grace: and flesh, being the forsaken forsakers of the spirit. The 70. call them the Angels and sons of God: some books call them only the sons of God, leaving out Angels: But (h) Aquila whom the jews prefer before all, calls them neither, but the sons of Gods: both is true, for they were both the sons of God, and by his patronage, the brethren of their fathers: and they were the sons of the Gods: as borne of the Gods, and their equals, according to that of the Psalm: I have said ye are Gods, and ye are all sons of the most high, for we●… do worthily believe that the 70. had the spirit of prophecy, and that what soever Psal. 82. 6. they altered is set down according to the truth of divinity, not after the pleasure of translators, yet the Hebrew they say, is doubtful and may be interpreted 〈◊〉 the sons of God, or of Gods. Therefore let us omit the scriptures that are 〈◊〉 ay apocrypha, because the old fathers of whom we had the scriptures, 〈◊〉 not the authors of those works, wherein though there be some truths, y●… their multitude of falshhoods maketh them of no canonical authority. S●… Scriptures questionless were written by Enoch the seventh from 〈◊〉. As the canonical (k) Epistle of Jude recordeth: but it is not for ●…ng that they were left out of the Hebrew Canon which the Priests kept in 〈◊〉 ●…mple. The reason was, their antiquity procured a suspicion that they 〈◊〉 not truly divine, and an uncertainty whether Henoch were the author or 〈◊〉 ●…ing that such as should have given them their credit unto posterity never 〈◊〉 them. And therefore those books that go in his name and contain those 〈◊〉 of the giants that their fathers were no men, are by good judgements held 〈◊〉 ●…ne of his: but counterfeit, as the heretics have done many, under the 〈◊〉 of the (b) Apostles and (m) Prophets, which were all afterward examined, 〈◊〉 ●…ust from canonical authority. But according to the Hebrew canonical ●…res, there is no doubt but that there were Giants upon the earth before 〈◊〉 ●…ge, and that they were the sons of the men of earth, and Citizens of ●…all City, unto which the sons of God, being Seths in the flesh, forsak●…●…ice adjoined themselves. Nor is it strange if they begot Giants. They 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all Giants, but there were far more before the deluge, then have 〈◊〉 ●…ce: whom it pleased the creator to make, that we might learn that a 〈◊〉 should neither respect hugeness of body nor fairness of face: but 〈◊〉 his beatitude out of the undecaying, spiritual and eternal goods that 〈◊〉 ●…iar to the good, and not that he shareth with the bad: which another 〈◊〉 ●…eth to us, saying: There were the giants famous from the beginning that 〈◊〉 so great stature and so expert in war. These did not the Lord choose, neither Baruch. 5. 〈◊〉 the way of knowledge unto them: but they were destroyed because they 〈◊〉 wisdom, and perished through there own foolishness. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) is those] That Augustine held that the Angels and Devils had bodies, he that 〈◊〉 ●…th this work, and his books de natura daemon, & de genesi ad literam; shall see plain●…●…eld it himself, and spoke it not as an other man's opinion, as Peter Lombard saith 〈◊〉 ●…ke: It was his own▪ nor followed he any mean authors herein, having the 〈◊〉, and then Origen, Lactantius, Basil and almost all the writers of that time on his 〈◊〉 need (saith Michael Psellus, de d●…monib,) that the spirits that are made messengers, 〈◊〉 ●…ue bodies too (as Saint Paul saith) whereby to move, to stay, and to appear vi●…●…nd whereas the Scripture may in 〈◊〉 place call ●…hem incorporeal, I answer, that is 〈◊〉 of our grosser, and more solid bodies, in comparison of which, the transparent in●… bodies are ordinarily called incorporeal. Augustine gives the Angels most subtiliat●… 〈◊〉 ●…visible, active, and not pa●…ue and such the Devils had ere they fell: but then, 〈◊〉 were condensate and passive, as Psellus holds also: (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] It is N●…ius 〈◊〉: a messenger: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is Mitto to send, and therefore the Angel, saith Hierom, is Angels what it is, 〈◊〉 ●…f nature, but of ministry. And hereof comes evangelium, called the good message. Homer and Tully unto Atticus use it often. (c) Angels] Turning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into n: and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into 〈◊〉▪ (d) And seeing] Psellus affirmeth out of one Mark a great Daemonist, that the devils c●…st forth sperm, producing diverse little creatures, and that they have genitories (but not like men's) from whence the excrement passeth: but all devils have not such, but only the wa●…y and the earthly, who are also nourished like sponges with attraction of humour. (e) Incub●… O●… ●…bus and Succ●…us. 〈◊〉 to lie upon: They are devils that commix with women: those that put themselves under men, as women, are called succubi. There are a people at this day that glory that their descent is from the devils, who accompanied with women in men's shapes, and with men in women's: (This in my conceit is viler, then to draw a man's pedigree from Pirates, thieves, or famous hackster's, as many do●….) The Egyptians say that the Devils can only accompany carnally with women, and not with men. Yet the greeks talk of many men that the 〈◊〉 have loved, as Hiacinthus, Phorbas, and Hippolytus of Sicione by Apollo, and Cyparissus by Syl●…nus. (f) Yet do I firmly] Lactantius lib. 2. cap. 15. saith, that the Angels, whom God had appointed to preserve and guard mankind, being commanded by God to beware of losing their celestial and substantial dignity by earthly pollution, notwithstanding were alured by their daily conversation with the women, to have carnal action with them, and so sinning, were kept out of heaven and cast down to earth: and those the devil took up to be his agents and officers. But those whom they begot, being neither pure Angels nor pure men, but in a mean between both, were not cast down to hell, as their parents were not taken up into heaven: and thus became there two kinds of devils: one celestial and another earthly. And these are the authors of all mischief, whose chieftain the great Dragon is. Thu●… saith Eusebius also lib. 5. And Plutarch confirmeth it saying, That the fables of the Gods, signified somethings that the devils had done in the old times: and that the fables of the Giants and Titans, were all acts of the devils. This maketh me sometimes to doubt whether these were those that were done before the deluge, of which the scripture saith: And when the Angels of God saw the daughters of men, etc. For some may suspect that those Giants, & their spirits are they whom ancient Paganism took for their Gods, and that their wars were the subject of those fables of the Gods. (g) For the scriptures] Because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both good and fair. Terence, Phorm. E●…ch. (h) Aquila] In Adrian's time he turned the Scriptures out of Hebrew into Greek. Hierom calls him a curious and diligent translator: and he was the first Aquila, a 〈◊〉. ●…ter the seventy that came out in Greek. Euse●…ius liketh him not: but to our purpose: he r●…deth it, the sons of the Gods: meaning the holy Gods or Angels, for God standing in the congregation of the people, and he will judge the Gods in the midst of it. And Symachus following this sense, said: And when the sons of the mighties beheld the daughters of men, etc. ay Apochrypha] S●…reta: of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to hide. They were such books as the Church used not The Apocrypha. openly: but had them in private to read at pleasure: as the Revelation of the Apostle Peter: the book of his Acts, etc. (k) Epistle] Hierom upon the first Chapter of Paul to ●…itus, ●…aith that Iud●… citeth an Apocryphal book of henoch's. judes words are these. But Michael the Arc●…gell when he stro●…e against the devil, and disputed about the body of Moses, durst 〈◊〉 bl●… him with cursed speaking, but said only: The Lord rebuke thee. Which Enoch●…yd ●…yd these words, is uncertain, for they do not seem to be his that was the seventh from Adam. For he was long before Moses, unless he spoke prophetically of things to come. And therefore Hi●…rome intimateth that the book only whence this was, was entitled, Enoch. (l) Prophets] As the N●…rites counterfeited a work under Hieremi●…s name. Aug. in Matt. ●…ap. 27. (m) A●…] As Thomas his Gospel, Peter's revelation, and Barnabas his Gospel▪ which was brought 〈◊〉 Alexandria, signed with his own hand: in the time of the Emperor Zeno. How the words that God spoke of those that were to perish in the deluge: and their days shall be an hundred and twenty years, are to be understood. CHAP. 24. But whereas God said: Their days shall be a hundred and twenty years, we must not take it as though that it were a forewarning, that (a) none after that should 〈◊〉 above that time, for many after the deluge lived five hundred years. But it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understood that God spoke this about the end of Noah's five hundred 〈◊〉, that is when he was four hundred and four score years old, which the 〈◊〉 ordinarily calleth five hundred taking the greatest part for the whole: 〈◊〉 the six hundred year of Noah, and the second month, the flood be●…●…o the hundred and twenty years were passed, at the end of which man●… 〈◊〉 be unuersally destroyed by the deluge. Nor is it frute●…esse to be●…●…e deluge came thus, when there were none left on earth, that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of such a death: not that a good man dying such a death should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worse for it after it is past. But of all those of Seths' progeny whom ●…he 〈◊〉 nameth, there was not one that died by the deluge. This flood the 〈◊〉 saith grew upon this: The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great The cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 5 6▪ 7 〈◊〉, and all the imaginations of his heart were only and continually evil: and 〈◊〉 ●…ued in his heart how he had made man in the earth, and said: I will aestroy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the earth the man whom I have made, from man to beast, and, from the 〈◊〉 things to the fowls of the air, for I am angry that I have made them. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) none.] This Lactantius held. lib. 2. His words are these. The earth being dried, the 〈◊〉 ●…ing the iniquity of the former world, lest their length of life should be the mid wife 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he shortened the days of man by degrees, until they came to a hundred and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there ●…e fi●… his bound: not to be overpassed. But Hierome goeth with Augus●… 〈◊〉 shall yet have a hundred and twenty years to repent in, not, tha●… th●… life o●… no 〈◊〉 shall not exceed a hundred and twenty years, as many erroneously understand 〈◊〉 that Abraham, after the deluge, lived a hundred threescore and fifteen years; 〈◊〉 hundred: nay some above three hundred years. josephus differs somewhat 〈◊〉 but not much: for he saith that after the flood men's days grew fewer, vn●… 〈◊〉▪ and 〈◊〉 him the bound of man's life was set up at a hundred and twenty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 decree, and according to the number also that Moses lived. (b) revolved.] 〈◊〉, but the seventy have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 recogitavit: he revolved in his thought. Of God's unpassionate and unaltering anger. CHAP. 25. 〈◊〉 anger (a) is no disturbance of mind in him, but his judgement as●… sin the deserved punishment: and his revolving of thought is an God's prescience and act a like firm and both unalterable. 〈◊〉 ordering of changeable things: for God repenteth not of any thing 〈◊〉 man doth: but his knowledge of a thing ere it be done, and his thought 〈◊〉 it is done are both alike firm and fixed. But the Scripture without 〈◊〉 cannot instill into our understandings the meaning of God's works 〈◊〉 the proud, nor stir up the idle, nor exercise the inquirers, nor de●… understanders. This it cannot do without declining to our low capa●… 〈◊〉 whereas it relateth the future destruction of beasts, and birds, It 〈◊〉 the greatness of the dissolution, but doth not thereaten it unto the 〈◊〉 creatures as if they had sinned. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) ●…ger.] Lactantius wrote a book of God's Anger, we (with Hierome) refer the 〈◊〉 unto him, if he desire to know further. That Noah his Ark signifieth Christ and his Church in all things. CHAP. 26. NOw whereas Noah being (as the truth saith) a just man in his time, and perfect (yet not as the Citizens of God shall be perfect in that immortality wherein they shall equalize the Angels, but perfect as a mortal pilgrim of God may be upon earth) was commanded by God to build an Ark, wherein he, his family, and the creatures which God commanded to come into the Ark unto him, might be saved from the waters: this verily is a figure of God's City here upon earth, that is, his Church which is saved by wood, that is, by that whereupon Christ the mediator between God and man was crucified: For the dimensions of the length, depth and breadth of the Ark, do signify man's body, in which the Saviour was prophesied to come, and did so: for (a) the length of man's body from head to foot, is six times his breadth from side to side: and ten times his thickness measuring prependicularly from back to belly: lay a man a long and measure him, and you shall find his length from head to foot to contain his breadth from side to side six times, and his height from the earth whereon he lieth, ten times, whereupon the Ark was made three hundred cubits long, fifty broad, and thirty deep. And the door in the side was the wound that the soldiers spear made in our Saviour, for by this do all men go in unto him: for thence came the sacraments of the believers: and the Ark being made all of square wood, signifieth the unmoved constancy of the Saints: for cast a cube, or squared body which way you will, it will ever stand firm. So all the rest that concerned the building of this Ark, (b) were types of Ecclesiastical matters. But here it is too long to stand upon them: we have done it already, against Faustus the Manichee, who denied that the old testament had any prophetical thing concerning Christ. It may be one may take this one way, and another another way: so that all be referred to the Holy City whereupon we discourse, which as I say often ●…boured here in this terrestrial pilgrimage: otherwise he shall go far from his meaning that wrote it. As for example, if any one will not expound this place: make it with the (c) lowest, second, and third rooms: as I do in that work against Faustus, namely that because the Church is gathered out of all nations, it had two rooms, for the two sorts of men circumcised and uncircumcised whom the Apostle otherwise calleth (d) Jews and greeks: and it had three rooms, because all the world had propagation from Noah his three sons, after the flood: if any one like not this exposition, let him follow his own pleasure, so he control not the true rule of faith in it: for the Ark had rooms below and rooms above, and therefore was called double roomed: and it had rooms above those upper rooms, and so was called triple-roomed, being three stories high. In these may be meant the three things that the Apostles praiseth so: Faith, Hope and Charity: or (and that far more fitly) the three evangelical increases: thirty fold, sixty fold and an hundred fold: cha●… marriage dwelling in the first; chaste widowhood in the second: and chaste virginity 〈◊〉. 13. ●…3 in the highest of all: thus, or otherwise may this be understood, ever respecting the reference it hath to this Holy City. And so I might say of the other things here to be expounded: which although they have more than one exposition, yet all they have must be liable to one rule of concord in the Catholic faith. L. VIVES. THe (a) length [The same also he hath against Faustus lib. 12. Ambrose also compares Noah's Ark, to man's body, but in another manner. Lib. de Noe et Arca. (b) Were types] The Ark a type of the church. The Apostle Peter taketh the Ark for a figure of the Church. 2. Pet 3. 56. Where H●…rome●…eth ●…eth the Ark to be the Church, Contra jovin. & contra Luciferianos Cyprian doth the 〈◊〉 ●…so. De spiritu sancto, (if that work be his.) Origen also and many others say much of 〈◊〉 Allegory. (c) Lowest second] The Ark was thus built (saith Origen.) It was divided in●…o ●…o lower rooms, and over these were three other rooms, each one immediately above o●…. The lowest was the sink or common jakes: and that next it was the graner, or place where meat was kept for all the creatures: then in the first of the other three, were the wild be●…s kept, in the second the tamer, and in the third were the men themselves. josephus writes 〈◊〉 of four rooms, whereas all else make five. But he might perchance omit the jakes, as 〈◊〉 de Natalibus saith. (d) Jews and] He distinguisheth them by their tongues: for Paul co●…rsed with none but they spoke either Hebrew or Greek: for at Rome they spoke 〈◊〉 as commonly then as we do Latin at this day. Of the Ark, and the deluge, that the meaning thereof is neither merely Historical, nor merely allegorical. CHAP. 27. But let none think that these things were written only to relate an hystori●…ll truth without any typical reference to any thing else: or contrary wise, ●…ere were no such things really acted, but that it is all allegorical: or that ●…soeuer it is, it is of no use, nor include●…h any prophetical meaning concer●…●…he Church: for who but an Atheist will say, that these books are of no 〈◊〉 have been so religiously kept, and so carefully delivered from one age ●…ther, so many thousand years together? or that they are only historical, 〈◊〉 ●…s (to let all the rest pass) the bringing in of the unclean creatures by 〈◊〉, and the clean by seavens, must needs have some other meaning, for they 〈◊〉 have been preserved had they been but pairs, as well as the other. 〈◊〉 not God, that taught this means of re-instauration, repair them as he 〈◊〉 ●…ated them? And now for those that say that all this was but mystical one●…●…st they imagine it impossible that any flood should become so huge as to 〈◊〉 the height of any mountain fifteen cubits, because of the (a) top of 〈◊〉 Olympus which they say reacheth above the clouds, and is as high as ●…uen, so that the grosser air that engendereth winds and rain cannot 〈◊〉 so high: never observing in the mean space, that the grossest element of 〈◊〉 earth can lie so high: or will they say the top of this mountain is not 〈◊〉? no; why then do those bad proportionators allow the earth to lie so 〈◊〉 ●…nd yet deny the water to mount higher, averring notwithstanding that 〈◊〉 ●…ater is higher and of a more ability to ascend then the earth? what reason ●…hey show why earth should hold so high a place in air, for thus many ●…sand years, 〈◊〉 et that water may not arise to the same height for a little 〈◊〉 They say also, that the Ark was too little to hold such a number of crea●…, seven of every clean one, and two of every unclean one. It seems 〈◊〉 make account only of three hundred cubits in length, fifty in breadth, ●…irtie in depth, never marking that every room therein was of this size, making the whole Ark to be nine hundred cubits in length, one hundred and fifty in breadth, and ninety in depth or height. And if that be true that Origen doth elegantly prove, that Moses (being learned (as it is written) in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who were great Geometricians) meant of a Geometrical cubit in this case, one of which make six of ours, who seeth not what an huge deal of rooms lieth within this measure? for whereas they say that an Ark of such greatness could no way be built, they talk idly, for huger cities than this Ark have been built: and they never consider the hundred years that it was a building in, throughout: unless they will say that one stone may be bound fast unto another by lime only, and walls on this manner be carried out (d) so many miles in compass, and yet timber cannot be lastened unto timber by (e) mortayses, (f) ●…piri, nails and pitch, whereby an Ark might be made, not with embowed ribs, but in a straight lineal form, not to be launched into the sea by the strength of men, but lifted from earth by the ingruent force of the waters themselves, having GOD'S providence, rather than man's practice, both for steersman and pilot. And for their scrupulous question concerning the Vermin, Mice, (g) Stellions, Locusts, Hornets, Flies and Fleas, whether there were any more of them in the Ark then there should be by GOD'S command? they that move this question ought first to consider this: that such things as might live in the waters, needed not be brought into the Ark: so might both the fishes that swam in the water, and (h) divers birds also that swam above it. And whereas it is said, They shall be male and female, that concerneth the reparation of kind: and therefore such creatures as do not generate, but are produced themselves out of mere putrefaction, needed not be there: if they were, it was as they are now in our houses, without any known number, if the greatness of this holy mystery included in this true and real act, could not be perfited without there were the same order of number kept in all those creatures, which nature would not permit to live within the waters, that care belonged not unto man, but unto GOD. For Noah did not take the creatures and turn them into the Ark, but GOD sent them in all, he only suffered them to enter: for so saith the book: Two of every sort shall come unto thee: not by his fetching, but by GOD'S bidding: yet may we well hold that none of the creatures that want sex, were there: for it is precisely said, They shall be male and female. There are creatures that arising out of corruption, do (ay) afterwards engender, as flies: (k) and some also without sex, as Bees: some also that have sex and yet engender not, as Hee-mules and Shee-mules: it is like that they were not in the Ark, but that their parents, the horse and the Ass served to produce them afterwards: and so likewise of all other creatures (l) gotten between diverse kinds. But if this concerned the mystery, there they were: for they were male and female. Some also stick at the diversity of meats that they had, and what they eat, that could eat nothing but flesh: and whether t●…e were any more creatures there then was in the command, that the rest might feed upon them: or (m) rather (which is more likely) that there were some other meats besides flesh, that contented them. For (n) we see many creatures that eat flesh, eat fruits also, and Apples, chiefly Figs and Chest-nuts: what wonder then if God had taught this just man to prepare a meat for every creatures eating, and yet not flesh? what will not hunger make one eat? And what cannot God make wholesome, and delightsome to the taste, who might make them (if he pleased) to live without any meat at all: but that it was befitting to the perfection of this mystery that they should be fed? And thus all men, b●…t those that are obstinate, are bound to believe that each of these many fold circumstances, had a figuration concerning the Church: for the Gentiles have now so filled the Church with clean and unclean, and shall do so until the end and now are all so enclosed in those ribs, that it is unlawful to make stop at those inferior (although obscurer) ceremonies, which being so, if no man may either think these things as written to no end: nor as bare and insignificant relations, nor as sole unacted allegories, nor as discourses impertinent to the Church; but each aught rather to believe that they are written in wisdom, and are both true histories, and mystical allegories, all concerning the prefiguration of the Church; then this book is brought unto an end: and from hence we are to proceed with the progress of both our cities, the one celestial, and that is Gods, and the other terrestrial, and that is man's, touching both which, we must now observe what fell out after the deluge. L. VIVES. THe top (a) of.] The Geographers have divers Olympi: but this here, is in Thessaly ten furlongs high, as Plutarch saith in the life of Aemilius Paulus. The top is above the Mount Olympus. 〈◊〉 region of the air as some hold, and prove it because the ashes of the Sacrifice would lie ●…ystned, and unmoved all the year long▪ Solin. This is a fable saith Francis Philelphus, who 〈◊〉 ●…p the hill himself, to see the trial. And it is strange that the top of Olympus, or Ath●…s 〈◊〉 ●…edon, or of any other mountain should be so high above the circle of the earth's globe, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should exceed the half part of the air, and lying above all moisture, have such con●…ll fountains and rivers flowing from it: for they are the mothers of winds and rain. (b) A●… Heaven.] Intimating the use of the Poets, who call Heaven Olympus because of this 〈◊〉. Hom. Iliad. ●…1. (c) They say also.] Origen Homil. 2, in Genes. hath these words. As far 〈◊〉 gather by descriptions, the Ark was built up in four Angles, arising all from an equal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 finished on the top in the breadth of one cubit, for it is said that it was built thirty cubits 〈◊〉 ●…ty broad, and thirty high, but yet was it so gradually contracted that the breadth and 〈◊〉 met all in one cubit: and afterwards. But the fittest form for to keep of the rain 〈◊〉 weather, was to be ridged down a proportioned descent from the top downward, so to shoot off the wet, and to have a broad and spacious base in a square proportion, lest the ●…ion of the creatures within should either make it lean at'one side or sink it down right. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ll this cunning fabric, some questions there are made, and those chiefly by Apelles, 〈◊〉 of Martions but an inventor of another heresy: how is it possible (saith he) to put Apelles' anheretique. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elephants in the room that the Scripture allows for the Ark? Which to answer, our 〈◊〉 said that Moses who (according to the Scriptures) was skilled in all the arts of Egypt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Geometrical cubytes in this place, (and Geometry is the Egyptians chief study.) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Geometry, both in the measuring of solides and squares, one cubit is generally taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our common cubits, or for three hundred minutary cubits. Which if it be so, hear, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had room at large to contain all the creatures that were requisite for the restoration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 world. Thus far Origen. (d) So many miles.] As Babylon's, Rome's, and Memphis. But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a city in Thrace, the greeks called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The long wall, for there was an 〈◊〉 long wall began there, which reached unto the Melican Bay, excluding Cherone●… 〈◊〉 the rest of Thrace, Miltiades the Athenian captain built it. There was such an●… 〈◊〉 the lake Lemanus unto mount jura, dividing Burgogne from Switzerland, built 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, nineteen miles long, and sixteen foot high. Severus did the like in England, to keep the Scots and Picts from invading the Britons. (e) Mortayses] Let your posts (●…aith V●…truuius) be as thick as the main body of your pillar under the wreath whence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Mortayses, subscudines. and let them be mortaised together, so that the hole of every joint be two fingers wide. (f) Epiri] Either it is falsely written, or else we may go seek what it is. (g) Stellions'] A kind of Lizard that benumbeth where he biteth. A kind of Spider also Plin. 8. & 9 Aristo. Stellions. (h) diverse birds] Ducks, Swans, Cormorants, Seagulls, Water-swallowes, Puffins, etc. ay Afterwards engender] flies are not generate, and yet do engender. For the male and female commix, and produce a worm, which in time becometh a fly. Aristot. Hist. animal. lib. 5. (k) And some also] How Bees are produced (saith Aristotle, Hist. animal. lib. 5. It is uncertain: some think they do not engender, but fetch their issue elsewhere, but whence none Bees. knoweth]: some say from the Palme-flowre, others from the reeds, others from the Olives. Virgil in his Georgikes held that they did not engender: his words are these: Illum adeò placuisse apibus mirabere morem, Virg. Geor 4. Quòd nec concubitu indulgent, nec corpora segnes In venerem soluunt, aut foetus nixibus aedunt: Verum ipsae é foliis natos, & suavibus herbis o'er legunt, etc.— Would you not wonder at the golden Bees They use no venery, nor mix no thighs: Nor groan in bringing forth: but taking wing, Fly to the flowers, and thence their young they bring Within their pretty mouths, bred there, etc.— Some there be that say the Bees be all females, and the Drones males, and so do ●…gender: and that one may have them produced of the flesh of a Calf. (l) Gotten between diverse] as creatures begotten between Wolves and Dogs, or Bears and Bitch's, etc. Pliny saith that such beasts are never like either parent, but of a third kind, and that they never engender either with any kind, or with their own: and therefore Mules never have young ones. But by Pliny's leave, it is recorded that Mules have brought forth young, and have been oftentimes big bellied: and this is common in Cappadocia saith Theophrastus, and in Syria saith Aristotle. Indeed these are of another kind than ours be. (n) Or rather] Origen saith, they did e●…e flesh. (n) We see many creatures] dogs, Crows, and Foxes, when they want flesh, will eat fruits, Figs and Chest-nuts especially, and live as well with them as with all the flesh in the world. Finis lib. 15. THE CONTENTS OF THE sixteenth book of the City of God 1. Whether there be any families of Gods citi●…ns named between Noah and Abraham. 2. What prophetic mysteries were in the s●…es of Noah. 3. Of the generations of the three sons of Noah. 4. Of the confusion of tongues, and the building of Babylon. 5. Of God's coming down to confound the language of those Tower-builders. 6. The manner how GOD speaketh to his Angels. 7. Whether the remote Isles were supplied with the beasts of all sorts that were saved in the Ark. 8. Whether adam's or Noaths sons begot any monstrous kinds of men. 9 Whether their be any inhabitants of the 〈◊〉 called the Antipodes. 10. Of the generation of Sem, in which the City of God lieth, down unto Abraham. 11. That the Hebrew tongue (so called after●… of Heber) was the first language upon 〈◊〉, and remained in his family when that great confusion was. 12. Of that point of time wherein the City 〈◊〉 GOD began a new order of succession in 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. Why there is no mention of Nachor, Tha●… 〈◊〉 in his departure from Caldea into Me●…ia. 14. Of the age of Thara, who lived in Charra until his dying day. 15. Of the time wherein Abraham received the promise from God, & departed from Charra 16. The order and quality of God's promises made unto Abraham. 17. Of the three most eminent kingdoms of 〈◊〉 world; the chief of which in Abraham's 〈◊〉 ●…as most excellent of all. 18. Of God's second promise to Abraham that 〈◊〉 & his seed should possess the land of Canaan. 19 How God preserved Saras chastity in Egypt, when Abraham, would not be known that she was his wife but his sister. 20. Of the separation of Lot and Abraham, without breach of charity or love between 〈◊〉. 21. Of God's third promse of the land of Ca●… to Abraham, and his seed for ever. 22. How Abraham overthrew the enemies of 〈◊〉 ●…mits; freed Lot from captivity, and was ●…ed by Melchisedech the Priest. 23. Of God's promise to Abraham, that he would make his seed as the stars of heaven and that he was justified by faith, before his circumsision. 24. Of the signification of the sacrifice which Abraham was commanded to offer when he desired to be confirmed in the th●…gs he believed. 25. Of Agar, Saras bondwoman, whom she gave as conc●…e unto Abraham. 26. Of God's promise unto Abraham, that Sara (though she were ol●…) should have a son that should be the father of the ●…tion, and how this promise was sealed in the mystery of circumsision 27. Of the manchild that if it were not circumcised the eigh●… day, it perished for breaking of God's covenant. 28. Of the changing of Abraham's and Saras names, who being the one to barr●…, and both too old to have children, yet by God's bounty, were both made fruitful. 29. Of the three men, or Angels, wkerin God appeared to Abraham in the plain of mambr●…. 30. Lot's deliverance, Sodoms' destruction: Abimaleches lust, and Sarah's chastity. 31. Of Isaac borne the time prefixed, and named so because of his parent's laughter. 32. Abraham's faith and obedience proved in his intent to offer his son: Sarah's death. 33. Of Rebecca, Nachers' niece, whom Isaac married. 34. Abraham's marrying Keturah after Sarah's death, and the meaning thereof. 35. The appointment of God concerning the two twins in Rebeca's womb. 36. Of a promise and blessing received by Isaac, in the manner that Abraham had received his. 37. Of Esau and jacob, and the mysteries included in them both. 38. Of Jacob's journey into Mesopotamia for a wife: his vision in the night as he went: his return with four women, whereas he went but for one. 39 jacob enstiled Israel. The reason of this change. 40. Jacob's departure into Egypt with seventy five souls; how to be taken seeing some of them were borne afterwards. 41. Jacob's blessing unto his son judah. 42. Of Jacob's changing of his hands, from the heads of joseph's sons, when he blessed them. 43 Of Moses his times, ●…osua: the judges, the Kings: S●…ule the first 〈◊〉 David the chief both in merit, and in mystical reference. FINIS. THE SIXTEENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Whether there be any families of God's citizens named, between Noah and Abraham. CHAP. 1. TO find in the evidences of holy writ whether the Glorious City of GOD continued on in a good course after the deluged, or through the second inundation of impiety was so interrupted, as God's religion lay wholly unrespected is a very difficult matter: because that in all the canonical scriptures, after that Noah and his three sons with his and their wives were saved by the Ark from their deluge, we cannot find any one person until Abraham's time, evidently commended for his piety: only Noah's prophetical blessing of his two sons Sem and japhet, we do see, and know that he knew what was to follow along time after. Whereupon he cursed his middlemost son, (who had offended him) not in himself, he laid not I say the curse upon himself, but upon his grandchild saying, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. This Canaan was Cham's son, his that did not cover, but rather discover 〈◊〉. 9 ●…5. his father's nakedness. (a) And then did he second this, with a blessing upon his eldest sons, saying: blessed be the Lord God of Sem, and let Canaan be his servant. The Lord make japhet rejoice (b) that he may dwell in the tents of Sem: all which, together G●…n. 9 26. with Noah's planting a vineyard, being drunken with the wine, and uncovered in his sleep, all those circumstances have their prophetical interpretations and mystical references. L. VIVES. ANd (a) then] A diversity of reading: the best lies before you. (b) That he may dwell] Hierome saith it is meant of the Christians who expelling the jews do dwell and enjoy the light of the holy scriptures. What prophetic mysteries were in the sons of Noah. CHAP. 2. But their true event hath now cleared their former obscurity: for what diligent observer sees them not all in Christ? Sem, of whose seed Christ's hum●…nity came, is interpreted, Named. And who is more named than Christ, whose name is now so fragrant that the prophetical Canticle compareth it to an 〈◊〉 C●…. 1. 2 powered out: in whose houses, that is, in whose churches, the diffused nations shall inhabit. For japhet is, diffused. But Cham, who is interpreted hot, Noa●…s middle son being as distinct from both, and remaining between both, being neither of the first fruits of Israel, nor of the fullness of the nations, what is he but a type of our hot heretics, not hot in the spirit of wisdom, but of (a) turncoat subtlety, that burneth in their hearts to the disturbance of the Saints quiet? But this is useful to the good proficients in the church as the Apostle saith. There must be Heresies amongst you that they which are approved might be known. Whereupon also it is written. The learned son willbe wise, 1. Cor. 11, 19 and use the fools as his minister. For there are many things pertaining to the Catholic faith which the Heretics turbulently tossing and turning, cause them that are to defend them against them both to observe them the more fully, understand them the more clearly, and avow them the more confidently. Thus the enemy's question addeth the perfection of understanding. Although not only the professed Infidels, but even the cloaked Heretics also ●…ke under the name of christians, and yet live wickedly, may be justly comprised in Noah's middle son: for in word they declare, and in deed they dishonour the passion of CHRIST prefigured in Noah's nakedness. Of these it is said, Ye shall know them by their fruits: and therefore was Cham cursed in his Mat. 7, 16 son, as in his fruit, that is his work: whereupon Chanaan, is fitly interpreted, their motion, and what is that ●…ut their work. But Shem and japhet prefiguring circumcision and uncercumcision, or as the Apostle saith, the jews and the greeks, (those I mean that are called and justified) hearing of their father's ●…ednesse (the Redeemers typical passion) took a garment and putting it vpo●…●…heir shoulders, went backward, and so covered their father's nakedness, 〈◊〉 ●…ing what they covered. In like manner, we, in Christ's Passion do reue●… that which was done for us, yet abhor we the jews villainy herein. The ●…nt, is the sacrament: their backs the remembrance of things past, because 〈◊〉 ●…ch now celebrateth the passion of CHRIST, japhet dwelling in the tents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and Cham between them both: it looketh now no more for a passion to 〈◊〉, but the evil brother is (b) servant to his good brethren in his son, that is, his work: because the good can make use of the evil to their increase of wisdom: for there be some (saith the Apostle) that preach not Christ purely, but howsoever Phil. 1, 16 18. Christ be preached sincerely, or colourably, I do joy, and will joy therein; For he had planted the vineyard whereof the Prophet saith, The vineyard of the Lord of hosts Is●…i. 5 is the house of Israel etc. and he drinketh of the wine thereof: whether it be of that cup whereof it is said. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of? And, O my Mat. 20, 2●… Mat. 26, 39 Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me: wherein doubtless he meant his passion. Or whether it were signified (seeing that wine is the fruit of the vi●…-yeard) that he took our flesh and blood out of the vineyard, that is, t●…e house of Israel, and was drunk, and uncovered, that is suffered the pa●…. For there was his nakedness discovered that is his infirmity, whereof the Apostle saith. He was crucified concerning his infirmity: whereof also he saith elsewhere. The weakness of GOD is stronger than men, 2. Cor. 13 1. Cor. 1, 25 ●…d the foolishness of GOD, is wiser than men. But the Scripture having said. He was uncovered, and adding, in the midst of his own house, makes 〈◊〉 an excellent demonstration that he was to suffer death by the hands of his own country men, fellows and kinsmen in the flesh. This passion of CHRIST, the reprobate preach verbally only: for they know not what ●…ey ●…each. But the elect lay up this great mystery within, and there 〈◊〉 ●…our it in their hearts being GOD'S infirmity, and foolishness, but far stronger and wiser than man in his best strength and wisdom. The type of this, is Cham's going out and telling of his brethren what he had seen of his father, and seems and japhets going in, that is, disposing themselves inwardly, for to cover and reverence that which he had seen and told them of. Thus as we can we search the sense of scripture, finding it more congruent to some applications then to others, yet doubting not, but that every part of it hath a farther meaning then merely historical, and that, to be referred to none but CHRIST and his church the City of GOD: which was preached from man's first creation, as we see the events do confirm. So then from these two blessed sons of Noah, and that cursed one betwixt them, down unto the days of Abraham, is no mention made of any righteous man, which time continued more than one thousand years. I do not think but there were just men in this time, but that it would have been too tedious to have rehearsed them all, and rather to have concerned the diligence of an history, than the substance of a prophecy. The writer of these divine books (or rather the spirit of GOD in him) goeth only about such things as both declare the things past and prefigure the things to come, pertinent only to the City of GOD: for what soever is herein spoken concerning her opposites, it is all to make her glory the more illustrious by entering comparison with their iniquity, or to procure her augmentation by teaching her to observe their ruin, and be warned thereby. Nor are all the historical relations of these books, mystical, but such as are not, are added for the more illustration of such as are. It is the ploughshare only that turneth up the earth: yet may not the plough lack the (c) other instruments. The strings only do cause the sound in haps and other such instruments: yet must that have pings, and the other, frets, to make up the music, and the (d) organs have other devices linked to the keys, which the organist toucheth not, but only their keys, to make the sound proportionate, and harmonious. Even so in those prophetic stories, some things are but bare relations, yet are they adherent unto those that are significant, and in a manner linked to them. L. VIVES. TUrne-coats (a) subtlety] Some read, impatience, and for wisdom, before, patience: and for their hearts, their first beginning: but this is not so proper. (b) Servant] The Latins use P●…er, either for a child or a servant, and so the-Greekes do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Septuagints for example P●…r, vs●…d 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉. in this place. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. an household servant shall he be to his brethren. Chrysippus is idle in his distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: as if the first were a serving man, and the later a sta●…e or bondman: Ammonius is of another mind, but this is nothing to our purpose. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an ordinary servant in the house. (c) Other instruments] The coulter, and coulter wedges, the team, the handles or hails, the beam, the plough-staffe, the mole-boord etc. (d) Organs,] He meaneth of all the gins in instruments, it is too tedious to stand teckning of them here. Of the generations of the three sons of Noah. CHAP. 3. NOw must we see what we can find concerning the generations of these sons, and lay that down in the progress, to show the proceeding of both 〈◊〉 Cities in their courses, heavenly and earthly. The generation of japhet, the 〈◊〉, is the first that is recorded, who had eight sons, two of which had sea●…es further, three the one, and four the other: so that japhet, had in all, 〈◊〉 sons. Now Cham, the middle brother had four sons, one of which had ●…re, and one of these had two, which in all, make eleven. These being reck●…, the scripture returneth as to the head, saying: And Chush begat Nimrod, 〈◊〉 a Giant upon the earth: he was a mighty hunter against the Lord where●… it is said, As Nemrod the mighty hunter against the Lord. (a) And the begin●… 〈◊〉 his Kingdom was Babylon, and (b) Oreg and (c) Archad, and Chalame 〈◊〉 ●…and of Seimar. Out of that Land came Assur and (d) builded Ninivy, and 〈◊〉 (e) Robooth, and Chalesh, and Dasem, between Chalech and Ninivy: 〈◊〉 great city. Now this Chus, the giant Nembrods' father, is the first of Cham's 〈◊〉 on that is named, five of whose sons, and two of his grandchildren were 〈◊〉 before: But he either begot this giant after all them, or else (and that I ra●…d) the scripture nameth him for his eminence sake, because his Kingdom i●… 〈◊〉 also, (whereof Babylon was the head city) and so are the other cities, 〈◊〉 ●…ons that he possessed. But whereas it is said that Assur came out of the 〈◊〉 of Semar, which belonged unto Nimrod, and builded Niniveh and the o●…ee cities, this was long after but named here, because of the greatness 〈◊〉 ●…yrian Kingdom, which (f) Ninus, Belus his son, enlarged wonderful●… 〈◊〉 was the founder of the great city Niniveh, which was called after his 〈◊〉 ●…niuie of Ninus. But Assur, the father of the Assyrians, was none of 〈◊〉 ●…nes, but of the progeny of Sem, Noah's eldest son. So that it is eur●… some of Sems sons afterward attained the Kingdom of this great 〈◊〉 went further than it, and builded other cities, the first of which 〈◊〉 Niniveh of Ninus: from this, the scripture returneth to another son 〈◊〉, Mizraim, and his generation is reckoned up: not by particular 〈◊〉 by seven nations: out of the sixth whereof, as from a sixth son, 〈◊〉 Philystiym which make up eight. Thence it returneth back a●… Chanaan in whom Cham was cursed, and his generation is comprised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: and all their extents related, together with some cities. Thus cas●… 〈◊〉 into one sum, of Cham's progeny are one and thirty descended. N●… 〈◊〉 remaineth to recount the stock of Sem, Noah's eldest son: for the ●…ns, began to be counted from the youngest, and so upwards gra●… him. But it is somewhat hard to find where his race begins to 〈◊〉 ●…ted: yet must we explain it some way: for it is chiefly pertaining to 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 read it. (g) unto Sem also the father of all the sons of Heber, and el●… of japhet were children borne: the order of the words is this: And 〈◊〉 borne unto Sem, and all his children, even unto Sem, who was japhets' el●…. Thus it maketh Sem the Patriarch unto all that were borne, 〈◊〉 ●…ocke whether they were his sons, or his grandsonnes, or their 〈◊〉, or their grand sons, and so of the rest: for Sem begot not He●… is the first from him in lineal descent. For Sem (besides others) be●… ●…t, he Canaan, Canaan Sala, and Sala was Heber's father. It is not ●…g then that Heber is named the first of Sems progeny, and before 〈◊〉 ●…nes, being but grandchild to his grandchild, unless it be that 〈◊〉 Hebrews had their name from him, quasi Heberewes: as it may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were called Hebrews quasi Abrahewes, of Abraham. But true it is, they were called Hebrews of Heber: and Israel only attained that language, and was the people wherein God's City was both prefiguted, and made a pilgrim. So then Sem first hath his six sons reckoned, and four other sons, by one of them: and then another of Sems sons begot a son, and this son of this last son was father unto Heber. And Heber had two sons, one called Phalec▪ that is, division: the scripture addeth this reason of his name: for in his ti●… the earth was divided: which shallbe manifested hereafter. Heber's other son had twelve sons, and so the lineage of Seth were in all seven and twenty. Thus than the grand sum of all the generations of Noah's three sons, is three score and thirteen. Fifteen from japhet, thirty and one from Cham, and seven and twenty from Shem. Then the scripture proceedeth, saying: These are the sons of Sem according to their families and their tongues, in their countries and Nations▪ And then of them all: These are the families of the sons of Noah after their generations amongst their people: and out of these were the Nations of the earth divided after the flood▪ Whence we gather, that they were three score and thirteen or rather (as we will show hereafter) three score and twelve Nations; not seaventy-two single persons: for when the sons of japhet were reckoned, it concluded thus▪ (i) Of these were the Islands of the gentiles divided in their hands each one according to his tongue and families in their nations. And the sons of Cham are plainly made the founders and storers of nations, as I showed before. Mizraim begot all those that were called the Ludieim, and so of the other six. And having reckoned Cham's sons, it concludeth in like manner▪ These are the sons of Cham according to their tongues and families in their countries and their nations. Wherefore the Scripture could not 〈◊〉 many of their sons, because they grew up, and went to dwell in other countries: and yet could not people whole lands themselves: for why are b●… two japhets eight sons progenies named▪ three of Cham's four: and two of Sems' 〈◊〉? Had the other no children? On we may not imagine that; but th●… did not grow 〈◊〉 into Nations worthy recording, but as they were ioy●…ed themselves with other people. L. VIVES. ANd (a) the] What those places were in Greek●…, Eusebius Pamphilus, and josephus 〈◊〉 whom 〈◊〉 also agreeth with: what we need, we will take thence: the Reader may The plain of 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 the ●…est in themselves, for they are common books. The field of Semar was in Chaldea, in it was built the tower of Babel▪ (b) Oreg] The Hebrew is Arach: but thus the seventy 〈◊〉 Archad] The Hebrew is Accad, which they say is Nisibis in 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (d) 〈◊〉] Tha●… of 〈◊〉, for there was another 〈◊〉 one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 N●…ue ●…wards. That of Assyria Pliny calls N●…s, being Ni●…. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 standi●… 〈◊〉 Tygr●… and lying towards the 〈◊〉: ●…o saith 〈◊〉 also Diodorus calls it Nina, and saith that Ninus▪ Belus his son built it, and that there was n●…er City since so ●…arge within the walls. Their height was one hundred foot: they br●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have gone side by side upon, easily: their compass was four hundred 〈◊〉 ●…ghty 〈◊〉 and their post●…re, 〈◊〉 a quadrangle, there were on the walls one thousand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…undred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ (〈◊〉) Robooth Hieromes translation hath, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ●…t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R●…ad only, He built N●…iue, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unless the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The hebrew hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ (f) Ni●…] 〈◊〉 following the Phaenician Theology 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 son●… o●… 〈◊〉 and calleth him jupiter Belus▪ Now there was another 〈◊〉, son to Epaphus king of Egypt whom jove begot: unto this Belus, Isis was mother. 〈◊〉 Eusebius make him the son of Telegonus who married Isis after Apis was dead: Belus. 〈◊〉 reigning as then in Athens. But Belus that was father to Ninus, was a quiet King of 〈◊〉 an●… contented with a little Empire, yet had he this warlike son, whereby he was ●…d as a God, and called the Babylonian jupiter. This was their Belus say the Egyptians 〈◊〉 Egiptus, whom they call the son of Neptune and Lybia, and grandchild to Epaphus, 〈◊〉 ●…her. He placed colonies in Babylon and seating himself upon the banks of Eu●…●…stituted his Priests there after the Egyptian order. That Belus whom they worshipped ●…outly in Assiria, and who had a temple at Babylon in Pliny's time, was (as he saith) 〈◊〉 ●…tor of Astronomy, and the Assyrians dedicated a jewel unto him and called it Belus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (g) Unto Sem also.] The seventy lay it down most plainly. (h) Hebrews.] Paul, The Hebrews. 〈◊〉 of Borgos, a great Hebraician saith they were called Hebrews, quasi travelers, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 word intends, travelers they were indeed, both in Egypt and in the land of Canaan. ay 〈◊〉 ●…ese were.] As islands are divided from the continent by the sea, so were they amongst ●…es by rivers, mountains, woods, sands: deserts, and marshes. Of the confusion of tongues and the building of Babylon. CHAP. 8. WHereas therefore the Scriptures reckoneth those nations each according to his proper tongue, yet it returneth back to the time when they had 〈◊〉 ●…one tongue, and then showeth the cause of the diversity. Then the whole 〈◊〉 ●…th it) was of one language and one speech. And as they went from the East, 〈◊〉 a plain in the land of Semar, and there they abode: and they said one to 〈◊〉 ●…me let us make brick and burn it in the fire▪ so they had brick for stone, 〈◊〉 ●…ch for lime: They said also, come, let us build us a city and (b) a tower whose 〈◊〉 reach to the heaven, that we (c) may get us a name, lest we be scattered upon 〈◊〉 earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and tower which the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men builded. And the Lord said: behold the people is all one, and have all 〈◊〉 ●…ge, and this they begun to do, neither can they now be stopped from 〈◊〉 ●…er they have imagined to effect: come on let us down and confound 〈◊〉 ●…guage there that each one of them understand not his fellows speech. Babylon's confusion. So 〈◊〉 Lord scattered them from thence over the whole earth and they (d) left 〈◊〉 ●…ild▪ the city and the tower. Therefore the name of it was called confu●…●…cause ●…cause there the Lord confounded the language of the whole earth: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thence did the Lord scatter them upon all the earth. This City 〈◊〉 ●…ch was called confusion is that Babylon, whose wonderful building 〈◊〉 ●…d even in profane histories: for Babylon is interpreted confusion, 〈◊〉 we gather, that Nembrod the Giant was (as we said before) the builder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scripture saying: the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, that is, this 〈◊〉 metropolitan city of the realm, the king's chamber, and the chief 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rest: though it were never brought to that strange perfection that the 〈◊〉 and the proud would have it to be, for it was built to heigh, which 〈◊〉 ●…as up to heaven, whether this were the fault of some one Tower which 〈◊〉 ●…ght more upon then all the rest, or of them all under one, as we will 〈◊〉 soldier, or enemy, when we mean of many thousands, and as the 〈◊〉 of Frogs and Locusts that plagued Egypt were called only in the 〈◊〉 number, the Frog and Locust: But what intended man's vain presumption herein? admit, they could have exceeded all the mountains with The power of humility. their buildings height, could they ever have gotten above the element of air? and what hurt can ellevation either of body or spirit do unto God? Humility is the true tract unto heaven, lifting up the spirit unto GOD, but not against GOD, as that giant was said to be an hunter against the Lord: which some not understanding, were deceived by the ambiguity of the greek and translated, before the Lord, (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being both before, and against: for the Psalm useth it so: and kneel before the Lord our maker. And it is also in job: He hath stretched out his hand against God. Thus then (g) is that hunter against the Lord to be understood. But what is the word, Hunter, but an entrapper, persecutor and murderer of earthly creatures? So rose this hunter and his people, and raised this tower against GOD, which was a type of the impiety of pride: and an evil intent, though never effected deserveth to be punished. But how was it punished? Because that (h) all sovereignty lieth in command, and all command in the tongue, thus pride was plagued, that the commander of men should not be understood, because he would not understand the Lord, his commander. Thus was this conspiracy dissolved, each one departing from him whom he understood not, nor could he adapt himself to any but those that he understood, and thus these languages divided them into Nations and dispersed them over the whole earth, as God who wrought those strange effects, had resolved. L. VIVES. ANd (a) pitch] Bitumen, whereof there was great store in those places. (b) A tower] The like to this do the profane writers talk of the giants wars against the Gods, laying mountain upon mountain, to get footehold against heaven the nearer it. Ter sunt conati inponere Pelion Ossae, Ter pater extructos disiecit fulmine montes. Pelion on Ossa three times they had thrown, And thrice Jove's thunder struck the bulwark down. Saith Virgil. The story is common: it might be wrested out of this of the confusion, as divers other things are drawn from holy writ into heathenism, (c) We may get] Let this be a monument of us all. (d) Left off] And the builders of the city ceased, say the seventy. (e) Wonderful] In Pliny, Solinus, Mela, Strabo, Herodotus, all the geographers, and many of the Poets, of this elsewhere. (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.] So it is in latin also. (g) Is that hunter] josephus writeth that Nimrod first taught mankind to injure GOD, and to grow proud against him: for Nimrod. being wondrous valiant, he persuaded them that they might thank themselves, and not God, for any good that befell them. And so ordained he himself a sovereignty, and to provide that God should not subvert it, fell a building of this tower, to resist a second deluge if God should be offended. And the multitude held it a less matter to serve man then God: and so obeying Nimrod willingly began to build this huge tower, which might stand all waters uncovered, Of this tower, Sibylla writeth saying. When all men were of one language some fell to build an high tower as though they would pass through it unto heaven: But God sent a wind, and ouerthr●…, and confounded their language with divers, so that each one had a several tongue: and therefore that city was called Babylon. (h) All sovereignty] The Princes words are great attactives of the subjects hearts: which if they be not understood, make all his people avoid him. And therefore Mithridates even when he was utterly overthrown, had friends ready to succour him, because he could speak to any nation in their own language. Of God's coming down to confound the language of those towre-builders. CHAP. 5. FOr whereas it is written: The Lord came down to see the city and tower which the Gen. 11. sons of men builded, that is not the sons of God, but that earthly minded 〈◊〉 which we call the Terrestrial city: we must think that God removed from no God moveth not from place to place. place for he is always all in all, but he is said to come down, when he doth any thing in earth beyond the order of nature, wherein his omnipotency is as it were presented. Nor getteth he temporary knowledge by seeing, who can never be ig●… in any thing: but he is said to see and know that which he lays open to the 〈◊〉 and knowledge of others. So then he did not see that city, as he made it be 〈◊〉 when he showed how far he was displeased with it. We may say GOD 〈◊〉 down to it, because his angels came down, wherein he dwelleth, as that also ●…ch followeth. The Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one 〈◊〉 etc. and then, Come on, let us go down, and there confound their language: 〈◊〉 a recapitulation, showing how the LORD came down: for if he were come down already, why should he say Let us go down etc. he spoke to the angels in whom he came down. And he saith not, come, and go you down, and 〈◊〉 confound their language, but come, let us go etc. showing that they are his ●…rs, and yet he cooperateth with them and they with him as the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we labour together with God. 1. Cor. 3 The manner how GOD speaketh to his Angels. CHAP. 6. THat also where God saith, Let us (a) make man in our Image, may be meant unto the angels, because he saith not, I will make, but adding, in our Image, it is 〈◊〉 to think that God made man in the angels Image, or that Gods and 〈◊〉 ●…re all one. This therefore is an intimation of the Trinity: which Trinity being ●…thelesse, but one God, when he had said, let us make, he adjoineth, thus ●…ed the man in his Image, he doth not say, the Gods created, nor in the image of 〈◊〉 Gods: and so here may the Trinity be understood, as if the Father had said 〈◊〉 and the Holy Spirit, come on, let us go down, and there confound there 〈◊〉: this now, if there be any reason excluding the Angels in this point: 〈◊〉 whom it rather befitted to come unto God, in holy nations and Godly ●…ns, having recourse unto the unchangeable truth, the eternal 〈◊〉 ●…at upper court: for they themselves are not the truth but partakers of 〈◊〉, that created them, and draw to that, as the fountain of their life, take●… 〈◊〉 of that, what wanteth in themselves, and this motion of theirs is firm, 〈◊〉 to that whence they never depart. Nor doth GOD speak to his God speaketh three manner of ways. 〈◊〉 we do one to another, or unto GOD: or his angels to us, or we to 〈◊〉 God by them to us: but in an ineffable manner, shown to us after our 〈◊〉 and his high speech to them before the effect, is the unaltered order of 〈◊〉: not admitting sound, or verberation of air, but an eternal power in 〈◊〉 working upon a temporal object. Thus doth God speak to his angels, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 us, being far of him, in a far other manner: and when we conceive a●… by the first manner, we come near the angels: but I am not here to dis●…e of God's ways opening his will to others: the unchangeable truth, doth 〈◊〉 speak ineffably from himself, unto reasonable creatures, or by reasonable ●…ures, mutable, or spiritual, either unto our imagination and spirit, or to 〈◊〉 ●…dily sense: and whereas it is said: And shall they not feign many things they 〈◊〉 this is no confirmation, but rather a question, as we use in threatening, 〈◊〉 ●…is verse Virgil declareth. (b) Non arma expedient, totâque ex urbe sequentur And shall not all my powers take arms, and run? Aenid. 3. We must therefore take it as a question. Otherwise it showeth not as a threatening: we must needs therefore add the interrogative point. Thus than the progenies of Noah's three sons were seventy three or rather (as we have said) three score and twelve Nations, who filled the earth and the Islands thereof (c) and the number of nations was far above the number of languages: for now in Africa we have many Barbarous countries that speak all one language and who doubteth that mankind increasing, divers took ships and went to inhabit the Islands abroad? L. VIVES. LEt (a) us make] Hierome and Augustine do both take this as an intimation of the Tr●…y (b) Non arma] Dido's words in Virgil. Aenead. 3. (c) And the number] But I think it is ●…der to show any one language, than any one nation, but I do not contend, but only speak my mind. Whether the remote Isles were supplied with the beasts of all sorts that were saved in the Ark. CHAP. 7. But now there is a question concerning those beasts, which man respects not, & yet are not produced by putrefaction, as frogs are, but only by copulation of male and female (as wolves etc.) how they after the deluge, wherein all perished but those in the Ark, could come into those Islands, unless they were propagate from them that were preserved in the Ark, we may think that they might some to the nearest Isles: but there are some far in the main, to which no beast could swim. If men desired to catch them and transport them thither, questionless they might do it (a) by hunting; though we cannot deny but that the angels by God's command might carry them thither: but if they were produced from the earth, as at first because God said, let the earth bring forth the living soul: then is it most apparent that the diversity of beasts were preserved in the Ark rather for a figure of the divers Nations, then for restoration, if the earth brought them forth in those Isles to which they could not otherwise come. L. VIVES. BY (a) hunting] In the Canaries and other new found Isles, there were none of many creatures that we have in abundance in the continent: but were feign to be transported thither 〈◊〉 the like we use in transportation of plants, and seeds, from nation to nation. Whether adam's, or Noah's sons begot any monstrous kinds of men. CHAP. 8. IT is further demanded whether Noah's sons, or rather adam's (of whom all man kind came) begot any of those (a) monstrous men, that are mentioned in profane histories: as some that have (b) but one eye in their mid forehead: some with their heels where their toes should be, some with both sexesin one, & their right pap a man's, & the left a woman's, & both begetting and bearing children in one body: some without mouths, living only by air and smelling; some but a cubit high, called (c) pigmies, of the greek word: some, where the women bear children at the fifth year of their age: some that have but one leg, and bend it not, and yet are of wonderful swiftness, being called (d) Sciopodae, because they sleep under the shade of this their foot: some neck-lesse, with the face of a man in their breasts: and such other as are wrought in (e) checker-worke in the Seastreete at Carthage, being taken out of their most curious and exact histories. What shall I speak of the (f) Cynocephali, that had dogs heads, and barked like dogs? Indeed we need not believe all the monstrous reports, that run concerning this point. But whatsoever he be, that is Man, that is, a mortal reasonable creature, be his form, voice, or what ever, never so different from an ordinary man's, no faithful person ought to doubt that he is of Adam's progeny: yet is the power of nature shower, and strangely shown in such: but the same reasons that we can give for this or that unordinary shaped-birth amongst us, the same may be given for those monstrous nations: for GOD made all, and when or how he would form this or that, he knows best, having the perfect skill how to beautify this universe by opposition and diversity of parts. But he that cannot contemplate the beauty of their whole, stumbles at the deformity of the part: not knowing the congruence that it hath with the whole. We see many that have above five fingers, or toes: and this farther from that, than the other is in proportion: yet God forbid that any one should be so besotted as to think the maker erred in this man's fabric, though we know not why he made him thus. Be the diversity never so great, he knows what he doth: and none must reprehend him. (g) At Hippon we had one borne with feet like half moons, and hands likewise: with two fingers only, and two toes. If there were a nation such now, (h) curious history would ring off it as of a wonder. But must we therefore say that this creature came not from Adam? an age can seldom be without an ay Hermophradite, though they be not ordinary, persons I mean that are so perfect in both sexes that we know not what to term them, man, or woman: though custom hath given the pre-eminence to the (k) chief, and call them still, men. For none speak of them in the female sense. In our time (some few years ago) was one borne, that was two from the middle upwardes, and but one downward. This was in the (l) East: he had two heads, two breasts, four hands, one belly and two feet: and lived so long that a multitude of men were eye witness of this shape of his. But who can reckon all the births extraordinary? Wherefore as we may not say but those are really descended from the first man, so what Nations soever have shapes different from that which is in most men, and seem (m) to be exorbitant from the common form, if they be (n) defineable to be reasonable creatures, and mortal, they must be acknowledged for Adam's issue: (if it be true that their be such diversity of shapes in whole Nations, varying so f●…te from ours.) For if we knew not that Apes (o) Monkeys, and (p) Babiounes, were not men but beasts, those brave and curious historiographers would bely them confidently to be nations, and generations of men. But if they be men of whom they write those wonders, what if GOD'S pleasure was to show us in the creating of whole nations of such monsters, that his wisdom did not like an unperfit carver, fail in the framing of such shapes, but purposely form them in this fashion? It is no absurdity therefore to believe that there may be such nations of monstrous men, as well as we see our times are often witnesses of monstrous births here amongst ourselves. Wherefore to close this question up with a sure lock: either the stories of such monsters are plain lies, or if there be such, they are either no men, or if they be men, they are the progeny of Adam. L. VIVES. MOnstrous (a) men] Pliny lib. 7. (b) One eye] Such they say are in India. (c) Pigmies] I do The Pigmies. not believe that the Pigm●…es were but in one place, or that the writers concerning them, differ so as they seem. Pliny (lib 4.) saith they were in Thrace, near the town Gerrania, and called Catizi, and that the Cranes beat them away. For there are great store of Cranes there, whereupon they are called the Strimonian, of Strymon, a river in Thrace. And Gerrania is drawn from the greek: for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is, a Crane. The same author rehearseth their opinion that said Pigmies dwelled by Endon, a river in Caria. Lib. 5. And (lib 6.) he followeth others, and placeth them in India, amongst the Prasian hills: as Philostratus doth also. Some there be (as Pline saith there) that say they are above the marshes of Nilus: one of those is Aristotle, who saith they live in Ethiopia amongst the Troglodytes, in caves▪ and therefore are called Troglodyta: and that their stature, and crane-battells are ●…ables. Of these Homer sung, placing them in the South, where the Cranes live in winter, as they do in Thrace in summer, going and coming with the seasons. Mela puts the Pigmies into the inmost Arabia, little wretches they are saith he, and fight for their corn against the Cranes. Some hold their are no such creatures. Arist. Pliny. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in greek, is a cubit, and 〈◊〉, saith Eustathius, (Homer's interpreter) they had their name. This cubit is half a 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 A cubit. A foot. An handbredth. is four and twenty fingers by their measure. For a foot, is twelve inshes, that is▪ 〈◊〉 fingers and four hand-breadths. But an handbredth is divers: there is the 〈◊〉 (o●… 〈◊〉 we do mean) being three inshes, the quarter of the foot: and there is the greater, 〈◊〉 twelve fingers, called a span: being three parts of the foot, that is nine fingers. There are (saith Pliny lib. 7.) upon those mountains, the Span-men, as they say, or the Pigmee●…▪ A span. being not above three spans (that is two foot ¼) high. So saith Gellius also that their highest stature is but two foot ¼. lib. 9 Pliny and Gellius do both mean, six and th●…e fingers. Iwenall to make them the more ridiculous, saith they were not above a foot high. (d)] Sciopodae] Or, foote-shadowed: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a shadow. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ a foot. (e) Checker-worke] M●…siuum opus. Spartian useth it, and Pliny. It is (saith Hermolaus Barbarus upon Pliny's Sciopodes a people. sixth book, and Baptista Egnatius upon Spartian) wrought with stones of divers colours, which being rightly laid together, are the portraitures of images: as is ordinary to be seen in the pavements at Rome and elsewhere in old works, for of late it is neglected: Our inlaid works in our chairs, and tables in Spain have some resemblance thereof. Checker-workes. Perottus, saith it is corrruptly called Musaicum, but the true word is Mus●…acum, of 〈◊〉, and allegeth this place of Pliny: Barbarus seems to be of his mind also. The ●…gar called it musaicum, because it seemed to be a work of great wit and industry. 〈◊〉 Cynocephali] word for word, Dogges-heads. Solinus maketh them a kind of Apes, ●…nd possible to be turned from ever being wild again. Diodorus accounts th●…m wild Cynocephali, a people. beasts. (g) At Hippon] Some had added in the Margin, Diaritum, and Zar●…tum. It should be Diarrhytum. Mela, Strabo, Pliny and Ptolemy speak of two 〈◊〉 in Africa, (having their names from Knights, or horsemen, for so is the Greek 〈◊〉 interpreted:) the one called Hippon Diarrhytus, near Carthage, a little on this side, and 〈◊〉 was Augustine Bishop: the other called Hippon Regius, being farther East, and the 〈◊〉 ancient seat, as Silius saith: Tum vaga & antiquis dilectus regibus Hippon. Vaga and Hippon, that old seat of Kings. Touching at them both. (h) Curious history] Which he spoke on before. ay Hermaphrodytes] 〈◊〉 Verbally from the Greek is the word Androgyws, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a man, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a woman: But they are called Hermaphrotes, because the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, that is, Mercury and Venus, was held to be the first halfe-male. (k) The chief] The masculine: so saith the Latin, Semi-mas. When those were borne, they were counted prodigies, in old times. L●… Lucan, etc. (l) The East.] In the East part of Africa, lying towards Nilus and Cyrene, 〈◊〉 ●…le parts Africa on the East from Asia. (m) Exorbitant] out of orbita, the right path of nature. (n) Definable] It is known that the Philosophers defined man to be a reasonable creature, and added mortal: because they held the most of their Gods, and the Demons to be reasonable creatures, and yet immortal. (o) Monkeys] Cercopitheri, tailed Apes, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Monkeys. tail, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Ape. martial. Callidus admissas eludere Simius hastas, Si mihi cauda foret, Cercopithecus eram. I mocked their darted staves withouten fail, Just like a Monkey had I had a tail. Aristotle calls those tailed Apes, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: De animal. lib. 2. But some beasts there are with lions faces, and Panther's bodies, as big as an Hind, which he calleth Cepi. lib. 10. There are also a people near the Fens of Meotis called Cepi. (p) Baboons] Sphynga, a creature Sphinxes. not much unlike an Ape, but bigger, with a face like a woman, and two dugs dangling before. Solinus faith they live in Ethiope, and are easily taught and tamed. The Poets give the Sphinx a Virgin's face, a lions paws, and a Griffons wings. Whether there be any inhabitants of the earth, called the Antipodes. CHAP. 9 But whereas they fable of a (a) people that inhabit that land where the sun riseth, when it setteth with us, and go with (b) their feet towards ours, it is incredible. They have no authority for it, but only (c) conjecture that such a thing may be, because the earth hangeth within the orbs of heaven, and each (e) part of the world is above and below alike, and thence they gather that the other hemysphere cannot want inhabitants. Now they consider not that although that it be globous as ours is, yet it may be all covered with Sea: and if it be bare, yet it followeth not, that it is inhabited, seeing that the Scripture (that proveth all that it saith to be true, by the true events that 〈◊〉 presageth) never maketh mention of any such thing. And it were too absurd to say, that men might sail over that huge Ocean, and go inhabit there: that the progeny of the first man might people that part also. But let us go and seek amongst those seventy two nations and their languages, whether ●…ee can find that City of GOD which remained a continual pilgrim on 〈◊〉 until the deluge, and is showed to persevere amongst the sons of 〈◊〉 after their blessing, chiefly in Sem, Noah's eldest son, for japhets' blessing 〈◊〉 to dwell in the tents of his brother. L. VIVES. PEople (a) that.] All Cosmographers divide the heaven, and consequently the earth into five The Antipodes. Zones, the utmost whereof lying under the Poles, and far from the heavens motion and the suns heat are insufferably cold: the mid-most, being in the most violent motion of Heaven, and heat of the Sun, is intolerably hot: the two being interposed between both extremes, are habitable: one temperate Zone lying towards the North and the other towards the South: the inhabitants of both, are called Autichthones. Now Cleomedes bids us divide those two Zones into four equal parts: those that dwell in the parts that lie in the same Zone, are called Periaeci, circumferential inhabitants, those that dwell in divers, or in an unequal distance from the Poles, and equal from the equinoctial, are called Antoeci, or opposites: they that dwell in equal distances from both, are called Antipodes. The Periaeci, differ in their day and night, but not in seasons of the year; the Antoeci just contrary: the Antipodes in both. It was an old opinion which Tully, Mela, and other chief men followed, that never Derep. li. 6. man had any knowledge of the South. Tully puts the great ocean between it and us, which no man ever passed: Macrobius discourseth at large hereupon. I do but glance at this for fear of clogging my reader. This was a great persuasion to Augustine to follow Lactantius, and deny the Antipodes, for the learned men saw well, that grant men no passage over that great sea unto the temperate Southern Climate, (as Tully and other great authors utterly denied them) and then they that dwell there could not possibly be of Adam's stock: so that he had rather deny them habitation there, then contend in argument against so many learned opposites: But it is most sure once, that Antipodes there are, and that we have found away unto them, not only in old times, but even by late sea masters: for of old, divers flying into the Persian gulf for fear of Augustus, sailed by the coast of Ethiopia and the Atlantike sea unto Hercules pillars. And in the prime of Carthages height, some sailed from thence through Hercules his straits, into the red sea of Arabia, and then were not the Bays of Persia, India, the Eastern sea, Taproban, and the Isles thereabouts all found out by the power of Alexander's navy? and those you shall find Antipodes to us, if you mark the posture of the Globe diligently, for they have the same elevation of their South pole, and be in the same distance from the occidental point, that some of the countries in our climate have, of our North point. (b) Their feet.] As Tully saith in Scipio's dream. (c) Conjecture.] For the temperature of the Southern Zone is just like to ours. (d) Each part.] The world is round, and Heaven is every where a like above it. Of the generation of Sem, in which the City of God lieth down unto Abraham. CHAP. 10. seems generation it is then that we must follow to find the City of God after the deulge, as Seth derived it along before. Therefore the Scripture having shown the Earthly City to be in Babylon, that is, in confusion, returns to the Patriarch Sem, and carrieth his generation down until Abraham, counting every man's years, when he had his son, and how long he lived: where by the way I think of my promise, of explaining, why one of Heber's sons was called Phalech, because in his days the earth was divided: how was it divided? by the confusion of tongues. So then the sons of Sem that concern not this purpose, being let pass, the Scripture reciteth those that convey his seed down unto Abraham: as it did with those that conveyed Seths' seed before the deluge, down unto Noah. It beginneth therefore thus. These are the generations of Sem: Sem was an hundred years old and begat (a) Arphaxad, two years after the flood. And Sem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters, and died: And thus of the rest, showing when every one begot his son, that belonged to this generation that descendeth to Abraham, and how long every one lived after he had begotten his son, and begot more sons and daughters, to show us 〈◊〉 a great multitude might come of one, lest we should make any childish 〈◊〉 at the few that it nameth: seems seed being sufficient to replenish so 〈◊〉 kingdoms, chiefly for the Assyrian Monarchy, where Ninus the subduer 〈◊〉 the East reigned in majesty, and left a mighty Empire to be possessed 〈◊〉 years after by his posterity: But let us not stand upon trifles longer than 〈◊〉 must: we will not reckon the number of every man's years till he died, ●…ely until he begat the son who is enranked in this genealogical roll. 〈◊〉 gathering these from the deluge to Abraham, we will briefly touch at other ●…ents as occasion shall necessarily import. In the second year therefore 〈◊〉 the deluge, Sem being two hundred years old begat Arphaxat: Arphaxat 〈◊〉 a hundred thirty five years old begat Canaan: he being a hundred and 〈◊〉 years old begat Sala, and so old was Sala when he begot Heber: Heber 〈◊〉 hundred thirty and four years old when he begat Phalec: Phalec a hund●… and thirty and begat Ragau: he one hundred thirty and two, and begat Se●…ruch one hundred and thirty and begot Nachor: Nachor seventy and nine 〈◊〉 got Thara: (b) Thara seventy, and begot Abram whom God afterward 〈◊〉 Abraham. So then from the deluge to Abraham are one thousand seventy 〈◊〉 years, according to the vulgar translation, that is the Septuagints. But 〈◊〉 Hebrew the years are far fewer, whereof we can hear little or no 〈◊〉 shown. 〈◊〉 therefore in this quest of the City of God, we cannot say in this time 〈◊〉 those men were not all of one language, (those seventy and two na●… mean wherein we seek it) that all mankind was fallen from GOD'S 〈◊〉 ●…uice: but that it remained only in Sems generation, descending to 〈◊〉 by Arphaxad. But the earthly City was visible enough in that pre●…ion of building the tower up to heaven (the true type of devilish exal●…): therein was it apparent, and ever after that. But whether this other 〈◊〉 ●…ot before, or lay hid, or rather both remained in Noah's sons, the godly 〈◊〉 two blessed ones, and the wicked in that one accursed, from whom that 〈◊〉 giant-hunter against the Lord descended, it is hard to discern, for it may 〈◊〉 that most likely) that before the building of Babylon, GOD might have 〈◊〉 of some of Cham's children, and the deulil, of some of Sems and japhets. 〈◊〉 may not believe that the earth wanted of either sort. For that, saying: 〈◊〉 all gone out of the way, they are all corrupt, there is not one that doth good, no Psa. 14. 3. 4. Psa. 52. 3. 4. 〈◊〉 even in both the Psalms that have this saying, this followeth; Do not 〈◊〉 work iniquity know that they eat up my people as it were bread? so that 〈◊〉 his people then: And therefore that same, No not one, is meant restric●… 〈◊〉 the sons of men, and not the sons of GOD, for he said before, 〈◊〉 looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there were any 〈◊〉 ●…ld understand and seek GOD? and then the addition that followeth, 〈◊〉 that it was those, that lived after the law of the flesh, and not of the 〈◊〉 ●…ome he speaketh of. L. VIVES. ARphaxad (a)] From him (saith Hierome) the Chaldaeans descended. (b) Thara] The 70. call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: the Hebrew, Terah. Tha the Hebrew tongue (so called afterward of Heber) was the first language upon the earth, and remained in his family when that great confusion was. CHAP. 11. WHerefore even as sin wanted not sons when they had all but one language, (for so it was before the deluge, and yet all deserved to perish therein but Noah and his family) so when man's presumption was punished with his language's confusion, whence the City Babylon, their proud work, had the name, Heber's (a) house failed not but kept the old language still. whereupon as I said, Heber was reckoned the first of all the sons of Sem, who begot each of them an whole nation: yet was he the fifth from Seth in descent. So then because this language remained in his house, that was confounded in all the rest, (being credibly held the only language upon earth before this) hence it had The Hebrew tongue. the name of the Hebrew tongue, for than it was to be nominally distinct from the other tongues, as other tongues had their proper names. But when it was the tongue of all, it had no name, but the tongue or language of mankind, wherein all men spoke. Some may say: if that the earth was divided by the languages in Phaleches time, Heber's son, it should rather have been called his name then Heber's: O but we must understand that (b) Heber did therefore give his son Phalec such a name, that is, division, because he was borne unto him just at the time when the earth was divided, so means the Scripture when it saith, in his days the earth was divided. For if Heber were not living when the confusion befell, the tongue that was to remain in his family should not have had the name from him: and there we must think that it was first universal, because the confusion of tongues was a punishment, which Gods people were not to cast off: Nor was it for nothing that Abraham could not communicate this his language unto all his generation, but only to those that were propagate by jacob, and arising into an evident people of God, were to receive his Testament, and the Saviour in the flesh. Nor did Heber's whole progeny bear away this language, but only that from whence Abraham descended. Wherefore though there be no godly men evidently named, that lived at the time when the wicked built Babylon: yet this concealment ought not to dull, but rather to incite one to inquire further. For whereas we read that at first, men had all one language, and that Heber is first reckoned of all the sons of Sem, being but the fifth of his house downward, and that language which the patriarchs and Prophets used in all their words and writings, was the Hebrew: Verily when woe seek where that tongue was preserved in the confusion (being to be kept amongst them to whom the confusion could be no punishment) what can we say but that it was preserved unto this man's family of whom it had the name? and that this is a great sign of righteousness in him, that where as the rest were afflicted with the confusion of their tongues, he only and his family was acquit of that affliction. But yet there is another doubt: How could Heber and his son Phalec become two several nations, having both but one language? And truly the Hebrew tongue descended to Abraham from Heber, and so down from him until Israel became a great people. How then could every son of Noah's sons progenies become a particular nation when as Heber and Phalec had both but one lang●…? The greatest probability is, that (c) Nembroth became a nation also, and yet was reckoned, for the eminence of his dignity, and corporal strength, to keep the number of seventy two nations inviolate: but Phalec was not named for growing into a nation, but that that strange accident of the earth's division fell out in 〈◊〉 days: for of the nation and language of Heber, was Phalec also. We need not 〈◊〉 at this, how Nembroth might live just with that time when Babylon was 〈◊〉 and the confusion of tongues befell, for there is no reason, because Heber was the sixth from Noah, and he but the fourth, but that they might both live unto 〈◊〉 time & in one time, for this fell out so before, where they that had the least 〈◊〉 lived the longest, that they that had the more, died sooner: or they 〈◊〉 ●…ad few sons had them later than those that had many, for we must con●… this, that when the earth was builded, Noah's sons had not only all 〈◊〉 issue (who were called the fathers of those nations) but that these also 〈◊〉 and numerous families, worthy the name of nations. Nor may we 〈◊〉 then that they were borne as they are reckoned. Otherwise, how could 〈◊〉 twelve sons (another son of Heber's) become of those nations, if he 〈◊〉 ●…ne after Phalec, as he is reckoned? for in Phalecs' days was the earth 〈◊〉. We must take it thus then, Phalec is first named, but was borne long 〈◊〉 brother joktan, whose twelve sons had all their families so great that 〈◊〉 ●…ht be sufficient to share one tongue in the confusion, for so might he that 〈◊〉 borne, be first reckoned, as Noah's youngest son is first named, name●… Cham the second the next, and Shem, the eldest, the last. Now some of 〈◊〉 ●…s names continued, so that we may know to this day whence they are 〈◊〉 ●…s, the Assyrians of Assur; the Hebrews of Heber, (d) and some con●… of time hath abolished, in so much that the most learned men can 〈◊〉 find any memory of them in antiquity. For some say that the Egypti●… they that came of Mizraim (e) Cham's son: here is no similitude 〈◊〉 at all: nor in the Aethiopians which they say came of Chus, another 〈◊〉 Cham's. And if we consider all, we shall find far more names lost 〈◊〉 ●…ayning. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) house.] Some think they consented not unto the building of the Tower and 〈◊〉 ●…efore had the first language left only to them. Herodotus writeth that Psameti●…●…yptian ●…yptian king, caused two children to be brought up in ●…e woods, without hearing 〈◊〉 man's mouth, thinking that that language which they would speak of themselves 〈◊〉 ●…ould be that which man spoke at first: after three years, they were brought unto 〈◊〉 ●…ey said nothing but Bec, divers times. Now Bec is bread in Phrygian, whereupon 〈◊〉 the Phrygian tongue to be the first: but it was no marvel if they cried 〈◊〉 continually brought up amongst the goats, that could cry nothing else. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] Prophesying of what was to 〈◊〉, saith Hierom. (c) Nembroth became,] 〈◊〉, it is uncertain: where he reigned is plain, Gen. 2. In Babylon, and Arach that 〈◊〉 Hierom) Edessa, and Accad, that is now called Nisibis, and in Chalah, that 〈◊〉 ●…d called Seleucia of Seleucus, or else that which is now called Ctesiphon. Perhaps he was the father (but doubtless the great increaser) of those nations. (d) And some] So saith Hierome of all joctans sons. And no marvel, since that all the mountains, hills, and rivers of Italy, France and Spain, changed their names quite into barbarous ones within the compass of two hundred years. (e) Ghams' son] Nay Egypt (saith Hierome) Egypt. bore Cham's own name: for the seventy put the letter X. for the Hebrew He, continually, to Ham. teach us the aspiration dew to the word, and here they translate Cham, for that which in the Hebrew is Ham, by which name Egypt in the country's proper language is called unto this day. Thus far Hierome. But it might be that Egypt was called Mizraim of him that first peopled it, as Hierome saith the Hebrews call it continually. Egypt was also called afterwards Aeria, because as Stephanus saith, the air was thick therein: it was called further-more Neptapolis of the seven cities therein. And lastly Egypt of Egyptus, Belus his son. Homer calls the river Nilus, Egypt. (f) Ethiopians] The Hebrews call Ethiopia, Chus. Hieron. It was called Atlantia of Atlas, and Ethiopia afterwards of Ethiopes, Vulcan's son, as some Aethiopia. say. But I think rather of the burnt hue of the inhabitants: for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek, is black: Homer that old Poet saith, there are two Ethiopa's. Odyss. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. This lies upon the East, that on the West. There is also a part of the I'll Eubaea called Aethiopon. Of that point of time wherein the city of God began a new order of succession in Abraham. CHAP. 12. NOw let us see how the City of God proceeded from that minute wherein it began to be more eminent and evident in promises unto Abraham (which now we see fulfilled in Christ) Thus the holy Scripture teacheth us then, that Abraham was borne in a part of Chaldaea, which belonged (a) unto the Empire of the Assyrians. And now had superstition got great head in Chaldaea, as it had all over else: so there was but only the house of Thara, Abraham's father, that served God truly, and (by all likelihood) kept the Hebrew tongue pure, though that (as josuah telleth the Hebrews) as they were Gods evident people in Egypt, so in Mesopotamia they fell to Idolatry, all Heber's other sons becoming other nations, or being commixed with others. Therefore even as in the deluge of waters Noah's house remained alone to repair mankind, so in this deluge of sin and superstition, Thares house only remained as the place wherein GOD'S City was planted and kept. And even as before the deluge, the generations of all from Adam, the number of years, and the reason of the deluge being all reckoned up, before God began to speak of building the Ark, the Scripture saith of Noah: These are the generations of Noah: even so here, having reckoned all from Sem, the son of Noah, down unto Abraham, he putteth this to the conclusion, as a point of much moment, These are the generations of Thara. Thara begot Abraham, Nachor, and Aram: And Aram died before (b) his father Thara in the land wherein he was borne, being a part of Chaldaea. And Abraham and Nachor took them wives: the name of Abraham's wife was Sarah, and the name of Nachors wife was Melca, the daughter of Aram: who was father both to Melca and jesea, whom some hold also to be Sara, Abraham's wife. L. VIVES. WHich (a) belonged] For Mela, Pliny, Strabo and others, place Chaldaea in Assyria: And 〈◊〉 only a part of that Assyria which the ancient writers called by the name of Sy●… 〈◊〉 country, but of that Assyria also which Strabo calls the Babylonian Assyria. Assyria. 〈◊〉 maketh a difference between Syria and Assyria. Cyropaed. 1. (b) Before] In his fa●… 〈◊〉. So all interpreters take it: Augustine might perhaps understand it, before his 〈◊〉 to Charra, which is part of Chaldaea. Charrah was a city in Mesopotamia, where Charra. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 killed Crassus the Roman general. ●…hy there is no mention of Nachor, Tharas' son, in his departure from Chaldaea to Mesopotamia. CHAP. 13. 〈◊〉 the Scripture proceedeth, and declareth how Thara and his family left ●…ldaea, and came (a) into Mesopotamia, and dwelled in Charra. But of his 〈◊〉 ●…chor there is no mention, as if he had not gone with him. Thus saith the 〈◊〉. Thus Thara took Abraham his son, and Let his grandchild, Abra●… Gen. 11. 〈◊〉, and Sara his daughter in law, his son Abraham's wife, and he led them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 country of Chaldaea, into the land of Canaan, and he came to Charra and 〈◊〉 there. Here is no word of Nachor, nor his wife Melcha. But afterward, 〈◊〉 Abraham sent his servant to seek a wife for his son Isaac, we find it 〈◊〉 thus: So the servant took ten of his masters Camels, and of his masters Gen. ●…4. 〈◊〉 ●…th him, and departed and went into Mesopotamia into the city of Nachor. ●…ce, and others beside, do prove, that Nachor went out of Chaldaea al●…●…led himself in Mesopotamia where Abraham and his father had dwelled. 〈◊〉 not the Scriptures than remember him, when Thara went thence to 〈◊〉 where, when it maketh mention both of Abraham and Lot, that was 〈◊〉 ●…and-childe, and Sara his daughter in law, in this transmigration? what 〈◊〉 think but that he had forsaken his father and brother's religion, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chaldees superstition, and afterward, either repenting for his fact, 〈◊〉 ●…secuted by the country, suspecting him to be hollow-harted, depar●… himself also? for Holophernes Israel's enemy in the book of judith, 〈◊〉 what nation they were, and whether he ought to fight against them, 〈◊〉 answered by Achior captain of the Ammonites: Let my Lord hear the 〈◊〉 mouth of his servant, and I will show thee the truth concerning this people 〈◊〉 these mountains, and there shall no lie come out of thy servants mouth. 〈◊〉 come out of the stock of the Chaldaeans, and they dwelled before in 〈◊〉 ●…ia, because they would not follow the Gods of their fathers, that 〈◊〉 ●…us in the land of Chaldaea: but they left the way of their ancestors & 〈◊〉 the God of heaven, whom they knew: so that they cast them out from 〈◊〉 their gods, and they fled into Mesopotamia, and dwelled there many 〈◊〉 their God commanded them to depart from the place where they 〈◊〉 to go into the land of Chanaan where they dwelled, and so forth, as 〈◊〉 Ammonite relateth. Hence it is plain that Thara his family were per●… the Chaldaeans for their religion, because they worshipped the true 〈◊〉 God. L. VIVES. Mesopotamia] Mesopotamia quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, between two seas, for it lay all be●… Mesopotamia. 〈◊〉 and Euphrates. Of the age of Thara, who lived in Charra until his dying day. CHAP. 14. THara died in Mesopotamia, where it is said he lived two hundred and five years, and after his death the promises that God made to Abraham began to be manifested: Of Thara, it is thus recorded: The days of Thara were two hundred and five years, and he died in Charra. He lived not there all this time, you must think, but because he ended his time (which amounted unto two hundred and five years) in that place, it is said so. Otherwise we could not tell how many years he lived, because we have not the time recorded when he came to Charra: and it were fondness to imagine that in that Catalogue where all their ages are recorded, his only should be left out: for whereas the Scripture names some, and yet names not their years, it is to be understood, that they belong not to that generation that is so lineally drawn down from man to man. For the stem that is derived from Adam unto Noah, and from him unto Abraham, names no man without recording the number of his years also. Of the time wherein Abraham received the promise from God, and departed from Charra. CHAP. 15. But whereas we read, that after Thara's death the Lord said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, etc. We must not think that this followed immediately in the times, though it follow immediately in the scriptures, for so we shall fall into an (b) inextricable doubt: for after these words unto Abraham, the Scripture followeth thus: So Abraham departed, as the Lord spoke unto him, and Lot went with him: and Abraham was seventy five years old when he went out of Charra. How can this be true now, if Abraham went not out of Charra until after the death of his father? for Thara begot him, as we said before, at the seaventith year of his age: unto which add seventy five years, (the age of Abraham at this his departure from Charra) and it maketh a hundred forty five years. So old therefore was Thara when Abraham departed from Charra, that city of Mesopotamia: for Abraham was then but seventy two years of age, and his father begetting him when he was seventy years old, must needs be a hundred forty five years old (and no more) at his departure. Therefore he went not after his father's death, who lived two hundred and five years, but before, at the seventy two years of his own age, and consequently the hundred forty five of his fathers. And thus the Scripture (in an usual course) returneth to the time which the former relation had gone beyond: as it did before saying, That the sons of Noah's sons were divided into nations and languages, etc. and yet afterwards adjoineth: Gen. 11. 1. Then the whole earth was of one language, etc. as though this had really followed. How then had every man his nation and his tongue, but that the Scriptures return back again unto the times over-passed. Even so here, whereas it is said, the days of Thara were two hundred & five years, and he died in Charra: & then the scriptures returning to that which over-passed to finish the discourse of Thara first: then the Lord said unto Abraham: get thee out of thy country, etc. after which is added. So Abraham, departed as the Lord spoke unto him, and Lot went with him: and Abraham was seventy years old when he went from Charra. This therefore was, when his 〈◊〉 was a hundred forty and five years of age, for than was Abraham, seventy five. This doubt is also otherwise dissolved by counting Abraham's seventy 〈◊〉 when he went to Charra, from the time when he was freed from the fire of 〈◊〉 Chaldaaens and not from his birth, as if he had rather been borne then. 〈◊〉 Saint Stephen in the Acts discoursing hereof, saith thus: The God of glory ap●… Act 7. 2. 3. to our father Abraham in Mesopotamia, before he dwelled in Charra, and said 〈◊〉 him, get thee out of thy country from thy kindred and come into the land which 〈◊〉 give thee. According to these words of Stephen it was not after Tharas' death 〈◊〉 ●…od spoke to Abraham (for Thara died in Charra) but it was before he dwelled 〈◊〉 ●…rra, yet was in Mesopotamia. But he was gone out of Chaldaea first. And ●…eas Stephen saith, Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans and dwelled in 〈◊〉: this is relation of a thing done after those words of God: for he went 〈◊〉 Chaldaea after God had spoken to him (for he saith, God spoke to him in Mesopotamia) but that word, Then, compriseth all the time from Abraham's departure until the Lord spoke to him. And that which followeth. After that his father 〈◊〉 dead God placed him in this land wherein he now dwelleth. The meaning of the place is. And God brought him from thence, where his father died afterwards, and placed 〈◊〉 ●…ere So then we just understand, that God spoke unto Abraham being in Meso●…tamia, yet not as yet dwelling in Charra: but that he came in to Charra with ●…er, holding God's commandment fast, and in the seventy five year of 〈◊〉 departed thence: which was in his fathers a hundred forty five year. Now 〈◊〉 that he was placed in Chanaan (not he came out of Charra) after his 〈◊〉 death, for when he was dead, he began to buy land there, and became 〈◊〉 possessions. But whereas God spoke thus to him after he came from 〈◊〉 and was in Mesopotamia, Get thee out of thy country, from thy kindred 〈◊〉 thy father's house: this concerned not his bodily removal (for that he 〈◊〉 before) but the separation of his soul from them, for his mind was 〈◊〉 ●…arted from them if he ever had any hope to return, or desired it: this ●…d desire by God's command was to be cut of. It is not incredible 〈◊〉 ●…erwards when as Nachor followed his father Abraham then fulfilled the ●…nd of God, and took Sara his wife and Lot his brother's son, and so 〈◊〉 out of Charra. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) inextricable doubt.] So Hierome calls it and dissolveth it somewhat ●…sly from Augustine, although he use three conjectures. dissol●…●…us ●…us Hierome dissolveth it out of an Hebrew history: for that which we read the 〈◊〉 of Chaldaea, the Hebrew hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ur Shadim, that is, the fire of the Caldae●…●…pon the Hebrews have the story: Abraham was taken by the Chaldaeans, and 〈◊〉 he would not worship their Idols, namely their fire, he was put into it; from whence The Chaldeaeans worship the fire, 〈◊〉 ●…ed him by miracle, and the like story they have of Thara also his father, that he, 〈◊〉 he would not adore their images was so served, and so escaped also: as whereas it is 〈◊〉 Aram died before his father in the land where he was borne in the country of 〈◊〉, they say it is, in his father's presence in the fire of the Chaldaeans, wherein be●…●…ould not worship it, he was burned to death. And likewise in other places of the text. 〈◊〉 ●…hen he comes to this point, saith: the Hebrew tradition is true, that saith that Thara 〈◊〉 came out of the fire of the Chaldaees, & that Abraham being hedged round about in 〈◊〉 with the fire which he would not worship, was by God's power delivered, & from thence are the number of his years accounted, because than he first confessed the Lord God and contemned the Chaldee Idols: Thus far Hierome, without whose relation this place of Augustine is not to be understood. josephus writeth that Thara hating Chaldaea, departed thence for the grief of his son Arams death, and came to dwell in Charra: and that Arams tomb was to be seen in Vr of the Chaldees. The order and quality of God's promises made unto Abraham. CHAP. 16. NOw must we examine the promises made unto Abraham: for in them began the oracles presaging our Lord jesus Christ the true God, to appear: who was to come of that godly people, that the prophesies promised. The first of them is this: The Lord said unto Abraham: get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, Gen. 12. and from thy father's house unto the land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and will bless thee, & make thy name great, and thou shalt be blessed, I will also bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, and in them shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Here we must observe a double promise made unto Abraham: the first that his seed should possess the land of Canaan, in these words; Go unto the land that I will show thee, and I will make thee a great nation: the second of far more worth and moment, concerning his spiritual seed, whereby he is not only the father of Israel, but of all the nations that follow his faith: and that is in these words: And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. This promise was made in Abraham's seventy five year, as Eusebius (a) thinketh: as if that Abraham did presently there upon depart out of Charra, because the Scripture may not be controlled, that giveth him this many years at the time of his departure. But if it were made then, then was Abraham with his father in Charra: for he could not depart from thence, unless he had first inhabited there. Doth not this then contradict Stevens saying; That God appeared unto him in Mesopotamia, before he dwelled in Charra? But we must conceive Acts. 7. 2. that this was in one year, God's promise to Abraham first; abraham's dwelling in Charra next, and lastly his departure: not only because Eusebius his computation is thus, accounting four hundred thirty years from this year unto the Israelites freedom out of Egypt, but also because the Apostle (b) Paul mentioneth it Galat. 3. 17 likewise. L. VIVES. EUsebius (a) thinketh] These are his words: Arius the fourth reigning in Assyria, and T●…alassion in Sycionia, Abraham being seventy five years old, was spoken unto by God, and received the promise. (b) Paul] Galat. 3. 17. The law which was given four hundred and thirty years after the promise made unto Abraham. Of the three most eminent kingdoms of the world, the chief of which in Abraham's time was most excellent of all. CHAP. 17. AT this time there were divers famous kingdoms upon earth, that is, society of men living carnally, & in the service of the apostatical powers, three of which were most illustrious, the (a) Sycionians, the (b) Egyptians & the Assyrians, which was the greatest of all. For Ninus the son of Belus, conquered all Asia, excepting India only. I do not mean by Asia (c) which is now but one province of the greater Asia, but that which contained it all, which some make the third part of the world, dividing the whole earth into Asia, Europe & Africa, & some (d) make it the Asia. 〈◊〉 dividing the whole into two only. Others divide all into three (e) equal 〈◊〉 Asia in the East, from the North to the South: Europe (f) from the 〈◊〉 to the West, and (g) Africa from the West unto the South: so that Europe and Africa are but the half of the world, and Asia the other half: but the 〈◊〉 first were made two parts, because (h) all the water that cometh from the 〈◊〉, runs in betwixt them two, making (i) our great sea. So that divide but the world into two, and Asia shall be one half, and Europe and afric the other. Therefore Sicyonia, one of the three eminent kingdoms, was not under the Assy●… monarchy, for it lay in Europe. But (k) Egypt must needs be inferior unto 〈◊〉, seeing that the Assyrians were Lords of all Asia, excepting India. So 〈◊〉 city of the wicked kept the chief court in Assyria: whose chief city 〈◊〉 ●…bylon, most fitly called so, that is, confusion: and there Ninus succeeded 〈◊〉 ●…her Belus, who had held that sovereignty three score and five years: and 〈◊〉 ●…ne Ninus lived fifty two years, and had reigned forty and five years 〈◊〉 Abraham was borne, which was about a thousand two hundred years be●…●…ome was built, that other Babylon of the West. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) Sicyonians] Sicyon is an ancient city on the left hand as you come into Pelopone●… ●…gialeus (as Pausanias and Eusebius say) was the first King thereof. Sicyonia is a little 〈◊〉 in Achaia, but the kings of it ruled Achaia, and Sytion was their place of abode: It Sicyon. 〈◊〉 Achaia, and Aegialia of the Kings thereof in old time. Pliny. And all Peloponesus 〈◊〉 thereafter. Euseb. Afterwards it was called Apia of king Apis the fourth, and 〈◊〉 ●…oponesus of Pelops, quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Pelops I'll, for it is an half Island. Pausanias' Pelopom●…sus. 〈◊〉 Peloponesus was not called Aegialia, but only that part towards the sea, quasi 〈◊〉 ●…all, or sea-coasting: and afterwards Sicyonia of King Sicyon: of him hereafter. 〈◊〉] The Thebaeans ruled here in those days, a country in Delta, named so by the rich 〈◊〉 city of Thebes. (c) That which] Of Asia minor, hereafter. (d) Some make it] 〈◊〉 Sallust) divided the world but into two parts, Asia and Europe, making Africa a 〈◊〉 ●…pe. In Bello jugurth. thereupon Sylius saith of Lybia, that it was either a great 〈◊〉, or the third part of the world: Those that divide not Africa from Europe do 〈◊〉 the temperature of the winds, and upon the heavens: as Lucan saith, lib 〈◊〉. Tertia pars rerum Lybie si credere famae, Cuncta velis: at si ventos, calumque sequaris Pars erit Europae: nec enim plus littora Nili quam Scythicus Tanais primus à Gadibus absunt. Lybia's the world's third part, or authors lie: But if you ground upon the winds and sky, 'Tis part of Europe: Tanais shores and Niles, Lie a like distant from the Gades Iles. 〈◊〉 ●…ward upon this question. (e) Equal] Some read unequal: better. For Africa is 〈◊〉 Europe, and Asia greater than both: which lieth in a larger quantity to the East, 〈◊〉, Africa, and the sea between them both containeth, as Mela saith: but he fol●…●…olde tradition: for we have now discovered a great part of Africa towards the 〈◊〉 ●…owne before. (f) Europe from the North] On the North side, Europe is bounded 〈◊〉 sea, and the British Ocean. On the West with the Atlantike Ocean: on the Europe. 〈◊〉 ●…he Mediterrane sea, and on the East with Hellespont, the two Bosphori, the 〈◊〉, and the river of Tanais. (g) Africa] Africa is bounded on the East 〈◊〉 on the West with the Atlantic sea, on the North with our sea, and on the south 〈◊〉 ●…opian Ocean. But thus the old writers unperfectly limited it, the Portugals 〈◊〉 ●…ed it far more fully. (h) All the water] The Bruges copy readeth, because our sea comes from the Ocean between them both. The sea that the greeks and Latins call the Mediterrane sea, is ours, for no other sea comes near them. It stretcheth (according to Mela) from Hercules his pillars to the Bay of Issus on the East, to Meotis and Tanais on the North, lying between Europe and Africa in one-place, and between Europe and Asia in another. ay Our great sea] That which floweth from the Ocean, upon the coasts of Europe and Africa, and is broadest between the bays of Liguria and Hippon, where Augustine dwelled: who therefore calleth it, great. (k) Egypt must] Egypt was not all Asia, but a part of it, lying from Nilus to the East: yet did it not obey the 〈◊〉. Assyrians, but was a mighty kingdom of itself, and made great wars upon Assyria, and ouer-ran much of it, if we may give credence to their books. Of God's second promise to Abraham, that he and his seed should possess the land of Canaan. CHAP. 18. SO Abraham at the seventy five year of his own age: and the hundred forty five of his fathers, left Charra, and took Lot his brother's son with him, and Sara his wife, and came into the land of Canaan, even unto (a) Sichem, where he received this second promise: The Lord appeared unto Abraham and said 〈◊〉. 1●…. unto thy seed will I give this land. This promise concerned not that seed of his, whereby he was to become the father of all the nations, but the progeny of his body only, by Isaac and Israel: for their seed possessed this land. L. VIVES. Unto (a) Sichem] This lay in the tribe of Ephraim's part, and Abimelech afterwards destroyed i●… judg. 9 45. It was called Sicima in Greek and Latin, and there remained some memo●… 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 i●… i●… Hieromes time, in the suburbs of Neapolis near unto joseph's Sepulchre: there was 〈◊〉 Sichem also upon mount Ephraim, a city of the fugitives. Hier. de loc. Hebraec. How God preserved Saras chastity in Egypt, when Abraham would not be known that she was his wife but his sister. CHAP. 19 THere Abraham built an altar, and then departed and dwelled in a wilderness, and from thence was driven by famine, to go into Egypt, where he called his wife his sister, and yet (a) lied not. For she was his cousin germane, and Lot being his brother's son, was called his brother. So that he did only conceal, and not deny that she was his wife: commending the custody of her chastity unto God, and avoiding man's deceits, as man: for if he should not have endeavoured ●…o eschew danger as much as in him lay, he should rather have become a (b) 〈◊〉 of GOD, than a truster in him, whereof we have disputed against 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Manichee his callumnyes. And as Abraham trusted upon God, so came it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Pharaoh the King of Egypt, seeking to have her to wife, was sore af●…, ●…d forced to restore her to her husband. Where (c) God forbid that we should 〈◊〉 her defiled by him any way: his great plagues that he suffered would no way permit him to commit any such outrage. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) lied not] For cousin-germaines are called brethren and sisters, as we showed out of 〈◊〉. (b) A temple] God would be trusted unto firmly, but no way tempted. Thou shalt not God will not be tempted. 〈◊〉 Lord thy God, saith Moses in Deuteronomy, which saying our Saviour Christ made 〈◊〉 of Mat. 4. (c) God forbid] Hierome showeth by the example Hester, that the women 〈◊〉 a full year, to be prepared fit for the King's bed, ere he touched them: so that Pha●…●…ght ●…ght be plagued, and forced to return Sara to her husband in the mean time. Of the separation of Lot and Abraham without breach of charity or love between them. CHAP. 20. 〈◊〉 Abraham departing out of Egypt to the place whence he came, Lot (with●… any breach of love between them) departed to dwell in Sodom. For be●…●…th very rich, their shepherd's and herdsmen could not agree, and so to a●… that inconvenience, they parted. For amongst such (as all men are vnper●…●…ere might no doubt be some contentions now and then arising: which e●… avoid, Abraham said thus unto Lot: Let there be no strife I pray thee, between Gen. 13. 8, 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 me, nor between my herdsmen and thine, for we be brethren. Is (a) not the 〈◊〉 ●…nd before thee? I pray thee depart from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, I 〈◊〉 to the right, or if thou wilt go to the right hand, than I will take the left. ●…ce (b) it may be the world got up an honest quiet custom, that the el●…●…ould evermore divide the land, and the younger should choose. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉] Abraham puts him to his choice to take where he would, and he would take 〈◊〉. (b) Hence it may be] This was a custom of old, as the declamers laws con●…●…of this was one. Sen. lib. declam. 6. Of God's third promise, of the land of Canaan to Abraham and his seed for ever CHAP. 21. 〈◊〉 ●…hen Abraham and Lot were parted, & dwelled several, (for necessities sake 〈◊〉 ●…ot for discord) Abraham in Canaan, Lot in Sodom, God spoke the 〈◊〉 to Abraham, saying: Lift up thine eyes now, and look from the place where Gen. 13. 〈◊〉; Northward and southward, and Eastward, and to (a) the sea, for all the 〈◊〉 seest will I give to thee and thy seed for ever: and I will make thy seed as the 〈◊〉 the earth: so that if a man may number the sands of the earth, then shall thy 〈◊〉 ●…bred also: arise walk through the land in the length and breadth thereof, for 〈◊〉 it unto thee. Whether these promise concern his being the fa●… 〈◊〉 nations, it is not evidently apparent. These words, I will make 〈◊〉 the sands of the sea, may have some reference to that: being a tropi●… of speech which the greeks call (b) Hyperbole. But how (c) the 〈◊〉 useth this, and the rest: not that hath read them, but understandeth. This trope now, is when the words do far exceed the meaning. For who seeth not that the number of the sands is more than all Adam's seed can make, from the beginning to the end of the world? how much more than Abraham's, though it include both the Israelites, and the believes of all other nations? compare this later with the number of the wicked, (d) and it is but an handful: though (e) this handful be such a multitude as holy writ thought to signify hyperbolically, by the sands of the earth. And indeed the seed promised Abraham is innumerable unto men, but not unto GOD, (f) nor the sands neither: and therefore because not only the Israelites, but all Abraham's seed besides, which he shall propagate in the spirit, are fitly compared with the sands; therefore this promise includeth both. But this, we say is not apparent, because his bodily progeny alone, in time amounted to such a number that it filled almost all the world, and so might (by an hyperbole) be comparable to the sands of the earth, because this multitude is only innumerable unto man. But that the land he spoke of, was only Canaan, no man maketh question. But some may stick upon this, I will give it to thee and thy seed for ever: whether he mean, eternally, here or no. But if we understand this, Ever, to be meant until the world's end, as we do firmly believe it is, than the doubt is cleared. For though the Israelites be chased out of jerusalem, yet do they possess other cities in Canaan, and shall do until the end, and were all the land inhabited with christians, there were Abraham's seed, in them. L VIVES. TO the (a) sea] Of Syria, wherein Abraham was, our sea is upon the West, so that having named the three quarters of the world before, he must needs mean that for the western Hyperbole, a 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉, sea which Pliny calls the Phaenician sea. (b) Hyperbole] When our words exceed our meaning. Quintil. lib. 9 (c) The scriptures] As in Hieremy the twentieth, an Hyperbole of many verses, saith Hierome also. Dan. 4. and Ecclesiastes, 10. The fowls of the heaven shall carry thy voice. Origen saith that that place Rom. 1. 8. your faith is published through all the world; is an hyperbole. This figure is ordinary in the Gospel also, and used most, to move the hearers. Aug. contra julian. lib. 5. [I wonder of some, that had rather have the scriptures speak rustically then learnedly] (d) It is but] Narrow is the way that leadeth unto life: and many are called but few are chosen. Mat. 7. 14. (e) This handful] So john saith that he saw a multitude which no [The Lo●…inists defective.] man could number. Apoc. 7. 9 (f) Nor the sands] This the oraculous devil of Delpho's (amongst other particulars of God) ascribed to himself: for the Lydians, whom Crasus sent thither coming into the temple, the Pythia spoke thus to them from Apollo. N●…iego arenarum numerum, spaciumque profundi. My power can count the sands, and sound the sea. How Abraham overthrew the enemies of the Sodomites, freed Lot from captivity, and was blessed by Melchisedech the Priest. CHAP. 22. ABraham having received this promise, departed and remained in another place, by the wood of Mambra, which was in Chebron. And then Sodom being spoiled, and L●…t taken prisoner by five Kings that came against them, Abraham went to fetch him back with three hundred and eighteen of those that 〈◊〉 borne and bred in his house, and overthrew those Kings, and set Lot at li●… and yet would take nothing of the spoil though the (a) King for whom ●…rred proffered it him. But than was he blessed of Melchisedech, who was 〈◊〉 of the high God, of whom there is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews Psal. 111. 〈◊〉 (b) the most affirm to be Paul's though some deny it) many and great 〈◊〉. For there the sacrifice that the whole church offereth now unto GOD, 〈◊〉 apparent, and that was prefigured which was long after fulfilled in 〈◊〉, of whom the Prophet said, before he came in the flesh: Thou art a Priest Genes. 14. 〈◊〉▪ ●…er the order of Melchisedech: not after the order of Aaron, for that was 〈◊〉 ●…emooued, when the true things came to effect, whereof those were figures 〈◊〉▪ L. VIVES. 〈◊〉) King] Basa King of Sodom, whose quarrel Abraham revenged, Gen. 14. (b) [Which 〈◊〉 ●…st] Hierome, Origen, and Augustine do doubt of this Epistle, and so do others. The [This the Lovanists have left out as erroneous.] 〈◊〉 Church before Hierome held it not canonical. Erasmus disputeth largely and learned●… 〈◊〉 the end of his notes upon it. This bread and wine, was type of the body and blood of 〈◊〉 that are now offered in those forms.] Of God's promise to Abraham that he ●…ould make his seed as the stars of heaven, and that he was justified by faith, before his circumcision. CHAP. 23. 〈◊〉 the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, who having many 〈◊〉 promises made, and yet doubting of posterity, he said that Eliezer his 〈◊〉 should be his heir: but presently he had an heir promised him, not 〈◊〉 but one of his own body: and beside that his seed should be innume●… as the sands of earth now, but as the stars of heaven: wherein the Genes. 15. 〈◊〉 glory of his posterity seems to be plainly intimated. But as for their 〈◊〉 who seeth not that the sands do far exceed the stars? herein you 〈◊〉 they are comparable, in that they are both innumerable. For we can●…●…e that one can see all the stars, but the earnester he beholds them, the 〈◊〉 seeth: so that we may well suppose that there (a) are some that deceive 〈◊〉 ●…st eye, besides those that arise in other (b) horizons out of our sight. 〈◊〉, ●…ch as hold and record one certain and definite number of the stars, 〈◊〉 ●…us, or (d) Eudoxus, or others, this book over-throweth them wholly. 〈◊〉 is that recorded that the Apostle reciteth in commendation of God's 〈◊〉 Abraham believed the Lord, and that was counted unto him for righte●…, lest circumcision should exalt itself, and deny the uncircumcised na●…●…esse unto Christ: for Abraham was uncircumcised as yet, when he belee●…, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) some] In the white circle of heaven, called the milken way, there are a many Stars invisible 〈◊〉 our eyes. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eye can distinguish. Arist. and others. (b) Other horizons] There are some stars that never appear unto us, as those above the South-pole, Proclus and others. Nor do the Antipodes ever see our Charles wain●…, nor our pole star, nor the less bear, etc. (c) Aratus] Two famous men there were of this name: one a captain, who freed his country Sycione 〈◊〉. from the tyranny of Nico●…les, the other a Poet of Pomp●…iopolis a city of Cilicia, near unto which is this Aratus his tomb, upon which if you throw a stone, it will leap off. The reason is unknown. He lived in the time of Antigonus, King of Macedon, and wrote divers poems which Suidas reckoneth, & amongst others, his Phaenomena, which Tully when he was a youth, translated into latin verses, a fragment of which is yet extant. julius Caesar (saith Firmicus, but the common opinion, and the more true, is, Germanicus) put all Aratus his works into a p●…eme; but perhaps Firmicus calleth Germanicus, julius. Anien●…s, Ruffus in Hieromes time made a latin Paraphrase of it. It is strange that Tully saith he was no Astronomer in the world, and yet wrote excellent well of the stars, his eloquence was so powerful. De Oratore▪ lib. 1. (d) Eudoxus] A Carian, borne at Gnidus, an excellent philosopher, and deeply seen in physic 〈◊〉. and the Mathematics, he wrote verses of Astrology. Suidas. Plutarch saith that Arc●…tas and he were the first practical Geometricians. Laërtius saith he first devised crooked lines. He went (saith Strabo) with Plato into Egypt, and there learned Astronomy, and taught in a Rock that bore his name afterwards. Lucan signifieth that he wrote calendars, making Caesar boast thus at Cleopatra's table. Ne●… meus Eudoxi vincetur fastibus annus. Nor can Eudoxus counts excel my year. Because he had brought the year to a reformed course. Of the signification of the sacrifice which Abraham was commanded to offer when he desired to be confirmed in the things he believed. CHAP. 24. GOd said also unto him in the same vision: I am the Lord that brought thee out of the country of the Chaldaeans, to give thee this land to inherit it. Then said Abraham, Lord, how shall I know that I shall inherit 〈◊〉? and God said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, a she Goat of three years old, a 〈◊〉 of three years old, a Turtledove, and a Pigeon. So he did, and divided them in Gen. 15 the midst, and laid one piece against another, but the birds he did not divide. Then came souls, as the book saith, and fell on the carcases, and fate thereupon, and Abraham (a) sat by them▪ and abount sunset there fell an heavy sleep upon Abraham, and lo a very fearful darkness fell upon him: & God said unto Abraham, Know this assuredly that thy seed shallbe a stranger in a land that is not theirs, four hundred years, and they shall serve there, and shallbe evil entreated. But the nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterwards they shall come out with great substance. But thou shalt go unto thy fathers in peace, and shalt die in a good age: and in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the wickedness of the ●…orites is not yet at full: and when the Sun went down there was a darkness, 〈◊〉 behold a smoking furnace, and a firebrand went between those pieces. I●… that same day the LORD made a covenant with Abraham saying, unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt unto the great river of Euphrates, the C●…ites, and the Chenezites, and the Cadmonites, the Hittites, the Perezites, the Re●…s, the Amorites, the Cha●…aanites, the Gergesites, and the I●…busites: all this did Abraham hear and see in his vision: to stand upon each particular were tedious, and from our purpose. Sufficeth it, that we must know that where●… Abraham believed before, and that was counted unto him for righteousness, 〈◊〉 ●…ll not from his faith now, in saying, LORD, how shall I know that I shall inhe●…: namely that land which GOD had promised him, he saith not, from ●…ce shall I know? but how, or where by shall I know, by what similitude 〈◊〉 I be further instructed in my belief? Nor did the Virgin Mary distrust, 〈◊〉▪ How shall this be, seeing I know no man? She knew it would be, but she Luc. 1. 34. ●…red of the manner, and was answered thus, The Holy Ghost shall descend 〈◊〉 ●…ee, and the power of the most high shall over shadow thee. And in this manner had Abraham his simylie in his three beasts, his Heifer, 〈◊〉, and Ram, and the two birds, the Turtledove and the Pigeon: 〈◊〉 that that was to come to pass thus, which he was firmly persuaded 〈◊〉 come to pass some way. Wherefore either the heifer signified the ●…s yoke under the law, the (b) goa●…e their offending, and the (c) Ram 〈◊〉 dominion (which three creatures were all three years old, because 〈◊〉 three spaces of time being so famous which lay from Adam to Noah from 〈◊〉 to Abraham, and from Abraham to David, who was the first elected King of Israel (Saul being a ●…eprobate) of these three, this third, from ●…raham to David contained Israells full growth to glory): or else they may signify some other thing more conveniently, but without all doubt, the Turtledove and the Pigeon are types of his spiritual seed, and therefore i●… is said, them he divided not: for the carnal are divided between themselves, but the spiritual never: whether they retire themselves from conversing with the businesses of man, like the (d) Turtledove, or live amongst them (e) like the Pigeon. Both these birds are simple, and hurtless, signifying that even in Israel who s●… possess that land, there should be individual sons of p●…omise▪ and 〈◊〉 of the Kingdom of eterni●…y. (f) The birds that fell upon ●…he sacrifice 〈◊〉 nothing but the airy powers, that feed upon the contentions and di●… of carnal men. But whereas Abraham sat by them, that signified 〈◊〉 should be of the faithful amongst these contentions, even unto 〈◊〉 of the world: and the (g) heaviness that fell upon Abraham to●… sun-setting: and that fearful darkness, signifieth the sore trouble 〈◊〉 faithful shall endure towards the end of this world, whereof ●…ST said in the Gospel: Then shallbe a great tribulation, such as 〈◊〉 ●…om the beginning etc. And whereas it was said to Abraham, know assu●… Mat. 24. 〈◊〉 Gen. 15 thy seed shallbe a stranger etc. This was a plain prophecy of Isra●… in Egypt. Not that they were to serve four hundred years 〈◊〉 ●…uish affliction, but that within four hundred years this was 〈◊〉 them. For as there where it is written of Thara the father of 〈◊〉, that he lived in Charra, two hundred and five years: We must 〈◊〉 he lived not there all this while, but that there he ended these 〈◊〉, so is it here said, They shallbe strangers in a Lan●… that is not theirs, 〈◊〉 ●…dered years, not that their bondage lasted all this time, but 〈◊〉 ●…as ended at this time: and it is said four hundred years for the 〈◊〉 of the number, although there were some more years in the account, 〈◊〉 ●…ou reckon from Abraham's first receiving of the promise, or from the 〈◊〉 son Isaac, the first of the seed unto whom this was promised; for from 〈◊〉 seventh year, wherein as I said before he first received the promise, 〈◊〉 ●…parture of Israel out of Egypt, four hundred & thirty years, which the Apostle mentioneth in these words. This I say, that the law which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul the covenant which was confirmed of God Galat. 3. 17 before, or make the promise of none effect. Now these four hundred and thirty years might have been called four hundred because, they are not much more: especially some of them being passed when Abraham had this vision, or when Isaac was borne unto his father being then one hundred years old: It being five and twenty years after the promise, so that there remained four hundred & five years of the four hundred and thirty that were to come, and those it pleased God to call four hundred. So likewise in the other words of God, there is no man doubteth but that they belong unto the people of Israel. But that which followeth: when the Sun went down there was a darkness, and behold, a smoking furnace and a firebrand went between the pieces: this signifieth, that in the end, the carnal are to be judged by the fire: for as the great and exceeding affliction of the City of God, was signified by the heaviness that fell upon Abraham towards Sunset, that is towards this world's end: even so, at Sunset, that is, at the world's end, doth this fire signify that fire, that shall purge the righteous and devour the wicked: and then the promise made unto Abraham, is a plain mention of the Land of Canaan, naming the eleven nations thereof from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates. Not from Nile, the great river of Egypt, but from that little one which divideth Egypt and Palestina, on whose bank the city (h) Rhinocorura standeth. L VIVES. ABraham (a) sat by them] The vulgar readeth, and Abraham drove them away and so hath the Hebrew: Hier. But the seventy read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sat by them. (b) The goat their] This creature is in a perpetual fever. Arist. ex Almaeone (c) The ram] This is the leader of the flock or rather that Kingly ram. Dan. 8. (d) The Turtledove] Those (saith Pliny) do hide themselves when they cast their feathers. Neither the Turtle nor the Pigeon (saith Aelian) will have to do with any but their own cock. (e) The Pigeon] That liveth tamely with us. (f) The fowls] This is a type saith josephus of his evil neighbours of Egypt. (g) Heaviness Some read it sleep, some an ecstasy and so the seventy do. (h) Rhinocorura] This word (saith Hierome) Rhinocorura. is not in the Hebrew, but added by the seventy to make known the place. Pliny (lib. 5.) calleth it Rhinocolura, and placeth it in Idumaea. Strabo, in Phoenicia. But without all question the jews and the Egyptians claimed it to themselves, and peopled it with the Ethiopians whom they conquered and cut off their noses. Actisanes the King of Ethiopia (saith Diodorus Siculus. lib. 2.) having conquered all Egypt partly by force, and part by condition, set up a new law for thieves, neither acquitting them, nor punishing them with death, but getting them altogether he punished them thus: first he cut off their noses, and then forced them to go into the farthest parts of the deserts, and there he built a city for them called Rhinocorura of there want of noses: and this standeth in the confines of Egypt and Arabia, void of all things fit for the life of man, for all the water of the country is salt: and there is but one fountain wtihin the walls, and that is most bitter, and unprofitable. Thus far Diodorus. Of Agar, Sara her bondwoman, whom she gave as concubine unto Abraham. CHAP. 25. NOw follow the times of Abraham's sons, one of Agar the bondwoman, the Gen. 16. other of Sara the freewoman, of whom we spoke also in the last book: b●… now for this act, Abraham offended not in using of this woman Agar as a concubine: for he did it for progeny sake, and not for lust, nor as insulting but obeying his wife: who held that it would be a comfort unto her barrenness if she got children from her bondwoman by will, seeing she could get none of herself by nature: using that law that the Apostle speaketh of: The husband hath not power of his own body but the wife. The woman may procure herself 1. Cor. 7. 4. children from the womb of another if she cannot bear none herself. There is neither luxury nor uncleanness in such an act. The maid was therefore given by the wife to the hushand for Issues sake, and for that end he took her: neither of them desire the effects of lust, but the fruits of nature: and when as the bondwoman being now with child began to despise her barren mistress, and Sara suspected her husband for bearing with her in her pride, Abraham showed, that he was not a captived lover, but a free father in this, and that it was not his pleasure, but her will that he had fulfilled, and that by her own seeking: that he meddled with Agar, but yet was no way entangled in affect unto her: and sowed the seed of future fruit in her, but yet without yielding to any exorbitant affection to her: for he told his wife: Thy maid is in thine h●…nd: use her as it Gen. 16. 6. pleaseth thee. Oh worthy man that could use his wife with temperance and his servant with obedience, and both without all touch of uncleanness! Of God's promise unto Abraham, that Sara (though she were old) should have a son that should be the father of the nation, and how this promise was sealed in the mystery of circumcision. CHAP. 26. AFter this Ishmael was borne of Agar in whom it might be thought that GOD'S promise to Abraham was fulfilled, who when he talked of making his Steward his heir, GOD said, Nay, but thou shalt have an heir of thine Gen. 1●… 〈◊〉 body. But lest he should build upon this, in the four score and nineteen year of his age GOD appeared unto him saying: I am the all-fufficient GOD, 〈◊〉 before me, and be thou upright: and I will make my covenant between me, 〈◊〉 thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. Then Abraham fell on his face and GOD talked with him saying: Behold I make my covenant with thee thou 〈◊〉 be a father of many nations. Nor shall thy name be called Abram any more, 〈◊〉 Abraham: for a father of many Nations have I made thee. I will make thee ●…ding fruitful, and many Nations, yea even Kings shall proceed of thee: And I ●…ill establish my covenant, between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their g●…tions; for an everlasting covenant to be GOD to thee and thy seed after thee▪ 〈◊〉 will give thee and thy seed after thee a Land wherein thou art a stranger, even 〈◊〉 the Land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I w●…lbee their GOD: and GOD said further unto Abraham: thou shalt keep my covenant thou and thy seed after thee in their generations, this is my covenant which thou shalt keep between thee and me, and thy seed after thee▪ let every manchild ●…f you be circumcised: that is, 〈◊〉 shall circumcise the foreskin of your flesh, and it shallbe a sign of the co●… between me and you. Every man child of eight days old amongst you shallbe ●…ised in your generation, aswell, he that is borne in thine house, or he that is 〈◊〉 of any stranger which is not of thy seed: both must be circumcised, so my coue●… shallbe eternally in you. But the uncircumcised manchild, and he in whose flesh the 〈◊〉 ●…ne is not circumcised, shallbe cut off from his people, because he hath broken my covenant. And God said more unto Abraham. Sarai thy wife shall be no more called Sarai, but Sarah, and I will bless her, and will give thee a son of her, and I will bless her and she shallbe the mother of nations, yea even of Kings. Then Abraham fell upon his face and laughed in his heart, saying: Shall he that is an hundred years old have a child? and shall Sarah that is ninety years old, bear? and Abraham said unto God, Oh let Ishmael live in thy sight: and GOD said unto Abraham: Sarah thy wife shall be are a son indeed, and thou shall call his name Isaac, I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant, and I (a) willbe his GOD, and the GOD of his seed after him: as concerning Ishmael I have heard thee: for I have blessed him, and will multiply and increase him exceedingly: twelve Princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great Nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear unto the next year by this time. Here now is the calling of the Nations plainly promised in Isaac, that is in the son of promise signifying grace, and not nature, for a son is promised unto an old man, by a barren old woman, and although God worketh according to the course of nature, yet where that nature is withered and wasted, there such an effect as this is God's evident work, denouncing grace the more apparently: and because this was not to come by generation, but regeneration afterwards, therefore was circumcision commanded now, when this son was promised unto Sarah: and whereas all children, servants Circumcision a type o●… regeneration. unborn, & strangers, are commanded to be circumcised, this showeth that grace belongeth unto all the world: for what doth circumcision signify but the putting off corruption, and the renovation of nature? and what doth the eight day signify but Christ that rose again in the end of the week, the sabbath being fulfilled? (b) The very names of these parents being changed, all signifieth that newness, which is shadowed in the types of the old Testament, in which the New one lieth prefigured: for why is it called the Old Testament, but for that it shadoweth the New? and what is the New Testament but the opening of the Old one? Now Abraham is said to laugh, but this was the extremity of his joy, not any sign of his deriding this promise upon distrust: and his thoughts being these: Shall he that is an hundred years old etc. Are not doubts of the events, but admirations caused by so strange an event. Now if some stop at that where God saith, he will give him all the Land of Canaan for an eternal possession, how this may be fulfilled, seeing that no man's progeny can inherit the earth everlastingly; he must know, that eternal is here taken as the greeks take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is derived of (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is seculum, an age: but the latin translation durst not say seculare, here, lest it should have been taken in an other sense: for seculare and transitorium are both alike used for things that last but for a little space: but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is that which is either endless at all, or endeth not until the world's end: and in this later sense is, eternal, used here. L. VIVES. I willbe (a) his God] Or, to be his GOD. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. a grecisme, hardly expressed in your latin. (b) The very] The gentiles had also their eight day whereupon the distinguished the child's name from the fathers. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] It is Seculum, aetas, ann●…m, & eternitas in latin. Tully and other great authors translate it all those ways from the greek. Of the manchild, that if it were not circumcised the eight day, i●… perished for breaking of God's covenant. CHAP. 27. SOme also may stick upon the understanding of these words. The man child in whose flesh the foreskin is not circumcised, that person shallbe cut off from his people, because he had broken my covenant. Here is no fault of the child's who is hereexposed to destruction: he broke no covenant of Gods but his parents, that looked not to his circumcision, unless you say that the youngest child hath broken God's command and covenant as well as the rest, in the first man, in whom all mankind sinned. For there are (a) many Testaments or Covenants of God, besides the old and new, those two so great ones, that every one may read and know. The first covenant was this, unto Adam: Whensoever thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death: whereupon it is written in Ecclesiasticus. All flesh waxeth Gen. 2, 19 Eccl. 14. 17 〈◊〉 as a garment and it is a covenant from the beginning that all sinners shall die the death, for whereas the law was afterwards given, and that brought the more light to man's judgement in sin: as the Apostle saith, Where no law is there is no transgression: Rom. 4. 15 Psal. 119. how is that true that the Psalmist said: I accounted all the sinners of the earth transgressors, (b) but that every man is guilty in his own conscience of somewhat that he hath done against some law? and therefore seeing that little children (as the true faith teacheth) be guilty of original sin, though not of actual, whereupon we confess that they must necessarily have the grace of the remission of their sins; then verily in this, they are breakers of God's coue●…, made with Adam in paradise: so that both the Psalmists saying, and the Apostles is true: and consequently, seeing that circumcision was a type of regeneration, justly shall the child's original sin (breaking the first covenant that 〈◊〉 was made between God and man) cut him off from his people, unless that regeneration engraff him into the body of the true religion. This than we must conceive that GOD spoke: He that is not regenerate, shall perish from ●…gst his people, because he hath broke my covenant, in offending me in Adam. For if he had said, he hath broke this my covenant, it could have been meant of nothing but the circumcision only: but seeing he saith not what covenant the child breaketh, we must needs understand him to mean of a covenant liable unto the transgression of the child. But if any one will tie it unto circumcision, and say that that is the covenant which the uncircumcised child hath broken, let him beware of absurdity in saying that he breaketh their covenant which is not broken by him but in him only. But howsoever we shall find the child's condemnation to come only from his original sin, and not from any negligence of his own iucurring this breach of the covenant. L. VIVES. THere (a) are many) Hierome hath noted that wheresoever the greeks read testament, 〈◊〉 Hebrews read covenant: Berith is the Hebrew word. (b) But that] There is no man so barbarous, but nature hath given him some forms of goodness in his heart whereby to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 honest life if he follow them, and if he refuse them, to turn wicked. Of the changing of Abram and Sara's names, who being the one too barren, and both to old to have children, yet by God's bounty were both made fruitful. CHAP. 28. THus this great and evident promise being made unto Abraham in these words: A father of many nations have I made thee, and I will make thee exceeding Gen. 17. 6, 7. fruitful: and nations, yea even Kings shall proceed of thee: (which promise we see most evidently fulfilled in Christ) from that time the man and wife are called no more Abram and Sarai, but as we called them before, and all the world calleth them: Abraham, and Sarah. But why was Abraham's name changed? the reason followeth immediately, upon the change, for, a father of many nations have I made thee. This is signified by Abraham: now Abram (his former (a) name) is interpreted, an high father. But (b) for the change of Sara's name, there is no reason given: but as they say that have interpreted those Hebrew names, Sarai is my Princess: and Sarah, strength: whereupon it is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews, By faith Sarah received strength to conceive seed etc. Now they were both old as the scripture saith, but (c) she was barren also, and past the age (d) wherein the menstrual blood floweth in women, which wanting she could never have conceived although she had not been barren. And if a woman be well in years, and yet have that menstrual humour remaining, she may conceive with a youngman, but never by an old: as the old man may beget children, but it must be upon a young woman, as Abraham after Sarah's death did upon Keturah because she was of a youthful age as yet. This therefore is that which the Apostle so highly admireth, and hereupon he saith that Abraham's body was dead, because he was not able to beget a child upon any woman that was not wholly past her age of childbearing: but only of those that were in the prime and flower thereof. For his body was not simply dead, but respectively; otherwise it should have been a carcase fit for a grave, not an ancient father upon earth. Besides the gift of begetting children that GOD gave him, lasted after Sarah's death, and he begot divers upon Keturah, and this cleareth the doubt that his body was not simply dead; I mean unto generation. But I like the other answer better because a man in those days was not in his weakest age at an hundred years, although the men of our times be so, and cannot beget a child of any woman: they might, for they lived far longer, and had abler bodies than we have. L. VIVES. HIs former (a) name] Some Hebrews say that God put a letter of his name 〈◊〉 into Abraham's name, to wit, the letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hierome. (b) For the change] Hierome out of mo●… of the Hebrews, interpreteth Sarai, my Princess or Lady: and Sarah a Princess o●… 〈◊〉 for she was first abraham's Lady, and then the Lady of the nations: and Uirtus, or strengt●… Sarai. Sarah. often taken by divines for dominion, or principality. Hiero. in Genes. Augustine useth the word in another sense. (c) She was barren] The physicians hold women's barrenness to proceed of the defects of the matrix, as if it be too hard, or brawny, or too loose and spungeous, or too fat, or fleshly: Plutarch. De phisoph. decret. lib. 5. I ommit the simples that being taken C●…ses of 〈◊〉. inwardly procure barrenness, as the berries of black ivy, Cetarach, or heart's tongue as Pl●…y saith etc. The Stoics say that it is often effected by the contrariety of qualities in the agent & patient at copulation: which being coupled with others of more concordance, do easily become fruitful, which we may not unfitly imagine in Abraham and Sarah, because afterwards he begot children upon Keturah, unless you wind up all these matters with a more divine interpretation. For Paul calleth Abraham, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a dead body, exhaust, and fruitless. (d) Wherein the menstrual] Of the menstrues Pliny saith thus: Some women never have them: and those are barren. For they are the substance wherein the spermes congeal and ripen: and thereof if they flow, frow women that are with child, the child borne willbe either weak and sickly, or else it will not live long, as Nigidius saith. Thus much out of Pliny. lib. 7. Aristotle saith that all that want these menstrual fluxes are not barren: for they may retain as much in their places of conception as they do that have these purgative courses so often. Histor 〈◊〉. lib. 7. Of the three men, or angels wherein GOD appeared to Abraham in the plain of Mambra. CHAP. 29. GOD appeared unto Abraham in the plain of Mambra in three men, who doubtless were angels, though some think that one of them was Christ, and that he was visible before his incarnation. It is indeed in the power of the unchangeable, uncorporall, and invisible deity to appear unto man visible whensoever it pleaseth, without any alteration of itself: not in the own but in some creature subject unto it; as what is it that it ruleth not over? But if they ground that one of these three was Christ, upon this, that Abraham when he saw three men, saluted the Lord peculiarly, bowing to the ground at the door of his Tabernacle, and saying, LORD if I have found favour in thy sight etc. Why do they not observe that when two came to destroy Sodom, Abraham spoke yet but unto one of them that remained (calling him Lord, and entreating him not to destroy the righteous with the wicked) and those two were entertained by Lot, who notwithstanding called either of them by the name of Lord? For speaking to them both, My Lords (saith he) I pray you turn in unto your servants house etc. Gen. 19 and yet afterwards we read: and the angels took him and his wife, and his two daughters by the hands, the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city, and when they had so done, the angels said, Escape for thyself, look not behind thee, neither tarry in all the plains, but escape to the mountains lest thou be destroyed, and he said, not so I pray thee my Lord etc. and afterward, the Lord being in these two angels, answered him as in one, saying: Behold, I have (a) received thy request etc. and therefore it is far more likely that Abraham knew the Lord to be in them all three, and Lot in the two, unto whom, they continually spoke in the singular number, even then when they thought them to be men, than otherwise. For they entertained them at first only to give them meat and lodging in charity, as unto poor men: but yet there was some excellent mark in them whereby their hosts might be assured, that the Lord was in them, as he used to be in the Prophets: and therefore they sometimes called them Lords in the plural number, as speaking to themselves, and sometimes Lord, in the singular, as speaking to God in them But the scriptures themselves testify that they were angels, not only in this place of Genesis, but in the Epistle to the Hebrews where the Apostle commending hospitality: (b) thereby Io●…e (saith he) have received angels into their houses unwares: these three men therefore confirmed the promise of Isaac the second time, and said unto Abraham: Heb. 132 He shallbe a great and mighty nation, and in him shall the nations of the world be blessed. Here is a plain prophecy both of the bodily nation of the Israelites, and Gen. 18. 18. the spiritual nations of the righteous. L VIVES. I Have (a) received] So readeth the vulgar, but not the seventy. (b) Thereby some I wo●… how Placuerunt came into the latin vulgar edition: I think the translators made it Latue●…: rather, from the greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but Augustine hath translated it the best of all, putting unawares for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the greeks do often use to speak so. Lot's deliverance: Sodoms destruction: Abimeleches lust, Sarah's chastity. CHAP. 30. AFter this promise was Lot delivered out of Sodom, and the whole territory of that wicked city consumed by a shower (a) of fire from heaven: and all those parts where masculine bestiality was as allowable by custom as any other act is by other laws. Besides, this punishment of theirs was a type of the day of judgement: and what doth the angels forbidding them to look back, signify, but that the regenerate must never return to his old courses, if he mean to escape the terror of the last judgement? Lot's wife, where she looked back, there was Lot's wife. she fixed, and being turned into (b) a pillar of salt, serveth to season the hearts of the faithful, to take heed by such example. After this, Abraham did with his wife Sarah at Geraris, in King Abimeleches court, as he had done before in Egypt, and her chastity was in like manner preserved, & she returned to her husband. Where Gen. 20 Abraham when the King chideth him for concealing that she was his wife, opened his fear, and withal, told him, saying, she is my sister indeed for she is my father's daughter but not my mothers, and she is my wife: and so she was indeed both these, and withal of such beauty, that she was amiable even at those years. L. VIVES. A Shower (a) of fire] Of this combustion many profane authors make mention Strabo saith that cities were consumed by that fire as the inhabitants thereabout report: the pool that remaineth where Sodom stood (the chief city) is sixty furlongs about. Many of them also mention the lake Asphalts where the bitumen groweth. (b) Apiller] josephus saith he did see it. Of Isaac, borne at the time prefixed, and named so, because of his parent's laughter. CHAP. 31. AFter this Abraham according to God's promise, had a son by Sarah, and called him Isaac, that is, Laughter: for his father laughed for joy and admiration when he was first promised: and his mother when the three men confirmed this promise again laughed also, between joy, and doubt: the Angel showing her that her laughter was not faithful, though it were joyful. Hence had the child his name: for this laughter belonged not to the recording of reproach, but to the celebration of gladness, as Sarah showed when Isaac was borne and called by this name: for she said, God hath made me to laugh, and all that hear me will rejoice with me: and soon after the bondwoman and her son is cast out of the house in Gen. 21. 6 signification of the old Testament, as Sarah was of the new (as the Apostle saith) and of that glorious City of God, the Heavenly jerusalem. Abraham's faith and obedience proo●… in his intent to offer his son: Sarah's death. CHAP. 32. TO omit many accidents for brenities sake, Abraham (for a trial) was commanded to go and sacrifice his dearest son Isaac, that his true obedience might show itself to all the world in that shape, which GOD knew already that it bate. This now was an inculpable temptation (and some such there be) and was to be taken thankfully, as one of God's trials of man. And generally man's mind can never know itself well, but putting forth itself upon trials, and experimental hazards, and by their events it learneth the own state, wherein if it acknowledge Gods enabling it, it is godly, and confirmed in solidity of grace, against all the bladder-like humours of vainglory. Abraham would never believe that God could take delight in sacrifices of man's flesh; though God's thundering commands are to be obeyed, not questioned upon, yet is Abraham commended for having a firm faith and belief, that his son Isaac should rise again after he were sacrificed. For when he would not obey his wife in casting out the bondwoman and her son, God said unto him: In Isaac shall thy seed Rom. 9 be called: and addeth: Of the bond-womans' son will I make a great nation also, because he is thy seed: How then is Isaac only called Abraham's seed, when God calleth Ishmael so likewise? The Apostle expoundeth it in these words: that is, they which are the children of the flesh, are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are accounted for the seed. And thus are the sons of promise called to be Abraham's seed in Isaac, that is gathered into the Church by Christ his free grace and mercy. This promise the father holding fast, seeing that it must be fulfilled in him whom God commanded to kill, doubted not but that that God could restore him after sacrificing, who had given him at first beyond all hope. So the Scripture taketh his belief to have been, and delivereth it. By faith (a) Hebr. 11. Abraham offered up Isaac when he was tried: and he that had received the promises offered his only son: to whom it was said, in Isaac shall thy seed be called: for he considered that God was able to raise him from the dead: and then followeth, for when he received him also in a sort: in what sort but as he received his son, of whom it is said; Who spared not his own son, but gave him to die for us all: And so did Isaac carry the wood of sacrifice to the place, even as Christ Rom. 8. carried the cross: Lastly, seeing Isaac was not to be slain indeed, and his father commanded to hold his hand, who was that Ram that was offered as a full (and typical) sacrifice? Namely that which Abraham first of all espied entangled (b) in the bushes by the horns. What was this but a type of jesus Christ, crowned with thorns ere he was crucified? But mark the Angel's words, Abraham (saith the Scriptures) lift up his hand and took the knife to kill his son: But the Angel of the Lord called unto him from heaven saying, Abraham? and he answered, Here Lord: then he said: Lay not thy hand upon thy son, nor do any thing unto him, for now I know thou fearest God, seeing that for my sake thou hast not spared thine only son. Now I know, that is, now I have made known: for God knew it ere now. And then Abraham having offered the Ram for his son Isaac, called the place (c) the Lord hath seen: as it is said unto this day: in the mount hath the Lord appeared, & the Angels of the Lord called unto Abraham again out of heaven, saying: By myself have I sworn (saith the Lord) because thou hast done this thing & lust not spared thine only son for me: surely I will bless thee & multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven or the sands of the sea, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies: and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast (a) obeyed my voice. This is that promise sworn unto by God concerning the calling of the Gentiles after the offering of the Ram, the type of Christ. God had often promised before, but never sworn. And what is God's oath but a confirmation of his promise and a reprehension of the faithless? after this died Sara being ahundred twenty seven years old, in the hundred thirty seven year of her husband's age, for he was ten years elder than she: as he showed when Isaac was first promised, saying, shall I that am a hundred years old have a child? and shall Sarah that is four score and ten years old, bear? and then did Abraham buy a piece of ground and buried his wife in it: and then (as Stephen saith) was he seated in that land: for than began he to be a possessor, namely after the death of his father who was dead some two years before. L. VIVES. BY (a) faith.] A diversity of reading in the text of Scripture [therefore have we followed the vulgar.] (b) in the bushes.] This is after the seventy, and Theodotion, whose translation Hierome approves before that of Aquila, and Symachus. (c) The Lord hath seen. The Hebrew (saith Hierome) is shall see. And it was a proverb used by the Hebrews in all their God will see in the Mount: an Hebrew proverb. extremities, wishing Gods help to say, In the mount, the Lord shall see: that is, as he pitied Abraham, so will he pity us. And in sign of that Ram that God sent him, they use unto this day to blow an horn, thus much Hierome. In Spain this Proverb remaineth still, but not as Augustine taketh it; The Lord willbe altogether seen, but in a manner, that is, his help shall be seen. (d) Obeyed.] Ob-audisti, and so the old writersused to say in steed of obedisti. Of Rebecca Nachor's niece whom Isaac married. CHAP 33. THen Isaac being forty years old married Rebecca, niece to his uncle Nachor three years after his mother's death, his father being a hundred and forty years old. And when Abraham sent his servant into Mesopotamia to fetch her, and said unto him, Put thine hand under my thigh, and I will swear thee by the Lord God of heaven and the Lord of earth that thou shalt not take my son Isaac a wife of the daughters of Canaan: what is meant by this, but the Lord God of Heaven and the Lord of Earth that was to proceed of those loins? are these mean prophecies and presages of that which we see now fulfilled in Christ. Of Abraham marrying Kethurah after Sarah's death, and the meaning therefore. CHAP. 34. But what is meant by Abraham's marrying Kethurah after Sarah's death? God defend us from suspect of incontinency in him, being so old, and so holy and faithful: desired he more sons, God having promised to make the seed of Isaac 〈◊〉 the stars of Heaven and the sands of the Earth? But if Agar and Hismaell did signify the mortals to the Old-testament (as the Apostle teacheth) why may not Kethurah and her sons, signify the mortals belonging to the New-testament. They both were called Abraham's wives, & his concubines But Sarah was never called his concubine, but his wife only for it is thus written of Sarah's giving Agar unto Abraham Then Sarah, Abraham's wife took Agar the Egyptian her maid, after Abraham had dwelled ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abraham for his wife. And of Kethurah we read thus of his taking her after Sarah's death; Now Abraham had taken him another wife called Kethurah: Here now you hear them both called his wives: but the Scripture calleth them both his concubines also, saying afterwards, Abraham gaeve all his goods unto Isaac, but unto the sons of his concubines he gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son (while Gen. 25. 〈◊〉 he yet lived) Eastward, into the East country. Thus the concubines sons have some gifts but none of them attain the promised kingdom, neither the carnal jews, nor the heretics, for none are heirs but Isaac: nor are the sons of the flesh the Sons of God, but those of the promise; of whom it is said: In Isaac shallbe called thy seed: for I cannot see how Kethurah whom he married after Sarah's death should be called his concubine but in this respect. But he that will not understand these things thus, let him not slander Abraham: for what if this were appointed by God, to show (a) those future heretics that deny second marriage in this great father of so many nations, that it is no sin to many after the first wife be dead: now Abraham died, being a hundred seventy five years old, and Isaac (whom he begat when he was a hundred:) was seventy five years of age at his death. L. VIVES. Second marriage. [The louvain copy defective.] THose (a) future.] The Cataphrygians, that held second marriage to be fornication. Aug ad quod vult [Hierome against jovinian, doth not only abhor second marriage but even disliketh of the first: for he was a single man, and bare marriage no good will,] The appointment of God concerning the two twins in Rebeccas womb. CHAP. 33. NOw let us see the proceedings of the City of God after Abraham's death. So then from Isaac's birth to the sixtith year of his age (wherein he had children) there is this one thing to be noted, that when as he had prayed for her fruitfulness (who was barren) and that God had heard him, and opened her womb, and she conceived, the two twins (a) played in her womb: wherewith she being trou, bled, asked the Lords pleasure, and was answered thus: Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shallbe divided out of thy bowels, and the one Gen. 25. shall be mightier than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger. Wherein Peter the Apostle understandeth the great mystery of grace: in that ere they were borne, and either done evil or good, the one was elected and the other rejected: and doubtless as concerning original sin, both were alike, and guilty, and as concerning actual, both a like and clear. But mine intent in this work, curbeth me from further discourse of this point: we have handled it in other volumes. But that saying; The elder shall serve the younger: all men interpret of the jews serving the Christians, and though it seem fulfilled in (b) Idumaea, which came of the elder, Esau or Edom, (for he had two names) because it was afterward subdued by the Israelites that came of the younger, yet notwithstanding that prophecy must needs have a greater intent than so: and what is that but to be fulfilled in the jews and the Christians? L. VIVES. THe two twins (a) played] So say the seventy, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or kicked. Hierome saith moved; movebantur. Aquila saith, were crushed: confringebantur. And Symmachus compareth their motion to an empty ship at sea: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (b) Idumaea] Stephanus deriveth their nation from Idumaas, Semiramis her son, as judaea from judas, another of her sons: but he is deceived. Idumaea. Of a promise and blessing received by Isaac, in the manner that Abraham had received his. CHAP. 36. NOw Isaac received such an instruction from God, as his father had done diverse times before. It is recorded thus: There was a famine in the land besides the first famine that was in Abraham's time: and Isaac went to Abymelech, king of Gen. 26. 1. the Philistines in Gerara. And the Lord appeared unto him and said: Go not down into Egypt, but abide in the land which I shall show thee: dwell in this land, and I will be with thee and bless thee: for to thee and to thy seed will I give this land, and I will establish mine oath which I swore to Abraham thy father: and will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and give all this land unto thy seed: and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thy father Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my ordinances, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws: Now this Patriarch had no wife nor concubine more than his first, but rested content with the two sons that God sent him at one birth. And he also feared his wives beauty, amongst those strangers, and did as his father had done before him, with-her, calling her sister only, and not wife. She was indeed his kinswoman both by father and mother: but when the strangers knew that she was his wife, they let her quietly alone with him. We not prefer him before his father tho, in that he Abraham and Isaac compared. had but one wife: without all doubt his father's obedience was of the greater merit, so that for his sake God saith that he will do Isaac that good that he did him. In thy seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed, saith he, because thy father Abraham obeyed my voice, etc. Again: (saith he) the God of thy father Abraham, fear not: for I am with thee, and have blessed thee, and will multiply thy seed, for Abraham thy Father's sake. To show all those carnally minded men that think Faithful wedlock better than faithless singleness. it was lust that made Abraham do as it is recorded, that he did it with no lust at all, but a chaste intent: teaching us besides that we ought not compare men's worths by singularity, but to take them with all their qualities together. For a man may excel another in this or that virtue, who excelleth him as far in another as good. And albeit it be true that continence is better than marriage: yet the faithful married man is better than the continent Infidel: for such 〈◊〉 one (a) is not only not to be praised for his continency since he believeth not, but rather highly to be dispraised for not believing, seeing he is continent. But to grant them both good, a married man of great faith and obedience in jesus Christ is better than a continent man with less: but if they be equal, who maketh any question that the continent man is the more excellent. L. VIVES. SUch an (a) One is not.] Herein is apparent how fruitless external works are without the dew of grace do ripen them in the heart, the Bruges copy readeth not this place so well in my judgement. Of Esau and jacob, and the mysteries included in them both. CHAP. 27. SO isaac's two sons, Esau and jacob, were brought up together: now the younger got the birthright of the elder by a bargain, made for (a) lentils and pottage which jacob had prepared, & Esau longed for exceedingly, & so sold him his birthright for some of them, and confirmed the bargain with an oath. Here now may we learn that it is (b) not the kind of meat, but the gluttonous affect that hurts. To proceed? Isaac grows old, and his sight failed him, he would willingly bless his elder son, and not knowing, he blessed the younger, who had counterfeited his brother's roughness of body by putting goats skins upon his neck and hands and so let his father feel him. Now lest some should think that this were (c) ●…lent deceit in jacob; the Scripture saith before: Esau was a cunning hunter, 〈◊〉 ●…ed in the fieles, but jacob was a simple plain man, and kept at home. (d), 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ●…lesse, one without counterfeiting: what was the deceit then of this pla●… dealing man in getting of this blessing? what can the guile of a guiltless, true hearted soul be in this case, but a deep mystery of the truth? what was the blessing? Behold (saith he) the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord 〈◊〉 blessed; God give thee therefore of the dew of heaven and the fatness of earth ●…d plenty of wheat and wine: let the nations be thy servants, and Princes bow down The blessing of I●…cob. unto thee, be Lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's children honour thee: cursed be he that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee. Thus this blessing of jacob, is the preaching of Christ unto all the nations. This is the whole scope, in Isaac is the law and the prophets, and by the mouths of the jews is Christ blessed, unknown to them because he knoweth not them. The odour of his name fills the world like a field, the dew of heaven, is his divine doctrine, the fertile ●…th is the faithful Church, the plenty of wheat and wine is the multitude ●…ed in Christ by the sacraments of his body and blood. Him do nations serve and Princes adore. He●… is Lord over his brother, for his people rule o●…r the jews. The sons of his father that is Abraham's sons in the faith, do honour him. For he is Abraham's son in the flesh, cursed be he that curseth 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 blessed be he that blesseth him: Christ I mean, our Saviour, blessed. That is ●…ly ●…ught by the Prophets of the wounding Jews: and is still blessed by o●… of them that as yet erroneously expect his coming. And now comes 〈◊〉 ●…er for the blessing promised: then is Isaac afraid, and knows he had blessed the one for the other. He wonders, and asketh who he was, yet complaineth he not of the deceit, but having the mystery thereof opened in his heart, he forbears fretning and confirmeth the blessing. Who was he then (saith he) that hunted and took venison for me, and I have eaten of it all before thou camest, and I have blessed him, and he shall be blessed? Who would not have here expected a curse rather, but that his mind was altered by a divine inspiration? O true done deeds, but yet all prophetical: on earth but all by heaven! by men, but all for God! whole volumes would not hold all the mysteries that they conceive: but we must restrain ourselves. The process of the work calleth us on unto other matters. L. VIVES. FOr (a) lentils] There is lenticula, a vessel of oil, and lenticula of lens, a little fitchie kind of pease: the other comes of lentitas, because the oil cannot run but gently lente) Lenticula, what it is. out of the mouth, it is so strait. But the scriptures say, that they were only read po●…ge that Esau sold his birthright for: and therefore he was called Edom, red. (b) Not the 〈◊〉 of] This is a true precept of the evangelical law. here I might inscribe much, not allow the commons any licentiousness, but to teach the rulers diverse things which I must let alone for once. (c) Fraudulent deceit] For deceit may be either good or bad. Of Jacob's journey into Mesopotamia for a wife, his vision in the night, as he went: his return with four women, whereas he went but for one. CHAP. 38. Iacobs' parents sent him into Mesopotamia, there to get a wife. His father dismissed him with these words. Thou shalt take thee no wife of the daughters of Canaan: Arise get thee to Mesopotamia to the house of Bathuel, thy mother's father, 〈◊〉 thence take thee a wife of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother. My GOD bless thee, and increase thee, and multiply thee, that thou mayst be a multitude of people: and give the blessing of Abraham to thee and to thy seed after thee, that 〈◊〉 mayest inherit the land (wherein thou art a stranger) which God gave Abraham. here we see jacob, the one half of Isaac's seed, severed from Esau the other half. For when it was said: in Isaac shall thy seed be called, that is, the seed pertaining to God's holy City, than was Abraham's other seed, (the bond-womans' son) severed from this other, as Kethurahs' was also to be done with afterwards. But now there was this doubt risen about Isaac's two sons, whether the blessing belong but unto one, or unto both: if unto one only, unto which of them? This was resolved when Isaac said; That thou mayst be a multitude of people, and God give the blessing of Abraham unto thee: namely to jacob. Forward: 〈◊〉 going into Mesopotamia, had a vision in a dream, recorded thus: And jacob ●…parted from Beersheba, and came to Charra: and he came to a certain place and 〈◊〉 there all the night, because the sun was down, and he took of the stones of the 〈◊〉, and laid under his head, and slept. And he dreamt, and behold a ladder, and the 〈◊〉 ●…f it reached up to heaven, and lo the Angels of God went up and down by it, and 〈◊〉 Lord stood above it and said: I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and of 〈◊〉 fear not: the land on which thou sleepest, will I give thee and thy seed, and thy see●… shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread (b) over the sea, the East, 〈◊〉 North, and the South. And lo I am with thee and will keep thee wheresoever thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land, for I will not forsake thee, until that I have performed that I promised unto thee. And jacob arose from his sleep, and said▪ Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not a ware, and he was afraid and said. O how t●…rible is this place! surely this is none other but the house of God and the gate of heaven. And he arose up and took the stone that he had laid under his head and set it up like a (c) Title and powered oil upon the tope of it, and called the name of that place (d) the house of God. This now was prophetical: he did not Idolatrize in pouring oil on the stone, nor made it a God, nor adored it, nor sacrificed unto it, but because the (e) name of Christ was to come of Chrisma, that is unction, of that was this a very significant mystery. Now for the ladder our Saviour himself mentioneth it in the gospel, for having said of Nathanael, behold a true Israelite, wherein there is no guile (because Israel, that is, jacob saw this ●…ight) he addeth, Verily, verily I say unto you hereafter you shall see heaven open and the Angels of God Io. 1. 51. ascending and descending upon the son of man, But forward. jacob went into Mesopotamia to seek a wife; where he happened to have four women given him, of whom he begat twelve sons and one daughter, without affecting any of them lustfully as the scripture showeth, for he came but for one, and being deceived by (f) one for another, he would not turn her away whom he had unwittingly known, lest he should seem to make her a mocking stock, and so because the law at that time did not prohibit plurality of wives for increase sake, he took the other also whom he had promised to marry before: who being barren, gave him her maid to beget her children upon, as her sister had done, who was not barren and yet did so to have the more children. But jacob never desired but one: nor used any but to the augmentation of his posterity and that by law of marriage nor would he have done this, but that his wives urged it upon him, who had lawful power of his body because he was their husband. L. VIVES. BErsheba, (a) and.] The seventy read it the well of the swearing: the Hebrew interpreted it, Bersabe th●… well of the oath or of sarurity. the well of fullness and Aquila and Symmachus do both follow the last: Hierome. But the well of fullness that Isaac's servants digged is not the same with the well of swearing that Abra●… digged, and named the well of the oath, or covenant which he made with Abymilech, gi●…ng him seven lambs: for Sheba is either an oath or seven: yet both these wells were in one city. (b) Over the sea.] This is no signification of power over the sea by navy or so: but it sig●…eth the West (as I said before) or Syrian sea, next unto ours, to show the four parts of the world. (c) A title.] The seventy read, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a pillar, and that is better than a title. (d) The 〈◊〉 of God.] The next village was called Bethel, being before called Luz, now the house of God, before a nut. It was in the portion of Beniamine, between Bethau, and Gai. (e) The 〈◊〉 of Christ] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek is unctus in Latin: [anointed in English] and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is, 〈◊〉. (f) One for an other.] Lea the eldest daughter for Rachel the younger. Gen. 29. jacob enstiled Israel. The reason of this change. CHAP. 39 OF these four women jacob begot twelve sons and one daughter. And then came the entrance into Egypt by his son joseph, whom his brethren ●…ed, and sold thither, who was preferred there unto great dignity. jacob was also called Israel (as I said before) which name his progeny bore after him. Th●… name, the Angel that wrestled with him as he returned from Mesopotamia, gave him, being an evident type of Christ. For whereas jacob prevailed against him, by (a) his own consent, to form this mystery, is signified the passion of Christ, wherein the jews seemed to prevail against him. And yet jacob got a blessing from him whom he had overcome: and the changing of his name was that blessing: for (b) Israel is as much as, seeing God, which shall come to pass in the end of the world. Now the Angel touched him (prevailing) upon the breadth of his thigh, and so he became lame: So the blessed and the lame was all but one jacob: blessed in his faithful progeny, and lame in the unfaithful. For the breadth jacob blessed & lame. Psal. 11. of his thigh is the multitude of his issue: of which the greatest part (as the Prophet saith) have halted in their ways. L. VIVES. BY his (a) own consent] For otherwise, the Angel could not only have conquered him, but even have killed him. (b) Israel is as much] Hierome liketh not this interpretation, nor Israel. to call him the Prince of God, nor the direct of God, but rather the most just man of God. josephus taketh it to be understood of his prevailing against the Angel. De Antiquit. judaic. Jacob's departure into Egypt with seventy five souls, how to be taken, seeing some of them were borne afterwards. CHAP. 40. IT is said there went with jacob into Egypt seventy five souls, counting himself and his sons, his daughter and his niece. But if you mark well, you shall find that he had not so numerous a progeny at his entrance into Egypt. For in this number are joseph's grandchildren reckoned, who could not then be with him. For jacob was then a hundred and forty years old, and joseph thirty nine, who marrying (as it is recorded) but at thirty years old, how could his sons in nine years have any sons to increase this number by? Seeing then that Ephraim and Manasses, joseph's sons, had no children, being but nine years of age at this remove of Jacob's stock, how can their sons sons, or their sons be accounted amongst the seventy five that went in this company unto Egypt? for there is Machir reckoned, Manasses his son, and Galaad, Machirs son, and there is Vtalaam, Ephraim's son reckoned, & Bareth, Vtalaams' son: Now these could not be there, jacob finding at his coming that joseph's children, the fathers and grandfathers of those four last named, were but children of nine years old at that time. But this departure of jacob thither with seventy five souls, containeth not one day, nor a year, but all the time that joseph lived afterwards, by whose means they were placed there: of whom the Scripture saith; joseph dwelled in Egypt, and his brethren with him a hundred years, and joseph saw Ephraim's children even unto the third generation: that was until he was borne who was Ephraim's grandchild: unto him was he great grandfather. The scripture than proceedeth: Machirs sons (the son of Manasses) were brought up on joseph's knees. This was Galaad, Manasses his grandchild: but the scripture speaketh in the plural, as it doth of Jacob's one daughter, calling her daughters, as the (a) Latines use to call a man's only child if he have no more, liberi, children. Now joseph's felicity being so great as to see the fourth from him in descent, we may not imagine that they were all borne when he was but thirty nine years old, at which time his father came into Egypt: & this is that that deceived the ignorant because it is written; These are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt with jacob their father. For this is said because the seventy five are reckoned with him, not that they all entered Egypt with him. But in this transmigration and settling in Egypt, is included all the time of joseph's life, who was the means of his placing here. L. VIVES. THe (a) Latines] Sempronius Asellio called Sempronius Gracchus his only son, liberi: Liberi, ho●… used by the Latins. and it was an usual phrase of old. Gell. & Herenn. Digest. lib. 50. Jacob's blessing unto his son judah. CHAP. 41. SO than if we seek the fleshly descent of Christ from Abraham first (for the good of the City of God, that is still a pilgrim upon earth) Isaac is the next: and from Isaac, jacob or Israel, Esau or Edom being rejected: from Israel, judah (all the rest being debarred) for of his tribe came Christ. And therefore Israel at his death blessing his sons in Egypt, gave judah this prophetical blessing: judah (a) thy brethren shall praise thee: thine hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies: Gen. 49. thy father's sons shall adore thee. As a lions whelp (judah) shalt thou come up (b) from the spoil, my son. He shall lie down and sleep as a Lion, or a lions whelp, who shall rouse him? The sceptre shall not depart from judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloe come, and the people be gathered unto him He shall bind his Ass fool unto the Vine, and his Asses colt (c) with a rope of hair: he shall wash his stole in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape, his eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. These I have explained against Faustus the Manichee, as far, I think, as the Prophecy requireth. Where Christ's death is presaged in the word sleep, as not of necessity, but of his power to die, as the Lion had to lie down and sleep: which power himself avoweth in the Gospel; I have joh. 10. 17. 18. power to lay down my life, and power to take it again: no man taketh it from me but I lay it down of myself, etc. So the Lion raged, so fulfilled what was spoken: for that same, Who shall rouse him? belongeth to the resurrection: for none could raise him again, but he himself that said of his body. Destroy this temple and in joh. 2. 19 three days I will raise it up again. Now his manner of death upon the high cross, is intimated in this: shalt thou come up: and these words, He shall lie down and joh. 19 30 ●…pe, are even these: He bowed down his head and give up the ghost. Or it may mean the grave wherein he slept, and from whence none could raise him up, as the Prophets and he himself had raised others, but himself raised himself as from a sleep. Now his stole which he washeth in wine, that is, cleanseth from sin in his blood (intimating the sacrament of baptism, as that addition, And his garment in the blood of the grape, expresseth) what is it but the Church? and eyes being red with wine: are his spiritual sons that are drunk with her cup, as the Psalmist saith: My cup runneth over; and his teeth whiter than the milk, are his nourishing words wherewith he feedeth his little weaklings as with 〈◊〉. This is he in whom the promises to judah were laid up, which until they 〈◊〉, there never wanted kings of Israel of the stock of judah And unto him ●…ll the people be gathered: this is plainer to the sight to conceive, than the ●…gue to utter. L. VIVES. IVda (a) thy brethren] judah is praise or confession. (b) From the spoil] From captivity saith the judah. Hebrew: all this is meant of Christ's leading the people captive, his high and sacred ascension, and the taking of captivity captive. Hierome. (c) With a rope of hair] With a rope only Psal. 6. 5. say some: and his asses colt unto the best vine, saith Hierome from the Hebrew. And for this Asses colt (saith he) may be read the City of God, (whereof we now speak) the seventy read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: to the vine branch, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the twist of the Vine as Theophrastus saith: and thence have Helix. the two kinds of luy their names. Diosor. Plin. so might cilicium come into the Latin text that Augustine used, if the Greek were translated Helicium, otherwise I cannot tell how. Of Jacob's changing of his hands from the heads of joseph's sons, when he blessed them. CHAP. 42. But as Esau and jacob, Isaac's two sons, prefigured the two peoples of jews and Christians (although that in the flesh the Idumaeans, and not the jews came of Esau, nor the Christians of jacob, but rather the jews, for thus must the words, The elder shall serve the younger, be understood) even so was it in joseph's two Gen. 25. sons, the elder prefiguring the jews, and the younger the Christians. Which two, jacob in blessing laid his right hand upon the younger, who was on his left side, and his left upon the elder, who was on his right side. This displeased their father, who told his father of it, to get him to reform the supposed mistaking, and showed him which was the elder. But jacob would not change his hands, but said, I know son, I know very well: he shall be a great people also: but his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall fill the nations. Here is two promises now, a people to the one, and a fullness of nations to the other. What greater proof need we than this, to confirm, that the Israelites, and all the world besides, are contained in Abraham's seed: the first in the flesh, and the later in the spirit. Of Moses his times, josuah, the judges, the Kings, Saul the first, David the chief, both in merit and in mystical reference. CHAP. 43. jacob and joseph being dead, the Israelites in the other hundred forty four years (at the end of which they left Egypt) increased wonderfully, though the Egyptians oppressed them sore, and once killed all their male children for fear of their wonderful multiplication. But Moses was saved from those butchers, and brought up in the court by Pharaohs daughter (the (a) name of the Exod 2. Egyptian Kings) God intending great things by him, and he grew up to that worth that he was held fit to lead the nation out of this extreme slavery, or rather God did it by him, according to his promise to Abraham. First, he fled into Madian, for killing an Egyptian in defence of an Israelite: and afterwards returning full of God's spirit, he foiled the enchanters (h) of Pharaoh in all their opposition: and Exod. 8. 9 10. 11 laid the ten sore plagues upon the Egyptians, because they would not let Israel depart, namely the changing of the water into blood, Frogs, (c) Lice, (d) gnats, morren of cattle, botches and sores, Hail, Grasshoppers, darkness, and death of all the first borne: and lastly the Israelites being permitted after all the plagues that Egypt had groaned under, to depart, and yet being pursued afterwards by them again, passed over the red Sea dryfoot, and left all the host of Egypt drowned in the midst: the sea opened before the Israelites, and shut after them, returning upon the pursuers and over-whelming them. And then forty years after was Israel in the deserts with Moses, and there had they the tabernacle of the testimony, where God was served with sacrifices, that were all figures of future events: the law being now given with terror upon mount Syna: for the terrible voices and thunders were full prooses that God was there: And this was presently after their departure from Egypt in the wilderness, and there they celebrated their passover fifty days after, by offering of a Lamb, the true type of Christ's passing unto his father by his passion Exod. 12. in this world. For Pascha in Hebrew, is a passing over: and so the fiftieth day after the opening of the new Testament, and the offering of Christ our Passe●…ouer, the Luc. 11. holy spirit descended down from heaven (he whom the scriptures call the finger of God) to renew the memory of the first miraculous prefiguration in our hearts, because the law in the tables is said to be written by the finger of GOD. Moses' being dead, josuah ruled the people, and lead them into the land of promise, dividing it amongst them, And by these two glorious captains, were Exod. 31. jos. 1. strange battles won, and they were ended with happy success: God himself avouching that the losers sins, and not the winners merits were causes of those conquests. After these two, the land of promise was ruled by judges, that Abraham's seed might see the first promise fulfilled, concerning the land of Canaan, though not as yet concerning the nations of all the earth: for that was to be fulfilled by the coming of Christ in the flesh, and the faith of the Gospel, not the precepts of the law, which was insinuated in this, that it was not Moses that received the law, but josuab (h) (whose name God also changed) that lead the people into the promised land. But in the judges times, as the people offended or obeyed God, so varied their fortunes in war. On unto the Kings. Saul was the first King of Israel, who being a reprobate, and dead in the field, and all his race rejected 1. Sam. 10. from ability of succession, David was enthroned (ay) whose son our Saviour Math. 1. Mat. 15. Mat. 20. Luc. 18 is especially called: In him is as it were a point, from whence the people of God do flow, whose original (as then being in the youthful time thereof) is drawn from Abraham unto this David. For it is not out of neglect that Matthew the Evangelist reckoneth the descents so, that he putteth fourteen generations between Abraham and David. For a man may be able to beget in his youth, and therefore he begins his genealogies from Abraham, who upon the changing of his name, was made the father of many nations. So that before him, the Church of God was in the infancy, as it were: from Noah I mean, unto him, and therefore the first language, the Hebrew as then was invented for to speak by. For from the term of ones infancy, he begins to speak, being called an infant, (k) a non sancto, of not speaking, which age of himself, every man forgetteth as fully as the world was destroyed by the deluge. For who can remember his infancy? Wherefore in this progress of the City of God, as the last book contained the first age thereof, so let this contain the second and the third, when the yoke of the law was laid on their necks, the abundance of sin appeared, and the earthly kingdom had beginning, etc. intimated by the Heifer, the Goat, ●…d the Ram of three years old: in which there wanted not some faithful persons, as the turtle-dove and the Pigeon portended. L. VIVES. THe (a) name of] To annoyed the supposition that Pharaoh that reigned in jacob and joseph's Pharaoh. time, was all one Pharaoh with this here named. Pharaoh was a name of kingly dignity in Egip●…. Hieron. in Ezechiel. lib. 9 So was Prolomy after Alexander, Caesar and Augustus after the two brave romans, and Abimelech in Palestina. Herodotus speaketh of one Pharaoh that was blind. They were called Pharaoh of Pharos, an I'll over-against Alexandria, called Carpatho●… of old: Proteus reigned in it. The daughter of this Pharaoh, josephus calleth Thermuth. (b) Of Pharaoh] Which Pharaoh this was, it is doubtful. Amasis (saith Apion Polyhistor, as Eusebius citeth him) reigned in Egypt when the jews went thence. But this cannot be, for Amasis was long after, viz. in Pythagoras his time, unto whom he was commended by Polycrates king of Samos. But josephus saith out of Manethon, that this was Techmosis, and yet showeth him to vary from himself, and to put Amenophis in another place also. Eusebius saith that it was Pharaoh Cenchres. In Chron. and that the Magician's names were jannes' and jambres. Prep. euangel. ex Numenio. (c) Lice] So doth josephus say, if Ruffinus have well translated him: that this third plague was the disease called Phthiriasis, or the lousy evil, naming no gnats. Peter denatalibus and Albertus Grotus saith, that the Cyniphes are a kind of fly. So saith Cyniphes. Origen. Albertus saith that they had the body of a worm, the wings and head of a fly, with a sting in their mouth wherewith they prick and draw-bloud, and are commonly bred in fens and marshes, troubling all creatures, but man especially. Origen calleth them Snipes. They do fly (faith he) but are so small that he that discerneth them as they fly must have a sharp eye; but when they alight upon the body, they will soon make themselves known to his feeling, though his sight discern them not. Super Exod. By this creature Origen understands logic which enters the mind with such stings of undiscerned subtlety, that the party deceived never perceiveth till he be fetched over. But the Latins, nor the greeks ever used either Cynipes or Snipes, nor is it in the seventy either, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Gnat-like creatures, (saith Suidas) and such as eat holes in wood. Psal. 104. The Hebrew, and Chaldee Paraphrase read louse, for this word, as josephus doth also. (d) Horseflies] Or Dogge-flies, the vulgar readeth flies, only. (e) Grasshoppers] The fields plague, much endamaging that part of Africa that bordereth Dog-flies. Grasshoppers. upon Egypt. Pliny saith they are held notes of God's wrath, where they exceed thus. (f) Groaned under] Perfracti, perfractus, is, thoroughly tamed, praefractus, obstinate. (g) passover] Phase is a passing over: because the Angel of death passed over the Israelites houses, & smote them not: hence arose the paschal feast. Hieron. in Mich. lib. 2. not of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to suffer, as if it had been from the passion. In Matth. (h) Whose name] In Hebrew josuah and jesus seems all one: Io●…●…d I●…s. both are salvation, and jesus the son of josedech in Esdras is called josuah. ay Whose son] Mat. 1. an 〈◊〉 all the course of the Gospel; Christ is especially called the son of two, Abraham or David: for to them was he chiefly promised. (k) à non fando] And therefore I●…. great fellows that cannot speak, are sometimes called infants: and such also as stammer 〈◊〉 their language: [and such likewise as being express dolts and sots in matter of learning, [The lo●…ine copy defective.] will challenge the names of great Artists, Philosophers and Divines.] Finis lib. 16. THE CONTENTS OF THE seventeenth book of the City of God. 1. Of the times of the Prophets. 2. At what time Gods promise concerning 〈◊〉 Land of Canaan was fulfilled, and Israel ●…ed it to dwell in and possess. 3. The Prophets three meanings: of earthly ●…lem, of heavenly jerusalem, and of both. 4. The change of the kingdom of Israel. An●…●…uels mother a prophetess: and a type 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Church: what she prophesied. 5. The Prophet's words unto Heli the priest, ●…g the taking away of Aaron's priest●…. 6. The promise of the priesthood of the 〈◊〉, and their kingdom to stand eternally, ●…ed in that sort, that other promises of 〈◊〉 ●…nded nature are. 〈◊〉 kingdom of Israel rend: prefiguring ●…all division between the spiritual ●…ll Israel. 〈◊〉 ●…ises made to David concerning his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fulfilled in Solomon; but in Christ. 〈◊〉 ●…phecy of Christ in the 88 psalm, 〈◊〉 ●…s of Nathan, in the book of Kings. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divers actions done in the earthly Ie●… 〈◊〉 the kingdom, differing from God's 〈◊〉 to show that the truth of his word con●…●…he glory of an other kingdom, and an●…●…g. 11. The substance of the people of God, who 〈◊〉 Christ in the flesh: who only had power to 〈◊〉 ●…e soul of man from hell. 12. ●…her verse of the former psalm, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to whom it belongeth. 13. Whether the truth of the promised peace may be ascribed unto Salomon's time. 14. Of David's endeavours in composing of the psalms. 15. Whether all things concerning Christ & his church in the psalms be to be rehearsed in this work. 16. Of the forty five psalm, the tropes and truths therein, concerning Christ and the church. 17. Of the references of the hundredth and tenth psalm unto Christ's priesthood, and the two and twentieth unto his passion. 18. Christ's death and resurrection prophesied in psalm. 3. et 40. 15. et 67. 19 The obstinate infidelity of the jews declared in the 69. psalm. 20. David's kingdom, his merit: his son Solomon, his prophecies of Christ in Salomon's books: and in books that are annexed unto them. 21. Of the Kings of Israel and judah after Solomon. 22. How Hieroboam infected his subjects with Idolatry, yet did God never failed them in Prophets, nor in keeping many from that infection. 23. The state of Israel and judah unto both their captivities (which befell at different times) diversly altered: judah united to Israel: and lastly both unto Rome. 24. Of the last Prophets of the jews, about the time that Christ was borne. FINIS. THE SEVENTEENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of the times of the Prophets. CHAP. 1. THus have we attained the understanding of God's promises made unto Abraham, and due unto Israel his seed in the flesh, and to all the Nations of earth as his seed in the spirit: how they were fulfilled the progress of the City of God in those times, did manifest. Now because our last book ended at the reign of David, let us in this book, proceed with the same reign, as far as is requisite. All the time therefore between samuel's first prophecy, and the returning of Israel from seventy years captivity in Babylon, to repair the Temple (as Hieremy had prophesied) all this is called the time of the Prophets. Hier. 25 Gen. 7. For although that the Patriarch Noah in whose time the universal deluge befell, and divers others living before there were Kings in Israel, for some holy and heavenly predictions of theirs, may not undeservedly be called (a) Prophet's: especially Gen. 20 D●…. 4 seeing we see Abraham and Moses chiefly called by those names, and more expressly than the rest: yet the days wherein Samuel began to prophecy, 1 Sam. 10 1 Sam. 16 were called peculiarly, the Prophet's times. Samuel anointed Saul first, and afterwards (he being rejected) he anointed David for King, by God's express command, and from David's loins was all the blood royal to descend, during that kingdoms continuance. But if I should rehearse all that the Prophets (each in his time) successively presaged of Christ during all this time that the City of God continued in those times, and members of his, I should never make an end. First, because the scriptures (though they seem but a bare relation of the successive deeds of each King in his time, yet) being considered, with the assistance of God's spirit, will prove either more, or as fully, prophecies of things to come, as histories of things past. And how laborious it were to stand upon each peculiar hereof, and how huge a work it would amount unto, who knoweth not that hath any insight herein: Secondly, because the prophecies concerning Christ and his Kingdom (the City of God) are so many in multitude, that the disputations arising hereof would not be contained in a far bigger volume than is necessary for mine intent. So that as I will restrain my pen as near as I can from all superfluous relations in this work, so will I not ommit any thing that shall be really pertinent unto our purpose. L. VIVES. CAlled (a) Prophet's] The Hebrews called them Seers, because they saw the Lord (in his predictions or prefigurations of any thing:) with the eyes of the spirit, though not of the dull flesh, hence it is that scriptures call a prophecy, a vision, and Nathan is called the Seer. 1. Kings. The greeks sometimes use the name of Prophet for their priests, poets, or teachers. Adam was the first man and the first Prophet, who saw the mystery of Christ and his church in his sleep. Then followeth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, jacob and his children, Moses etc. Yet are not these reckoned amongst the prophets, for none of them left any books of the visions but Moses, whose books concerned ceremonies, sacrifices and civil orders also. But these were all figures of future things, nor were those the prophetical times, as those from Samuel were, wherein there never were prophets wanting, whereas before God spoke but seldom, and his visions were not so manifest as they were from the first King unto the captivity: wherein were four great books of prophecies written, and twelve of the small. At what time Gods promise concerning the Land of Canaan was fulfilled, and Israel received it to dwell in and possess. CHAP. 2. WE said in the last book that God promised two things unto Abraham, one was the possession of the Land of Canaan, for his seed: in these words: Go into the Land that I will show thee, and I will make thee a great nation etc. The other of far more excellence, not concerning the carnal, but the spiritual seed: nor Israel only, but all the believing nations of the world: in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall all nations of the earth be blessed etc. This we confirmed by many testi●…. Gen. 12. Now therefore was Abraham's carnal seed (that is, the Israelites) in the 〈◊〉 promise: now had they towns, cities, yea and Kings therein, and God's 〈◊〉 were performed unto them in great measure: not only those that he 〈◊〉 signs, or by word of mouth unto Abraham, Isaac and jacob: but even 〈◊〉 ●…so that Moses who brought them out of the Egyptian bondage, or any 〈◊〉 him unto this instant had promised them from God. But the pro●…●…cerning the land of Canaan, that Israel should reign over it from the 〈◊〉 Egypt unto the great Euphrates, was neither fulfilled by josuah that wor●… of them into the Land of promise, and he that divided the whole a●… the twelve tribes, nor by any other of the judges in all the time after 〈◊〉 was there any more prophecies that it was to come, but at this instant 〈◊〉 ●…ected. And by (a) David, and his son Solomon, it was fulfilled indeed, and 〈◊〉 ●…gdome enlarged as far as was promised: for these two, made all 〈◊〉 ●…ations their servants and tributaries. Thus then was Abraham's seed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so settled in this land of Canaan by these Kings, that now no part of 〈◊〉 ●…ly promise was left unfulfilled: but that the Hebrews, obeying God's ●…ements, might continue their dominion therein, without all distur●… in all security and happiness of estate. But God knowing they would 〈◊〉, used some temporal afflictions to excercise the few faithful therein 〈◊〉 ●…ad left, and by them to give warning to all his servants that the nations 〈◊〉 ●…erwards to contain, who were to be warned by those, as in whom he 〈◊〉 ●…llfill his other promise, by opening the New Testament in the death of 〈◊〉▪ L. VIVES. B●…●…id] Hierome (epist. ad Dardan.) showeth that the jews possessed not all the lands 〈◊〉 promised them: for in the book of Numbers, it is said to be bounded on the South by the salt sea and the wilderness of sin, unto that river of Egypt that ran into the sea by Rhinocorura: on the west, by the sea of Palestina, Phoenicia, Coele, Syria, and Cylicia, on the North, by Mount Taurus, and Zephyrius, as far as Emath, or Epiphania in Syria: on the East by Antioch and the Lake Genesareth, called now, Tabarie, and by jordan, that runneth into the salt sea, called now, The dead sea. Beyond jordan half of the land of the tribes of Reuben & Gad, lay, and half of the tribe of Manasses. Thus much Hierome. But David possessed not all these but only that within the bounds of Rhinocorura and Euphrates, wherein the Israelites still kept themselves. The Prophets three meanings: of earthly jerusalem, of heavenly jerusalem, and of both. CHAP. 3. WHerefore, as those prophecies spoken to Abraham, Isaac, jacob, or any other in the times before the Kings, so likewise all that the Prophets spoke afterwards, had their double reference: partly to Abraháms' seed in the flesh, & partly to that wherein all the nations of the earth are blessed in him, being made Coheirs with Christ in the glory and kingdom of heaven, by this New Testament. So then they concern partly the bondwoman, bringing forth unto bondage, that is the earthly jerusalem, which serveth with her sons, and partly to the free City of God, the true jerusalem, eternal and heavenly, whose children are pilgrims upon earth in the way of God's word. And there are some that belong unto both, properly, to the bondwoman, and figuratively unto the free woman: for the Prophets have a triple meaning in their prophecies: some concerning the earthly jerusalem, some the heavenly, and some, both: as for example. The Prophet (a) Nathan was sent to tell David of his sin, and to foretell him the evils that should ensue thereof. Now who doubteth that these words concerned the temporal City, whether they were spoken publicly for the people's general 2. Sam. 12 good, or privately for some man's knowledge, for some temporal use in the life present? But now whereas we read. Behold the days come (saith the LORD) that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and the house of judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of Egypt, which covenant they broke, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days (saith the LORD) I will put my law in their minds, and write it in their hearts, and I willbe their GOD, and they shallbe my people. This without a●…l doubt, is a prophecy of the celestial jerusalem, to whom God himself stands as a reward, and unto which the enjoying of him is the perfection of good. Yet belongeth it unto them both in that the earthly jerusalem was called God's City, and his house promised to be therein, which seemed to be fulfilled in Salomon's building of that magnificent temple. These things were both relations of things acted on earth, and figures of things concerning heaven, which kind of prophecy compounded of both, is of great efficacy in the canonical scriptures of the Old Testament, and doth exercise the readers of scripture very laudably in seeking how the things that are spoken of Abraham's carnal seed are allegorically fulfilled in his seed by faith: In (b) so much that some held that there was nothing in the scriptures foretold and effected, or effected without being foretold, that intimated not something belonging unto the City of God, and to be referred unto the holy pilgrims thereof upon earth. But if this be so, we shall tie the Prophet's words unto two meanings only, and exclude the third: and not only 〈◊〉 Prophets but even all the Old Testament. For therein must be nothing pe●… to the earthly jerusalem, if all that be spoken or fulfilled of that, have a far●… reference to the heavenly jerusalem: so that the Prophets must needs 〈◊〉 but in two sorts, either in respect of the heavenly jerusalem, or else of both. 〈◊〉 I think it a great error in some, to hold no relation of things done, in the ●…res more than mere historical▪ so do I ho●…d it a (c) great boldness in 〈◊〉 that bind all the relations of Scripture unto allegorical reference, and therefore I avouch the meanings in the Scriptures, to be triple, and not twofold only. This I hold, yet blame I not those that can pi●…ke a good spiritual sense 〈◊〉 of any thing they read, so they do not contradict the truth of the history. But what faithful man will not say that those are vain sayings that can belong 〈◊〉 to divinity nor humanity? and who will not avow that these of which 〈◊〉 speak▪ are to have a spiritual interpretation also, or leave them unto those 〈◊〉 interpret them in that manner? L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 Prophet (a) Nathan] After David had sent Vriah to be slain in the front of the battle, 〈◊〉 married his widow Bersabe. (b) In so much] Hereupon they say that so much is left out ●…g the acts of the jewish Kings, because they seemed not to concern the City of 〈◊〉 that whatsoever the Old Testament containeth or the New either, hath all a sure Origen. [The Louvain edition defective in all this] 〈◊〉 unto Christ and his Church, at which they are both leveled. (c) Great boldness] [As 〈◊〉 ●…d with great rarity of spirit yet keepeth he the truth of the history unuiolate: for o●…●…l these relations were vanities: and each one would s●…rue an allegory out of the 〈◊〉 to live and believe as he list and so our faith and discipline should be utterly con●…●…herein I wonder at their mad folly that will fetch all our form of life and religion 〈◊〉 ●…ories, entangling them in ceremonious vanity, and proclaiming all that contra●… heretics] 〈◊〉 ●…ange of the Kingdom and priesthood of Israel. Anna, samuel's mother a prophetess: and a type of the Church: what she prophesied. CHAP. 4. 〈◊〉 ●…ogresse therefore of the City of God in the King's time, when Saul was re●…ued, and David chosen in his place to possess the Kingdom of Ierusa●…●…im and his posterity successively, signifieth and prefigureth, that which 〈◊〉 not omit, namely the future change concerning the two Testaments, 〈◊〉 ●…d the New, where the Old Kingdom and priesthood was changed by 〈◊〉 and eternal King and Priest, Christ jesus; for Heli being rejected, Sa●… made both the priest and the judge of God: and Saul being rejected, Da●… 1 Sam. 3. ●…hosen for the King, and these two being thus seated, signified the change 〈◊〉 of. And samuel's mother, Anna, being first barren, and afterwards by 〈◊〉 ●…odnes made fruitful, seemeth to prophesy nothing but this in her song 〈◊〉 ●…ing, when having brought up her son she dedicated him unto God as she 〈◊〉, saying: My heart rejoiceth in the LORD, my horn is exalted in the 〈◊〉 ●…y mouth is enlarged on mine enemies, because I rejoiced in thy salvation. 〈◊〉 holy as the Lord there is no God like our God, nor any holy besides thee, 1. Sam. 2. 〈◊〉 ●…ore presumptuously, let no arrogancy come out of your mouth, for the Lord is 〈◊〉 ●…f knowledge, and by him are enterprises established: the bow of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ee broken, and guirded the weak with strength, they that were full are hired forth for hunger: and the hungry have passed the land: for the barren hath 〈◊〉 se●…en, and (a) she that had many children is enfeobled, the Lord killeth, and 〈◊〉: bringeth down to the grave, and raiseth up, the Lord impoverisheth, and enritch●…: humbleth and exalteth, he raiseth the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the beggar from the dunghill, to set them amongst Princes, & make them inherit the seat of glory, he giveth vows, unto those that vow unto him, and blesseth the years of the just: for in his own might shall no man be strong: the Lord, the holy Lord shall weaken his adversaries, let not the wise boast of his wisdom, nor the rich in his riches, nor the mighty in his might, but let their glory be to know the Lord, and to execute his judgement Hi●…. 9 and justice upon the earth: the Lord from heaven hath thundered: he shall judge the ends of the world, and shall give the power unto our Kings, and shall exalt the horn of his anointed. Are these the words of a woman giving thanks for her son? are men's minds so benighted, that they cannot discern a greater spirit herein then merely human? and if any one be moved at the events that now began to fall out in this earthly process, doth he not discern, and acknowledge the very true religion and City of God whose King and founder is jesus Christ, in the words of his Anna, who is fitly interpreted, His grace? and that it was the spirit of grace (from which the proud decline, and fall, and therewith the humble adhere Anna. and are advanced as this hymn saith) which spoke those prophetical words? If any one will say that the woman did not prophecy, but only commended and extolled God's goodness for giving her prayers a son, why then what is the meaning of this? The bow of the mighty hath he broken, and guirded the weak with strength? they▪ that were full are hired forth for hunger, and the hungry have passed 〈◊〉 the land? for the barren hath borne seven, and she that had many children, is 〈◊〉? Had she (being barren) borne seven? she had borne but one when she said thus, (b nor had she seven afterward, or six either (for Samuel to make up seven) but only three sons and two daughters. Again, there being no King in Israel at that time, to what end did she conclude thus: He shall give the power unto our Kings, and exalt the horn of his anointed? did she not prophesy in this? Let the church of God therefore, that fruitful Mother, that gracious City of that great King, be bold to say that which this prophetical mother spoke in her person so long before: My heart rejoiceth in the Lord (c) and my horn is exalted in the Lord. True joy, and as true exaltation, both being in the Lord, and not in herself! my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies, because God's word is not penned up in straits, (d) nor in preachers that are taught what to speak. I have rejoiced (saith she) in thy salvation. That was, in Christ jesus whom old Simeon (in the Gospel) had in his arms, and knew his greatness in his infancy, saying, Lord L●…▪ 2. n●…w l●…ttest thou thy servant depart in peace: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Let the church then say. I have rejoiced in thy salvation: there is none holy, as the Lord is: no God like to our GOD, for he is holy, and maketh holy: just himself, and iustifyi●… others: none is holy besides thee, for none is holy but from thee. Finally it followe●…: speak no more presumptuously, let not arragance come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him are all enterprises establis●…d: (〈◊〉) none knoweth what he knoweth: for he that thinketh himself to be some thing, seduceth himself, and is nothing at all. This now is against the presumptuous▪ Babylonian enemies unto God's City, glorying in themselves and not in God, as also against the carnal Israelites, who (as the Apostle saith) being ignorant of the righte●…sse of God, (that is, that which he being only righteous, R●…. 10. 〈◊〉 and justifying, giveth man) and going about to establish their own righteousness, 〈◊〉 as if they had gotten such themselves, and had none of his bestowing) 〈◊〉 not themselves unto the righteousness of God: but thinking proudly, to please 〈◊〉 ●…stice of their own, and none of his, (who is the God of knowledge, and the 〈◊〉 of consciences, and the discerner of all man's thoughts, which being 〈◊〉 ●…eriue not from him) So they fell into reprobation. And by him (saith the 〈◊〉) arè all enterprises established, and what are they but the suppression of 〈◊〉, and the advancement of the humble? These are Gods intents, as it fol●… the bow of the mighty hath he broken, and guirded the weak with strength▪ 〈◊〉▪ that is, their proud opinions that then could sanctify themselves with●…●…spirations: and they are guirded with strength that say in their hearts, 〈◊〉 on me, O Lord, for I am weak. They that were full, are (f) hired out for 〈◊〉 that is, they are made lesser than they were, for in their very bread, that 〈◊〉 ●…ne words, which Israel as then had alone from all the world▪ that sa●…●…thing but the taste of earth. But the hungry nations, that had not the 〈◊〉 ●…ing to those holy words by the New Testament, they passed over the 〈◊〉 found, because they relished an heavenly taste in those holy doctrines, 〈◊〉▪ a savour of earth. And this followeth as the reason: for the barren hath 〈◊〉 ●…rth seven, and she that had many children is enfeebled. Here is the whole 〈◊〉 opened to such as know the number of the jews what it is, to wit, ●…ber of the church's perfection, and therefore john the Apostle writeth 〈◊〉 seven churches, implying in that, the fullness of one only: and so it 〈◊〉 ●…uely spoken in Solomon. Wisdom hath built her an house and hewn out Prou. 9, 1 〈◊〉 pillars: For the City of God was barren in all the nations, until she 〈◊〉 that fruit whereby now we see her a fruitful mother: and the earthly 〈◊〉 that had so many sons, we now behold to be weak and enfeebled. 〈◊〉 the free-woman's sons were her virtues: but now seeing she hath 〈◊〉 ●…nely without the spirit, she hath lost her virtue and is become 〈◊〉 ●…e Lord killeth, and the Lord quickeneth, he killeth her that had so many 〈◊〉 quickeneth her womb was dead before, and hath made her bring 〈◊〉, although properly his quickening be to be implied upon those whom 〈◊〉 ●…d, for she doth as it were repeat it saying: he bringeth down to the 〈◊〉 raiseth up, for they, vn●…o whom the Apostle saith: If ye be dead with 〈◊〉 the things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God: Colloss. 3, 1 〈◊〉 ●…to salvation by the LORD, unto which purpose he addeth. Set your 〈◊〉 upon things above, and not on things that are on the earth. For you 〈◊〉 ●…oth he) behold here how healthful the Lord killeth: and then follow●… ●…our life is hid with Christ in God. Behold here how God quickeneth. I 〈◊〉 bring them to the grave and back again? Yes without doubt, all 〈◊〉 faithful see that fulfilled in our head, with whom our life is hid in 〈◊〉 ●…e that spared not his own son but gave him for us all, he killed 〈◊〉 manner, and in raising him from death, he quickened him again. 〈◊〉 we hear him say in the psalm, thou shalt not leave my soul in the 〈◊〉 ●…ore he brought him unto the grave, and back again. By his poverty 〈◊〉 ●…ched: for the Lord maketh poor, and enritcheth, that is nothing else 〈◊〉 humbleth, and exalteth, humbling the proud and exalting the 〈◊〉 ●…or that same place▪ God resisteth the proud and giveth grace unto the 〈◊〉 the text whereupon all this prophetesses' words have dependence. 〈◊〉 ●…hich followeth. He raiseth the poor out of the dust and lifteth the beg●… dunghill, is the fittliest understood of him who became poor for us, whereas he was rich, by his poverty (as I said) to enrich us. For he raised him from the earth so soon that his flesh saw no corruption: nor is this sequence, And lifteth the beggar from the dunghill, meant of any but him, (g) for the beggar and the poor is all one, the dunghill whence he was lifted, is the persecuting rout of jews, amongst whom the Apostle had been one, but afterwards, as he saith, that which was advantage unto me I held loss for Christ's sake: nay not one●… loss, but I judge them all dung, that I might win Christ. Thus then was this Philip. 3. 8 poor man raised above all the rich men of the earth, and this beggar was lifted up from the dunghill to sit with the Princes of the people, to whom he saith, You shall sit on twelve thrones, etc. and to make them inherit the seat of glory: for those mighty ones had said, Behold we have left all, and followed thee: this vow had those mighties vowed. But whence had they this vow but from him that giveth vows unto those that vow; otherwise, they should be of those mighties, whose bow he hath broken. That giveth vows (saith she) unto them that vow. For none can vow any set thing unto God but he must have it from God: it followeth, and blesseth the years of the just, that is that they shallbe with him eternally, unto whom it is written, thy years shall never fail: for that they are fixed: but here they either pass or perish: for they are gone ere they come, bringing still their end with them. But of these two, he giveth vows to those that vow and blesseth the years of the just: the one we perform, and the other we receive; but this, always by Gods giving we receive, nor can we do the other without God's help, because in his own might shall no man be strong▪ The Lord shall weaken his adversaries, namely such as resist and envy his servants in fulfilling their vows. (h) The greek may also signify, his own adversaries: for he that is our adversary when we are Gods children is his adversary also, and is overcome by us, but not by our strength: for in his own might shall no man be strong. The LORD, the holy LORD shall weaken his adversaries, and make them be conquered by those whom He the most Holy hath made holy also; (ay) and therefore let not the wise glory in his wisdom, the mighty in his might, nor the rich in his riches, but let their glory be to know God, and to execute his judgements and justice upon earth. He is a good proficient in the knowledge of God, that knoweth that God must give him the means to know God. For what hast thou (saith the Apostle) which thou hast not received? that is, what hast thou of thine own to boast of. Now he that doth right, executeth judgement and justice: and he that liveth in God's obedience and the end of the command, namely in a pure love, a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith. But 1. Tim. 1. 5 this love (as the Apostle john saith) is of God. Then, to do judgement and justice, is of God, but what is on the earth; might it not have been left out, and it have only been said, to do judgement and justice? the precept would be more common both to men of land and sea: but least any should think that after this life there were a time elsewhere to do justice and judgement in, and so to avoid the great judgement for not doing them in the flesh, therefore, in the earth is added, to confine those acts within this life: for each man beareth his earth about with him in this world, and when he dieth, bequeathes it to the great earth, that must return him it at the resurrection. In this earth therefore, in this fleshly body must we do justice and judgement, to do ourselves good hereafter by, when every one shall receive according to his works done in the body, good or bad: in the body▪ that is, in the time that the body lived: for if a man blaspheme in heart though he do no ●…urt with any bodily member yet shall not he be unguilty, because though he did it not in his body, yet he did it in the time wherein he was in the body▪ And so many we understand that of the Psalm, The Lord, our King hath wrought 〈◊〉 in the midst of the earth before the beginning of the world: that is, the Lord Psa, 72. 13 jesus our God before the beginning (for he made the beginning) hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth namely then, when the word became flesh, and 〈◊〉 corporally amongst us. But on. Annah having shown how each man ought to glory, viz. not in himself but in God, for the reward that followeth the great judgement, proceedeth thus (l) The Lord went up unto heaven, and hath thundered: he shall judge the ends of the worlds, and shall give the power unto our Kings, Isa, 5. and exalt the horn of his anointed. This is the plain faith of a Christian. He 〈◊〉 into heaven, and thence he shall come to judge the quick and dead, for who Mat. 10. is ●…ded saith the Apostle, but he who first descended into the inferior parts of the earth? He thundered in the clouds, which he filled with his holy spirit in his ●…ntion, from which clouds he threatened Jerusalem, that ungrateful vine to 〈◊〉 no rain upon it. Now it is said, He shall judge the ends of the world, that is the ends of men: for he shall judge no real part of earth, but only all the men thereof, nor judgeth he them that are changed into good or bad, in the mean 〈◊〉, but (m) as every man endeth, so shall he beiudged: whereupon the scripture 〈◊〉, He that cometh unto the end shall be safe, he therefore that doth i●…ce in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the earth shall not be condemned, when the ends of the earth are 〈◊〉. And shall give power unto our Kings, that is, in not condemning them by ●…gement, he giveth them power because they rule over the flesh like King's 〈◊〉 ●…quer the world in him who shed his blood for them. And shall exalt the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his anointed. How shall Christ the anointed exalt the horn of his an●…▪ It is of Christ that those sayings, The Lord went up to heaven, etc. are all 〈◊〉 so is this same last, of exalting the horn of his anointed. Christ there●… exalt the horn of his anointed, that is, of every faithful servant of his, as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first: my horn is exalted in the Lord, for all that have received the vnc●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grace, may well be called his anointed▪ all which, with their head, make 〈◊〉 anointed. This Anna prophisied, holy samuel's mother, in whom the 〈◊〉 of ancient priesthood was prefigured and now fulfilled, when as the wo●… 〈◊〉 many sons was enfeebled, that the barren which brought forth seven, 〈◊〉 ●…eceiue the new priesthood in Christ. L. VIVES. SH●… that (a) had.] Multa in filiis. (b) Nor had she.] The first book of Samuel agreeth with 〈◊〉, but josephus (unless the book be falty) saith she had six, three sons and three 〈◊〉 after Samuel; but the Hebrews reckon samuel's two sons for Annahs also, being Hie. in Reg. lib, 1. 〈◊〉 ●…dchildren, and Phamuahs' seven children died severally, as Annahs, and her son 〈◊〉 ●…ere borne. (c) And my horn.] Some read, mine heart, but falsely, the greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 preachers there are.] Or, nor in such as are bound by calling to be his preachers; the 〈◊〉 ●…py readeth, but in his called preachers. (e) No man knoweth] B in his foreknowledge, 〈◊〉 ●…owlege of the secrets of man's heart. (f) Are hired out.] The seventy read it, are 〈◊〉 (g) For the beggar,] It seems to be a word of more indigence, then poor: the latin The beggar or the poor. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ops, or helpless, having no reference in many places to want of money, but of 〈◊〉▪ G●…rg. 1. Terent. Adelpe. Act. 2. scena. 1. Pauper, saith Uarro, is quasi paulus lar. etc. 〈◊〉 ●…gens. (h) The Greek.] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both his and his own: the greeks do not distin●… two, as we do. ay Let not the.] This is not the vulgar translation of the Kings, but 〈◊〉 cha. 9 the 70. put it in them both, but with some alteration. It is an utter subversion 〈◊〉▪ God respects not wit, power, or wealth, those are the fuel of man's vain glory, but let 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…th (as Paul saith) glory in the Lord, and by a modest and equal thought of himself continually. For so shall he never be pride-swollen: for the knowledge of God that charity seasoneth, never puffeth up, if we consider his mercies, and his judgements, his love, and his wrath, together with his majesty. (k) And to do judgement] The seventy read this one way in the book of Samuel, and another way in Hieremy, attributing in the first unto the man that glorieth, and in the later unto God. (l) The Lord went up] This is not in the vulgar, until you come unto this, and he shall judge: Augustine followed the LXX. and so did all that age almost in all the churches. (m) As every man] As I find thee, so will I judge thee. The Prophet's words unto Heli the priest, signifying the taking away of Aaron's priesthood, CHAP. 5. But this was more plainly spoken unto Heli the priest by a man of God, (a) whose name we read not, but his ministry proved him a Prophet: Thus it is written: There came a man of GOD unto Heli, and said unto him: Thus saith the 1 Sam. 2, 27 Lord, did not I plainly appear unto the house of thy father when they were in Egiptin pharao's house, and I chose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer at mine Altar, to burn incense, and to wear (b) an Ephod, and I gave thy father's house all the burnt offerings of the house of Israel, for to eat, Why then have you looked in scorn upon my sacrifices, and offerings, and (c) honoured thy children above me, to (d) bless the first of all the offerings of Israel in my sight? wherefore thus saith the LORD GOD of Israel: I said, thy house and thy father's house shall walk before me for ever: nay not so now: for them that honour me (saith the Lord) will I honour, and them that despise me, will I despise. Behold the days come that I will cast out thy seed, and thy father's seed, that there shall not be an (e) old man in thine house. I will destroy every one of thine from mine Altar, that thine eyes may fail and thine heart faint, and all the remainder of thy house shall fall by the sword, and this shallbe a sign unto thee, that shall befall thy two sons, Ophi, and Phinees, in one day shall they both die. And I will take myself up a faithful Priest that shall do according to mine heart: I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before mine Anointed, for ever. And the (f) remains of thy house shall come and bow down to him for an halfpenny of silver, saying: Put me I pray the in some office about the priesthood, that I may eat a morsel of bread. We cannot say that this prophecy, plainly denouncing the change of their old priesthood, was fulfilled in Samuel (g) for though Samuel were of that tribe that served the Altar, ye was he not of the sons of Aaron, to whose progeny God tied the priesthood: (and therefore in this, was that change shadowed that Christ was to perform, and belonged to the Old Testament, properly, but figuratively, unto the New: being now fulfilled both in the event of the prophecy, and the history, that recordeth these words of the Prophet unto Heli.) For afterwards there were Priests of Aaron's race, as Abiathar and Zador in 〈◊〉 reign, and many more, for the time came wherein the change was to be effected by Christ. But who seeth not now (if he observe it with the eye of faith) that all is fulfilled, the jews have no Tabernacle, no Temple, no Altar, nor any Priest of Aaron's pedigree, as GOD commanded them to have. Lust as this Prop●… said: Thou and thy father's house shall walk before me for ever. Nay not so now; for them that honour me, will I honour etc. By his father's house he meaneth not Eli his last fathers, but Aaron's, from whom they all descended, as these words: Did I not appear to thy father's house in Egypt etc. Do plainly prove. Who was his Father in the Egyptian bondage, and was chosen priest after their freedom, but Aaron? of his stock than it was here said there should be no more priests as we see now come to pass. Let faith be but vigilant, and it shall discern and apprehend truth, even whether it will or no. Behold (saith he) the days do come, that I will cast out thy seed etc. 'tis true: the days are come. Aaron's seed hath now no Priest: and his whole offspring behold the sacrifice of the christians goriously offered all the world through, with failing eyes and fainting hearts: but that which followeth; All the remainder of thine house 〈◊〉 fell by the sword etc. belongs properly to the house of Heli. And the death of his sons, was a sign of the change of the Priesthood of Aaron's house: and signified the death of the Priesthood, rather than the men. But the next place to the priest that Samuel, Heli his successor, prefigured, I mean Christ the Priest of the New Testament. I will take me up a faithful Priest, that shall do all according to mine heart: I will build him a sure house etc. (This house is the heavenly jerusalem) and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever: that is he shall converse with them, as he said before of the house of Aaron, I said, thou and thine house shall walk before me for ever. Behold mine anointed, that is 〈◊〉 anointed flesh, not mine anointed Priest, for that is Christ himself, the Saviour. So that his house and flock it is that shall walk before him, it may be meant also of the passage of the faithful from death unto life at the end of their mortality, and the last judgement. But whereas it is said: He shall do all according to mine heart, we may not think that GOD hath any heart, bee●… 〈◊〉 hearts maker, but it is figuratively spoken of him, as the scripture doth 〈◊〉 ●…er members, the hand of the LORD, the finger of GOD, etc. And least 〈◊〉 should think that in this respect, man beareth the Image of GOD, the ●…re giveth him wings, which man doth want: Hide me under the shadow of Psal. 17. 〈◊〉 ●…gs: to teach men indeed, tha●…●…hose things are spoken with no true, but a ●…ll reference unto that ineffable essence. On now: and the remains of 〈◊〉 ●…use shall come and bow down unto him, etc. This is not meant of the 〈◊〉 of Heli, but of Aaron's, of which some were remaining until the coming 〈◊〉 ●…RIST, yea and are unto this day. For that above, the remainder of thy 〈◊〉 shall fall by the sword was meant by Heli his lineage. How then can both 〈◊〉 places be true, that some should come to bow down, and yet the sword 〈◊〉 devour all, unless they be meant of two, the first of Aaron's lineage, and 〈◊〉 ●…cond of Helies? If then they be of those predestinate remainders whereof 〈◊〉 ●…ophet saith: The remnant shallbe saved: and the Apostle, at this present time is Isay. 10. Rom. 11. 5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remnant through the election of grace: which may well be under-stood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remnant that the man of GOD speaks off here, then doubtless they 〈◊〉 in Christ, as many of their nations (Jews) did in the Apostles time, and 〈◊〉 (though very few) do now, fulfilling that of the Prophet, which followeth: 〈◊〉 down to him, for an half penny of silver: to whom but unto the great Rome▪ 9 Psal. 12. 6 〈◊〉, who is God eternal? For in the time of Aaron's Priesthood, the people 〈◊〉 ●…ot to the temple to adore or bow down to the priest. But what is that, 〈◊〉 half penny of silver? Only the brevity of the Word of ●…aith, as the A●… saith, The Lord will make a short account in the earth, that silver is put for ●…ord, the Psalmist proveth, saying, The words of the Lord are pure words, as sil Psal. 84. 10 ●…ied in the fire: what is his words now, that boweth to this God's Priest, and 〈◊〉 ●…od and Priest: place me in some office about the Priesthood, that I may eat a mor●… bread? I will not have my father's honours, they are nothing, but place me any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy Priesthood. I would feign be a door keeper, or any thing in thy service and 〈◊〉 thy people, for Priesthood is put here for the people, to whom Christ the ●…or is the high Priest: which people the Apostle called, an holy nation and 1 Pet. 29. a royal Priesthood. Some read (k) Sacrifice in the former place for Priesthood, all is one, both signify the christian flock. Whereof S. Paul saith: Being many, 〈◊〉 are all one bread, and one body, and again. (l) Give up your bodies a living sacrifice. So 1 Cor. 10, 17 Rom. 12, 1. then the addition, that I may eat a morsel of bread, is a direct expression of the sacrifice, whereof the Priest himself saith, the bread which I will give, is my flesh etc. This is the sacrifice not after the order of Aaron but of Melchisedech: he that readeth, let him understand. So then these words, Place me in some office about thy priesthood that I may eat a morsel of bread, are a direct and succinct confession of the faith: this is the half penny of silver, because it is brief, and it is God's word, that dwelleth in the house of the believer: for having said before that he had given Aaron's house meat of the offering of the house of Israel, which were the sacrifices of the jews in the Old Testament, therefore addeth he the eating of bread in this conclusion, which is the sacrifice of the New Testament. L. VIVES. HIs (a) name] It was Phinees, ●…ay the jews: or Helias Hierome. (b) An Ephod] Of this read Hierome. Ad Marcellam, Contra jovinian. Ad Fabiolam. The greeks called it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. joseph. de Antiq. jud. lib. 3. So do the LXX. Ruffinus translateth it, Superhumerale and it was open at the sides from the armpits downwards. The high Priest only wore such an The Ephod. one, and it was embrothered with gold and silk of divers colours. The levites had a garment like it, but that was of linen. Such an one did Anna make for Samuel: and such an one did [This is too bitter the Lovainists like it not but leave it out] David dance in, before the Ark. [And hereupon I think our Rabbins, or most Doctor-like sort of Friars, have got the trick of wearing such ●…esture hanging loose from the shoulders: as a badge of their supereminent knowledge: and then your Civilian, and P●…isitian in emulation of them, got up the like.] But the seventy call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (c) Honourest] [So was it in the time when the jews priests grew wealthy, and so is it now with us: for who seeketh into the priesthood for Godliness rather than gain, as the world goeth now? and what son is persuaded by the father unto an ecclesiastical habit, but only in hope of riches? what ●…est thinketh he doth not well, to sit and spend the church's goods (as they call them) frankly, with [Lowaynists unless you had felt yourselves touched with this, you would never have razed it out] his sons if he have them (and have them he will, unless he be an Eunuch) his brethren, his sisters and his cousins, let the poor go shift where they can? Thus, thus will it be, whilst riches rule in the hearts of men.] (d) To bliss] The vulgar is not so: read it▪ each one hath the books, I must proceed. (e) An old man] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an high priest, saith Hierome. (f) Romans'] A diversity of reading, but nihil ad rem. (g) Though Samuel] His father was a levity. Chron. 1. 6. his mother of the tribe of judah. This place Augustine recalleth, thus: whereas I said, he was not of the sons of Aaron, I should have said, he was none of the priests sons. And they most commonly succeeded their fathers in the Priesthood, but samuel's father was of Aaron's seed, but he was no Priest, nor of his seed otherwise then all the jews were the seed of jacob. Retractation. lib. 2. (h) Prophecy and history] And though these words seemed to another purpose, yet aimed they at Christ. ay We should think] So thought by the Anthropomorphites. (k) Sacrifi●…] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both▪ but rather, Priesthood. (l) Give up] This is not in some copies, yet is it befitting this place. The promise of the Priesthood of the jews, and their kingdom, to stand eternally not fulfilled in that sort that other promises of that unbounded nature, are. CHAP. 6. ALthough these things were then as deeply prophesied, as they now are plainly fulfilled, yet some may put this doubt: how shall we expect all the eue●… therein presaged, when as this that the Lord said; thine house, and thy father's 〈◊〉 shall walk before me for ever, can be no way now effected, the priesthood being now quite abolished, nor any way expected, because that eternity is promised to the priesthood that succeeded it? he that objecteth this, conceiue●… not that Aaron's priesthood was but a type & shadow of the others future priesthood and therefore that the eternity promised to the shadow, was due but unto the substance only: and that the change was prophesied, to avoid this supposition of the shadows eternity, for so the kingdom of Saul, the reprobate, was a shadow of the kingdom of eternity to come, the oil wherewith he was anointed, was a great and reverend mystery: which David so honoured, that when he was hid in the dark cave into which Saul came to ease himself of the burden of nature, he was afraid, and only cut off a piece of his skirt, to have a token whereby to show him how causeless he suspected him, and persecuted him: he feared, I say for doing thus much: lest he had wronged the mystery of Saul's being anointed: He was touched in heart (saith the Scripture) for cutting off the (a) skirt of his raiment (b) His men that were with him persuaded him to take his time, Saul was now in his hands, strike sure. The Lord keep me (saith he) from doing so unto my master the Lords anointed: to lay mine hands on him, for he is the 1. Sam. 22. anointed of the Lord. Thus honoured he this figure, not for itself but for the thing it shadowed. And therefore these words of Samuel unto Saul. The Lord 1. Sam. ●…3 had prepared thee a kingdom for ever in Israel, but now it shall not remain unto thee, because thou hast not obeyed his voice: therefore will he seek him a man according to his heart. etc. are not to be taken as if Saul himself should have reigned for evermore, and then that his sin made God break his promise afterwards (for he knew that he would sin, when he did prepare him this kingdom) but this he prepared for a figure of that kingdom that shall remain for evermore: and therefore he added, it shall not remain unto thee: it remaineth and ever shall in the signification, but not unto him, for neither he nor his progeny were to reign there, ●…ingly. The Lord will seek him a man, saith he, meaning either David, or the mediator, prefigured in the unction of David and his posterity. He doth not say he will seek, as if he knew not where to find, but he speaketh as one that seeketh our understanding, for we were all known both to God the father, and his son, the seeker of the lost sheep, and elected in him also, before the beginning of the world (c) He will seek, that is he will show the world that which he himself knoweth already. And so have we acquiro in the latin, with a preposition, to attain: and may use quaero, in that sense also: as questus, the substantive, for gain. L. VIVES. T●… (a) skirt.] Or hem, or edge, any thing that he could come nearest to cut, the jews used edged garments much: according to that command in the book of Numbers. The Greek word, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wing of his doublet. Ruffinus translateth it, Summitatem. (b) His 〈◊〉.] Which were three hundred, saith josephus. lib. 6. (c) He will seek.] A diversity of rea●…. I think the words, from. And so have we acquiro, to the end of the chapter, be some 〈◊〉 of others. The Kingdom of Israel, rent: prefiguring the perpetual division between the spiritual and carnal Israel. CHAP. 7. Soul fell again by (a) disobedience, and Samuel told him again from God, Thou hast cast off the Lord and the Lord hath cast off thee, that thou shalt no more be King of Israel. Now Saul confessing this sin, and praying for pardon, and that 1. Sam. 15. Samuel would go with him to entreat the Lord. Not I (saith Samuel) thou hast cast off the Lord, etc. And Samuel turned himself to depart, and Saul held him by the lap of his coat, and it rend. Then, quoth Samuel, the Lord hath rend the Kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it unto thy neighbour which is better than thee: and Israel shall be parted into two, and shall no more be united, nor he is not a man that he should repent, etc. Now he unto whom these words were said, ruled Israel forty years, even as long as David, and yet was told this in the beginning of his Kingdom; to show us that none of his race should reign after him, and to turn our eyes upon the line of David, whence Christ our mediator took his humanity. Now the original read not this place as the Latins do: The Lord shall rend the Kingdom of Israel from thee this day, but, the Lord hath rend, etc. from thee, that is from Israel, so that this man was a type of Israel, that was to lose the Kingdom as soon as Christ came with the New Testament, to rule spiritually, not carnally. Of whom these words, and hath given it unto thy neighbour, showeth the consanguinity with Israel in the flesh, and so with Saul: and that following, who is better than thee, implieth not any good in Saul, or Israel, but that which the Psalm saith: until I make thine enemies thy footstool, whereof Israel the persecutor (whence Christ rend the Kingdom) was Psa. 110. 2. one. Although there were Israel the wheat amongst Israel the chaff also: for the Apostles were thence, and Stephen with a many Martyrs besides, and from their seed grew up so many Churches as Saint Paul reckoneth, all glory fiing God in his conversion. And that which followeth, Israel shall be parted into two, concerning this point assuredly, namely, into Israel Christ's friend, and Israel Christ's foe: into Israel the free woman and Israel the slave. For these two were first united, Abraham accompanying with his maid until his wives barrenness being fruitful, she cried out, Cast out the bondwoman & her son. Indeed because of Salomon's sin, we know that in his son Roboams time Israel divided itself into two parts, and either had a King, until the Chaldeans came & subdued and ren-versed all. But what was this unto Saul? Such an even was rather to be threatened unto David, Salomon's father: And now in these times, the Hebrews are not divided, but dispersed all over the world, continuing on still in their error. But that division that God threatened unto Saul, who was a figure of this people, was a premonstration of the eternal irrevocable separation, because presently it followeth: And shall no more be united, nor repent of it, for it is no man, that it should repent: Man's threatenings are transitory: but what God once resolveth is irremoveable. For where we read that God repented, it portends an alteration of things out of his eternal prescience. And likewise where he did not, it portends a fixing of things as they are. So here we see the division of Israel, perpetual and irrevocable, God's repentance, 〈◊〉. grounded upon this prophecy. For they that come from thence to Christ, or contrary, were to do so by God's providence, though humane conc●… cannot apprehend it: and their separation is in the spirit also, not in the flesh. And those Israelites that shall stand in Christ unto the end, shall never per●… with those that stayed with his enemies unto the end, but be (as it is here said) 〈◊〉 separate. For the Old Testament of Sina, begetting in bondage, shall do Gal. 4. 1. Cor. 3. them no good, nor any other, further than confirmeth the New. Otherwise; as long as Moses is read, (d) the vail is drawn over their hearts: and when they 〈◊〉 to Christ, then is removed. For the thoughts of those that pass from 〈◊〉 to him, are changed, and bettered in their pass: and thence, their felicity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is spiritual, no more carnal. Wherefore the great Prophet Samuel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had anointed Saul, when he cried to the Lord for Israel, and he ●…d him: and when he offered the burnt offering, (the Philistines coming against Israel, and the Lord thundered upon them and scattered them, so that they fell before Israel): took (e) a stone, and placed it between the (f) two 1. Sam 7. Maspha's, the Old and the New, and named the place Eben Ezer, that is, the stone of 〈◊〉: saying, hitherto the L●… hath helped us: that stone, is the mediation of our 〈◊〉, by which we come from the Old Maspha to the New, from the thought of a carnal kingdom in all felicity, unto the expectation of a crown of spiri●… glory, (as the New Testamen●… teacheth us,) and seeing that that is the sum ●…ope of all, even ●…itherto hath God helped us. L. VIVES. B●…) disobedience] For being commanded by Samuel from God, to kill all the Amalechites 〈◊〉 and beast, he took Agag the King alive, and drove away a multitude of Cattle. 〈◊〉 lap of his coat] Diplois is any double garment. (c) The Lord hath rend] Shall rend, Diplois. ●…us: But, hath rend, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it is in the LXX. (d) The vail] The vail that Moi●…●…ed ●…ed his face, was a type of that wherewith the jews cover their hearts, until they be 〈◊〉. 1. Corinth. 3. (e) Astone] josephus saith, that he placed it, at Charron, and called 〈◊〉. lib. 6. (f) The two Maspha's] Maspha the Old stood between the tribes of Gad Maspha. 〈◊〉▪ Hier. de loc. Hebraic. There is another in the tribe of juda, as you go Northward 〈◊〉 ●…lia, in the confines of Eleutheropolis. Maspha is, contemplation, or speculation. The 〈◊〉 write it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Promises made unto David, concerning his son: not fulfilled in Solomon: but in Christ. CHAP. 8. NOw must I relate God's promises unto David, Sa●…ls successor (which change ●…gured the spiritual & great one, which all the Scriptures have relation 〈◊〉 ●…cause it concerneth our purpose. David having had continual good for●…●…ed to build GOD an house, namely that famous and memorable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solomon built after him. While this was in his thought, Nathan came 〈◊〉 from God, to tell him what was his pleasur●…: wherein, when as GOD had 〈◊〉 David should not build him an house, and that he had not comman●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 time to build him any house of Cedar: then he proceedeth thus▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 David, that thus saith the Lord: I took thee fro●… the sheep-●…e, to 〈◊〉 2. Sam. 7. 8. 9 10. etc. 〈◊〉 my people Israel: and I was with thee where-so-ever thou walked, a●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all thine enemies out of thy sight, and given thee the glory of a mighty m●…n 〈◊〉. I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant it, it shall dwell 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 move no more, nor shall wicked people trouble them any more, as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ne, since I (a) appointed judges over Israel. And I will give thee rest from all thine enemies, and the Lord telleth thee also that thou shalt make him an house. It shall be when thy days be fulfilled, and thou sleepest with thy fathers, then will I set up thy seed after thee, even he that shall proceed from thy body, and will prepare his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will direct his throne for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son: if he sin I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the plagues of the children of men. But my mercy will I not remove from him, as I removed it from Saul, whom I have rejected. His house shall be faithful, and his kingdom eternal before me: his throne shall be established for ever. He that holdeth his mighty promise fulfilled in Solomon, is far-wide. For mark how it lieth. He shall build me an house, Solomon did so: and this he marketh: but, His house shall be faithful and his kingdom eternal before me: What is this? this he marketh not. Well let him go to Salomon's house, and see the flocks of strange Idolatrous women, drawing this so wise a King into the same depth of damnation with them: doth he see it? then let him neither think Gods promises false, nor his prescience ignorant of Salomon's future perversion by Idolatry. We need never doubt here, nor run with the giddy brained jews to seek had I wist, and to find one in whom these may be fulfilled, we should never have seen them fulfilled, but in our Christ, the son of David in the flesh. For they know well enough; that this son of whom these promises spoke, was not Solomon: but (oh wondrous blindness of heart!) stand still expecting of another to come, who is already come, in most broad and manifest appearance. There was some shadow of the thing to come in Solomon, 'tis true, in his Solomon. erection of the temple, and that laudable peace which he had in the beginning of his reign, and in his name, (for Solomon is, a peacemaker): but he was (b) only in his person a shadow, but no presentation of Christ our Saviour, & therefore some things are written of him that concern our Saviour; the scripture including the prophecy of the one, in the history of the other. For besides the books of the Kings & Chronicles that speak of his reign, the 72. Psalm is entitled with his name. Wherein there are so many things impossible to be true in him, and most apparent in Christ, that it is evident that he was but the figure, not the truth itself. The bounds of Salomon's kingdom were known, yet (to omit the rest) that Psal. 72. 9 Psalm saith; he shall reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the lands end. This is most true of Christ. For he began his reign at the river, when john baptised and declared him, and his disciples acknowledged him, call him Lord and Master. Nor did Solomon begin his reign in his father's time (as no other of their Kings did) but only to show that he was not the aim of the prophecy, that said, It shall be when thy days are fulfilled, and that thou sleepest with thy fathers, then will I set up thy seed after thee, and prepare his kingdom. Why then shall we lay all this upon Solomon, because it is said, He shall build me an house; and not th●… rather understand, that it is the other peacemaker that is spoken of, who is not promised to be set up before David's death (as Solomon was) but after, according to the precedent text? And though Christ were never so long ere he came, yet coming after David's death, all is one: he came at length as he was promised, and built God the Father an house, not of timber and stones, but of living souls, wherein we all rejoice. For to this house of God, that is, his faithful people, 1. Cor. 3. 17. Saint Paul saith, The temple of God is holy, which you are. L. VIVES. I Appointed (a) judges] Israel had thirteen judges in three hundred and seventy years, from Othoniel to Samuel who anointed Saul: and during that time, they had variable for●… in their wars. (b) Only in] He was a figure of Christ, in his peaceable reign, and ●…ding of the temple: but he was not Christ himself. A Prophecy of Christ in the eighty eight Psalm, like unto this of Nathan in the Book of Kings. CHAP. 9 THe eighty eight Psalm also, entitled, An (a) instruction to Ethan the Israelite, reckoneth up the promises of God unto David, and there is some like those of N●…n, as this: I have sworn to David my servant, thy seed will I establish for ever: ●…s: Then spakest thou (b) in a vision unto thy sons and said, I have laid help 〈◊〉 ●…e mighty one: I have exalted one chosen out of my people. I have found David 〈◊〉 ●…ant, with my holy oil have I anointed him. For mine hand shall help him, and 〈◊〉 ●…me shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not oppress him, nor shall the wicked Psalm. 89. 〈◊〉. But I will destroy his foe before his face, and plague them that hate him. My 〈◊〉 ●…d mercy shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. I will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hand in the sea, and his right hand in the floods, he shall call upon me, thou ●…t 〈◊〉 father, my GOD, and the rock of my salvation. I will make him my first borne, 〈◊〉 then the Kings of the earth: My mercy will I keep unto him for ever, and my 〈◊〉 shall stand fast with him. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the 〈◊〉 ●…f heaven. (c) All this is meant of Christ under the type of David, be●…●…hat from a Virgin of his seed CHRIST took man upon him: 〈◊〉 ●…olloweth it of David's sons, as it doth in nathan's words, meant pro●…●…f Solomon; he said there: If they sin I will (d) chasten them with the 〈◊〉 ●…f men, and with the (e) plagues of the sons of men: (that is, corrective 2. Sam 7. ●…ons) but my mercy will I not remove from him. whereupon it is said. T●…ot mine anointed, hurt them not: And now here in this Psalm (speak●… 〈◊〉 the mystical David) he saith the like: If his children forsake my law, Psal 105. ●…lke not in my righteousness, etc. I will visit their transgression with rods 〈◊〉 ●…eir iniquities with strokes: yet my mercy will I not take from him. He Psalm. 89. 〈◊〉 ●…ot from them, though he speak of his sons, but from him, which being ●…ll marked, is as much: For there could no sins be found in Christ, 〈◊〉 ●…urches head, worthy to be corrected of GOD: with, or without re●…ion of mercy, but in his members, that is his people: Wherefore in the 〈◊〉 it is called his son, and in this Psalm, his children's, that we might 〈◊〉 all things spoken of his body, hath some reference unto himself; 〈◊〉 that when Saul persecuted his members, his faithful, he said from 〈◊〉, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It followeth in the said Psalm: ●…enant will I not break, nor alter the thing I have spoken, ' I have sworn 〈◊〉 my holiness: that (f) if I fail David: that is, I will not fail David: 〈◊〉 Scriptures usual phrase, that he will not fail in, he addeth, saying: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall remain for ever, and his throne shall be as thee sun before me: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. L. VIVES. AN instruction. (a) to Ethan the Israelite] The Ezraite] saith the Hebrew. Hierome. This Psalm is spoken by many mouths from the father to the son, and the son to the father, and the church, the Prophet himself, or the Apostles. (b) In a vision] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (c) A●… this] A diversity of reading all to one end. (d) Chasten them] I think it is meant of the wa●… that often plague the nations. (e) Plagues] all the discommodities, that befall man. (f) If I fail] A negative phrase often used in the scriptures. As Psal. 95. vers. 11. Of diverse actions done in the earthly Jerusalem, and the kingdom, differing from God's promises, to show that the truth of his words concerned the glory of another kingdom, and another King. CHAP. 10. NOw after the confirmation of all these promises, lest it should be thought that they were to be fulfilled in Solomon (as they were not) the Psalm addeth: Thou hast cast him off, and brought him to nothing. So did he indeed with Salomon's kingdom in his posterity, even (a) unto the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem, the seat of that royalty, & unto the burning of that temple that Solomon built. But yet lest God should be thought to fail in his promise, he addeth: Thou hast deferred thine anointed: this was not Solomon, nor David, if the Lords anointed were deferred, for though all the Kings that were consecrated with that mystical Chrism, were called anointed, from Saul their first King: (for so David The Kings anointing, a type of Christ. calleth him) yet was there but one true anointed whom all these did prefigure, who (as they thought that looked for him in David, or Solomon) was deferred long, but yet was prepared to come in the time that God had appointed. What became of the earthly Jerusalem in the mean time where he was expected to reign, the Psalm showeth, saying: Thou hast overthrown thy servants covenant, profaned his crown, and cast it on the ground. Thou hast pulled down his walls, and laid his fortresses in ruin. All passengers do spoil him, he is the scorn of his neighbours: thou hast set up the right hand of his foes, and made his enemies glad. Thou hast turned the edge of his sword, and given him no help in battle. Thou hast dispersed his dignity, and cast his throne to the ground. Thou hast shortened the days (b) of his reign, and covered him with shame. All this befell Jerusalem the bondwoman, wherein nevertheless some sons of the freewoman reigned in the time appointed: hoping for the heavenly Jerusalem in a true faith, being the true sons thereof in Christ. But how those things befell that kingdom, the history showeth unto those that will read it. L. VIVES. Unto the (a) destruction] 2. Kings 25. (b) Of his reign] The vulgar, and the Greek, say, of his time: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The substance of the people of God who were in Christ in the flesh: who only had power to redeem the soul of man from hell. CHAP. 11. AFter this, the Prophet beginneth to pray: yet is this prayer a prophecy also: Lord how long wilt thou turn away? (thy face) for ever? as is said elsewhere: Psal. 89. H●… long wilt thou turn thy face from me: Some books read it in the (a) passive, but it may be understood of GOD'S mercy also, in the a●…iue: For ever, that is, unto the end: which end, is the last times, when that nation shall believe in CHRIST, before which time it is to suffer all those miseries that he bewaileth. Wherefore it followeth: Shall thy 〈◊〉 burn like fire? O remember of what I am; my substance. here is nothing fitter to be understood, than JESUS, the substance of this people: for hence he had his flesh. Didst thou create the children of men in vain? Unless there were one son of man, of the substance of Israel, by whom a multitude should be saved, they were all created in vain indeed: For now all the seed of man is fallen by the first man from truth to vanity: Man is like to vanity (saith the Psalm) his days vanish like a shadow. Yet did not GOD create all Psal. 1●…4▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in vain, for he freeth many from vanity by CHRIST the media●… his Son, and such as he knoweth will not be freed, he maketh use of, to the good of the free, and the greater eminence of the two Cities: Thus is there good reason for the creation of all reasonable creatures. It followeth. What man liveth that shall not see death? or shall free his soul 〈◊〉 the hand of hell? Why none but CHRIST JESUS the substance of Israel, and the son of David: of whom the Apostle saith: Who being Rom. 6. 9 ●…ysed from death, dieth no more: death hath no more dominion over him. ●…or he liveth and shall not see death, But freed his soul from the hand of 〈◊〉, because he descended into the lower parts to lose some (b) 〈◊〉 the bonds of sin: by that power that the Evangelist recordeth of 〈◊〉. I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up joh. 10. 〈◊〉▪ L VIVES. IN (a) the passive] So readeth not the vulgar: but in the active. The greeks indeed 〈◊〉 it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Wilt thou be turned away. (b) From the bonds] The bonds of hell, say 〈◊〉 ●…kes, making this earth an hell unto Christ, being descended from heaven: but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reading is better. Another verse of the former Psalm, and the persons to whom it belongeth. CHAP. 12. THE residue of this Psalm, in these words: Lord where are thy old Psal. 89, 49 50. 51. mercies which thou sworest unto David in thy truth? Lord remember the 〈◊〉 of thy servants, (by many nations that have scorned them,) because they 〈◊〉 ●…oached the footsteps of thine anointed: whether it have reference 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Israelites that expected this promise made unto David, or to the spiri●…●…sraelites the Christians, it is a question worth deciding. This was written or spoken in the time of Ethan, whose name the title of the Psalm beareth: which was also in David's reign, so that these words: Lord where are thine old mercies which thou swarest unto David in thy truth, could not then be spoken, but that the Prophet bore a type of somewhat long after to ensue, to wit at such time as the time of David wherein those mercies were promised, might seem ancient. It may further be understood, (b) because that many nations, that persecuted the Christians, cast them in the teeth with the passion of Christ, which he calleth his change, to wit being made immortal by death. Christ's change also in this respect may be a reproach unto the Israelites, because they expected him, and the nations only received him, and this the believers of the New Testament reproach them for, who continue in the Old: so that the Prophet may say, Lord remember the reproach of thy servants, because hereafter (GOD not forgetting to pity them) they shall believe also. But I like the former meaning better: for the words, LORD remember the reproach of thy servants, etc. cannot be said of the enemies of CHRIST, to whom it is a reproach, that CHRIST left them and came to the nations: (Such jews are no servants of GOD) but of them only, who having endured great persecutions for the name of CHRIST, can remember that high kingdom promised unto David's seed, and say in desire thereof, knocking, seeking, and ask, Where are thine old mercy's Lord which thou swaredst unto thy servant David? Lord remember, etc. because thine enemies have held thy change a destruction, and upbraided it in thine anointed. And what is, Lord remember, but Lord have mercy, and for my patience, give me that height which thou swarest unto David in thy truth? If we make the jews speak this, it must be those servants of GOD, that suffered the captivity in Babylon, before CHRIST'S coming, and knew what the change of CHRIST was, and that there was no earthly nor transitory felicity to be expected by it, such as Solomon had for a few years, but that eternal and spiritual kingdom, which the Infidel nations not apprehending as then, cast the change of the anointed in their dishes, but unknowinglie, and unto those that knew it. And therefore that last verse of the Psalm, (Blessed be the Lord for evermore, Amen, Amen:) agreeth fitly enough with the people of the celestial Jerusalem: place them as you please, hidden in the Old Testament, before the revelation of the New, or manifested in the New, when it was fully revealed. For GOD'S blessing upon the seed of David, is not to be expected only for a while, as Solomon had it, but for ever, and therefore followeth, Amen, Amen. The hope confirmed, the word is doubled. This David understanding in the second of the Kings, (whence we digressed in this Psalm) saith: Thou hast spoken of thy servants house for a great while. And then a little after: Now therefore begin & bless the house of thy servant 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. 7. 19 for ever, etc. because then he was to beget a son, by whom his progeny should descend unto Christ, in whom his house and the house of God should be one, and that eternal. It is David's house, because of David's seed, and the same is God's house, because of his Temple, built of souls and not of stones, wherein God's people may dwell for ever, in, & with him, and he for ever in, and with them, he filling them, and they being full of him: God being all in all, their reward in peace and their fortitude in war: And whereas Nathan had said before: thus saith the Lord, shalt thou bevild me an house? now David saith upon that: thou O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, hast revealed unto thy servant saying, I will build thee an house. This house do we build, by living well, and the Lord by giving us power to live well, for, unless the Lord build the house, their labour is 〈◊〉 lost that build it. And at the last dedication of this house, shall the word of the Lord be fulfilled, that Nathan spoke saying: I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant it, and it shall dwell by itself, and be no more moved, nor shall the 〈◊〉 people trouble it any more, as it hath done since the time that I appointed Iudge●… 〈◊〉 ●…y people Israel. L. VIVES. THe time of (a) Ethan.] Ethan, and Asaph were players upon the brazen Cymbals before Ethan. the Ark, in David's time 1. Chronicles. 15. the Greek and the Latin call Ethan an Israe●…, but I think he was rather an jezraelite, of the town of jezrael in the tribe of judah and the borders of Isacher between Scythopolis, and the Legion, or an Ezraite, of Ezran in the trib●… of Assur. Howsoever he was, Hierome out of the Hebrew, calleth him an Ezrait. But 〈◊〉 question he was not called an Israelite, for no man hath any such peculiar name from his general nation. (b) Because that many.] There is a diversity of reading in some other books, but not so good as this we follow. Whether the truth of the promised peace may be ascribed unto Salomon's time. CHAP. 13. HE that looketh for this great good in this world, is far wrong. Can any one ●…nd the fulfilling of it unto Salomon's time? No, no, the scriptures com●… it exellently, as the figure of a future good. But this one place, the wicked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 trouble it any more, dissolveth this suspicion fully: adding this further, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 done since the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel, for the 〈◊〉 began to rule Israel before the Kings, as soon as ever they had attained 〈◊〉 ●…d of promise: and the wicked, that is the enemy; troubled them sore, and 〈◊〉 was the chance of war, yet had they longer peace in those times than 〈◊〉 ●…ey had in Salomon's, who reigned but forty years, ●…or under judge Aod, 〈◊〉 ●…d eighty years peace. Salomon's time therefore cannot be held the fulfil●… of those promises: and much less any Kings besides his, for no King had ●…ce that he had: nor any nation ever had kingdom wholly acquit from 〈◊〉 of foe, because the mutability of human estate can never grant any 〈◊〉 an absolute security from all incursions of hostility. The place therefore 〈◊〉 this promised peace is to have residence, is eternal: it is that heavenly ●…alem, that freewoman where the true Israel shall have their blessed a●… the name importeth; Jerusalem, (a) that is, Beholding God: the desire 〈◊〉 reward must bear us out in Godliness, through all this sorrowful ●…ge. L. VIVES. HIerusalem. (a) that is.] Hierome saith it was first called jebus: then, Salem: thirdly Jerusalem, and 〈◊〉 Aelia. Salem, is peace: as the Apostle saith unto the Hebrews: Jerusalem Jerusalem the vision of peace. This was that Salem wherein Melchisedech reigned. joseph and Hegesip. It was called Aelia, of Aelius Adrian the emperor that repaired it after the destruction by Titus, in emulation of his ancestors glory. The Gentiles called it both Solymae, Solymi, and Jerusalem. Some draw that Solymi, from the Pisidians in Lycia, called of old, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some from the Solymi, a people of Pontus in Asia, who perished (as Eratosthenes writeth) with the Peleges and Bebricians, Eupolemus (as Eusebius saith) derived the name Solymi, from Solomon, quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salomon's temple, and some think Homer called it so: but josephus (lib. 7.) saith it was called Solyma in Abraham's time, And when David had built a tower in it (the jebuzites having taken it before) and fortified it, it was named Hierosolyma, for the Hebrews call a fortification Hieron, but it was rather called jebus after it was called Salem, then before, for it is held that Melchisedech built it, and he called it Salem. And the Canaanites, whose King he was, dwelled therein: and he was otherwise called the just King (saith Hegesippus:) for so was he named after his father, yet Hierome (De loc. Hebraic, & add Damas.) saith that Salem was not Jerusalem, but another City in the country of Sychem (a part of Chanaan) where the ruins of Melchisedeches palace are yet to be seen, as the memories of a most ancient and magnificent structure. I omit to relate whence Strabo deriveth the original of Jerusalem, out of Moses: for Strabo was never in Chanaan. I omit those also that say that Jerusalem was Luz, and Bethel, Bethel, being a village long after it, as I said before. Of David's endeavours in composing of the Psalms. CHAP. 14. GOds city having this progress, David reigned first in the type thereof, the terrestrial Jerusalem: now David had great skill in songs, and loved music, not out of his private pleasure, but in his zealous faith: whereby, in the service of his (and the true) God in diversity of harmonious and proportionat sounds, he mystically describeth the concord and unity of the celestial City of God, composed of divers particulars. Al his prophecies (almost) are in his Psalms. A hundred and fifty whereof, that which we call the book of Psalms, or the Psalter, containeth. Of which, (b) some will have them only to be David's, that bear his name over their title. Some think that only they that are entitled, each peculiarly a Psalm of David, ar●… his: the rest, that are entitled to David, were made by others, and fitted unto his person. But this our Saviour confuteth, his own self: saying that David called Christ in the spirit his Lord: citing the hundredth and tenth Psalm that beginneth thus: The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Now this Psalm is not entitled, of David, but to David as many more are. But I like their opinion best that say he made all the 150. entitling them sometimes with other names, and those pertinent unto some prefiguration or other, and leaving some others untituled at all, as God pleased to inspire these dark mysteries, and hidden varieties (all useful how-so-ever) into his mind. Nor is it any thing against this that we read the Psalms of some great Prophets that lined after him, upon some of his Psalms, as if they were made by them, for the spirit of prophecy might aswell foretell him their names, as other matters that 1. Kin. 13. ●…tained to their persons, as the Reign of King josias was revealed unto a Prophet, who foretold of his doings, and his very name about three hundred of years before it came to pass. L. VIVES. Diversity of (a) Harmonious and.] The several ●…nstruments used in this harmony are rehearsed. 1. Chron. 15. Augustine, (in Proaem Quinquag.) saith of the instrument called the 〈◊〉, that it is fit ●…or celestial harmony, and to be used in matters divine, because the 〈◊〉 of it in the tuning do all ascend upwards (b) Some will.] james Perez, my countryman, james Perez. who wrote the last (not so eloquent as learned) large commentaries upon the Psalms, In the beginning of them disputeth a while about the authors of the Psalms, and affirmeth that the jews never made question of it before origen's time: but all both wrote and believed 〈◊〉 David wrote them all. But when Origen began with rare learning and delicate wit to draw all the prophetical sayings of the Old-testament unto Christ already borne, he made the jews run into opinions far contrarying the positions of their old masters, and fall to dep●…ing of the scriptures in all they could, yet were there some Hebrews afterwards that held as the ancents did, that David was the only author of all the Psalms: Some again held that he made but nine: and that other Prophets wrote the rest, viz. some of the sons of Corah Ethan Asaph or Idythim. Those that have no titles they do not know whose they are, only Rabbi. Solomon. they are the works of holy men they say. Marry Rabbi Solomon, (that impudent rabbin) maketh ten authors of the Psalms: Melchisedech, Abraham, Moses, the sons of Chora, David, Solomon, Asaph, jeduthim, and Ethan: but Origen, Ambrose, Hillary, Augustine and Cas●… make David the author of them all; unto whom james Perez agreeth, confirming it for the truth by many arguments: read them in himself, for the books are common, I 〈◊〉 Hieromes words to Sophronius, and Cyprians, concerning this point, let this suffice at this 〈◊〉 (c) To David.] So is the Greek indeed: but I have heard divers good Hebraicians s●…y that the Hebrews use the dative case for the genitive. (d) As the reign.] 1. Kings. 11. Whether all things concerning Christ and his Church in the Psalms; be to be rehearsed in this work. CHAP. 15. I see my reader expecteth now, that I should deliver all the prophecies concer●… Christ and his Church contained in the Psalms. But the abundance 〈◊〉, rather than the want, hindereth me from explaining all the rest as I have 〈◊〉, and as the cause seems to require. I should be too tedious, in reciting 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 fear to choose any part, lest some should think I had omitted any that 〈◊〉 more necessary. Again, another reason is, because the testimony we 〈◊〉 is to be confirmed by the whole body of the Psalter, so that though all 〈◊〉 affirm it yet nothing may contrary it: lest we should otherwise seem ●…ch out verses for our purpose, like (a) parcels of some po●…●…hose ●…hose intent concerneth a theme far different. Now to show this testimo●… one in every Psalm of the book, we must expound the Psalm: 〈◊〉 to do, how great a work it is, both others and our volumes wherein we 〈◊〉 done it, do expressly declare, let him that can and list, read those, and there ●…ll see how abundant the prophecies of David concerning Christ, and of his Church were namely concerning that celestial King, and the City which he builded. L. VIVES. LIke (e) parcels] Centones are pieces of cloth of diverse colours; used any way, on the Centones back, or on the bed. Cic. Cato Maior. Sisenna, C. Caesar. Metaphorically it is a poem patched out of other poems by ends of verses, as Homero-centon, and Uirgilio-centon, diverse, made by Proba, and by Ausonius. (b) Retrograde poem] Sotadicall verses: that is verses backward and forwards, as Musa mihi causas memora, quo numine laesa: &, Laeso numine quo memora causas mihi Musa. Sotadicall verses may be turned backwards into others also: as Sotadicall verses. this iambic: Pio precare thure caelestum numina: turn it, Numina caelestum thure precare pi●…: it is a P●…ntameter. They are a kind of wanton verse (as Quintilian saith) invented, saith Strabo, or rather used (saith Diomedes) by Sotades, whom martial calleth Gnidus: some of Augustine's copies read it, a great poem, and it is the fitter, as if one should pick verses out of some greater works concerning another purpose, and apply them unto his own, as some Centonists did, turning Uirgils' and Homer's words of the greeks and Trojan wars, unto Christ and divine matters: And Ausonius turneth them unto an Epithalamion. Of the forty five Psalm▪: the tropes, and truths therein, concerning Christ and the Church. CHAP. 16. FOr although there be some manifest prophecies, yet are they mixed with figures; putting the learned unto a great deal of labour, in making the ignorant understand them, yet some show Christ and his Church at first sight (though we must at leisure expound the difficulties that we find therein:) as for example. Psal. 45. Mine heart hath given out a good word: I dedicate my works to the King. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer: Thou fairer than the children of men, gr●… is powered in thy lips, for GOD hath blessed thee for ever. Gird thy sword upon thy ●…high, thou most mighty: Proceed in thy beauty and glory: and reign prosperouly Psalm. 45. because of thy truth, thy justice and thy gentleness: thy right hand shall guide thee wondrously: Thine arrows are sharp (most mighty) against the hearts of the King's enemies: the people shall fall under thee. Thy throne O GOD is everlasting, and the sceptre of thy kingdom, a sceptre of direction: Thou lovest justice, and hatest iniquity: therefore GOD even thy GOD hath anointed thee with oil of gladness above thy fellows. All thy garments smell of Myrrh, Aloes and Cassia, from the I●…ry palaces, wherein the King's daughters had made thee gl●…d, in their honour. Who is so dull that he discerneth not Christ our God, in whom we believe, by this place? hearing him called GOD, whose throne is for ever, and annoyn●…d by GOD, not with visible but with spiritual Chrism: who is so barbarously ignorant in this immortal and universal religion, that he heareth not that Christ's name cometh of Chrisma, unction? here we know CHRIST, let us see then unto the types: How is he father then unto the sons of men? in a beauty far more amiable than that of the body. What is his sword, his shafts, etc. all these are tropical characters of his power: and how they are all so, let him that is the subject to this true, just, and gentle King, look to at his leisure. And then behold his Church, that spiritual spouse of his, and that divine wedlock of theirs: here it is: The Queen stood on thy right hand, her ●…lothing was of gold embroidered with divers colours. Hea●…e Oh daughter, and 〈◊〉, attend, and forget thy people and thy father's house. For the King taketh pleasure in thy beauty: and he is the Lord thy God. The sons of tire shall adore him 〈◊〉 gifts, the rich men of the people shall ●…ooe him with presents. The King's daughter 〈◊〉 all glorious within, her clothing is of wrought gold. The Virgins shallbe brought after her unto the King, and her kinsfolks and companions shall follow her, with joy and gladness shall they be brought, and shall enter into the King's chamber. Instead of father's 〈◊〉 shalt have children, to make them Princes through out the earth. They shall remember thy name O Lord from (a) generation to generation; therefore shall their people give ●…ks unto thee world without end. I do not think any one so besotted as to think this to be meant of any personal woman: no, no, she is his spouse to whom it is said: Thy throne, O God, is everlasting; and the sceptre of thy Kingdom a sceptre of direction. 〈◊〉 haste loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore the Lord thy God hath anointed 〈◊〉 ●…ith the oil of gladness before thy fellows: Namely Christ before the christi●…▪ For they are his fellows of whose concord out of all nations, cometh this Queen, as an other psalm saith: the City of the great King, meaning the spiritual Zion: Zion is speculation: for so it speculateth the future good that it is to receive, and thither directeth it all the intentions. This is the spiritual jerusalem, whereof we have all this while spoken, this is the foe of that devilish Babylon, height confusion, and that the foe of this. Yet is this City, by regeneration, freed from the Babylonian bondage, and passeth over the worst King for the best that ever was, turning from the devil and coming home to Christ: for which it is said, forget thy people, and thy father's house, etc. The Israelites, were a part of thi●… ●…tty in the flesh, but not in that faith: but became foes both to this great 〈◊〉 Queen. Christ was killed by them, and came from them, to (b) those 〈◊〉 ●…euer saw in the flesh. And therefore our King saith by the mouth of the 〈◊〉 in another place: thou hast delivered me from the contentions of the people, 〈◊〉 me the head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known, hath served Psal. 18. 43 44. 〈◊〉 assoon as they heard me, obeyed me. This was the Gentiles who never 〈◊〉 ●…rist in the flesh, nor he them. yet hearing him preached they believed 〈◊〉 ●…astly, that he might well say: as soon as they heard me, they obeyed me: for 〈◊〉 ●…es by hearing. This people, conjoined with the true Israel, both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and spirit, is that City of God, which when it was only in Israel, brought 〈◊〉 ●…hrist in the flesh: for thence was the Virgin Mary, from whom Christ 〈◊〉 our manhood upon him. Of this city, thus saith another psalm. (c) 〈◊〉 ●…ll call it, our Mother Zion: he became man therein, the most high hath founded 〈◊〉 was this most high, but God? So did Christ found her in his Patriarches Psal 87, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…hets, before he took flesh in her, from the Virgin Mary. Seeing therefore 〈◊〉 Prophet so long agoc said that of this City which now we behold come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: In steed of fathers thou shall have children, to make them Princes over all the 〈◊〉 so hath she when whole nations and their rulers, come freely to con●… 〈◊〉 proffesse Christ his truth for ever and ever) then without all doubt, there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ope herein, how ever understood, but hath direct reference unto these 〈◊〉 stations. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) generation] So read the 70. whom Augustine ever followeth, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this reduplication is very emphatical in the Hebrew. (b) To those that he never] Christ while he was on the earth never came, nor preached in any nation but Israel. Nor matter●… 〈◊〉 tha●… some few Gentiles came unto him, we speak here of whole nations. (c) Men shall call it] The seventy read it thus indeed but erroneously as Hierome noteth In Psalm 89. for they had written it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, what is Zion? which reading, some conceiving not, rejected, and added 〈◊〉 reading it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an other Si●…n, and that the rather because it followeth, he was made man therein. But the vulgar followeth the Hebrew, and reads it with an interrogation. Of the references of the 110. Psalm unto Christ's Priesthood: and the 22. unto his passion. CHAP. 17. FOr in that psalm that (as this calleth Christ a King) enstileth him a priest, beginning: The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool: we believe that Christ sitteth at God's right hand, but we see it not: nor that his enemies are all under his feet (which (a) must appear in the end, and is now believed, as it shall hereafter be beheld): but then the rest: the Lord shall send the rod of thy power out of Zion, be thou ruler amidst thine enemies. This is so plain that nought but impudence itself can contradict it. The enemies themselves confess that the law of Christ came out of Zion, that which we call the Gospel, and avouch to be the rod of his power. And that he ruleth in the midst of his enemies, themselves, his slaves, with grudging, and fruitless gnashing of teeth, do really acknowledge. Furthermore: the Lord swore and will not repent, (which proves the sequence eternally established) thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech. The reason is, Aaron's priesthood and sacrifice is abolished, and now in all the world under Christ the priest, we offer that Gen. 22 which Melchisedech brought forth when he blessed Abraham: who doubteth now of whom this is spoken? and unto this manifestation are the other Tropes of the psalm referred, as we have declared them peculiarly in our Sermons, and in that psalm also wherein CHRIST prophesieth of his passion by David's mouth, saying, they pierced my hands and my feet: they counted all my bones, and stood Psal. 22 gazing upon me. These words are a plain description of his posture on the cross, his nailing of his hands and feet, his whole body stretched at length, and made a rueful gazing stock to the beholders. Nay more: they parted my garments among them, they cast lots upon my vesture. How this was fulfilled, let the Gospel tell you. And so in this, there are divers obscurities, which not withstanding are all congruent with the main, and scope of the psalm, manifested in the passion, chiefly seeing that those things which the psalm presaged so long before, are but now effected (as it foretold) and even now are opened unto the eyes of the whole world. For it saith a little after: All the ends of the world shall remember themselves, and turn unto the Lord: all the kindreds of the earth shall worship before him for the kingdom is the Lords, and he ruleth among the nations. L. VIVES. WHich (a) ●…st appear] In the end, but now is only believed. Saint Paul writeth much of it unto the Corynthians, and Hebrews. Christ's death and resurrection prophesied in psalm. 3. & 40. & 15. & 67. CHAP. 18. NEither were the psalms silent of his resurrection: for what is that of the third psalm: I laid me down, and slept and rose again, for the Lord sustained me? will any one say that the prophet would record it for such a great thing, to sleep, and Psal. 3 to rise, but that he meaneth by sleep, death, and by rising again, the resurrection? things that were fit to be prophesied of Christ? this, in the 41. psalm is most plain: for David in the person of the mediator, discoursing (as he useth) of things to come as if they were already past, (because they are already past in God's predestination (a) and prescience) saith thus. Mine enemies speak evil of me saying, when shall he die, and his name perish? and if he come to see, he speaketh lies, and his heart he apeth up iniquity within him: and he goeth forth, and telleth it, mine ene●… Psal. 41 whisper together against me, and imagine how to hurt me. They have spoken an unjust thing upon me, shall not he that sleepeth, arise again? this is even as much as if he had said, shall not he that is dead revive again? the precedence doth show how they conspired his death, and how he that came in to see him, went for to bewray him to them. And why is not this that traitor judas, his disciple? Now because he 〈◊〉 they would effect their wicked purpose, to kill him, he to show the fondness of their malice in murdering him that should rise again, saith these words: ●…ll not he that sleepeth, arise again, as if he said, you fools, your wickedness procureth but my sleep. But lest they should do such a villainy unpunished, he meant to repay them at full: saying, My friend and familiar, whom I trusted, and who eat of my ●…ead, even he hath (b) kicked at me: But thou Lord have mercy upon me, raise me up 〈◊〉 shall requite them. Who is he now that beholdeth the jews beaten out of 〈◊〉 ●…nd, and made vagabonds all the world over, since the passion of Christ, 〈◊〉 ●…ceiueth not the scope of this prophecy? for he rose again after they had 〈◊〉, and repaid them with temporal plagues, besides those that he re●… for the rest, until the great judgement: for Christ himself showing his 〈◊〉 to the Apostles by reaching him a piece of bread; remembered this verse 〈◊〉 ●…alm, & showed it fulfilled in himself, he that did eat of my bread, even he hath 〈◊〉 ●…e, the words, in whom I trusted, agree not with the head but with the ●…ts properly: for our Saviour knew him well, before hand, when he said (c) Luc. 23. 21. 〈◊〉 is a devil: but Christ used to transfer the proprieties of his members 〈◊〉 ●…mselfe, as being their head, body and head being all one Christ. And ther●… 〈◊〉 of the Gospel, I was hungry, and you gave me to eat, he expoundeth af●… Math. 25. 35 thus: In that (d) you did it to one of these, you did it unto me. He saith there●… ●…t he trusted in him, as the Apostles trusted in judas, when he was 〈◊〉 Apostle. Now the jews hope that their Christ that they hope for The jews believe a Christ to come that shall not die at all. 〈◊〉 ●…er die: and therefore they hold that the law and the Prophet's prefig●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ours, but one that shallbe free from all touch of death, whom they do 〈◊〉 for (and may do, long enough). And this miserable blindness maketh 〈◊〉 take that sleep and rising again (of which we now speak) in the literal sense, not for death, and resurrection. 〈◊〉 the 16. psalm confoundeth them, thus. My heart is glad, and my tongue re●… my flesh also resteth in hope, for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nei●… 〈◊〉 thou suffer thine Holy one to see corruption. What man could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flesh rested in that hope that his soul should not be left in hell, but 〈◊〉 presently to the flesh to save it from the corruption of a carcase, excepting him only that rose again the third day? It cannot be said of David. The sixty eight Psalm saith also: Our God is the God that (e) saveth us, and the issues Psal. 68 20 of death are the Lords. What can be more plain? jesus Christ is the God that saveth us: for jesus is a Saviour, as the reason of his name was given in the Gospel, saying: He shall save his people from their sins: And seeing that his blood was shed for the remission of sins, the enemies of death ought to belong Luc. 1. unto none but unto him, nor could he have passage out of this life, but by death. And therefore it is said, Unto him belong the (f) issues of death; to show that he by death should redeem the world. And this last is spoken in an admiration, as if the Prophet should have said, Such is the life of man, that the Lord himself leaveth it not, but by death! L. VIVES. ANd (a) prescience] Some copies add here, quia certa erant, but it seemeeth to have but crept in, out of some scholion. (b) Kicked at me] Supplantavit me: taken up mine heels, as wrestlers do one with another. Allegorically it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to deceive. (c) One of you] The Bruges copy hath: One of you shall betray me: and one of you is a devil, both: they are two several places in the Gospel. john. 13. and john. 6. judas is called a Devil, because of his deceitful villainy. (d) In that you did it] Or, in as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (e) That saveth us] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. A proper phrase to the Greek tongue, but unordinary in the Latin, unless the noun be used, to say the God of salvation. (f) Issues] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The obstinate infidelity of the jews, declared in the sixty nine Psalm. CHAP. 19 But all those testimonies and prefigurations being so miraculously come to effect, could not move the jews: wherefore that of the sixty nine Psalm was fulfilled in them: which speaking in the person of Christ, of the accidents in his passion, saith this also among the rest: They gave me gall to eat, and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink. And this banquet which they afforded Math. 27. him, he thanketh them thus for. Let their table be (a) a snare for them, and their Psal. 〈◊〉. prosperity their ruin; let their eyes be blinded that they see not, and bend their backs for ever, etc. which are not wishes, but prophecies of the plagues that should befall them. What wonder then if they whose eyes are blinded, discern not this, and whose backs are eternally bended, to stick their aims fast upon earth: for these words being drawn from the literal sense and the body, import the vices of the mind. And thus much of the Psalms of David, to keep our intended mean. Those that read these and know them all already, must needs pardon me for being so copious, and if they know that I have omitted aught that is more concerning mine object, I pray them to forbear complaints of me for it. L. VIVES. A (a) Snare] Saint Augustine calleth it here, Muscipula, a Mouse-trappe. The Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. David's Kingdom: his merit, his son Solomon. Prophecies of Christ in Salomon's books: and in books that are annexed unto them. CHAP. 20. david, the son of the celestial jerusalem, reigned in the earthly one, & was much commended in the scriptures, his piety and true humility so conquered his imperfections, that he was one of whom we might say, with him: Blessed are th●…se whose iniquity is forgiven and whose sins are covered. After him, his son Sa●… Psal. 30 reigned in all his Kingdom, beginning to reign (as we said) in his father's 〈◊〉 (a) He began well but he ended badly: prosperity, the moth of wisdom, did him more hurt, than his famous and memorable wisdom itself, profited him. He was a prophet, as his works, (b) namely the Proverbs, the Canticles, and Ecclesiastes, do prove: all which are canonical. But Ecclesiasticus and the book of wisdom, were only called his, for some similitude between his stile, and theirs. But all the learned affirm them none of his, yet the churches of the West holds them of great authority, and hath done long: and in the book of (c) Wisdom is a plain prophecy of Christ's passion: for his wicked murderer's 〈◊〉 brought in, saying, Let us cercumuent the just, for he displeaseth us, and is contrary unto our doings, checking us for offending thee law, and shaming us for our breach Wis. 2. 1●… of discipline. He boasteth himself of the knowledge of GOD, and calleth himself the ●…ne of the LORD: He is made to reprove our thoughts, it ●…reeueth us to look upon him, for his life is not like other men's: his ways are of another fashion. He 〈◊〉 us triflers, and avoideth our ways, as uncleanness: he commendeth the ends of 〈◊〉 just, and boasteth that GOD is his father. Let us see then if he say true: let ●…ue what end he shall have: If this just man, be GOD'S Son, he will help him, 〈◊〉 deliver him from the hands of his enemies: let us examine him with rebukes 〈◊〉 ●…ments, to know his meekness, and to prove his patience. Let us condemn 〈◊〉 to a shameful death, for he saith he shallbe preserved. Thus they imagine, 〈◊〉 ●…ay, for their malice hath blinded them. In (d) Ecclesiasticus also is the fu●…●…th of the Gentiles prophesied, in these words. Have mercy upon us, O Eccle. 36 〈◊〉 GOD of all, and send thy fear amongst the Nations: lift up thine hand 〈◊〉 the Nations that they may see thy power: and as thou art sanctified in us be●…●…em so be thou magnified in them before us: that they may know thee as we know 〈◊〉 that there is no God but only thou O LORD. This prophetical prayer we see 〈◊〉 in jesus Christ. But the scriptures that are not in the jews Canon, are 〈◊〉 ●…d proofs against our adversaries. But it would be a tedious dispute, and 〈◊〉 far beyond our aim, if I should here stand to refer all the prophe●… Salomon's three true books that are in the Hebrew Canon, unto the truth 〈◊〉 Christ and his church. Although that that of the Proverbs, in the persons of the wicked: Let us lay wait for the just without a cause, and swallow them up Pro. 1 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 they that go down into the pit, let us raze his memory from earth, and take 〈◊〉 his rich possession, this may easily and in few words be reduced unto CHRIST, and his church: for such a saying have the wicked husbandmen in his evangelical Parable: This is the heir, come let us kill him, and take his ●…tance. In the same book likewise, that which we touched at before Mat. 21. 3●… ●…g of the barren that brought forth seven) cannot be meant but of 〈◊〉 church of CHRIST, and himself, as those do easily apprehend 〈◊〉 snow CHRIST to be called the wisdom of his father; the words are. Wisdom hath built her an house, and hath hewn out her seven pillars▪ she h●…th killed her victuals, drawn her own wine, and prepared her table. She hath sent forth her Pro. 9, 1, 2 etc. maidens to cry from the higths, saying. He that is simple, come hither to me, and to the weak witted, she saith, Come and eat of my bread, and drink of the wine that I have drawn. Here we see that God's wisdom, the coeternal Word built him an house of humanity in a Virgin's womb, and unto this head hath annexed the church as the members; hath killed the victuals, that is sacrificed the Mattires, and prepared the table with bread and wine, (there is the sacrifice of Melchisedech:) hath called the simple and the weak witted, for GOD (saith the Apostle) hath chosen the weakness of the world, to confound the strength by. To whom notwithstanding 1. Cor. 1, 27 is said as followeth: forsake your foolishness, that ye may live; and seek wisdom, that ye may have life. The participation of that table, is the beginning of life: for in Eccelasiastes, where he saith: It is good (e) for man to eat and drink, Eccl. 7 we cannot understand it better than of the participation of that table which our Melchisedechian Priest instituted for us the New Testament. For that sacrifice succeeded all the Old Testament sacrifices, that were but shadows of the future good: as we hear our Saviour speak prophetically in the fortieth psalm, saying: Psal. 40, 6 Sacrifice and offering thou dist not desire, but a body hast thou perfited for me: for his body is offered and sacrificed now instead of all other offerings and sacrifices. For Ecclesiastes meaneth not of carnal eating and drinking in those words that he repeateth so often, as that one place showeth sufficiently, saying: It is better to go into the house of mourning then of feasting: and by and by after, Eccl. 7, 4 the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning: but the heart of fools is in the house of feasting. But there is one place in this book, of chief note, concerning the two Cities, and their two Kings, Christ and the devil: Woe to the land whose King is a child, and whose Princes eat in the morning. Blessed art thou, O land when thy King is the son of Nobles, and thy Princes eat in due time for strength and not for drunkenness. Here he calleth the devil a child, for his foolishness, pride rashness, petulance, and other vices incident to the age of boyish youths. But Christ he calleth the son of the Nobles, to wit, of the patriarchs of that holy and free City: for from them came his humanity. The Princes of the former eat in the morning: before their hour, expecting not the true time of felicity, but will hurry unto the world's delights, headlong: but they of the City of Christ expect their future beatitude, with patience. This is for strength: for their hopes never fail them, Hope (saith Saint Paul) shameth no man. All that hope in thee (saith the psalm) Rom. 5, 5 shall not be ashamed. Now for the Canticles, it is a certain spiritual and holy delight in the marriage of the King and Queen of this city, that is, Christ and the church. But this is all in mystical figures, to inflame us the more to search the truth and to delight the more in finding the appearance of that bridegroom to whom it is said there: truth hath loved thee, and of that bride, that receiveth this word, love is in thy delights. I ommit many things with silence, to draw the work towards an end. L. VIVES. HE (a) began well] Augustine imitateth Sallust. In Bello Catil. (b) Works, namely] josephus affirmeth that he wrote many more. viz. five thousand books of songs, and harmonies: & three thousand of Proverbs and Parables: for he made a parable of every plant from the Isope to the Cedar: and so did he of the beasts, birds and fishes: he knew the depth of nature, and discoursed of it all, God taught him bands, exterminations and Annulets against the devil, 〈◊〉 the good of man, and cures for those that were bewitched. Thus saith josephus (c) Wisdom] Philo, the 〈◊〉. Some say that Philo judaeus, who lived in the Apostles time, made this book: He was the Apostles friend, and so eloquent in the Greek, that it was a proverb. Philo either Platonized 〈◊〉 Plato Philonized. (d) Ecclesiasticus] Written by jesus the son of Syrach, in the time of 〈◊〉 Euergetes King of Egypt, and of Simon the high priest. (e) For man to eat] The seventy and vulgar differ a little here, but it is of no moment. Of the Kings of Israel and judah, after Solomon. CHAP. 21. WE find few prophecies of any of the Hebrew Kings after Solomon, pertinent unto Christ or the church either of judah or Israel. For so were the two parts termed into which the kingdom after Salomon's death was divided, for his sins, and in his son Roboams time: the ten Tribes that jeroboam, Salomon's servant attained, being under Samaria, was called properly Israel (although the whole nation went under that name) & the two other judah and Benjamin, which remained under jerusalem, lest David's stock should have utterly failed, were called judah: of which tribe David was. But Benjamin stuck unto it, because Saul, (who was of that tribe) had reigned there the next before David: these two (as I say) were called judah, and so distinguished from Israel, under which the other ten tribes remained subject: for the tribe of Levi, being the Seminary of God's Priests, was freed from both, and made the thirteenth tribe. joseph's tribe, being divided into Ephraim; and Manasses, into two tribes, whereas all the other tribes make but single ones a piece. But yet the tribe of Levi was most properly under jerusalem because of the temple wherein they served. Upon this division, Roboan King of judah, Salomon's son, reigned in jerusalem, and Hieroboam, King of Israel, whilom servant to Solomon, in Samaria. And whereas Roboa●… vould have made wars upon them for falling from him; the Prophet forbade him from the Lord, saying; That it was the Lord's deed. So than that it was no sin either in the King or people of Israel but the Lords will, that was herein fulfilled: which being known, both parts took up themselves, and rested: for they were only divided in rule, not in religion. How Hieroboam infected his subjects with Idolatry: yet did God never fail them in Prophets, nor in keeping many from that infection. CHAP. 22. But Hieroboam the King of Israel, fell perversely from God (who had truly enthroned him as he had promised) and fearing that the huge resort of all Israel to Jerusalem (for they came to worship & sacrifice in the Temple, according to the law) might be a mean to withdraw the from him unto the line of David (their old King) began to set up Idols in his own Realm, and to seduce God's people by this damnable and impious subtlety, yet God never ceased to reprove him for it by his Prophets, and the people also that obeyed him and his successors in it for that time were the two great men of God, Helias and his disciple Heliseus. And when Helias said unto GOD: LORD they have stain thy Prophets, and digged down thine Altars, and I only am left and now they seek my life: he was answered that God had yet seven thousand in Israel that had not bowed down the knee to B●…l. 1. Kings 19 The state of Israel and judah unto both their Captivities, (which befell at different times) diversly altered. judah united to Israel: and lasty, both unto Rome. CHAP. 23. NOr wanted there Prophets in judah (that lay under jerusalem) in all these successions: God's pleasure was still to have them ready, to send out either for prediction of events, or reformation of manners. For the Kings of juda did offend God also (though in far less measure than Israel) and deserved punishment, both they and their people. All their good Kings have their due commendations. But Israel had not one good King from thence, but all were wicked, more or less. So that both these kingdoms, (as it pleased God) had their revolutions of fortune, now prosperous, now adverse, through foreign and civil wars, as God's wrath, or mercy was moved: until at length, their sins provoking him, he gave them all into the hands of the Chaldaeans, who led most part of them captives into Assyria, first the ten Tribes of Israel, and then judah also, destroying jerusalem, and that goodly Temple: and that bondage lasted 70. years. And then being freed, they repaired the ruined Temple, and then (although many of them lived in other nations) yet was the land no more divided, but one Prince only reigned in jerusalem, and thither came all the whole land to offer and to celebrate their feasts at the time appointed. But they were not yet secure from all the nations, for then (a) came the Romans▪ and under their subjection must Christ come and find his Israel. L. VIVES. THen (a) came] Pompey the great quelled them first, and made them tributaries to Rome. Cicero and Antony being consuls. And from that time they were ruled by the Roman Precedents of Syria, and Provosts of judaea. That they paid tribute to the Romans, both profane histories and that question in the Gospel (Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar?) do witness. Of the last Prophets of the jews, about the time that Christ was borne. CHAP. 24. AFter their return from Babylon, (at which time they had the Prophets Aggee, Zacharie, and Malachi, and Esdras) they had no more Prophets until our saviours birth, but one other Zacharie, and Elizabeth his wife: and hard before his birth, old simeon & Anna, a widow, and john the last of all, who was about Christ's years, and did not prophesy his coming, but protested his presence (a) being before unknown. Therefore saith CHRIST, The prophets and the law prophesied unto john. The prophecies of these five last, we find in the Gospel, where the Virgin, Our Lord's Mother prophesied also before john. But these prophecies the wicked jews reject, yet an innumerable company of them did believe, and received them. For than was Israel truly divided, as was prophesied of old by Samuel unto Saul: and avouched never to be altered. But the reprobate jews also have Malachi, Aggee, Zacharie and Esdras in their Canon, and they are the last books thereof: for their books are as the others, full of great prophecies: otherwise they were but few that wrote worthy of cannonicall authority. Of these aforesaid I see I must make some abstracts to insert into this work, as far as shall concern Christ and his church: But that I may do better in the next book. L. VIVES. BEing (a) before unknown] He knew he was come, but he knew not his person yet, until the Holy Ghost descended like a dove, and God the Father spoke from heaven, than he ●…w him, and professed his knowledge. THE CONTENTS OF THE eighteenth book of the City of God. 1. A recapitulation of the 17. books past ●…rning the two Cities, continuing unto the time of Christ's birth, the Saviour of the ●…ld. 2. Of the Kings and times of the Earthly City, correspondent unto those of Abraham. 3. What Kings reigned in Assiria and Sicy●…, in the hundredth year of Abraham's age, 〈◊〉 Isaac was borne, according to the promise: 〈◊〉 at the birth of jacob and Esau. 4. Of the times of jacob and his son joseph. 5. Of Apis the Argive King, called Sera●… in Egypt: and there adored as a deity. 6. The Kings of Argos and Assiria, at the 〈◊〉 of Jacob's death. 7. In what Kings time joseph died in E●…. 8. What Kings lived when Moses was 〈◊〉, and what Gods the Pagans had as then. 9 The time when Athens was built, and the 〈◊〉 that Varro giveth for the name. 10. Varroes' relation of the original of the 〈◊〉 Areopage: and of Deucalion's deluge. 11. About whose times Moses' brought 〈◊〉 out of Egypt: of josuah, in whose tim●… he 〈◊〉. 12. The false Gods adored by those Greek●… Princes, which lived between Israells' freedom, and 〈◊〉 death. 13. What fictions got footing in the nations, when the judges began first to rule Israel. 14. Of the theological poets. 15. The ruin of the Argive Kingdom: Picus, Saturn's son succeeding him in Laurentum. 16. How Diomedes was deified after the destruction of Troy, and his fellows said to be turned into birds. 17. Of the incredible changes of men that Varro believed. 18. Of the devils power in transforming man's shape: what a christian may believe herein. 19 That Aeneas came into Italy when Labdon was judge of Israel. 20. Of the succession of the Kingdom in Israel after the judges. 21. Of the Latian Kings: Aeneas (the first) and aventinus (the twelf●…h) are made Gods. 22. Rome, founded at the time of the Assyrian Monarchies fall, Ezechias being King of judaea. 23. Of the evident prophecy of Sibylla, Erythraea concerning Christ. 24. The seven Sages in Romulus his time: Israel led into captivity: Romulus dieth and is deified. 25. Philosophers living in Tarqvinius Priscus his time, and Zedechias his, when jerusalem was taken and the Temple destroyed. 26. The romans were freed from their Kings, and Israel from captivity, both at one time. 27. Of the times of the Prophets, whose books we have, how they prophesied (some of them) of the calling of the nation, in the declining of the Assyrian Monarchy, and the Romans erecting. 28. Prophecies concerning the Gospel, in Osee and Amos. 29. Esay his prophecies concerning Christ. 30. Prophecies of Micheas, jonas and joel, correspondent unto the New Testament. 31. Prophecies of Abdi, Nahum and Abacuc, concerning the world's salvation in Christ. 32. The prophecy contained in the song and prayer of Abacuc. 33. Prophecies of Hieremy and Zephany concerning the former themes. 34. daniel's and Ezechiells prophecies, concerning Christ and his church. 35. Of the three prophecies of Agge, Zachary and Malachi. 36. Of the books of Esdras and the Maccabees. 37. The Prophets more ancient than any of the Gentile philosophers. 38. Of some scriptures too ancient for the church to allow, because that might procure a suspect, that they are rather counterfeit then tru●…. 39 That the Hebrew letters have been ever continued in that language. 40. The Egyptians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 claim their wisdom the age of 10000▪ 〈◊〉. 41. The dissension of Philosophers, 〈◊〉 concord of canonical scriptures. 42. Of the translations of the Old 〈◊〉 out of Hebrew into Greek, by the ordinance 〈◊〉 God, for the benefit of the nations. 43. That the translation of the 〈◊〉 most authentical, next unto the Hebrew. 44. Of the destruction of Ninivy, which the Hebrew prefixeth forty days unto, and the ●…tuagints but three. 45. The jews wanted Prophets ever after the repairing of the Temple, and were afflicted, even from thence until Christ came, to 〈◊〉 that the Prophets spoke of the building of the other Temple. 46. Of the words. Becoming Flesh: 〈◊〉 saviours Birth and the dispersion of the Iewe●…. 47. Whether any but Israelites before Christ: time, belonged to the City of God. 48. Aggeis prophecy, of the glory of 〈◊〉 house, fulfilled in the church, not in the Temple. 49. The churches increase uncertain because of the commixtion of Elect and reprobate in this world. 50. The Gospel preached, and glorious●… confirmed by the blood of the preachers. 51. That the church is confirmed even by the schisms of heresies. 52. Whether the opinion of some be credible, that their shallbe no more persecutions after ten ten, past, but the eleventh, which is that of A●…techristes. 53. Of the unknown time of the last p●…secution. 54. The Pagans foolishness in affir●… that christianity should last but three hundredth sixty five years. FINIS. THE EIGHTEENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Arecapitulation of the seventeen books past, concerning the two Cities, continuing unto the time of Christ's birth, the Saviour of the world. CHAP. 1. IN my confutations of the perverse contemners of Christ in respect of their Idols, and the en●…ious enemies of christianity (which was all that I did in my first ten books) I promised to continue my discourse through the original, progress, & limmites of the two Cities, Gods, and the World●…, as far as should concern the generation of mankind. Of this my triplet promise, one part, the originals of the cities, have I declared in the next four books: part of the second, the progress: from Adam to the deluge, in the fifteenth book: and so from thence unto Abraham I followed down all the times as they lay. But whereas from Abraham's fathers time, until the Kingdom of the Israelites, (where I ended the sixteenth book) and from thence unto our saviours birth (where I ended the seventeenth) I have only carried the City of God along with my pen, whereas both the Cities ran on together, in the generations of mankind: this was my reason; I desired first to manifest the descent of those great and manifold promises of God, from the beginning, until He, in whom they all were bounded, and to be fulfilled, were come to be borne of the Virgin, without any interposition of aught done in the Worldly city during the mean space: to make the City of God more apparent, although that all this while, until the revelation of the New Testament, it did but lie involved in figures: Now therefore m●…st I begin where I left, and bring along the Earthly City, from Abraham's time, unto this point where I must now leave the heavenly: that having brought both their times to one quantity, their comparison may show them both with greater evidence. vives his Preface unto his commentaries upon the eighteenth book of Saint Augustine his City of God. IN this eighteenth book we were to pass many dark ways, and oftentimes to feel for our passage, daring not fix one foot until we first groped where to place it, as one must do in dark and dangerous places. Here we cannot tarry all day at Rome, but must abroad into the world's farthest corner, into lineages long since lost, and countries worn quite out of memory: pedigrees long ago laid in the depth of oblivion must we fetch out into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (like Cerberus) and spread them openly. We must into Assyria that old Monarchy, 〈◊〉 once named by the greeks: And Sycionia, which the very Princes thereof sought to suppress from memory themselves, debarring their very fathers from having their names set on their tombs, as Pausanias relateth, and thence to Argos, which being held the most antic state of Greece, is all enfolded in fables: then Athens, whose nimble wits aiming all at their country's honour, have left truth sick at the heart, they have so cloyed it with eloquence: and wrapped it up in clouds. Nor is Augustine content with this, but here and there casteth in hard walnuts, and almonds for us to crack, which puts us to shrewd trouble ere we can get out the kernel of truth: their shells are so thick. And then cometh the latin gests▪ all hacked in pieces by the discord of authors. And thence to the Romans: nor are the Greek wisemen omitted. It is fruitless to complain, lest some should think I do it causeless. And here and there, the Hebrew runneth, like veins in the body, to show the full course of the Two Cities, the Heavenly and the Earthly. If any one traveling through those countries, and learning his way of the cunningest, should for all that miss his way some times, is not he pardonable I pray you tho, and will any one think him the less diligent in his travel? none, I think. What then if chance, or ignorance lead me astray, out of the sight of divers mean villages that I should have gone by, my way lying through deserts, and untracted woods, and seldom or never finding any to ask the right way of? am I not to be borne with? I hope yes, Uarro's Antiquities are all lost; And the life of Rome. None but Eusebius helped me in Assyria, but that Diodorus Siculus and some others, set me in once or twice. I had a book by me, called Berosus by the Booksellers, and somewhat I had of joannes Annius, goodly matters truly, able to fright away the Reader at first fight. But I let them lie still, I love not to suck the dregs, or fetch fables out of frivolous pamphlets, the very rackets wherewith Greece bandieth ignorant heads about. Had this work been a child of Berosus, I had used it willingly: but it looketh like a bastard of a Greek sire, as Xenopons Aequivoca are, and many other that bear their names that never were their authors. If any man like such stuff, much good do it him: i'll be none of his rival. Through Sicyonia Pausanias and Eusebius, went with me, contenting themselves only with the bare names, and some other little matters: the Reader shall partake of them freely. For judaea, I see no guides but the scriptures: sometimes we have put in the minds of the Gentiles hereof, only in those things that the Prophets touched not in the rest: where the scriptures concur, we need go no further. That maketh me not to trouble Cornelius Alexander Milesius Polyhistor, for allegations concerning the jews: for he goes all by the LXX. interpreters in his computations both in the Hebrew stories, and others. Concerning Athens, Rome, Argos, Latium, and the other fabulous subjects, the Reader hath heard whatsoever my diversity of reading affordeth, and much from the most curious students therein that I could be acquainted withal. He that liketh not this thing, may find another by and by that will please his palate better, unless he be so proudly testy that he would have these my pains for the public good, of power to satisfy him only. The rest, the Commentaries themselves will tell you. Of the Kings, and times of the Earthly City, correspondent unto those of Abraham. CHAP. 2. Mankind therefore being dispersed through all the world far and wide (differing in place, yet one in nature) and each one following his own affections, and the thing they desired being either insufficient for one, or all (being not the true good) begun to be divided in itself: the weaker being oppressed by the stronger: for still the weaker dominion, or freedom, yielded to the mightier, preferring peace & safety howsoever, so that they (a) were wondered at that had rather perish then serve, for nature crieth with one voice (almost all the world through) It is better to serve the conqueror, then to be destroyed by war. Hence it is that some are Kings & some are subjects (not without God's providence for Prince & subject are unto him, alike, & both in his power) but in all those earthly dominions, wherein God's providence the arbiter of Kingdoms divided mankind followed each his temporal profit and respect: we find two more eminent than all the other, first Assiria, and then Rome: several both in times and places: the one in the East, long before the other, that was in the West, finally the end of the first was the beginning of the later. The other kingdoms were but as appendents unto these two. In Assiria, Ninus ruled, the second King thereof after his father Belus the first, in whose time (b) Abraham was borne. Then was Sycionia but a small thing, whence that great scholar Varro begins his discourse, writing of the Roman nation: and coming from the the Sicyonians to the Athenians, from them to the latins, and so to the Romans. But those were trifles in respect of the Assyrians, before Rome was built. Though the Roman Sallust say that (c) Athens was very famous in Greece: I think indeed it was more famous, then fame-worthy, for he speaking of them, saith thus: The Athenians exploits I think were worthy indeed: but short of their report: as being enhanced by their eloquence in relations, and so came the ●…ld to ring of Athens, and the Athenians virtues held as powerful in their acts, 〈◊〉 their wits were copious in their reports. Besides, the Philosopher's continual abode thereabouts, and the nourishment of such studies there, added much ●…to the fame of Athens. But as for dominion, there was none in those times so famous, nor so spacious as the Assyrians, for Ninus, Belus his son, ruled there (d) with all Asia, the worlds third part in number, and half part in ●…ity, under his dominion; out as far as the furthest limits of Lybia (e) Only the Indians (of all the East) he had not subdued: but his wife (f) ●…is warred upon them after his death. Thus were all the viceroys of those ●…ands at the command of the Princes of Assiria. And in this Ninus his time was Abraham borne in Chaldaea. But because we know the state of Greece better than that of Assiria, and the ancient writers of Rome's original have drawn it from the greeks to the Latins and so unto the romans (who are indeed Latines) therefore must we here reckon only the Assyrian Kings as far 〈◊〉 need is, to show the progress of Babylon (the first Rome) together with that Heavenly pilgrim on earth, the holy City of God: but for the things them●… that shall concern this work, and the comparison of both Cities, them 〈◊〉 must rather fetch from the greeks and Latins, where Rome (the second Babylon) is seated. At Abraham's birth therefore, Ninus was the second King of Assiria, and (h) 〈◊〉 of Sicyonia, for Belus was the first of the one and ay Aegiale●…s of the other: but when Abraham left Cladaea upon God's promise of that universal 〈◊〉 to the Nations in his seed, the fourth King ruled in Assiria, and the 〈◊〉 in Sicyonia, for Ninus the son of Ninus, reigned there (k) after his ●…ther Semiramis, (l) whom they say he slew because she bore an incestuous 〈◊〉 towards him. Some think (m) she built Babylon: indeed she might 〈◊〉 it: but when and by whom it was built our sixteenth book declareth. 〈◊〉 (〈◊〉) this son of Ninus and Semiramis, that succeeded his mother, some call (〈◊〉) Ninus and son Ninius by a derivative from his father's name. And now 〈◊〉 Sycionia governed by (p) Thelxion, who had so happy a reign that when he was dead, they adored him as a God, with sacrifices, and plays, whereof it is said they were the first inventors. L. VIVES. THey (a) were wondered at.] As the Numantians, the Saguntines, the Opitergians, and of particular men, Cato, Scipio, and Crassus, were. (b) Abraham was borne.] Many profane authors have written of Abraham as well as the Scriptures, as Hecateus that wrote a particular Abraham. book of him, (Euseb. de praepar. evang.) and Alexander Polyhistor, who maketh him to be borne in the tenth Generation, at Camarine Or Vr (which some call Vrien) in Chaldaea, called in Greek Chaldaeopolis, that he invented Astrology there, and was so just, wise and well-beloved of God, that he sent him into Phoenicia, and there he taught Astronomy and other good Arts, and got into great favour with the King: Nicholas Damascenus saith that Abraham reigned at Damascus, coming thither out of Chaldaea with an army: and went thence into Chanaan (afterwards called judaea) leaving great monuments of his being at Damascus, by which was a village called Abraham's house. But Chanaan being plagued with famine, he went into Egypt, and consorting himself with the Priests there, helped their knowledge, their piety and their policy very much: Histor. lib. 4. Alexander saith he lived a while at Heliopoiis, not professing the invention of Astronomy, but teaching it as E●…och had taught him it, who had it from his forefathers. Artapanus saith that they were called Hebrews of Abraham, that he was twenty years in Egypt and taught King Pharetates Astronomy, and went from thence into Syria. Melo in his book against the jews, troubleth the truth of this history very much, for he maketh but three generations from the deluge unto Abraham: giving him two wives, an Egyptian, and a Chaldaean, of which Egyptian he begot twelve children, all Princes of Arabia, and that of the Chaldaean he had but Isaac only, who had twelve children also, whereof Moyscs was the eldest and joseph the youngest. But in this case the Scriptures are most true, as they are most divine. (c) Athens was.] Their estate was greater in time, then power, for in their greatest soverainety they ruled only the sea cost (by reason of their navy) from the inmost Bosphorus, about by the seas of Aegeum and Pamphylia, and that they held not above seventy years, as Lysias signifieth in his Epitaph. (d) All Asia.] Dionysius Alexandrinus saith that the Assyrian Monarchy ruled but a very small portion of Asia. (e) Only the Indians.] India is bounded on the East with the East sea, Mar▪ India. deal Zur: on the South with the Indian sea, Golfo di Bengala: on the West with the river Indus, (the greatest of the world, saith Diodorus, excepting Nilus) and on the North, with mount Emodus that confineth upon Scythia. There are some people called Indoscythians: Ptolemy divideth India into two, the India without Ganges, and the India within. Of India many have written, Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo. Mela, Stephanus, Pliny, Solinus, Ptolemy, and others that wrote the Acts of Alexander the great, who led an army over most of them parts, discovering more than ever traveler did beside. But our mariners of late years have made a more certain discovery of it all. Diodorus, and Strabo write much of the happy fertility of it in all things; both of them borrowing of Eratosthenes and Megasthenes who sojourned with Sadrocotus King of India, and recorded these things. (f) Semiramis warred,] She had two battles against them, one at the river Indus, and wan the field, the other farther in, and lost it, and was beaten home: Diodor. lib. 3. Megastenes (in Strabo) saith the Indians never sent army forth of their country, nor any ever got into theirs, but those of Hercules and Bacchus. Neither Sesostris the Egyptian, nor Tharcon the Ethiopian, though they came to Hercules his pillars through Europe, nor Norbogodrosor (whom the Chaldeans in some sort prefer before Hercules, and who came also to these pillars) ever came into India. Idantyrsus also got into Egypt, but never into India, Semiramis indeed came into it a little, but perished ere she go out. Cyrus' conquered the Massagetes only, but meddled not with India. (g) But because w●… know.] In the Kings of Sicyonia, we follow Eusebius, and Pausanias, both greeks: for the books of Uarro and all the Latins concerning them, are now lost. Nor do these two g●… any Further than the names of those Kings: because indeed the Sycionians never set any Epitaphs, but only the names of the dead, upon their tombs, as Pausanias declareth: V●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Nor can any Latin author further us in the affairs of Assiria: they meddle not with them. The greeks take a leap almost from Ninus to Sardanapalus, from the first Assyrian Monarch to the last. Some name a few between them: but they do but name them: for this old monarchy they thrust into the fabulous times, as Dionysius doth in his first book, ●…deed it brought no famous matter to pass, for Ninus having founded it, and Semiramis having confirmed it, all their successors fell to sloth and easeful delights, living close in their huge palaces, and taking their pleasures without any control: that made Ctesias, that old writer, both to record all their names and the years of their reigns But of the other Kings, greeks and Latins we shall have better store to choose in. (h) Europe.] The Sycionians (faith Pausanias) bordering upon Corynthe, say, that Aegialeus was their first King, that he Sycioniaus. came out of that part of Peloponesus that is called Aegialos after him, and dwelled first in the C●…y Aegialia, where the tower stood then, where the temple of Minerva is now. This is Aegialia in Sicyonia on the sea coast: there is Aegialia in Paphlagonia also, and elsewhere. Some say that Peloponesus was first called Aegialia of this King, and then Apia of Apis, than Argos of that famous city, and lastly Peloponesus of Pelops. But their opinion that 〈◊〉 Aegialia to be a sea-coasting city is better. This king, they say begot Europs, he Telchin●…her ●…her to Apis, who grew so rich and mighty that before Pelops came to Olympia, all the country within Isthmus was called Apias, after him. He begot Telexion, and he Egyrus, Egyrus, Thurimachus, and he Leucippus, who had no son, but a daughter called Calchinia upon whom Neptune begot Peratos, whom Leucippus brought up, and left as King. He begot Plemnaeus, and all Plemnaeus his children as soon as ever they were borne, and cried, ●…ed presently, until Ceres helped this misfortune, for she, coming into Aegialia, was in●…ayned by Plemnaeus, and brought up a child of his called Orthopolis who afterwards had a daughter called Charysorthe, who had Cornus by Apollo (as it is said) and he had two sons, C●…ax and Laomedon, Corax dying ●…ssulesse Epopeus came out of Thessaly just at that time, and got his kingdom, and in his time they say wars were first set on foot, peace having swayed all the time before. Thus far Pausanias. Europa's reigned forty years, and in the twenty two 〈◊〉 of his reign, was Abraham borne. ay Aegialeus.] The son of Inachus, the river of 〈◊〉, and Melia, Oceanus his daughter. Thus say same greeks. (k) After his mother Se●…is.] Semriramis Diodorus saith much of her▪ lib. 3. She was the daughter (saith he) of nymph D●…to by an unknown man, her mother drowned herself in the lake Ascalon, because she 〈◊〉 lost her maidenhead and left Semiramis her child amongst the rocks where the wild 〈◊〉 fed her with their milk: and that her mother was counted a goddess with a woman's 〈◊〉 and a fishes body, nor would the Syrians touch the fish of that lake, but held them sacred 〈◊〉 goddess Derceto. Now Symnas the Kings sheppard found Semiramis and brought her 〈◊〉 ●…d being very beautiful, Memnon a noble man married her, and then she came acquainted 〈◊〉 King Ninus, and taught him how to subdue the Bactrians, and how to take the city Bac●… which then he besieged: so Ninus admiring her wit and beauty, married her, and dying left 〈◊〉 Empress of Asia, until her young son Ninus came at age, so she undertook the gouer●…, and kept it forty two years. This now some say, but the Athenians (and Dion after 〈◊〉) affirm that she begged the sway of the power imperial of her husband for five days 〈◊〉, which he granting, she caused him to be killed, or as others say, to be perpetually ●…oned. (l) They say he slew.] She was held wondrous lustful after men, and that she still mur●… him whom she meddled with: that she tempted her son, who therefore slew her, 〈◊〉 for fear to far as the others had, or else in abomination of so beastly an act. The 〈◊〉 say she died not, but went quick up to heaven. (〈◊〉) ●…lt Babylon] Babylon is both a country in Assyria, and a City therein, built by Semi●…, as Diodorus, Strabo, justine, and all the ancient greeks and Latins held. But Iose●…, Ensebius, Marcellinus, and others both Christians and jews say, that it was built by 〈◊〉 ●…genie of Noah, and only repaired and fortified by Semiramis, who walled it about 〈◊〉 such walls as are the world's wonders. This Ovid signifieth saying. Coctilibus muris cinxisse Semiramis urbem. Semiramis girt it with walls of Brick. And this verse Hierome citeth to confirm this, In Ose. Some hold that Belus her father in law built it. Some, that he laid the foundations only. So holds Diodorus, out of the Egyptian monuments. Alexander saith that the first Belus, whom the greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, reigned in Babylon, and that Belus the second, and Chanaan were his two sons. But he followeth Eupolemus in allotting the building of Babylon to those that remained after the deluge. Eus. de pr. evang. lib. 8. Chaldaea was all over with water (saith Abydenus in Eusebium de praep. evang. li. 10.) And Belus drained it dry, and built Babylon: the walls whereof being ruined by floods, Nabocodronosor repaired, and those remained unto the time of the Macedonian Monarchy; and then he reckoneth the state of this King, impertinent unto this place. Augustine maketh Nemrod the builder of Babylon, as you read before. Hear what Pliny saith: lib. 6. Babylon the chief City of Chaldaea, and long famous in the world, and a great part of the country of Assyria was called Babilonia, after it, the walls were two hundred foot high, and fifty foot broad: every foot being three fingers larger than ours, Euphrates ran through the midst of it, etc. There was another Babylon in Egypt built by those whom Sesostris brought from Babylon in Assyria, into Egypt, to work upon those mad works of his, the Pyramids, (n) This son] His mother brought him up tenderly amongst her Ladies, and so he lived a quiet Prince, and came seldom abroad, whereupon the other Kings his successors, got up an use to talk with few in person, but by an interpreter, and to rule all by deputies. Diodor. justin. (o) Ninus] Some call him Zameis, son to Ninus, (as josephus and Eusebius) and some Ninius. (p) Telexion] In the translated Eusebius it is Selchis, whom he saith reigned twenty years. In some of Augustine's old copies it is Telxion; and in some, Thalasion, but it Telexion. must be Telexion, for so it is in Pausanias. What Kings reigned in Assyria, and Sicyonia, in the hundredth year of Abraham's age, when Isaac was borne according to the promise: or at the birth of jacob and Esau. CHAP. 3. IN his time also did Sara being old, barren, and past hope of children, bring forth Isaac unto Abraham, according to the promise of God. And then reigned (a) Aralius the fifth King of Assyria. And Isaac being three score years of age, had (b) Esau and jacob, both at one birth of Rebecca, Abraham his father being yet living, and of the age of one hundred and sixty years, who lived fifteen years longer and then died, (c) Xerxes the older, called also Balaeus, reigning the seventh King of Assyria, (d) and Thuriachus (called by some Thurimachus) the seventh of Sicyon. Now the kingdom of the Argives began with the time of these sons of Isaac; and Inachus was the first King there. But this we may not forget out of Varro, that the Sycionians used to offer sacrifices at the tomb of the seventh King Thurimachus. But (e) Armamitres being the eight King of Assyria, and Leucippus of Sycionia, and (f) Inachus the first King of Argos, God promised the land of Chanaan unto Isaac for his seed, as he had done unto Abraham before, and the universal blessing of the nations therein also: and this promise was thirdly made unto jacob, afterwards called Israel, Abraham's grandchild, in the time of Belocus the ninth Assyrian monarch, and Phoroneus, Inachus his son, the second King of the Argives, Leucippus reigning as yet in Sycione. In this Phoroneus his time, Greece grew famous for diverse good laws and ordinances: but yet his brother Phegous, after his death built a temple over his tomb, and made him to be worshipped as a God, & caused oxen to be sacrificed unto him, holding him worthy of this honour, I think, because in that part of the kingdom which he held (for their father divided the whole between them) he set up oratory's to worship the gods in, and taught the true course and observation of months and years: which the rude people admiring in him, thought that at his death he was become a God, or else would have it to be thought so. For so they say (f) that Io was the daughter of Inachus, she that afterwards was called (g) Isis, and honoured for a great goddess in Egypt: though some write that (h) she came out of Ethiopia to be Queen of Egypt, and because she was mighty and gracious in her reign, and taught her subjects many good Arts, they gave her this honour after her death, and that with such diligent respect, that it was death to say she had ever been mortal. L. VIVES. ARalius (a)] In the old copies Argius: in Eusebius, Analius, son to Arrius the last King before him, he reigned forty years. The son in Assyria ever more succeeded the father, Uelleius. (b) Esau and jacob] Of jacob, Theodotus, a gentile, hath written an elegant poem and of the Hebrew acts. And Artapanus, and one Philo, not the jew, but another, Alexander Polyhistor also, who followeth the Scriptures, all those wrote of jacob. (c) Xerxes the elder] Aralius his son: he reigned forty years. There were two more Xerxes. Xerxes, but those were Persian Kings: the first Darius Hidaspis' his son, and the second successor to Artaxerxes Long-hand, reigning but a few months. The first of those sent the huge armies into Greece. Xerxes' in the Persian tongue, is a warrior, and Artaxerxes a great warrior. Herodot. in Erato. The book that beareth Berosus his name, saith that the eight King of Babylon was called Xerxes, surnamed Balaus, and reigned thirty years, that they called him Xerxes, Victor, for that he won twice as many nations to his Empire, as Aralius ruled, for he was a stout and fortunate soldier, and enlarged his kingdom almost unto India. Thus saith that author, what ever he is. Eusaebius for Balaeus readeth Balanaeus: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek, is Balnearius, belonging to the bathe. (d) Thuriachus] Eusebius hath it, Tira●…, Thurimachus. and so hath the Bruges old copy: but erroneously, as it hath much more. Egyrus (saith Pausanias') was Thelexions son, and Thurimachus his son, in the seventh year of whose reign Isaac's sons were borne. (e) Armamitres] He reigned thirty eight years, and Leucippus, the son of Thuriachus forty five, our counterfeit Berosus calleth him Arma●…. (f) Inachus] In Peloponesus there is the Argolican gulf (now called Golfo di Na●…) Inachus. reaching from Sylla's promontory unto Cape Malea, and the Myrtoan sea (now called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mandria) containing the Cities Argolis, Argos, and Mycenae, the rivers of Inachus, and Erasmus, and part of Lycaonia. Here did Inachus reign at first, and gave his name to the 〈◊〉 that springs from mount Lyrcaeus. Some think that both he and Phoroneus reigned at Argos in Thessaly, but the likeness of the name deceiveth them. For there is Argos indeed 〈◊〉 Thessaly, called Pelasgis by Homer, and there is Pelasgis in Poloponesus, and Achaei, and 〈◊〉 in both countries. Strabo saith that Pelops came into Apia with the Phthiots that 〈◊〉 now in Thessaly, and gave Peloponesus his name afterwards: and that there were some Pelasgi, that were the first inhabitants of Italy about the mouth of Po, and some Thessalians 〈◊〉 inhabited Vmbria. But Pelasgus was the son of Niobe, Phoroneus his daughter and Pelasgus. 〈◊〉, and from him came the Achives and the Peloponnesians that first peopled Aemonia (afterwards called Thessaly) in great multitudes. Dionys. Halicarn. Achaeus, Phthius and Pelasgus were the sons of Neptune and Larissa, came into Aemonia, chased out the Barbari●…, and divided it into three parts, each one leaving his name unto his share. I think be●… they would continue the memory of their old country, having left Achaia, Pelasgis, 〈◊〉, and Larissa the Argive tower, at Argos, here they would renew the names for the me●… and fame of their nation. Five ages after did the Locrians and Aetolians (than called the Leleges and Curetes) by the leading of Deucalion, Prometheus his son, chase these Pelasgives into the Isles of the Aegean sea, and the shores near adjacent. Those that light in Epyrus, passed soon after into Italy Homer in his catalogue of the greeks ships showeth plain that these names were confounded. But we are too long in this point. Dionysius maketh the Argive state the eldest of all Greece. In Chron. Axion and others (the most) follow him, making Aegialeus King of Sytion to be Inachus in Phoroneus his time, & the first founder of that state then. Now Inachus they say was no man but a river only, begotten by Oceanus, and father to Phoroneus, and some say, unto Aegialeus also. Phoroneus being made judge between juno and Neptune concerning their controversy about lands, together with Cephisus, Inachus, and Astetion, judged on Juno's side, and thereupon she was called the Argive juno, as loving Argos dearly, and having her most ancient temple between Argos and Mycenae. Phoroneus did make laws to decide controversies amongst his people, and therefore is called a judge. Some think that forum, the name of the pleading place, came from his name: how truly, look they to that. He drew the wandering Phoroneus. people into a City (saith Pausanias') and called it Phoronicum. The Thelcissians and Carsathians made war upon him, whom he overthrew, and drove them to seek a new habitation by the sea. At length they came to Rhodes, called then Ophinsa, where they seated themselves a hundred and seventy years before the building of Rome. Oros. (f) Io] jove (they say) ravished her, and lest juno should know it, turned her into a Cow, and gave Io. her to juno, who put her to the keeping of the hundred eyed Argus: and this Cow was Isis: Herodotus, out of the Persian Monuments relateth, that the Phaenicians that trafficked unto Argos, stole her thence and brought her into Egypt, which was the first injurious rape, before Helen's. Diodorus saith that Inachus sent a noble Captain called Cyraus to seek her, charging him never to return without her. Pausanias maketh her the daughter of jasius the sixth Argive King, and not of Inachus. Phoroneus he saith begot Argos, who succeeded his grandfather, and gave the City the name of Argos (being before called Phoronicum) and this Argos begot Phorbas, he Triopas, and Triopas, jasius and Agenor. Ualer. Flaccus calleth Io, Inachis, and the jasian virgin, the first because of the nobility of Inachus, the kingdoms founder, the later, because jasius was her father. Argonaut. 4. And this reconcileth the times best. For if she were Inachus his daughter, how could she live with King Triopas, as Eusebius saith she did? In Chron. & De praep. evang. l. 10. for he lived four hundred years after Inachus, being the seventh King of Argos. Though Eusebius make one jun in Inachus his time, to sail to Egypt by sea (In Chron.) but not to swim over the sea. For they had a feast in Egypt for the honour of Isis her ship. Lactant. lib. 1. And therefore she was held the sailors goddess, guiding them in the sea. Go (saith jove to Mercury in Lucian) guide jun through the sea unto Egypt, & call her Isis, & let them account of her as a deity: let her carry Nilus as she list, & guide all the voyages by sea, etc. My worship (saith Isis of her feast, in Apuleius) shall be eternal, as the day followeth the night, because I calm the tempests, and guide the ships through the stormy seas, the first fruits of whose voyages my priests offer me. (g) Isis] In Egypt they pictured her with horns. Herodot. Diod. Sycul. Some said she was the daughter of Saturn and Rhea, who was married to her brother Osiris, that is, juno to jove. Others called her Ceres', (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek) because she invented husbandry and sowing of corn, and those called Osiris, Dionysus. Some called her the Moon, and Osiris the Sun: for Diodorus will not have Io to be Inachus his daughter. Servius saith Isis is the genius of Egypt, signifying the overflowing of Nilus, by the horn she beareth in her right hand, and by the bucket she hath in her left, the plenty of all humane necessaries. Indeed in the Egyptian tongue, Isis is earth, and so they will have Isis to be. In Aeneid. 8. (h) She came out of Ethiopia] Whence Egypt had all her learning, laws, policies, religion, and oftentimes colonies sent from thence. Of the times of jacob and his son joseph. CHAP. 4. BAlaeus being the tenth King of Assyria, and Messappus (a) (otherwise (b) called Cephisus, but yet both these names were by several authors used for one man) being the ninth of Sycionia, and (c) Apis the third of Argos, Isaac died, being a hundred and eighty years old, leaving his sons at the ages of a hundred and twenty years: the younger jacob, belonging to God's City, and the elder to the worlds. The younger had twelve sons, one whereof called joseph, his brothers sold unto merchants going into Egypt, in their grandfather Isaac's time. joseph lived (by his humility) in great favour and advancement with Pharaoh, being now thirty years old. For he interpreted the King's dreams, foretelling the seven plenteous years, and the seven dear ones, which would consume the plenty of the other: and for this the King set him at liberty (being before imprisoned for his true chastity, in not consenting to his lustful mistress, but fled and left his raiment with her, who here-upon falsely complained to her husband of him) and afterwards he made him Viceroy of all Egypt. And in the second year of scarcity, jacob came into Egypt with his sons, being one hundred and thirty years old, as he told the King. joseph being thirty nine when the King advanced him thus, the 7. plentiful years, and the two dear ones being added to his age. L. VIVES. MEssappus (a)] Pausanias nameth no such: saying Leucyppus' had no son, but Chalcinia, Mesappus. one daughter, who had Perattus by Neptune, whom his grandfather Leucippus brought up, and left enthroned in his kingdom. Eusebius saith Mesappus reigned forty seven years. If 〈◊〉 were Mesappus, then doubtless it was Calcinias' husband, of whom mount Mesappus in Boeotia and Mesapia (otherwise called Calabria) in Italy, had their names. Virgil maketh him Neptune's son, a tamer of horses, and invulnerable. Aeneid. 7. (b) Cephisus] A river in Boeotia, Cephisus. in whose bank standeth the temple of Themis, the Oracle that taught Deucalion and Pyrrha how to restore mankind. It runs from Parnassus thorough the countries of Boeotia, and the Athenian territory. And Mesappus either had his names from this river and that 〈◊〉, or they had theirs from him, or rather (most likely) the mount had his name, and he had the rivers, because it ran through his native soil. (c) Apis] He is not in Pausanias Apis. amongst the Argive kings: but amongst the Sycionians, and was there so rich, that all the country within Isthmus, bore his name, before Pelops came. But Eusebius (out of the most greeks) seateth him in Argos. Of Apis the Argive King, called Serapis in Egypt, and there adored as a deity. CHAP. 5. AT this time did Apis king of Argos sail into Egypt, and dying there, was called Serapis the greatest God of Egypt. The reason of the changing his name, saith Varro, is this: a dead man's coffin (which all do now call (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also in Greek: so at first they worshipped at his coffin and tomb, ere his temple were built, calling him at first Sorosapis, or Sorapis: and afterwards (by change of a letter, as is ordinary) Serapis. And they made a law, that who-soever should say he had been a man, should die the death. And because that in all the (c) temples of Isis and Serapis, there was an Image with the finger laid upon the mouth, as commanding silence, this was (saith Varro) to show them that they must not say that those two were ever mortal. And (d) the Ox which Egypt (being wondrously and vainly seduced) (e) nourished in all pleasures and fatness unto the honour of Serapis; because they did not worship him in a 〈◊〉, was not called Serapis but Apis: which Ox being dead, and they seeking 〈◊〉, and finding another, flecked of colour just as he was: here they thought they had gotten a great God by the foot. It was not such an hard matter ●…deed for the devils, to imprint the imagination of such a shape in any cows fantasy, at her time of conception, to have a mean to subvert the souls of men, and the cows imagination would surely model the conception into such a form, as (g) Jacob's ewes did and his she goats, by seeing the party-colored sticks, for that which man can do with true colours, the Devil can do with apparitions, and so very easily frame such shapes. L VIVES. AT (a) this time.] Diodorus. lib, 1. reciteth many names of Osiris as Dionysius, Serapis, ●…e Ammon, Pan, & Pluto. Tacitus arguing Serapis his original, saith that some thought him to Osiris. be Aesculapius, the Phisitian-god: and others, took him for Osiris, Egypt's ancient est deity. lib. 20. Macrobius taketh him for the sun, and Isis for the earth. Te Serapim Nilus (〈◊〉 Marlianus to the sun) Memphis veneratur Osyrim: Nilus adoreth thee as serapis, a●… Memphis, as Osiris. Some held Serapis the genius of Egypt, making it fertile and abundant, His statues (saith Suidas) Theophilus Archbishop of Alexandria took down, in the time of ●…odosius the great. This god some called jove, some Nilus, (because of the measure that he had in his hand, and the cubit, designing the measures of the water,) and some, joseph. Some ●…y there was one Apis, a rich King of Memphis, who in a great famine relieved all Alexandria at his proper cost and charges, whereupon they erected a Temple to him when he was dead, and kept an Ox therein, (for a type of his husbandry) having certain spots on his back, and this Ox was called by his name, Apis. His tomb wherein he was bu●…ed, was removed to Alexandria, and so himself of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and Apis, was called Sorapis, and afterwards, ●…pis. Alexander built him a goodly temple. Thus much out of Suidas and the like is in 〈◊〉, Eccles. Hist. lib. 11. The Argives King (saith Eusebius Prep. lib. 10 out of Aristippus his ●…ry of Arcadia lib. 2.) called Apis, built Memphis in Egypt: whom Aristeus the Argive calleth Sarapis: and this man (we know) is worshipped in Egypt as a god. But Nimphodorus, Amphipolitanus de legib. Asiatic. lib. 3. saith that the Ox called Apis, dying, was put into a ●…ffin (called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek) and so called first Sorapis, and then Serapis. The man Apis, ●…s the third King after Inachus. Thus far Eusebius. (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.] That is, the deu●… of flesh. Therefore Pausanias, Porphyry, Suidas, and other greeks, call him not Sorapis, but Sarapis, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a chest, an Ark, or a coffin. (c) Temples of.] Isis and Osiris were buried at N●…a as some think (saith Diodorus lib. 1) A city in Arabia, where two pillars were erected for monuments one for her and another for him, and epitaphs upon them contained their acts, and inventions. But that which was in the Priest's hands might never come to light for fear of revealing the truth: and dearly must he pay for it that published it. This God that laid his finger on his lips in sign of silence, height Harpocrates, varro de ling lat. lib. 3. where he affirmeth that Isis and Serapis were the two great Gods, Earth and heaven. This Harpocrates Harpocrates Ausonius calleth Sigalion, of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be silent. Pliny, and Catullus mention him often when they note a silent fellow, and his name is proverbial. Plutarch. (lib. de ●…s. & Osyr) saith he was their son gotten by Osiris upon Isis after his death: and because the child died as soon as it was borne, therefore they picture it with the finger on the mouth, because it never spoke. I like not this interpretation, it is too harsh and idle. The statue signified that somewhat was to be kept secret, as the goddess Angerona (in the like shape) did at Rome. Macro●… Angerona. ovid. Metam. 9 Sanctaque Bubastis, variisque coloribus Apis. Quique premit vocem, digitoque silentia suadet. Saint Isis and that party coloured Ox, And he whose lips his hand in silence locks. To this it may be Persius alluded saying, digito compesce labellum, lay your finger on your mouth. (d) The Ox] Apis the Ox. No man I think Greek or Latin, ever wrote of the Egyptian affairs, but he had up this Ox: but especially Herodo. Diodo. Stra. Plutar. Euseb. Suidas, Varro, Apis. Mela, Pliny, Solinus, and Marcellinus. He was all black, but for a square spot of white in his forehead, (saith Herodotus) on his right side (saith Pliny): his horns bowed like a Crescent: for he was sacred unto the Moon. Marcellinus. He had the shape of an Eagle upon his back, and a lump upon his tongue, like a black-beetle, and his tail was all grown with forked hairs. When he was dead, they sought another with great sorrow, never ceasing until they had found a new Apis like him in all respects. Him did Egypt adore as the chief god, and (as Macrobius saith) with astonished veneration, nor might he live longer than a set time, if he did, the priests drowned him (e) Nourished] At Memphis (saith Strabo) was a temple dedicated unto Apis, and thereby a goodly park or enclosure, before which was an Hall, and this enclosure was the dams of Apis, whereinto he was now and then let in, to sport himself, and for strangers to see him. His place where he lay, was called the mystical bed, and when he went abroad, a multitude of ushers were ever about him: all adored this Oxe-god, the boys followed him in a shoal, and he himself now and then bellowed forth his prophecies. No man that was a stranger might come into this temple at Memphis, but only at burials. (f) They did not worship] Some did draw this worship of the Ox from the institution of Isis and Osiris, for the use that they found of this beast in tillage. Some again say Osiris himself was an Ox, & Isis a Cow, either because of Io●… or upon some other ground. Some say besides (as Diodorus telleth us) that Osiris his soul went into an Ox, and remaineth continually in the Ox Apis, and at the drowning of this, goeth into the next. Some affirm that Isis having found Osiris his members, dispersed by Typhon, put them into a wooden Ox covered with an Ox's hide: so that the people seeing this, believed that Osiris was become an Ox, and so began to adore that, as if it had been himself. This was therefore the lining Osiris, but the body that lieth coffined in the temple, is called Serapis, and worshipped as the dead Osiris. (h) Jacob's Eewes] Gen. 30. Of this I discoursed elsewhere. The LXX. do translate this place confusedly. Hierome upon Genesis explaineth it. The Kings of Argos and Assyria, at the time of Jacob's death. CHAP. 6. APis the King of Argos (not of Egypt) died in Egypt, (a) Argus his son succeeded him in his kingdom, and from him came the name of the Argives. For neither the City nor the country bore any such name before his time. He reigning in Argos, and (b) Eratus in Sicyonia, Baleus ruling as yet in Assyria, jacob died in Egypt, being one hundred forty seven years in age, having blessed his sons and Nephews at his death, and prophesied apparently of CHRIST, saying in the blessing of judah; The Sceptre shall not depart from Gen. 49. 10. judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, until (c) that come which is promised him: And (d) he shall be the nations expectation. Now in (e) Argus his time Greece began to know husbandry and tillage, fetching seeds from others. For Argus after his death was counted a God, and honoured with temples and sacrifices. Which honour a private man one Homogyrus, who was slain by thunder, had before him, because he was the first that ever yoked Oxen to the plough. L VIVES. Argus' (a) his son] by Niobe, Phoroneus daughter: some call him Apis. It might be Argus. Apis that begot him of Niobe, and was reckoned for a King of Argos, because he ruled for his son until he came to age: and then departed into Egypt, leaving his son to his own. Eusebius saith he left the kingdom to his brother Aegialus, having reigned seventy years. There was another Argus, Arestors' son, who kept Io, juno's Cow, in Egypt: and another also, surnamed Amphion, whilom Prince of Pylis & Orchomene in Arcadia. (b) Eratus] Peratus, saith Pausanias, and son to Neptune and Chalcinia, Leucippus his daughter. Eusebius calleth him Heratus, he reigned forty seven years. (c) Until that which is promised] So read the Septuagints: but Herome readeth; Until he come that is to be sent. The Hebrew, Shiloh. (d) He shall be] Some copies leave out shall be, and so doth the text of the LXX. (e) In Argus his time] For Ceres came thither in Phenneus his reign, a little after Peratus and she they say was the first that ever taught the Athenians husbandry. In what Kings time joseph died in Egypt. CHAP. 7. IN Mamitus (a) his time, the twelfth Assyrian King, and (b) Phennaeus his, the eleventh King of Sicyonia (Argus being alive in Argos as yet) joseph died in Egypt: being a hundred & ten years old: after the death of him, God's people remaining in Egypt, increased wonderfully, for a hundred forty five years together, until all that knew joseph were dead. And then because their great augmentation, was so envied, and their freedom suspected, a great and heavy bondage was laid upon them, in the which nevertheless they grew up still, for all that they were so persecuted, and kept under, and at this time the same Princes ruled in Assyria and Greece, whom we named before. L. VIVES. MAmitus (a) his] So doth Eusebius call him, but saith that he was but the eleventh King of that Monarchy. He reigned thirty years. (b) Plemneus] So doth Pausanias write this King's name: he ruled, as Eusebius saith, forty eight years. What Kings lived when Moses was borne: and what Gods the Pagans had as then. CHAP. 8. IN (a) Saphrus his time, the fourteenth Assyrian King, (b) Orthopolus being then the twelfth of Sicyon, and (c) Criasus the fifth of Argos (d) Moses was borne in Egypt, who led the people of God out of their slavery, wherein God had exercised their paciences during his pleasure. In the aforesaid King's times (e) Prometheus (as some hold) lived, who was said to make men of earth, because he (f) taught them wisdom so excellently well (g) yet are there no wise men recorded to live in his time. (h) His brother Atlas indeed is said to have been a great Astronomer, whence the fable arose of his supporting heaven upon his shoulders: Yet there is an huge mountain of that name, whose height may seem to an ignorant eye to hold up the heavens. And now began Greece to fill the stories with fables, but from the first unto ay Cecrops his time (the king of Athens) in whose reign Athens got that name, and Moses lead Israel out of Egypt: some of the dead Kings were recorded for Gods, by the vanity and customary superstition of the greeks. As Melantonice, Crias his wife (k) Phorbas there son, the sixth king of Argos, and the son of (l) Triopas the seventh King, (m) jasus, and (n) Sthelenas' or Sthelenus, or Sthenelus (for he is diversely written) the ninth: And (o) in these times also lived Mercury, Altas his grandchild, borne of Maia his daughter: the story is common. He was a perfect Artist in many good inventions, and therefore was believed (at least men desired he should be believed) to be a deity. (p) Hercules lived after this, yet was he about those times of the Argives: some think he lived before Mercury, but I think they are deceived. But how-so-ever, the gravest histories that have written of them (q) avouch them both to be men, and (r) that for the good that they did mankind in matter of civility or other necessaries to human estate, were rewarded with those divine honours. (s) But Minerva was long before this, for she (they say) appreaed in Ogigius his time, (t) at the lake Triton, in a virgin's shape, whereupon she was called Trytonia: a woman indeed of many good inventions, and the likelier to be held a goddess, because her original was unknown, for (u) that of Jove's brain is absolutely poetic, and no way depending upon history. There was in deed (x) a great deluge in Ogigius his time, not so great as that wherein all perished save those in the Ark (for that, neither Greek author (y) nor Latin do mention) but greater then that which befell in Ducalions' days. But of this Ogigius his time, the writers have no certainty, for where Varro be●… his book, I showed before: and indeed he fetcheth the romans origi●…●…o further than the deluge that befell in Ogigius his time. But our (z) chro●…, Ogigius. Eusebius first, and then Hierome, following other more ancient authors herein, record Ogigius his Deluge to have fallen in the time of Phoroneus the se●… King of Argos, three hundred years after the time before said. But howsoever, this is once sure, that in (a) Cecrops his time (who was either the builder or ●…er of Athens) Minerva was there adored with divine honours. L. VIVES. SAphrus. (a)] Machanell (saith Eusebius) reigned just as long as his father Manitus, Saphrus. forty years; and Iphereus succeeded him and reigned twenty years and in the eigh●… year of his reign was Moses borne in Egypt. (b) Orthopolus.] Orthopolis saith Eu●…, Orthopolis. and Pausanias, making him the son of Plemneus whom Ceres brought up. The 〈◊〉 o●… which you had before. ●…sus] Pyrasus saith Pausanias, he rained fifty foureyeares. (d) Moses was borne] The wri●… Moses. not about Moses' birth. Porphiry saith (from Sanchoniata) that he lived in Semiramis 〈◊〉 No, but in Inachus his time, saith Appion (out of Ptolemy 〈◊〉 the Priest) Amosis 〈◊〉 than King of Egypt. Pol●…mon (Hist. Gre.) maketh him of latter times: Making the peo●… led, to depart out of Egypt, and to settle in Syria, in the time of Apis, Phoroneus his son. 〈◊〉 Assirius brings a many several opinions of men concerning this point, some ma●… Moses' elder than the Trojan war, and some equal with it. But the arguments which 〈◊〉 self brings proveth him to have been before it. His words you may read in Euseb. 〈◊〉 ●…ang. lib. 10. Numenius the Philosopher calleth Moses Musaeus, and Artapanus saith 〈◊〉 greeks called him so, and that Meris, the daughter of 〈◊〉 King of Egypt, ha●… child herself, adopted him for her son, and so he came to great honour in Egypt, because 〈◊〉 divine knowledge & inventions in matter of learning and g●…rnment. (e) Prometheus] Prometheus 〈◊〉 Euseb. from others, Affricanus I think, who maketh Prometheus to live ninety four years after Ogigius. Porphiry putteth Atlas and him in Inachus his time. But Prometheus was son to jaepellis, and Asia. Hesiod calls his mother Clymene. His falling out with jove (saith Higin. hist. Celest. and many other do touch at this) grew upon this cause: being to small in sacrifices to offer great offerings, & the poor being not able to offord them, Prometheus suttely agreed with jove that half of their sacrifice only should be burnt; the rest should be reserved for the use of men: jove consented. Then offers Prometheus two Bulls unto jove and putteth all their bones, under one of the skins, and all their flesh under the other, and then bad jove to choose his part. jove, a good plain dealing God, looking for no cousnage, took that was next to hand, & light on the bones: there at being angry, he took away the fire from mankind, that they could sacrifice no more. But Prometheus using his ordinary tricks, stole a cane full of the fire ●…elestiall, and gave it unto man, whereupon he was bound to Caucasus, and an Eagle set to feed continually upon his liver ever growing again. Some say that Prometheus made those creatures who have fetched jove down so often, women. Prometheus' his complaint (in Lucian) is thus answered by Vulcan and Mercury: Thou cousonedst jove in sharing, thou stolest the fire, thou madest men, and especially women. For so it is said, that he made men of clay, and then put life into them by the fire which he had stolen from jove, whereupon (saith Horace) cometh mankinds diseases and fevers. Servius saith that Minerva woundted at this man, this work of Prometheus, and promised to perfect it in all it lacked: and that Prometheus affirming that he knew not what was best for it, she took him up to heaven, and setting him by the sons Chariot, gave him a cane full of the fire, and sent him down to man with it. Hesiod in one place toucheth at that story of Higinus, saying that jove took away the fire from man, and Prometheus got it again: to revenge which injury Vulcan by Jove's command made Pandora (a woman endowed with all heavenly gifts and therefore called Pandora) Pandora. and sent her down into the earth by Mercury, to be given as a gift unto Epimetbeus, Prometheus his brother: and being received into his house, she opened a tun of all the mischiefs that were diffused throughout all mankind, only hope remaining in the bottom: and Prometheus (as Aeschilus saith) was bound upon Cancasus for thirty thousand years, near to the Caspian straits, as Lucian saith in his Caucasus. Philostratus saith that that mount hath two tops of a furlong distance one of the other, and that the inhabitants say that unto these were Prometheus his hands bound. In vita Apollon. So saith Lucian. This Eag●…e, some say was begotten between Typhon and Echydna, (Higin.) some say between Terra and Tartarus: but the most say that Vulcan made her, and Hercules killed her with a shaft, so she was set up in the sky between the tropic of Cancer and the Equinoctial line. But after that Prometheus had prophesied unto jove being to lie with Thetis) that the son he begat should be greater than the father: He was loosed, provided he must ever wear an iron ring upon his finger, in memory of his bondage: and hence came the use of rings they say: Lactantius saith he first made Idols of Clay: He stole fire (saith Pliny. lib. 7.) that is be taught the way how to strike it out of the flints, and how to keep it in a cane. It is sure (saith Diodorus. lib. 5.) that he did find out the fuel of fire, at first. The Pelasgives (as Pausanias testifieth) ascribe the finding of fire unto their Phoroneus, not unto Prometheus. Theophrastus saith this is tropical and meant of the inventions of wisdom. (f) He taught.] Old japhets' son: the world's full wisest man doth Hesiod call him: unto Epimetheus his younger brother they say he did willingly resign the kingdom of Thessaly giving himself wholly unto celestial contemplation, and for that end ascending the high mount Caucasus to behold the circumvolution of the stars their postures. etc. And then descending down came & taught the Caldees Astronomy and policy, to the which I think the fable of the Eagle feeding upon his liver hath reference, and to his doubtful cares arising still one from another. The interpreter of Apollonius Rhodius, saith there is a river called Aquila, that falling from Caucasus runs through the heart of the country Promethea, lying close to that mount. Herodotus writeth that Prometheus the King of Scythia knowing not which way to bring the river Aquila to run by his kingdom, was much troubled until Hercules came and did it for him. Thus of the river these two agree. Diodorus saith that Prometheus was the King of Egypt, and when Nilus had over flowed the country and drowned many of the inhabitants, he was about to kill himself, but Hercules by his wisdom found a mean to reduce the river: to his proper channel: and hereupon Nilus for his swiftness of course was called Aquila. (g) Yet are.] Yes, Atlas was wise, and so was Epimetheus, but to late, for Prometheus Alat●…. is one of a forewit, & Epimetheus an after witted man, for he being warned by his brother Prometheus to take no gift of jove, neglected this warning, and took Pandora, and afterwards (as Hesiod saith) he knew he had received his hurt. And therefore Augustine's reason is ●…ong, and acute: How was he such a great doctor, when we can find no wise men that he left behind him? who can judge of his wisdom, seeing there was no wise men of his time? for ●…ome only judgeth of wisdom. (h) His brother Atlas] There were three of this name, 〈◊〉 Servius, in Aeneid l. 8. A Moor; the chief. An Italian, father to Electrae, and an Arcadian, 〈◊〉 to Maia the mother of Mercury. These three, the writers do confound as their use is. For Diodorus lib 4. maketh Atlas the Moor, son to Caelus, and brother to Saturn, father to the Hesperides, and grandfather to Mercury, a great astronomer, & one who by often ascending the mountain of his name, from whence he might better behold the course of the heavens, give occasion of the fable of his sustaining heaven upon his shoulders. Pliny lib. 7. saith that 〈◊〉 the son of Lybia (this Moor assuredly) was the inventor of Astrology: & lib. 2. invented the ●…here. Alex. Polyhistor thinketh that he was Henoch, the inventor of that star-skil that A●…s taught the Phaenicians and Egyptians afterwards, when he traveled these countries. This knowledge in Astronomy might well give life to that fable of Heaven-bearing. Some ●…e it arose from the inaccessible height of mount Atlas, that seemeth to the eye to vnder●… the skies (saith Herodotus) and reacheth above the clouds, nor can the top be easily dis●…d, the clouds being continually about it: this was a great furtherance to the fiction. The Italian Atlas, was that ancient king of Fesulae, as it is reported. ay Cecrops his] Pausanias' 〈◊〉 that Actaeus was the first King of Attica, and Cecrops, an Egyptian (his step-son) inheri●… Cecrop●… kingdom after him: and he (they say) was a man from his upper parts, and a beast in 〈◊〉 ●…her: because he by good laws reduced the people from barbrisme unto humanity: or 〈◊〉 ●…her parts were feminine say some, because he instituted marriage, in that country, and was as it were the first author in those parts of father and mother: for before, they begot children at random, and no man knew his own father. Affricanus saith that Ogyges was the first 〈◊〉 of Athens, & that from the deluge in his days, the land was untilled and ●…ay desert 200. y●…ter, until Cecrops his time: But for Actaeus and others named as Kings thereof before 〈◊〉 ●…hey are but bare names: Annal. lib. 4. (k) Phorbas] Brother to Perasus, saith Pausanias, Phorbus. 〈◊〉 ●…rgus, and father to Triopas. The Rhodians (saith Diodorus,) being sore vexed by ser●…●…nt to the Oracle, and by the appointment thereof, called Phorbas into their Island, gi●… 〈◊〉 part thereof, to him & his heirs, and so they were freed from that plague, for which 〈◊〉 ●…eed that he should after his death be honoured as a God: but this (as seems by Dio●…●…s ●…s not Phorbas the Argive, nor these of Perasus, or Argus, but a Thessalian, the son of 〈◊〉. (l) Triopas] Son to Phorbas. Paus. Diodorus mentions one Triopas, the son of vn●… Triopas. parents: some say of Neptune and Canace, some of Apollo. The people hated him (saith 〈◊〉 ●…pouerishing the Temples, and for killing his brother. Higinius saith that some took 〈◊〉 be that celestial constellation in heaven called Ophinchus, who is wound about with a 〈◊〉 for Triopas having taken off the roof of Ceres' temple to cover his own palace withal, 〈◊〉 ●…enged herself upon him with a bitter hunger: and lastly in his end, a dragon appeared 〈◊〉 & afflicted him sore: at last he died, and being placed in heaven he was figured as if a 〈◊〉 ●…guirt him about. (m) jasus] Father to Io, of whom Argos was called jasium, and the Ar●… ●…ians (n) Sthenelas] After jasus (saith Paus.) Crotopus, Agenor's son reigned, & he be●… ●…las. (o) Mercury] Tully (as I said before) reckoneth 4. Mercuries. This is the third: son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Maia, taught by his grandfather, & inventing many excellent things of himself: Mercury. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Magician, as Prudentius writes, & therefore feigned to be the carrier and recarier of 〈◊〉 and from hell. (p) Hercules] There were 6. of this name, as Tully saith. The 1. and most 〈◊〉 son to the eldest jove and Liscitus, & he contended with Apollo for the Tripos. 2. an E●… Hercules. son to Nilus, reputed the author of the Phrygian letters. 〈◊〉. one de●…fied amongst the I●… unto whom they offer sacrifices infernal. 4. Son unto Astery Latona's sister, honoured by 〈◊〉 ●…ians, and Carthage they say was his daughter 5. An Indian called Belus. 6. The third Iu●… 〈◊〉 by Alcmene. Siculus hath but three of his name. 1. an Egyptian, the worthiest, made 〈◊〉 of the army by Osiris, for strength and valour, he traveled most part of the world, 〈◊〉 ●…ed a pillar in Libya: he lived before Hercules Alcmena's son, above 1000 years: that 〈◊〉 ●…mulated him, and therefore he was called Alcaeus, An helper. The third, was Hercules 〈◊〉 a famous soldior, and the ordainer of the Olympian games. Paus. calleth him Hercules' 〈◊〉. Servius reckoneth four Hercules, the Tyrinthian, the Argive, the Theban, and 〈◊〉. In Aen. 8. But indeed the number is uncertain. Uarro reckoneth 44. The Lybians by 〈◊〉 is the most ancient, and that other worthies did all take their names from him. But the Author of Kenophons' Aequivoca, saith that the most ancient Kings of Noble families we●… still called Saturn's: their eldest sons, jupiter's, and their hardiest grandchildren, Her●…. Augustine here means of that Hercules that was son to jove and Alcmene, who ●…ed with the Argonauts, and was one generation before the Trojan war: and to him do the ambitious greeks ascribe all the glory of the rest. So that he brought a greater fame unto po●…erity then either jove or any other god: as Seneca the Tragedian writeth. Fortius ipse genitore tuo; fulmina mittes. With more strength, than thy fire, thou shalt flash thunder's fire. He lived after Mercury. For Mercury (as the report goeth) waited upon jove when he was begotten. But the son of Liscitus was long before Mercury the Arcadian, and lived in the time of Mercury the Egyptian, being an Egyptian himself. (q) Both men] Homer maketh Ulysses meet Hercules amongst other dead men. Odyss. 9 and yet he saith that his Idol only Minerva. was in hell, for himself feasted with the gods: but we know what he means by that Idol. (r) Po●… their good] Mercury found out many good arts, and adorned the speech with eloquence. Hercules cleansed the world of tyrants and monsters: and was therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (s) Minerva] Tully De nat. dear. lib. 5. maketh five Minerva's. 1. mother unto Apollo, begotten by Vulcan 2. daughter of Nilus, and a goddess of the Saitae in Egypt, third daughter to jupiter Pallas. Caelius, fourth begotten by jove on Coriphe, Oceanus his daughter, whom the Arcadians called Coria, and affirm, that she invented Chariots. 5. the daughter of Pallas who killed her father being about to ravish her: and she is pictured with wings. This Pallas they say was a cruel fellow and she for killing of him was surnamed Pallas. But the Arcadians tell a tale how Minerva being yet a little one was sent by jove to Pallas, Lycaon's son, to be brought up in his house, where she lived with his daughter whom she afterwards took up to Heaven and called her Uictoria, and herself Pallas in memory of her foster-father. Now their are other derivations of Pallas, as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of shaking a spear, or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. of moving herself in Jove's head: or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. of bringing Djoinsius his heart panting unto jove, namely when the Tytans had torn him in pieces. (t) Triton] Between the two Syrteses in Africa there is a river, and a fen also, both being called Triton, & thence the inhabitants as Mela saith) suppose the surname of Minerva to be derived, who they say was borne there, & the day Lake Triton. that they think was her birth day they solemnize with games & sports amongst the Virgins. Herodotus saith there is an I'll in that fen or lake, where unto jason sailed with his Argonauts. The writers greek and latin, consent in this, that Minerva was called Tritonia from this lake, Silius implieth that there she first found out oil. Solinus saith she b●…ld herself therein: it may be then, when seeing her cheeks big with blowing her pipe, she cast it away. This the Poets say she did by Meander, a river of jonia. But which of the Minerva's was this? I think the fifth: for hard by, there is a lake they call Pallas, and Calimachus who was borne not far thence, viz. in Cyrene, calleth the lake Triton itself Pallantia, and so doth Festus. But the Lybians call it Neptunes, and Tritonis lake: it may be Neptune is Pallas. Some now (and this I must not ommit) say that Minerva was borne in Boeotia, in Triton there. For there are divers Tritons, one in Boeotia, one in Thessaly, and one in Lybia, and there was Minerva borne. Interpr. Appollon. Rhod. (u) That of Jove's] Some think Minerva was called Tritonia because in the Boeotian tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an head. But this was only a fiction, because she is called the goddess of wisdom, and the highest part of the air. (x) A great deluge] Eusebius, (whence Aug. hath most of this) referreth all these things unto the reign of Ph●…oneus the Argive. Ogygius reigned (saith he) in Attica Eleusina, of old, called Acta, and over Ogyges. many other Cities, the time when the Virgin whom the greeks call Minerva, appeared at the lake Tritonis. In this King's time there was a great inundation, between which and that of Deucalion's time are reckoned one hundred and seventy years, within a few. But Solinus saith not so. There was (●…aith he) six hundred years between Ogyges and Deucalion, and Ogyges reigned in Acta, and Boeotia, which was called as Strabo saith, Ogygia, before Cecrops●…me ●…me, who (as some say) built the Boeotian Thebes, and therefore the Theban wits were called Ogygi●…, and he was generally held to have been borne in Eleusis in Attica: for other original of his is unknown; and from his time unto the first olympiad, Hellanicus, Philochorus, Ca●…, 〈◊〉 ●…lus, (that wrote the acts of the Syrians) do reckon above a thousand years: and so do●… Diodorus and almost all the greeks: unto whom Orosius agreeth, making Ogygis, his 〈◊〉 to befall a thousand four hundred years before Rome was built. Porphiry in his 〈◊〉 book against Christianity, saith that Ogyges lived in Inachus his time, and Affricanus●…ving ●…ving him, maketh Moses and him both of one time, whereas Moses was long after him. y Nor l●…tin] Not so in the opinion of josephus nor Eusebius. josephus saith, that Berosus the ●…ldaean made mention of this general deluge, as also Mnaseas of Damascus, and Hie●… of Egypt, quoting all their sayings. And Alexander Polyhistor, Melon, Eupolemus, and 〈◊〉: do mention it also, as Eusebius saith. Pliny also and Mela affirm, that joppes in Egypt was built before the Inundation of the earth, which cannot be meant of the deluge of O●… or Deucalion for those did never come so far as Egypt. Nor is it any wonder if that City ●…e built then: for so were a many more besides: yea that deluge which the poets make 〈◊〉 to threaten, is no other but this. But they write hereof so obscurely, as they scarcely 〈◊〉 what they wrote themselves. Indeed that which Berosus, Mnaseas, and Eupolemus do 〈◊〉, belongs unto the Barbarian histories, and neither to the Greek nor latin, whereof 〈◊〉 speaketh. (z) Our chroniclers] Christian historigraphers: as Eusebius Bishop of 〈◊〉 in Palestina (who by reason of his familiarity with the martyr Pamphilus, was called Eusebius. ●…ilus also,) who as Hierome saith wrote an infinite number of volumes, and amongst the ●…st, one general history out of all the chroniclers, as an abstract or epitome of them all, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I think be this which we have of his yet extant, although the proper names, and 〈◊〉 of the whole work be much depraved by the ignorance of the transcribers, from ●…se heads the understanding of those computations was far to seek: nor can those er●… be reform, but by the most perfect antiquaries, and therefore the simple are herein ea●…●…uced. But how necessary this book is for a student, Hierome himself showed by ●…ing it out of the Greek, and putting that holy admiration of Irenaeus unto the tran●…, in the front of it. It was continued by Eusebius until the second year of Constantine 〈◊〉, and Hierome made an appendix of the rest of the time unto Gratian, (a) Attica] It Attica. 〈◊〉 ●…rey in Greece between Megara and Boeotia, lying upon the sea with the Haven 〈◊〉 and the Cape Sunius: a fertile soil both of good fruits, good laws, and good 〈◊〉 ●…aith Tully. The waves beating upon the shores hereof (saith Capella) do produce a 〈◊〉 ●…onious music: metaphorically spoken (I think) of their delightful studies. The ●…ey-men call themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, inbred, nor deriving from any other nation. Of 〈◊〉 ●…ngs Pausanias saith thus: Actaeus (it is said) reigned first in Attica, than Cecrops his 〈◊〉 ●…n law: who begot Erisa, Aglaurus, and Pandrosus, daughters, and Erisichthon a son, ●…ed before his father. Cecrops (saith Strabo) brought the dispersed people into twelve 〈◊〉 Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Decelea, Eleusis, Aphydna, (or Aphydnae) Dorichus, 〈◊〉, Cytheros, Sphetus, Cyphesia and Phalerus: and afterwards he brought them all 〈◊〉 into that one now called Thebes. The time when Athens was built, and the reason that Varro giveth for the name. CHAP. 9 OF the name of Athens (a) (coming of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is Minerva) Varro giveth this reason. An Olive tree grew suddenly up in one place, & a fountain burst 〈◊〉 ●…enly out in another. These prodigies drove the King to Delphos, to know 〈◊〉 ●…acles mind, which answered him, that the Olive tree signified Minerva, & 〈◊〉 ●…ntaine Neptune, and that the city might after which of these they pleased 〈◊〉 their city. Here-upon Cecrops gathered all the people of both sex's to●… (for (c) than it was a custom in that place to call the women unto 〈◊〉 ●…ations also) to give their voices in this election, the men being for 〈◊〉, and the women for Minerva: and the women being more, won the 〈◊〉 ●…r Minerva. Here at Neptune being angry, over-flowed all the Athe●… lands, (for the Devils may draw the waters which way they list) and to appease him, the Athenian women had a triple penalty set on their heads. First they must never hereafter have voice in council. Second never hereafter be called (e) Athenians: third nor ever leave their name unto their children. Thus this ancient and goodly city, the only mother of arts and learned inventions, the glory and lustre of Greece, by a scoff of the devils, in a contention of their gods a male and female, and (f) by a feminine victory obtained by women, was enstiled Athens, after the females name that was victor, Minerva: and yet being plagued by him that was conquered, was compelled to punish the means of the victor's victory, and showed that it feared Neptune's waters, worse than Minerva's arms. For Minerva herself was punished in those her women champions: nor did she assist those that advanced her, so much as to the bare reservation of her name unto themselves, besides the loss of their voices in elections, and the leaving of their names unto their sons: Thus they lost the name of this goddess, whom they had made victorious over a male god: whereof you see what I might say, but that mine intent carrieth my pen on unto another purpose. L. VIVES. AThens (a) coming] Whence this name descended it is doubtful, the common opinion fetches it from Minerva, called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The greeks have this, of the name both of the Athens. country and City. Cranaus (saith Pausanias') a worthy Athenian, succeeded Cecrops: and he amongst his other children, had a daughter called Atthis, of whom the country was called Attica, being called Actaea before. Some (saith Strabo) call it Attica of Actaeon: Some call it Atthis, and Attica of Atthis Cranaus his daughter of whom the inhabitants were called Cranai. Some call it Mopsopia, of Mopsopus, jonia of jon son to Xuthus, Posidonia, of Posidon, and Athena of Athena, or Minerva, of Minerva, if you like it in latin, justine (out of Trogus) saithit was not called Athens until the fourth King of Attica, Cranaus his successor, whom he calleth Amphionides, but there is a fault, I think, the greek is Amphycthyon: and indeed Athens is not named in the number of Cities that Cecrops founded. That which was called Cecropia and was afterwards called Athens and built by Theseus, was but the tower of the city. For this the greeks say ordinarily, the tower of Athens was called Cecropia at first: Interp. Apollon. But note this there were three towns called Athens (Uarro de analog.) the Athenians inhabited one, the Athenaeans another, and the Atheneopolitanes a third. The first was Athens in Attica. The second Athens in the Island Eubaea, (otherwise called Chadae, built by King Cecrops son to Erichthaeus, and the citizens hereof were called Athenaeans, but that was only by the Latins, for the greeks call the Attic Athenians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) the third was a people of Gallia Narbonensis inhabiting Atheneopolis in the country of Massilia. There is another Athens in the Lacedaemonian territory. (b) Of both sexes] Ovid saith that this contention of Neptune and Minerva was before twelve gods, and jove himself sat arbiter. Neptune smote the earth with his mase and brought forth an horse: and Minerva she brought forth an olive tree, this was the sign of peace, and that of war. So all the gods liked the sign of peace best, and gave Minerva the pre-eminence. Metamorph. 6. Some refer this to the contention between sea and land, whether the Athenians could fetch in more commodity or glory, by war or peace, from sea or land. Neptune's horse was called by some Syro●…, by some Ar●…, and by some Scythius, Seru. in 1. Georgic. Uirg. Ualerius Probus reckons more of his horses then one: for he gave Adrastus, Arion, and Panthus and Cyllarus unto juno, and she bestowed them on Castor and Pollux. But which of the five Minerva's was this. The second, Nilus his daughter, the Egyptian, Saietes goddess, as Plato held In Ti●… Sais is a 〈◊〉 city in Egypt, in the pronince of Delta, where Amasis was borne, built by the same M●…, who is called Neuth in Egypt, and Athene in Attica. The Athenians have a month, 〈◊〉 at the first new Moon in December, which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: in memory of th●… contention of Neptune and Pallas. (c) Than it was] Both there and elsewhere: and Plato requited it in his Repub. (d) Athenians] Whereupon they were never called but Atticae as Ne●…des saith: the men indeed were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but not the women, the reason was (saith he) because their wives in their salutations should not shame the Virgins, for the woman taketh her husband's name and they being called Athenians if the Virgins should be called Atheni●…, they should be held to be married. But Pherecrates, Philemon, Diphilus, Pindarus, and di●… other old poets call the women of Athens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which word Phrynichus the Bithini●… sophister holdeth to be no good Athenian Greek, and therefore wondereth that Pherec●…s a man wholly Atticizing, would use it in that sense. (f) By a feminine] A diversity of reading, but of no moment. Varros relation of the original of the word Areopage: and of Deucalion's deluge. CHAP. 10. But Varro will believe no fables that make against their gods, lest he should disparaged their majesty: and therefore he will not derive that (a) Areopagon, (the place (b) where Saint Paul disputed with the Athenians, and whence the judges of the city had their names) from that, that (c) Mars (in greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) being accused of homicide, was tried by twelve gods in that court, and quit by six voices: so absolved (for the number being equal on both sides the absolution is to over-poyse the condemnation). But this though it be the common opinion he rejects, & endeavoureth to lay down another cause of this name, that the Athenians should not offer to derive Areopagus from (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Pagus: for this were to i●…e the gods by imputing broils and contentions unto them, and therefore he affirmeth this, and the goddesses contention about the golden apple, both a●…se: though the stages present them to the gods as true and the gods take 〈◊〉 in them, be they true or false. This Varro will not believe, for fear of ●…ing the gods in it: and yet he tells a tale concerning the name of A●…; of the contention between Neptune and Minerva, (as frivolous as this) and maketh that the likeliest original of the cities name: as if they two contending by prodigies, Apollo durst not be judge between them, but as Paris was called to decide the strife between the three goddesses, so he was made an umpire in this wrangling of these two, where Minerva conquered by her fautors, and was conquered in her fautors, and getting the name of Athens to herself, could not leave the name of Athenians unto them. In these times, as Varro saith, (e) Cranaus, Cecrops his successor reigned at Athens, or Cecrops himself as our Eus●…s, and Hierome do affirm: and then befell that great inundation called the ●…d of Deucalion: because it was most extreme in his Kingdom. But (f) it ●…ot near Egypt nor the confines thereof. L. VIVES. A●…gon] In some, Areon Pagon: in others Arion Pagon: in greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Stephanus ●…ibus saith it was a promontory by Athens where all matters of life & death were The Areopage. 〈◊〉 there were two counsels at Athens (as Libanius the Sophister writeth) one continu●…●…ing of capital matters, always in the Areopage: the other changing every year and ●…ng to the state: called the counsel of the 500 of the first, our Budaeus hath writ large●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both languages. Annot. in Pandect. (b) Where Saint Paul] Act. 17. (c) Mars called] The common opinion is so: and Iwenall thereupon calleth the Areopage Mars his Court. Pausanias saith it had that name because Mars was first judged there for kill Alirrhothion, Neptune's son, because he had ravished Alcippa, Mars his daughter by Aglaura the daughter of Cecrops. And afterwards Orestes was judged there for killing of his mother, and being quit, he built a Temple unto Minerva Ar●…a, or martial. (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Pagus] I do not think Areopagus is derived hence, as if it were some village without the town, or street in Pagus is a village, or street. the City: but Pagus is sometimes taken for a high place or stone, or promontory as Stephanus calleth it. For Suidas saith it was called Ariopagus, because the Court was in a place aloft, upon an high rock: and Arius, because of the slaughter which it decided, being all under Mars. Thus Suidas, who toucheth also at the judgement of Mars for killing of Alirrhothion: out of Hellanicus lib. 1. As we did out of Pausanias: and this we may not ommit: there were silver stones in that Court, wherein the plaintiffs and the defendants both stood, the plaintiffs was called the stone of Impudence, and the defendants, of Injury. And hard by was a Temple of the furies. (e) Cranaus] Or Amphyction, as I said: but Eusebius saith Cecrops himself. Cranaus. But this computation I like not, nor that which he referreth to the same. viz. That Cecrops who sailed into Euboea (whom the greeks call the son of Erichtheus) ruled Athens long after the first Cecrops, and of him were the Athenians called Cranai, as Aristophanes called them. Strabo writeth that they were called Cranai also: but to the deluge, and Deucalion. He was the son of Prometheus and Oceana, as Dionysius saith, and he married Pirrha the Deucalion. daughter of his uncle Epimetheus and Pandora, and chase the Pelasgives out of Thessaly, got that Kingdom: leading the borderers of Parnassus, the Leleges, and the Curetes along in his wars with him. And in his days (as Aristotle saith) sell an huge deal of rain in Thessaly, which drowned it and almost all Greece. Deucalion and Pyrrha saving themselves upon Parnassus went to the Oracle of Themis, and learning there what to do, restored mankind (as they fable) by casting stones over their shoulders backward: the stones that the man threw proving men, and Pyrrhas' throws bringing forth women. Indeed they brought the stony and brutish people from the mountains into the plains, after the deluge and that gave life to the fable. In Deucalion's time (saith Lucian in his Misanthropus) was such a shipwreck in one instant, that all the vessels were sunk excepting one poor skiff or cockboat that was driven to Lycorea. Lycorea is a village by Delphos named after King Licoreus. Now Parnassus (as Lycorea. Stephanus writeth) was first called Larnassus, of Deucalious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or covered boat, which he made him by the counsel of his father Prometheus, and which was driven unto this mountain. Strabo saith that Deucalion dwelled in Cynos, a City in Locris near unto Sunnius Opuntius, Parnassus. where Pirrhas' sepulchre is yet to be seen, Deucalion being buried at Athens. Pausanias saith there was a Temple at Athens of Deucalion's building and that he had dwelled there. Yet Dion saith that the tomb is in the Temple of jupiter Olympius, which he founded. (f) It came not] So saith Plato In Timaeo. and Diodor. Sicul. lib. 1. About whose times Moses brought Israel out of Egypt. Of josuah: in whose times he died. CHAP. 11. IN the later end of Cecrops reign at Athens, came Moses with Israel out of Egypt: Ascarades, (a) Maeathus and Triopas beings Kings of Asiria, Sicyon and Argos. To Syna did Moses lead them, and there received the law from above called the old Testament, containing all terrestrial promises: the new one, containing the spiritual, being to come with Christ our saviour: for this order was fittest (as it is in every man, as S. Paul saith) that the natural should be first, and the spiritual afterwards, because (as he said truly) the first man is of earth, earthly, and the second man is of heaven, heavenly. Forty years did Moses rule this people in 1 Cor. 10. the desert, dying a hundred and twenty years old: having prophesied Christ by innumerable figures in the carnal observations about the Tabernacle, the Priesthood, the sacrifices, and other mystical commands. Unto Moses was josuah the successor, and he led the people into the land of promise, and by Gods conduct expelld all the Pagans that swarmed in it, and having ruled seven and twenty years, he died in the time that Amintas sat as eyghteenth King of Assiria; Corax the sixteenth of Sicyonia (b) Danaus the tenth of Argos, and Erichthonius the 〈◊〉 of Athens. L. VIVES. M●…rathus] Peratus, saith Pausanias. But Eusebius calls him Marathus, he reigned twenty years. Marathus. There was one Marathus, Apollo's son, who built a city in Phocis not far fr●…●…icizza. There was another that served under Castor and Pollux, and of him did Ma●… 〈◊〉 Achaia take the name. It may be this was Marathus Apollo's son, for Suidas affirmeth 〈◊〉 the country in Attica, so called had the name from that Marathus. (b) Danaus] An Eg●…, Belus his son, he brought the first ship out of Egypt into Greece. Pliny, for before, Danave. they 〈◊〉 their shipping all in the red sea, among the Isles of King Erithras. And this Danaus' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first that digged wells in Argos. Dipsius that is the drought. The Egyptians bani●…, and elected Egiptus for King, of whom the country (before called Ae●…a) was now 〈◊〉 Egypt. Euseb. He came to Argos in the time of Gelanor the son of Sthenelas, whom he 〈◊〉 of his estate together with all Agenor's progeny. Their contention was ended thus. 〈◊〉 being come out of Egypt, fell to contend with Gelanor about the Kingdom, the 〈◊〉 being umpire, much was said on both sides, Danaus seemed to speak as good reason ●…s the ●…her, so it could not be decided until the next day: the next morning, a wolf com●…●…ng into the pasture, and begins a fight with the chief bull of the Kings heard. T●… 〈◊〉 the people liken Danaus to the wolf, and Gelanor to the bull: for as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stranger to man, so was Danaus unto them. But by and by, the wolf kills the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon this judgement was given on Danaus his side, wherefore Danaus thinking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had sent this wolf, he dedicated a temple unto Apollo Lycius, that is, Wolvish. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dwelled in the Argive tower, and all the Pelasgives were called Danai, after him. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fifty daughters whom poets have so eternised. Diodorus saith he built the Argive 〈◊〉 oldest city (one of them) in all Greece. Others say he built but the tower. He was a 〈◊〉 King then Greece had ever had before him. The false gods, adored by those Greek Princes, which lived between Israells' freedom, and josuahs' death. CHAP. 12. BEtwixt the departure of Israel out of Egypt, and the death of josuah, who led them into the land of promise, the Greek Princes ordained many sorts of sacrifices to their false gods, as solemn memorial of the deluge, and the freedom of mankind from it, and the miserable time that they had in it, and upon it 〈◊〉 being driven up to the hill, and soon after coming down again into the 〈◊〉 for this they say the (a) Lupercalls running up and down (b) the holy 〈◊〉, doth decipher, namely how the men ran up to the mountains in that ●…ndation, and when it ceased, came all down again into the plains. 〈◊〉 this time they say that (c) Dionysius (otherwise called (d) father Liber, and 〈◊〉 god after his decease) did (e) first show the planting of the vine in Attica: 〈◊〉 were there musical (f) plays dedicated to Apollo of Delphos, to appease 〈◊〉 they thought had afflicted all Greece with barrenness, because they de●… not his temple which Danaus in his invasion, burned: & the oracle itself charged them to ordain those plays. Erichthonius was the first that presented them in Attica, both unto him and Minerva, where he that conquered, had a reward of oil, (g) which Minerva they say invented, as Liber had found out the wine: and in these times did (h) Xanthus King of Crete force (ay) away Europa, and begot (k) Rhadamanthus (l) Sarpedon, (m) and Minos, who are reported to be the sons of jove and Europa. But the pagans yield to the truth of history in this matter of the King of Crete: and this that hangs at every poet's pen, and at every players lips, they do account as a fable, to prove their deities wholly delighted in beastly untruths: and now (n) was Hercules famous at tire: not he that we spoke of before: (for the more secret histories say there were many Hercules, & many father Libers) And this Hercules they make famous for twelve sundry rare exploits (not counting the death of the African (o) Antaeus amongst them, for that belongs to the other Hercules) and this same Hercules do they make to burn himself upon mount (p) Oeta, his virtue whereby he had subdued so many monsters, failing him now in the patient toleration of his (q) own pains: and at this time (r) Busyris (the son of Neptune and Libya daughter to Epaphus) and King or rather Tyrant of Egypt, used to murder strangers & offer them to his gods: O but let us not think Neptune a whoremaster or father to such a damned son, let the poets have this scope to fill the stage and please the gods withal! It is said that Vulcan and Minerva were parents to this (s) Ertchthonius, in the end of whose reign josuah died. (t) But because they hold Minerva a Virgin, therefore (say they) in their striving together, Vulcan projected his sperm upon the earth, and thence came this king as his name showeth: for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is strife, & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is earth: which joined do make Erichthonius. But indeed the best learned of them reject this beastliness from their gods, and say that the fable arose hereupon, (u) that in the Temple of Vulcan and Minerva, which were both one at Atthens, there was a (x) little child found with a dragon wound about him, which was a sign that he should prove a famous man, and because of this Temples knowing no other parents that he had, they called him the son of Vulcan and Minerva: But howsoever, that fable doth manifest his name better than this history. But what is that to us when as this is written in true books, to instruct religious men, and that is presented on public stages to delight the unclean devils, whom notwithstanding their truest writers honour as gods, with those religious men? and let them deny this of their gods yet can they not acquit them of all crime, in affecting the presenting of those filthinesses, and in taking pleasure to behold those things bestially acted, which wisdom seemeth to say might better be denied: for suppose the fables bely them, yet if they do delight to here those lies of themselves, this maketh their guilt most true. L. VIVES. THe (a) Lupercalls] The lupercal was a place on mount Palatine in Rome, sacred unto Pan lycius, or, the Wolvish: whom they say the Arcadians that came with evander into Italy, The lupercals. dedicated, by the advice of Carmentis, the prophetess: in the same holy form that they worshipped him in their country, and jupiter Lycius upon mount Lyceum, In the same place where Romulus and Remus sucked, the she Wolf, and there was a statue representing the same. Therefore was the place called lupercal, saith Servius, but the statue of Pan Lyceus had evander consecrated long before Romulus was borne. Ovid Fast. Quid vetat Arcadico dictos a monte luperco●…? Faunus in Arcadia templa Lycaeus habet. Luperci may th' A cadian hills name bear, Since wolfe-like Faunus hath his temple there 〈◊〉 ●…gil in his Aeneads. lib. 8. — Gelida monstrat sub rupe lupercal, Parrhasia dictum panos de monte lycaei. lupercal underneath the rock so i'll, So called of wolfe-like Pan's Parrhasian hill. 〈◊〉 himself was one of the lupercals, and was celebrating of that feast when 〈◊〉 shepherds took him. Now they used to sacrifice unto Pan all naked save their 〈◊〉 which were covered (as Dionys. saith) with the skins of the sacrifices, and so they ran all about the street. They were called lupercals (saith Uarro de ling. Lat. 5.) because they sacrificed in the lupercal: the orderer of the sacrifice when he proclaimed the monthly feasts, to be kept upon the nonce of February, calleth this feast day, a day februate, that is a day of purgation, etc. Festus seemeth to ascribe the lupercal feasts to the honour of juno, for on 〈◊〉 day he saith the women were purged with junos' mantle, that is, with a goats ski●…e, for the women, believed that it would make them fruitful, to be beaten with a kin of one of the sacrifices at the lupercal feasts. And therefore as the lupercals ran●…e by, they would hold out their hands for them to strike. They offered a dog also at this feast, as Plutarch saith: whether that were a kind of purgation, or that it was in token of the d●…gges em●…ty with the wolves, being sac●…ed unto Pan Lyceus. (b) The holy street] Uia sacra. 〈◊〉 reached not (as the vulgar think) only from the palace to the house of the Master of the Ceremonies but from that house to the chapel of goddess Strenua, and from the palace, to the Capitol. The holy 〈◊〉 in Rome. V●… de ling. lat. saith this: At Strenuas chapel, hard by the Carina beg●…eth, holy street, and 〈◊〉 reacheth to the Capitol for that way do sacrifices go to the Capitol every month: and that way 〈◊〉 all Augurs to take their auguries. But the vulgar know only that part of it, which reacheth from the court to the fore-most descent: It was called holy-steete, for there did Romu●… and Tatius the Sabine King make their union. H●… Ouid●…th ●…th they used to sell apples. It was a steep uneven way, which is the reason of Augustine's mention of it here. (c) Dionysyus] T●…▪ de ●…at. dear. 3. We have many Dionysii: one son to Io●…e and Proserpina, another Nilus Dyonisius. his son, the murderer of Nysa: a third Caprius his son, and King of Asia, whence the Scythians had there discipline: a fourth son to jove and Luna to whom Orpheus his consecrations are dedicated, a fifth, son to Nisus and Thyone, who i●…stituted the Trieterides, (or three years sacrifices) unto Bacchus. Of the Theban Dionysius the Indian and the Assyrian, read Philostratus. Uita Apollonii. lib. 2. Some held but one Dionysius the finder out of wine, & the conqueror of many nations: and some again held that there were three, being in three several times. 1. an Indian, who found out wine. 2. son of jove & Ceres, the inventor of the plough. 3. son to jove and Semele, an effeminate fellow, leading whores about with him in his army. (d) Father Liber] Because (saith Macrobius, from Naevius) he is the sun, and goeth freely (Libere) throughout the skies. Plutarch (in Quaest) gives other reasons because he freeth the 〈◊〉 of drinkers: or, because he fought for the freedom of Boeotia: or because he freeth one from cares, and secureth them in hardest acts. Seneca saith his name; Liber, cometh not a Libera lingua, from a free tongue, but, quia liber at seruitio curarum animum, because he freeth the soul from the bondage of care, and giveth it vigour in enterprises: for it thrusts out care, Liber. and turneth the mind up from the bottom, and therefore it is good to drink now and then. De ●…q. anim. (e) First show] Therefore was he called Dionysius, quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, giving wine. Pla●… 〈◊〉 Cratyl. Now Valerius Probus relate●… this story thus. 1. Georg. Staphylus a shepherd of 〈◊〉, and keeper of King Oeneus goats, observed one of them that stra●…ed always from the 〈◊〉, and was more lusty, and came later to the fold then any other, hereupon he watched him, and finding him in a secret place, eating of a fruit that was unknown unto him, he plucked 〈◊〉 of it, and brought it unto King Oeneus, who delighting in the juice wrung from it, as 〈◊〉 as it grew ripe, set it before father Liber, who was then his guest. Liber teaching him the 〈◊〉 how to husband it, for a perpetual▪ memory of the inventors, named the juice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Oeneus, and the grape 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of Staphylus. Eusebius meaneth one Dionysius the son of Deucalion, more ancient than that son of Semele, and he (saith Eusebius) came into Attica, and there found out the vine: that he lodged with one Semacus unto whose daughter he gave a Roe-bucks skin: but this was in Cecrops time. But Eubolus saith it was before Cecrops time that wine was found, and that before that, they used water in their sacrifices in stead of wine. (f) Plays dedicated to Apollo] Eusebius saith that Erichthon, Cecrops son built that Temple unto Apollo Delius: Apollo had many plays sacred unto him, but there were two sorts of the chief: the Actium, in Acarnania, sacred unto Apollo Actius, wherein the Lacedæmonians had Apollo's plays. the pre-eminence: and these were famous all Greece over: and the Delphike, in Phocis, called the Pythian games, kept every eight year. Censorin. Plutarch (in Question.) saith that the Delphians celebrated three kinds of plays every ninth year: the Stephateria, the Heroides, and their Chorilae. But who ordained these games at first, is uncertain. One of Pindarus his interpetours, saith that their Pythian games were of two sorts (as Strabo also testifieth.) the most ancient, invented by Apollo himself upon the kill of the dragon Python: and in these, divers Heroës, as Castor, Pollux, Peleus, Hercules and Telamonius were victors, and all crowned with laurel: the later, ordained by Amphycthions' counsel, after the Grecians by the help of Eurylochus the Thessalian, had conquered their cursed adversaries the Cirrhaeans: this was in Solon's time. Aeschylus maketh mention of this war. Contra Ctesiphont. (g) With Minerva She rather found out the tree then the fruit. Virg. Minerva, finder of the Olive tree; For Pliny lib. 7. ascribes the invention of oil, and oyle-presses, unto Aristeus of Athens, he that found honey out first: nay and wine also, saith Aristotle, making him a learned man, and much beholding to the Muses. Yet Diodorus derives the drawing of oil from one of Minerua●… inventions. But that the olive tree is consecrated to Minerva, all writers do affirm, as is the laurel to Apollo, the oak to jove, the myrtle to Venus, and the poplar to Hercules. Virg. Pliny saith that the olive that Minerva produced at Athens was to be seen in his time. lib. 16. And the conquerors at Athens are crowned with an olive Ghirland. And this use the Romans had in their lesser triumphs, using crowns of olive and myrtle, and the troops of soldiers in the Calends of july were crowned with olive branches, as the victors in the Olympic exercises were with garlands of the Olive: and the tree whence Hercules had his crown, remained unto Pliny's time, as himself writeth. (h) Xanthus,] I think this is that successor of Deucalion whom Diodorus calleth Asterius. lib. 5. Deucalion had Hellenus: Xanthus. he, Dorus; Dorus, Tectanus, who sailed into Crete, and bare jupiter three sons, Rhadamanthus, Minos, and Sarpedon: all which Asterius marrying their mother, having no child by her, adopted for his sons. Eusebius saith he begot them all upon her. But Strabo saith that Hellenus, Deucalion's son, had two sons Dorus, and Xuthus, who marrying Creusa, Erichtheus his daughter, brought colonies into Tetrapolis in Attica, founding Oenoa, Marathon, Probalinthus, and Tricorythus: joannes Grammaticus (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) is of his opinion also: adding one Aeolus, a third son of Hellenus, of whom the Aeolike dialect came, as the Doric did of Dorus, and this is more likely. For there are but four score years between Deucalion's flood, and the rape of Europa, namely from the thirtieth year of Cecrops unto the fortieth of Erichthonius. Some Greek authors will not have Dorus and Xuthus to be sons unto Hellenus, but unto Aeolus, who married Creusa. Of jon, son to this Panthus, was the country's name changed from Aegialia, into jonia: for he planted Colonies in twelve cities of Asia, as the oracle of Delphos directed him, according to Utrwius, who emploieth both Xanthus and his son, I●… in this business, yet did the country bear the sons name. The Athenians had a feast called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or, speedy help: because they being in a dangerous war with Eumolpus, Neptune's son, Xanthus came to their aid with wonderful celerity: for which Erichtheus made him his son in law. Now this Xanthus they think is Asterius also: for Xanthus, and Xuthus are used both for one: and hence came the claim that Androgeus, son to Minos, & grandchild to Xanthus, had against Aegeas, Theseus his father, unto the kingdom of Athens: and be being made away by the treasons of Aegeus, Minos invaded Attica, and brought them to that straight, that they were sane to pay him a yearly tribute of seven boys and seven virgin girls. Or●… nameth one Asterius, who went in the Argonauts voyage: but that was the brother of Am●…, not this Asterius. ay Europa] Agenor's daughter, stolen by Pirates from Sydon in Phoenicia, Europa. and brought into Crete in a ship called the White-Bull: and from her had this third part of our world, the name: if reports be true. Herodotus saith the Cretans did steal her to avenge the rape of Io, whom the Phaenicians had borne away before. Then Paris to revenge the Asians went and stole Helen, and so began the mischief. Palaephatus parvus declareth it thus. There was one Taurus, a Gnossian, who making war upon Tyria, took a many Virgins from them, and Europa for one: and hence came the fable. The greeks to make somewhat of the conjunction of jove and Europa, say that he begot Carnius on her, whom Apollo loved, and therefore in Lacedomon they had the feasts of Apollo Carnius, Praxil. (k) Rhadamanthus] The Cretan lawgiver, for his justice feigned to be judge of hell. Homer calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rhadamanthus. that is yellow, or fair Rhadamanthus, and I think he toucheth at his father herein: although he call other fair personages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also. Plato saith he was son to Asopus by Aegina, on whom jove begot Adacus, and gave her name unto an I'll in Greece. In Gorg. (l) Sarpedon] Sarpedon. H●…er will not have him the son of jove by Europa, but by Laodam●…ia, Bellerophon's daughter. He reigned in Cilicia, where there is apromontory of his name in the utmost part of his Kingdom. Mela, The common report is he was King of Lycia, and so holds Strabo. lib. 12. writing that Sarpedon brought two Colonies from Crete thither: where he dwelled, and where the son of Pandion Lycus reigned afterwards, leaving his name to it, which was called Myniae before, and Solymi afterwards, though Homer make two several peoples of them. Sarpedon was slain by Menelaus before Troy, to the great grief of jove, who could not control the destinies herein. (m) Minos] King of Crete, and their lawgiver also: This some say was Minos the younger, and son to jupiter. Diodor. l. 5. (n) Hercules in Tyria] Or in Syria. But indeed tire is in Minos. Syria, and all Phoenicia also. For Syria is an huge thing. Six Hercules doth T●…ly (as I said) reckon up. Eusebius makes Hercules surnamed Delphinas' who was so famous in Phoenicia, to live Hercules. in these times: but if it were the Hercules that burned himself on Oeta, it was the Argive, and we must read Tyrinthia in Augustine, and neither Tyria, nor Syria: Tyrinthia being a city near unto Argos wherein Hercules the Argive was brought up, & thereupon called the Tyrinthian●…●…e it was whom the Authors say did come into Italy and killed all the monsters. But he that came unto the Gades, was Hercules of Egypt, as Philostratus saith. l. 2. (o) Antaeus] Son unto Terra, he dwelled in Tingen in Mauritania, which was thereupon called Tingitana; lying over against Spain. His shield (saith Mela) is there to be seen, being cut out of the back of an Elephant & of such hugeness, as no man of earth is able to wield it: and this the inhabitants affirm with Antaeus. reverence, that he bore always in fight. There is also a little hill there, in form of a man lying with his face upward, that, say they, is his tomb, which when any part of it is dimished, it begins to rain, and never ceaseth until it be made up again. Eusebius driveth the overthrow of Ant●…s by Hercules, unto the former-times, of the first Hercules, who conquered him (as he ●…ith) in wrestling. Nor doth Virgil mention the conquest of Antaeus amongst the Argive Hercules labours: but Ovid, Claudian and others, lay all the exploits of the rest upon him only, that was son to jove & Alcmene. (p) Oeta] A mountain in Macedonia. Mela. The Otaean grove was the last ground that Argive Hercules ever touched, all the greek and latin books are filled Octa. with the story of his death: there is nothing more famous. (q) His own pains] Proceeding of a melancholy breaking into ulcers. Arist. (in probl. mentions his disease, as Politian hath obser●…ed in his Centuries. Festus saith he was a great Astronomer, and burned himself in the time of a great eclipse, to confirm their opinion of his divinity: for Atlas the Moor had taught him Astronomy, and he showing the greeks the sphere that he had given him, gave them occasi●… to feign that Hercules bore up heaven while Atlas rested his shoulders. (r) Busyris King of Egypt ●…e built Busyris and Nomos in an inhospitable and barren soil, and thence came the fa●… Busyris. of his killing his guests: for the herdsmen of those parts would rob & spoil the passengers, if they were to weak for them. Another reason of this fable was (saith Diod. li 2.) for that 〈◊〉 who slew his brother Osiris, being redheaded, for pacification of Osiris soul, an order was set down, that they should sacrifice nothing but red oxen and redheaded men, at his ●…be, so that Egypt having few of those red heads, and other countries many, thence came there a report that Busyris massacred strangers, where as it was Osiris tomb that was cause of 〈◊〉 cruelty. Busyris indeed (as Euseb. saith) was a thievish King: but Hercules killing him, set all Erichthonius. 〈◊〉 ●…d at rest. This assuredly was Hercules the Egyptian. (s) Erichthonius] Son to Vulcan and the earth. He conspired against Amphiction, and deposed him. Pausan. (t) But because they hold] jove having the pains of travel in his head, prayed Vulcan to take an axe and cleave it: he did so, and out start Minerva, armed, leaping and dancing. Her did Vulcan ask to wife, in regard of the midwifery that he had afforded jupiter in his need, as also for making Jove's thunderbolts, and fireworks used against the Giants: jove put it unto the Virgin's choice: and she denies to marry with any man. So Vulcan affring to force her, (by Jove's consent) in striving he cast out his sperm upon the ground, which Minerva shaming at, covered with earth: and hence was Erichthonius borne, having the lower parts of a snake, and therefore he invented Chariots, wherein he might ride, and his deformity be unseen. Virg. Georg. 3. Primus Erichthonius currus et quatuor ausus, jungere equos, rapidisque rotis insistere victor. First Erichthonius durst the Chariot frame, Four horses join, on swift wheels run for fame. Servius upon this tells the tale as we do. Higinius saith (Hist. celest. lib. 2.) that jove admiring Erichthonius his new invention, took him up to heaven, naming him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is wagoner: appointing him to be the driver of the 7. stars by the tropic of Cancer. But Erichthonius (saith he) invented wagons, and ordained sacrifices to Minerva, building her Vulcan's Temple. first Temple at Athens. (u) That in the Temple of] Above Ceramicus and Stoa (called Basileum) is a Temple of Vulcan wherein is a statue of Minerva: and this gave original to the fable of Erichthonius. Pausan. in Attic. There was one Minerva that by Vulcan had Apollo, him whom Athens calleth Patron. (x) A little child] Hence was he feigned to be footed like a serpent. Ovid tells a tale how Minerva gave a box unto Cecrops daughters to keep (in which Erichthonius was) and warned them not to look in it, which set them more on fire to know what it was, and so opening it, they saw a child in it, and a dragon lying with him. Metam. 2. Pandrosas one of the sisters would not consent to open it, but the other two did, and therefore being stricken with madness, they broke their necks down from the highest part of the tower. Pausanias. What fictions got footing in the nations, when the judges began first to rule Israel. CHAP. 13. IOsuah being dead, Israel came to be ruled by judges: and in those times, they prospered, or suffered, according to the goodness of God's mercies or the desert of their sins. And (a) now the fiction of Triptolemus was on foot, who by Ceres' appointment flew all over the world with a yoke of Dragons, and taught the use of corn: another fiction also (b) of the Minotaur, shut in (c) the labirynth, a place which none that entered, could ever get out of. Of the (d) Centaurs also, half men and half horses: of (e) Cerberus, the three-headed dog of hell. Of (f) Phrixus and Helle who flew away on the back of a Ram. Of (g) the Gorgon whose hairs were snakes, and who turned all that beheld her into stones. Of (h) Bellerophon, and his winged horse Pegasus: (ay) of Amphion, and his stone-mooving music on the harp. Of (k) Oedipus, and his answer to the monster Sphinxes' riddle, making her break her own neck from her stand. Of Antaeus, earthes-sonne killed by Hercules (in the air) for that he never smote him to the ground but he arose up as strong again as he was when he fell: and others more that I perhaps have omitted. Those fables, unto the Trojan war, where Varro ende●…h his second book De Gente Rom. were by men's inventions so drawn (l) from the truth of history that their gods were no way by them disgraced. But as for those that feigned that jupiter (m) stole Ganymede, that goodly boy for his lustful use a villainy done by Tantalus and ascribed unto jove,) or that he came down to lie with (n) Danae in a shower of gold (the woman being tempted by gold unto dishonesty): and all this being either done or devised in those times, or done by others, and sayned to be Jove's: it cannot be said how mischievous the presumption of those fable-forgers was, upon the hearts of all mankind, that they would bear with such ungodly slanders of their gods: which they did notwithstanding and gave them gracious acceptance, whereas had they truly honoured jupiter, they shou●…d severely have pnnished his slanderers. But now they are so ●…arre from checking them, that they fear their god's anger, if they do not nourish them, and present their fictions unto a populous audience. About this time Latona bore Apollo, not that oraculous God beforesaid: but he that kept the herds of King (o) Admetus with Hercules: yet was he afterwards held a God, and counted one and the same with the other. And then did (p) father Liber make war in India, leading a crew of women about with him in his army, called Bacchaes, being more famous The Bacchaes. for their madness then their virtue. Some write that this Liber (q) was conquered and imprisoned: some, that Perseus slew him in the field, mentioning his place of burial also: and yet were those damned sacrilegious sacrifices called the Bacchanals appointed by the unclean devils unto him, as unto a God. But the Senate of Rome at length (after long use of them) saw the barbarous filthiness of these sacrifices, and expelled them the city. And in this time (r) Perseus and his wife Andromeda being dead, were verily believed to be assumed into heaven, and there upon the world was neither ashamed (s) nor afraid to give their names unto two goodly constellations, and to form their Images therein. L. VIVES. THe fiction of (a) Triptolemus] His original is uncertain, ignoble, saith Ovid, his mother was Triptolemus. a poor woman, and he a sickly child: and Ceres lodging in his mother's house, bestowed his health of him. Lactantius making him son to Eleusius (King of Eleusis) and Hion●…, that Ceres bestowed immortality upon him, for lodging a night in his father's house: on the day she fed him in heaven with her milk, and on the night she hid him in fire. Celeus was his father, saith Servius: But Eusebius maketh him a stranger to Celeus, and landeth him at Eleusis, Cele●… his city out of a long ship. But the Athenians generally held him the son of Celeus, so did not the Argives, but of Trochilus Hieropanta who falling out with Agenor, & flying from Argos, came to Eleusis, there married, and there had Triptolemus, and Euboles. Some hold him (and so Musaeus did, some say) the son of Oceanus and Terra: that Eubolis and Triptolemus were Dysaulis sons, saith Orpheus. Chaerilus of Athens derives him from Rharus, and one of A●…hyctions daughters. Diodorus, from Hercules and Thesprote King Phileus his daughter. Now Ceres (they say) gave him corn, and sent him with a chariot (with two wheels only for swiftness sake, saith Higin.) drawn by a team of Dragons through the air, to go and ●…each the sowing of corn to the world: that he first sowed the field Rharius by Eleusis, and reaped an harvest of it: wherefore they gathered the muhrooms used in the sacred banquets, from that field: Triptolemus had his altar also, and his threshing place there. The pretended truth of this history agreeth with Eusebius: for it saith that Triptolemus was son to Elusus King of E●…s, who in a great dearth sustained the people's lives out of his own granary, which Tr●…mus upon the like occasion being not able to do, fearing the people's fury, he took along ship called the Dragon, and sailing thence, within a while returned again with abundance of corn, and expelling Celeus who had usurped in his absence, relieved the people with come, and taught them tillage. Hence was he termed Ceres his pupil. Some place Lyncus for C●…s. He (saith Ovid) was King of Scythia, & because he would have slain Ceres●…ed ●…ed him into the beast Lynx, which we call an Ounce. (b) The Minotaur] Minos of Crete The Minotaur. ●…ied Pasiphae the Sun's daughter, & he being absent in a war against Attica about his claim to the ●…ingdom, & the kill of his son Androgeus, she fell into a beastly desire of copulation with a Bull: and Daedalus the Carpenter framed a Cow of wood, wherein she being enclosed, bad her lust satisfied, and brought forth the Minotaur, a monster that eat man's flesh. This Venus was cause of. Seru. For the Sun bewraying the adultery of Mars and Venus, Vulcan came and took them both in a Wire net, and so shamefully presented them unto the view of all the gods. Here-upon Venus took a deadly malice against all the suns progeny: and thus came this Minotaur borne: but Servius saith he was no monster, but that there was a man either Secretary to Minos, or some governor of the Soldiers under him called Taurus, and that in Daedalus his house, Pasiphae and he made Minos' Cuckold, and she bringing forth two sons, one gotten by Minos, and the other by Taurus, was said to bring forth the Minotaur: as Virgil calleth it; Mistumque genus prolemque biformem. A apparel breed, and double formed-birth. Euripides held him half man and half bull: Plutarch saith he was General of Minos' forces, and either in a sea-fight or single combat, slain by Theseus, to Minos his good liking: for he was a cruel fellow, and the world reported him too inward with Pasiphae: and therefore after that Minos restored all the tribute-childrens unto Athens, and freed them from that imposition for ever. Palephratus writeth that Taurus was a goodly youth, and fellow to Minos, that Pasiphaë fell in love with him, and he begot a child upon her: which Minos afterwards understood, yet would not kill it when it was borne, because it was brother to his sons. The boy grew up, and the King hearing that he injured the Shepherds, sent to apprehend him: but he digged him a place in the ground, and therein defended himself. Then the King sent certain condemned Malefactors to fetch him out: but he having the advantage of the place, slew them all, and so ever after that the King used to send condemned wr●…ches thither, and he would qu●…ckly make them sure. So Minos sent Theseus thither unarmed (having taken him in the wars): but Ariadne watched as he entered the cave, and gave him a sword wherewith he slew this Minotaur. (c) The Labyrinth] A building so entangled in windings and circles, that it deceiveth all that come in it. Four such there were in the world: but in Egypt at Heracleopolis, near to the Lake Maeris, Herodotus saith that he saw it: no marvel for it The Labyrinth. was remaining in Plinyes and Diod. his time. These two, and Strabo and Mela do describe it, Mela saith Psameticus made it. Pliny reciteth many opinions of it, that it was the work of Petesucus, or else of Tithois, or else the palace of Motherudes, or a dedication unto the Sun, and that is the common belief. Daedalus made one in Crete like this: Diod. Plin. but it was not like Egypt's by an hundred parts: and yet most intricate. ovid. 8. Metamorph. Philothorus in Plutarch, thinketh that it was but a prison, out of which the enclosed thieves might not escape, and so thinketh Palaephatus. The third was in Lemnos, made by Zmilus, Rholus, and Theodorus builders. The ruins of it stood after those of Crete and Italy were utterly decayed and gone. Plyn. The fourth was in Italy, by Clusium: made for Porsenna King of Hetru●…a. Varro. (d) The Centaurs] Ixion, son to Phlegias the son of Mars, loving juno, and she telling jove of it, he made a cloud like her, on which cloud Ixion begot the Centaurs. Sure Ixion. it is, he was King of Thessaly, where horses were first backed. Plin. lib. 7. Bridle and saddle did Peletronius invent: and the Thessalians that dwelled by mount Pelion, were the first that fought on Horseback: Virgil goeth not far from this, saying. Georg. 3. Frena Pelethronii Lapithae girosqué dedêre, Impositi dorso, atque equitem docuerè sub armis, Insultare solo, & gressus glomerare superbos. First Pelethronian Lapiths gave the bit, And hotted rings, and taught armed horsemen sit: And bound, and proudly curvet as was fit. The same hath Lucan in his Pharsalia, lib. 6. Primus ab aequorea percussis cuspide saxis, Thessalicus sonipes, hellis ferallibus omen Exiluit, primus Chalybem frenosque momordit, Spum avit que novis Lapithae domitoris habenis. Since Neptune with sea trident struck the rocks, First the I hessalian horse with deadly shocks: A dismal sign, came forth, he first bit bruised, And fom'de, at Lapith rider's reins unused. servius explaining this place of Virgil: saith thus. The Oxen of a certain King of Thessaly gadding madly about the fields, he sent his men to fetch them in: but they being not swift enough for them, got upon horses, and so riding swiftly after the Oxen, pricked and whipped them home to their stables. Now some seeing them in their swift course or when they let their horses drink The Centaurs. at the river Peneus, began this fable of the Centaurs: giving them that name, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of pricking the Oxen. Some say this fable was invented to show how swiftly man's life passeth on, (because of the swiftness of an horse.) Thus far Servius. Palaephatus hath it thus. When the wild Bulls troubled all Larissa and Thessaly, Ixion proclaimed a great reward to those that could drive them thence. So the youths of Nephele got upon the horses they had broken, (for they had wagons in use before) and so drove them away very easily: and having received their reward, they grew proud, injuring both Ixion himself and the Larissaeans (then called Lapithes) for being invited to Pirrhas' his marriage, they fell to ravishing of the virgins. Thus began the fable of the Centaurs, and their horselike bodies, and of their birth from a cloud: for Nephele (their city's name) is, a cloud. These Centaurs also were Lapithes, for Nephele was in the Lapiths country, and they are distinct as the romans and the Latins were. (e) Cerberus] begotten Cerberus. by Typhon, he made an hideous noise when he barked, having fifty necks. Hesiod. in Theogon. Thus Seneca describeth him in his Hercules furens. Post haec avari Dit is apparet domus, Saews hic umbras territat Stygius canis, Qui terna vasto capita concutiens sono Regnum tuetur, sordidum tabo caput Lambunt colubri, viperis horrent iubae, Longusque torta sibilat cauda draco, Par ira formae, sensit ut motus pedum, Attollit hirtas angue vibrato comas, Missumque captat aure subiecta sonum, Sentire & umbras solitus.— The haul of greedy hell comes next to sight: Here the fierce Stygian Dog doth souls affright, Who shaking his three heads with hideous sound, Doth guard the state; his mattering head around Snakes lick: his mane with vipers horrid is: At his wreathd tail a Dragon large doth hiss. Fury, and form, like: when our feet he heard, Darting a snake, his bristled hairs he reared, And listened at the noise with lolled ear, As he is wont e'en shady souls to hear. Boccace and others compare him to a covetous man: (and Boccace wrote nothing so vainly, as the rest of that age did.) Porphyry saith, that the badge of Serapis and Isis, (that is Dis and Proserpina) was a three-headed dog: viz. that triple kind of devil that haunts the air, the earth, and the water. De interpr, diuin. He was called three-headed (saith he) because the sun hath three noted postures, the point of his rising, height, and setting, This Cerberus, Hercules (they say) did trail from hell up to earth: and that is now a proverb in all hard attempts. Some say he drew him out under mount Taenarus (Strab. Senec.) & this is the common belief. for there (say they) lieth the readiest and largest way down unto hell. It is thought that Hercules killed some venomous serpent there, & that thence the fable had original. Of those parts we read this in Mela. The Mariandines dwell there in a city that by report, was given them by the Argive Hercules, it is called Heraclea: the proof of this is, because hard by it is the hole called Achereusia, whence Hercules is thought to have haled Cerberus. Pliny followeth Mela. l. 27. The Herb Aconitum grew (say they) from the froth that fell from Cerberus his lips when Aconitum. he was trailed along by Hercules: & therefore it groweth about Heraclea, whence the hole is at which he came up. Ovid assigneth no set place for the growth, but only Pontus at large where C●… was first seen, to cast his froth upon the cliffs: for it is called Aconitum of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a nag or flint: and he is called Cerberus, quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a devourer of flesh. A●…deus the Mollosian King had a dog of this name, for he being called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is Orcus, named his wife Ceres, his daughter Proserpina, and his dog Cerberus. Some say he stole his wife and called her Proserpina: but on with Plutarch's tale. Theseus and Pirithous coming to steal his daughter, he took the●…, and cast Pirithous unto his dog Cerberus, and kept Theseus in strait prison. Here-upon came the fable of their going into Hell to bring away Proserpina. For the country of Molossus in Epyrus, lying West from Attica and Thessaly, was always signified by the name of Hell. Homer. Palaephatus tells this tale in this manner. Hercules having conquered Geryon in Tricarenia, a city of Pontus, and driving away all his herds, there was a very fierce Mastiff that followed the Oxen: they called him Cerberus: so when they came into Peloponnesus, Molossus, a rich Nobleman of Mycenae begged the dog: but Euristheus denying him, he agreed with the shepherd to shut him into the cave of mount Taenarus, with a sort of bitches that he had put in there. So Euristheus set Hercules to seek the dog, and he found him in Taenarus, and brought him away, and this is the ground of the fable. (f) Phryxus and Helle] Phryxus & Helle. Brother and sister, the children of Athamas son to Aeolus, a man of Nephele: who becoming mad, and running into the desers, Athamas married Ino Cadmus his daughter: who hating Phryxus and Helle, made means by the matrons to spoil all the fruits of the city: the cause where of they should go and inquire of the Oracle, and return this false answer, that the children of Nephele must be sacrificed. But juno pitying them, sent them a golden fleeced Ram, to ride over the sea upon. Helle being a young virgin, and not able to guide herself, sell into the sea, that runs between Asia & Europe, thereupon named Hellespont (her did Neptune lie with, and she bore him Paeon.) Phryxus passed over Bosphorus, Propontis, etc. and at last landed at Colchos, where he sacrificed the Ram unto jove, and the fleece unto Mars, building him a temple. Apollonius saith he built Mars no temple, but only one unto jupiter fugius, the flightguider, (yet some Greek authors say that Deucalion erected the statue of this deity, presently upon the deluge.) The Ram was bred at Orchomenon in Boeotia, some say in Thessaly: he was taken to heaven, & made the first sign in the Zodiac. Now that is obscure (saith Eratosthenes) for when he was to ascend, he put off his golden fleece himself, & gave it unto Phryxus. There was an Oracle (saith Diod. li. 5.) told Aeetas King of Pontus, that the Ram should die as soon as a strange ship came to take away this fleece of the Ram: whereupon he cruelly massacred all strangers, to make them fear to come thither, and walled the temple about with a triple wall, keeping a continual guard of Taurians about it, of whom the greeks told an hundred lies: that they were Bulls that breathed fire, and that a great dragon watched the ●…leece, etc. But they were called Bulls, of their country name Taurica, and because they were so cruel, were said to breath fir●…. And the keeper's name of the temple being Draco, hence fetched the Poets all their fixions. So feigned they also of Phryxus, who indeed sailed away in a ship called the Golden Ram, and Helle being sea-sick, and leaning over the poo●…e, fell into the sea. Others say, that Gambrus the King of Scythia landed at Colchos the time that Phryxus and his master was taken and that the King liking the youth well, Aeetas gave him to him, & he brought him up as the heir of his kingdom, and left him it at his death: but for his master Aries, (for that was his name) he was sacrificed to the gods, and his skin hung up in the temple, as the custom was. And then the oracle telling Aeetas that he should die when strangers came to demand the Ram's skin, he to make the keepers more careful over it, guilded it over: thus far Siculus. Some refer this to the river of Colchos, in whose channels there is gold found, which they purge from the sand through sives, and receive it into skins which they lay under their sives. Some refer it to the great abundance of gold and silver in that country, as Pliny doth in these words. Now had Salauces and Esubopes reigned in Colchos, who finding the land in the original purity, digged out much gold and silver in the Sanian territories: This as Strabo saith, first made Phryxus, and then jason, to under-take an expedition against it: both which, left some memories of their being there: jason, the City jasonia; and Phryxus, Phryxium; and both of them matched with Aeetas daughters, jason with Medea, and Phryxus with Chalciope: by whom he had Cytissorus, Mela●…a, Phontis and Argus, of whom (saith Pherecides) their ship was called Argo. But Euseb. will have Phryxus, Abas the Argive, and Erichtheus of Athens, all of one time. Some writers affirm (saith he) that Phryxus at this time fled with his sister Helle from his stepmothers treacheries, and was seen go over the sea upon a golden Ram: the ship wherein he sailed bearing a guilt Ram upon her stem. Palaephatus delivers it thus. Athamas, Aeolus his son reigning in Phrygia, had a steward called Aries whom he much trusted. This Aries told Phryxus how his death was plotted: so Phryxus his sister Helle and this Aries, got a great mass of riches together, and away they went. Helle died at sea: and so they cast her body overboard, which gave the name of Hellespont unto the sea; the rest got to Colchos. Phryxus married Hellespont. King A●…tas daughter, and gave him an Image of a Ram, all of pure gold: which he ●…de of the riches that he brought with him. (g) The Gorgon.] There were said to be three Gorgon's, Steno, Euriale and Medusa, daughters to Phorcus, and sea monsters. Hesiod saith that Gorgon's. of these three Medusa only was mortal, In Theog. Ovid hath but two in all. Met. 4. and both these had but one eye between them, which they used by course. Over against the West of Ethiopia, are islands that Mela calleth Gorgones, making them the habitation of these monsters. And Lucan agreeth with him Phars. 9 Over against Hesperoceras a promontory of Egypt their are islands (saith Pliny) which the Gorgon whilom inhabited; some two days sail Lib. 6. from the main: Hanno of Carthage came to them, & took two of the women, all rough & hairy: the men were too swift for them, but these he got: & their skins hung up for a monument in junos' temple, a long time after, at Carthage. Some took these Gorgon's for the Hesperides, but the Hesperideses Isles, saith Statius Sebosus lie forty days sail farther than the Gorgon's. Diodorus saith that the Gorgon's were a warlike nation of women in Lybia, whom Perseus overthrew, with their leader Medusa. lib. 4. This Medusa the fables say that Neptune lay withal in Minerua's Temple, whereat Minerva Medusa. being angry turned her hairs into snakes, and made them all that beheld her, become stones: Perseus being armed with Minerua's shield encountered her, and she beholding herself in the bright shield as in a glass grew into an heavy sleep, and became a stone, but Perseus presently cut of her head, and the drops of blood that fell from it filled Lybia full of serpent's 〈◊〉 since: and those that fell upon the twigs of shrubs, turned them into coral: and from thence (saith Ovid and Hesiod) came Pegasus that winged horse: but others say, from the copulation of Neptune and Medusa. Higinus saith that Perseus overcame the Gorgon's thus: Having but one eye between them, he watched the time that the one took it out to give the other, and then he suddenly came and snatched it away, and threw it into the lake 〈◊〉, and so having blinded them he easily foiled them both. jupiter being to fight against the 〈◊〉 was told that he must wear the Gorgon's head if he would be victor: whereupon he 〈◊〉 it with a goat's skin, and so bore it to the field: Pallas afterwards got it of him. Euhe●…●…th ●…th that Pallas slew the Gorgon. In sacr. Hist. 'tis commonly held that this Medusa 〈◊〉 wonderful fair, and amazed all that beheld her beauty, and thence was it said she made them stones. The Gorgon's came to the field armed in the skins of mighty serpents. Diod, perhaps they will put some of this fixion upon the Catoblepae, for they live over against the Isles Gorgones, in that part of the main. Mela. Pliny. They are no great beasts, but they are the devil for dangerous; slow of body, with great heads hanging always down to the ground: and hurt not with any member but their eyes. No more doth the basilisk against which Basilisk. 〈◊〉 go armed with glasses in their shields and breastplates, that the serpent may see himself. Palaphatus tells along tale of these things and this it is. Phorcys was an Ethiopian of Cyrene, which is an Island without the straight of Hercules, and the inhabitants till the ground of Lybia as far as the river Amona near to Carthage, and are very rich in gold. So Phorcis erected a 〈◊〉 unto Minerva, of three cubits height: but died ere he could dedicate it. (This goddess now they call Gorgon.) So he left three daughters behind him Stheno, Euriale, and Medusa: who would none of them marry, but shared their father's estate equally: each one had her Island, but for that statue, they neither consecrated it nor divided it but kept it in the treasury, and possessed it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by course. Now Phorcys had one faithful friend about him whom he used as if it had 〈◊〉 his eye. Now Perseus being fled from Argos, and turned pirate, hearing that those islands were full of gold and empty of men, lurked secretly between Sardinia and Corsica, and watching 〈◊〉 faithful messenger whom the sisters used still to send from one to another, took him in a mes●…, 〈◊〉 learned of him that there was nothing for him to take, but Minerva's statue. So the Vir●…●…dring what was become of their servant, their eye, Perseus landed, and showed them that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and would not restore him, nay further, would kill them, unless they showed him the 〈◊〉 ●…tue, Medusa would not, and so was slain, the other two did, and had their eyes again●…▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set Medusa's head upon the prow of his Galley, naming her the Gorgon, and then rob●… 〈◊〉, spoiled all the Islanders of their wealth, killing, and plaguing those that would give him nothing, and d●…ding m●…ny of the Striphians, they forsook the city which he entering found nothing but a many stone statues in the Market place. See (quoth Persius) how my Gorgon turns men into st●…, I would she did not so with ourselves. Thus far Palaephatus: who is far mistaken in the places. I think those islands the Syrteses, for they do accord better with Cyrene, Sardinia and Corsica. But there may be some error in his copies. (h) Bellerophon. Son to Bellerephon Glaucus: Sisyphus his son: king of Ephyra (afterwards Corinth) until Praetus the Argive King deprived him and made him serve him. Now Antia, Praetus his wife, tempted him to lie with her, which refusing, she slandered him unto her husband of attepmting it. So he sent him to Ariobatus, Antias father with a letter advising him to protect his daughter's chastity by killing▪ Bellerophon. Ariobatus, sent him against the chimera which he with the help of the winged horse Pegasus over-came (ay) Now this chimera (saith Hesiod) was a Lion in his chimera. foreparts▪ a Dragon in the midst, and a Goat behind; which hinder parts gave name to the whole monster, Homer maketh it the middle part a goat. Typhon they said begot it upon 〈◊〉, it brea●…d fire: Uirg. Aen. 6 upon which place Servius saith that indeed it was a mountain in Ly●… whose top cast forth flames: and that about the height of it there were Lions: that the middle parts were good pasture grounds, and that the foot of it swarmed with serpents: & this Bellerophon made habitable. Pegasus the horse, had as Ovid saith, Caelum pro terra pro pede Pegasus. penna heaven for earth, and wings for hooves. Apul●…ius saith that it was his fear made him famous, leaping about the chimera for fear of hurt, as if he had flown. Asini. lib. 8. From this horse, the two chief fountains of the Muses in Greece had their names. Thus writeth Solinus of them. By Thebes is the wood Helicon, the grove Cithaeron, the river Ismenius, and fountains, Arethusa, Oedipodia, Psammate, Derce, and chiefly Aganippe and Hippocrene, both which Cadmus, the first inventor of letters, finding as he road abroad gave the Poet's occasion to saigne that they both sprung from the dints of the winged horses heels, and both being drunk of, inspired the wit with vigour and learning. Thus he▪ Now Bellerophen riding up towards heaven, and looking down, grew brainsick, and down he fell, but Pegasus, kept on his course, and was stabled amongst the stars. Palaephatus saith Bellerophon was a Phrygian, of the blood of Corinth, and was a cover in the straits of Asia and Europe, having a long ship called Pegasus. In Phrygia is Mount Telmisus, and chimera adjoining to it: near that was a cave that vented fire: and upon Mount chimera, were dragons, Lions▪ etc. that did the husbandmen much hurt. The whole mountain did Bellerophon set on fire, and so the wild-beasts were all burnt. (k) Of Amphion.] Brother to Zetus and Calais, Jove's sons by 〈◊〉. A●…tiope: for which Lynceus her husband, King of Thebes, refused her. The children being come to age revenged their mother's disgrace, slew Lynceus, and Dyrce his wife, and chase out old Cadmus, possessed Thebes themselves. Amphion they say drew the stones after his music and so built the walls of Thebes, the stones dancing themselves into order. Horac. de. Arie poet. Dictus et Amphion Thebanae conditor arcis, S●…a movere sono testudinis, et prece blanda, — Ducere quo vellet. Amphion builder of the Theban city, With ●…ound of harp and sweet enticing ditty, To move the stones is said, and where he would them lead. Pliny saith he invented Music. lib. 7. Some say the Harp also: and some say that Mercury gave him the Harp. He was author of the Lydian tones. Ualerius probus upon Uirgills' 〈◊〉, saith that Euripides, and Pacwius say that Zetus & Amphion could gather their flocks together with their pipes. Witness Thebes which they walled about as Apollonius writeth. I●… Arg●…. But Zetus b●…re the stones to their places, Amphion only piped, or harped them together. Eusebi●…s maketh them both the inventors of Music. evang. praep. Pa●…yasis, and Alexander say that Mercury gave Amphion the Harp for freeing of Cynara. Thus far Pro●…. Amphion built Thebes, (saith Solinus.) not that his Harp fetched the stones thither, for that i●… not likely, but he brought the mountaineers, and hyland-men unto civility, and to help 〈◊〉 that work. This is 〈◊〉 which Horace saith: Dictus ●…t Amphion Thebanae conditor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ etc. It may be that his song or his eloquence obtained stones for the work, of 〈◊〉 ●…ghbours. Palaephatus saith he paid them for the stones with his Music, having no 〈◊〉. But Eusebius maketh him and Zetus to live both together in two several ages, unless 〈◊〉 ●…iber have falsified him. For first they lived under Lynceus his reign, and then in 〈◊〉 his time afterwards. Niobe (about whose children the writers hold that famous contro●…) was Amphion's wife. (〈◊〉) Daedalus] An Attic (saith Diod. lib. 5.) son to Eupalamus, who was grandchild to Daedalus. 〈◊〉▪ he was a rare statuary, and an excellent Architect, framing statues that seemed 〈◊〉 ●…th, and to go, his wit was so admirable. He taught it to Talus his nephew, who 〈◊〉 ●…ut young▪ invented the Wimble and Saw, which Daedalus grieving at, that the glory 〈◊〉 Art should be shared by another, slew the youth, and being therefore condemned he 〈◊〉 Minos in Crete, who entertained him kindly: and there he built the Labyrinth. 〈◊〉. Now Servius Aenead. 6. saith, that he and his son Icarus being shut in the 〈◊〉, he deceived his keepers by persuading them he would make an excellent work 〈◊〉 King, and so made him and his son wings, and flew away both. But Icarus flying 〈◊〉, the sun melted his waxen joints, and so he fell into the sea that beareth his 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 lighted at Sardinia, and from thence (as Sallust saith) he flew to Cumae, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a temple to Apollo. Thus Servius. Diod. and others say, he never came in Sardi●… 〈◊〉 into Sicilia, whether Minos pursued him, Cocalus reigning then in Camarina, who 〈◊〉 ●…our of a long discourse with him in his bathe, held him there until he had choked 〈◊〉 ●…le saith, that Crotalus his daughters killed him: but he interpreteth a ship and In Poli●…. 〈◊〉 ●…ee his wings, whose speed seemed as if he flew away. Diodorus reckoneth many 〈◊〉 in Sicilia, Cocalus entertaining him with all courtesy, because of his excellent 〈◊〉, and that it was a Proverb to call any delicate building, a Daedalean work. 〈◊〉. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Under his feet a footstool was, which in Daedalean work did pass. 〈◊〉 calleth the honey combs, Daedalean houses. Geo. 4. and Circe he calleth Daeda●… (in Polit.) saith that the statues he made would go by themselves. I and run 〈◊〉 Plato in Memnone) Unless they were bound. He that had them lose had fu●…●…ts of them. He made a statue of Venus that moved through quicksilver that 〈◊〉 Arist. 1. de Anima. Palaephatus refers all this to the distinction of the feet▪ all sta●…●…ore him making them alike, He learned his skill in Egypt, but he soon was his 〈◊〉 ●…tter. For he alone made more statues in Greece then were in all Egypt: At Mem●… Vulcan's porch, so memorable a work of his, that he had a statue mounted on it, 〈◊〉 honours given him, for the Memphians long after that, had the temple of Daedalus 〈◊〉 ●…nour: which stood in an I'll near Memphis. But I wonder which Cumae the wri●…, when they say he flew to Cumae: whether the Italian or the Ionian, whence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 descended. Most hold of the Italian. For thence he flew into Sicilia, and of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…nd Iwenall mean. Iwenall where he saith, how Vmbritius went to Cumae, and 〈◊〉 Aeneas conferreth with Sibylla of Cumae. But the doubt is, because the Icarian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drowned sons name) is not between Crete and Italy, but between Crete 〈◊〉 ●…re unto Icarus, one of the Sporades islands, of which the sea (saith Varro) is 〈◊〉 and the I'll beareth Icarus his name, who was drowned there in a shipwreck, 〈◊〉 name to the place. Ovid describeth how they flew in their course in these 〈◊〉▪ — Et iam Iunonia lava part Samos fuerat, Delosque parosque relictae: Dextra Lebynthos erat, faecundaque melle Calydna. Now Paros, Delos, Samos, juno's land, On the left hand were left: on the right hand Lebynth, and hony-full Calydna stand. ●…ee ●…ew an unknown way to the North. But the Ionian Cumae, and not the Ita●…●…th from Crete. But Servius saith, that if you observe the word, he flew to●…●…th: but if you mark the history, he flew by the North. So that the fable hath added somewhat besides the truth: unless it were some other Icarus, or some other cause of this seas name, who can affirm certainly in a thing of such antiquity. (l) Oedipus.] Oedipus. Laius, Grandchild to Agenor and son to Labdacus, King of Thebes in Boetia, married jocasta Creon's daughter: who seeming barren, and Layus being very desirous of children, went to the oracle which told him he need not be so forward for children, for his own son should kill him. Soon after jocasta conceived, and had a son: the father made holes to be bored through the feet and so cast it out in the woods: but they that had the charge, gave it to a poor woman called Polybia, and she brought it up in Tenea, a town in the Corinthian teritory. It grew up to the state and strength of a man, and being hardy and high minded he went to the Oracle to know who was his father, for he knew he was an outcast child. Layus by chance came then from the Oracle, and these two meeting near Phoris, neither would give the way: so they fell to words and thence to blows, where Laius was slain or as some say, it was in a tumult in Phocis, Oedipus and he taking several parts. Iocast●… was now widow, and unto her came the Sphynx with a riddle for all her wooers to dissolve: he that could, should have jocasta and the Kingdom; he that could not, must die the death. Her riddle was: what creature is that goeth in the morning on four feet, at noon on two and at night on three? This cost many a life, at last came Oedipus and declared it: so married his A riddle. mother, and became King of Thebes. The Sphynx broke her neck from a cliff, Oedipus having children by his mother, at last knew whom he had married, and whom he had slain: whereupon he pulled out his own eyes: and his sons went to gether by the ears for the Kingdom. Thus much out of Diod. Strabo, Sophocles and Seneca: for it is written in tragedies. He was called Oedipus quasi, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, swollen feet. The Sphynx (saith Hesiod) was begot between Typhon and the chimera. Ausonius (I●… Gryphiis.) makes her of a triple ●…ynx. shape, woman-faced, griffin-winged, and Lyon-footed. His words be these. Illa etiam thalamos per trina aenigmata querens, Qui bipes, ●…t quadrupes foret, ●…t tr●…pes omnia solus, Terruit Aoniam volucris, ●…o, virgo triformis, Sphinx volucris pennis, pedibus fera, front pulla. A marriage she seeking by riddles three, What one might two, three, and four-footed be, Three-shaped bird, beast, made, she Greece distressed,, Sphinx maid-faced, fetherd-foule, four-footed beast. But indeed this Sphynx was a bloody minded woman. All this now fell out (saith Eusebius) In Pandions' time, the Argives, and in the Argonauts time. Palaephatus saith that Cad●…s having put away his wife Harmonia, she took the mountain Sphynx in Boeotia, and from that roost did the Boeotians much mischief. (Now the Boeotians called treacheries Aenig●…, riddles.) Oedipus of Corinth over-came her, and slew her, (l) From the truth of.] For of nothing is nothing invented, saith Lactant and Palaephatus. (m) Ganymed.] Tantalus stole 〈◊〉. him and gave him to jove, he was a goodly youth: and son to Tros King of Troy. Io●… made him his cupbearer, and turned him into the sign Aquary. Tros warred upon Tantalus for this, as Ph●…cles the Poet writeth. Euseb. and Oros. say that he was stolen from 〈◊〉, which took the name from that fact: it was a place near the city Parium in Phrygia. Stephan. (n) Danae.] Of her elsewhere. She was Acrisius his daughter: who shut her and his 〈◊〉 son Preseus in a chest, and cast them into the sea, they drove to Apulia, where Danae was married unto Pilumnus, and bore him Da●…nus, of whom Apulia was called Daunia, (o) Admetus.] The Hell-gods complaining to jove that Asculapius diminished their kingdom in reviving dead men, he killed him with a thunderbolt, at which his father Apollo being mad, shot all the Cyclops (Jove's thunder-makers (to death, which jove greatly 〈◊〉 would have thrust Apollo out of Heaven: but at Latona's entreaty, he only bound hi●… year prenti●… unto a mortal. So he came into Thessaly and there was herdsman unto King Admetus, and therefore was he called Nonius, or Pastoral. Orph. Flacc. in Argonaut. D●… 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 Higi●…s saith he killed no●…▪ all the Cyclops but only Steropes. Admetus' sailed with the Ar●…tes: Apollo loved him well, and kept his herds because he lay with his daughter. Lact●…. 〈◊〉 ●…ee that Apollo that gave the Arcadians their laws, who called him Nomius. 〈◊〉 ●…weth the contrary? (p) Father Liber] As Diodorus, Strabo, Pliny, Philostratus, 〈◊〉 ●…oets almost do record▪ Diodor. and Philost. give this reason of that fable of his 〈◊〉 ●…e in Jove's thigh. His army was sore infected with maladies in India, and he lead 〈◊〉 to an higher and more wholesome air, where he recovered them all, and this 〈◊〉 ●…dians called Femur (a thigh:) and so grew the fable. (q) Was conquered] Some (〈◊〉) in these times (to wit when Pandion removed the seat of the Argive 〈◊〉 ●…o My●…s) record the deeds of Liber Pater, the Indians, Actaeon and 〈◊〉, and that Persus over-came Liber, and slew him as Dinarc●…s▪ the Poet 〈◊〉 that will not believe him, let him view the tomb of Liber at Delphos, near 〈◊〉 statue of Apollo. He is painted in an ●…ffiminate shape, for he lead women to 〈◊〉 as well as men, as Philocerus saith, liber. 2. Thus far Contra●…th ●…th that the Tytans pulled him in pieces, and began to roost and boil his 〈◊〉▪ but Pallas got them away, and Apollo by Jove's command buried them on 〈◊〉▪ ●…as and] Son to jove and Danaë: of him had Persia the name, for he warred 〈◊〉 admirable good fortune. Oros. so hold the greeks as Xenophon Atticus for Perseaus. 〈◊〉 was daughter to Caephus, Phoenix his son, and Cassiopeia. She 〈◊〉 bound Andromeda. ●…ke, by the command of Apollo's Oracle, for a Sea-monster to devour, and her pa●…●…ding and weeping over her: Perseus coming from the Gorgon's wars, hearing ●…gs stood▪ bargained with them that he should marry the Virgin, and so slew 〈◊〉 by presenting the Gorgon's head unto it. All of them were afterwards placed in 〈◊〉 ●…eus hath nineteen stars at the back of Vrsa Minor, and the circle Arctike 〈◊〉 in the breast, no part of his constellation ever setteth, but his shoulders: Cassio●… in a chair, and hath thirteen stars, and the milken circle divides her in the 〈◊〉 ●…he heavens motions turns her heels upwards (saith Higinus) because she 〈◊〉 was fairer than the Nereids. Andromeda was deified by Minerva, for prefer●…●…and before her country and friend: she is next Cassiopeia, and hath twenty 〈◊〉 constellation: her head is under Pegasus his belly, and the Tropic of Cancer 〈◊〉 her breast and her left arm. Perseus hath seventeen stars: his right hand 〈◊〉 ●…e circle Arctike, and his foot stands upon Arcturus his head. Of these, read julius 〈◊〉 Aratus Solensis. joppa in Syria (saith Mela. lib. 1.) was built before the deluge, 〈◊〉 inhabitants say Cepheus reigned, where they do keep diverse old altars of his 〈◊〉 ●…her P●…ineus with great reverence, as also the huge bones of the sea monster 〈◊〉 slew. Hierom. Marcus Scaurus (saith Pliny lib. 9 in his Edileship amongst 〈◊〉 sights, showed the bones of the monster that should have devoured Andro●…●…ing ●…ing forty foot more in length, than the longest Elephants rib of India, and La●…rence Valla in an error. 〈◊〉 thicker in the back bone. This he brought from joppes, a town in judaea. 〈◊〉 writers say that joppes is in judaea, and therefore I wonder that Laurence Ualla 〈◊〉 of this opinion: for he taxeth Jerome of Ignorance for placing of it in India: 〈◊〉 had Pliny and Mela on his side, of better credit in Geographie then ovid. 〈◊〉 ●…ose verses are not much to the purpose: for the first of the swarthy brown, 〈◊〉 of Aethiopia or Egypt: and in the later, Ualla himself mistaketh the sto●… came out of Mauritania to judaea and Egypt, along the coast of Africa. 〈◊〉 he Andromeda, and from thence he went to Euphrates, and to that coun●… greeks call Persia after him, from thence into India, and then home to Argos 〈◊〉 (s) Nor afraid] Fearing not to blast heaven with such impious and fabu●…. Of the Theological Poets. CHAP. 14. 〈◊〉 ●…hat time lived Poets, who were called Theologians, versifying of 〈◊〉 men-made gods: or of the world's elements (the true GOD'S ●…kes) or the principalities and powers, (whom GOD'S will and not their merit, had so advanced) of these as of Gods did they make their 〈◊〉▪ If their fables contained any thing that concerned the true God it was ●…o laid in hugger mugger with the rest, that he was neither to be discer●… from their false gods thereby, nor could they take that direction to give him the whole, his only due, but must needs worship the creatures as Gods, with God the creator, and yet could not abstain from disgracing the same their gods with obs●…●…bles. Such was Orpheus (a) Museus, and Linus. But those were only the gods servants, not made gods themselves. Though Orpheus, I know not by what means, hath gotten the (b) ruling of the infernal sacrifices▪ or rather sacrileges in the city of the Devil. The (c) wife of 〈◊〉 also, ●…no, cast herself headlong into the sea with her child Mel●…rtes, and yet were reputed gods: as others of those times were also, as (d) Castor and Pollux. Ino, was called by the greeks L●…ucothea, and by the latins Mat●…, and held a goddess by both parts. L. VIVES. Orpheus' (a) Musaeus, and Li●…s.] They lived all together a little before the wars of Troy. Orpheus was a Thracian and son to O●…ager, or as some say, to Apollo and Calliope, Orpheus. but that was afiction, derived from his delicate vain. Artapanus saith he learned Moses' law of a master in Egypt, Diod, saith he brought the bacchanalia from Egypt into Greece, and taught the Thebans them, because they used him courteously. Beasts and stones did follow his music, by report, and his ●…armony persuaded the very destinies to return hi●… his Eurydice. Thus the Poet's fable. The Bacchaes slew him: wherefore, no man knoweth: some say because he had seen the sacrifices of Liber: others because in his praises of the gods, being in hell, he left Liber out. Others, because he judged that Calliope should lie with Adonis one half year, and Venus another; and rudged not all for Venus: therefore the women fell upon him and killed him. He was torn in pieces (saith Higin▪ lib. 2.) and 〈◊〉 harp placed in Heaven, with the belly towards the circle Arctic. Aristotle saith there was no▪ such man. Others say he was of Crotone, and ●…d in Pysi●…tratus his time, the Tyrant of Athens. Author Argonautic. Linus was son to Mercury and Urania: Hermod●…. Apollo's son, saith Virgil. He first invented music in Greece. Diod. He taught Hercules 〈◊〉. on the Harp: who being du●…le and thereupon often chiden, and sometimes stricken by Linus, one time up with his harp and knocked out his masters brains. Some say he was slain with one of Apollo's shafts. Suidas reckoneth three Musaei. One borne at Eleusis: son 〈◊〉. to Antiphe●…s and scholar to Orpheus, he wrote ethi●…e verses unto Eumolpus. Another a Theban, son to Thamyras. He wrote hymns, and odes, before the wars of Troy. A third far latter, An Ephesian, in the time of Eumenes and Attalus, Kings: he wrote the ●…faires of the Trojans. It is commonly held that he that was Orpheus' scholar was son to 〈◊〉. L●…s saith he wrote the genealogyes of the Athenian gods: invented the sphere▪ and held one original of all things, unto which they all returned. He died at Phal●… in Attica▪ as his epitaph mentioneth, they say he was Master of the Eleusine ceremonies when Hercules was admitted to them. Some (as I said before) held that the greeks called Moses, 〈◊〉▪ unless Eusebius be herein corrupted (b) Ruling of the infernal.] Because held to go into hell and return safe: and to mollify the destinies and make the furies weep. O●… M●…▪ 10. This proved him powerful in Hell▪ (c) The wife.] She seeing her husband love an Actolian maid she had, called Antiphera, fell in love herself with her son 〈◊〉. And therefore no servant may come in her temple. The crier of the sacrifices used to cry: A way 〈◊〉, and A●…lians, man and woman. 〈◊〉. At Rome the Matrons led one maid servant only into Mat●…tas Temple, and 〈◊〉 they be●… 〈◊〉. P●…▪ Prob. In●… and Melicerta being drowned, had their names changed▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek and Matuta in Latin: Melicerte●… to Palaemon in Greek, and Por●…●…n ●…n Latin: quasi Deus portuum, the God of havens. His temple was on the whar●…e of Portumn●…s. 〈◊〉 his feasts called Portumalia. Varro. In honour of him the Corinthians ordained the 〈◊〉 games. Pausan. (d) Castor and Pollux] jupiter in the shape of a Swan, commanding 〈◊〉 ●…o pursue him in the shape of an Eagle▪ flew into Leda's lap, who took him, and kept 〈◊〉 she being a sleep, he got her with egg, of which came Castor, Pollux, and Helena, Castor and Pollux. 〈◊〉 she laid two eggs: (Hor. Art. Poet.) and that Helen and Clytemnestr●… came of the 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 say that Helen only and Pollux were the immortal births of the egg: but 〈◊〉 was mortal, and begotten by Tyndarus. Isocrates saith that Helen was thought 〈◊〉 the Swans begetting, because she had a long and a white neck. They were all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Tyndaridae, because they were supposed the children of Tyndarus, Tyndaridae. 〈◊〉 ●…sband, and son unto Oebalus, and not of jove. Yet is a Swan placed in heaven ●…ment of this holy act (forsooth) and Castor and Pollux are the sign Gemini which Gemini. 〈◊〉 by course: because (saith Homer) Castor and Pollux endeavouring to take away 〈◊〉 of Lincus and Idas, Idas after a long fight killed Castor, and would have killed 〈◊〉, but that jupiter sent him sudden help, and made him invulnerable. So Pollux 〈◊〉 jove, that his brother might have half of his immortality, and jove granted it Castor 〈◊〉 good horseman, and Pollux a wrestler. They were called Dioscuri, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, Dioscuri. ●…nnes. Homer saith they were buried in Lacedaemon, they were held to be good for 〈◊〉, and they appeared like two stars, because they being in the Argonauts voy●…●…pest arose, whereupon all were terribly afraid, saving Orpheus who cheered them 〈◊〉 having prayed to the Samothracian gods, the tempest immediately began to calm, 〈◊〉 appearing upon the heads of Castor and Pollux, which miracle gladded them all, 〈◊〉 them think that the gods had freed them: and so it grew to a custom to implore 〈◊〉 ●…f those two, who when both appeared, were a good sign, but never when they 〈◊〉▪ But the Romans called their temple most commonly Castor's temple: wherein 〈◊〉 ●…yther irreligious, or Castor ungrateful, who being made immortal by his 〈◊〉 ●…nes, would take all the glory and honour unto himself, who had been for●… le●…t in obscurity but for the other. But Pollux was cause of this, for he obtey●… should shine one day, and another another day, was cause that they could never 〈◊〉 ●…others company. The ruin of the Argive kingdom: Picus Saturn's son succeeding him in Laurentum. CHAP. 15. 〈◊〉 was the Argive kingdom translated (a) to Mycaenae, where (b) A●… ●…on ruled: and then (c) arose the kingdom of the Laurentines, 〈◊〉) Picus Saturn's son was the first successor in, (e) Delborah a wo●…●…ng judgesse of the jews: GOD'S spirit indeed judged in her, for 〈◊〉 a Prophetess: (her (f) prophecy is too obscure to draw unto 〈◊〉 without a long discourse.) And now had the Laurentines had a 〈◊〉 in Italy, (g) from whence, (after their descent from Greece) the Ro●… pedigree is drawn. Still the Assyrian Monarchy kept up: Lampares●…ith ●…ith King ruling there now, when Picus began his kingdom in Lau●… His father Saturn (the Pagan's say) was no man: let the Pagans look 〈◊〉 some of them have written that he was, and that he was (h) King ●…ore his son Picus. Ask these verses of Virgil, and they will tell 〈◊〉 ●…id. 8. Is genus indocile ac dispersum montibus altis Aeneid. 8. Composuit, legesque dedit, latiumque vocari Maluit: his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris. Aureàque ut perhibent illo sub rege fuêre.— Secula. Th'undocile sort on Mountains high dispersed He did compose, and gave them laws, and first Would call it Latium, when he latent lay, In whose reign was the golden age men say. Tush, but these they say are fictions (l) Sterces was Saturn's father, he that invented (m) manuring of the ground with dung, which of him was called Stercus. Stercus: Some say they called him Stercutius: Well howsoever he got the name of Saturn, he was the same Sterces or Stercutius whom they deified for his husbandry. And Pyrus his son was deified after him also; (n) a cunning soothsayer, and (o) a great soldier as they report him to be. He begot (p) Faunus, the second King of Laurentum, and he was made a Sylvan god. All these men were deified before the Trojan war. L. VIVES. TRanslated (a) unto Mycaenae] Pausanias' his words hereuppon. All know the villainy of Danaus' daughters upon their cousin Germans, and how Lynceus succeeded The Argive Kingdom. Danaus in the Kingdom: who dying, Abas his sons divided the Kingdom amongst them. Acrisius had Argoes Praetus, Eraeum, Mydaea and Tyrinthus, and all that lay to the sea: In Tyrinthus are monuments yet of Praetus his dwelling there. Afterward Acrisius hearing how his grandchild Perseus was alive, and of great renown, he retired to Larissa near the river Peneus: Now Perseus was wonderful desirous to see him, and sought all the means to honour him that might be, and coming to Larissa to him, they met, and Perseus after a while began to practise the casting of the quoyte (his own invention) to show his strength: now Acrisius by chance came under the fall of the quoyte, and so was brained according to the Oracle concerning his death. Perseus' returning to Argos, and being ashamed of his grandsires death, changed Kingdoms with Megapenthes the son of Praetus: and then built Mycenae, calling it so, because his sword 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, scabbard Mycenae. fell off there: which he took for a sign to settle there. Yet some say it was named so of Mycenae daughter to Inachus the second, and wife to Arestor. Homer doth name such a woman. (b) Agamemnon] Pelops begot Atreus and Thyestes on Hippodame, and Atreus begot Agamemnon and Menelaus of Aerope, as Homer holdeth. But Hesiod saith they Agamemnon. were the sons of Plisthenes, Thyestes son, unless we read Thyestes for Plisthenes, which is more likely. This Agamemnon led all the Heroes against Troy: Though some say that he was put once from the Empire and Palamedes crowned, who being slain by the craft of Ulysses, the empire returned to Agamemnon. (c) Laurentum] The eldest City of Latium: the seat of the Aborigines where the Kingdom was founded by Saturn: called Laurentum. Picus. Laurentum of the laurel wood, that grew near it. (d) Picus] Saturn's son by Fauna. Virg. lib. 7. ovid. Meta. 14. He married Cyrce, who perceiving that he loved Pomona, turned him into a bird called a Pie: wherefore the Latins held that for Mars his bird, and it was oraculous. Dyonis. Alex. Ovid saith he was thus transformed for refusing the love of Cyrce, but she was not his wife. So holds Servius also. (l) Delborah] Hierome readeth it Deborah, Delborah. that is (saith he) a Bee: or a Prattler The Tribe of Nephthalim under her directions and Baruches conduct overthrew the mighty army of Sisara, judg. 4. joseph. de antiqui. lib. 5. She ruled the people forty years, and had peace all the while in Israel, (f) Her prophecy] jud. 5. (g) From whence] In a continual succession from the Laurentes unto 〈◊〉 Aenaeas his wife, to Silvius Posthumus their son, and so to the Kings of Alba, down unto ●…itor, Amulius, Ilaean Romulus, and Remus. (h) King there] Whereupon it was called Saturni●…●…hough ●…hough the ancient poet Eusebius think otherwise. Read his words in Dion. lib. 1. ay Virgil] ●…nders words. Ae●…id. 8. (k) Golden age] Of this before. It was such as Plato required in his resp●…blica▪ and that was 〈◊〉 as Adam lived in before his fall: so that Eusebius saith that Plato had that place from Moyses●…w ●…w. (l) Sterces] This they say was Saturn Stercutius. that taught manuring, call him what they will. Macrob. Saturnal. But Pliny saith that Stercutius who was deified for dung-finding, was Saturn's son. But there was a Saturn Saturn's many. long before this, three hundred years before the Trojan war, as Theophilus writeth out of Talus: living in the time of Belus the Babylonian. Alex. Polyhistor called Belus himself▪ Saturn: which were it so, either our times are false accoun●…d, or he was eight hundred years before that war. It may be (as he that wrote the Aequivoca saith) that the 〈◊〉 of every noble family were called Saturn's, and their sons joves. (m) Manuring] T●…ght by Pliny lib. 16. Uarro, and other writers of husbandry. Cato in Tully, wonders that H●… ommiteth it, Homer having mentioned it before him. (n) A cunning soothsaier] Therefore was he said to be turned into a pie, because he kept one always for Aug●…y: and there●… Virgil saith he was painted with the Augurs staff by him. Aeneid. Ipse Quirinali lituo▪ paruâque sedebat, Virg. A●…nid. li. 7 Succinctus trabea.— He in a sorry paul did sit, An auguries crosier joined with it. (〈◊〉) Warrior] ovid. Met. 14. and Virgil calleth him the Horse-breaker, which in Greek is 〈◊〉 ●…ch as Warrior: wherefore they feign him changed into a hardy bird; who pierceth an 〈◊〉 ●…ith her bill: and is holy unto Mars. The Romans honour it much, and affirm that it ●…ed Romulus and Remus from hurt when they were cast out in their infancy. (p) Faunus] Faunus. 〈◊〉 ●…as also called Fatuus, and his sister Fauna, and Fatua. Of these we have spoken before. 〈◊〉 saith that some held Mars to be his great grandfather, and that the Romans wor●… him as their country's Genius, with songs and sacrifices. So saith Trogus. They say ●…e ●…d evander and his few Arcadians upon mount Palatine; and his wife Fatua (saith Tro●…) was every day filled with the spirit of prophecy: so that it grew a proverb to say of pro●…, that they were infatuate, Faunus killing her, she was deified and named Bona daea and her ●…stity is said to be such, as no man living ever saw her, but her own husband. Varro. from Bona D●…a. this Faunus come all the fawns, Sylvans, and Satyrs. How Diomedes was deified after the destruction of Troy: and his fellows said to be turned into birds. CHAP. 16. TRoy (whose destruction the excellent wits of elder times have left recorded ●…to all memory, as well as the greatness of itself) being now destroyed in the reign of (a) Latinus, son to Faunus, (b) (and from him came the Latin 〈◊〉,) the Laurentine ceasing): The Grecian victors returning each one to his 〈◊〉, (c) were sore afflicted on all sides, and destroyed in great numbers: yet some 〈◊〉 them got to be gods. For (d) Diomedes was made one, who never returned 〈◊〉, and his fellows they say (e) became birds: this now they have his●… for, not poetry only, yet neither could his new godhead, nor his in●… of jove prevail so much as to turn his fellows unto men again. It 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also that he hath a Temple (f) in the I'll Diomedea, not far from ●…t Gargarus in Apulia, where these birds continually fly about 〈◊〉 Temple, and dwell there with such wonderful obedience, that they will wash the Temple with water which they bring in their beaks, and when any Grecian comes thither, or any of a Greek race, they are quiet, and 〈◊〉 be gentle with them, but if any one else come they will fly at his face wi●… great fury, and hurt some even to death, for their beaks are very big ●…arpe and strong, as it is said. L VIVES. LAtinus (a) Son.] Son to Faunus and Marica. Uirg. Some say this was Circe, and Latinus. some held her (saith Servius) to be Venus: Hesiod makes him the Son of Circe's and Ulysses, and Virgil toucheth at that also, But the times allow it not, therefore we must affirm with Higinus, that there were many Latini. Dionytinus saith that Hercules being in Italy begot Pallas of Lavinia, Euanders' daughter, and Lasius of Hyperboride his hostage; who at his departure to Greece he married to Faunus' King of the Aborigines. justine saith he was bastard to Hercules and Faunus daughter. The Greeks called him ●…elephus, that is illustrious. (b) And from him.] The common report is they were first called Aborigines, and afterwards Latines. Dion and others. But Philelphus brings in Orpheus against this calling them Latines ere Latinus was borne. But let him look which Orpheus it was that wrote both the Argonautica and the Hymns: not the Thracian Orpheus, hold all the learned: but for the Hymns, the Pythagorists hold them the works of a certain cobbler. Aristotle saith there never was such a Poet as Orpheus was. But if it be called Latium of Latium. Saturn's lying hid there, then are they called the Latins of Latium. But Uarro deriveth it from Latinus. (c) Sore afflicted.] Ulysses his wanderings are well known. Menelaus was driven into Egypt. Oyleus ajax into Lybia. The whole navy was drawn upon the rocks of Caphareus, near Euboea by a false light Nauplius father to Palamedes hung out. Virgil. lib. 2. Servius dirives all this mischief from Minerva's wrath, either for Cassandra's rape, or for their contempt Diomedes. shown in not sacryficing unto her. (d) Diomedes.] Son to Tydeus and Deiphile: A soldior before Troy and almost equalized with Achilles by Homer. He maketh him foil Mars, He was King of Aetolia, but would not return thither, because of his wife Egiale that played the whore with Cylleborus, Sthenelus his son, so went he into Apulia, where he built Adria, Argyripa, Sipunte and Salapia, and there are Diomedes fields which he shared with Danaus his stepfather. There was an elder Diomedes, a bloody King of Thrace that fed his horses with mans-flesh, and Hercules fed them with himself. His sister Abdera built that city in Thrace where Democritus was borne: Near unto which was Diomedes tower, the greeks say those horses were his filthy daughters, whom he made strangers to lie withal, and then killed them. Palaphatus referreth it unto the wasting of his patrimony upon horses, Diomedes fellows become birds. as Actaeon did his upon dogs. (e) Became birds.] Because Agmon Diomedes his fellow had railed on Venus. Ou. Met. 4 or, because Diomedes had hurt both Venus and Mars, before Troy, the later the likelier. Homer. Ili. 5. Pliny saith these birds are called Cataractae (by juba) and that their teeth and eyes are of the colour of fire: their bodies are white, one ever leadeth the shoal, and another follows it: and they are only seen in the I'll Diomedea, where his tomb and his Temple is, over against Apulia. If any stranger come there, they set up a monstrous cry; But if a Greek come, they will play with him, that you would wonder to see how they seem to acknowledge their countrymen. Origen saith their washing of his temple is but a fable. They were transformed (saith Servius) through their impatient sorrow after the loss of their leader, and that they will fly in flocks to the greeks ships still, as knowing their old kindred, but do the Barbarians all the Grief they can, for that Diomedes was killed by the Illyrians. In Geor 2. yet Aristotle saith Aeneas slew him. In Psyl. Servius saith the greeks called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which Gaza translateth, Hearons. Suidas saith they were like storks, or storks themselves. They may be like storks or hearons, or swans as Ovid saith, but they are neither storks, hearons, nor swans. (f) In the I'll.] Some (as Augustine here, Suidas, festus. etc.) will have but one Isle thus called: but there are two, in one of which Diomedes lies buried. Some will have five or six of them. But Pliny and Strabo do name only two, over against the promontory Garganus which lies three hundred furlongs into the sea, the one of them is inhabited, but not the other, in which they say Diomedes' was lost and never seen more: so the Venetians both there and in there own seat, gave him divine honours. Of the incredible changes of men that Varro believed. CHAP. 17. VArro, to get credit unto this, reports a many strange tales of that famous (a) witch Circe, who turned Ulysses his fellows into beasts: and (b) of the Arcadians, who swimming over a certain lake became wolves, and lived with the wolves of the woods: and if they eat no man's flesh, at nine years' end swimming 〈◊〉 the said lake they became men again. Nay he names one Daemonetus, who tas●… of the sacrifices, which the Arcadians (killing of a child) offered to their 〈◊〉 ●…us, was turned into a wolf, and becoming a man again at ten years 〈◊〉 ●…ee grew to be a (c) champion, and was victor in the Olympike games. Nor doth he think that Pan (d) and jupiter were called Lycaei in the Arcadian history for any other reason then for their transforming of men into wolves: for this they held impossible to any but a divine power: a wolf is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in greek, and thence came their name Lycaeus: and the Roman Luperci (saith he) had original from their mysteries. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) famous witch Cyrce] Daughter to the Sun, Aunt unto Medea. Her mother is vn●…●…ne, some say she was Asteria, Latona's sister. Homer saith that Persa, Oceanus his daugh●… Circe. mother. But Diod. tells this tale. Perseus and A●…etas, were sons to Per●…●…ot ●…ot Hecate, a cruel huntress, who used to strike men in stead of beasts; with darts 〈◊〉 in Aconyt●…m, (the use whereof she first found): And she had Medea, Cyrce and a son 〈◊〉 Aegias, by her uncle Aetas. Cyrce became an excellent Herbarist, and could make Phil●… ●…-drinks) she married Scytha King of Sarmatia, and poisoned him when she had done. ●…pon she was chased into a little desert I'll in the Ocean, or as some say, unto the pro●… that bears her name. Some think it is an I'll, but indeed it is but a promontory 〈◊〉 ●…insula. Strabo. It was once an I'll, but time hath knit it unto the continent, as it hath ●…ny more. Servius. In the bigger Isle of the two Pharmacussae, is Circe's tomb to be 〈◊〉▪ This is she that turned Ulysses his consorts into beasts; Homer hath much of her. So 〈◊〉 ●…ritus, Virgil and many other poets and Historians. (b) Of the Arcadians] Euantes 〈◊〉 Pliny lib. 8.) a credible Greek author writeth that the Arcadians used to choose one 〈◊〉 the family of one Anteus, and to bring him to a certain lake, where he (putting off his 〈◊〉 and hanging them on an oak) swum over, and became presently a wolf, running 〈◊〉 ●…o the desert, and living nine years amongst the wolves, where if he eat no man's 〈◊〉 ●…hat space he returned to the lake and swimming over again, became man as he ●…ly nine years elder: Fabius saith he had the same clothes again also. So saith 〈◊〉 Neu●…, a people in Scythia, that they have set times wherein they may turn wolves 〈◊〉 will, and wherein they may turn men again if they will. (c) A champion] Properly a 〈◊〉 with whirlebats: for that, wrestling, running, leaping, and quoiting were the greeks 〈◊〉: and the practisers of them all were called in greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in lain 〈◊〉 Pentathli. Pan and] Upon mount Lycaeus in Arcadia were three gods honoured, by the name of Lycaei. 〈◊〉, Bacchus, and hornned Pan. I think the place, (but some others hold their driving 〈◊〉 the wolves) gave them their names. Some say they ruled in this metamorphizing of 〈◊〉 wolves, and helped them to their native shapes again. Of the devils power in transforming man's shape: what a Christian may believe herein. CHAP. 18. SOme perhaps will look for our opinion here, touching this deceit of the devils, (a) [what a christian, should do, upon this report of miracles amongst the infidels.] What shall we say, but get you out of the midst of Babylon? this prophetical command wills us, to ply our faiths feet as fast as we can, and quit ourselves of this Worldly City compact of a confused crew of sinners and evil Angels, and hie us unto the living God. For the greater power we behold in the deceiver, the firmer hold must we lay upon our mediator, by whom we leave the dregs and ascend unto height of purity. So than if we should say, all those tales are lies, yet are there some that will avow they have either hard them for truth, of persons of credit, or have seen them tried themselves. For when I was in Italy, I heard such a report there, how certain women of one place there, would but give one a little drug in cheese, and presently he became an ass, and so they made him carry their necessaries whether they would, and having done, they reform his figure again: yet had he his human reason still, (b) as Apuleus had in his asse-ship, as himself writeth in his book of the golden ass; be it a lie or a truth that he writeth. Well (c) either these things are false, or incredible, because unusual. But we must firmly hold God's power to be omnipotent in all things: but the devils can do nothing beyond the power of their nature (which is angelical, although malevolent) unless he whose judgements are ever secret, but never unjust, permit them. (d) Nor can the devils create any thing (what ever shows of theirs produce these doubts) but only cast a changed shape over that which God hath made, altering only in show. Nor do I think the devil can form any soul or body into bestial or brutish members, and essences: but they have an unspeakable way of transporting man's fantasiein a bodily shape, unto other senses (this running ordinarylie in our dreams through a thousand several things, and though it be not corporal, yet seems to carry itself in corporal forms through all these things) while the bodies of the men thus affected lie in another place, being alive, but yet in an ecstasy far more deep than any sleep. Now (e) this fantasy may appear unto others senses in a bodily shape, and a man may seem to himself to be such an one as he often thinketh himself to be in his dream, and to bear burdens, which if they be true burdens indeed, the devils bear them, to delude men's eyes with the appearance of true burdens, and false shapes. For one Praestantius told me that his father took that drug in cheese at his own house, whereupon he lay in such a sleep that no man Praestantius. could awake him: and after a few days he awaked of himself and told all he had suffered in his dreams in the mean while, how he had been turned into an horse and carried the soldiers victuals about in a (f) budget. Which was true as he told, yet seemed it but a dream unto him: another told how one night before he slept, an old acquaintance of his a philosopher came to him and expounded certain Platonismes unto him, which he would not expound him before. So afterwards he asked him why he did it there which he would not do in his own house when he was entreated? I did it not quoth the other, indeed I dreamt that I did it. And so that which the one dreamt, the other in a fantastical appearance beheld: These now were related by such as I think would not lie, for had any one told them, they had not been to be believed. So then those Arcadians, whom the god (nay the devils rather) turned into wolves, and those fellows of Ulysses (g) being charmed by Circe into Bestial shapes, had only their fantasy, occupied in such forms, if there were any such matter. But for Diomedes birds, seeing there is a generation of them, I hold them not to be transformed men, but that the men were taken away, and they brought in their places, as the (h) hind was, in Iphigenias' room, Agamemnon's daughter. The devil can play such juggling ●…kes with ease, by God's permission, but the Virgin being found alive afterwards, this was a plain deceit of theirs to take away her, and set the hind there. But Diomedes, fellows, because they were never seen, (the evil angels destroying them) were believed to be turned into (ay) those birds that were brought out of their unknown habitations into their places. Now for their washing of his temple, their love to the greeks and their fury against others, they may have all this by the devils instinct: because it (k) was his endeavour to persuade that Diomedes was become a god, thereby to make them injure the true God, by adoring feigned ones, and dead persons (with temples, altars priests and sacrifices) who when they lived, (l) had no life: all which honours being rightly bestowed, are peculiar to that one true and only God. L. VIVES. WHat (a) a Christian] Some copies have not this. (b) As Apuleius] He was a magician, doubtless: but never turned into an ass. Augustine saw how incredible that was, but Apuleius. Lucian. 〈◊〉 not red many greeks, he could not know whence he had his plot of the golden ass: for 〈◊〉 names none that he follows, as he doth in his cosmography. But Lucian before him 〈◊〉 ●…ow he being in Thessaly to learn some magic was turned into an ass in stead of a 〈◊〉 that this was true: but that Lucian delighted neither in truths, nor truths likelihoods. 〈◊〉 ●…ke did Apuleius make whole in latin, adding divers things to garnish it with more delight to such as love Melesian tales, and here and there sprinkling it with his antiquaries 〈◊〉, and his new compositions, with great liberty, yet somewhat suppressing the absurdity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ame. But we love now to read him because he hath said some things there in▪ that 〈◊〉 dexterity, which others seeking to imitate, have committed gross errors: for I think 〈◊〉 grace of his in that work, is inimitable. But Apuleius was no ass, only he delights men's 〈◊〉 ●…th such a story, as man's affection is wholly transported with a strange story. (c) Either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 8. held them all false, nor may we believe all the fables affirmed: but the Greeks 〈◊〉 cruel liars, that they would not want a witness for the most impudent fiction they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor can] To create, is to make something of nothing: this God only can do: as all the 〈◊〉 affirm: [but than they dispute whether he can communicate this power unto a crea●…. Saint Thomas hath much concerning this, and Scotus seeks to weaken his arguments to To create what it is. [Lowaine copy defective. 〈◊〉 his own: and Occam is against both, and Petrus de Aliaco against him, thus each 〈◊〉 ●…weth the celestial power into what form he please. How can manners, be amended, ●…ow can truth be taught, how can contentions be appeased, as long as there is this confused 〈◊〉 jangling, and this haling too and fro in matter of divinity, according as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ands affected? [(e) This Fantasy] All the world proves this opinion of Augu●… 〈◊〉. (f) A budget] Reticulum: the travelers carried their victuals in it, bread, cheese, 〈◊〉▪ etc. Hor. lib. 1. Serm. Reticulum panis venales inter onustos, Forte vehas humero, nihiloplus accipias quam Qui nihil portarit— As if you, on your back well burdened, bore A wallet of sale-bread, you should no more Receive for food then he: that were from burden free. It was a net (saith Acron) wherein bread was borne to the slaves that were to be sold. Thus I conjecture (saith he) (g) Charmed] Virg. Pharmaceutr. (h) The Hind] Iphigenia was daughter to Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra. The Army being at Aulis in Boeotia, Iphigenia. Agamemnon killed a Stag of Diana's, for which deed the navy was sore beaten with storms, and infected with pestilence: to the Augury they went: Calchas answered, Diana must be appeased Calchas. with Agamemnon's blood. So Ulysses was sent to Mycenae for Iphigenia, under colour of a marriage, and being brought to the Altar, and ready to bleed, she was sent away, and a Hind set in her place, she being carried into Taurica Chersonnesus, to King ●…hoas, where she was made Priest unto Diana Taurica, who had men sacrificed unto her. So Orestes hi●… brother coming thither, they two conspired together and slew the King, and then sailed away to Aricia in Italy ay Those birds] A diversity of reading. (k) It was his endeavour] Many a fond note was there, on this work here-tofore. An ass, that is, a creature so called: he spoke, that is, he said, I was silent, that is, I said nothing: and such an one was crept into the text here but we have left it out. (l) Had no true life] For the soul's true life i●… God▪ whom the soul leaving, dieth. This the Pagan Philosophers taught as well as we Christians that all things the farther they were from GOD, the less life had they, and so of the contrary. This is common in Plato and sometimes in Aristotle. The stoics said that a wiseman only lived, and was a man; the rest were nothing but plain apes. So said Socrates. That Aeneas came into Italy when Labdon was judge of Israel. CHAP. 19 Troy being now taken and razed, (a) Aeneas with ten ships filled with the remains of Troy came into Italy, Latinus being King there, (b) Mnestheus at Athens, Poliphides in Syrion, (d) Tautanes in Assyria, and (e) Labdon judging Israel. Latinus dying, Aeneas reigned three years in the same time of the same Kings, excepting that (f) Pelasgus was King of Sytion, and (g) Samson judge of the Hebrews, who was counted Hercules for his admired strength. Aeneas (h) being not to be found after his death (ay) was canonised for a God by the Latins. So was Sangus or Sanctus by the Sabines. And at this time Codrus the King of Athens, went in●…disguise to be slain of the Peloponesians the Athenians enemies; and so he was: hereby delivering his country from ruin. For the Peloponesians had an Oracle told them that they should conquer if they killed not the Athenian King. So he deceived them by his disguise, and giving them evil words, provoked them to kill him, whereof Virgil saith: Aut iurgi●… Codri. And (k) him the Athenians sacrificed unto as a God▪ Now in the reign of Silvius the fourth Latin King (Aeneas, his son by Lavina, not by Creusa, nor brother to Ascanius)▪ Oneus the nine and twentieth of Assyria (l) Mclanthus the A●…ead, 8. sixteenth of Athens, and Heli the Priest judging Israel, the Sicyonian Kingdom●… fell to ruin, which endured (as it is recorded) 959 years. L. VIVES. Aeneas (a)] How he escaped out of Troy, it is diversly related. Dionys. lib. 1. For Aeneas. some say that he keeping a Tower, and setting all the Grecians on fire against that place, mean time packed away all the unnecessaries, old men, women and children into the ships, and then breaking through the foes, increased his powers and took the strengths of Ida, which they held almost a year: but the greeks coming against them, they made a peace, upon condition to depart out of Phrygia without disturbance of any man whatsoever, until they were settled somewhere. Thus saith Helanicus, a famous, but a fabulous author. M●…ucerates Xanthius saith Aeneas betrayed Troy, and therefore the greeks freed him: the reason of this treason was, for that Paris scorned him and made him a mocking stock to the Trojan Lords: some say he was in the haven when Troy was ta●…n▪ others, that he was admiral of Pri●…s navy: the Latins say that Antenor and he were preserved because they had always persuaded the restoring of Helen, and were of old acquaintance in Greece. How he came into Italy, Virgil sings at full, mixing false notes with 〈◊〉, as poets commonly use▪ I will quote no more from others, for this is the most like to truth. He came first into Thrace, stayed there all winter, and had many fled unto him out of Asia: there he built a City and called it Aenea (Dionys.) or Aenon: (Mela and Plin.) And there saith Virgil was P●…lidorus buried. Aen. 3. — Feror huc et littore curuo Maenia prima loco, fatis ingressus iniquis: Aeneadesque meos nomen de nomine fingo. I hither driven, by crosse-fates in I came, And on crooked shore first walls did found and frame▪ And named them Aeneads by mine own name. This City Sallust calleth Aenon, though Homer saith that Aenon sent arms against Troy. Seru. in Aen. 3. Euphorion and Callimachus say that Ulysses his companion was buried there, going forth to forage, and dying: and thence it had the name. It stood until the Macedonian monarchy, and then King Cassander razed it, and removed the townsmen to Thessalonica which he then built. From Thrace Aeneas went to Delos, then to Cythera, then to his kinsmen in Arcadia, thence to Zacynthus, so to Leucadia, and thence to Ambracia where there was a City on the river Achelon's bank, called Aenea, but it was left un-peopled afterwards. Thence went Anchises to Butrotum in Epyrus, and Aeneas to Dodona to the oracle, with all speed, and thence returning to his father, they came to Drepanum in Sicily, where Anchises died. (Yet Strabo saith Anchises came into Italy: and died (saith Dionys.) a year before Aeneas) T●… came Aeneas into Italy, into the quarters of Laurentum, in the five and thirty year of 〈◊〉 his reign, two years after his departure from Asia. Nor came his whole Navy hither. 〈◊〉 ●…e landed in Apulia, and some in other places of Italy, of whose arrival there are monu●… unto this day. Some of them leaving Aeneas in Italy, returned to Phrygia again. The 〈◊〉 place that Aeneas held in Latium, they named Troy. It was four furlongs from the sea. (b) 〈◊〉] Son to Ornius, Erichtheus his son; he stirred the people against Theseus' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 absence, saying that he had brought the free people of Attica into one city, as into a 〈◊〉 Now Theseus was held in most strait prison by Orcus the Molossian King: and he had 〈◊〉 the ravished Helen at Aphydna, which Castor and Pollux took, freed their sister and 〈◊〉 Mnestheus King of Athens, for that he left them soldiers. So Theseus being freed by ●…es, and making means for the recovery of his Kingdom, went into Scyros, where 〈◊〉 Lyconides slew him. So ruled Mnestheus quietly at Athens: for Theseus his children 〈◊〉 but young, and in the hands of Elpenor in Euboea, Mnestheus respected them not. They 〈◊〉 come to years went with Elpenor to that universal war of Troy, and Mnestheus 〈◊〉 also with his forces, and returning died in Melos, and Demophon Theseus son succeeded him. Plut. Paus. Euseb. So that Mnestheus was dead a little before Aeneas came into Italy. 〈◊〉 Polyhistor saith that Demophon reigned at Athens when as Troy was destroyed. (c) Po●…] So saith Euseb. but Pausanias relateth it thus. Sytion had a daughter, called Echtho●…, on her did Mercury (they say) beget Polybus, Phlias, Dionysius his son married her afterwards, and had begot Androdanas on her. Polybis' married his daughter Lysianassa to Ta●…, son to Bias King of Argos. At this time Adrastus fled from Argos to Polybus in Sicy●…▪ and Polybus dying was King there. He returning to Argos, janiscus one of Clytius Laome●… posterity came from Attica thither & got their Kingdom, and dying, left it to Phaestus, a 〈◊〉 of Hercules. He being called by Oracle into Crete, Euxippus son to Apollo and 〈◊〉 Syllis, reigned, and he being dead, Agamemnon made war upon Sycionia, and Hippo●…●…ne ●…ne to Rhopalus the son of Phaestus, fearing his power, became his tributary, upon ●…ion. This Hippolytus, had issue Lacestades and Phalces. Now Tamphalces son to 〈◊〉 came with his Dorikes in the night and took the city, yet did no harm, as being ●…ed from Hercules also, only he was joined fellow in this Kingdom with him. From 〈◊〉 the Sycionians were called Dorians, and made a part of the Argive Empire. (d) Tauta●… 〈◊〉 reigned in the time of the Trojan wars. Eus. Diod. saith that Priam (who held his crown 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as from his sovereign) in the beginning of the siege sent to entreat some help of him: who sent him 10000 Ethiopians: 10000 Susians, and twenty chariots o●… 〈◊〉 ●…gons, under the conduct of Memnon, son to Duke Tithon his dearest associate. Ho●… mentions this Memnon, for he was slain in this war. He was a youth of an hardy and ●…que spirit, as his valorous performances did witness in abundance. (e) Labdon] So doth Euseb: Labdon. call him. The Bible hath it Abdon. jud. 12. 13. Son he was to Hylo the Ephraite, who had forty sons, and they had fifty sons all good horsemen & he left them all living at his death. Io●…. 〈◊〉 (f) Pelasgus] The old books, read Pelagus. My friend Hieronimo Buffaldo (a●… vnwear●…ed Hieromino. Buffaldo. student, a true friend, and an honest man) saith that in one copy he had read it Pelagus, Pausanias putteth other names in this place quite different: he gives us no light here. (g) Samson] jud. 13. His deeds excelled all those of Hercules, Hector, or Milo. They are known: I will not stand to rehearse them. (h) Being not to be] Mezentius King of Hetruria warred against the Latins, and Aeneas (their King) joining battle with him near Lavinium, they had a 〈◊〉 Mezent us. fought field: and being parted by night, next morning Aeneas was not to be found: some said he was indenized, some, that he was drowned in Numicus, the river. The Latins built him A●…as deified. a Temple, & dedicated it: TO OUR HOLY FATHER AND TERRESTRIAL GOD▪ GOVERNOR OF THE WATERS OF NUMICUS. Dionys. Some say be built it himself, Festus saith, Ascanius his son did. He died three years after his stepfather Latinus, (so long was he King) and seven years after the dissolution of Troy. He hath tombs in many nations, but those are but for his honour, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, empty monuments, his true one is by the river Numicus. Liu. They call him jupiter indiges, so Ascanius named him when he deified him: Indiges, is a mortal made a Deity. Some say it is only spoken of those, whom it is sacrilege to name, Indiges, what it is. as the patron-gods of cities, and such like. But I think Indiges be as much as inborn or in-living; that is, meaning them that dwelled or were borne in the soil, where they are deified. Such did Lucan mean when he said. Indigites flevisse deos urbisque laborem, Testatos sudore lares— The towne-gods wept, the house-hold-gods with sweat Witnes●…, the cities labour should be great. And therefore he was both jupiter indiges, and jupiter Latialis. But this I may not ba●…e: Aeneas had his swinging places in Italy, as Erigone Icarus his daughter had in Greece: for Swinging games. thus saith Festus Pompeius. These swinging-games had original from hence, because Aeneas, being lost (no man knew how in his wars against Mezentius King of the 〈◊〉) was held deified, and called jove Latiall. So Ascanius sent out all his subjects bond and free six days to seek him in earth and air: and so ordained swinging to show the form of man's life, how he might mount to heaven, or fall from thence to earth, and the perpetual revolution of fortune. Thus Festus. ay By the Latins] And the Sicilians also in E●…yma, a city that he built. Ou. Met. 14. (k) Sangus] Or Xanthus', or Sanctus, or Sancus, but Sangus is the truth. Porcius Sangus Cato (saith Dionys.) wrote that the Sabines had their name from Sabinus, son to Sangus the god of the Sabines, otherwise called Pistius. Him (saith Lactantius) do the Sabines adore, as the Romans do Quirinus, and the Athenians Minerva. Hereof he that list may read A●…nius. Codrus. ●…equester Uibius, in his description of Rome, mentions this Genius Sangus. (l Codrus▪ ●…on to Melanthus the Messenian; in whose time the Kings of Peloponnesus (descended from Hercules) warred upon Athens, because they feared the abundance of exiles there, and Codrus reiging at Athens, they feared both the Corinthians, because of their bordering upon them (for Isthmus wherein Corinth stood, joineth on Megara) and the Messenians also, because of Melanthus, Codrus his father, being King there. So the blood royal of Peloponnesus 〈◊〉 to the oracle, and were answered that the victory and the King's death should fall both 〈◊〉 one side: hereupon they concealed the Oracle, and withal, gave a strict cha●…ge th●…t 〈◊〉 ●…hould touch Codrus. But the Athenians hearing of this Oracle, and Codrus being desirous of glory, and the good of his country, disguised himself, went into the Laconian camp, and falling to brabble with the soldiers, was slain. So they lost the field, and all their Kingdom besides, excepting only Megara. (m) An Oracle] Either that the Laconians should conquer if they killed not Codrus: (Trog.) or that the Athenians should conquer if Codrus were killed. Tusc. quaest. lib. 3. Servius delivereth it, as we did but now. (n) Him the Athenians] If these be gods (saith Tully Denat. Deor. 〈◊〉.) then is Erichtheus one, whose priest and temple we see at Athens: if he be a god, why then is not Codrus, and all those that fought and died for their country's glory, Gods also? which if it 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. be not probable, than the ground whence it is drawn, is false. These words of Tully seem to aver that Codrus was held no god at Athens rather than otherwise. (o) Creusa] Daughter to Priam and Hecuba, wife to Aeneas, mother to Ascanius. But Aeneas in Italy had Silvius by Cre●…. 〈◊〉, and he was named Posthumus because his father was dead ere he were borne. Some think that Lavinia, after Aeneas his death swayed the state till Silvius came to years, and then ●…igned to him. Some say Ascanius had it though he had no claim to it from Lavinia by whom it came: but because that she had as yet no son, and withal, was of too weak a sex to manage that dangerous war against Mezentius & hisson Lausus (leaders of the Etrurians) therefore she retired into the country, and built her an house in the woods where she brought up her son, calling him thereupon Silvius. Now Ascanius having ended the war fetched them out of the woods, and used them very kindly, but dying he left his Kingdom to his son I●…lius, between whom and his uncle Silvius there arose a contention about the Kingdom, which the people decided, giving Silvius the Kingdom, because he was of more years, & discretion, and withal, the true heir by Lavinia: and making julus chief ruler of the religion, a power next to the sovereigns. Of this Caesar speaketh, both in Lucan, and in Suetonius. And this power remained to the julian family until Dionys. his time. I remember I wrote before, that because of Neptune's prophecy in Homer, some thought that Aeneas returned into Phrygia having seated his fellows in Italy, and that he reigned over the Troyans' th●…re, at their ●…ome: (perhaps stealing from that battle with Mezentius, and so shipping away thither.) But ●…f that Homer mean the Phrygian Troy, than he likewise speaketh of Ascanius, whom many hold did reign there again. Dionysius saith that Hellenus brought Hector's children back to l●…, and Ascanius came with them and chased out Antenor's sons whom Agamemnon had ●…de viceroys there at his departure. There is also a Phrygian City called Antandron, where Ascanius (they say) reigned buying his liberty of the Pelasgives, for that town, whereupon it had the name. So that it is a question whether Aeneas left him in Phrygia, or that his father being dead in Italy, and his stepmother ruling all, he returned home again. Hesychius names Ascania, a city in Phrygia of his building▪ Steph. It may be this was some other son of Aeneas Ascania, a City. ●…s, then that who was in Italy. For I beeeve Aeneas had more sons of that name ●…en one: It was rather a surname amongst them then otherwise; for that Ascanius that is 〈◊〉 to rule in Italy, properly height Euryleon. (p) Melanthus,] Codrus his father. How he got Melanthus. this Kingdom, is told by many: but specially by Suidas in his Apaturia. This feast (saith he) was held at Athens in great solemnity, three days together: and Sitalcus his son (the ●…ing of Thrace) was made free of the City. The first day they call Dorpeia, the supping day, for that day their feast was at supper: the second Anarrhysis, the riot, than was the excessive ●…crifices offered unto jupiter Sodalis, and Minerva: the third, Cureotis, for their bo●…es and wen●…s played all in companies that day. The feasts original was thus. The Athenians having ●…es with the Baeotians about the Celenians, that bordered them both; Xanthus the Boe●…an challenged Thimetus the King of Athens: he refusing, Melanthus the Messenian 〈◊〉 to Periclymenus, the son of Neleus, being but a stranger there, accepted the combat 〈◊〉 was made King. Being in fight Melanthus thought he saw one stand behind Xanthus' 〈◊〉 a black goats skin, whereupon he cried out on Xanthus that he brought help with him to 〈◊〉 field. Xanthus' looking back, Melanthus thrust him through. Hereupon was the feast 〈◊〉 the deceiver (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) ordained, and a Temple built to Dyonisius Melanaiges, that Apaturia. 〈◊〉 black-skind. Some say that the name of these feasts came of their father's gathering to●…er to inscribe their sons into the rolls of their men, and give them their toga virilis, their 〈◊〉 of man's estate. Thus far Suidas. Of the succession of the Kingdom in Israel after the judges. CHAP. 20. Soon after (in those King's times) the judges ceased, and Saul was anointed first King of Israel, in Samuel the prophet's time: and now began the Latin kings to be called Syluij of Silvius Aeneas his son: all after him, had their proper names several, and this surname in general, as the Emperors that (a) succeeded The Slyvii. Caesar, were called Caesar's long after. But Saul and his progeny being rejected, (b) and he dead, David was crowned, (c) forty years after Saul began his reign. (d) Then had the Athenians no more kings after Codrus, but began an Aristocracy. (e) David reigned forty years, and Solomon his son succeeded him, he that built that goodly Temple of God at jerusalem. In his time the Latins built Alba, & their kings were thenceforth called Alban kings, though ruling in Latium. Alba. (f) Roboam succeeded Solomon, & in his time Israel was divided into two kingdoms, and either had a king by itself. L. VIVES. THat (a) succeeded Caesar] Not julius, but Augustus (and so have some copies) for it was from him that Augustus, and Caesar became Imperial surnames. He was first called C. Octa The Caesars whence. vius, but Caesar left him heir of his goods, and name. (b) He dead,] Samuel had anointed him long before, but he began not to reign until Saul's death, at which time God sent him into Hebron. 2. Sam. 2. (c) Forty years] So long ruled Saul, according to the scriptures, and josephus. But Eupolemus that wrote the Hebrew gests, saith, but 22. (d) Then had the] They set a rule of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, princes, magistrates, or what you will. The Latins call them Archons, using the Greek. Cic. 1. de fato. Spartian. in Adriano. Vell. Paterc. etc. They had nine magistrates at Athens Archons, a kind of Magistrates (saith Pollux. lib. 8.) first the Archon, elected every year new. Then the precedent, than the general for war: then the chief justice, and five other Counsellors or Lawyers with him. These last heard and decided matters in the Court. The Archon, he was to look to the ordering of Bacchus his sacrifices, and Apollo's games in the spring: commanding all then: he was chief also of the Court where causes of violence, slander, defraudations of wards, elections of guardians, letting out of the fatherless children's houses, etc. were dispatched, all these must pass his seal. Thus Pollux. Before Solon's laws, they might not give judgement but each in a several place. The precedent, he sat at the Bucolaeum, not far from the Council-house. The General in the Lycaeum, the counsellors in the Thesmotium. The Archou at the brazen statues, called Exonimi, where the laws were fixed ere they were approved (e) David] There was never such a pair of men in the world, princes or private men as were these two, David. David and Solomon, the father and the son, the first for humility, honesty, and prophecy: the second for wisdom. Of him and of the Temple he built, Eupolemus and Timochares, (profane Authors) do make mention. Lact. Inst. diu. lib. 4. saith that he reigned one hundred and forty years before the Trojan war: whereas it was just so long after it ere he began to reign. Either the author, or the transcriber are far mistaken. (f) Roboam. In him, was the proverb fulfilled, a good father hath oftentimes a bad son: for he like a Roboam. fool, fallen quite from his father's wisdom would needs hold the people in more awe than his father had done before him, and so lost ten tribes of his twelve; and they chose them a King, call him King of Israel, leaving the name of the King of juda to him and his posterity, that reigned but over that, and the tribe of Benjamin: for Levi, belonging to the temple of God, at jerusalem, was free. Of the latian Kings: Aeneas (the first) and aventinus (the twelfth) are made gods. CHAP. 21. LAtium, after Aeneas their first deified king had eleven more, and none of them deified. But aventinus the twelfth, being slain in war, and buried on that hill that bears his name, he was put into the calendar of their men gods. Some say he was not killed, but vanished away, and that mount Aventine (a) had not the name from him but from another: after him was no more gods made in Latium but Romulus the builder of Rome, betwixt whom and Aventine were two Kings: one, Virgil nameth saying. Proximus ille Procas Troianae gloria gentis. In whose time because Rome was now upon hatching, the great monarchy of Assyria took end. For now after one thousand three hundred & five years (counting Belus his reign also in that little Kingdom at first) it was removed to the Medes. Procas reigned before Amulius. Now Amulius had made Rhea, (or Ilia) his brother Numitors daughter, a vestal Virgin, and Mars they say lay with her (thus they honour her whoredom) and begot two twins on her, who (for a prose of their foresaid excuse for her) they say were cast out, and yet a she-wolfe, the beast of Mars came and fed them with her dugs: as acknowledging the sons of her Lord and Master. Now some do say that there was an whore found them when they were first cast out, and she sucked them up. (Now they called whores, Lupae, she wolves, and the stews unto this day are called Lupa●…:) Afterwards Fastulus a shepherd had them (say they) and his wife Wolvish whores. Acca brought them up. Well, what if GOD, to tax the bloody mind of the King that commanded to drown them, preserved them from the water and sent this beast to give them nourishment? is this any wonder? Numitor, Romulus, his grandsire succeeded his brother Amulius in the Kingdom of Latium, and in the first year of his reign was Rome built, so that from thence forward, he and Ro●…s reigned together in Italy. L. VIVES. AVentine (a) had not] It hath many derivations (saith Uarro.) Naevius deriveth it ab avibus from the birds that flew thence to Tiber. Others, of aventinus the Alban King, there Aventine. buried. Others, ab adventu hominum, of the resort of men, for there stood Diana's temple, com●… to all Latium. But I think it comes rather ab advectu, of carrying to it: for it was whi●… severed from all the city, by fens, and therefore they were feign to be rowed to it in ●…pes. And seeing we do comment somewhat largely in this particular book, for cu●… heads, take this with ye too: Aventine was quite without the precinct of Rome, either because that the people encamped there in their mutiny, or because that there came no fortu●… birds unto it in Remus his Augury. Rome, founded at the time of the Assyrian Monarchies fall, Ezechias being King of juda. CHAP. 22. BRiefly Rome (a) the second Babylon, daughter of the first (by which it pleased God to quell the whole world, and fetch it all under one sovereignty) was now founded. The world was now full of hardy men, painful and well practised in war. They were stubborn, and not to be subdued but with infinite labour and danger. In the conquests of the Assyrians over all Asia, the wars were of far lighter account, the people were to seek in their defences, nor was the world so populous. For it was not above a thousand years after that universal ●…luge wherein all died but Noah and his family, that Ninus conquered all Asia excepting India. But the Romans came not to their monarchy with that ease that he did: they spread by little and little, and found sturdy lets in all their proceedings. Rome then was built when Israel had dwelled in the land of promise 718. years. 27. under josuah, 329. under the judges, and 362. under the Kings until Achaz, now King of judah, or as others count, unto his successor Ezechias, that good and Godly king, who reigned (assuredly) in Romulus his time: Osee in the mean time being king of Israel. L. VIVES. ROme the (a) second Babylon] Saint Peter calleth Rome Babylon as Hierome saith (in Uita Marci.) who also thinketh that john in the Apocalypse meaneth no other Babylon but Rome called Babylon. [Ah (say the Lovaynists) this bites, leave it out, and so they do.] Rome. Ad Marcellam. [But now it hath put off the name of Babylon: no confusion now: you cannot buy any thing now in matter of religion without a very fair pretext of holy law for the selling of it, yet may you buy or sell (almost) any kind of cause, holy, or hellish, for money.] Of the evident prophecy of Sibylla Erithraea concerning Christ. CHAP. 23. IN those days Sibylla Erythrea (some say) prophesied: there were many (a) Sybilis (saith Varro) more than one. But this (b) Sybille of Erithraea wrote some apparent prophecies of Christ, which we have read in rough latin verses, not correspondent to the greek, the interpreter well learned afterward, being none of the best poets. For Flaccianus, a learned and eloquent man (one that had been consuls deputy) being in a conference with us concerning Christ, showed us a greek book, saying they were this Sibyls verses, wherein in one place, he showed us a sort of verses so composed, that (c) the first letter of every verse being taken, they all made these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. jesus Christus, Dei Filius, salvator, JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD THE SAVIOUR. Now (d) these verses, as some have translated into latin, are thus. The English of them you shall have in the Comment following, in an acrostike out of the Greek. (e) judicii signo tellus sudore madescet. Ec●…lo rex adveniet per s●…cla futurus: (f) Scilicet in carne presens ut judicet orhem. Unde Deum cernent incredulus atque fidelis Celsum cum sanctis, ●…ui iam termino in ipso. (g) Sic anim●… cum carne aderunt, quas judicet ipse. Cum jacet incultus densis in vepribus orbis. Reiicient simulachra viri, cunctam quoque Gazam. (h) Exuret terras ignis, pontumque, polumque Inquirens, tetri portas effringet Auerni. (ay) Sanctorum sed enim cunctae lux libera carni Tradetur, sontes aeternum flamma cremabit. (k) Occultos actus retegens, tunc quisque loquetur Secreta, atque Deus reserabit pectora luci. Tunc erit et luctus, stridebunt dentibus omnes: Eripitur solis jubar, et chorus interit astris. Soluetur caelum lunaris splendor obibit. Deiiciet colles, valles extollet ab imo. Non erit in rebus hominum sublime, vel altum. jam equantur campis montes, et caerula ponti. Omnia cessabunt, tellus confracta peribit. Sic pariter fontes torrentur. fluminaque igni. Sed tuba tunc sonitum tristem dimittet ab alto Orb, gemens facinus miserum, variosque labores: Tartareumque Chaos monstrabit terra de●…iscens. Et coram hic domino reges sistentur ad unum. Decidet è caelis ignisque et sulphuris amnis. Now this translator could not make his verses ends meet in the same sense that the Greek meet in: as for example, the Greek letter v, is in the head of one verse, but the Latins have no word beginning with v, that could fit the sense. And this is in three verses, the fifth, the eighteenth and the nineteenth. Again we do not take these letters from the verses heads in their just number, but express them 5. words, jesus Christus, Dei Filius, salvator. The verses are in all, 27. which make a trine, fully (m) quadrate, and solid. For 3. times 3. is 9 and 3. times 9 is 27. Now take the 5. first letters from the 5. first words of the Greek sentence included in the verses heads, and they make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fish, a mystical name of Christ, who could be in this mortal world, as in a deep Sea, without all sin. Now this Sibilla Erythraea, or (as some rather think) Cumana, hath not one word in all her verses (whereof these are a parcel) tending to Idolatry, but all against the false gods and their worshippers, so that she seems to me to have been a citizen of the City of God. (f) Lactantius also hath prophecies of Christ out of some Sibille, but he saith not from which. But that which he dilateth in parcels, do I think good to lay together, and make one large prophecy of his many little ones. This it is. Afterwards he shall be taken by the ungodly, ●…d they shall strike God with wicked hands, and spit their venomous spirits in his face. He shall yield his holy back to their strokes, and take their blows with silence, lest they should know that he is the word, or whence he came to speak to mortals. They shall crown him with thorn, they gave him gall in stead of vinegar to eat, this table of hospitality they shall afford him. Thou foolish nation that knewst not thy God, ●…t crowned him with thorn, and feasted him with bitterness. The veil of the Temple shall rend in two, and it shall be dark three hours at noon day. Then shall he 〈◊〉 and sleep three days, and then shall he arise again from death and show the first fruits of the resurrection to them that are called. All this hath Lactantius used in several places▪ as he needed, from the the Sibyl: We have laid it together, distinguishing it only by the heads of the chapters, if the transcriber have the care to observe and follow us. Some say Sibylla Erythraea lived in the Trojan ●…rre long before Romulus. L. VIVES. MAny (a) Sibyl's] Prophetesses'. Diod. lib. 5. Seru. in 4. Aeneid. Lactant. Diu. inst. The Sibyls. say that Sibylla cometh of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God, (in the Aeolike Dialect) and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 counsel, Suidas 〈◊〉 that it is a Roman word and signifieth a Prophetess. How many of the Sibyls there were and when they lived, is uncertain: we will hear the best authors hereof▪ Martianus 〈◊〉 there were but two Sibyls, one called Erophila, daughter to Marmasus the Trojan (and 〈◊〉 he saith was that of Phrygia and Cumae) the other Symmachia, daughter to an Hippone●…, borne at Erythra, and prophesying at Cumae also. There were three statues of three Sibyls, in the pleading court at Rome. Plin. the first erected by Pacwius Taurus Aedile, and the rest by M. Messala. These (saith Solinus) were the Cumane, the Delphike, and the Erithr●…an Eriphila. Aelian (hist. vari.) names four: Erythraea, Samia, Egypt, Sardiana. Others add two more judaea, and Cumaea. Varro makes them up ten. De re diu●…▪ ad C●…s. The greeks thought to do with them as they did with the Jove's and Hercules, making a many all into one, and writ much of one Sibylla: some make her daughter to Apollo and 〈◊〉: son to Aristocrates and Hydole: some to Crimagoras, or to Theodorus. Some make her borne at Erythra, some in Sicily, some in Sardinia, Gergethia, Rhodes, Lybia, or Leucania, and all these concern the Erythraean sybil, who lived before the sack of Troy, say they. But now to Uarro's ten Sibyls, as Lactantius reckons them, adding the fit assertions of greeks, or Latins by the way. The first was a Persian, mentioned by Nicander, the Chronicler of Alexander's acts. This some say was a Chaldean, and some a jew, her name being Samb●…tha, borne in Noah, a city near the read sea, of one Berossus and his wife Tymantha, who had four and twenty children between them. She prophesied abundantly of Ch●…ist, and his coming, with whom the other Sibyls do fully accord. The second was a Lybian. Eur●…▪ Prologue. in Lamiam. The third a Delphian, (Chrysip. de Divinat.) borne at Delphos, called Themis, living before the siege of Troy. Homer inserted many of her verses into his Rapso●…ie. This saith Diodorus was Daphne, Tiresias daughter, whom the Argives conquering Thebes, sent to Delphos, where growing cunning in Apollo's mysteries, she expounded the Oracles, to them that sought to them, and therefore was called Sibylla. There was another Daphne, daughter to Ladom the Arcadian, Apollo loved her, and she is feigned to be turned into a Laurel in flying from him. The fourth a Cumaean in Italy. Naeu. de bello Punic. Piso in ●…nnal. Some say she was borne in Cymerium a town in Italy near Cumae. The fifth an Erythraean: Apollodorus saith he and she were borne both in a town. She prophesied to the greeks, going to Troy, that they should conquer, and that Homer should write lies. But the common opinion is, she lived before the siege of Troy: yet Eusebius draws him to Romulus his time. Indeed Strabo maketh more than one Erythream sybil: saying there was one ancient one, and another later called Athenais, living in Alexander's time. Lactantius saith Sibylla Erythraea was borne at Babylon, and chose to be called Erythraea. The sixth was a Samian, Eratosth. saith he found mention of her in the Samian Annals: she was called Phito the seventh, a Cumane, called Amalthea, and by other Herophile, or Demophile. Suidas Tarqvinius Priscus. calleth her Hierophile, and saith she brought nine books to King Tarqvinius Priscus, and asked him three hundred angels for them, which he denying and laughing at her, she burned three of them before his face, and asked him the whole sum for the rest. He thinking she was mad or drunk indeed, scoffed at her again: she burned other three, and asked still the whole sum for the three remaining: then the King was moved in mind, and gave it her. This is recorded by Pliny, Dionys. Solin. Gellius, and Servius, concerning Tarquin the proud, not the other. Pliny saith she had but three books, burning two, and saving the third. Suidas saith she had nine books of private oracles, and burnt but two of them: her tomb (saith Solinus) may be seen yet in Sicilia. But he calleth her not Eriphile, for that he gives to the Erythraean Sibyl, who was more ancient than the Cumane. Eusebius thinks that Hierophile was neither the Erythraean, nor Cumane, but the Samian, that she lived in Numa's time, L●…ocrates being Archon of Athens. The wife of Amphiaraus was called Eriphile also. The eight was of Hellespont, borne at Marmissum near Troy, living in the time of Solon and Cyrus. Heracl. Pontic. The ninth was a Phrygian, and prophesied at Aucyra. The tenth a Tyburtine, called Albumea, worshipped at Tybur, as a goddess on the bank of the river Anienes, in whose channel her Image was found, with a book in the hand of it. These are Varro's Sibyls. There are others named also, as Lampusia, Calchas his daughter, of Colophon, whose prophecies were whilom extant in verse: and Sibylla Elyssas also with them. Cassandra also, Priam's daughter, who prophesied her country's ruin, was counted for a Sibyl: there was also Sibyl of Epirus, and Mant●… Tiresias daughter: and lastly Carmentis Euanders' mother, and Fatua, Faunus his wife, all called Sibyls. Didi●…s Grammaticus is in doubt whether Sappho were a Sibyl or no. S●…. de stud. liberal. Yet some in this place read Publica for Sibylla. But which Sibyl it was that wrote the verses containing the Romans fate, Varro himself they s●…y could not tell. Some said it was Sibylla Cumana, as Virgil doth, calling her Deiphobe daughter to Glaucus, who was a Prophet, and taught Apollo the art: unless you had rather read it 〈◊〉, for she (as some say) brought the books to Tarquin Priscus who hid them in the Capitol: She lived in Rome (saith Solinus) in the fifteenth Olympiad. If that be so, it was Tarqum Priscus, & not the Proud, that bought her books: For Priscus died, and Servius Tullus began his reign the fourth year of the fifteenth olympiad, Epitelides of La●…aedemon being victor in the Games, and Archestratides being Archon of Athens. That therefore is likelier that U●…rro and Suidas affirm of Priscus, then that which others said of Superbus, if Solinus his Account be true. Her Chapel was to be seen at Cumae, but Varro thinketh it unlikely that the Sibyl that Aeneas talked with, should live unto the fist King of Rome's time: and therefore he thinketh it was Erythraea that sung the romans destinies. Yet Dionys. saith it was to her that Aeneas went. lib. 4. Varro hath this further ground, that when Apollo's Temple at Erythraea was burnt, those very verses were found there. Even this is she whom Virgil calleth Cumaea, for she prophesied at Cumae in Italy, saith Capella, and so think I; There is Cumae in jonia, by Erythrea, but Aristotle saith directly, there is a Cave in Cumae a City of Italy, in which Sibylla dwelled. She whom others called Erythraea, the Cumaeans for glory of their country call Cumaea: Otherwise they mean some other. For it was not Virgil's Sibyl that Cumane Sibylla, that sold Tarquin the books. Nor saith Virgil, nor think we that there were no verses in those books, but of One Sibyls. This Tacitus showeth saying of Augustus, that, whereas there were many fables spread under the Sibyl's names, he sent into Samos, Erythrea, Ilium, Africa, and to all the Italian Colonies, to be at Rome with their verses at a day appointed, where a judgement was passed by the Quindecimuers, and a censure upon all that should have of these verses in private: Antiquity having decreed against it before. And the Capitol being repaired (saith Lactantius out of Varro) they came thither from all places (and chiefly from Erythraea) with Sibyl's verses. This also Fe●…estella (a diligent Author) recordeth, and that P. Gabinius, M. Octacilius, and Luc. Valeriu●… went to Erythraea purposely about it, and brought about a thousand verses to Rome, which private men had copied forth. Thus far Lactantius. Stilico Honorius his stepfather, de●…ring to move the people against his son in law, made away all the Sibyls books: Of which fact, Claudian writeth thus: Nec tantum Geticis grassatus proditor armis Ante Sybillinae fata cremavit opis. Nor only raged the Traitor in Goths arms, But burned the fates of Sibyl's help from harms. And thus much of the Sibyls. (b) Sibyl of Erythraea] Lactantius citeth some of those verses from another Sibyl: it is no matter indeed which Sibyls they are. One Sibyls they are sure to be, and because she was the most famous, to her they assign them. (c) The first letter▪ That the Sibyls put mysteries in their verses heads, Tully can testify. Their Poems saith he▪ proo●…h them not mad, for there is more cunning than turbulence in them: being all conveyed into Acrostics, as Ennius also had done in some, Showing a mind rather 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉. De divinat. lib. 2. Virgil also Aegl. 4. Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas: The Sibyl's prophecies draw to an end. N●…ly the time that she included in her prophetical Acrostics. (d) Those verses] The Greek verses in Eusebius are these. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. In sign of Dommesday, the whole earth shall sweat: Ever to reign, a King, in heavenly seat, Shall come to judge all flesh. The faithful, and Unfaithful too, before this God shall stand, Seeing him high with Saints, in Times last end. Corporeal shall he sit; and, thence, extend His doom on souls. The earth shall quite lie waist, Ruined, o'ergrown with thorns, and men shall cast Idols away, and treasure. Searching fire Shall burn the ground, and thence it shall inquire, Through seas, and sky, and break Hell's blackest gates: So shall free light salute the blessed states Of Saints; the guilty lasting flames shall burn. No act so hid, but then to light shall turn; Nor breast so close, but GOD shall open wide. Each where shall cries be heard, and noise beside Of gnashing teeth. The Sun shall from the sky Fly forth; and stars no more move orderly. Great Heaven shall be dissolved, the Moon deprived Of all her light; places at height arrived Depressed; and valleys raised to their seat: There shall be nought to mortals, high or great. Hills shall lie level with the plains; the sea Endure no burden; and the earth, as they, Shall perish cleft with lightning: every spring And river burn. The fatal Trump shall ring Unto the world, from heaven, a dismal blast Including plagues to come for ill deeds past. Old Chaos, through the cleft mass, shall be seen, Unto this Bar shall all earth's King's convene: Rivers of fire and Brimstone flowing from heaven. (e) judicii signo] Act. 1. 11. This jesus who is taken up to heaven, shall so come as you have seen him go up into heaven. (f) Scilicet] This verse is not in the Greek, nor is it added here, for there must be twenty seven. (g) Sicanimae] The Greek is, then shall all flesh come into free heaven, and the fire shall take away the holy and the wicked for ever, but because the sense is harsh, I had rather read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and so make it agree with the Latin interpretation. (h) Exuret.] The books of consciences shall be opened, as it is in the Revelation: Of those hereafter ay Sanctorum] Isay. 40. 4. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be laid low: the crooked shall be straight, and the rough places plain. (k) Occultos] High and 〈◊〉 shall then be all one, and neither offensive; pomp▪ height and glory shall no more domineer in particular: but as the Apostle saith. Then shall all principalities and powers be annihilated, that GOD may be all in all. For there is no greater plague then to be under him that is blown big with the false conceit of greatness: he groweth rich and consequently proud: he thinks he may domineer, his father ●…as, I marry was he: his pedigree is always in his mouth, and (very likely) a thief, a Butcher or a Swin-heard in the front of this his noble descent. Another Tarre-lubber brags that he is a soldier, an aid unto the state in affairs military, therefore will he rear and tear, down go whole Cities before him (if any leave their own seats and come into his way, or to take the wall of him, not else): A quadrate number, plain and solid. (l) No word] For the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, beginning a word, is always aspirate: now if we bring it into Latin, aspirate we must put H. before it, and this deceives the ignorant. (m) Quadrate and solid] A plain quadrate is a number multiplied once by itself, as three times three, then multiply the product by the first, and you have a solid: as three times three is nine. here is your quadrate plain, three times nine is twenty seven, that is the quadrate Lactant. lib. 4 cap. 18. solid. (n) Lactantius] Lactantius following his Master Arnobius, hath written seven most excellent and acute volumes against the Pagans, nor have we any Christian that is a better Ciceronian then he. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. To th'faithless unjust hands than shall he come, Whose impure hands shall give him blows, and some Shall from their foul mouths poisoned spittle send, He to their whips his holy back shall bend. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ Thus beat he shall stand mute, that none may ken Who was, or whence, the word, to speak to men▪ And he shall bear a thorny crown— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. They gave him for drink Vinegar, and Gall for meat, This table of in-hospitalitie they set. This is likewise in another verse of Sibyls: the Greek is: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Thy God (thy good) thou brainless senseless didst not know, Who past and played in mortal words and works below: A crown of thorns, and fearful gall thou didst bestow. In the next Chapter following: the words are these. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chap. 19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The Temple's veil shall rend in twain, and at midday Prodigious darkened night for three full hours shall stay. In the same Chapter. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Death shall shut up his date with sleeping for three days Then rising from the dead, he turns to the Sun rays: The resurrections firstfruits to th'elect displays, (o) Of the resurrection] Making away for the chosen, by his resurrection, so the Greek implieth, Christ as the Apostle saith, being the first borne of many brethren, and the first fruits of those that sleep. The seven Sages in Romulus his time: Israel lead into captivity: Romulus dieth and is deified. CHAP. 24. IN Romulus his time lived Thales, one of those who (after the Theological Poets in which Orpheus was chief) were called the Wisemen, or Sages. And (a) now did the Chaldaeans subdue the ten Tribes of Israel, (fallen before from juda) and lead them all into Chaldaea captive, leaving only the tribes of juda and Benjamin free, who had their King's seat at Jerusalem. Romulus' dying, and being not to be found, was here-upon deified, which use was now almost given over, so that (b) in the Caesar's times they did it rather upon flattery then error, and Tully commends Romulus highly in that he could deserve those in so wise and learned an age, though Philosophy were not yet in her height of subtle and acute positions and disputations. But although in the later days they made no new Gods of men, yet kept they their old ones still, and gave not over to worship them: increasing superstition by their swarms of Images, whereof antiquity had none: and the devils working so powerfully with them, that they got them to make public presentations of the gods shames, such as if they had been un-dreamed of before, they would have shamed to invent as then. After Romulus reigned Numa, who stuffed all the City with false religion, yet could he not shape a Godhead for himself out of all this Chaos of his consecrations. It seems he stowed heaven so full of gods that he left no room for himself. He reigning at Rome, and Manasses over the Hebrews (that (c) wicked King that-killed the Prophet Isaias) Sibylla (d) Samia lived, as it is reported. L. VIVES. NOw (a) did] By the conduct of Senacharib, or Salmanazar, King of Chaldaea, in Osee●… time. They were transported into the Mountains of Media, after they had been ruled by ●…gs 250. years. Senacherib sent colonies out of Assyria into judaea to possess and keep it▪ and they followed the jewish law, and were called Samaritans, that is, keepers. (b) In the Samaritans. Caesar's time] Tully in his Phillippikes rattles up Caesar's deity, Seneca derides that of Claudius, and Lucan the divine honours given to all the Caesars. (c) That wicked King that killed] So 〈◊〉 did and set up an Idol with five faces. Esaias was a Prophet of the blood royal. He prophesied under Manasses who made him be sawen in two. He was buried under the oak Ro●…ll▪ near to the spring that Ezechias damned up. Hierome. (d) Samia] Called Herophi●… Esaias. ●…nd living in Samos. Euseb. Philosophers living in Tarqvinius Priscus his time, and Sedechias, when Jerusalem was taken, and the Temple destroyed. CHAP. 25. SEdechias ruling over the Hebrews, and Tarqvinius Priscus (successor to Ancus Martius) over the Romans, the jews were carried captive to Babylon, Jerusalem was destroyed, and Salomon's temple razed. (b) The Prophets had told them long before that their wickedness would be the cause of this, chiefly Hieremy (c) who told them the very time that it would hold: (d) about this time lived (e) Pittacus of Mitylene, another of the sages. And the other five also (which with Thales and this Pittacus make seven) lived all (as Eusebius saith) (f) within the time of the Israelites captivity in Babylon. Their names were (g) Solon of Athens (h) Chilo of Lacedaemon ay Periander of Corinth (k) Cleobulus of Lindum, (l) and 〈◊〉 of Prienaeum. These were all after the Theolgicall Poets, and were more famous for their (m) better discipline of life, than others observed, & for that they ●…ue sundry (n) good instructions, touching the reformation of manners. But they left (o) no records of their learning to posterity, but only Solon that left the Athe●…ns some laws of his making. Thales was a Naturalist, & left books of his opini●…ns: & in this time also lived Anaximander, Anaximenes & Xenophanes, all natural, Philosophers, & Pythagoras also from whom Philosophy seemed to take beginning. L VIVES. SEdechias (a)] Nabuchodrosor (or 〈◊〉) warred with three Kings of juda, first ●…ith joachim, and him he made his 〈◊〉 which 〈◊〉, and him he carried 〈◊〉 Nab●…codrosor. three months' war, unto Babylon, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 jury, and l●…auing 〈◊〉 (whom he named ●…s) jechonias his uncle, Provost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: he charged his name to make him remember 〈◊〉 place, but he disobeyed him upon his depature, and so pulled the weight of a great war vp●… him. For the Chaldaean cam●… in 〈◊〉▪ burned and ●…lew all up before him, besieged Hie●…, took it through famine ●…w Sedechias 〈◊〉 children before his face, put out his eyes, and ●…d him captive to Babylon, with all his people ●…ith him, and razed the city to the ground. 〈◊〉 The Prophets] Hieremy began to prophesy the third year of josias, son of Ammon, King of 〈◊〉, as he declareth in the 〈◊〉 of his prophecy 〈◊〉 saith, not until the tenth year. 〈◊〉 and his prophecy thus writeth Alex. Polyhist. In joachims' time, he was sent by God to Hieremy. Prophecy, and finding the jews adoring of their Idol Baal, he thereupon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cities ruin and their captivity, whereupon joachim commanded to burn him▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them that with the same pieces of wood should they (being captive) dig and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tigris and Euphrates. This Nabuchodrozor heard off, and gathering his power, came and 〈◊〉▪ judaea, Jerusalem, and the Temple, taking the Ark and all away with him. (c) Who told seventy years he said it would endure, and so it did. (d) Pittacus] Euseb▪ saith that 〈◊〉 The ' capti●…ty of juda. Thales were seven wise men of Greece in Cyrus his time. evang. Prep. lib. 10. But indeed 〈◊〉 times cannot be brought unto one, some were before other some. Thales assuredly sp●…ke with Cyrus, so did Solon and Pittacus with Croesus who warred with Cyrus. But 〈◊〉 time began but a little before his ended. For Cyrus lived from the fortieth to the 〈◊〉 olympiad. Some say to the fifty one, fifty two, fifty three, yea and some to the fifty eigh●…▪ Eusebius saith Thales lived in the beginning of Romulus his time. But either the author or the transcriber is in a foul fault, yet Augustine followeth them. For how could 〈◊〉 come to Cyrus his time then? From the eighth Olympiad unto the five and fifteeths, very near two hundred years? Thales by the longest account lived but ninety: So 〈◊〉 Sosicrates, but ordinarily he hath but seventy allowed him, Laert. And Eusebius maketh the seven sages to live but in Servius his first beginning of his reign: and Thales in the first of Ancus Martius; that is Olymp. thirty five, whom he said lived unto Olymp. fifty eight: then must he not be referred to Romulus his time. And the greeks have exceeding ado about their sages, every one being vayne-gloryous for his own side, for they had wo●… in old time to call all their Artists, Sages, as we call them knowing men. The Poet's 〈◊〉 Wise men & sages at first a general name to A●…st and Poets. were called so: as Hesiod and Homer. And then Thales, Bias, Pittacus, and Solon got a●…l this name. For these saith Dicaearchus, were assuredly such. But whom to add to 〈◊〉 now there lies the doubt. It is the greatest and most noble question that is handle●… in profane matters. The three that Augustine nameth, are commonly added. Laert. Plato, reiectes Periander, and putteth one Mison in his place, whose country is unknown. In protag. Plato maketh him a Chevean, a man-hater as Timon, and 〈◊〉 was. Le●…drius for him and Cleobulus, putts Leop hantus of Ephesus, and Epimenedes of Crete. 〈◊〉 puts Anacharsis the Sythian in Periander's place. Others add Aristodemus Pamphilus, and Strabras the Argive, Hermippus reckons seaventeeene wise men: Solon, Thales, ●…acus, Bias, Cleobulus▪ Chilo, Periander, Anacharsis, Acusilaus, Epimenides, Cleophantus▪ Pherecides, Aristodemus, Pythagoras, Latius, Hermion and Anaxagoras. (e) 〈◊〉] Son to Hircadius the Thracian as it is reported: borne at Mytelene in Lesbos: a lover of his countries Pittacus. freedom▪ for which he slew the Tyrant Melanchrus: he was very valiant (for 〈◊〉 fought hand to hand with Phrymon of Athens who had been victor in the 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 slew him) and most just, for being made a judge between Athens and Mitylene in a controversy concerning lands, he judged on the Athenians side: and therefore the Mitylenians made him Precedent of their state, which he held until he had settled it and then gave it over. He died, Olymp. fifty one, in the seaventith year of his age; ten years after he had reform the state. (f) Within the time] Euseb. Praep. evang. and in Chronic. (whom●… Augustine followeth much in this work) In Cyrus his time were the Israelites freed, and in the beginning of his reign the seven sages flourished. (g) Solon] born in Salaminia, under the dominion Solon. of Athens, & son of Exestides one descended from the blood-royal of Codrus the ●…lified Draco his bloody laws, & gave the Athenians better: for Draco wrote his with blood & not with ink, as Demades said: all crimes great and small, yea even idleness itself was 〈◊〉 of death. Solon hated his cousin Pisistrates his affectation of a Kingdom, who attaining it, 〈◊〉 got him into Egypt, & from thence to Croesus, King of Lydia: then to Cilicia where he 〈◊〉 Solos (afterwards called Pompeiopolis) because there Pompey overcame the p●…rates, thence to Cyprus and there he died, being 70. years old. He was Archon of Athens, Olymp. 46. in the third year thereof. For they elected now every year, not every tenth year as they had done before. The Athenians offered him their Kingdom which he stoutly refused, & exhorted them earnestly to stand in their liberty. Laertius and Plutarch recite some of his laws, which the Romans put into their twelve tables. (h) Chilo] His father's name was Damagetes; he was one of the Ephori (Magistrates much like the Roman Tribunes) for he first ordained the ●…yning Chilo. of the Ephori with the Kings: he was a man of few words, and brief in phrase as the L●…ans were naturally. He died at Pisa, embracing his son coming victor from the The Ephori, a Magi●…acy. Olympics. He had an epigram under his statue, that called him the wisest of the seven ay (i) Periander.] I see no reason he should have this honour, for he was a tyrant, most furious, vicious, covetous, and abominably incestuous. These are no parts of wisdom, therefore 〈◊〉. many do put him out of this number. But Sotion and Heraclitus say that the wise Periander was not he of Corinth, but an Ambracian borne. Aristot, saith he was borne at Corinth: and ●…-germaine to the Tyrant. Plato saith no. (k) Cleobulus.] Born at Lindus in Rhodes, some Cleobulus, say, in Caria. Du●…is. His father was called Euagoras, the most beauteous and valorous person of his time. He learned his knowledge in Egypt, his daughter Cleobul●…a was a famous prophetess, etc. (l) Bias.) His father's name was Teuta●…us. Prie●…ia is in jonia. To him they say the golden Tripos was brought, and he sent it unto Hercules of Thebes. He freed his Bias, country from the great war of Croesus' the Lydian, his was that phrase, Omnia ●…ea me●… porto: Mine own, and all mine own, I bear about me. Cic. Paradox. I wonder the greeks make no mention of this in his life. They speak not of Prienes taking in all his whole life: Tully I believe was deceived in this, nor is this his only error. Seneca seems to give it more truly to Stilpo of Megara, for Demetrius as then took Mega●…a. Bias died sweetly with his head in the lap of his grand child by his daughter. The Prienmans built a chapel to him. Satyrus preferreth him before all the other Sages. (m) Better discipline.] They were not learned, nor Philosophers (saith Dicaearchus) but they were hardy men and good politi●…s. And so saith Tully. De Amicit. (n) good instructions.] We have Greek sentences under there names: Ausonius hath made some of them into verse. Thales his motto was, Nosce te: know thyself. Pittacus his, Nosce occasionem: take time while time is. Solons, Nihil nimis: the mean is the best. Chilons'. Sponsioni non deest iactura: Bargains and losses are inseparable, or he that will adventure must lose. Periander's, Stipandus Imperator dediturus non est armis sed bene●…lentia, love and not arms guard him that would rule. Cleobulus, ca●… i●…micorum insidias, a●…corum The motts of ●…he seven Sages. invidias, beware of your foes enmity and your friends envy. Bias, Plure●… mali. The worse are the more. So agree Augustine and Eusebius who saith that their inventions were nothing but short sentences, tending to the instituting of honest disciplines into men's hearts. Prep. evang. liber. 10. (o) No records.] Yet Solon and Bias they say left some verses. The romans were freed from their Kings, and Israel from captivity both at one time. CHAP. 26. AT the same time (a) Cyrus King of Persia, Caldaea, and Assyria, gave the jews a kind of release, for he sent 50000. of them to re-edify the Temple, and these only built the Altar, and laid the foundations▪ for their foes troubled them with so often incursions that the building was left of until Darius his time. (b) The story of judith, fell out also in the same times: which they say the jews receive not into their cannon. The seventy years therefore being expired in Darius his reign, (the time that Hieremy (c) had prefixed) The ●…ewes had their full freedom: Tarquin the proud being the seventh King of Rome: whom the romans expelled, and never would be subject to any more Kings. Until this time, had Israel prophets, in great numbers, but indeed we have but few of their Prophecies cannonicaly recorded. Of these I said in ending my last book, that I would make some mention in this, and here it is fittest. L. VIVES. CYrus (a) King.] Son to Mandanes, Astiaeges his daughter, the Median King, and Cambyses one of obscure birth: he was called Cyrus, after the river Cyrus in Persia Cyrus. near to which he was brought up. He foiled his grandfather in war, and took the Monarchy from the Medes, placing it in persia. He conquered Chaldaea also. For the Me●… having gotten the Monarchy to themselves after Sardanapalus his death▪ had their Kings all crowned at Babylon, and Nabuchodrosor was their most royal ruler: his exploits they extol above the Chaldean Hercules acts: saying that he had a conquering a●…mye, as far as the Gades. Strabo ex Megasthene. Megasthenes, (saith Alphaeus) affirms that Nabuchodrosor was a stouter soldier than Hercules, and that he conquered all Libya and Asia as far as Armenia, and returning to his home, he cried out in manner of prophesying: O babylonians, I presage that a great misfortune shall befall you, which neither B●…lus, nor any of the gods can resist: The Mule of Persia shall come to make slaves of you all! Haui●…g thus said, presently he vanished away, Milina Rudocus his son succeeded him, and was slain by Iglisares who reigned in his place, and left the crown to his son Babaso Arascus, who was slain by treason, Nabividocus was made King. Him did Cyrus, taking Babylon, make Prince of Carmania. Thus far Alphaeus. Alexander Polyhistor differeth somewhat from this but not much. josephus saith there were two Nabuchodrosors: and that it was the son that▪ Megasthenes pre●…erres before Hercules, and the father that took Bab●…lon. The son dying left his crown to Amilmadapak, or Abimatadok▪ and he freed jechonias and made him Computation of years one of his Courtiers. Amilmadapak died having reigned eighteen years, and left his son Agressarius to inher●…te, who reigned forty years, and his son Labosordak succeeded him, who died at the end of nine months, and Balthasar otherwise called Noboar had his crown, and him did Cyrus chase out of his Kingdom when he had reigned seventeen years. Now if this account be true, there are more than an hundred years between the beginning of the jews captivity and Cyrus the Persian. But sure an error there ●…s, either in the author or in the transcriber. Now Cyrus being moved by the Prophecy of Esay, who had Is●… prop●…ecyed 210▪ years before Cyrus. foretold the original of his Empire twenty years ere it came to pass, set the jews free and sent them to build the Temple, restoring all the vessels that Nabuchodrosor had brought away. This was now forty years after the beginning of their captivity, Euseb. So they went and built, but their enemies troubled them so that they were fain to let it alone until the second year of Darius his reign, the son of Histaspis, who expelled the Magi, and was King alone. For he in favour of zorobabel, sent all the jews home, and forbade any of his subjects to molest them. So in the seaventith year after their captivation they returned home. This is after Eusebius his account, unto whom Clement 〈◊〉, saying. The jews captivity endured ●…eauenty years unto the second year of Darius' King of Persia, Egypt and Assyria, in whose time, Aggee, Zachary and one of the 12. called Angelus, prophesied; and jesus the son of josedech was high Priest. That Darius his second year, and the seaventith of the captivity, were both in one, Zachary testifieth Chap. 1. 1. 12. But josephus The authority of the book of judith. maketh seventy years of the Captivity to be run in Cyrus his time. (b) The sto●…y of judith] This book (saith Hierome) hath no authority in matter of Controversy: But yet the synod of Nice hath made it canonical. Bede saith that Cambysis son to the elder Cyrus was called by the jews the second Nabuchodrosor, and that the fact of judith was done in his time. (c) Had profixed] Chap. 25. 11. Of the times of the Prophets whose books we have: How they prophesied (some of them) of the calling of the nation, in the declining of the Assyrian Monarchy, and the romans erecting. CHAP. 27. TO know the times well, let us go back a little. The prophecy of Ozee, the first of the twelve beginneth thus. The word of the Lord that came to Ozee, in the days of Ozias, joathan, Achaz, Ezechias, Kings of juda (b) Amos write●…h also that the prophecy in Ozias his days, (c) adding that Hieroboam lived in those times also, as ●…e did indeed. 〈◊〉 also the son of Amos (either the Prophet or some other, 〈◊〉 this later is more generally held) nameth the four in the beginning of his ●…phecy, that Osee named. So doth (d) Micheas also. All these their prophe●… prove to have lived in one time: together with (e) jonas, and (f) joel, the 〈◊〉 under Ozias, and the later under his son joathan. But we find not the ●…es of the two later, in their books, but in the Chronicles. Now (g) these times reach from Procas or aventinus his predecessor, King of the Latins, unto Romulus now King of Rome, nay even unto Numa Pompilius, his successor: For so long reigned Ezechias in juda. And therefore in the fall of the Assyrian Empire and the rising of the Roman, did these fountains of prophecy break ●…th: that even as Abraham had received the promise of all the worlds being ●…ed in his seed, at the first original of the Assyrian estate: So likewise might 〈◊〉 ●…stimonies of the person in whom the former was to be fulfilled, be as fre●… both in word and writing in the original of the western Babylon. For 〈◊〉 prophets that were continually in Israel, from the first of their Kings, 〈◊〉 all for their peculiar good, and no way pertaining to the nations. (h) But 〈◊〉 ●…e more manifest prophecies, which tended also to the nations good, it 〈◊〉 ●…te they should begin, when that City began that was the Lady of the 〈◊〉. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) days of Ozias] The surest testimony of the Prophet's times, are in their works O●…. 〈◊〉 have not omitted to record when they prophesied, so that it were superfluous to 〈◊〉 ●…ddition of any other confirmations, than those of their own. Osee prophesied too, 〈◊〉 ●…ose three Kings of the two tribes, the father, the son, and the sons son, in the 〈◊〉 whose days, Salmanazar led the Israelites away captive. So that Osee (as Hierome 〈◊〉 ●…id both presage it ere it came, and deplore it when it came. Ozias lived in that memo●…e of the Assyrian Empire, by the rebellion of the Medes. Some call this King Aza●…) Amos] Amos (saith Hierome) the next Prophet after joel, and the third of the 〈◊〉 was not he that was the Prophet Esay's father. For his name is written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Amos. 〈◊〉 and Tsade being the first and last letters of his name, which is interpreted, strong and 〈◊〉: but this Prophet's name is written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: with Ain and Samech, and is translated ●…ed people. Man and Ua●…, both of them have alike. To us now that have no difference 〈◊〉, nor of the letter S, which the Hebrews have triple, these words seem all one: 〈◊〉 can discern them, by the propriety of the vowels and accents. This Prophet Amos 〈◊〉 in Thecue, six miles' South from holy Betheleem where our Saviour was borne: and ●…d that is neither village nor cottage: such an huge desert lies between that and the 〈◊〉 sea, reaching even to the confines of Persia, Aethiopia, and India. But because the 〈◊〉 is barren and will bear no corn, therefore all is full of shepherds, to countervail 〈◊〉 ●…lesnesse of the land, with the abundance of cattle. One of these shepherds was 〈◊〉, rude in language but not in knowledge. For the spirit that spoke in them all, spoke also 〈◊〉 him. Thus far Hierome. Wherefore I wonder that the Prologue unto Amos saith di●… that he was father to Esay; perhaps it was from some Hebrew tradition, who say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prophet's fathers, or grandfathers, that are named in any part of their works titles, 〈◊〉 Prophets also. Hier. in Sophon. (c) Adding that Hieroboam] Not he that drew the 〈◊〉 tribes from Roboam, for he was a hundred and sixty years before this other, who 〈◊〉 his son. (Micheas] He prophesied (saith Hierome) in the time of joathon, 〈◊〉 Ozias. The seventy make him third Prophet of the twelve, and the Hebrews the Michaeas'. 〈◊〉) jonas] So saith Eusebius, of the times of Azarias, or Ozias. So saith Hierome al●…●…ommentaryes upon Ozee: and in his prologue upon jonas he receyteth the opini●… jonas, 〈◊〉 that held Amathi the father of jonas, to be the widow of Sarephta's son, 〈◊〉 Elias restored to life, whereupon she said: Now I know that thou art a man of 〈◊〉 that the word of God in thy mouth is truth, and therefore her child was so named. For Amithi, in our language is truth. (f) joel] In our tongue Beginning. Hierome. He prophesied in the times of the other prophets. (g) These times▪] aventinus reigned thirty ●…uen joel, years, and in the two and thirtieth of his reign began Azarias or Ozias to reign in juda. Euseb. Eutropius differs not much from this, so that by both accounts Ezechias his time fell to the beginning of Numa his reign. (h) But for the] For these prophets prophesied of the calling of the Heathens, as he will show afterwards. Prophecies concerning the Gospel, in Osee and Amos. CHAP. 28. OSee is a Prophet as divine as deep. Let us perform our promise, and see what he ●…ayth: In the place where it was said unto them, you are not my people, it sh●…ll be said, ye are sons of the living God, This testimony the (a) Apostles Hose, 1. 10. ●…m-selues interpreted of the calling of the Gentiles: who because they are th●… spiritual sons of Abraham, and therefore (b) rightly called Israel: it followeth of them thus: Then the children of judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land. If we seek for farther exposition of this, we shall ●…loy the sweet taste of the Prophet's eloquence. Remember but the corner stone, and the two walls, the jews and the Gentiles, either of them under those several names, being founded upon that one head, and acknowledged to mount up from the land. And that those carnal Israelites that believe not now shall once believe (being as sons to the other, succeeding them in their places) the same Prophet auouche●…h, saying: The children of Israel shall sit many days without a King, without a Hose, 〈◊〉. 4. Prince, without an offering, without an Altar, without a Priesthood, and without (c) manifestations, who sees not that these are the jews? Now mark the sequel. Afterwards shall the children of Israel convert, and seek the Lord their God, and David their King, and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in these later days. Nothing can be plainer spoken, here is Christ meant by David, as he was the son of David in the flesh (saith the Apostle) Nay this Prophet foretold the third day of his resurrection also: Hear him else: After two days will he revive us, and in the third day he will raise us up. Just in this key spoke Saint Paul saying: If ye be risen with Hose, 6. 2. Colo●…, 3. 1. 〈◊〉▪ 4. 1●… Christ, seek the things which are above. Such a prophecy hath Amos also: Prepare to meet thy God O Israel, for lo, I form the thunder; and the winds, and declare mine anointed in men: and in another place: (d) In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen down, and close up the breaches thereof, and will raise up his ruins, and build it as in the days of old: that the residue of mankind, and a●… the heat●…, ●…ay seek me, because my name is called upon them, saith the Lord that doth this. L. VIVES. TH●… (a) Apostles] Pet. 1. 2. 10. (b) Rightly called Israel] For all that follow truth and righteousness are of Abraham's spiritual seed. Wherefore such as descend from him in the flesh, the scriptures call judah, because that tribe stuck to the old Priesthood, temple and sacrifices: and such as are not Abraham's children by birth, but by faith, are called Israel. For the ten tribes that fell from Iu●…ahs King, the jews named Israel, and they differed not much from 〈◊〉: for they left their father's religion, and became Idolaters: Wherefore the jews hated 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much as they did the 〈◊〉, who had no claim at all of descent from Abrah●…. (c) Manifestations] So do the seventy read it. The hebrew hath it Ephod. The seventy 〈◊〉 at that intimation of the loss of their prophecy, doctrine and wisdom: the greatest loss 〈◊〉 could befall a city. The hebrew, at the abolition of their priesthood, dignity, and orna●…▪ (d) In the day] This place Saint james in the Acts testifieth to be meant of the calling of 〈◊〉 Nations Act. 15. 15. 16. The Apostles there avowing it, who dares gainsay it? Esay his prophecies concerning Christ. CHAP. 29. ESaias (a) is none of the twelve prophets. They are called the small prophets because their prophecies are brief, in comparison of others that wrote large ●…mes, of whom Esay was one, whom I add here, because he lived in the times 〈◊〉 two aforenamed. In his precepts against sin, and for goodness, & his pro●…cies of tribulation for offending, he forgetteth not also to proclaim Christ 〈◊〉 his Church more amply than any other, in so much that (b) some call him an ●…gelist rather than a Prophet. One of his prophecies hear in brief because I 〈◊〉 stand upon many. In the person of God the Father, thus he saith: (c) Be●… Isay 52, 13 14 my son shall understand: he shallbe exalted and be very high: as many were astonished 〈◊〉 (thy form was so despised by men, and thy beauty by the sons of men) so shall ma●…ions admire him, & the kings shallbe put to silence at his sight: for that which they Is. 53, 1, 2 etc. 〈◊〉 not heard of him, shall they see, and that which hath not been told them, they shall ●…stand. Lord who will believe our report? to whom is the Lords arm revealed? we 〈◊〉 ●…clare him, as an infant and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath neither form ●…ty, when we shall see him he shall have neither goodliness nor glory: but his 〈◊〉 ●…albe despised and rejected before all men. He is a man full of sorrows, and hath ●…ce of infirmities. For his face is turned away: he was despised and we esteem●… not. He hath borne our sins and sorroweth for us: yet did we judge him as 〈◊〉 of God, and smitten and humbled. But he was wounded for our transgressions, 〈◊〉 broken for our iniquities: our peace we learned by him, and with his stripes we are 〈◊〉. We have all strayed like sheep: man ha●… lost his way, and upon him hath GOD 〈◊〉 our guilt. He was afflicted, vet never opened he his mouth: he was led as a sheep 〈◊〉 slaughter▪ & as 〈◊〉 Lamb before the shearer, is dumb, so was he & opened not his 〈◊〉: he was out from prison unto judgement: O who shall declare his generation? 〈◊〉 shallbe taken out of life. For the transgression of my people was he plagued: and ●…l give the wicked for his grave, and the rich for his death: because he hath 〈◊〉 wickedness, nor was there any (d) deceit found in his mouth! The LORD 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him from his affliction: (e) If you give your soul for sin, you shall see the 〈◊〉 ●…tinue long, and the LORD shall take his soul from sorrow: to show him light ●…firme his understanding, to justify the righteous, serving many, for he bore their ●…ties. Therefore I will give him a portion with the great: he shall divide the 〈◊〉 of the strong, because he hath powered out his soul unto death: He was recko●…●…ith the transgressors, and hath borne the sins of many, and was betrayed ●…ir trespasses. Thus much of CHRIST, n●… what saith he of his church? 〈◊〉 O barren that bearest not: break forth and cry out for joy, tho●… that bringest Isai. 54, 1, 2 etc. ●…th: for the desolate hath more children than the married wife. Enlarge that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy tents, and fasten the (f) curtains of thy Tabernacles: spare not, stretch out ●…des and make fast thy stakes: spread it yet further to the right hand and thy 〈◊〉 thy seed shall possess the Gentiles, and dwell in the desolate Cities: fear not, because thou ●…t shamed: be not afraid because thou art upbraided, for thou shall forget thi●… everlasting shame, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more, for the Lord that made thee is called the Lord of Hosts, and the redeemer, the holy one of Israel shallbe called the God of all the world. etc. Here is enough, needing but a little explanation, for the places are so plain that our enemies themselves are forced (despite their hearts) to acknowledge the truth. These then suffice. L. VIVES. ESaias (a) is.] A noble man worthily eloquent, more like an Evangelist than a Prophet, he 〈◊〉. prophesied in Jerusalem and Iury. Hier. ad Eustoch. & Paulam. Manasses King of judah made him be sawen a two, with a wooden saw, of him is that meant in the Hebrews. chp. 11. verse. 37. They were sawen asunder. The causes of his death Hierome relateth, comm●…n, in Esa. lib. 〈◊〉. (b) Some.] Hierome ad Paul & Eustoch. for he speaketh not in mystical manner of things as if they were to come, but most plainly, as if they were present, or past which is not ordinary in the other prophets. (c) Behold.] All this quotation out of the 52. 53. and 54. chapters of Isay, the Septuagints (whom Saint Augustine followeth) do sometimes differ from the Hebrew truth: But the scope aims all at one end, namely the passion of Christ: we will not stand to decide particulars, Augustine himself saith all is plain enough, and omits to stand upon them, to avoid tediousness. (d) Deceit found.] The seventy, leave out found (e) If you give your soul.] The seventy read it, if you give (him) for sin, your soul shall see your seed of long continuance. (f) The curtains.] The vulgar, and the seventy read, the skins. Prophecies of Michaeas, jonas, and joel, correspondent unto the New-Testament. CHAP. 30. THe Prophet Michaeas' prefiguring Christ by a great mountain, saith thus (a) In the last days shall the mountain of the Lord be prepared upon the tops of 〈◊〉. 4, 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. the hills, and shallbe exalted above the hills: and the nations shall hast them to it saying: Come let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, into the house of the God of jacob, and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths, for the law shall go forth of Zion and the word of the Lord from Hie●…salem. He shall judge amongst many people and rebuke mighty nations a far of. The same prophet foretells Christ birth place also saying, (b) And thou Bethleem (c) of Ephrata, art little to be amongst the thousands of judah: yet out of thee shall a (d) captain come forth unto me that shallbe the Prince of Israel, (e) whose goings forth have been everlasting. Therefore (f) will he give them up until the time that the childbearing woman do travel, and the (g) remnant of her brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he (h) shall stand and look, and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord: in the hon●…or of God's 〈◊〉 shall they continue: for now shall he be magnified unto the world's end. Now ay jonas prophesied Christ rather in suffering, then in speaking, & that most manifestly considering the passion & resurrection. For why was he 3. days in the whals' belly and then let out, but to signify Christ's resurrection from the depth of hell, upon the third day? Indeed joels prophecies of Christ & the Church, require great explanation, yet one of his, (and that was remembered by the (k) Apostles, at the descending of the Holy Ghost upon the faithful, as Christ had promised) I will not o●…it. Afterwards (●…ith he) I will power out my spirit upon all flesh: your sons and daughters shall Prophecy, and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men 〈◊〉 visions: even upon the servants and the maids in those days will I pour my spirit. L VIVES. IN (a) The last days.] The same is in Esay. 2. 2. (b) And thou Bethelem.] Augustine, and the seventy do differ here from the Hebrew. S. Matthew readeth it thus. And thou Bethleem 〈◊〉 the land of judah art not the least among the Trinces of judah, for out of thee shall come the g●…rnor that shall feed my people Israel. S. Hierome upon Michaeas (lib. 2.) saith that this quo●…ion of Matthew acordeth neither with the Hebrew nor the seventy. This question put●…g the holy father to his plunges, he is fain to say that either the Apostle cited it not ha●…g the book before him, but out of his memory, which sometime doth err: or else 〈◊〉 he cited it as the priests had given it in answer to Herod: herein showing their negli●…, the first he affirmeth as the opinion of others. It is an hard thing to make the Apostle ●…ke just contrary to the prophet: Neither Prophyry nor Celsus would believe this in a matter 〈◊〉 concerned not themselves. But the scope of both being one, maketh this conjecture in●…de the more tolerable: But it is a weak hold to say the Priest spoke it thus, it were ●…ly absurd in their practice of the scriptures to alter a Prophecy, intending especially ●…hew the full aim of it. But before the Apostle (nay the spirit of God) shallbe taxed with 〈◊〉 an error, let the later conjecture stand good, or a weaker than it, as long as we can find 〈◊〉 stronger. But if we may lawfully put in a guess, after Hierome (that worthy) in the ex●…tion of those holy labyrinths, to grant that the Hebrew and the seventy read this place ●…matiuely and the Evangelist negatively: read the place with an interrogation, and they 〈◊〉 both reconciled: I mean with an interrogation in the Prophet, as is common in their ●…es, and befitting the ardour of their affections: but in the Evangelist the bare sense is ●…y fit to be laid down without figure or affection. (c) Of Ephrata.] The country where Ephrata. Bethleem. ●…leem stood, which the Priests omitted, as speaking to Herod a stranger that knew juda 〈◊〉. The Evangelist gave an intimation of Christ whence he was to come, by putting in 〈◊〉 for Ephrata; there was another Bethleem in Galilee, as it is in josuah. Hierome upon 〈◊〉 ●…hew noteth it as the transcribers fault to put judea for juda, for all the Bethlems that are, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judea Galelee, where the other is, being a part thereof. And the like fault it may be is in 〈◊〉 which followeth; But when he heard that Archelaus reigned in judaea, for juda, but ●…ed judaea after the return from Captivity, kept not the old bounds, but was contracted 〈◊〉 country about Jerusalem, the metropolitan city thereof. (d) A captain.] The Bru●… copy leaveth out, a captain, and so do the seventy. But the putting of it in, altars not 〈◊〉 sense. (e) Whose goings out.] This excludeth all mortal men from being meant of in this ●…ecy: inculding only that eternal Saviour, whose essence hath been from all eternity. 〈◊〉 Will he give them.] The gentiles shall rule, until the body of their states do bring forth ●…en unto the Lord (g) The remnant.] The brethren of the people Israel, and the spiri●… seed of Abraham, etc. they shall believe on that Christ that was promised to the true 〈◊〉. (h) He shall stand.] Here shallbe rest, and security, the Lord looking unto all his sheep 〈◊〉 ●…eeding them with his powerful grace. ay jonas.] Being cast overboard by the sailors Iona●…. ●…orme, he was caught up by a Whale, and at the third days end was cast a shore by him: 〈◊〉 was he the Image of Christ himself unto the tempting jews. Mat. 12. 39 40. (k) By 〈◊〉 Apostles.] Act. 2. 17. 18. Prophecies of Abdi, Naum and Abacuc, concerning the world's salvation in Christ. CHAP. 31. ●…Herefore the small prophets (a) Abdi, (b) Naum, and (c) Abacuc 〈◊〉 never mention the times: nor doth Eusebius or Hierome supply that ●…ct. They place (d) Abdi and Michaeas both together, but not ●…re where they record the time of Michaeas his prophesying (e) which the negligence of the transcribers I think was the only cause of. The two other, we cannot once find named in our copies: yet since they are cannonicall, we may not omit them. Abdi in his writing is the briefest of them all, he speaks against Idumaea, the reprobate progeny of Esau, the elder son of Isaac, and grandchild of Abraham. Now if we take Idumaea, by a Synecdoche partis, (g) for all the nations, we may take this prophecy of his to be meant of Christ: Upon Mount Zion shallbe salvation, and it shallbe holy, and by and by after. They that (h) shall be saved, shall come out of Zion (that is the believer in Christ, the Apostles, shall come out of judah) to defend mount Esau. How to defend it, but by preaching the Gospel, to save the believers, and translate them into the kingdom of GOD out of the power of darkness as the sequel showeth? And the Kingdom shallbe the Lords. For Mount Zion signifieth juda, the storehouse of salvation, and the holy mother of Christ in the flesh: and (ay) Mount Esau, is Idumaea, prefiguring the church of the Gentiles, whom they that were saved came out of Zion to defend, that the kingdom might be the Lords. This was unknown ere it were done, but being come to pass, who did not discern it? Now the Prophet Naum (nay God in him) saith. I will abolish the graven and molten Image, and make them thy Naum 1 (k) grave. Behold upon the feet of him that declareth and publisheth peace. O judah keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows▪ for the wicked shall no more pass through thee, he is utterly cut off. He that breatheth in thy face, and freeth thee from tribulation, ascendeth. Who is this that doth thus? remember the Holy Ghost, remember the Gospel. For this belongeth to the New Testament whose feasts are renewed, never more to cease. The Gospel we see hath abolished all those graven and molten Images, those false Idols, & hath laid them in oblivion, as in a grave. Herein we see this prophecy fulfilled. Now for Abacuk, of what doth he mean but of the coming of Christ, when he saith? The Lord answered saying, write the vision, and make it plain on tables that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the last it shall speak and not lie, though it tarry: Ab●… 2 await, for it shall come surely, and shall not stay. L. VIVES. ABdi (a)] The Hebrews (saith Hierome) say this was he that in the persecution under Achab and jezabel, fed one hundred prophets in caves, that never bowed the knee unto Abdi. Baal, and those were part of the seven thousand whom Elias knew not. His sepulchr●…e is next unto Heliseus the prophets, and john Baptists, in Sebasta, otherwise called Samaria. This man got the spirit of prophecy because he fed those prophets in the wilderness, and of a warrior, became a teacher. Hier. in Abdi. He was in josaphats' time, before any of the other. Tiber being king of the Latins. (b) Naum] He lived in joathans' time, the king of juda. joseph. lib. 9 (c) Abacuc] Of him is mention made in Daniel. c. 14. that he brought Daniel his dinner from juda Naum. Abacuc. [Louvain copy defective.] to Babylon. [But Augustine useth not this place to prove his times, because, that history of ●…el, and all this fourteenth chapter together with the history of Susanna are Apocryphal, neither written in Hebrew nor translated by the seventy.] Abacuc prophesied (saith Hierome) when Nabucodrosar led judah and Benjamin into captivity, and his prophecy is all against Babylon. (d) Abdi and] Eusebius placeth Addi and Michaeas both under josaphat. It is true that Abdi lived then, but for Michaeas, his own words (cited before by Augustine) do disprove it. For his visions befell him in the times of joathan, Achaz, and Ezechias, long after josaphat. (e) Which she negligence] I assure you there is error in Eusebius, very dangerous both to the ignorant and the learned. (f) Idumaea] It adjoineth to Palestina, and is the next country beyond Idumaea. Arrabia. Pliny joseph. Hierom. The Greek and Latin authors call them Nabathei, inhabiting the City Petra. The land hath the name of Esau, who was otherwise called Edom, for divers causes (g) For all the nations] Idumaea is no part of israel, but yet they descended both from Isaac. Yet was it a foe unto juda, and the jews called the Romans, Idumaeans. Idu●… signifieth flesh, which fighteth against the spirit, (b) shallbe saved] The hebrew is, shall 〈◊〉. ay Mount Esau] The Mountains in Idumaea are called Seir. joseph. josuah. chap. 24▪ Seir, the mountains of Idumaea. because they are rugged and rough, as Esau was. (k) Thy grave] The hebrew addeth. For thou at vile. Saint Paul had not his quotation. Rom. 10. 15. from hence, but from the fifteeneth of Esay. The prophecy contained in the song, and prayer of Abacuc. CHAP. 32. ANd in his prayer and song, who doth he speak unto but Christ saying. O Lord I heard thy voice, and was afraid, Lord I considered thy works, and was terrified. What is this but an ineffable admiration of that sudden and unknown salvation of man? In the midst of two, shalt thou be known, what are those two? the two Testaments; the two thieves, or the two prophets Moses and Elias. In the approach of years shalt thou be known: this is plain, it needs no exposition. But that which followeth: My soul being troubled therewith, in thy wrath remember mercy: is meant of the jews, of whose nation he was: who being mad in their wrath and crucifying Christ, he remembering his mercy, said, Father forgive them, they 〈◊〉 not what they do. God shall come from Theman and the holy one from the thick and dark mountain: from (a) Theman (say some) that is from the (b) South: signifieth the heat of charity, and the light of truth. The thick dark mountain, may be taken diversly, but I rather choose to hold it meant of the depth of the holy scriptures prophesying Christ: for therein are many depths for the industrious to excercise themselves in: and which they find out when they find him whom they concern: His glory covereth the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise: that is just as the psalm saith. Exalt thyself O GOD above the heavens and let thy glory be above all the earth: His brightness was as the light: His glory shall enlighten the nations: He had horns coming out of his hands: that was his extension on the cross: there was the hiding of his power, this is plain. Before him went the word, and followed him into the field: that is, he was▪ prophesied ere he came, and preached after his departure: he stood, and the earth moved, he stood to save, and earth was moved with believing in him: He beheld the nations, and they were dissolved: that is he pitied, and they repent: He broke the mountains with violence, that is, his miracles amazed the proud: the eternal his did bow: the people were temporally humbled, to be eternally glorified: For my pains, I saw his goings in: that is, I had the reward of eternity for my labours in charity: the tents of Ethiope trembled: and so did they of Madian: that is even those nations that were never under Rome, by the terror of thy name and power preached, shall become subject to Christ. Was the Lord angry against the rivers or wa●… thine anger against the sea? this implieth that he came not to judge the world, but to save it: thou rodest upon horses, and thy Chariot brought saluati●…: The Evangelists are his horses, for he ruleth them, and the Gospel his Chariot, salvation to all believers: thou shalt bend thy bow above sceptres▪ thy judgement shall restrain even the Kings of the earth, thou shalt cleave the earth with rivers, that is, thine abundant doctrine shall open the hearts of men to believe them: unto such it is said. Rend your hearts and not your garments. The people shall see thee, and tremble; thou shall spread the ●…aters as thou goest, thy preachers shall power out the streams of thy doctrine on all sides. The deep made anoise: the depth of man's heart expressed what it saw: the height of his fantasy, that is the deep gave out the voice, expressing (as I said▪) what it saw. This fantasy was a vision, which he concealed not, but proclaimed at full. The Sun was extolled, and the Moon kept her place. Christ was assumed into heaven, and by him is the church ruled: thine arrows flew in the light. Thy word was openly taught, and by the brightness of thy shining arme●…, thine arrows flew: For Christ himself had said, What I tell you in darkness, that speak in the light. Thou shalt tread down the land in anger, thou shalt humble M●…. 10, 27 high spirits by afflicting them. Thou shalt thrash the heathen in displeasure, that is, thou shalt quell the ambitious by thy judgements: thou goest forth to save thy people and thine anointed, thou laidest death upon the heads of the wicked: all this is plain: thou hast cut them off with amazement: thou hast cut down bad, and set up good, in wonderful manner: the mighty shall crown their heads; which marvel at this: they shall gape after thee as a poor man eating secretly. For so divers great men of the jews being hungry after the bread of life, came to eat secretly, fearing the jews, as the Gospel showeth: thou pu●…test thine horses into the sea, who troubled the waters; that is, the people▪ for unless all were troubled, some should not become fearful convertes, and others furious persecutors. I marked it and my body trembled, at the sound of my lips: fear came into my bones, and I was altogether troubled in myself. See, the height of his prayer and his prescience of those great events amazed even himself, and he is troubled with those seas, to see the imminent persecutions of the church whereof he lastly avoucheth himself a member, saying, I will rest in the da●…e of trouble, as if he were one of the hopeful sufferers, and patient rejoices: that I may go up to the people of my pilgrimage: leaving his carnal kindred that wander after nothing but worldly matters, never caring for their supernal country: ●…or the figtree shall not fructify nor shall fruit be in the vines: the olive shall fa●…le and the fields shallbe fruitless. The sheep have left their meat, and the oxen are not in their stalls. Here he seeth the nation that crucified CHRIST, deprived of all spiritual goods, prefigured in those corporal fertilities, and because the country's ignorance of God had caused these plagues, forsaking God's righteousness through their own pride, he addeth this: I will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in God my Saviour: the Lord my God is my strength, he will establish my feet: he will set me upon high places, that I may be victorious in his song. What song? even such as the psalmist speaketh of: he hath set my feet upon the rock: and ordered my goings: and hath put into my mouth a new song of praise unto GOD. In such a song (and not in one of his own praise) doth Ah●…cuc conquer, glorying in the Lord his God. Some books read this place better. (〈◊〉) I 〈◊〉 joy in my LORD JESUS. But the translators had not the name itself in Latin otherwise we like the word a great deal better. L. VIVES. FRom (a) Theman] Aquila, Symmachus, and the fifth edition (saith Hierome) put the very Theman. word so. Only T●…tion▪ expresseth it, from the South, etc. Theman is ●…nder Edo●…, in the land of G●…bal, named so by Theman▪ son to Elyphaz the son of Esau, and it holdeth the name unto this day: lying five miles from Petra where the Roman garrison lieth, and where Eliphaz King of the Thebans was borne. One also of the sons of isaac's, was called Theman. Indeed the Hebrews call every Southern Province, Theman. Hieron. loc. Hebraic. (b) S●…th] Such is that place also in the Canticles. (c) The thick dark mountain] S●… say the LXX. but the Hebrews, from mount Paran, which is a town on the far side of Arabia, joining to the Saracens. The Israelites went by it when they left Sina. The LXX. rather expressed the adiacents, than the place itself. (d) Never under Rome] India, Persia, and the new sound lands. (e) I will joy] So doth the Hebrew read it: indeed. jesus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Saviour, are all one. In Tullyes' time they had not the Latin word salvator. Act. 〈◊〉. in Verr. but Lactantius. Au●…, and many good Latinists do use it since. Read Hierome of this verse if you would salvator. know further. Prophecies of Hieromie, and Zephany, concerning the former themes. CHAP. 33. HIeremy (a) is one of the greater Prophets: so is Isay●…, not of the small: of some of whom I now spoke. He prophesied under josia King of juda, Ancus Martius being King of Rome, hard before Israel's captivity, unto the fifth month of which he prophesied, as his own book proveth. Zephany (b) a small prophet, was also in his time, and prophesied in josias time also (as himself saith) but how long he saith not. Hieremies' time lasted all Ancus Martius his, and part of Tarqvinius Priscus his reign, the fifth Roman King. For in the beginning of his reign, the jews were captived. This prophecy of Christ we read in Hieremy. The breath of our mouth, the anointed our Lord was taken in our sins. here he 〈◊〉 briefly both Christ his deity and his sufferance for us. Again. This is 〈◊〉 G●…d, nor is there any besides him: he hath found all the ways of wisdom, & taught 〈◊〉 to his servant jacob, and to Israel his beloved: Afterwards was he seen upon earth, and he conversed with men. This, some say, is not Hieremyes but (d) Baruches his transcribers. But the most hold it Hieremies. He saith further. Behold, the Higher 23 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 come (saith the Lord) that I will raise unto David a just branch, which shall 〈◊〉 as King, and be wise: and shall exetute justice and judgement upon the earth. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 days shall judah be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is the name that they shall call him: The Lord our righteousness. Of the calling of the Gentiles (which we see now fulfiled) he saith thus. O Lord my God and refuge in the day of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thee shall the Gentiles come from the ends o●… the world, and shall say: Our father●… have adored false Images wherein there was no profit. And because the jews would no●… acknowledge Christ, but should kill him: the Prophet saith. (e) The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things, he is a man and who shall know him? His was the testimo●… 〈◊〉 of the New Testament and Christ the mediator, which I recited in my 〈◊〉 Book: for he saith. Behold, the days come that I will make a new covenant 〈◊〉 the house of Israel▪ etc. Now Zephany, that was of this time also, hath this of 〈◊〉 Wait upon me (saith the Lord) in the day of my resurrection, wherein my Zeph. 2. ●…dgement shall gather the nations: and again: The Lord will be terrible unto 〈◊〉: he will consume all the gods of the earth: every man shall adore him from his 〈◊〉 ●…en all the Isles of the Heathen: and a little after: Then will I turn to the peo●… pure language, that they may all call upon the Lord, and serve him with one con●…, and from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia shall they bring me offerings. In that day 〈◊〉 th●… not be ashamed for all thy works wherein thou hast offended me, for then 〈◊〉 ●…use thee of the wicked that have wronged thee: and thou shalt no more be proud of mine holy mountain, and I will leave a meek and lowly people in the minds of thee, and the remnant of Israel shall reverence the name of the Lord. This is the remnant that is prophesied of elsewhere, and that the Apostle mentioneth saying: there is a remnant at this present time through the election of grace. For a remnant of that nation believed in Christ. L. VIVES. HIeremy (a)] Of him, already. (b) Zephany] He was a prophet, and father to prophets, and had prophets to his grandfather and great grandfather, say the Hebrews. Chusi was his Zephany. father, who was son to Godolias, the son of Amaria●… the son of Ezechias, all prophets: for all the prophet's progeny named in their titles, were prophets, say the Hebrew doctors. (c) The anointed] There are many anointed, & many Lords: but that breath of our mouth, this anointed is none but CHRIST our SAVIOUR the SON of GOD: by whom we breathe, we move, and have our being: who if he leave us, leaveth us less life, then if we lacked our souls. (d) Baruch●…] He was Hieremies' servant (as Hieremies' prophecy showeth) and wrote a little prophecy, allowed by the Church, because it much concerned Christ, and those later times. (e) Th●… heart] 〈◊〉. This is the Septuagints interpretation. Hierome hath it otherwise from the hebrew. daniel's, and ezechiel's prophecies, concerning Christ, and his Church. CHAP. 34. NOw in the captivity itself (a) Daniel and (b) Ezechiel, two of the greater prophets prophesied first. Daniel foretold the very number of years until the coming of Christ, and his passion. It is too tedious to perticularize, and others have done it before us. But of his power and glory; this he said: I beheld a vision by night, and behold, the son of man came in the clouds of heaven, and approached Dan. 7, 13 unto the ancient of days, and they brought him before him and he gave him dominion and honour, and a Kingdom, that all people, nations and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and shall never be ta'en away: his Kingdom shall never be destroyed: Ezechiel also prefiguring Christ by David (as the prophet's use) because Christ took his flesh, and the form of a servant from David's Ezech. 34 seed: in the person of GOD the Father doth thus prophecy of him. I will set up a shepherd over my sheep, and he shall feed them, even my servant David, he shall feed them and be their shepherd. I the Lord willbe their God, and my servant David shallbe Prince amongst them: I the LORD have spoken it. And again: One 〈◊〉. 37 King shallbe King to them all: they shallbe no more two peoples, nor be divided from thenceforth into two Kingdoms: nor shall they be any more polluted in their Idols, nor with their abominations, nor with all their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: they shallbe my people and I willbe their GOD: and David my servant shallbe King over them, and they all shall have one shepherd. L. VIVES. DAniel (a)] He was one of the capti●…ed sons of judah, and so Daniel, was named Daniel. Balthasar▪ by the King's Eunuch that had charge of the children. His wisdom made him highly esteemed of Balthasar the last King of Babylon, and after that, of Darius the Monarch of Media, as Daniel himself and josephus lib. 10. do testify▪ Methodius, Apollinaris, and Eusebius Pamphilus defended this prophet against the calumnies of Porphiry. (b) Ezechiel▪ A priest, and one of the captivity with Daniel, as his writings do record. Of the three prophecies of Aggee, Zachary and Malachy. CHAP. 35. Three of the small prophets, (a) Aggee, (b) Zachary, and (c) Malachy, all prophesying in the end of this captivity, remain still. Aggee prophesieth of Christ and his church, thus, diversly and plainly: Yet a little while and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land: and I will move all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. This prophecy is partly come to effect, and partly to be effected at the consummation of all. The Angels, and the stars are witness, of heavens moving at Christ's birth. The miracle of a Virgin's childbirth, moved the earth, the preaching of Christ in the Isles and the continent, moved both sea and dry land: The nations we see are moved to the faith. Now the coming of the desire of all nations, that we do expect, at this day of judgement▪ for first he must be loved of the believers and then be desired of the expecters. Now to Zachary. Rejoice greatly O daughter of Zion (saith he of Christ and his church) shout for joy O daughter of jerusalem: behold thy King cometh to thee, he is just, and thy Saviour: poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon (d▪ a colt, the fool of an ass: his dominion is from sea to sea, & from the ri●…er to the lands end. Of Christ's riding in this manner, the Gospel speaketh: where this prophecy (as much as needeth) is recited: In another place, speaking prophetically of the remission of sins by Christ, he saith thus to him. Thou in the blood of thy testament hast loosed thy prisoners out of the lake wherein is no water. This lake may be diversly interpreted without injuring our faith. But I think he meaneth that barren, bondlesse depth of humane miseries, wherein there is no stream of righteousness, but all is full of the mud of iniquity: for of this is that of the psalm meant: He hath brought me out of the lake of misery, and Psal. 40. 2. 〈◊〉 of the my●…y clay. Now Malachi prophesying of the church (which we see so happily propagate by our Saviour Christ) hath these plain word, to the jews in the person of God: I have no pleasure in you, neither will I accept an offering at your hand: for fr●… the rising of the Sun unto the setting my name is great amongst the Gentiles, 〈◊〉 in every place shallbe (e) incense offered unto me, and a pure offering unto my 〈◊〉: for my name is great among the heathen, saith the LORD. This we see offered in every place by Christ's priesthood after the order of Melchisedech: but the sacrifice of the jews, wherein God took no pleasure but refused, that they cannot deny is ceased. Why do they expect an other Christ, and yet see that this prophecy is fulfilled already, which could not be but by the true Christ? for he 〈◊〉 by & by after in the person of God: My covenant was with him of life and peace: I 〈◊〉 him fear, and he feared me, and was afraid before my name. The law of truth was 〈◊〉 his mouth: he walked with me in peace and equity, and turned many away, from ini●…▪ for the priests lips should preserve knowledge, and they should seek the law at his 〈◊〉: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. No wonder if Christ be called 〈◊〉 as he is a servant because of the servants form he took, when he came to men: so is he a messenger, because of the glad tidings which he brought unto men. For evangelium in greek, is in our tongue, glad tidings, and he saith again of him. Behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me: the Lord whom you seek, shall come suddenly into his Temple, and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire: behold he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts: but who ma●… abide the day of his coming? who shall endure when he appeareth? This place is a direct prophecy of both the comings of Christ: of the first: He shall come suddenly into his temple his flesh, as he said himself: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it again. Of the second: Behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts, but who may abide the day of his coming? etc. But those words the Lord whom you seek, and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire, imply that the jews, in that manner that they conceive the scriptures, desire and seek the coming of CHRIST. But many of them acknowledged him not, being come, for whose coming they so longed: their evil deserts having blinded their hearts. The covenant, named both here, and there where he said, My covenant was with him, is to be understood of the New Testament whose promises are eternal, not of the Old, full of temporal promises: such as weak men esteeming too highly, do serve GOD wholly for, and stumble when they see the sinful to enjoy them. Wherefore the Prophet, to put a clear difference between the bliss of the New Testament, peculiar to the good, and the abundance of the Old Testament, shared with the bad also, adjoineth this, Your words have been stout against me (saith the Lord) and yet you said, wherein have we spoken against thee? you have said it is in vain to serve GOD; and what profit have we in keeping his commandments, and in walking humbly before the LORD GOD of hosts? and now we have blessed others: they that work wickedness are set up, and they that oppose God, they are delivered. Thus spoke they that scared the Lord: each to his neighbour, the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and wrote a book of remembrance in his sight, for such as fear the Lord, and reverence his name. That book insinuateth the New Testament. Hear the sequel: They shallbe to me saith the Lord of hosts, in that day wherein I do this, for a flock: and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, and between him that serveth GOD, and him that serveth him not. For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven: and all the proud and the wicked shallbe as stubble, and the day that cometh, shall burn them up, saith the LORD of Hosts, and shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the son of righteousness arise, and health shallbe under his wings, and you shall go forth and grow up as fat Calves. You shall tread down the wicked, they shallbe as dust under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this saith the LORD of Hostes. This is that day that is called the day of judgement, whereof if it please God, we mean to say somewhat, in place convenient. L. VIVES. AGgee (a) Zachary] Esdras nameth them. chap. 6. 1. where he calleth Zachary the son 〈◊〉 Addo, whom Zachary himself saith was his grandfather, and Barachiah, his father. Th●… (saith Hierome) was doubtless that Addo that was sent to Hieroboam the son of Naba●… in whose time the Altar cleft, and his hand withered, and was restored by this Adds prayers Kings. 1. 1●…. & Chro. 2. 12. But he is not called Addo in either of these 〈◊〉 the Kings omit his name, the Chronicles call him Semeius. But a prophet of that time must be great great grandfather at least to a son of the captivity. This Zachary was not the son of 〈◊〉 whom joash the King of juda kiiled. Cbr. 2. 34. 21. he whom Christ said was killed between the Temple and the Altar. Mat. 23. 35. (b) Malachi.] His name interpreted is, His Angel, Malachi and so the seventy called him, whereupon Origen upon this prophet saith that he thinketh it was an Angel that prophesied this prophecy, if we may believe Hieromes testimony herein. Others call him Malachi, for indeed, names are not to be altered in any translation. No man calleth Plato, broad: Or Aristotle good perfection, or josuah, the Saviour, or Athens, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 change no names. Minerva. Names are to be set down in the proper Idiom▪ otherwise, the names of famous men, being translated into several tongues, should obscure their persons fame, by being the more dispersed, which makes me wonder at those that will wring the Greek names etc. unto their several Idioms, wherein their own conceit doth them gross wrong, Caesar was wise, to deal plainly in giving the french & german, each his countries names, only making them declinable by the Latin. But to Malachi. Some by concordance of their stides, say that he was Esdras: and prophesied under Darius the son of Histaspis. Of Esdras in the next chapter (c) Rejoice greatly.] This whole quotation, and the rest differ much from our vulgar translation. (d) Upon a colt.] The Evangelist S. Matthew readeth it: upon a colt, and the fool of an ass ●…sed to the yoke. cha. 21. ver. 5. The jews that were yoked under so many ceremonies were prefigured herein. But the free and young colt (as the seventy do translate it) was the type, of the Gentiles, take which you will: God sitteth upon both, to cure both from corruption and to bring both salvation. (e) Shallbe incense offered.] The seventy, read it, is offered: because the Prophets often speak of things to come, as if they were present yea and sometimes as if they were passed. The translation of the seventy is somewhat altered in the following quotation. Of the books of Esdras, and the Maccabees. CHAP. 36. AFter Agee, Zachary & Malachy, the three last Prophets, in the time of the said captivity, (a) Esdras wrote, but he is rather held an Historiographer than a Prophet: As the book of (b) Hester is also, containing accidents about those times; all tending to the glory of God. It may be said that Esdras prophesied in this, that when the question arose amongst the young men what thing was most powerful, one answering Kings, the next, wine, and the third women, for they often command Kings, (c) yet did the third add more, and said that truth conquered allthings. Now Christ in the Gospel is found to be the truth. From this time, after the temple was re-edified the jews had no more kings but princes unto (d) Aristobulus his time. The account of which times we have not in 〈◊〉 canonical scriptures, but in the others, (e) amongst which the books of the Maccabees are also, which the church indeed holdeth for canonical (f) because of the vehement and wonderful sufferings of some Martyrs for the law of God before the coming of Christ. Such there were that endured intolerable ●…ments, yet these books are but Apocryphal to the jews. L. VIVES. [〈◊〉 (a)] A most skilful scribe of the law he was, & Hierom saith he was that josedech whose Esdras. 〈◊〉 jesus was priest. He, they say, restored the law, which the Chaldaees had burnt, (not without 〈◊〉 assistance) & changed the hebrew letters to distinguish them from the Samaritans, Gentiles which then filled judea. Euseb. The jews afterwards used his letters, only their accents differed from the Samaritans, which were the old ones that Moses gave them. (b) Hester▪ 〈◊〉 ●…tory ●…ter. Artaxerxes, ●…ong-hand. fell out (saith josephus) in the time of Artaxerxes, otherwise called Cyrus: for Xerxes was the son of Darius Histaspis, and Artaxerxes surnamed Long-hand, was son to him, in whose time the jews were in such danger by means of Haman, because of Mardochee, hester's uncle, as there book showeth. This Nicephorus holdeth also. But Eusebius saith this could not be, that the jews should be in so memorable a peril, and yet Esdras who wrote their fortunes under Artaxerxes never once mention it. So that he maketh this accident to fall out long after, in the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon, bastard son to Darius, and him the Hebrews called Assuerus, (saith he), Indeed, Bede is of this mind also. But I fear Eusebius his account is not so sure as josephus, but in this we recite opinions only, leaving the judgement. (c) Yet did the third.] This was Zarobabel that said truth was about all. Esd. 33. los. Ant. lib. 11. but the third and fourth book of Esdras are Apocryphal, Hierome rejecteth Zorobabel. Aristobulus them as dreams. (d▪ Aristobulus.] Son to jonathas, both King and Priest, he wore the first diadem in judaea, four hundred eighty and four years after the captivity under Nabucadonosor. (e) Maccabees.] Hierome saw the first of those books in Hebrew, the latter he knew to be penned first in Greek by the stile: josephus wrote the history of the Maccabees as Hierome saith Contra Pellagian. I cannot tell whether he mean the books that we have for scripture, or another Greek book that is set forth several and called Ioseph●…ad Machabeos, There is a third book of the Maccabees, as yet untranslated into Latin that I know of: that I think the Church hath not received for canonical. (f) Because of.] ●…or there were seven brethren who rather then they would break the law, endured together with their mother to be flayed quick, rather than to obey that foul command of Antiochus, against God. The Prophets more ancient than any of the Gentile Philosophers. CHAP. 37. IN our (a) Prophets time (whose works are now so far divulged) there were no Philosophers stirring as yet, for the first of them arose from (b) Pythagoras of Samos, who began to be famous at the end of the captivity. So that all other Philosophers must needs be much later (c) for Socrates of Athens, the chief Moralist of his time, lived after Esdras, as the Chronicles record. And ●…o one after was Plato borne, the most excellent of all his scholars. To whom if we add also the former seven, who were called sages, not Philosophers, and the Naturalists that followed Thales his study, to wit Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, and others before Pythagoras' professed Philosophy, not one of these was before the Prophets, for Thales the most ancient of them all, lived in Romulus his time, when this Prophetical doctrine flowed from the fountain of Israel, to be derived unto all the world. Only therefore the Theological Poets, Orpheus Linus, Musaeus and the others (if there were anymore) were before our canonical prophets. But they were not more ancient than our true divine Moses, who taught them one true God, and whose books are in the front of our Canon, and therefore though the learning of Greece warmeth the world at this day, yet need they not boast of their wisdom, being neither so ancient nor so excellent as our divine religion, and the true wisdom: we confess, not that Greece, but that the Barbarians, as Egypt for example, had their peculiar doctrines before Moses' time, which they called their wisdom: Otherwise our scripture would not have said that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians: for there was he borne, adopted, and brought up worthily (〈◊〉) by the daughter of Pharaoh. But their wisdom could not be before our prophets, for Abraham himself was a prophet. And what wisdom could there be in Egypt. before Isis their supposed goddess taught them letters? This Isis was daughter to Inachus King of Argos, who reigned in the times of Abraham's Grandchilds. L. VIVES. IN our (a) prophets] Here Augustine proves the Old Testament ancienter than all the philosophy of the greeks. This question josephus handleth worthily against Ap●…on, so doth Euseb. prep. evang. and justin. Martyr Ad Gentes. The case is plain enough by our allegations upon other chapters of this book. (b) Pythagoras] Tully saith he lived in his progenitor Servius Tullus his time, and so saith Livy lib. 1. True in his later years, and in the whole time of Cyrus Pythagoras. the Persian: for he flourished olympiad sixty, wherein Tarquin the proud began his 〈◊〉. He died (according to Eusebius) Olymp. 70. after the jews were freed from captivity and lived quietly at jerusalem. (c) Socrates] He lived Olymp. 77. saith Apollodorus, almost forty ●…res after Darius sent the jews to the reparation of the temple. (d) Son after was] In the eighty eight Olympiad. Apollod. (e) By the daughter] Maenis the daughter of Chenephres King 〈◊〉 Egypt, having no children, adopted a jewish child called in hebrew Moses, in greek Mu●…. Moses. This Eusebius lib. 9 praep. citeth out of Artapanus. Of some scriptures too ancient for the Church to allow, because that might procure suspect that they are rather counterfeit then true. CHAP. 38. NOw if I should go any higher, there is the Patriarch Noah, before the great deluge: we may very well call him a prophet, for his very Ark, and his escape in that flood, were prophetical references unto these our times. What was Enoch, the seventh from Adam? Doth not the Canonical Epistle of Jude s●…y that he prophesied? The reason that we have not their writings, nor the jews neither, is their to great antiquity: which may procure a suspect that they are rather feigned to be theirs, than theirs indeed. For many that believe a●… they like, and speak as they list, defend themselves with quotations from books. But the cannon neither permitteth that such holy men's authority should be rejected, nor that it should be abused by counterfeit pamphlets. Nor is it any marvel that such antiquity is to be suspected when as we read in the histories of the Kings of juda and Israel (which we hold canonical) of many things touched at there which are not there explained, but are said (a) to be found in other books of the prophets, who are sometimes named, & yet those works we have not in our Canon, nor the jews in theirs? I know not the reason of this, only I think that those prophets whom it pleased the holy spirit to inspire, wrote ●…e-things historically as men, and other things prophetically as from the ●…outh of God, and that these works▪ were really distinct: some being held their own, as they were men, and some the Lords, as speaking out of their bosoms: so that the first might belong to the bettering of knowledge and the later to the con●…ming of religion, to which the Canon only hath respect, besides which if there be any works going under prophet's names, they are not of authority to better the knowledge, because it is a doubt whether they are the works of those prophets or no: therefore we may not trust them, especially when they make against the canonical truth, wheein they prove themselves directly false births. L. VIVES. TO be found in (a) other. For we read: Concerning the deeds of David. etc. they are written in the book of Samuel the Seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and of Gad etc. Chron. 1. 29. 29. & so likewise of Salomon's Chron. 29. 29. And of josaphats'. Chronic. 2. ●…0. 34. That the Hebrew letters have been ever continued in that language. CHAP. 39 WE may not therefore think as some do, that the hebrew tongue only was derived from Heber to Abraham, & that (a) Moses first gave the hebrew letters with the law: no, that tongue was derived from man to man successively by letters aswell as language. For Moses' appointed men to teach them, before the law was given. These the scriptures call (b) Grammaton Isagogos, that is introductors of letters, because they did as it were bring them into the hearts of men, or rather their hearts into them. So then no nation can over-poise our Prophets and patriarchs in antiquity of wisdom, for they had divine inspirations, & the Egyptians themselves that use to give out such extreme and palpable lies of their learn, are proved short of time in comparison with our patriarchs. For none of them dare say that they had any excellence of understanding before they had letters, that is, before Isis came and taught them. And what was their goodly wisdom think you? Truly nothing but (c) Astronomy, and such other sciences as rather seemed to exercise the wit, then to elevate the knowledge. For as for morality, it stirred not in Egypt until Trismegistus his time, who was indeed long before (d) the sages and Philosophers of Greece, but after Abraham, Philosophy Isaac, jacob, joseph, vea & Moses also: for at the time when Moses was borne, was Atlas, Prometheus his brother, a great Astronomer living, and he was grandfather by the mother-side to the elder Mercury, who begot the father of this Trismegistus. L. VIVES. Moyses' (a) first gave] It is the common opinion both of the jews & Christians that Moses did give the first letters to that language. Eupolemus, Artapanus, & many other profane Moyse. authors, affirm it also: and that the Phaenicians had their letters thence. Artapanus thinketh that Moses. gave letters to the Egyptians also: and that he was that Mercury, whom all affirm did first make the Egyptian language literate. If any one ask then in what letter that wisdom of Egypt, that Moses' learned was contained, he shallbe answered, it went partly by tradition, and partly was recorded by Hierog●…yphicks: Philo the jew saith, Abraham invented the Hebrew letters. But that they were long before Abraham it seems by josephus, who saith that the sons of Seth, erected two pillars, one of stone, and another of brick, whereon the arts that they had invented were engraven: and that the stone pillar was to be seen in Syria in his time. Antiq. lib. 1. These Augustine seemeth here to take for the Hebrew letters. Pillars erected by the sons of Seth. (b) Grammato isagogos] Hierome translateth it, Doctors, and Masters and Scribes. They taught only the letter of the scriptures, and declined not from it an inch: but the greater professors were the pharisees, of Phares, division, for they severed themselves from others, as all others betters. Both sorts taught the law out of●… Moses' chair, the scribes the literal sense, and the Pharisees the mysteries. (c) Astronomy] Geometry, Arithmetic and Astronomy, were the ancient Egyptians only studies. Necessity made them Geometers, for Nilus his in-undations every year took away the bounds of their lands, so that each one was feign to know his Scribes. Pharases. own quantity, and how it lay and in what form, and thus they drew the principles of that art. Now aptness made them Astronomers, for their nights were clear, & never cloud came on their land, so as they might easily discern all the motions, stations, rising and fall of every star: a ●…udy both wondrous delectable, and exceeding profitable, and beseeming the excellence of 〈◊〉: now these two arts, could not consist without number, and so Arithmetic got up for the third. (d) Before the sages] A diversity of reading rather worth nothing then noting. The Egyptians abominable lyings, to claim their wisdom the age of 100000. years. CHAP. 40. IT▪ is therefore a monstrous absurdity to say, as some do, that it is above 100000. years since Astronomy began in Egypt. What records have they for this, that had their letters but two thousand years ago (or little more) from Isis. Varro's authority is of worth here, agreeing herein with the holy Scriptures. For seeing it is not yet six thousand years from the first man Adam, how ridiculous are they that overrun the truth such a multitude of years? whom shall we believe in this, so soon as him that foretold what now we see accordingly effected? The dissonance of histories, giveth us leave to lean to such as do accord with our divinity. The citizens of Babylon indeed, being diffused all the earth over, when they read two authors of like (and allowable) authority, differing in relations of the eldest memory, they know not which to believe. But we have a divine history to under-shore us, and we know that what so ever secular author he be, famous or obscure, if he contradict that, he goeth far ●…ay from truth: But be his words true or false, they are of no value to the at●…ement of true felicity. The dissension of Philosophers, and the concord of the Canonical Scriptures. CHAP. 41. But to leave history, and come to the Philosophers whom we left▪ long ago: their studies seemed wholly to aim at the attainment of beatitude. Why did the scholars then contradict their masters, but that both were whirled away with humane affects: wherein (a) although there might be some spice of vainglory, each thinking himself wiser and quicker conceited than other, and affecting to be an Arch-dogmatist himself, and not a follower of others: notwithstanding to grant that it was the love of truth, that carried some (or the most of them) from their teacher's opinions, to contend for truth, were it truth or were it none? what course, what act can mortal misery perform to the obtaining of true blessedness, without it have a divine instruction? as for our Canonical authors, God forbid that they should differ. No they do not: and therefore Worthily did so many nations believe that God spoke either in them or by them: this the multitude in other places, learned and unlearned do avow, though your petty company of janglers in the schools deny it. Our Prophets were but few, ●…east being more, their esteem should have been less, which religion ought ●…ghly to reverence, yet are they not so few but that their concord is justly to be admired. Let one look amongst all the multitude of philosopher's writings, and if he find two that tell both one tale in all respects, it may be registered for a rari●…. It were two much for me to stand ranking out their diversities in this work. 〈◊〉 what Dogmatist in all this Hierarchy of Hell hath any such privilege that 〈◊〉 may not be controlled, and opposed by others, with gracious allow●… to both parts: were not the Epi●…urists in great account at Athens, ●…ing that GOD had nought to do with man? And were not the stoics their opponents, that held the Gods to be the directors of all things, even as gracious as they? Wherefore I marvel that (b) Anaxagoras, was accused for saying the sun was a fiery stone, denying the godhead thereof: Epicurus being allowed and graced in that City, who divided both deities of sun, stars, yea of jove himself (c) and all the rest, in all respect of the world, and man's supplications unto them: was not Aristippus there with his bodily summum bonum, and Antisthenes with his mental? Both famous Socratists, and yet both so far contrary each to other in their subjects of beatitude. The one bad a wise man fly rule, the other bade him take it, and both had full and frequent audience. Did not every one defend his opinion in public, in the town (d) g●…llery, in (e) schools, in (f) gardens, and likewise in all private places? One (g) held one world: another a thousand: some hold that one created: some, not created: some hold it eternal, some not eternal: some say it ruled by the power of God, others by chance. Some say the souls are immortal: others mortal: some transfuse them into beasts: others deny it: some of those that make them mortal, say they die presently after the body: others say they live longer, yet not for ever: some place the chiefest good in the body, some in the soul, some in both: some draw the external goods to the soul and the body: some say the senses go alway true, some say but sometimes, some say never. These and millions more of dissensions do the Philosophers bandy, and what people, state, kingdom or city of all the diabolical socyety hath ever brought them to the test, or rejected these and received the other? But hath given nourishment to all confusion in their very bosoms, and upheld the rabble of curious janglers, not about lands, or cases in law, but upon main points of misery and bliss? Wherein if they spoke true, they had as good leave to speak false, so fully and so fitly sorted their society to the name of Babylon, which (as we said) signifieth confusion. Nor careth their King the devil how much they jangle, it procureth him the larger harvest of variable impiety. But the people, state, nation and City of Israel to whom God's holy laws were left, they used not that licentious confusion of the false Prophets with the the true, but all in one consent held and acknowledged the later for the true authors, recording Gods testimonies. These were their Sages, their Poets, their Prophets, their teachers of truth and piety. He that lived after their rules, followed not man, but God; who spoke in them. The sacrilege forbidden there, God forbiddeth: the commandment of honour thy father and mother, God commandeth. Thou shalt not commit adultery, nor murder, nor shalt steal: God's wisdom pronounceth this, not the wit of man. For (h) what ●…xod. ●…0. truth soever the Philosopher's attained and disputed off amidst their falsehood as namely, that God framed the world, and governed it most excellently, of the honesty of virtue, the love of our country, the faith of friendship, just dealing, and all the appendances belonging to good manners: they knew not to what end the whole was to be referred: The Prophets taught that from the mouth of God in the persons of men, not with inundations of arguments, but with apprehension of fear and reverence of the Lord in all that understood them. L VIVES. ALthough (a) there be] Vainglory led almost all the ancient authors wrong, stuffing arts with infamous errors, gross and pernicious: each one seeking to be the proclaimer of his own opinion, rather than the preferrer of another's. Blind men! they saw not how laudable it is to obey Good council, & to agree unto truth. I knew a man once (not so learned as arrogant) who professed that he would write much, and yet avoid what others had said before him▪ as he would fly a serpent or a Basilisk: for that he had rather wittingly affirm a lie, than assent unto the opinion. (b) Anaxagoras.] A stone fell once out of the air into Aegos, ariver in Thracia, and Anaxagoras (who had also presaged it) affirmed that heaven was made all of stones and that the son was a fiery stone: whereupon Euripides his scholar calleth it a Anaxagoras golden turf. In Phaetonte: for this assertion Sotion accused him of impiety, and Pericles his scholar pleaded for him, yet was he fined at five talents, and perpetual banishment. Others say otherwise. But the most say that Pericles who was great in the City, saved his life being condemned: whereupon the Poets feigned that jove was Angry at Anaxagoras and threw a thunderbolt at him, but Pericles stepped between, and so it flew another way. (c) And all the rest.] Epicurus held Gods, but excluded them from meddling in human affairs, and hearing Epicuras. us: indeed his under aim was Atheism, but the Areopage awed him from professing it: for farewell such Gods as we have no need on saith Cotta in Tully (d) Town gallery.] There taught the stoics. (e) Schools.] As the Peripatetics in the Lycaeum. (f) Gardens.] As the Ep●…cureans did (g) Some held.] Of these we spoke at large upon the eight book. (h) What truth soever.] Euse. de praep. evang proveth by many arguments that Plato had all his excellent position out of the scriptures. Of the translations of the Old-Testament out of Hebrew into Greek, by the ordinance of God for the benefit of the nations CHAP. 42. THese scriptures one (a) Ptolemy a king of Egypt desired to understand, for after the strange & admirable conquest of Alexander of Macedon, surnamed the great, wherein he brought all Asia and almost all the world under his subjection, partly by fair means and partly by force, (who came also into judaea) his nobles after his death making a turbulent division or rather a dilaceration of his monarchy, Egypt came to be ruled by Ptolemy's. The first of which was the soon of Lagus, who brought many jews captive into Egypt: the next was Philadelphus, who freed all those captives, sent gifts to the temple, and desired Eleazar the Priest to send him the Old-testament whereof he had hard great commendations, and therefore he meant to put it into his famous library: Eleazar sent it in Hebrew, and then he desired interpreters of him, and he sent him seventy two, six of every tribe all most perfect in the Greek and Hebrew. Their translation do we now usually call the Septuagints. (b) The report of their divine concord therein is admirable: for Ptolemy having (to try their faith) made each one translate by himself, there was not one word difference between them, either in sense or order, but all was one, as if only one had done them all: because indeed there was but one spirit in them all. And God gave them that admirable gift, to give a divine commemdation to so diuin a work, wherein the nations might see that presaged, which we all see now effected. L VIVES. ONe (a) Ptolemy.] The Kings of Egypt were all▪ called pharao's until Cambyses added that Ptolemy's. kingdom unto the Monarchy of Persia. But after Alexander, from Ptolemy sonof Lagus, they were all called Ptolemy's, until Augustus made Egypt a province. Alexander was abroad Alexander the great. 〈◊〉 an army 21. years; in which time he subdued all Asia, but held it but a while, for in the 32. 〈◊〉 of his age, he died, and then his nobles ran all to share his Empire as it had been a bro●… filled with gold; every one got what he could, and the least had a Kingdom to his 〈◊〉. Antigonus got Asia; Seleucus Chaldaea, Cassander Macedonia, each one somewhat, & Pto●… Egypt, Phoenicia and Cyprus; he was but of mean descent. Lagus his father was one of Alexander's guard, and he from a common soldior, got highly into the favour of his Prince for his valour, discretion, and experience. Being old, and addicted to peace, he left his crown Philadelphus. to his son Philadelphus, who had that name either for loving his sister Arsinoe or for hating her afterwards, a contrario. He freed all the jews whom his father had made captives and set judaea free from a great tribute: and being now grown old, and diseased (by the persuasion of Demetrius Phalereus, whom envy had chased from Athens thither) he betook himself to study, gathered good writers together, built that goodly library of Alexandria, wherein he placed the Old-Testament, for he sent to Eleazar for translators for the law and Prophets, who being mindful of the good he had done to judaea, sent him the seventy The septu agi●…. two interpreters whom from brevity sake we call the seventy, as the romans ca●…led the hundred and five officers, the Centumuirs. In josephus are the Epistles of Ptolemy to Eleazar, and his unto him. lib. 12. There is a book of the seventy interpreters that goeth under his name, but I take it to be a false birth. (b) The report of.] Ptolemy honoured those interpreters, highly. To try the truth by their Agreement (saith justine) he built seventy two chambers, placing a translator in every one, to write therein, and when they had done, conferred them all and their was not a letter difference. Apologet. ad Gent. The ruins of these justine saith he saw in Pharos, the tower of Alexandria. Menedemus the Philosopher admired the congruence in the translation, Tertull. Adverse. gentes [Hierome sometimes extols [The Louvain copy faileth here.] their translation as done by the holy spirit, and sometimes condemneth it for evil, and ignorant: as he was vehement in all opposition] that story of their chambers, ●…e scoffeth at for this he saith: I know not what he was whose lies built the chambers for the seventy at Alexandria, where they might write several, when as Aristeas one of Ptolemy's guard, saith that they all wrote in one great palace: not as Prophets: for a prophet is one thing, and a translator another, the one speaketh out of inspiration, and the other translateth out of understanding. Prologue. in Pentateuch. That the translation of the Seventy is most authentical, next unto the Hebrew. CHAP. 43. THere were other translators out of the Hebrew into the Greek as Aquila, Symmachus, Theod●…tion, and that nameless interpetor whose translation is called the fifth Edition. But the Church hath received that of the seventy, as if there were no other, as many of the Greek Christians, using this wholly, know not whether there be or no. Our Latin translation is from this also. Although one Hierome, a learned Priest, and a great linguist hath translated the same scriptures from the Hebrew into Latin. But (a) although the jews affirm his Hierome a Priest. learned labour to be all truth, and avouch the seventy to have oftentimes erred, yet the Churches of Christ hold no one man to be preferred before so many, especially being selected by the high Priest, for this work: for although their concord had not proceeded from their unity of spirit but from their collations, yet were no one man to be held more sufficient than they all. But seeing there was so divine a demonstration of it, truly whosoever translateth from the Hebrew, or any other tongue, either must agree with the seventy, or if he descent, we must hold by their prophetical depth. For the same spirit that spoke in the prophets, translated in them. And that spirit might say otherwise in the translation, then in the Prophet, and yet speak alike in both, the sense being one vn●…o the true understander though the words be different unto the reader. The same spirit might add also, or diminish, to show that it was not man's labour that performed this work, but the working spirit that guided the labours. Some held it good to correct the seventy, by the Hebrew, yet durst they not put out what was in them and not in the Hebrew, but only added what was in that and not in them, (b) marking the places with (c) Asteriskes at the heads of the verses, and noting what was in the seventy, and not in the Hebrew, with 〈◊〉, as we mark (d) ounces of weight withal: And many Greek and Latin ●…pies are dispersed with these marks. But as for the alterations, whether the difference be great or small, they are not to be discerned but by conferring of the books. If therefore we go all to the spirit of God and nothing else, as is fittest, whatsoever is in the seventy, and not in the Hebrew, it pleased God to speak it by those latter prophets, and not by these first. And so contrarywise of that which is in the Hebrew and not in the seventy, herein showing them both to be ●…phets, for so did he speak this by Esay, that by Hieremy, and other things by oaths as his pleasure was. But what we find in both, that the spirit spoke by both: by the first as Prophets, by the later as prophetical translations: for as there was one spirit of peace in the first who spoke so many several things with discordance, so was there in these who translated so agreeably without conference. L VIVES. ALthough (a) the jews.] No man now a days showeth an error, and leaveth it. Mankind is not so wise. Again, time gaineth credit unto many: and nothing but time unto some. But it is admirable to see how gently he speaketh here of Hierome: whose opinion he followed not in this high controversy. O that we could imitate him! (b) Marking.] of this Hierome speaketh Prologue. in Paralip. Origen was the first that took the pains to con●… Hierome. the translation, and he conferred the seventy with Theodotion, Hier. ep. id August. where he inveigheth at what he had erst commended: saying that the book is not corrected but rather corrupted by those asteriskes, and spits. [But this he said because Augustine would not meddle with his translation, but held that of the seventy so sacred, this power oftentimes [The Louvain copy defective.] 〈◊〉 affection in the holiest men.] (c) Asteriskes.] Little stars (d) Ounces.] It seems the o●…ce in old times was marked with a spits character. Isido●…e saith it was marked with the Greek Gamma, and our o: thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and the half scruple with a line thus— they noted those places with a spit, thus 〈◊〉 to signify that the words so no●…ed, were thrust through as ad●…, falsefiing the text. It was Aristarchus his invention used by the Grammarians in their 〈◊〉 of books and verses. Quinti. lib. 1. Which the old Grammarians used with such severity 〈◊〉 they did not only tax false places, or books hereby, but also thrust their authors either 〈◊〉 of their rank or wholly from the name of Grammarians. Thus Quintilian. Seneca did ele●… call the rasing out of bastard verses, Aristarchus his notes. Of the destruction of Ninivy▪ which the Hebrew perfixeth forty days unto, and the Septuagints but three. CHAP. 44. 〈◊〉 will some say, how shall I know whether jonas said, yet forty days and Ni●… shallbe destroyed, or yet three days? who seeth not that the Prophet presaging 〈◊〉 destruction could not say both: if at three days end they were to be des●…, than not at forty: if at forty than not at three. If I be asked the question, I answer for the Hebrew. For the LXX. being 〈◊〉 after, might say otherwise, and yet not against the sense, but as pertinent to the matter as the other, though in another signification: advising the reader not to leave the signification of the history for the circumstance of a word, no●… to contemn either of the authorities: for those things were truly done (〈◊〉) at Ni●…ie, and yet had a reference farther than Niniveh: as it was true that the Prophet Nin●…uie, a figure of the Church was three days in the Whale's belly, and yet intimated the being of the Lord of all the Prophets three days in the womb of the grave. Wherefore if the Church of the Gentiles were prophetically figured by Niniveh, as being dest●…oyed in repentance, to become quite different from what it was: Christ doi●…g this in the said Church, it is he that is signified both by the forty days, and by the three: by forty, because he was so long with his disciples after hi●… resurrection, and then ascended into heaven: by three, for on the third day he aro●…e again: as if the Septuag●…nts intended to stir the reader to look further into the matter then the mere history, and that the prophet had intended to intimate the depth of the mystery: as if he had said: Seek him in forty days ●…hom thou shalt find in three: this in his resurrection, and the other in his asce●…sion Wherefore both numbers have their fit signification, both are spok●…n by one spirit, the first in jonas, the latter in the translators. Were it no●… for ●…diousnesse I could reconcile the LXX. and the Hebrew in many places wherein they are held to differ. But I study brevity, and according to my talon have followed the Apostles, who assumed what made for their purposes out of both the copies, knowing the holy spirit to be one in both. But forward with our purpose. L. VIVES. YEt (a) forty days] Hierome wonders that the seventy would translate three, for forty, the Hebrew having no such similitude in figure or accent. In these straits is the excellent wit of Saint Augustine now ●…n angl●…d, nor can he well acquit himself of th●…m (b) At Ni●…iuie] A city in Assyria, built by Ninus. We have spoken of it already. The jews wanted Prophets ever after the repairing of the Temple, and were afflicted even from thence until Christ came: to show the Prophets spoke of the building of the other Temple. CHAP. 45. AFter the jews were left destitute of Prophets, they grew daily worse and worse: namely from the end of their captivity, when they hoped to grow into better state upon the repaying of the Temple. For so that carnal nation understood Agees Prophecy, saying; The glory of this last house shall be greater than the first: which he showeth that he meant of the New Testament Agge. 2. in the words before, where he promiseth CHRIST expressly, saying: I will move all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come. Where the LXX. used a sense rather appliable to the members than the head, saying: And they that are GOD'S elect shall come▪ out of all Nations, to wit, the men of whom Christ said in the Gospel. Many are called, but few are chosen. For those chosen, is the house of GOD built by the New Testament, of living stones, far more glorious than that which was built by Solomon, and repaired after the captivity. Therefore from thence had this nation no more Prophets, but were sore afflicted by aliens, even by the romans themselves, to teach them that Agge meant not of that house which they had repaired. For (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Go●…, 〈◊〉 〈…〉 should Alexander came soon after that, and subdued them: who although he made no massacre of them (for they durst do no other but yield at his first book) yet there was the glory of that Temple proved inferior to what it had been in their own free King's times. For in the Temple did Alexander sacrifice, not in any true worship unto GOD, but giving him a place in the adoration of his false deities. (c) Then came the forenamed Ptolomey son to Lagus, after Alexa●…ders death, and h●…e lead many of them captive into Egypt, yet his son Philadelphus did courteously free them afterwards, and had the seventy to translate the Old Testament for him, as I said before: from whence it came to our hands. After all this, the wars mentioned in the Maccabees, lay upon them. And in (d) process of time, Ptolemy King of Alexandria sudbued them, (he that was called Epiphanes) and then were they extremely plagued, forced to offer to Idols, and their Temple filled with sacrilegious pollution by Antiochus King of Syria, whose powers notwithstanding judas Machabeus utterly subue●…ted, and restored the Temple to the ancient dignity. Within a while after. did Alchimus (a man borne out of the Priest's blood) by ambition aspire to the Priesthood: and then about fifty years after, all which were passed under the variable chance of war, did Aristobulus assume a diadem, and became both King and Priest. For all the time before, ever since the captivity, they had no Kings but Captains and Generals, or Pri●…ces (though a King may be called a Prince, because of his pre-eminence, but all that are Captains and Princes, (f) are not Kings, as Aristobulus was). To him (g) did Alexander succeed both in the kingdom and the Priesthood, and is recorded for a tyrant over his people. He left the regality to his wife Alexandra, and from Alexandr●…. thence began the jews extremities of affliction. For (h) her two sons Aristobulus and Hircanus contending for the Principality, called the Roman forces to come against Israel, by the means of Hircanus demanding their aid against his brother. Then had the Roman▪ conquered all Africa and Greece, and having commanded over a multitude of other nations, (ay) the state seemed too heavy for itself, and broke itself down with the own burden. For now had sedition gotten strong hold amongst them, breaking out into confederacies, and civil wars, wherewith it was so maimed, that now all declined unto a Monarchike form of government. But Pompey the great general of Rome's forces, brought his powers into judaea, took Jerusalem, opened the Temple Pompey profaneth t●…e temple. doors (not to go in to pray unto God, but to pray upon God rather) and not as a worshipper, but as a profaner, entered the (k) sanctum sanctorum, a place only lawful for the high Priest to be seen in. (l) And having seated Hircanus in the priesthood, and made Antipater provost of the province, he departed carrying Aristobulus away with him, prisoner. Here began the jews to be the romans Cassius spoils the temple. tributaries. Afterwards came Cassius and spoiled the Temple. (m) And within a few years after, Herod an Alien was made their governor, and in his time was our Saviour CHRIST borne. For now was the fullness of time come which the Patriarch prophetically implied, saying, The Sceptre shall not depart from juda, nor the lawgiver from between Gen. 49. 10 his feet, until Shilo come, and he shall gather the nations unto him. For the jews had never been without a Prince of their blood, until Herod's time, who was their first Alien King. Now then was the time of Shiloh come, now was the New Testament to be promulgate, and the nations to be reconciled to the truth. For it were unpossible that the nations should desire him to come in his glorious power to judge, (as we see they do) unless they had first been united in their true belief upon him, when he came in his humility to suffer. L. VIVES. THey that (a) are Gods elect] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (b) Alexander came] In the time of Dariu●…, Alexander. son to Arsamus, Olymp. 112. which is a little more than two hundred years after. F●…r Alexander besieging tire: and sending for help to jaddus the Priest, commanding him as 〈◊〉 were Lord of Asia, seeing he had now chased Darius thence, the Priest answered, that he ought him no service as long as Darius lived, with whom he was in league. A wise answer, and befitting an Israelites faith: it inflamed the valorous young King, who having taken tire, made strait to Galilee through Palestina, took Gaza, and set forward to Jerusalem, where the Priests met him in all their ceremonial robes, and saluted him: so he was pac●…fied and adored the Priest, saying that he was the Priest of the God of Nature, who had appeared unto him in his sleep at Macedon, and told him he should attain this Empire. So took he judaea into his protection. joseph. lib. 11. Antiq. (c) Ptolemy son to Lagus] Under colour Ptolemy. of desiring to sacrifice in the Temple upon a Sabbath, he took the town. joseph. (d) Epiphanes] That is, Illustrious. He succeeded his Father Philopater, and warred with Antiochus Epiphanes. Epiphanes, until they bo●… were wearied, and then he married Cleopat●…, Antiochus his daughter, and had judaea for his dowry, etc. (e) Antiochus] Of him read the Maccabees 2. 7, and 8. and joseph. lib. 13. (f) Are not Kings] For King is a greater name than Prince, or Captain, bringing larger licence to the ruler, and stricter bondage to the s●…biect. (〈◊〉) Alexander] Aristobulus kept his brother's prisoners during his life, but being dead, his 〈◊〉 Saloni (whom the greeks call Alexandra) set them at liberty, and made Alexander (one of them) King, whom Ptolemy, Demetrius, and Antiochus foiled in many fights. At length being sickly by often surfeiting, he died. He was a forward spirit●…d and a valorous tyrant, but ever unfortunate, and unwise. He left the kingdom to▪ Alexandra his wife, who held it nine years, letting the Pharisees rule all as befitted a woman, to do. (h) Her two sons] Their war was worse than civil, and befell (saith joseph) in the Aristobolus. 〈◊〉 & Hircanus Consulship of Q, Hortensius, and Q. Metellus Creticus, Olymp. a hundred eighty three. Alexander and his wife had left Antipas (afterwards called Antipater the ●…ch) an ●…maean Antipater. perfect of Idumaea, who was factious and stirring, and favoured Hircanus above Aristobulus, and set Aretes King of Arabia against Aristobolus, and for Hircanus. He soon assented, and besieged Aristobulus in Jerusalem. Then warred Pompey the great in Africa, and his Legate Aemil. Scaurus lead part of his forces into Syria, and him did Aristobolus Pompey. implore in his aid: Scaurus raised the siege, and afterward the brethren contending for the kingdom before Pompey at Damascus, were both dismissed. Afterwards, Aristobolus offending him, he marched into judaea, took him prisoner, and turned juda a into a Province of Rome, Tully and C. Antonius being Consuls. joseph. lib. 15. ay The state seemed too heavy] So said Livy of it indeed. (k) The sanctum sanctorum] The romans 〈◊〉 The sanct●… sanctorum. earnestly to see what God the Hebrews worshipped, thinking they had some statue of him in the Temple. So Pompey, and a few with him, entered even to this place (which the jews he●… a sacrilege for any man but the priest to do,) where he found nothing but a golden table, a many tasters, a great deal of spices, and 2000 talents in the holy treasury: of this envy of his Tacitus speaketh, Annal. 21. and saith that upon this it was given out that the jews had no Images of their gods but worshipped in void rooms and empty sanctuaries. (l) And having seated] By the sending of Aulus Gabinius, who divided also all the land into five parts, Hircants. and set rulers over them all. josephus saith that in Caesar's war agai●…st Ptolemy, Hircanus and Antipater sent him aid, whereupon having ended the war he made Hircanus high priest, and Antipater (according to his choice) provost of the whole land. De bello Iu●…. lib. 1. & in Antiq. lib. (m) And within a few] Antipater dying, made his son Hircanus, (a dull and Herod. slothful youth) governor of jerusalem, and Herode (being as then scarcely fi●…teene year old) ruler of Galilee, who by his virtues, surmounting his age, quickly got the hearts of all the Syrians, and so by a brib●… (paid by them) got the government of Syria from Sextus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as then held it: and afterwards helping Octavius and Antony greatly, in the war o●… 〈◊〉 and Cassius, got the stile of King of judaea, given him by the S●…nate, he being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 borne. So was Jacob's prophecy at his death, fulfilled, which alone might be of power ●…ufficient to show the Messias to the jews, but that their eyes by God's secret judgements are so wholly sealed up, and enclowded. Of the words becoming flesh, our saviours birth▪ and the dispersion of jews. CHAP. 46. HErod reigning in judaea, Rome's government being changed, and (a) Augustus Caesar being Emperor, the world being all at peace, Christ (according to the precedent prophecy) was borne in Bethelem of judah, being openly man of his Virgin-mother, and secretly God, of God his father▪ for so the Prophet had said: (b) Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a son: and she shall call his name, Emanuel, that is, God with us. Now he showed his deity by many miracles, which as far as concerneth his glory and our salvation, are recorded in the Gospel. The first is his miraculous birth, the last his as miraculous as●…ension. But the jews who rejected him, and slew him (according to the needfulness of his death, and resurrection) after that were miserably spoiled by the Romans, chased all into the slavery of strangers, and dispersed over the face of the whole earth. For they are in all places with their Testament, to show that we have not forged those prophecies of Christ, which many of them considering, both before his passion and after his resurrection, believed in him, and they are the remnant that are ●…aued through grace. But the rest were blind, as the psalm saith, Let their table be made a snare before them, and their prosperity their ruin: let their eyes be blinded that they see not, and make their loins always to tremble. For in refusing to believe our scriptures, their own (which they read with blindness) Psal. 69 22. 23 are fulfilled upon them. (c) Some may say that the Sibyls prophecies which concern the jews, are but fictions of the christians: but that sufficeth us that we have from the books of our enemies, which we acknowledge in that they preserve it for us against their wills, themselves and their books being dispersed as far as GOD'S Church is extended and spread; in every corner of the world, as that prophecy of the psalm which they themselves do read, foretelleth them. My merciful GOD will prevent me, GOD will let me see my desire upon mine enemies: slay them Psal. 59, 〈◊〉 11 not lest my people forget it, but scatter them abroad with thy power, here did GOD show his mercy to his church even upon the jews his enemies, because (as the Apostle saith) through their fall cometh salvation to the Gentiles. And therefore he 〈◊〉 them not, that is he left them their name of jews still, although they be the romans slaves, lest their utter dissolution should make us forget the law of GOD concerning this testimony of theirs. So it were nothing to say▪ Slay them not, but that he addeth, Scatter them abroad: For if they were not dispersed throughout the whole world with their Scriptures, the Church should want their testimonies concerning those prophecies fulfilled in our Messias. L. VIVES. AUgustus (a) Caesar] In the forty and two year of his reign, and of the world five thousand one hundred ninety and nine, was Christ borne. Himself, and M. Plautius' being Consuls. Euseb. Cassiodorus referreth it to the year before, Cn. Lentulus, and M. Messala being Consuls. (b) Behold a Virgin] Shall take a son into her womb, say the seventy. (c) Some may say] Butler not truly: for Lactantius and Eusebius cited them when the books were common in all men's hands. Where if they had quoted what those books contained not, it would both have been impudence on their parts, and disgrace to the cause of Christ. Besides Ovid and Virgil use many of the Sibyls verses, which can concern none but Christ, as Uirgills' whole fourth Eclogue is, and his digression upon the death of Caesar. Georg. 1. And likewise in Ovid we read these. Esse quoque in fatis 〈◊〉 affore terris Quo ●…are, quo tellus corrept aque regia 〈◊〉, Ardeat èt mundi moles operosa laboret. There is a time when heaven (men say) shall burn, When air, and sea, and earth, and the whole frame, Of this ●…ge 〈◊〉 shall all to ashes turn. And likewise this. Et Deus 〈◊〉 lustrat sub imagine terras. God takes a view of earth in humane shape. And such also hath Luca●… in his Pharsalian war. liber 12. Now if they say that all the assertions of ours (recorded by great Authors) be fictions, let me hear the most direct ●…th that they can affi●…, and I will find one Academike or other amongst them that shall ●…ke a doubt of it. Whether any but Israelites, before Christ's time, belonged to the City of God. CHAP. 47. ●…erefore any stranger be he no Israelite borne, nor his works allowed for 〈◊〉 ●…onicall by them, if he have prophesied of Christ, that we can know or 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 be added unto the number of our testimonies: not that we need 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but because it is no error to believe that there were some of the Gen●…, 〈◊〉 whom this mystery was revealed, and who were inspired by the spirit of prop●… to declare it: were they elect or reprobate, & taught by the evil spi●…, whom we know confessed Christ being come, though the jews denied him. 〈◊〉 do I think the jews dare aver, that (a) no man was saved after the pro●… of Israel, but Isralites: Indeed there was no other people properly cal●… 〈◊〉 people of God. But they cannot deny that some particular men lived in 〈◊〉 ●…orld and in other nations that were belonging to the Heavenly hierarchy. 〈◊〉 deny this, the story of (b) holy job convinceth them, who was neither a 〈◊〉 Israelite, nor (c) a proselyte, adopted by their law, but borne and buried 〈◊〉 ●…aea: and yet (d) is he so highly commended in the scriptures, that 〈◊〉 was none of his time (it seems) that equalled him in righteousness, whose 〈◊〉 though the Chronicles express not, yet out of the canonical authority of 〈◊〉 own book we gather him to have lived in (e) the third generation after 〈◊〉. God's providence (no doubt) intended to give us an instance in him, that there might be others in the nations that lived after the law of God, and in his ●…ice thereby attaining a place in the celestial Jerusalem: which we must 〈◊〉 none did but such as foreknew the coming of the Messias, mediator be●… God and man, who was prophesied unto the Saints of old that he should 〈◊〉 just as we have seen him to have come in the flesh: thus did one faith unite 〈◊〉 ●…he predestinate into one city, one house, and one Temple for the living God. 〈◊〉 what other Prophecies soever there pass abroad concerning Christ the vici●… may suppose that we have forged, therefore there is no way so sure to batter 〈◊〉 all contentions in this kind, as by citing of the prophecies contained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jews books: by whose dispersion from their proper habitations all over 〈◊〉 world, the Church of Christ is happily increased. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) No man.] Nature being unpolluted with vicious opinion might possibly guid●… 〈◊〉 to God as well as the law of Moses, for what these get by the law, those might get ●…out it, and come to the same perfection that the jews came, seeking the same end: nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 difference other then if one traveler should carry an I●…erary of his way with him, The Louvain copy defective in all this.] 〈◊〉 ●…he other trust only his memory, [So may he also now a days, that liveth in the faith●… of the Ocean, and never heard of Christ, attain the glory of a Christian by keeping 〈◊〉 abstracts of all the law and the Prophets, perfect love of God and his neighbour: such 〈◊〉 is a law to man, and according to the Psalmist. He remembreth the name of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the night, and keepeth his law. This hath he that seeth the Lords righteousness: so 〈◊〉 blessing is it to be good, although you have not one to teach you goodness. And 〈◊〉 wanteth here but water? ●…or here is the holy spirit as well as in the Apostles: as Peter 〈◊〉 of some who received that, before ever the water touched them. So the na●… that have no law but natures, are a law to themselves, the light of their living well is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God coming from his son, of whom it is said. He is the light which lighteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that cometh into the world.] (b) Holy joh.] His holy history, saith he was of the 〈◊〉 of Huz. Hierome saith Huz built Damascus, and Traconitide and ruled between Pales●… and Caelosiria: this the seventy intimate in their translation. Huz was of the son of 〈◊〉, the brother of Abraham. There was an other Uz descended from Esau but Hierom 〈◊〉 him from jobs kindred, admitting that son of Aram, for that (saith he) it is 〈◊〉 ●…nd of the book where he is said to be the forth from Esau, is because the book was 〈◊〉 out of Syrian, for it was not written in the Hebrew. Philip the Priest, the next 〈◊〉 upon job after Hierom saith thus: ●…uz and B●…z were the sons of Abra●…●…ther ●…ther begot of Melcha, sister to Sarah. It is credible that this holy man (job) dwelled job. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bore his father's name: and that he was rather of the stock of Nachor 〈◊〉▪ though some suspect the contrary, but the three Kings (to wit Eliphaz; Bildad; 〈◊〉) were of the generation of Esau. Thus saith Philip. So that job was son 〈◊〉, by Melcham. Origen followeth the vulgar, and saith that he was an Vzzite borne & bred, and there lived. Now they, & the Minaeites, and Euchaeites & the Themanites, are all of the race of Esau, or Edom, Isaac's son: and all Idumaea was as then called Edom: but now they are all called Arabians, both the Idumaeans, Ammonites and Moabites. This is the opinion of Origen, and the vulgar, and likewise of some of the Gentiles, as of Aristeus Hist. judaic. etc. (c) A proselyte] Coming from heathenism to the law of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to come to A proselyte. (d) So highly commended] In the book of job, and Ezech. 14. (e) In the third generation] Some think that Genesis mentioneth him under the name of jasub, but there is no certainty of it. Hierome saith that Eliphaz, Esau's fonne by Adah, is the same that is mentioned in the book of job: which if it be so, job lived in the next generation after jacob. Aggees prophesy of the glory of God's house, fulfilled in the Church, not in the Temple. CHAP. 48. THis is that House of God more glorious than the former for all the precious compacture: for Aggees prophecy was not fulfilled in the repairing of the Temple, which never had that glory after the restoring that it had in Salomon's time: but rather lost it all, the Prophets ceasing, and destruction ensuing, which was performed by the Romans as I erst related. But the house of the New Testament is of another lustre, the workmanship being more glorious, and the stones being more precious. But it was figured in the repair of the old Temple, because the whole New Testament was figured in the old one. God's prophecy therefore that saith, In that place will I give peace, is to be meant of the place signified, not of the place significant: that is, as the restoring that house prefigured the church which Christ was to build, so GOD, said in this place, (that is in the place that this prefigureth) will I give peace, for all things signifying, seem to support the persons of the things signified, as Saint Peter said: the Rock was Christ: for it signified Christ. So then, far is the glory of the house of the New Testament above the glory of the Old, as shall appear in the final dedication. Then shall the desire of all nations appear (as it is in the hebrew): for his first coming was not desired of all the nations, for some knew not whom to desire, nor in whom to believe. And then also shall they that are Gods elect out of all nations come (as the LXX. read it) for none shall come truly at that day but the elect, of whom the Apostle saith As he hath elected us in him, before the beginning of the world: for the Architect himself, that said, Many are called but few are chosen▪ he spoke not of those that were called to the feast and then cast out: but meant to show that Ephes, 〈◊〉, 4 he had built an house of his elect, which times worst spite could never ruin. But being altogether in the church as yet, to be hereafter sifited, the corn from the chaff; the glory of this house cannot be so great now, as it shallbe then where man shallbe always there where he is once. The Churches increase uncertain, because of the commixtion of elect and reprobate in this world. CHAP. 49. THerefore in these mischievous days, wherein the church worketh for his future glory in present humility, in fears, in sorrows, in labours and in temptations, joying only in hope when she joyeth as she should, many rebroba●…e live amongst the elect: both come into the gospels Net, and both swim at random in the sea of mortality, until the fishers draw them to shore, and then the 〈◊〉 own from the good, in whom as in his Temple, God is all in all. We acknowledge therefore his words in the psalm, I would declare and speak of them, 〈◊〉 are more than I am able to express, to be truly fulfilled. This multiplication Psal. 40, 5 〈◊〉 at that instant when first john his Messenger, and then himself in person 〈◊〉 to say, Amend your lives for the Kingdom of God is at hand. He chose him dis●…, and named the Apostles: poor, ignoble, unlearned men, that what great 〈◊〉 soever was done he might be seen to do it in them. He had one, who abused his goodness, yet used he this wicked man to a good end, to the fulfilling of his passion, and presenting his church an example of patience in tribulation. And having sown sufficiently the seed of salvation, he suffered, was buried and 〈◊〉 again; showing by his suffering what we ought to endure for the truth, and 〈◊〉 resurrection what we ought for to hope of eternity, (a) besides the ineffa●…ament of his blood, shed for the remission of sins. He was forty days 〈◊〉 with his disciples afterwards, and in their sight ascended to heaven, ●…es after sending down his promised spirit upon them: which in the coming▪ gave that manifest and necessary sign of the knowledge in languages of 〈◊〉, to signify that it was but one Catholic church, that in all those nati●…●…uld use all those tongues. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) the ineffable] For Christ's sufferance, and his life hath not only left us the virtue 〈◊〉 Sacraments, but of his example also, whereby to direct ourselves in all good courses 〈◊〉 Gospel preached, and gloriously confirmed by the blood of the preachers. CHAP. 50. 〈◊〉 then, as it is written, The law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of 〈◊〉 Lord from jerusalem, and as Christ had foretold, when as (his disciplies ●…onished at his resurrection) he opened their understandings in the scrip●… told them that it was written thus: It behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise 〈◊〉 the third day, and that repentance, and remission of sins should be preached in Luk. 24, 46 47 〈◊〉 ●…mongst all nations beginning at jerusalem: and where they asked him of 〈◊〉 coming, and he answered, It is not for you to know the times and seasons 〈◊〉 father hath put in his own power: but you shall receive power of the Holy 〈◊〉 he shall come upon you and you shallbe witnesses of me in jerusalem, and in 〈◊〉 in Samaria, and unto the utmost part of the earth: First the church spread 〈◊〉 ●…om jerusalem, and then through judaea, and Samaria, and those lights 〈◊〉 world bore the Gospel unto other nations: for Christ had armed them, 〈◊〉 Fear not them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul: they had Mat. 10, 25 〈◊〉 of love that kept out the cold of fear: finally, by their persons who 〈◊〉 him alive, and dead, and alive again: and by the horrible persecuti●… by their successors after their death, and by the ever conquered (to 〈◊〉 ●…conquerable) tortures of the Martyrs, the Gospel was diffused 〈◊〉 all the habitable world: GOD going with it in Miracles, in virtues, and 〈◊〉 of the Holy Ghost: in so much that the nations believing in him who 〈◊〉 for their Redemption, in christian love did hold the blood of those Martyrs in reverence, which before, they had shed in barbarousness, and the Kings whose edicts afflicted the church came humbly to be warriors under that banner which they cruelly before had sought utterly to abolish: beginning now to persecute the false gods, for whom before they had persecuted the servants of 〈◊〉 true GOD. That the Church is confirmed even by the schisms of Heresies. CHAP. 51. NOw the devil seeing his Temples empty & all running unto this Redeemer, set heretics on foot to subert Christ, in a christian vizard, as if there were the allowance for them in the heavenly jerusalem which their was for contrariety of Philosophers in the devils Babylon. Such therefore as in the church of God do distaste any thing, and (a) being checked & advised to beware, do obstinately oppose themselves against good instructions, and rather defend their abominations then discard them, those become Heretics, and going forth of God's House, are to be held as our most eager enemies: yet they do the members of the Catholic Church this good, that their fall maketh them take better hold upon God, who useth evil to a good end, and worketh all for the good of those that love him. So then the church's enemies whatsoever, if they have the power to impose corporal affliction, they exercise her patience: if they bait her with with opposition only verbal, they practise her in her sapience: and she in loving these enemies excerciseth his benevolence, and bounty, whether she go about them with gentle persuasion or severe correction: and therefore though the devil hor chief opponent, move all his vessels against her virtues, cannot injure her an inch. Comfort she hath in prosperity, to be confirmed, and constant in adversity: and exercised is she in this, to be kept from corrupting in that: God's providence managing the whole: and so tempering the one with the other that the psalmist said fitly. In the multitude of the cares of mine heart thy comforts have joyed my soul. And the Apostle also: Rejoicing in hope and patient in tribulation. Ps●…. 94, 19 Rome 12, 12 〈◊〉 Tim. 3 For the same Apostles words saying, All that will live Godly in Christ shall suffer persecution, must be held to be in continual action: for though ab externo, abroad, all seem quiet, no gust of trouble appearing, & that is a great comfort, to the weak especially: yet at home, ab intus, there do we never want those that offend and molest the Godly pilgrim by their devilish demeanour, blaspheming Christ and the Catholic name, which how much dearer the Godly esteem, so much more grief they feel to hear, if less respected by their pernicious brethren than they desire it should be: and the Heretics themselves, being held to have Christ, and the Sacraments amongst them, grieve the hearts of the righteous extremely, because many that have a good desire to christianity, stumble at their dissensions, and again many that oppose it, take occasion hereby to burden it with greater calamities: the Heretics bearing the name of christians also. These persecutions befall Gods true servants by the vanity of others errors, although they be quiet in their bodily estate: this persecution toucheth the heart, and 〈◊〉 body: as the psalm saith, in the multitude of the cares of mine heart: not of my body. But then again, when we revolve the immutability of God's promises, who as the Apostle saith, knoweth who be his, whom he hath predestinate to (b) be made like the Image of his Son, their shall not one of these be 〈◊〉 ●…fore the psalm addeth. Thy comforts have joyed my soul. Now the sor●… the Godly feeleth for the perverseness of evil, or false christians, is 〈◊〉 their own souls, if it proceed of charity, not desiring their destruc●… the hindrance of their salvation: and the reformation of such, yeeld●… comfort to the devout soul, redoubling the joy now, for the grief The sorrow of the Godly. that it felt before for their errors. So then in these malignant days, not only 〈◊〉 Christ and his Apostles time, but even from holy Abel whom his wicked brother slew, so along unto the world's end, doth the church travel on her pilgrimage, now suffering worldly persecutions, and now receiving divine ●…ons. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 (a) checked] Heretics are first to be quietly instructed by the church, & let know 〈◊〉 their positions are unchristian: which if they obstinately aver, than their contumacy is 〈◊〉 to their souls as their doctrine. (b) To be made] Made, is not in Saint Paul's text. Whether the opinion of some, be credible, that there shallbe no more persecutions after the ten, past, but the eleventh, which is that of Antichrists. CHAP. 52. 〈◊〉 think that that is not to be rashly affirmed, which some do think viz. 〈◊〉 the church shall suffer no more persecutions until Antichrists 〈◊〉 the ten already past, that his shallbe the eleventh and last. The (a) first 〈◊〉 Nero, the (b) second by Domitian, the third by trajan, the (c) fourth by ●…s, the (d) fifth by Severus, the (e) sixth by Maximinus, the (f) seventh by De●… (g) eight by Valerian, the (h) ninth by Aurelian, the (ay) tenth by Diocletian, 〈◊〉. For some hold (k) the plauges of Egypt being ten in number before 〈◊〉 ●…dome, to have reference unto these, Antichrists eleventh persecution 〈◊〉 the Egyptians pursuit of Israel in the read sea, in which they were all 〈◊〉. But I take not those events in Egypt to be any way pertinent unto ●…er as prophecies, or figures, although they that hold otherwise have 〈◊〉 ●…ry ingenious adaptation of the one to the other, but not by the spirit ●…cy, but only by humane conjecture, which sometimes may err, as 〈◊〉 for what will they that hold this affirm of the persecution where●… was killed? What rank shall that have amongst the rest? If they except 〈◊〉 ●…old that such only are to be reckoned as belong to the body and not to 〈◊〉, what say they to that after the ascension, where Steven was stoned, and 〈◊〉 brother of john beheaded, and Peter shut up for the slaughter, but that 〈◊〉 freed him? where the brethren were chased from jerusalem, and 〈◊〉 ●…wards made an Apostle and called Paul) played the pursuivant amongst ●…ing them out to destruction? and where he himself also being conuer●…●…eaching the faith which he had persecuted, suffered such afflictions as 〈◊〉 ●…es he had laid upon others, wheresoever he preached, unto jews or 〈◊〉 why do they begin at Nero, when the church was never without perse●…●…f all the time before, whereof it is too tedious to recount the particulars. If they will not begin but at persecutions by a King, why (l) Herod was a King, who did the church extreme injury after Christ's ascension? Again (m) why are not julian's villainies reckoned amongst the ten? was not he a persecutor that (n) forbade to teach the christians the liberal arts? was not (o) Valentinian the elder (who was the third Emperor after him) deprived of his generalship, for confessing of Christ? to (p) leave all the massacres begun at Antioch, by this wicked Apostata, until one faithful and constant young man lying in tortures an whole day, continually singing psalms, and praising of GOD, did with his patience so terrify the persecuting Atheist that he was both afraid and ashamed to proceed. Now last (q) Valens, and Arrian, brother to the abovenamed Valentinian, hath not he afflicted the eastern church with all extremity, even now before our eyes? What a lame consideration is it to collect the persecutions endured by an universal church under one Prince, and in one nation, and not in another? cannot a church so far diffused, suffer affliction in one particular nation but it must suffer in all? perhaps they will not have the christians persecution in Gothland, (r) by their own King for one, who martyred a many true Catholics, as we heard of divers brethren who had seen, it living in those parts when they were children: and (s) what say they to Persia? Hath not the persecution there, chased divers even unto the towns of the Romans? It may be now quiet, but it is more than we can tenll. Now all these considerations laid together, and such like as these are, maketh me think that the number of the church's persecutions is not to be defined: but to affirm that there may be many inflicted by other Kings before that great and assured one of Antichrist; were as rash an assertion as the other: let us therefore leave it in the midst, neither affirming nor contradicting, but only controlling the rashness of both in others. L. VIVES. THe first (a) was] Of these writeth Euseb. Hist. Eccl. of this first Suetonius and Tacitus make mention, Suetonius calling the christians men of new and pernicious superstition. in Ner●…, Suetonius and Tacitus against the christians. And Tacitus calleth them, Hated for their wickedness, guilty, and worthy of utmost punishment. lib. 15. Oh senseless men, Tacitus and Suetonius! Can your bestial and luxurious jove seem a God unto you, and Christ seem none? call you an union in innocency, execrable superstition, and hold you them worthy of punishment whose chief laws is, to do no man hurt, and all men good? If you have not read our laws why condemn you us? If you have, why reprove you us, seeing we embrace those virtues which your best writers so highly admire. (b) The second] Nero's three ended under Uespasian, who suffered the christians to live in quiet, and so did his son Titus after him. But Domitianus calvus Nero, to prove himself right Nero, begun the persecution again, banishing Saint john into Pathmos: This, and the third of trajan, is all one: for Domitian begun it and it lasted unto trajan, successor unto Nerua, who succeeded Domitian, and held the Empire little more than a year. There is an Domitian. Epistle extant unto trajan from Pliny the younger, Regent of Asia, ask how he will have him to use the christians, seeing he saw no hurt in them, reckoning up their hurtless meetings, prayers, hymns, communions, etc. and affirming that the name spread so far that the altars o●… the gods cooled, and the priests were almost starved. trajan biddeth him not seek them out, but if they be accused unto him punish them, unless they will recant etc. [O would we christians could use this moderation unto others.] In this persecution was Simon Cle●… second Bishop of jerusalem, martyred. (c) The fourth] For Adrian was a secret favourite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. Christ, and would have deified him amongst his other gods, but that some told him, all the 〈◊〉 would go down if Christ once came up, Antoninus Pius also did lighten their affliction by ●…ict. But this Antonine that caused the forth persecution was the Philosopher who ru●… S Pol●…carpe Pionius martyrs. Iu●…. Severus. with Antonius ver●…s: In this persecution were Policarpe and Pionius martyred in Asia: 〈◊〉 many in France, whose sufferings are left recorded. justine martyr also suffered at this time 〈◊〉 lib. 4. Hist. Eccl. (d) The fifth by Se●…eus.] He had good fortune to become Emperor, for he 〈◊〉 an African, a fierce and bloody fellow. He forbade Christianity upon a deadly penalty. (Ael. 〈◊〉.) and plagued the Christians all Egypt over, chiefly in Thebais. Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. 〈◊〉. Alexander Bishop of Hieusalem was martyred at this time. (e) The s●…t.] Maximinus was a ●…ian borne, his father a Goth, his mother a Scythian: barbarous in descent, body and Maximinus 〈◊〉. His strength preferred him from a common soldior to a commander. And Alexander M●…ea her son being killed, the soldiers made him Emperor. He was most proud and ●…ll. He persecuted the priests, as the especial causers of christianity Euse. (f) By Decius.] Decius, ●…e in Bubalia, a part of the lower Pannonia. He foiled Philip the Emperor in a civil fight, and he then succeeded in his place: hating the Christians so much more because Philip favoured them, and putting them to exquisite torments: S. Laurence, he broiled. Eutrop. Yet ruled he but one year, what would he have done had he continued? Fabian also the Bishop of S Laurence Fabian B. of Rome. Valerian. Rome was martyred under him. (g) By Valerian.] Who was crowned three years after Decius He was most unfortunate: for Sapor King of Persia took him in fight, and made him his 〈◊〉 to mount his horse by. Galen and he were joint Emperors, under whom the Empire 〈◊〉 greatly to decay: no marvel, being both dejected, sluggish lumps. In this persecution 〈◊〉 S. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage martyred. (h) By Aurelian.] Third Emperor after Galen. A Cyprian. Aurelian. D●…e; very fortunate in war, but bloody and Barbarous, fit for an Empire, and for nothing else▪ hated, (and so slain) by his own friends, who killed him as he went from Byzance to Herculea. ay Diocletian.] Son to Salon, a dalmatian, he aspired to the Empire by the contentions Diocletian, Maximinus of others, and joined Maximianus Herculeus with him, the better to withstand the ●…ent war. He was subtle, and cruel, and could easily lay his butcheries on another's 〈◊〉. Maximian was Barbarous, and brutish even in Aspect, and served for Diocletians hang●…, who grew to such pride that he commanded himself to be adored as a God, and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be kissed, whereas before, they used but to kiss their hands: he presecuted 〈◊〉 Church and on Easter-weeke, the nineteenth year of his reign, commanded all the Churches to be pulled down, and the Christians to be killed. Decius his persecution was the greatest, but this was the bloodiest. (k) The Plagues of Egypt.] This is Orosius his opinion. lib. 7. (l) Herod.] His son under whom Christ was borne. (m) julian.] The Apostata, first julian the Apostata, a Christian, and afterwards an Atheist. He shed no Christian blood, but used wonderful 〈◊〉 to draw men from Christ: a bitter kind of persecution, taking more hearts from God by that one means, than all the violence before had done. (n) Forbade to teach the liberal 〈◊〉▪] His edict was torn in pieces by S. john. There was one Prohaeresius a Sophister of Caesarea, who coming to Athens was received with great applause of the people, to whom he made an extemporal oration in a frequent audience. julian allowed leave only unto him to teach the Christians: but the learned man hating that Barbarous edict, forsook the town 〈◊〉 scholars, to the great grief of the students. (o) Valentinian.] An Hungarian, captain Valentinian the elder, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…gatyers, and saluted Emperor by the soldiers. Being a Christian under julian, he was commanded either to sacrifice unto the Idols or to resign his place, which he resigned wil●…, and soon after julian being slain, and jovinian dead, he reigned Emperor, receiving 〈◊〉 for his captainship that he had lost for Christ's sake. Eutrop. His son, Valentinian the younger ruled first with Gratian and then with Theodosius the great. (p) At Antioch.] julian 〈◊〉 the Christians remove the tomb of the martyr Babylas to some other place, so they went 〈◊〉 it singing the Psalm When Israel went out of etc. Which julian hearing was vexed, & Psa, 114. 〈◊〉 divers of them to be put to torments. Salustius was he that had the charge, who took a 〈◊〉 man called Theodorus, and put him to most intolerable torments, yet he never mo●…▪ 〈◊〉 with a joyful countenance continually sung the Psalm that the Church sung the 〈◊〉, which Sallust seeing, he returned him to prison, and went to julian, telling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he tortured any more of them, it would redound to their glory and his shame▪ ●…-vpon he ceased. Eusebius saith that himself talked with this Theodorus at Antioch 〈◊〉 asked him if he felt no pain; who told him no: for there stood a youngman behind me in a white raiment, who oftentimes sprinkled cold water upon me, and wiped my sweat a way with a towel as white as snow, so that it was rather pain to me to be taken from the rack. (q). Ualens] An Arrian: when Augustine was a youth, this Emperor made a law that Monks should go to the wars, and those that would not, he sent his soldiers to beat Valens. them to death with clubs. An huge company of those Monks lived in the deserts of Egypt. Euseb. Eutrop. Oros (r) By their own] Immediately after Ualens his death: Arianism as then raging in the church. (s) In Persia] Under King Gororanes, a devilish persecutor who raged because Abdias an holy bishop had burnt down all the Temples of the Persians great Gororanes. god, their fire. Cassiod. Hist. trip. lib. 10. Sapor also persecuted sore in Constantine's time, a little before this of Gororanes. Of the unknown time of the last persecution. CHAP. 53. THe last persecution under Antichrist, Christ's personal presence shall extinguish. For, He shall consume him with the breath of his mouth, and abolish him with the brightness of his wisdom, saith the Apostle. And here is an usual question: 2. Thess. 2 〈◊〉. when shall this be? it is a saucy one. If the knowledge of it would have done us good, who would have revealed it sooner than Christ unto his disciples? for they were not bird-mouthed unto him, but asked him, saying: Lord wilt thou at this time (a) restore the Kingdom to Israel. But what said he? It is not for you to know the (b) times or seasons which the Father hath put in his own power. They asked him not of the day or hour, but of the time, when he answered them thus. In vain therefore do we stand reckoning the remainder of the world's years, we hear the plain truth tell us, it befits us not to know them. Some talk how it shall last 400. some five hundred, some a thousand years after the Ascension, every one hath his vie, it were in vain to stand showing upon what grounds; In a word, their conjectures are all human, grounded upon no certainty of scripture. For he that said, It is not for you to know the times etc. stops all your accounts and bids you leave your calculations. But (c) this being an evangelical sentence, I wonder not that it was not of power to respresse the audacious fictions of some infidels touching the continuance of christian religion. For those, observing that these greatest persecutions A damnable fiction accusing Peter of sorcery. did rather increase then suppress the faith of CHRIST, invented a sort of greek verses (like as if they had been Oracle) containing how CHRIST was clear of this sacreledge, but that Peter had by magic founded the worship of the name of CHRIST for three hundred three score and five years, and at that date, it should utterly cease. Oh learned heads! Oh rare inventions! fit to believe those things of CHRIST since you will not believe in CHRIST: to wit, that Peter learned magic of CHRIST: yet was he innocent: and that his disciple was a witch, and yet had rather have his masters name honoured then his own, working to that end with his magic, with toil, with perils, and lastly with the effusion of his blood! If Peter's witch craft made the world love CHRIST so well, what had CHRIST'S innocence done that Peter should love him so well? Let them answer, and (if they can) conceive that it was that supernal grace that fixed CHRIST in the hearts of the nations for the attainment of eternal bliss: which grace also made Peter willing to endure a temporal death for CHRIST, by him to be received into the said eternity. And what goodly gods are these that can presage these things and yet not prevent them? but are forced by one witch and (as they affirm) by one (c) child-slaughtring sacrifice, to suffer a sect so miurious to them to prevail against them so long time, and to bear down all persecutions by bearing them with patience, and to destroy their Temples, Images, and sacrifices? which of their gods is it (none of ours it is) that is compelled to work these effects by such a damned oblation? for the verses say that Peter dealt not with a devil, but with a god, in his magical operation. Such a god have they, that have not CHRIST for their GOD. L. VIVES. AT this time (a) restore] So it must be read, not represent. (b) It is not for you] He forbiddeth Against calculators. all curiosity, reserving the knowledge of things to come only to himself. Now let my figure-flingers, and mine old wives, that hold Ladies and scarlet potentates by the ears, with tales of thus and thus it shallbe; let them all go pack. Nay sir he doth it by Christ's command: why very good, you see what Christ's command is. Yet have we no such delight as in lies of this nature, and that maketh them the bolder in their fictions, thinking that we hold their mere desire to tell true, a great matter in so strange a case. (c) evangelical] Spoken by Christ, and written by an Evangelist. Indeed Christ's ascension belongeth to the Gospel and that Chap. of the Acts had been added to the end of Luke's Gospel but that his preface would have made a separation. (d) Child-slaughtering▪ The Pagans used to upbraid Killing of children cast in the christians teeth. Cataphrygians. the Christians much with killing of Children. Tertull Apologet. It was a filthy lie. Indeed the Cataphrygians and the Pepuzians, two damned sects of heresy, used to prick a young child's body all over with needles, and so to wring out the blood, wherewith they tempered their past for the Eucharistical bread. Aug ad Quodvultd. So used the Eu●…hitae and the Gnostici, for to drive away devils with. Psell. But this was ever held rather villainies of magic than rites of christianity. The Pagans foolishness in affirming that Christianity should last but 365. years. CHAP. 54. I Could gather many such as this, if the year were not past that those lies prefixed and those fools expected. But seeing it is now above three hundred sixty five years, since Christ's coming in the flesh, and the Apostles preaching his name, what needeth any plainer confutation. For to ommit Christ's infancy and childhood where in he had no disciples, yet after his baptism in jordan, by John, as soon as he called some disciples to him, his name assuredly began to be ●…lged, of whom the Prophet had said, he shall rule from sea to sea, and from the 〈◊〉 to the lands end. But because the faith was not definitively decreed until 〈◊〉 his passion, to wit, in his resurrection; for so saith Saint Paul to the Athenians: Now he admonisheth all men every where, to repent, because he hath appoin●…da day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man in whom Act. 17, 30 ●…ee hath appointed a faith unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead: We shall do better for the solution of this question, to begin at that time, chiefly because then the Holy Spirit descended upon that society wherein the second law the New Testament was to be professed, according as Christ had promised. For the first law, the Old Testament was given in Sina by Moses, but the later which Christ was to give was prophesied in these words: The law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from jerusalem. Therefore he said himself that it was fit that repentance should be preached in his name throughout all nations, yet beginning at jerusalem. There then began the belief in CHRIST crucified and risen again. There did this faith heat the hearts of divers thousands already, who sold their goods to give to the poor and came cheerfully to CHRIST and to voluntary poverty, withstanding the assaults of the bloodthirsty jews with a patience stronger than an armed power. If this now were not done by Magic, why might not the rest, in all the world be as clear? But if Peter's magic had made those men honour Christ, who both crucified him and derided him being crucified, than I ask them when their three hundred three scorce and five years must have an end? CHRST died in the (a) two Gemini's consulship, the eight of the Calends of April: and rose again the third day, as the Apostles saw with their eyes, and felt with their hands: forty days after ascended he into Heaven, and ten days after (that is fifty after the resurrection) came the Holy Ghost, and then three thousand men believed in the Apostles preaching of him. So that than his name began to spread, as we believe, and it was truly proved, by the operation of the Holy Ghost: but as the Infidels feign, by Peter's magic. And soon after five thousand more believed through the preaching of Paul, and Peter's miraculous curing of one that had been borne lame and lay begging at the porch of the Temple: Peter with one word. In the name of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, set him sound upon his feet. Thus the church got up by degrees. Now reckon the years by the Consuls from the descension of the Holy Spirit that was in the Ides of May, unto the consulship of (b) Honorius, and Eutychian, and you shall find full three hundred three score and five years, expired. Now in the next year, in the consulship of (c) Theodorus Manlius when christianity should have been utterly gone (according to that Oracle of devils, or fiction of fools:) what is done in other places, we need not inquire, but for that famous city of Carthage we know that iovius and Gaudentius, two of Honorius his Earls, came thither on the tenth of the Calends of April, and broke down all the Idols, and pulled down their Temples. It is now thirty years ago since, (almost) and what increase christianity hath had since, is apparent enough: and partly by a many whom the expectation of the fulfilling of that Oracle kept from being reconciled to the truth, who since are come into the bosom of the church, discovering the ridiculousness The christians believe not in Peter but in CHRIST. of that former expectation. But we that are christians re & ●…re, indeed and name, do not believe in Peter, but in (f) him that Peter believed in. We are edified by Peter's sermons of Christ, but not bewitched by his charms nor deceived by his magic, but furthered by his religion. CHRIT, that taught Peter the doctrine of eternity, teacheth us also. But now it is time to set an end to this book, wherein as far as need was we have run along with the courses of the Two Cities in their confused progress the one of which, the Babylon of the earth, hath made her false gods of mortal men, serving them and sacrificing to them as she thought good, but the other, the heavenly jerusalem she hath stuck to the only and true GOD, and is his true and pure sacrifice herself. But both of these do feel one touch of good and evil fortune, but not with one faith, nor one hope, nor one law: and at length, at the last judgement they shall be severed for ever, and either shall receive the endless reward of their works. O●… these two ends we are now to discourse. L. VIVES. IN the (a) two] First, sure it is, Christ suffered under Tiberius the Emperor. Luke the Evangelist The time of Christ's death. maketh his baptism to fall in the fifteenth year of Tiberius his reign. So then his passion must be in the eighteenth or nineteenth, for three years he preached salvation. Hier. So ●…ith Eusebius, alleging heathen testimonies of that memorable eclipse of the Sun, as namely our of Phlegon, a writer of the Olympiads: who saith that in the fourth year of the two hundred and two olympiad (the eighteenth of Tiberius his reign) the greatest eclipse befell, that ever was. It was midnight-darke at noonday, the stars were all visible, and an earthquake shook down many houses in Nice a city of Bythinia. But the two Gemini, Ru●…, and Fusius, were Consuls in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, as is easily proved out of Tacitus lib. 5. and out of Lactantius lib. 4. cap. 10. where he saith that in that year did Christ suffer, and him doth Augustine follow here. But Sergius Galba (afterwards Emperor) and L. Sylla were Consuls in the eighteenth year. (b) Honorius and▪ In the consulship of these two, 〈◊〉 drove the Goths and Vandals into Italy. Honorius the Emperor being Consul the fourth time. Prosper saith this was not until the next year, Stilicon and Aurelian being 〈◊〉. (c) Theodorus] Claudian made an excellent Panegyric, for his consulship, wherein he showeth that he had been Consul before. Prosper maketh him Consul before Honorius his fourth Consulship, but I think this is an error in the time, as well as in the copy. For it must be read, Being the second time Consul. Eutropius the Eunuch was made Consul with him, but soon after he was put to death. Whereupon it may be that Eutropius his name was blotted out of the registers, and Theodorus Manlius (having no fellow) was taken for two, Theodorus and Manlius, as Cassiodorus taketh him, but mistakes himself. Yet about that time, they began to have but one Consul. (d) Now 30. years] Unto the third year of Theodosius junior, wherein Augustine wrote this. (e) In him that Peter] For who is Paul, and who is Apollo? the ministers by whom you believe. Finis lib. 18. THE CONTENTS OF THE nineteenth book of the City of God That Varro observed 288. sects of the Philophers, in their question of the perfection of goodness. 2. Varro his reduction of the final good out of all these differences unto three heads, & three definitions, one only of which is the true one. 3. Varro his choice amongst the three forenamed sects, following therein the opinion of Antiochus, author of the old Academical sect. 4. The Christians opinion of the chiefest good and evil, which the Philosophers held to be within themselves. 5. Of living sociably with our neighbours: how fit it is, and yet how subject to crosses. 6. The error of humane judgements in cases where truth is not known. 7. Difference of language an impediment to humane society. The miseries of the justest wars. 8. That true friendship cannot be secure, amongst the incessant perils of this present life. 9 The friendship of holy Angels with men, undiscernible in this life, by reason of the devils, whom all the Infidels took to be good powers and gave them divine honours. 10. The rewards that the Saints are to receive after the passing of this world's afflictions. 11. The beatitude of eternal peace, and that true perfection wherein the Saints are installed 12. That the bloodiest wars chief aim is peace: the desire which is natural in man. 13. Of that universal peace which no perturbances can seclude from the law of nature; Gods just judgements disposing of every one according to his proper desert. 14. Of the law of Heaven and Earth, which swayeth humane society by council, and unto which council humane society obeyeth. 15. Nature's freedom & bondage, caused by sin; in which man is a slave to his own affects, though he be not bondman to any one besides. 16. Of the just law of sovereignty. 17. The grounds of the concord and discord betwixt the Cities of Heaven and Earth. 18. That the suspended doctrine of the new Academy opposeth the constancy of Christianity 19 Of the habit and manners belonging to a Christian. 20. Hope, the bliss of the heavenly Citizens, during this life. 21. Whether the City of Rome had ever a true commonwealth according to Scipio's definition of a commonwealth in Tully. 22. Whether Christ the Christians God be he unto whom only sacrifice is to be offered. 23. Porphery his relation of the Oracles touching Christ. 24. A definition of a people, by which, both the Romans and other kingdoms may challenge themselves commonweals. 25. That there can be no true virtue, where true religion wanteth. 26. The peace of God's enemies, useful to the piety of his friends, as long as their Earthly pillgrimage lasteth. 27. The peace of God's servants; the fullness whereof it is impossible in this life to comprehead 28. The end of the wicked. FINIS. THE NINETEENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. That Varro observed 288. sects of the Philosophers in their question of the perfection of goodness. CHAP. 1. WHereas I am now to draw my discourse (from the progress) unto the consummation of the state of those two hierarchies, the celestial and the terrestrial, I must therefore first lay down their arguments (as far as the quantity beseeming this volume may permit) who intent to make themselves up a beatitude extant even in the continual misfortunes of man's temporal mortality: wherein my purpose is to parallel their vain positions with our assured hope which GOD hath given us, and with the object of that assurance, namely the true blessedness which he will give us: that so, confirming our assertions both with holy scriptures, and with such reasons as are fit to be produced against Infidels, the difference of their grounds and ours, may be the more fully apparent. About that question of the final good, the Philosophers have kept a wonderful coil amongst themselves: seeking in every crank and caverne thereof, for the true beatitude: for that is the final good, being only desired for itself, all other goods having in their attainments a reference unto that alone. We do not call that the final good, which endeth goodness, that is, which maketh it nothing: but that which profiteth it, which giveth it fullness of perfection; nor do we call that the end of all evil, whereby it ceaseth to be evil, but that point which mischief ariseth unto, still reserving the mischievous nature, that we call the end of mischief. So then the great good and the greatest evil, are the ends of all good and evil: the final goodness, and the final badness. About which two there hath been wonderful inquisition, to avoid the final evil and attain the final good: this was the daily endeavour of our worldly Philosophers: who though they were guilty of much exorbitance of error, yet the bounds of nature were such limits to their Aphorisms that they sought no further than either the body, the mind, or both, wherein to place this summum bonum of theirs. From this tripartite foundation hath M. Varro in his book De Philosophia, most wittily and diligently observed 288. sects to have original, not in esse, but in posse, so many several positions may be drawn from those three fountains: of which to make a brief demonstration, I must begin with that which he rehearseth in the book afore named. viz. That there are four things which every one desireth Four things desired by man in nature. by nature, without help of master or industry, or that habit of life which is called (a) virtue, and is learned by degrees: namely, either sensible pleasure, or sensible rest, or both, (b) (which Epicurus calleth by one name of pleasure) or (c) the universal first positions of nature, wherein these and the rest are included, as in the body, health and strength, and in the mind, sharpness of wit, and soundness of judgement: these four therefore, pleasure, rest, both, and natures first positives, are in the fabric of man under these respects, that either virtue (the effect of doctrine) is to be desired for them, or for itself, or they for virtue or for themselves. And here are foundations for twelve ●…ects, for by this means they are all tripled. I will show it in one, and that will make it apparent in all the rest. Bodily pleasure, being either set under virtue, above it, or equal with it, giveth life to three divers opinions. It is under virtue when virtue ruleth it and useth it, for it is a virtue to live for our country's good, and for the same end to beget our children: neither of which can be excluded from corporal delight, for without that we neither eat, to live, nor use the means of carnal generation. But when this pleasure is preferred before virtue, then is it affected in mere respect of itself, and virtues ataynement is wholly referred unto that, that is all virtues acts must tend to the production of corporal pleasure, or else to the preservation of it: which is a deformed kind of life, because therein, virtue is slave to the commands of voluptuousness: (though indeed, that cannot properly be called virtue that is so.) But yet this deformity could not want patronage and that by many Philosophers. Now pleasure and virtue are joined in equality when they are both sought for themselves, no way respecting others. Wheresore, as the subjection, pre-eminence, or equality of virtue unto voluptuousness, maketh three sects, so doth rest, delight and rest, and the first positives of nature make three more in this kind, for they have their three places under, above, or equal to virtue, as well as the other: thus doth the number arise (d) unto twelve. Now add but one difference, to wit, society of life, and the whole number is doubled: because whosoever followeth any one of these twelve sects, either doth follow it as respecting himself or his fellow, to whom he ought to wish aswell as himself: So there may be twelve men that hold those twelve positions each one for their own respect, and other twelve that hold them in respect of others, whose good they desire as much as their own. Now bring in but your (e) new Academikes, and these twenty four sects become forty eight, for every one of these positions may be either maintained Stoically to be certain (as that of virtue, that it is the sole good) or Accademically as uncertain, and not so assuredly true, as likely to be true. Thus are there twenty four affirming the certain truth of those positions, and twenty four standing wholly for their uncertainty. Again each of these positions may be defended either in the habit of any other Philosop or (f) of a Cynic, and this of forty eight maketh the whole ninety six: Again these may either be disputed of by such as profess mere Philosophy no way intermeddling with affairs of state, or by such as love argumentation, and yet nevertheless keep a place in politic directions and employments of the weal public, or by such as profess both, and by a certain vicissitude, do now play the mere Philosophers, and now the mere politicians: and thus is the number trebled, amounting to two hundred eighty and eight. Thus much, as briefly as I could out of Varro, laying down his doctrine in mine own forms. But to show how he confesseth all the rest but one, (g) and chooseth that, as peculiar to the old Academikes of Plato's institution, (continuing to defend certain Aphorisms from him to (h) Polemon the forth that succeeded him) who are quite different from the new nought-affirming Academikes, instituted by ay Archesilas, Polemons success: to show Varros opinion in this, that the old Academikes were free both of uncertenty and error. It is too tedious to make a full relation of it, yet may we lawfully (nay and must necessarily) take a view of it in some part: first therefore he remou●…th all the differences procuring this multitude of sects his reason is, they aim not at the perfection of goodness. For he holdeth not that worthy the name of a sect in Philosophy, (k) which differeth not from all others in the main ends of good and evil: the end of all Philosophy being only beatitude; which is the main end and perfection of all goodness. This then is the aim of all Philosophers: and such as do not level at this are unworthy that name. Wherefore in that question of society in life, whether a wise man should respect the perfection of goodness in his friend as much as in himself, or do all that he doth for his own beatitudes' sake: this now doth no way concern the good itself, but the assuming or not assuming of a companion into the participation of it, not for ones own sake, but for his sake that is admitted, whose good the other affecteth as he doth his own. And likewise in these new Academicismes, whether all these assertions be to be held as uncertain, or with that assurance that other Philosophers defended them: the question meddleth not with the nature of that which we are to attain, as the end of all good, but it asketh whether there be such a thing or no, averring a doubt hereof rather than an affirmation: that is (to be more plain) the controversy is, whether the follower of this perfection may affirm his final good to be certain, or only that it seemeth so, but may be uncertain, and yet both these intent one good. And likewise again, for the Cynical habit, the reality of the good is not called in question, but whether it be to be followed in such a fashion of life and conversation or no. Finally there have been Philosophers that have affirmed diversly of the final good, some placing it in virtue, and some in pleasure, and yet have all observed one Cynical habit and form of carriage: so that the cause of their being enstiled so, had no manner of reference to the perfection that they studied to attain. For if it had, then should that end be peculiar to that habit, and not be communicated with any other. L VIVES. ANd (a) is learned] The old Philosophers have a great ado about virtues in man: whether it be by laborious acquisition, or natural infusion! Some hold the later, and some the first: Virtue. Plato is variable. Assuredly virtue is not perfited in any one without both, nature & exercise. Three things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, nature, reason and practise, are as necessary in the attaining of arts and all good habits, as a fat soil, a good seed, and a painful husbandman, are unto the obtaining of a fruitful harvest. Plutarch hath a little work, proving virtue to be ex industria. (b) Which Epicurus] He called both sensible delight, and restful quiet by one Pleasure. only name, Pleasure. For so doth Tully make Torquatus an Epicure avouch, in his first book De finibus. (c) The universal] These are most frequent and peculiarly used by the stoics. Cicero useth them in many places. (d) Unto twelve] Omit but virtue in some of those references, and the number will arise to a far greater sum: comparing pleasure with rest, & then with nature's first positives, and then compare rest with them, but indeed there was never Philosopher so impudent, as to exclude virtue from the seat of felicity, though he gave the pre-eminence unto pleasure. (e) New Academics] Herein he observeth the vulgar opinion. For Varro in Tully saith, that he thinketh that Socrates instituted that Academy of Archesilas, that it was the elder, and that Plato confirmed it, & recorded the positions. Eusebius addeth a third Academy of Carneades his institution called the middle Academy. Praep. evang. lib. 14. But Laertius maketh Plato the founder of the old one, Archesilas of the middle one, and Lacyd●… (his scholar) of the new one. (f) Of a Cynic] Antisthexes, Scholar to Socrates, an earnest hater of pleasure, founded this sect: Such were most of the Cynikes after him, yet some were great voluptuaries, whereupon Origen compareth the dogge-flye unto their sect, who to draw others unto the same damnation with them, avouch lust and carnal 〈◊〉 to be the true beatitude. In Exod. Now it were strange that this should be meant of all, the old Cynikes having this proverb continually in their mouths, I had rather run m●…e then enjoy delight: It may be that Hierome followeth Origen, in calling Aristippus and the Cynikes, the proclaimers of voluptuousness. In Ecclesiast. But we have put Cyrenaikes for Cynikes, for that makes the better sense. Note that Laertius saith the Cynics are a true and ●…ust sect of Philosophers, not molifyed, nor deniable upon any respect. (g) And chooseth that] Which Tully also approveth above all, as almost pure Aristotelian. De fin. lib. 5. For Aristotle had most of his morality that was worth aught, from his master Plato. (h) Polemon] Speusippus, sister's son to Plato, was made Plato's successor in the school, but he growing diseased, resigned the place to Xenocrates, who by one oration converted this Polemon from a lewd and luxurious youth, to become an honest and earnest observer of patience: and after Xenocrates death, he taught in his place. Ualer. Maximus citeth him, as an example of sudden change of manners. There was another Polemo surnamed Hellanicus, an Historiographer, we have used his authorities elsewhere. A third also of this name there was, a sophister in Laodicia. ay Archesilas] Borne in Pitane in Aeolia, a Socratist in matter and form: leaving no more records of his doctrine himself, than Socrates did. (k) Which differeth not] He that amongst the old Philosophers differed from any other in the summum bonum, was forthwith reputed of a contrary sect, though he agreed with them in all positions besides. Varro his reduction of the final good out of all these differences unto three heads and three definitions, one only of which is the true one. CHAP. 2. THerefore in these three sorts of life, the contemplative, the active, and the mixed, if our question be, which of these we should observe, we do not meddle with the final good, but with the easy or hard attainment of that good, which accompanieth those three several courses: for being attained, the final good doth immediately make the attainer blessed. But it is neither contemplation, nor action, nor these two proportioned together, that maketh a man blessed for one may live in any of these three fashions, and yet be far wide from the true course to beatitude. So then, the questions touching the end of goodness, which distinguish all those sects, are far different from those of society of life, Academical uncertainty cynical carriage, and that of the three courses of conversation, Philosophical, politic, and neuter. For none of all these do once meddle with the natures of good and evil. Wherefore Varro having recited the last four, whereby the whole sum of opinions amounteth to two hundred eighty eight, because they are not worthy the name of sects, in that they (a) make no mention of the good that is chiefly to be desired, he leaveth them all, and returneth to their first twelve, whose controversy is about the main point, Man's chief good: out of these will he gather one direct truth, and show all the rest to be false. For first he removes the three sorts of life, and they carry two parts of the number with them: so there remains but ninety six. Then go the Cynikes, and they carry forty eight with them: so there remaineth but forty eight, then send away the new Academikes with their parts, so there remains but thirty six. And then the social conversation, with the multitude that it brought, so there remains only twelve, which no man can deny to be twelve several sects. For their only difference is the highest parts of good and evil. For the ends of good being found, the evils lie directly opposite. So these twelve sects are produced by the triplication of these four, Pleasure, rest, both, and (b) natures primitive affects and habits, which Varro calleth Primogenia. For they all are made either virtues inferiors, and desired only in respect of her, or her superiors, and she desired only for their sake: or equals, and both are affected for their own sakes: thus do they accrue unto twelve several positions. Now of these four heads, Varro taketh away three: pleasure, rest, and both united: not that he disprooues them, but that they are already included in the fourth: namely the first positives of nature, as well as many things more are, and therefore what need they keep a number in this rank? So then of the three remaining deducted from the fourth head, his discourse must wholly be framed, to know which of them is the truth: there can be but one true one by reason, be it in these three, or in some other thing, as we will see afterwards. Mean time let us briefly see Varro's choice of the three: which are these; Whether Natures first positive affects, be to be desired for virtues sake, or virtue for theirs, or both for themselves. L. VIVES. THey (a) make no] For though their true use seem to hinder, or further the chiefest good, yet have they no essential reference thereunto. (b) Natures primitive] As health, strength, perfection of the senses, freedom from sorrow, vigour, beauty, and such like: like unto which are the first seeds of virtue in our minds, which if depraved opinions would suffer to come to maturity, they alone were sufficient to guide us to beatitude. Varro his choice amongst the three forenamed sects, following therein the opinion of Antiochus, author of the old Academical sect. CHAP. 3. THus he beginneth to show in which of them the truth is contained. First, What man is. because the question concerneth not the beatitude of Gods, or beasts, or trees, but of man, he holds fit to examine what man is. Two things he findeth in his nature, body and soul, whereof the soul he affirms to be the far more excellent part. But whether the soul be only man, and that the body be unto it, as the horse is to the horseman, that he maketh another controversy of: (for (a) the horseman, is the man alone not the horse and man both together: yet is it the man's reference to the horse, that giveth him that name.) Or whether the body only be the man, having that respect unto the soul that the cup hath to the drink, (for it is not the cup and the drink both that are called (b) poculum in Latin, but the cup only: yet only in respect that it containeth the drink:) or whether it be both body and soul conjoined, and not several, that is called man, and these two are but his parts, as two Oxen are called a yoke, (which though it consist of one on this side, and another on that, yet call we neither of them separately a yoke, but both combined together). Now of those three positions he chooseth the last, calling the essence composed of body and soul, man, and denying the appellation unto either of them, being severally considered. And therefore (saith he) man's beatitude must be included in the goods that belong jointly both to body and soul: so that the prime gifts of nature are to be desired for themselves, & that virtue which doctrine doth gradually engraff in a good mind, is the most excellent good of all. Which virtue or method of life, having received those first gifts of nature (which notwithstanding had being, before that they had virtue) it now desireth all things for itself, and the own self also: using all things together with itself, unto the own pleasure and delightful fruition, (d) more or less, making a liking use of all, and yet if necessity require, rather refusing the smaller goods, for the attainment or preservation of the greater, than otherwise. (e) But evermore holding itself in higher respect than any other good whatsoever, mental or corporal: For it knoweth both the use of itself and of all other goods that maketh a man happy. But where it wanteth, be there never so many goods, they are none of his that hath them, because he cannot give them their true natures by good application of them. That man therefore alone is truly blessed, that can use virtue, and the other bodily and mental goods which virtue cannot be without, all unto their true end. If he can make good use of those things also that virtue may easily want, he is the happier in that. But if he can make that use of all things whatsoever, to turn them either to goods of the body or of the mind, then is he the happiest man on earth: for life and virtue are not all one. The wiseman's life only it is, that deserves that name for some kind of life may be wholly void of virtue, but no virtue can be without life. And so likewise of memory, reason, and other qualities in man: all these are before learning, it cannot be without them, no more than virtue, which it doth teach. But swiftness of foot, beauty of face, strength of body, and such, may be all without virtue, and all of them are goods of themselves, without virtue, yet is virtue desired for itself nevertheless, and useth these goods as befitteth. Now (f) this blessed estate of life they hold to be sociable also, desiring the neighbours good as much as their own, and wishing them in their own respects, as well as itself: whether it be the wives and children, or fellow citizen, or mortal man whatsoever, nay suppose it extend even to the Gods whom they hold the friends of wisemen, and whom we call by a more familiar name, Angels. But of the ends of the good and evil they make no question, wherein only (they say) they differ from the new Academikes: nor care they what habit, Cynical, or whatsoever a man bear, so he aver their ends. Now of the three lines, contemplative, active, and mixed, they choose the last. Thus (saith Varro) the old academics taught: (g) Antiochus master to him and Tully, being author hereof, though Tully make him rather a Stoic then an old Academike in most of his positions. But what is that to us? we are rather to look how to judge of the matter, then how others judge of the men. L. VIVES. THe (a) horseman] Butler eques hath been of old time used for equus. Gell. Marcell. Macrob. and Servius, all which do prove it out of Ennius, Annal. lib. 7. and Virgil Aenead. 3. And it was the old custom to say, that the horse road, when the man was on his back, as well as the man himself. Macrob. Saturnal. 6. (b) Poculum] Poculum is also the thing that is in the vessel, to be drunk, especially in the Poets. Uirg. Georg. 1. (c) Virtue or method] Which ripening out of the seeds infused by nature, groweth up to perfection, and then joins with the first positives of nature, in the pursuit of true beatitude; thus held the Academikes, he that will read more of it, let him look in Aristotle's Morality, and Tullyes' de finib. lib. 5. Unless he will fetch it from Plato, the labour is more, but the liquor is purer. (d) More or less] Bodily goods less then mental, and of the first, health more than strength, quickness of sense more than swiftness of foot. (e) But evermore] Nor is it arrogance in virtue to have this knowledge of herself, and to discern her only excellence surmounting all. (f) This blessed] The stoics placed it in a politic manner of life, but their meaning Seneca explaineth (De vita beata) making two kin●… of common wealths, the one a large and comely public one, containing GOD and Man, and this is the whole world: the other, a lesser, whereunto our 〈◊〉 hath bound us, as the Athenian state or the Carthaginians: Now some follow the greater commonweal, living wholly in contemplation, and others the lesser, attending the state and action of that, and some apply themselves to both. Besides, a wise man oftentimes abandoneth to govern, because either the state respecteth him not, or the manners thereof are unreformable. The latter made Plato live in private, the first, Zeno, Chrysippus and diverse other. (g) Antiochus An Ascalonite: he taught Uarro, Lucullus, Tully, and many other nobles of Rome, all in form of the ancient Academy, together with some inclination to Zeno, yet calling the men of his profession rather reform academics then renewed stoics, and therefore Brutus who was an auditor of his brother Aristius, and many other stoics, did greatly commend his opinion of beatitude. Indeed it was very near Stoicism (as we said elsewhere) and their difference was rather verbal then material. Some few things only were changed, which Antiochus called his reformations of the old discipline. The Christians opinion of the chiefest good, and evil, which the Philosophers held to be within themselves. CHAP. 4. IF you ask us now what the City of God saith, first to this position of the perfection of good, and evil, it will answer you presently, eternal life is the perfection of good and eternal death the consummation of evil, and that the aim of all our life must be to avoid this, and attain that other. Therefore is it written, The just shall live by faith. For we see not our greatest good, and therefore are to believe and hope for it, nor have we power to live accordingly, unless our belief and prayer obtain help of him who hath given us that belief and hope that he will help us. But such as found the perfection of felicity upon this life placing it either in the body, or in the mind, or in both: or (to speak more apparently) either in pleasure or in virtue, or in pleasure, and rest together, or in virtue, or in both, or in natures first affects, or in virtue, or in both: fond and vainly are these men persuaded to find true happiness here. The Prophet scoffs them, saying: The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men, or (as Saint Paul hath it, of the wise,) that they are vain. For who can discourse exactly of the miseries of this life? Tully (a) upon his daughter's death, did what he could. But what could he do? in what person can the first affects of nature be found without alteration? what hath not sorrow and disquiet full power to disturb the pleasure and quiet of the wisest▪ So strength, beauty, health, vigour and activity, are all subverted by their contraries, by loss of limbs, deformity, sickness, faintness, and unweeldinesse. And what if a member fall into some tumour or other affect? what if weakness of the back bend a man down to the ground, making him near to a four-footed beast? is not all the grace of his posture quite gone? and then the first gifts of nature, whereof sense and reason are the two first, because of the apprehension of truth, how easily are they lost? how quite doth deafness or blindness take away hearing and sight? and then for the reason, how soon, is it subverted by a phrenetical passion, a Lethargy or so? Oh it is able to wring tears from our eyes to see the actions of frenetic persons so wholly different, nay so directly contrary unto reason's direction! what need I speak of the D●…moniakes, whose understanding the devil wholly dulleth, and useth all their powers of soul and body at his own pleasure? and what wise man can fully secure himself from these incursions? Again, how weak is our apprehension of truth in this life, when as we read in the true book of wisdom, the corruptible body is heavy unto the soul, and the earthly mansion keepeth down the mind that is Wisdom 9 full of cares? And that same (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that violent motion unto action, (c) which they reckon for one of natures first positives in good men: is it not that that effecteth those strange and horrible acts of madness when the reason & sense are both besotted and obnubilate? Besides, virtue, which is not from nature but cometh after wards from industry, when it hath gotten the highest stand in humanity, what other workehath it, but a continual fight against the inbred vices that are inherent in our own bosoms not in others? chiefly that (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that temperance which suppresseth the lusts of the flesh, and curbeth them from carrying the mind away into mischief? for that same is a vice when (as the Apostle saith) the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and that contrary is a virtue, when the spirit lusteth after the flesh, for they (saith he) are contrary, so that you cannot do what you would. And what would we? what is our desire in this perfection of God, but that the flesh should not lust against the spirit, and that there were no vice in us against which the spirit should lust? which since we cannot attain in this life, would we never so feign, let us by God grace endeavour this, that we do not subject our spirit unto the concupiscence of our flesh, and so seal unto the bond of sin with a free consent. So that far be it from us ever to think that we have attained the true happiness whilst we live here. Who is so wise, but hath now and then divers fights against his own lusts? what is the office of prudence? is it not to discern between things to be chosen, & things to be refused, to the end that no error be incurred in either? This testifieth that there is evil in us and that we are in evil. It teacheth us that it is evil to assent unto sin, and good, to avoid it. But yet neither can prudence nor temperance rid our lives of that evil which they forewarn us of and arm us against. And what (e) of justice, that giveth every one his due? and the just order of nature is that the soul be under God, the flesh under the soul, and both together under God. Is it not plain that this is rather continually laboured then truly attained in this life? for the less that the soul both meditate of God, the less it serveth him, and the more that the flesh lusteth against the soul, the less command hath the soul over it, wherefore as long as we are objected unto this languour and corruption, how dare we say we are safe, or (if not safe, much more) blessed by the perfection of attained bliss? Now there is also Fortitude, another authentical testimony of humane miseries endured with Patience. I wonder with what face the stoics deny these to be evils, of which (f) they confess that if a wise man cannot, or ought not to endure them, he may lawfully (nay he must needs) kill himself, and avoid this life. To this height is their proud stupidity grown (building all there beatitude upon this life) that if their wise man (g) were blind, deaf, lame, and made the very hospital of all agonies and anguish, which shouldly so sore on him that they should force him be his own death, yet this life that is environed with all those plagues, are not they ashamed to call blessed. Osweete and blessed life, which it is requisite that death do conclude! for if it be blessed why then keep it still: but if those evils make it avoidable, what is become of the bliss? or what are these but evils, that have such power to subvert the good of fortitude? making i●… not only guilty of dejection, but of dotage, in affirming that one and the same life is blessed, and yet must be avoided: who is so blind that seeth not that if it be the one, it cannot possibly be the other? O but (say they) the avoidance is caused by the effect of the overpressing infirmity: why may they not aswell bid adieu to obstinacy, and confess that it is wretched? was it patience that made Cato kill himself? no he would not have done it but that he took Caesar's victory so unpatiently: where was his fortitude now? gone, it yielded, and was so trodden down that it fled both light and life, as blessed as it was. Was not his life then blessed? why than it was wretched. Why then are not they true evils that can make one's life so wretched and so to be avoided? And therefore the Peripatetics and old Academikes (whose sect Varro stands wholly for) did better in calling these accidents, plainly evil. But they have one foul error to hold his life that endureth these evils, blessed, if he rid himself from them by his own voluntary destruction. The pains and torments of the body are evil, say they, and the greater the worse, which to avoid, you must willingly betake yourself to death, and leave this life: what life? this, that is so encumbered with evils. What is it then blessed amongst so many evils that must be avoided, or call you it blessed, because you may abandon these evils when you list, by death? what if some power divine should hold you from dying, and keep you continually in those evils, than you would say this were a wretched life indeed? well, the soon leaving of it maketh not against the misery of it: because if it were eternal, yourself would judge it miserable. It is not quit of misery therefore because it is short, nor (much less) is it happiness in that the misery is short. It must needs be a forcible evil, that hath power to make a man (nay and a wise man) to be his own executioner, it being truly said by themselves, that it is as it were natures first and most forcible precept, that a man should have a dear respect of himself, and therefore avoid the hand of death, by very natural instinct: and so bee-friend himself, that he should still desire to be a living creature, and enjoy the conjunction of his soul and body. Mighty are the evils that subdue this natural instinct, which is in all men to desire to aviod death, and subduing it so far, that what was before abhorred, should now be desired, and (rather than wanted) effected by a man's own hand. Mighty is the mischief that maketh fortitude an homicide, if that be to be called fortitude which yieldeth so to these evils, that it is feign to force him to kill himself to avoid these inconveniences whom it hath undertaken to defend against all inconveniences. indeed a wise man is to endure death with patience, but that must come ab externo, from another man's hand and not from his own. But these men teaching that he may procure it to himself, must needs confess that the evils are intolerable which ought to force a man to such an extreme inconvenience. The life therefore that is liable to such a multitude of miseries can no way be called happy, if that men to avoid this infelicity be feign to give it place by killing of themselves, and being convinced by the certainty▪ of reason are feign in this their quest of beatitude, to give place to the truth, and to discern, that the perfection of beatitude is not resident in this mortal life, when in man's greatest gifts, the greater help they afford him against anguish, dangers and dolours, the surer testimonies are they of humane miseries. For if true virtue can be in none in whom there is no true piety, then do they not promise any many in whom they are, any assurance from suffering of temporal sorrows. For true virtue may not dissemble, in professing what it cannot perform: but it aimeth at this only, that man's life which being in this world, is turmoiled with all these extremes of sorrows, should in the life to come be made partaker both of safety and felicity. For how can that man have felicity that wanteth safety? It is not therefore of the unwise, intemperate, impatient or unjust that Saint Paul speaketh, saying, We are saved by hope, but of the son of truepiety, and observers of the real virtues: Hope that is seen, is not hope, for how can a man hope for that which he seeth? But if we hope for that we see not, Rom. 8. 25 we do with patience abide for it. Wherefore as we are saved, so are we blessed by hope, and as we have no hold of our safety, no more have we of o●… felicity, but by hope, patiently expecting it; and being as yet in a desert of thorny dangers, all which we must constantly endure until we come to the paradise of all ineffable delights, having then passed all the perils of encumbrance. This security in the life to come, is the beatitude we speak of, which the Philosophers not beholding will not believe, but forge themselves an imaginary bliss here, wherein the more their virtue assumes to itself, the falser it procues to the judgement of all others. L. VIVES. TUlly (a) upon] He had two children, Mark a son, and Tullia a daughter, married first to Piso-frugus Crassipes, and afterwards to Cornel. Dolabella, and died in childbed. Tully took her death with extreme grief. Pompey, Caesar, Sulpitius, and many other worthy men sought to comfort him, both by letters and visitation, but all being in vain, he set up his rest to be his own comforter, and wrote his book called Consolatio, upon this subject: which is not now extant, yet it is cited often, both by him and others. There-in he saith he bewailed the life of man in general, and comforted himself in particular. Tusc. quest. 1. (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is, to go to any act with vehemency and vigour, to go roundly to work. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is the violence of passion that carrieth every creature headlong to affect or to avoid: and are conversant only about things naturally to be affected, or avoided, as the stoics say, and Cato for one, in Tully. (c) Which they] The instinct where-by we affect our own preservation is of as high esteem as either the wit or memory: for turn it away, and the creature cannot live long after. (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] Of this before. (e) Of justice] It comprehendeth both that distributive change of estate, and also unto the line of reason and religion. (f) They confess] Cic. de fin. lib. 3. & Tusc. quaest. 4. (g) Were blind] It is a wise man's duty (saith Cato the Stoic in Tully) sometimes to renounce the happiest 〈◊〉. So saith Seneca often. (h) Ouerpassing infirmity] A diversity of reading in the texts of Bruges and Basil: but it is not to be stood upon. ay Nature's first] Cic. off. 1. and De 〈◊〉. 3. and 5. Of living sociably with our neighbour: how fit it is, and yet how subject to crosses. CHAP. 5. WE do worthily approve their enjoining a wise man to live in mutual society: for how should our Celestial City (the nineteen book whereof we now have in hand) have ever come to original, to prolation or to perfection, but that the Saints live all in sociable union? But yet what is he that can recount all the miseries incident unto the societies of mortals? Here what the Comedian saith, with a general applause. (a) I married a wife (b) O what misery wanted I then! I begot children: so, there's one care more. And those inconveniences that Terence pins on the back of love, as (c) injuries, enmities, war, & peace again, do not all these lackey our mortality continually? do not these foot some times into the friendliest affections? and doth not all the world, keep these examples in continual renovation as war, I mean injuries & enmities. And our peace is as uncertain, as we are ignorant of their affects with whom we hold it, and though we nigh know to day what they would do, to morrow we shall not. Who should be greater friends than those of one family? yet what a many secret plots of malice lie even amongst such, to expel security? their firmer peace becoming fouler malice: and being reputed most loyal, whereas it was only most craftily feigned: the far spread contagion of this made Tully let this saying run out with his tears: Treason is never so close carried, as when it lurketh under the name of duty, or affinity. An open foe is easily watched: but this your secret serpent both breeds and strikes ere ever you can discover it. Wherefore that which the holy scripture saith, (d) A man's enemies are the men of his house, this we hear with great grief: for though a man have fortitude to endure it, or prevention to avoid it, yet if he be a good man, he must needs take great grief at the badness of those so near him: be it that they have been used unto this viperous dissimulation of old, or have learned it but of late. So than if a man's own private house afford him no shelter from these incursions, what shall the city do, which as it is larger, so is it fuller of brabbles, and suits, and quarrels, and accusations, to grant the absence of seditions and civil contentions, which are too often present: and whereof the Cities are in continual danger, when they are in their safest estate? L. VIVES. I (a) have married] Ter. Adelph. Act. 3. sc. 4. Demea's words. (b) O what] Some books have it not as Terence hath it, but they have been falsely copied. (c) Injuries] Parmeno his words unto Phadria. (d) A man's enemies] Mich. 7. and Matth. 10. The error of humane judgements, in cases where truth is not known. CHAP. 6. ANd how lamentable and miserable are those men's judgements whom the Cities must perforce use, as Magistrates, even in their most settled peace, concerning other men? they judge them whose consciences they cannot see, and therefore are often driven to wring forth the truth by (a) tormenting of innocent witnesses. And what say you when a man is tortured in his own case, and tormented, even when it is a question whether he be guilty or no? and though he be (b) innocent, yet suffereth assured pains when they are not assured he is faulty. In most of these cases the judges ignorance turns to the prisoners misery. Nay which is more lamentable, and deserveth a sea of tears to wash it away; the judge in torturing the accused, lest he should put him to death being innocent, oftentimes through his wretched ignorance killeth that party being innocent, with torture, whom he had tortured to avoid the kill of an innocent. For if (according unto their doctrine) he had rather leave this life then endure those miseries, than he saith presently that he did the thing whereof he is clear indeed. And being thereupon condemned, and executed, still the judge cannot tell whether he were guilty or no. He tortured him lest he should execute him guiltless, and by that means killed him ere he knew that he was guilty. Now in these mists of mortal society, whether shall the judge sit or no? Yes he must sit: he is bound to it by his place, which he holdeth wickedness not to discharge, and by the states command, which he must obey. But he never holds it wickedness to torture guiltless witnesses in other men's causes, and when the tortures have o'ercome the patience of the innocent, and made them their own accusers to put them to death as guilty, whom they tortured but to try, being guiltless: nor to let many of them die even upon the very rack itself, or by that means, if they do escape the hangman. Again, what say you to this, that some bringing a just accusation against this man or that, for the good of the state, the accused endureth all the tortures without confession, and so the innocent plaintiffs being not able to prove their plea, are by the judges ignorance cast and (c) condemned▪ These now, and a many more than these, the judge holdeth no sins, because his will is not assenting unto them, but his service to the state compels him, and his ignorance of hurt it is that maketh him do it, not any will to hurt. This now is misery in a man: if it be not malice in a wise man, is it the troubles of his place and of ignorance that cause those effects, and doth not he think he is not well enough in being free from accusation, but he must needs sit in beatitude? (d) how much more wisdom and discretion should he show in acknowledging his mortality in those troubles, and in detesting this misery in himself, crying out unto GOD (if he be wise) with the Psalmist: Lord take me out of all my troubles. L. VIVES. TOrmenting (a) of] For in the cause pertaining them, the servant still is called in question, and so is the guiltless commonly brought to the torment. This kind of Trial is oft mentioned in Tully. It was once forbidden. Ci●… pro deiotar. & Tacit. l. 2, (b) Yet sufficient] It was a true tyrant, (were it Tarquin the proud, or whosoever) that invented torments to try the truth; for neither he that can endure them will tell the truth, nor he that cannot endure them. Pain (saith one) will make the innocent a liar. (c) Condemned] By that law, that saith, Let the accuser suffer the pains due to the accused, if he cannot prove hi●… accusation. (d) How much more] A needless difference there is here in some copies (but I may well omit it). Difference of language, an impediment to human society. The miseries of the justest wars. CHAP. 7. AFter the city, followeth the whole world, wherein the third kind of human society is resident, the first being in the house, and the second in the city. Now the world is as a flood of waters, the greater, the more dangerous: and first of all, difference of language (a) divides man from man] For if two meet, who perchance light upon some accident craving their abiding together, and conference, if neither of them can understand the other, you may sooner make two bruit beasts, of two several kinds sociable to one another then these two men. For when they would common together, their tongues deny to accord, which being so, all the other helps of nature, are nothing: so that a man had rather be with his own dog, then with another man of a strange language. But the great (b) western Babylon endeavoureth to communicate her language to all the lands she hath subdued, to procure a fuller society, and a greater abundance of interpreters on both sides. It is true, but how many lives hath this cost? and suppose that done, the worst is not past: for although she never wanted stranger nations against whom to lead her forces, yet this large extension of her Empire procured greater wars than those, named civil and confederate wars, and these were they that troubled the souls of mankind both in their heat, with desire to see them extinct, and in their pacification, with fear, to see them renewed. If I would stand to recite the massacres, and the extreme effects hereof, as I might (though I cannot do it as I should) the discourse would be infinite. (c) yea but a wise man (say they) will wage none but just war. He will not! As if the very remembrance that himself is man, ought not to procure his greater sorrow in that he hath cause of just war, and must needs wage them, which if they were not just, were not for him to deal in, s●… that a wise man should never have war: For it is the o●…her men's wickedness that works his cause just that he ought to deplore, whether ever it produce wars or no: Wherefore he that doth but consider affectionately of all those dolorous and bloody extremes, must needs say that this is a misery, but he that endureth them without a sorrowful affect, or thought thereof, is far more wretched to imagine he hath the bliss of a God, when he hath lost the sense of a man. L. VIVES. Diversity (a) of language] Plin. lib. 7. (b) Western imperious Babylon] Rome: called imperious for her sovereignty that was so large, and because her commands were so peremptory, he alludes to the surname of Titus Manlius, who was called imperious, for executing his some. The Romans endeavoured to have much latin spoken in their Provinces, in so much that Spain and France did wholly forget their own languages, and spoke all latin. Nor might any Embassage be preferred to the Senate but in latin. Their endeavour was most glorious, and useful herein, whatsoever their end was. (c) Yea but] Here he disputeth against the Gentiles, out of their own positions. That true friendship cannot be secure, amongst the incessant perils of this present life. CHAP. 8. But admit that a man be not so grossly deceived (as many in this wretched life are) as to take his foe for his friend, nor chose, his friend for his foe: what comfort have we then remaining in this vale of mortal miseries, but the unfeigned faith and affection of sure friends? whom the (a) more they are, or the further of us, the more we fear, lest they be endamaged by some of these infinite casualties attending on all men's fortunes. We stand not only in fear to see them afflicted by famine, war, sickness, imprisonment, or so, but our far greater fear is, lest they should fall away through treachery, malice, or depravation. And when this cometh to pass, and we hear of it, (as they more friends we have, and the farther off withal, the likelier are such news to be brought us) than who can decipher our sorrows but he that hath felt the like? we had rather hear of their death, though that we could not hear of neither, but unto our grief. For seeing we enjoyed the comfort of their friendships in their life, how can we but be touched with sorrows affects at their death? he that forbiddeth us that, may as well forbid all conference of friend and friend, all social courtesy, nay even all human affect, and thrust them all out of man's conversation: or else prescribe their uses no pleasurable ends. But as that is impossible, so is it likewise for us not to bewail him dead whom we loved being alive. For the (b) sorrow thereof is as a wound, or ulcer in our heart, unto which bewailments do serve in the stead of fomentations, and plasters. For though that the sounder ones understanding be, the sooner this cure is effected, yet it proves not but that there is a malady that requireth one application or other. Therefore in all our bewailing more or less, of the deaths of our dearest friends or companions, we do yet reserve this love to them, that we had rather have them dead in body, then in soul, and had rather have them fall in essence, then in manners, for the last, is the most dangerous infection upon earth, and therefore it was written, Is not man's life a (b) temptation upon earth? Whereupon our Saviour said: Woe be to the world because of offences, and again: Because iniquity shallbe increased, job. 7, 1 Mat. 18 Mat. ●…4 the love of many shallbe could. This maketh us give thanks for the death of our good friends, and though it make us sad a while, yet it giveth us more assurance of comfort ever after, because they have now escaped all those mischiefs which oftentimes, seize upon the best, either oppressing, or perverting them, endangering them howsoever. L. VIVES. THe (a) more they are] Aristotle's argument against the multitude of friends. (b) Temptation] The vulgar readeth it, Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Hierom hath it a warfare, for we are in continual war with a subtle fox, whom we must set a continual watch against, lest he invade us unprovided. The friendship of holy Angels with men: undiscernible in this life, by reason of the devils, whom all the Infidels took to be good powers, and gave them divine honours. CHAP. 9 NOw the society of Angels with men (those whom the Philosophers called the gods guardians, Lar, and a number more names) they set in the fourth place, coming as it were from earth to the whole universe, and here including heaven. Now for those friends (the Angels) we need not fear to be affected with sorrow for any death, or depravation of theirs, they are impassable. But this friendship between them and us, is not visibly apparent as that of man's is: (which adds unto our terrestrial misery) and again, the devil (as we read) often transforms himself into an Angel of light to tempt men, some for their instruction, and some for their ruin: and here is need of the great mercy of God, lest when we think we have the love and fellowship of good Angels, they prove at length pernicious devils, feigned friends, and subtle foes, as great in power as in deceit. And where needeth this great mercy of GOD, but in this worldly misery, which is so enveloped in ignorance, and subject to be deluded. As for the Philosophers of the reprobate city, who said they had gods to their friends, most sure it was they had devils indeed whom they took for deities; all the whole state wherein they lived, is the devils monarchy, and shall have the like reward with his, unto all eternity. For their sacrifices, or rather sacrileges, wherewith they were honoured, and the obscene plays which they themselves exacted were manifest testimonies of their diabolical natures. Thereward that the Saints are to receive after the passing of this world's afflictions. CHAP. 10. YEa the holy and faithful servants of the true GOD are in danger of the devils manifold ambushes: for as long as they live in this frail, and foul browed world, they must be so, and it is for their good, making them more attentive in the quest of that security where their peace is without end, and without want. There shall the Creator bestow all the gifts of nature upon them, and give them not only as goods, but as eternal goods, not only to the soul, by reforming it with wisdom, but also to the body by restoring it in the resurrection. There the virtues shall not have any more conflicts with the vices, but shall rest with the victory of eternal peace, which none shall ever disturb. For it is the final beatitude, having now attained a consummation to all eternity. We are said to be happy here on earth when we have that little peace that goodness can afford us: but compare this happiness with that other, and this shall be held but plain misery. Therefore if we live well upon earth, our virtue useth the benefits of the transitory peace, unto good ends, if we have it: if not, yet still our virtue useth the evils that the want thereof produceth, unto a good end also. But than is our virtue in full power and perfection, when it referreth itself, and all the good effects that it can give being unto either upon good or evil causes, unto that only end, wherein our peace shall have no end, nor any thing superior unto it in goodness or perfection. The beatitude of eternal peace, and that true perfection wherein the Saints are installed. CHAP. 11. WE may therefore say that peace is our final good, as we said of life eternal: because the psalm saith unto that city whereof we write this laborious work: Praise thy LORD O jerusalem, praise thy LORD O Zion: for he hath made fast the bars of thy gates, and blessed thy children within thee; he hath made peace thy borders. When the bars of the gates are fast, as none can come in, so none can go out. And therefore this peace which we call final, is the borders and bounds of this city: for the mystical name hereof, jerusalem, signifieth, A vision of peace, but because the name of peace is ordinary in this world where eternity is not resident, therefore we choose rather to call the bound where in the chief good of this city lieth, life eternal, rather than peace. Of which end the Apostle saith. Now being freed from sin, and made servants to Rom. 6. 22 GOD, you have your fruit in holiness, and the end, everlasting life. But on the otherside because such as are ignorant in the scriptures, may take this everlasting life, in an ill sense, for the life of the wicked which is eternally evil, either as some Philosophers held, because the soul cannot die, or as our faith teacheth, because torments cannot cease (yet should not the wicked feel them eternally but that they have also their eternal life): therefore the main end of this cities aim, is either to be called eternity in peace, or peace in eternity, and thus it is plain to all. For (a) the good of peace is generally the greatest wish of the world, and the most welcome when it comes. Whereof I think we may take leave of our reader, to have a word or two more, both because of the cities end, whereof we now speak, and of the sweetness of peace, which all men do love. L. VIVES. THe (a) good of peace] Nothing is either more pleasant or more profitable: more wished, or more welcome. Peace is the chief good, and war the chief evil. Xenoph. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And the peace of mind is that which Democritus called the great felicity. The stoics make concord one of beatitudes chiefest goods. That the bloodiest wars chief aim is pieces they desire which is natural in man. CHAP. 12. WHich he that marketh but man's affairs, and the (a) general form of nature, will confess with me. For joy and peace are desired a like of all men? The warrior would but conquer: wars aim is nothing but glorious peace: what is victory but a suppression of resistants, which being done, peace followeth? So that peace is wars purpose, the scope of all military discipline, and the limmite at which all just contentions level. All men seek peace by war, but none seeks war by peace. For they that perturb the peace they live in, do it not for●…e of it, but to show their power in alteration of it. They would not disannul it, but they would have it as they like; and though they break into seditions from the rest, yet must they hold a peace full force with their fellows that are engaged with them, or else they shall never effect what they intent. Even the thieves themselves that molest all the world besides them, are at peace amongst themselves. Admit one be so strong, or subtle that he will have no fellow, but playeth all his parts of roguery alone, yet such as he can neither cut off, nor li●… to make known his facts unto, with those he must needs hold a kind of peace. And at home, with his wife and family, there must he needs observe quietness, and questionless delighteth in their obedience unto him, which if they fail in, ●…e chafes, and chides and strikes, setting all in order by force if need be, or by cruelly: which he seeth he cannot do, unless all the rest be subjecteth under one head, which is himself. And might he have the sway of a city, or province in such sort as he hath that of his house, he would put off his thievish form, and put on a Kings, albeit his covetousness and malice remained unchanged. Thus than you see that all men desire to have peace with such as they would have live according to their liking. For those against whom they wage war, they would make their own if they could, and if they conquer them they give them such laws as they like. (b) But let us imagine some such insociable fellow as the poet's fable recordeth, calling him (c) Halfe-man, for his inhuman barbarism. Now he although his Kingdom lay in a sightless cave, and his villainies so rare that they gave him that great name of (d) Cacus, which is, Evil though his wife never had good word of him, he never played with his children, nor ruled them in their manlier age, never spoke with friend, not so much as with (e) his father Vulcan (than whom he was far more happy in that he begot no such monster, as Vulcan had, in begetting him) though he never gave to any, but robbed and reaved all that he could gripe from all manner of persons, yea and (f) the persons themselves, yet in that horrid dungeon of his, whose flore & walls were always dank with the blood of new slaughters, he desired nothing but to rest in peace therein, without molestation. He desired also to be at peace with himself, and what he had, he enjoyed, he ruled over his own body, and to satisfy his own hungry nature that menaced the separation of soul and body, he fell to his robberies with celerity, and though he were barbarous and bloody, yet in all that, he had a care to provide for his life and safety: and therefore if he would have had that peace with others, which he had in the cave with himself alone, he should neither have been called Halfe-man nor Monster. But if it were his horrible shape and breathing of fire that made men avoid him, than was it not will, but necessity that made him live in that cave and play the thief for his living. But there was no such man, or if there were, he was no such as the poets feign him. For unless they had mightily belied Cacus, they should not sufficiently have (h) commended Hercules. But, as I said, it is like that there was no such man, no more than is truth in many other of their fictions: for the very wild beasts, (part of whose brutishness they place in him) do preserve a peace each with other (ay) in their kind, begetting, breeding and living together amongst themselves, being otherwise the insociable births of the deserts: I speak not here of Sheep, Deer, Pigeons, stars or Bees, but of Lions, Foxes, Eagles and Owls. For what Tiger is there that doth not nuzzle her young ●…s, & sawn upon them in their tenderness? what Kite is there, though he fly so●…ily about for his prey, but will tread his female, build his nest, sit his eggs, seed his young, and assist his fellow in her motherly duty, all that in him lieth? far stronger are the bands that bind man unto society, and peace with all that are peaceable: the worst men of all do fight for their fellows quietness, and would (if it lay in their power) reduce all into a distinct form of state, drawn by themselves, whereof they would be the heads, which could never be, but by a coherence either through fear or love. For herein is perverse pride an Imitator of the goodness of GOD, having equality of others with itself under him, and laying a yoke of obedience upon the fellows, under itself, in stead of him: thus hateth it the just peace of God, and buildeth an unjust one for itself. Yet can it not but love peace, for no vice how ever unnatural, can pull nature up by the roots. But he that can discern between good and bad, and between order and confusion, may soon distinguish the Godly peace from the wicked. Now that perverse confusion must be reform by the better disposing of the thing wherein it is, if it be at all, as for example: hang a man up with his head downwards, all his posture is confounded, that which should be lowest, having the highest place, and so contrary this confusion disturbs the flesh, and is troublesome to it. But it is the soul's peace with the body that causeth the feeling of that disturbance. Now if the soul leave the body by the means of those troubles, yet as long as the body's form remaineth it hath a certain peace with itself, and in the very manner of hanging, shows that it desireth to be placed in the peace of nature, the very weight, seeming to demand a place for rest, and though life be gone, yet very nature swayeth it unto that order wherein she placed it. For if the dead body be preserved by putrefaction, by unguents, and embalmings, yet (n) the peace of nature is kept, for the body's weight is applied thereby to an earthly simpathizing site, & convenient place for it to rest in. But if it be not (o) embalmed, but left to natures dissolving, it is so long altered by (p) ill tasting vapours, until each part be wholly reduced to the particular natures of the elements, yet is not a tittle of the Creator's al-disposing law controlled: for if there grow out of this carcase, a many more living creatures, each body of these, serveth the quantity of life that is in it, according to the same law of creation. And if that it be devoured up, by other ravenous beasts or birds, it shall follow the ordinance of the same law, disposing all things congruently, into what form of nature soever it be changed. L. VIVES. General (a) form] Or community of nature. [Our scholians say that we must never respect words in matter of divinity or Philosophy: this they avouch, handsmooth, and yet one of their great men at Paris, brought these words of Augustine, (in a question of Philosophy) to confirm the communities of nature, which Occam had written against. So likewise, [Lowaine copy defective.] many of them will have Tully, Seneca, Hierome, Augustine, Pliny and others, speaking of common sense, to mean that which Aristotle maketh the judge over all the senses corporal, whereas they, and all latin authors take common sense, for a thing that is universally inherent, as for a mother to love her child. And nature's community is those general inclinations that are in all men. This misinterpretation of words hath made foul work in arts, first cankring and then directly killing them] (b) Imagine some such] This was Uirgils' Cacus. Aeneid. 8. He was overcome (saith Dionysius) by Hercules, he dwelled in an impregnable place, from whence he plagued all that dwelled near him: and hearing that Hercules was encamped near him, he stole out and drove away a great prey: but the greeks injured him in his strength. He dwelled (saith Solinus) at Salinae, where port Trigemina stands now. Being put (saith Gellius) into prison by Tarchon the Tyrrhene Prince, whilst he was ambassador for ●…ales the Phrygian who ruled with Marsias, he broke prison and came home, and fortifying all Vulturnum & Campania, he presumed to encroach upon the Arcadians whom Hercules protected, who thereupon slew him. Thus out of these. Servius saith: the fable reported him the son of Vulcan, that he breathed fire, and destroyed all that he came near, but the truth of all is, he was a thievish and villainous servant of Euanders, his sister Caca betrayed him, and therefore had a chapel erected unto her, wherein the vestals offered sacrifice. Lactant. (c) Halfe-man] Virgil, and Servius call him so. (d) Cacus] Diodorus saith his proper name was L●…uius, if his copy be true. lib. 5. (e) His father Vulcan] Virg. ovid. Fast. and others call him so because he burned up the corn, and wasted their fields, with fire. (f) The persons] Whose heads he set up at the mouth of his cave. Uirg, and Ovid (g) Breatheing of] Fire-breathing Cacus, did Virgil call him. (h) Commended Hercules] One of whose labours the death of Cacus was for Cacus stole part of his Spanish kine, and drew them into his cave by their tails, lest they should tract them by their steps. But Hercules discovering them by their bellowing, broke into the Cave, & killed him, Livy, Dionys. Virg. Ovid, and a many more, the story is common. ay In their kind] By that law which the lawyers call natural. Ulpian 1. lib. Pandect. (k) Tiger] A fierce beast. Virg. and Ovid use it as the emblem of bloodiness. (l) Nuzzle her young] She loveth her young dearly. Plin. l. 8. (m) Kite] A ravenous and meager foul. It is not seen in winter, and at the Solisticies, it hath the gout in the feet. Plin. l. 10. Aristotle hath one strange note of the Eagles breed, that some of them go out of their kind, & are hatched Ospreyes: the Osprey hatcheth not Ospreyes but the fowls called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Boane-breakers, and they hatch kites, who do not breed birds of their own kind, but others, which die and never bring forth any other. (n) The peace of] Empedocles held all things to consist by concord, and to dissolve by discord, putting them two as the first qualities of the four elements. (o) Embalmed] As they use to preserve bodies the longer from putrefaction, drying up the Viscous humidity, so that thereby the carcases become dry, and at length turn to plain powder of dust. (p) Ill tasting] For as a good sent delighteth the sense, so doth a rank one offend it: nature holding a correspondent affection unto things that delight, and an inherent distaste of things offensive to it. Of that universal peace which no perturbances can seclude from the law of nature, God's just judgements disposing of every one according to his proper desert. CHAP. 13. THe bodies (a) peace therefore is an orderly dispose of the parts thereof: the unreasonable souls, a good temperature of the appetites thereof: the reasonable souls, a true harmony between the knowledge, and the performance. The bodies, and souls both, a temperate and undiseased habit of nature in the whole creature. The peace of mortal man with immortal GOD, is an orderly obedience unto his eternal law, performed in faith. Peace of man and man, is a mutual concord: peace of a family, an orderly rule and subjection amongst the parts thereof: peace of a city, an orderly command, and obedience amongst the citizens: peace of God's City a most orderly coherence in God, and fruition of GOD: peace of allthings, is a well disposed order. For order, is a good disposition of discrepant parts, each in the fittest place, and therefore the miserable, (as they are miserable) are out of order, wanting that peaceable and unperturbed state which order exacteth. But because their own merits have incurred this misery, therefore even herein they are imposed in a certain set order howsoever. Being not con-joined with the blessed, but severed from them by the law of order, and being exposed to miseries, yet are adapted unto the places wherein they are resident, and so are digested into some kind of methodical form, and consequently into some peaceful order. But this is their misery, that although that some little security wherein they live, exempt them from present sorrows, yet are they not in that state which secludeth sorrow for ever, and affordeth eternal security. And their misery is far greater if they want the peace of nature: and when they are offended, the part that grieveth is the first disturber of their peace: for that which is neither offended, nor dissolved, preserves the peace of nature still. So then as one may possibly live without grief, but cannot possibly grieve unless he live: so may there be peace without any war or contention: but contention, cannot be without some peace, (not as it is contention, but) because the contenders do suffer and perform divers things herein according to nature's prescript, which things could not consist, had they not some peaceful order amongst them. So that there may be a nature (you see) wherein no evil may have inherence, but to find a nature utterly void of goodness, is utterly impossible. For the very nature of the devils (consider it as nature) is most excellent, but their own voluntary perverseness depraved it. The devil abode not in the truth, yet scaped he not the sentence of the truth: for he transgressed the peaceful law of order, yet could not avoid the powerful hand of the orderer. The good which GOD had bestowed on his nature, cleared him not from GOD'S heavy judgement which allotted him to punishment. Yet doth not GOD herein punish the good which himself created, but the evil which the devil committed: nor did he take away his whole nature from him, but left him part, whereby to bewail the loss of the rest: which lamentation, testifieth both what he had and what he hath: for had he not some good left, he could not lament for what he had lost. For his guilt is the greater that having lost all his uprightness, should rejoice at the loss thereof. And he that is sick, if it benefit him nothing yet grieveth at the loss of his health. For uprightness and health being both goods, it behoveth the losers of them to mourn, and not to rejoice, unless this loss be repaired with better recompense, as uprightness of mind is better than health of body: but far more reason hath the sinner to lament in his suffering then to rejoice in his transgression. Therefore even as to rejoice at the loss of goodness in sinning, argueth a depraved will: so likewise lament for the same loss, in suffering, proveth a good nature. For he that bewaileth the loss of his natural peace, hath his light from the remainders of that peace, which are left in him, keeping his nature and him in concord. And in the last judgement, it is but reason that the wicked should deplore the loss of their natural goods, and feel GOD'S hand justly heavy in depriving them of them, whom they scornfully respected not in the bestowing them upon them. Wherefore the high GOD, nature's wisest creator, and most just disposer, the parent of the world's fairest wonder (mankind) bestowed divers goods upon him, which serve for this life only, as the worldly and temporal peace, kept by honest coherence and society: together with all the adiacents of this peace, as the visible light, the spirable air, the potable water; and all the other necessaries of meat drink and clothing: but with this condition, that he that shall use them in their due manner, and reference unto (b) humane peace, shall be rewarded with gifts of far greater moment, namely with the peace of immortality, and with unshaded glory, and full fruition of GOD, and his brother, in the same GOD: (c) but he that useth them amiss, shall neither partake of the former nor the later. L. VIVES. THe (a) body's peace] Saint Augustine in this chapter proveth allthings to consist by peace ●…nd concord: so that consequently, discord must needs be the fuel to all ruin and confusion. Wherefore I wonder at the perverse nature of men that love dissensions and quarrels, as their own very souls, hating peace, as it were a most pernicious evil; Surely they had but there due, if their bosoms within, and their states without, were wholly fraught with this their so dearly affected darling, war. (b) human peace] Butler men do turn all these goods now a days into contentious uses, as if they were ordained for no other end; never thinking that there is a place of eternal discord prepared for them to dwell in hereafter, where they may enjoy their damned desires for ever. The whole goodness of peace, and of that especially which CHRIST left us as his full inheritance, is gone, all but for the name and an imaginary shade thereof, all the rest we have lost: nay we have made a willing extrusion of it, and expelled it wittingly, and of set purpose, imagining our whole felicity to consist in the tumults of wars and slaughters. And oh so we brave it, that we have slain thus many men, burnt thus many towns, sacked thus many cities! Founding our principal glories upon the destruction of our fellows. But I may begin a plaint of this here, but I shall never end it. (c) But he] A diversity of reading in the copies, rather worth nothing then noting. Of the law of Heaven and Earth, which swayeth human society by counsel, and unto which counsel human society obeyeth. CHAP. 14. ALL temporal things are referred unto the benefit of the peace which is resident in the Terrestrial City, by the members thereof: and unto the use of the eternal peace, by the Citizens of the Heavenly society. Wherefore if we wanted reason, we should desire but an orderly state of body, and a good temperature of affects: nothing but fleshly ease, and fullness of pleasure. For the peace of the body augmenteth the quiet of the soul: and if it be a wanting, it procureth a disturbance even in brute beasts, because the affects have not their true temperature. Now both these combined, add unto the peace of soul and body both, that is, unto the healthful order of life. For as all creatures show how they desire their body's peace, in avoiding the causes of their hurt: and their souls, in following their appetites when need requireth: so in flying of death; they make it as apparent how much they set by their peace of soul and body. But man having a reasonable soul, subiecteth all his communities with beasts, unto the peace of that, to work so both in his contemplation and action, that there may be a true consonance between them both, and this we call the peace of the reasonable soul. To this end he is to avoid molestation by grief, disturbance by desire, and dissolution by death, and to aim at profi●…e knowledge, where unto his actions may be conformable. But least 〈◊〉 own infirmity, through the much desire to know, should draw him into any pestilent inconvenience of error, he must have a divine instruction, to whose directions and assistance, he is to assent with firm and free obedience. And because that during this life, He is absent from the LORD, he walketh by faith, and not by sight, and therefore he referreth all his peace of body, of soul, and of both, unto that peace which mortal man hath with immortal 2. Cor. 5. 7 GOD: to live in an orderly obedience under his eternal law, by faith. Now GOD, our good Master, teaching us in the two chiefest precepts the love of him, and the love of our neighbour, to love three things, GOD, our neighbour, and ourselves, and seeing he that loveth GOD, offendeth not in loving himself: it followeth, that he ought to counsel his neighbour to love GOD, and to provide for him in the love of GOD, sure he is commanded to love him, as his own self. So must he do for his wife, children, family, and all men besides: and wish likewise that his neighbour would do as much for him, in his need: thus shall he be settled in peace and orderly concord with all the world. The order whereof is, first (a) to do no man hurt, and secondly, to help all that he can. So that his own, have the first place in his care, and those, his place and order in human society affordeth him more conveniency to benefit. Whereupon Saint Paul saith, He that provideth not for his own, and namely for them that be of his household, denieth the faith, and is worse than an 1. Tim. 5. 8 Infidel. For this is the foundation of domestical peace, which is, an orderly rule, and subjection in the parts of the family, wherein the provisors are the Commanders, as the husband over his wife; parents over their children, and masters over their servants: and they that are provided for, obey, as the wives do their husbands, children their parents, and servants their masters. But in the family of the faithful man, the heavenly pilgrim, there the Commanders are indeed the servants of those they seem to command: ruling not in ambition, but being bound by careful duty: not in proud sovereignty, but in nourishing pity. L. VIVES. FIrst (a) to do no] Man can more easily do hurt, or forbear hurt, then do good. All men may injure others, or abstain from it. But to do good, is all and some. Wherefore holy writ bids us first, abstain from injury, all we can: and then, to benefit our christian brethren, when we can. Nature's freedom, and bondage, caused by sin: in which man is a slave to his own affects, though he be not bondman to any one besides. CHAP. 15. THus hath nature's order prescribed, and man by GOD was thus created. Let them rule (saith he) over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, end over every thing that creepeth upon the earth. He made him reasonable, Gen. 1. 26 and LORD, only over the unreasonable, not over man, but over beasts. Whereupon the first holy men were rather shepherds than Kings, GOD showing herein what both the order of the creation desired, and what the merit of sin exacted. For justly was the burden of servitude laid upon the back of transgression. And therefore in all the scriptures we never read the word, Servant, until such time as that just man Noah (a) laid it as a curse upon his offending son. So that it was guilt, and not nature that gave original unto that name. (b) The latin word Servus, had the first derivation from hence: those that were taken in the wars, being in the hands of the conquerors to massacre or to preserve, if they saved them, than were they called servi, of servo, to save. Nor was this effected beyond the desert of sin. For in the justest war, the sin upon one side causeth it; and if the victory fall to the wicked (as some times it may) (c) it is GOD'S decree to humble the conquered, either reforming their sins herein, or punishing them. Witness, that holy man of GOD, Daniel, who being in captivity, confessed unto his Creator, that his sins, and the sins of the people were the real causes of that captivity. Sin therefore is the mother of servitude, and first cause of man's subjection to man: which notwithstanding cometh not to pass but by the direction of the highest, in whom is no injustice, and who alone knoweth best how to proportionate his punishment unto man's offences: and he himself saith: Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, and therefore many religious Io. 8. 34. Christians are servants unto wicked masters, (d) yet not unto freemen, for that which a man is addicted unto, the same is he slave unto. And it is a happier servitude to serve man then lust: for lust (to ommit all the other affects) practiseth extreme tyranny upon the hearts of those that serve it, be it lust after sovereignty, or fleshly lust. But in the peaceful orders of states, wherein one man is under an other, as humility doth benefit the servant, so doth pride endamage the superior. But take a man as GOD created him at first, and so he is neither slave to man nor to sin. But penal servitude had the institution from that law which commandeth the conservation, and forbiddeth the disturbance of nature's order: for if that law had not first been transgressed, penal servitude had never been enjoined. Therefore the Apostle warneth servants to obey their Masters and to Ephe. 6 serve them with cheerfulness, and good will: to the end that if they cannot be made free by their Masters, they make their servitude a freedom to themselves, by serving them, not in deceitful fear, but in faithful love, until iniquity be overpassed, and all man's power and principality disannulled, and GOD only be all in all. L. VIVES. NOah (a) laid it] Gen. 9 (b) The latin] So saith Florentinus the Civilian, Institut. lib. 4. And they are called Mancipia (quoth he) of manu capti, to take with the hand, or, by force. This you may read in justinian's Pandects lib. 1. The Lacaedemonians observed it first. Plin. lib. 7. (c) It is God's decree] Whose providence often produceth wars against the wills of either party. (d) Yet not unto free] Their masters being slaves to their own passions, which are worse masters than men can be. Of the just law of sovereignty. CHAP. 16. WHerefore although our righteous forefathers had servants in their families, and according to their temporal estates, made a distinction betwixt their servants and their children, yet in matter of religion (the fountain whence all eternal good floweth,) they provided for all their household with an equal respect unto each member thereof. This, nature's order prescribed, and hence came the name of, The Father of the family, a name which even the worst Masters love to be called by. But such as merit that name truly, do care that all their families should continue in the service of GOD, as if they were all their own children, desiring that they should all be placed in the household of heaven, where command is wholly unnecessary, because than they are passed their charge, having attained immortality, which until they be installed in, the Masters are (a) to endure more labour in their government, than the servants in their service. If any be disobedient, and offend this just peace, he is forthwith to be corrected, with strokes, or some other convenient punishment, whereby he may be re-ingraffed into the peaceful stock from whence his disobedience hath torn him. For as it is no good turn to help a man unto a smaller good by the loss of a greater: no more is it the part of innocence by pardoning a small offence, to let it grow unto a fouler. It is the duty of an innocent to hurt no man, but withal, to curb sin in all he can, and to correct sin in whom he can, that the sinner's correction may be profitable to himself, and his example a terror unto others. Every family then being part of the city, every beginning having relation unto some end, and every part, tending to the integrity of the whole, it followeth apparently, that the family's peace adhereth unto the cities, that is the orderly command, and obedience in the family, hath real reference to the orderly rule and subjection in the city. So that the Father of the family may fetch his instructions from the cities government, whereby he may proportionate the peace of his private estate, by that of the Common. L. VIVES. THe Masters (a) are to endure] It is most difficult and laborious to rule well, and it is as troublesome to rule over unruly persons. The grounds of the concord, and discord betweenethe Cities of Heaven and Earth. CHAP. 17. But they that live not according to faith, angle for all their peace in the Sea of temporal profits: Whereas the righteous live in full expectation of the glories to come, using the occurrences of this world, but as pilgrims, not to abandon their course towards GOD for mortal respects, but thereby to assist the infirmity of the corruptible flesh, and make it more able to encounter with toil and trouble. Wherefore the necessaries of this life are common, both to the faithful and the Infidel, and to both their families: but the ends of their two usages thereof are far different. The faithless, worldly city, aimeth at earthly peace, and settleth the self therein, only to have an uniformity of the citizens wills in matters only pertaining till mortality. And the Heavenly city, or rather that part thereof, which is as yet a pilgrim on earth and liveth by faith, useth this peace also: as befitteth unto, it leave this mortal life wherein such a peace is requisite and therefore liveth (while it is here on earth) as if it were in captivity, and having received the promise of redemption, and divers spiritual gifts, as seals thereof, it willingly obeyeth such laws of the temporal city as order the things pertaining to the sustenance of this mortal life, to the end that both the Cities might observe a peace in such things as are pertinent here-unto. But because that the Earthly City hath some members, whom the holy scriptures utterly disallow, and who standing either to well affected to the devils, or being illuded by them, believed that each thing had a peculiar deity over it, and belonged to the charge of a several God: as the body to one, the soul to another, and in the body itself the head to one, the neck to another, and so of every member: as likewise of the soul, one had the wit, another the learning, a third the wrath, a forth the desire: as also in other necessaries or accidents belonging to man's life, the cattle, the corn, the wine, the oil, the woods, the moneys, the navigation, the wars, the marriages, the generations, each being a several charge unto a particular power, whereas the citizens of the Heavenly state acknowledged but one only God, to whom that worship, which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was peculiarly and solly due: hence came it that the two hierachies, could not be combined in one religion, but must needs dissent herein, so that the good part was feign to bear the pride and persecution of the bad, but that their own multitude sometimes, and the providence of GOD continually stood for their protection. This celestial society while it is here on earth, increaseth itself out of all languages, never respecting the temporal laws that are made against so good and religious a practice: yet not breaking, but observing their diversity in divers nations, all which do tend unto the preservation of earthly peace, if they oppose not the adoration of one only GOD. So that you see, the Heavenly city observeth and respecteth this temporal peace here on Earth, and the coherence of men's wills in honest morality, as far as it may with a safe conscience, yea and so far desireth it, making use of it for the attaynement of the peace eternal: which is so truly worthy of that name, as that the orderly and uniform combination of men in the fruition of GOD, and of one another in GOD, is to be accounted the reasonable creatures only peace, which being once attained, mortality is banished, and life than is the (a) true life indeed, nor is the carnal body any more an encumbrance to the soul, by corruptibility, but is now become spiritual, perfected, and entirely subject unto the soverainety of the will. This peace is that unto which the pilgrim in faith referreth the other which he hath here in his pilgrimage, and then liveth he according to faith, when all that he doth for the obtaining hereof is by himself referred unto God, and his neighbour withal, because being a citizen, he must not be all for himself, but sociable, in his life and actions. L. VIVES. THe (a) true life] Ennius used the Latin phrase Uita vitalis, to which Augustine alludeth. Cicero. That the suspended doctrine of the new Academy opposeth the constancy of Christianity. CHAP. 18. AS for the new Academians, whom Varro avoutcheth to hold no certainty but this, That all things are uncertain: the Church of God detesteth these doubts, as madnesses, having a most certain knowledge of the things it apprehendeth, although but in small quantity, because of the corruptible body which is a burden to the soul, and because as the Apostle saith, We know (but) in part. Besides, it believeth the sense in objects, of which the mind judgeth by the sensitive organs, because he is in a gross error that taketh all trust from them: It believeth also the holy canonical scriptures, both old and new, from which the just man hath his faith, by which he liveth, and wherein (a) we all walk without doubt, as long as we are in our pilgrimage, and personally absent from God: and this faith being kept firm, we may lawfully doubt of all such other things as are not manifested unto us either by sense, reason, scripture, nor testimony of grounded authority. L. VIVES. WE all walk (a) without doubt] We have no knowledge of it, but believe it as firmly as what we see with our eyes. Of the habit, and manners belonging to a Christian. CHAP. 19 IT is nothing to the City of God what attire the citizens wear, or what rules they observe, as long as they contradict not Gods holy precepts, but each one keep the faith, the true path to salvation: and therefore when a Philosopher becometh a Christian, they never make him alter his habit, nor his manners, which are no hindrance to his religion, but his false opinions. They respect not Varro's distinction of the Cynikes, as long as they forbear unclean and intemperate actions. But as concerning the three kinds of life, active, contemplative, and the means between both, although one may keep the faith in any of those courses, yet there is a difference between the love of the truth, and the duties of charity. One may not be so given to contemplation, that he neglect the good of his neighbour: nor so far in love with action that he forget divine speculation. In contemplation one may not seek for idleness, but for truth: to benefit himself by the knowledge thereof, and not to grudge to impart it unto others. In action one may not aim at highness or honour, because all under the sun is mere vanity: but to perform the work of a superior unto the true end, that is, unto the benefit and salvation of the sub ect, as we said before. And this made the Apostle say: If any man desi●…e the office of a Bishop, he 1. Tim. 3. 1. desireth a good work: what this office was, he explaineth not; it is an office of labour, and not of honour. (a) The Greek word signifieth that he that is herein installed, is to watch over his people that are under him: Episcopus a Bishop, cometh of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is, over, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is, a watching, or an attendance: so that we may very well translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a superintendant, to show that he is no true Bishop, who desireth rather to be Lordly himself, then profitable unto others. No man therefore is forbidden to proceed in a laudable form of contemplation. But to affect sovereignty, though the people must be governed, & though the place be well discharged, yet notwithstanding is (b) taxable of indecency. Wherefore the love of truth requireth a holy retiredness: and the necessity of charity, a just employment, which if it be not imposed upon us, we ought not to seek it, but be take ourselves wholly to the holy inquest of truth: but if we be called forth unto a place, the law and need of charity bindeth us to under-take it. (c) Yet may we not for all this, give over our first resolution, lest we lose the sweetness of that, and be surcharged with the weight of the other. L. VIVES. THe (a) Greek word] of this before. lib. 1. cap. 9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes either of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to consider, or of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is, to visit. The Scripture, where the seventy translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do read it, a watchman, as in Ezechiel, & Osee, chap. 5. [where the Lord complaineth [The Louvain copy defective that they had been a snare in their watching, and a net upon mount Thabor. As if he had spoken of the Bishops of these times, who set snares for benefices, and spread large nets for money, but not too wide wasted, lest the coin should scatter forth. (b) Taxable of indecency] O but some fine brains have now brought it so about, that bishoprics may not only be sued for, but even bought and sold without any prejudice at all unto this law.] (c) Yet may we not] He showeth that a Bishop should converse with the holy scriptures thus far.] often, and draw himself home unto God now and then, from all his businesses, living (if he did well) as a pilgrim of Gods in this life, and one that had a charge of Gods, and his own souls in hand, not any temporal trash, and yet ought he not to forsake his ministry, to which he should be preferred by an heavenly calling, and not by an heavy purse. Hope, the bliss of the heavenly Citizens, during this life. CHAP. 20. THen therefore is the good of the Holy society perfect, when their peace is established in eternity: not running any more in successions as mortal men do in life and death, one to another: but confirmed unto them together with their immortality for ever, without touch of the least imperfection. What is he that would not account such an estate most happy, or comparing it with that which man hath here upon earth, would not avouch this later to be most miserable, were it never so well fraught with temporal conveniences? yet he that hath the latter in possession, and applieth it all unto the use of his hope●… firm and faithful object: the former, may not unfitly be called happy already, but that is rather in his expectation of the first, then in his fruition of the later. For this possession without the other hope, is a false beatitude, and a most true misery. For herein is no use of the minds truest goods, because there wanteth the true wisdom, which in the prudent discretion, resolute performance, temperate restraint, and just distribution of these things, should refer his intent in all these, unto that end, where God shall be all in all, where eternity shall be firm, and peace most perfect and absolute. Whether the Cit●…y of Rome had ever a true commonwealth, according to Scipio's definition of a commonwealth, in Tully. CHAP. 21. NOw it is time to perform a promise which I passed in the second book of this work: and that was, to show that Rome never had a true commonwealth, as Scipio defineth one in Tullyes' book De Repub. his Definition was, A commonwealth is the estate of the people. Respub. est res populi. If this be true, Rome never had any, for it never had an estate of the people, which he defines the commonwealth by: For, he defineth the people to be a multitude, united in one consent of law and profit: what he meaneth by a consent of law, he showeth himself: and showeth there-by that a state cannot stand without justice: so that where true justice wanteth, there can be no law. For what law doth, justice doth, and what is done unjustly, is done unlawfully. For we may not imagine men's unjust decrees to be laws: all men defining law to (a) arise out of the fountain of justice; and that that same unjust assertion of some, is utterly false: (b) That is law which is profitable unto the greatest. So then, where justice is not, there can be no society united in one consent of law, therefore no people, according to Scipio's definitions in Tully. If no people, than no estate of the people, but rather of a confused multitude, unworthy of a people's name. If then the commonwealth be an estate of the people, and that they be no people that are not united in one consent of law: nor that no law, which groundeth not upon justice: then followeth it needs, that where no justice is, there no commonwealth is. Now then add propositu●…: justice is a virtue distributing unto every one his due. What justice is that then, that taketh man from the true God, and giveth him unto the damned fiends? is this distribution of due? is he that taketh away thy possessions, and giveth them to one that hath no claim to them guilty of injustice, and is not he so likewise, that taketh himself away from his Lord God, and giveth himself to the service of the devil? There are witty and powerful disputations in those books De repub. for justice against injustice. Wherein, it having first been argued for injustice, against justice, and averred that a state could not stand without injustice; and this brought as a principal confirmation hereof, that it is injustice for man to rule over-man, and yet if the City whose dominion is so large, should not observe this form of injustice, she could never keep the provinces under. Unto this it was answered on the behalf of justice, that this was a just course, it being profitable for such to serve, and for their good, to wit, when the power to do hurt is taken from the wicked, they will carry themselves better being kerbed, because they carried themselves so badly before they were kerbed. To confirm this answer this notable example was alleged, as being fetched from nature itself: If it were vn●…t, to rule, why doth God rule over man, the soul over the body, reason over lust, and all the ●…des other vicious affects? This example teacheth plain that it is good for some to serve in particular, and it is good for all to serve God in general. And the mind serving God, is lawful Lord over the body: so is reason being subject unto God, over the lusts and other vices. Wherefore if man serve not God, what justice can be thought to be in him? seeing that if he serve not him the soul hath neither lawful sovereignty over the body, nor the reason over the affects: now if this justice cannot befound in own man, no more can it then in a whole multitude of such like men. Therefore amongst such there is not that consent of law which maketh a multitude a people, whose estate maketh a commonwealth; What need I speak of the profit, that is named in the definition of a people? for although that none live profitably that live wickedly, that serve not God, but the Devils (who are so much the more wicked in that they being most filthy creatures, dare exact sacrifices as if they were gods:) yet I think that what I have said of the consent of law may serve to show that they were no people whose estate might make a weal-public, having no justice amongst them. If they say they did not serve Devils, but holy gods, what need we rehearse that here which we said so often before? who is he that hath read over this work unto this chapter, and yet doubteth whether they were devils that the romans worshipped or no? unless he be either senslessly blockish, or shamelessly conten●…s? But to leave the powers that they offered unto, take this place of holy ●…it for all: He that sacrificeth unto gods, shallbe rooted out, but unto one God alone. He that taught this in such threatening manner will have no gods sacrificed unto, be they good or be they bad. L. VIVES. LAw to (a) arise.] Cic, de leg. lib. 1. It was not the people's command (saith he) nor Princes decrees, nor judges sentences, but the very rule of nature that gave original unto law. And again. lib. 2. I see that the wisest men held that law came neither from man's inventions nor ●…ar decrees, but is an eternal thing, ruling all the world by the knowledge of commanding and forbidding: and so they avouched the high law of all to be the intellect of that great God who sway●… all by compulsion and prohibition. Thus Tully, out of Plato, and thus the stoics held ●…st Epicurus who held that nature accounted nothing just, but fear did. Sene. Epist. 16. 〈◊〉 holy law that lieth recorded in every man's conscience, the civilians call right and reason 〈◊〉 & bonum. So that Ulpian defineth law to be aers aequi & boni, an art of right and reason, making him ●…ly a Lawyer that can skill of this right and reason, and such that as Tully saydof Sulpitius, ●…re, all unto equity, and had rather end controversies then procure them, that peace 〈◊〉 be generally kept amongst men, and each be at peace with himself, which is the 〈◊〉 joy of nature. ●…ely the lawyers of ancient times were appointed for this end, to decide and finish con●…s, as when I was little better than a child, I remember I hard mine uncle Henry 〈◊〉 read in his admired lectures upon justinian's Institutions. Francisco Craneveldio and I had much talk hereof, of late, who is a famous and profound civilian, and in truth he made a great complaint in my hearing of the quirks, and cousonages that the lawyers of this age do hatch and bring forth. Truly he is a man of a rare conceit, and of that harmless carriage withal, that converse with him seven years, and yet you shall never hear offensive term come out of his mouth. Mark Laurino, Deane of S. Donatians' in Bruges was with us now and then: if learning had many such friends as he, it would bear an higher sail than it doth. john Fennius also, of the same house, was with us sometimes, a youth naturally ordained to learning, and so he applieth himself. (b) That is law.] So did Thrasibulus define law. Plato de Rep. lib. 1. where Socrates confuteth him, but truly the law that is in ordinary practice, is most of this nature. Whether Christ, the Christians God be he unto whom only sacrifice is to be offered. CHAP. 22. But they may reply: who is that God? or how prove you him to be worthy of all the romans sacrifices, and none besides him to have any part? oh it is a sign of great blindness, to be yet to learn who that God is! It is he whose prophets foretold what our own eyes saw effected: it is he that told Abraham, In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed, which the remainders of the haters of Christianity do know, whether they will or no, to have been fulfilled in Christ, ●…escended from Abraham in the flesh. It is that God whose spirit spoke in 〈◊〉 whose prophecies the whole Church beholdeth fulfilled: the whole C●… spread over the face of the whole earth, beholds them, and in that were t●… 〈◊〉 filled, which I related in my former books. It is that God whom Varro cal●…h the romans jove, though he know not what he saith, yet this I add because that so great a scholar thought him to be neither no God at all, nor one of the meanest, for he thought that this was the great God of all. Briefly, it is eu●…n that God whom that learned Philosopher Prophiry (albeit he was a deadly foe to Christianity) acknowledged to be the highest God, even by the Oracles of those whom he called the inferior gods. Porphiry his relation of the Oracles touching Christ. CHAP. 23. FOr he in his books which he entitleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The divinity of Philosopoy wherein he setteth down the Oracles answers in things belonging to Philosophy, hath something to this purpose, and thus it is, from the Greek: One went (saith he) unto the Oracle, and asked unto what God he should sacrifice for to obtain his wives conversion from Christianity: Apollo answered him thus: Thou mayst sooner write legible letters upon the water, or get thee wings to fly through air like a bird, then revoke thy wife from her polluted opinion. Let her run after her mad opinions, as long as she list: let her honour that dead God with her false lamentations, whom the wise and well advised judges condemned, and whom a shameful death upon the cross dispatched. Thus far the Oracle, the Greek is in verse but our language will not bear it. After these verses, Prophiry addeth this: Behold how remediless their erroneous belief is: because as Apollo said (quoth he) the jews do receive God with means greater than others. Hear you this? he disgraceth and obscureth Christ, and yet saith, the jews receive God, for so he interpreteth the oracles verses, where they say that Christ was condemned by well advised judges, as though he had been lawfully condemned and justly executed. This lying Priests oracle let him look unto, and believe if he like it: but it may very well be that the Oracle gave no such answer, but that this is a mere fiction of his. How he reconciles the oracles, and agrees with himself, we shall see by and by. But by the way, here he saith, that the jews, as the receivers of God, judged aright in doing Christ to so ignominious and cruel a death. So then to the jews God said well in saying, He that sacrificeth unto many Gods shall be rooted out, but unto one God only. But come on, let us go to more manifest matter, and here what he maketh of the jews God: He asked Apollo which was better, the word, or the law: And he answered thus (saith he) and then he addeth the answer, I will relate as much of it as needeth): Upon God the Creator, and upon the King before all things, who maketh heaven and earth, the sea, and hell, yea and all the Gods to tremble: the law is their father, whom the holy Hebrews do adore. This glory doth Porphyry give the Hebrew God, from his God Apollo, that the very deities do tremble before him. So then this God having said, He that sacrificeth unto many Gods shall be rooted out, I wonder that Porphyry was not afraid to be rooted out for offering to so many Gods. Nay this fellow speaketh well of Christ afterwards, as forgetting the reproach he offered him before: as if in their dreams, his Gods had scorned CHRIST, and being awake, commended him, and acknowledged his goodness. Finally, as if he meant to speak some marvelous matter: It may exceed all belief (saith he) which I am now to deliver: the Gods affirmed CHRIST to be a man most godly, and ●…ortalized for his goodness, giving him great commendations: but for the Chri●…ns, they avouch them to be persons stained with all corruption and error: and give them all the foul words that may be. Then he relateth the Oracles which blaspheme the Christian religion, and afterwards, Hecate (saith he) being asked if Christ were GOD, replied thus: His soul being severed from his body became immortal; but it wandereth about void of all wisdom: it was the soul of a most worthy man, whom now those that forsake the truth, do worship. And then he addeth his own sayings upon this oracle, in this manner. The goddess therefore called him a most godly man, and that the deluded Christians do worship his soul, being made immortal after death, as other godly souls are. Now being asked why he was condemned then? she answered: His body was condemned to torments, but his soul sitteth above in heaven, and giveth all those souls unto error by destiny, who cannot attain the gifts of the Gods, or come to the knowledge of immortal love. And therefore are they hated of the Gods, because they neither acknowledge them, nor receive their gifts, but are destined unto error by him: now he himself 〈◊〉 godly, and went up to heaven as godly men do. Therefore blaspheme not him, but pity the poor souls whom he hath bound in error. What man is there so fond that cannot observe that these oracles are either directly feigned by this crafty foe of Christianity, or else the Devils own ●…kes to this end, that in praising of Christ, they might seem truly to repre●…d the Christian profession? and so if they could; to stop man's entrance into Christianity, the sole way unto salvation? for they think it no prejudice to their ●…y-formed deceit, to be believed in praising of Christ as long as they be bel●…ed also in dispraising the Christian, so that he that believeth them, must be a commender of Christ, and yet a contemner of his religion. And thus although he honour Christ, yet shall not Christ free him from the clutches of the Devil, because they give Christ such a kind of praise, as who so believeth to be true, shall be far from true Christianity, and rather than otherwise, of (b) Photinus his heresy, who held Christ to be but only man, and no God at all: so that such a believer should never be saved by Christ, nor cleared of the devils fowling nets. But we will neither believe Apollo in his depravation, nor Hecate in her commendation of Christ. He will have Christ a wicked man, and justly condemned, she will have him a most godly man, and yet but only man. But both agree in this, they would have no christians, because all but christians are in their clutches. But let this Philosopher, or they that give credence to those oracles against christianity, if they can reconcile Apollo and Hecate, and make them both tell one tale, either in Christ's praise or dispraise. Which if they could do, yet would we avoid them, as deceitful devils both in their good words and in their bad. But seeing this God & this goddess cannot agree about Christ, truly men have no reason to believe or obey them in forbidding christianity. Truly either Porphyry or Hecate in these commendations of Christ, affirming that he destinied the christians to error, yet goeth about to show the causes of this error; which before I relate, I will ask him this one question: If Christ did predestinate all christians unto error, whether did he this wittingly, or against his will? If he did it wittingly, how then can he be just? if it were against his will, how can he then be happy? But now to the causes of this error. There are some spirits of the earth, (saith he) which are under the rule of the evil Daemons. These, the Hebrews wise men, (whereof JESUS was one, as the divine Oracle, declared before, doth testify) forbade the religious persons to meddle withal, advising them to attend the celestial powers, and especially God the Father, with all the reverence they possibly could. And this (saith he) the Gods also do command us, as we have already shown, how they admonish us to reverence GOD in all places. But the ignorant and wicked, having no divine gift, nor any knowledge of that great and immortal jove, nor following the precepts of the gods or good men, have cast all the deities at their heels, choosing not only to respect, but even to reverence those depraved Daemons. And whereas they profess the service of GOD, they do nothing belonging to his service. For GOD is the father of all things, and stands not in need of anything: and it is well for us to exhibit him his worship in chastity, justice, and the other virtues, making our whole life a continual prayer unto him, by our search and imitation of him. (c) For our search of him (quoth he) purifieth us, and our imitation of him, deifieth the effects in ourselves. Thus well hath he taught God the Father unto us, and us how to offer our service unto him. The Hebrew Prophets are full of such holy precepts, concerning both the commendation and reformation of the Saints lives. But as concerning Christianity, there he erreth, and slandereth, as far as his devils pleasure is, whom he holdeth deities: as though it were so hard a matter, out of the obscenities practised and published in their Temples, and the true worship and doctrine presented be fore GOD in our Churches, to discern where manners were reform and where they were ruined. Who but the devil himself could inspire him with so shameless a falsification, as to say, that the Christians do rather honour then detest the Devils whose adoration was forbidden by the Hebrews? No, that God whom the Hebrews adored, will not allow any sacrifice unto his holiest Angels, (whom we that are pilgrims on earth, do notwithstanding love and reverence as most sanctified members of the City of heaven) but forbiddeth it directly in this thundering threat: He that sacrificeth unto Gods, shall be rooted 〈◊〉, and lest it should be thought he meant only of the earthly spirits, whom this fellow calls the lesser powers, (d) and whom the scripture also calleth gods, (not of the Hebrews, but the Heathens) as is evident in that one place, Psal. 96. verse 5. For all the Gods of the Heathen, are Devils: lest any should imagine that the foresaid prohibition extended no further than these devils, or that it concerned not the offering to the celestial spirits, he addeth: but unto the Lord alone, but unto one God only: Some may take the words, nisi domino soli, to be unto the Lord, the sun: and so understand the place to be meant of Apollo, but [the ori●…●…nd] the (e) Greek translations do subvert all such misprision. So then the Hebrew God, so highly commended by this Philosopher, gave the Hebrews a ●…awe in their own language, not obscure or uncertain, but already dispersed throughout all the world, wherein this clause was literally contained. He that sacrificeth unto Gods shall be rooted out, but unto the Lord alone. What need we make any further search into the law and the Prophets concerning this? nay what need we search at all, they are so plain and so manifold, that what need I stand aggravating my disputation with any multitudes of those places, that exclude all powers of heaven and earth from perticipating of the honours due unto God alone? Behold this one place, spoken in brief, but in powerful manner by the mouth of that GOD whom the wisest Ethnics do so highly extol; let us mark it, fear it, and observe it, lest our eradication ensue. He that sacrificeth unto more gods than that true and only LORD, shall be rooted out: yet God himself is far from needing any of our services, but (f) all that we do herein is for the good of our own souls. Here-upon the Hebrews say in their holy Psalms▪ I have said unto the Lord, thou art my GOD, my well-dooing ●…th not unto thee: No, we ourselves are the best and most excellent sacrifice Psal. 16. 2. that he can have offered him. It is his City whose mystery we celebrate 〈◊〉 ●…ch oblations as the faithful do full well understand, as I said once already. For the ceasing of all the typical offerings that were exhibited by the jews, a●…d the ordaining of one sacrifice, to be offered through the whole world from East to West (as now we see it is) was prophesied long before, from GOD, by the mouths of holy Hebrews: whom we have cited, as much as needed, in convenient places of this our work. Therefore, to conclude, where there is not this justice that GOD ruleth all alone over the society that obeyeth him by grace, and yieldeth to his pro●…tion of sacrifice unto all but himself, and where in every member belong●… to this heavenly society, the soul is lord over the body, and all the bad af●… thereof, in the obedience of GOD, and an orderly form, so that all the 〈◊〉 (as well as one) live according▪ to faith (g) which worketh by love, in ●…ch a man loveth GOD as he should, and his neighbour as himself: 〈◊〉 this justice is not, is no society of men combined in one uniformity of 〈◊〉 and profit: consequently, no true state popular, (if that definition hold ●…ch) and finally no commonwealth; for where the people have no certain 〈◊〉, the general hath no exact form. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.] That is of Oraculous Phisosophy, in which work he recites Apollo's Orracles, and others, part whereof we have cited before. (b) Photinus.] He was condemned by the counsel of Syrmium, being confuted by Sabinus Bishop of Ancyra. Cassiod. Hist tripart. He followed the positions of Samosatenus, so that many accounted of both these heresies all as one. (c) For our search.] Search is here a mental inquisition, whereby the mind is illustrate, and purged from dark ignorance, and after it hath found God, studieth how to grow pur●…, and divine, like him. (d) And whom the scripture.] The name of God, is principally his, of whom, by whom, and in whom, all things have their existence: showing (in part) the nature and virtue of that incomprehensible Trine. Secondly and (as one may say) abusively, the Scripture calleth them, gods, unto whom the word is given, as our Saviour testifieth in the Gospel: and so are the Heavenly powers also called, as seemeth by that place of the Psalm: God standeth in the assembly of the gods. etc. Thirdly and (not abusively but) falsely, the Devils are called gods also. All the gods of the heathen, are Devils. Origen, in Cantie. This last question Augustine taketh from the seventy, for Hierome translateth it from the Hebrew, Idols, and not Devils. Psa 96. 5. (e) The Greek.] Where we read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor is this superfluously added of Augustine, for many Philosophers, and many nations both held and honoured the Sun only for God, and referred the power of all the rest unto it alone, Macrob. (f) All that we do.] Our well doing benefiteth not God, nor betters him, so that there is nothing due unto us for being good: but we ourselves owe God for all, by whose grace it is that we are good. (g) Which worketh by.] It is dead, and lacketh all the power, and vigour, when it proceedeth not in the works of charity. A definition of a people, by which, both the romans and other kingdoms may challenge themselves commonweals. CHAP. 24. But omit the former definition of a people, and take this: A people is a multitude of reasonable creatures conjoined in a general communication of those things it respecteth: and them to discern the state of the people, you must first consider what those things are. But what ever they be, where there is a multitude of men, conjoined in a common fruition of what they respect, there, may fitly be said to be a people: the better that their respects are, the better are they themselves, and otherwise, the worse. By this definition, Rome had a people, and consequently a commonweal: what they embraced at the first, and what afterwards, what goodness they changed into bloodiness, what concord they forsook for seditions, confederacies and civil wars, History can testify, and we (in part) have already related? Yet this doth not bar them the name of a people, nor their state of the stile of a commonwealth, as long as they bear this our last definition unin-fringed. And what I have said of them, I may say of the Athenians, the greeks in general, the Egyptians, and the Assyrian babylonians, were there dominions great or little, and so of all nations in the world. For in the City of the wicked, where GOD doth not govern and men obey, sacrificing unto him alone, and consequently where the soul doth not rule the body, nor reason the passions, there generally wanteth the virtue of true justice. That there can be no true virtue, where true religion wanteth. CHAP. 25. FOr though there be a seeming of these things, yet if the soul, and the reason serve not God, as he hath taught them how to serve him, they can never have true dominion over the body, nor over the passions: for how can that soul have any true mean of this decorum, that knoweth not God, nor serveth his greatness, but runneth a whoring with the unclean and filthy devils? No, those things which she seems to account virtues, and thereby to sway her affects, if they be not all referred unto God, are indeed rather vices than virtues. For although some hold them to be real virtues, (a) when they are affected only for their own respect, and nothing else; yet even so they incur vainglory, and so loose their true goodness. For as it is not of the flesh, but above the flesh, that animates the body. So it is not of man, but above man, which deifies the mind of man, yea, and of all the powers of the heavens. L. VIVES. WHen (a) they] The stoics held virtue to be her own price, content with itself, and to be affected only for itself. This is frequent in Seneca, and in Tully's Stoicysmes, and Plato seems to confirm it. Tully sets down two things that are to be affected merely for themselves: perfection of internal goodness, and that good which is absolutely external, as parents, children, friends, etc. These are truly dear unto us, in themselves, but nothing so as the others are. De finib. lib. 5. It is a question in divinity, whether the virtues are to be desired merely for themselves. Ambrose affirmeth it. In Epist. ad Galat. Augustine denieth it. De Trinit. lib. 13. Peter Lombard holds them both to be worthy of love in themselves, and also to have a necessary reference unto eternal beatitude. But indeed, they are so bound unto God's precepts, that he that putteth not God's love in the first place, cannot love them at all. Nor can he so love them for themselves, that he prefer them before God their author, and their founder, or equal the love of them, with the love of him: their nature is to lift the eyes of him that admireth them, unto GOD, so that he that seeketh for themselves, is by them even led and directed unto him, the consummation unto which they all do tend. But Saint Augustine in this place, speaketh of the Gentiles, whose virtues desiring external rewards, were held base and ignominious: but if they kept themselves, content with their own sole fruition, than were they approved. but this was the first step to arrogance, by reason that hereby they that had them, thought none so good as themselves. The peace of God's enemies, useful to the piety of his friends as long as their earthly pilgrimage lasteth. CHAP. 26. WHerefore, as the soul is the flesh's life, so is God the beatitude of man, as the Hebrews holy writ affirmeth (a) Blessed is the people whose God is Psa. 144. 15 the Lord: wretched then are they that are strangers to that GOD, and yet 〈◊〉 those a kind of allowable peace, but that they shall not have for ever, because they used it not well when they had it. But that they should have it 〈◊〉 this life is for our good also: because that during our commixtion with Babylon, we ourselves make use of her peace, and faith doth free the people of God at length out of her, yet so, as in the mean time we live as pilgrims in her. And therefore the Apostle admonished the Church, to pray for the Kings and Potentates of that earthly City, adding this reason; That we may lead a quiet life in all godliness and (b) charity. And the Prophet Hieremy, foretelling the captivity 1. Tim 2. 2 of God's ancient people commanding them (from the Lord) to go peaceably and patiently to Babylon, advised them also to pray, saying, For in her peace, shall be your peace, meaning that temporal peace which is common both to good and bad. L. VIVES. BLessed (a) is] Psal. 144. 15. Where the Prophet having reckoned up all the goods of fortune, children, wealth, peace, prosperity, and all in abundance, at length he concludeth thus: [they have said] Blessed are the people that be so: yea, [but] blessed are the people whose God is the Lord. (b) Charity] In the Apostle, it is honesty, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The peace of God's servants, the fullness whereof, it is impossible in this life, to comprehend. CHAP. 27. But as for our proper peace, we have it double with God: here below by faith, and hereafter above (a) by sight. But all the peace we have here, be it public, or peculiar, is rather a solace to our misery, than any assurance of our felicity. And for our righteousness, although it be truly such, because the end is the true good whereunto it is referred, yet as long as we live here, it consisteth (b) rather of sins remission, then of virtues perfection, witness that prayer which all God's pilgrims use▪ and every member of his holy City, crying daily unto him; Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. (c) Nor doth this prayer benefit them whose faith, wanting works, is dead, but them whose faith worketh by love: for, because our reason though it be subject unto God yet as long as it is in the corruptible body, which burdeneth the soul, cannot have the affects under perfect obedience, therefore the justest man stands in need of this prayer. For though that reason have the conquest, it is not without combat. And still one touch of infirmity or other, creepeth upon the best conqueror, even when he hopes that he holds all viciousness under, making him fall either by some vain word, or some inordinate thought, if it bring him not unto actual error. And therefore as long as we overrule sin, our peace is imperfect: because both the affects not as yet conquered, are subdued by a dangerous conflict, and they that are under already, do deny us all security, and keep us doing in a continual and careful command. So then, in all these temptations (whereof God said in a word: (d) Is not the life of man a temptation upon earth?) who dare say he liveth so, as he need not say to God, Forgive us our trespasses? none but a proud soul. Nor is he mighty, but madly vainglorious, that in his own righteousness will resist him, who giveth grace to the humble, whereupon it is written, God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Man's justice therefore is this: to have God his Lord, and himself his subject, his soul master over his 1. Pet. 4. body, and his reason over sin, either by subduing it or resisting it: and to entreat God both for his grace for merit, and his pardon for sin, and lastly to be grateful for all his bestowed graces. But in that final peace unto which all man's peace and righteousness on earth hath reference, immortality and incorruption do so refine nature from viciousness, that there we shall have no need of reason to rule over sin, for there shall be no sin at all there, but GOD shall rule man, and the soul the body: obedience shall there be as pleasant and easy, as the state of them that live shallbe glorious, and happy. And this shall all have unto all eternity, and shallbe sure to have it so, and therefore the blessedness of this peace, or the peace of this blessedness, shall be the fullness and perfection of all goodness. L. VIVES. BY (a) sight] Being then, face to face with GOD. (b) Rather of sins] For the greatest part of our goodness is not our well doing, but God's remission of our sins. (c) Nor doth this] For as a medicine, otherwise wholesome) cannot benefit a dead body: so this parcel of prayer can do him as little good that saith it, if in the mean while he be not friends with his brother. (d) Is not man's] Our vulgar translation is. Is there not an appointed time for man upon earth, but Saint Aug. follows the LXX. as he useth. To live (saith Seneca) is to wage continual war. So that those that are tossed up and down in difficulties, and adventure upon the roughest dangers, are valorous men, and captains of the camp: whereas those that sit at rest whilst others take pains, are tender turtles, and buy their quiet with disgrace. The end of the wicked. CHAP. 28. But on the other side, they that are not of this society, are desteined to eternal misery, called the second death, because there, even the soul, being deprived of GOD, seemeth not to live, much less the body, bound in everlasting torments. And therefore, this second death shallbe so much the more cruel, in that it shall never have end. But seeing war is the contrary of peace, as misery is unto bliss, and death to life, it is a question what kind of war shall reign as then amongst the wicked, to answer and oppose the peace of the Godly. But mark only the hurt of war, & it is plainly apparent to be nothing but the adverse dispose, and contentious conflict of things between themselves. What then can be worse than that, where the will is such a foe to the passion, & the passion to the will, that they are for ever in-suppressible, and irreconcilable? and where nature, and pain shall hold an eternal conflict, and yet the one never master the other? In our conflicts here on earth, either the pain is victor, and so death expelleth sense of it, or nature conquers, and expels the pain. But there, pain shall afflict eternally, and nature shall suffer eternally, both enduring to the continuance of the inflicted punishment. But seeing that the good, and the bad, are in that great judgement to pass unto those ends, the one to be sought for, and the other to be fled from: by God's permission and assistance I will in the next book following, have a little discourse of that last day, and that terrible i●…gement. Finis lib. 19 THE CONTENTS OF THE twentieth book of the City of God. 1. God's i●…dgments continually effected: his last judgement the proper subject of this book following. 2. The change of humane estates, ordered by God's unsearchable judgements. 3. Salomon's disputation in Eclesiastes, concerning those goods, which both the just, and unjust do share in. 4. The Author's resolution, in this discourse of the judgement, to produce the testimonies of the New Testament first, and then of the Old. 5. Places of Scripture proving that there shallbe a day of judgement at the world's end. 6. What the first resurrection is, and what the second. 7. Of the two Resurrections; what may be thought of the thousand years mentioned in Saint john's revelation. 8. Of the binding and losing of the devil. 9 What is meant by Christ's reigning a thousand year with the Saints, and the difference between that, and his eternal reign. 10. An answer to the objection of some, affirming that resurrection is proper to the body only and not to the Soul. 11. Of Gog and Magog, whom the devil (at the world's end) shall stir up against the church of God. 12. Whether the fire falling from heaven, and devouring them, imply the last torments of the wicked. 13. Whether it be a thousand years until the persecution under Antechrist. 14. Satan and his followers condemned: a recapitulation of the Resurrection, and the last judgement. 15. Of the dead, whom the sea, and death, & hell, shall give up to judgement. 16. Of the new Heaven and the new Earth. 17. Of the glorification of the church, after death, for ever. 18. Saint Peter's doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. 19 Saint Paul's words to the Thessalonians▪ Of the manifestation of Antechrist, whose times shall immediately forerun the day of the LORD. 20. Saint Paul's doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. 21. Esaias his doctrine concerning the judgement and resurrection. 22. How the Saints shall go forth to see the pains of the wicked 23. daniel's prophecy of Antichrist; of the judgement, and of the kingdom of the Saints. 24. David's prophecies of the world's end, & the last judgement. 25. Malachies prophecy of the judgement, and of such as are to be purged by fire. 26. Of the Saints offerings, which God shall accept of, as in the old time, and the years before. 27. Of the separation of the good from the bad▪ in the end of the last judgement. 28. Moses' law to be spiritually understood, for fear of dangerous error. 29. Helias his coming to convert the jews before the judgement. 30. That it is not evident in the Old Testament, in such places as say, God shall judge: that it shallbe in the person of Christ, but only by some of the testimonies, where the LORD GOD speaketh. FINIS. THE twentieth BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. God's judgements continually effected: His last judgement the proper subject of this book following. CHAP. 1. BEing now to discourse of the day of GOD'S last judgement, against the faithless, and the wicked, we must lay down holy scriptures first, for the foundation of our following structure: Which some believe not, but oppose them with fond and frivolous arguments, wresting them either quite, unto another purpose, or utterly denying them to contain any thing divine. For I do not think that man liveth, who understanding them as they are spoken, and believing that GOD inspired them into sanctified men, will not give his full assent unto what they aver, but he must needs profess as much, be he never so ashamed or afraid to avouch it, or never so obstinate that he would conceal it, and study to defend mere and known falsehood against it. Wherefore, the whole church believeth, and professeth, that Christ is to come from heaven to judge both the quick and the dead, and this we call the day of GOD'S judgement, the last time of all: for how many days this judgement will hold, we know not, but the scripture useth Day for Time, very often, as none that useth to read it but well discerneth it. And we, when we speak of this day do add last, the last day, because that GOD doth judge at this present and hath done ever since he set man forth of paradise, and chased our first parents from the tree of life for their offences, nay from the time that he cast out the transgressing Angels, whose envious Prince doth all that he can now to ruin the souls of men. It is his judgement that both men and devils do live in such miseries and perturbations in air and earth, fraught with nothing but evils and errors. And if no man had offended, it had been his good judgement that man and all reasonable creatures had lived in perfect beatitude and eternal coherence with the LORD their GOD. So that he judgeth not only men, and devils, unto misery, in general, but he censureth every particular soul for the works it hath performed out of freedom of will. For the devils pray that they may not be tormented, neither doth GOD unjustly either in sparing them or punishing them. And man, sometimes in public, but continually in secret, feeleth the hand of Almighty GOD, punishing him for his trespasses and misdeeds, either in this life, or in the next: though no man can do well▪ without the help of GOD, nor any devil can do hurt, without his just permission. For as the Apostle saith: Is there unrighteousness in GOD? GOD forbid: and in another place. Unsearchable Rom. 9 14. Rom. 11, 33. are his judgements, and his ways past finding out. I intent not therefore in this book to meddle with God's ordinary daily judgements, or with those at first, but with that great and last judgement of his, (by his gracious permission) when CHRIST shall come from heaven, To judge both the quick▪ and the dead, for that is properly called the judgement-day: because (a) there shallbe no place for ignorant complaint, upon the happiness of the bad and the misery of the good. The true and perfect felicity in that day shallbe assured only to the good, and eternal torment shall then show itself as an everlasting inheritance only for the evil. L. VIVES. THere (a) shallbe no place for] In this life, many men stumble at the good fortunes and prosperity of the bad, and the sad misfortunes of the good; They that know not that fortune's goods are no goods at all, (as the wicked do believe they are) do wonder at this. But indeed, the wicked never enjoy true good, nor doth true evil ever befall the good. For the names of goods and evils, that are given to those things that these men admire, are in far other respect than they are aware of, and that makes▪ their fond judgements condemn the ordering of things. But at the last judgement of CHRIST, where the truth of good and bad shall appear, then shall good fall only to the righteous, and bad to the wicked: and this shallbe there, universally acknowledged. The change of human estates, ordered by God's unsearchable judgements. CHAP. 2. But here on earth, the evils, endured by the good men instruct us to endure them with patience, and the goods enjoyed by the wicked, advise us not to affect them with immoderation. Thus in the things where GOD'S judgements are not to be discovered, his counsel is not to be neglected. We know not why GOD maketh this bad man rich, and that good man poor: that he should have joy whose deserts we hold worthier of pains, and he pains, whose good life we imagine to merit content: that the judges corruption or testimonies falseness should send the innocent away condemned, much more un-cleared; and the injurious foe should depart, revenged, much more unpunished: that the wicked man should live sound, 〈◊〉 the Godly lie bedde-ridde: that lusty youths should turn thieves, and those that never did hurt in word, be plagued with extremity of sickness▪ That silly infants, of good use in the world, should be cut off by vntime●… 〈◊〉, while they that seem unworthy ever to have been borne, attain long 〈◊〉 happy life: that the guilty should be honoured, and the Godly oppressed, and such like as these; Oh who can stand to collect or recount them! These now▪ albeit they kept this seemingly absurd order continually, that in 〈◊〉 whole life (wherein as the Prophet saith in the Psalm, Man is like to 〈◊〉, and his days like a shadow that vanisheth) the wicked alone should pos●… Psal. 144▪ 4 those temporal goods, and the good only suffer evils, yet might this 〈◊〉 referred to GOD'S just judgements, yea even to his mercies: that such 〈◊〉 ●…ught not for eternal felicity, might either for their malice, be justly 〈◊〉 by this transitory happiness, or by GOD'S mercy be a comfort unto the good, and that they being not to lose the bliss eternal, might for 〈◊〉 while be exercised by crosses temporal, either for the correction of 〈◊〉, or (a) augmentation of their virtues. 〈◊〉 now, seeing that not only the good are afflicted, and the bad ex●… (which seems injustice) but the good also often enjoy good, and the 〈◊〉, evil; this proves GOD'S judgements more inscrutable, and his 〈◊〉 more unsearchable. Although then we see no cause why GOD ●…ld do thus or thus; he in whom is all wisdom, and justice, and no ●…nesse, nor rashness, nor injustice: yet here we learn that we may 〈◊〉 esteem much of those goods, or misfortunes, which we see the bad share with the righteous. But to seek the good, peculiar to the one, and to a●… the evil reserved for the other. And when we come to that great judgement, properly called the day of doom, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consummation of time; there we shall not only see all things apparent, but ●…ledge all the judgements of GOD from the first to the last, to be firme●…●…ded upon justice. And there we shall learn, and know this also, why 〈◊〉 judgements are generally incomprehensible unto us, and how just his ●…nts are in that point also: although already indeed it is manifest unto ●…full, that we are justly, as yet, ignorant in them all, or at least in the 〈◊〉 them. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 augmentation] That virtue might have means to exercise her powers, for she 〈◊〉 ●…ction, and leaving that, she languisheth, nay even perisheth, as fire doth, which 〈◊〉 ●…ell to work upon, dieth. But practise her upon objects of adverse fortune, and she 〈◊〉 out her own perfection. Salomon's disputation in Ecclesiastes, concerning those goods which both the just and the unjust do share in. CHAP. 3. 〈◊〉, the wisest King that ever reigned over Israel, beginneth his book cal●… (a) Ecclesiastes, (which the jews themselves hold for Canonical) in this Eccl. 1. 2 〈◊〉: (b) Vanity of Vanities, all is vanity. What remaineth unto man of all ●…uells which he suffereth under the Sun? Unto which, he annex●… torments and tribulations of this declining world, and the short ●…ift courses of time, wherein nothing is firm, nothing constant. 〈◊〉 vanity of allthings under the Sun, he bewaileth this also 〈◊〉, that seeing (c) There is more profit in wisdom then in folly, 〈◊〉 light is more excellent than darkness: and seeing the wiseman's eyes, are in his head, when the fool wallketh in darkness, yet, that one condition, one estate, should befall them both as touching this vain and transitory life: meaning hereby, that they were both a like exposed to those evils that good men and bad do sometimes both a like endure. He saith further, that the good shall suffer as the bad do: and the bad shall enjoy goods, as the good do; in these words: There is a vanity which is done upon the earth, that there be Ecd●…▪ 8. 14 righteous men to whom it cometh according to the work of the wicked, and there be wicked men to whom it cometh according to the work of the just: I thought also that this is vanity. In discovery of this vanity, the wise man wrote all this whole work, for no other cause but that we might discern that life which is not vanity under the sun, but truth, under him that made the sun. But as (d) touching this worldly vanity, is it not Gods just judgement that man being made like it, should vanish also like it? yet in these his days of vanity, there is much between the obeying, and the opposing of truth: and between partaking and neglecting of Godliness and goodness? but this is not in respect of attaining or avoiding any terrestrial goods or evils, but of the great future judgement, which shall distribute goods, to the good, and evils to the evil to remain with them for ever. Finally the said wise King concludeth his book thus: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole (duty) of man, for GOD will bring every work unto judgement 〈◊〉▪ 13. 13 (e) of every dispisedman, be it good or be it evil, how can we have an instruction more brief, more true, or more wholesome? fear God (saith he) and keep his commandments for this is the whole (duty) of man, for he that doth this, is full man, and he that doth it not, is in account, nothing, because he is not reform according to the Image of truth, but sticketh still in the shape of vanity: for God will bring every work, that is every act of man in this life, unto judgement, be it good or evil, yea the works of every despised man, of every contemptible person that seemeth not t●… be noted at all, God seeth him, and despiseth him not, neither overpasseth him in his judgement. L. VIVES. ECclesiastes (a).] Or the Preacher. Many of the Hebrews say that Solomon wrote this in the time of his repentance for the wicked course that he had run. Others say that he foresaw the division of his kingdom under his son Rehoboam, and therefore wrote it, in contempt of the world's unstable vanity (b) Uanity of.] So the seventy read it, but other read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, smoke of fumes, Hierome (c) There is more.] Wisdom and folly are as much opposed as light and darkness. (d) Touching this.] But that GOD instructeth our understanding in this vanity, it would vanish away, and come to nought, conceiving falsehood for truth; and lying all consumed with putrefying sin, at length like a fume it would exhale a way unto i second death. (e) Of every despised man.] Our translations read it; with every secret thing Hierome hath it, Pro omni errato. The author's resolution in this discourse of the judgement, to produce the testimonies of the New-Testament first, and then of the old. CHAP. 4. THe testimonies of holy Scriptures by which I mean to prove this last judgement of God, must be first of all taken out of the New-Testament, and then out of the Old. For though the later be the more ancient, yet the former are more worthy, as being the true contents of the later. The former then shall proceed first, and they shallbe backed by the later. These, that is, the old ones, the law and the prophets afford us, the former, (the new ones) the Gospels, and the writings of the Apostles. Now the Apostle saith; By the law cometh the knowledge of sin. But now is the righteousness of GOD made manifest without Rom. 3, 20 21, 22 the law, having witness of the law and the Prophets, to wit, the righteousness of GOD, by the faith of JESUS CHRIST unto all and upon all that believe. This righteousness of GOD belongeth unto the New Testament, and hath confirmation from the Old, namely the law and the prophets. We must therefore first of all propound the cause, and then produce the confirmations, for CHRIST himself so ordered it, saying: Every scribe which is taught unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto an householder which bringeth out of his treasury things both new Mat: 13, 〈◊〉 and old. He saith not, both and new, but if he had not respected the order of dignity more than of antiquity, he would have done so, and not as he did. Places of Scripture proving that there shallbe a day of judgement at the world's end. CHAP. 5. Our Saviour therefore, condeming the cities, whom his great miracles did not induce unto faith, and preferring aliens before them; telleth them this, Isay unto you, it shallbe easier for Tyrus (a) and Sydon at the day of judgement then for Mat. 11, 22 you. And by and by after, unto another city: Isay unto you, that it shallbe easier for them of the Land of Sodom, in the day of judgement then for thee. Here is a Ibid 24 Mat. 12, 41 42 plain prediction of such a day. Again: The men of Niniveh (saith he) shall arise in judgement with this generation, and condemn it, etc. The Queen of the south shall rise in judgement with this generation, and shall condemn it, etc. here we learn two things 1. that there shallbe a judgement 2. that it shallbe when the dead do arise again. For Our Saviour speaking of the Ninivites, and of the Queen of the South, speaketh of them that were dead long before. Now (b) he said not, shall condemn, as if they were to be the judges, but that their comparison with the aforesaid generation shall justly procure the judges condemning sentence. Again, speaking of the present commixtion of the good and bad, and their future separation, in the day of judgement, he useth a simile of the sown wheat, and the tars, sown afterwards amongst it, which he expoundeth unto his disciples. He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man: the field is the world: the good seed they are the children of the Mat. 13, 37 35, 34, 40 41, 42, 43 Kingdom: the tars are the children of the wicked, the enemy that soweth that is the devil: the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers be the Angels. As then the tars are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world: the Son of Man shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend, and they which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shallbe weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the just men shine as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. He nameth not the judgement day here: but he expresseth it far more plainly by the effects, and promiseth it to befall at the end of the world. Furthermore; he saith to his disciples; Verily I say unto you, that when the Son of Man shall sit in the Throne of his Majesty, than ye which followed me in their regeneration, shall sit also upon twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Here we see that Christ shall be judge, together with his Apostles. Whereupon he said unto the jews in another place: If I through Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shallbe your judges. But now, in that he speaketh of twelve thrones, we may not imagine that he, and one twelve more with him shallbe the worlds judges. The number of twelve, includeth the whole number of the judges, by reason of the two parts of seven, which number signifieth the total, and the universe: which two parts, four and three multiplied either by other, make up twelve, three times four, or four times three, is twelve. (besides others reasons why twelve is used in these words of our Saviour,). Otherwise, Mathias having judas his place, Saint Paul should have no place left him to sit as judge in, though he took more pains than them all: but that he belongeth unto the number of the judges, his own words do prove: Know ye not that we shall judge the Angels? The reason of their judgements 1 Cor. 6, 3 also is included in the number of twelve. For Christ in saying, To judge the twelve tribes of Israel, excludeth neither the tribe of Levi, which was the thirteenth, nor all the other Nations besides Israel, from under-going this judgement. Now whereas he saith, In the regeneration hereby assuredly he means the resurrection of the dead. For our flesh shallbe regenerate by incorruption, as our soul is by faith. I omit many things that might concern this great day, because inquiry may rather make them seem ambiguous, or belonging unto other purpose then this: as either unto CHRIST'S daily coming unto his church in his members, unto each in particular, or unto the destruction of the earthly jerusalem, because Our Saviour speaking of that, useth the same phrase that he useth concerning the end of the world, and the last judgement, so that we can scarcely distinguish them but by conferring the three Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, together, in their places touching this point. For one hath it somewhat difficult, and another, more apparent, the one explaining the intent of the other. And those places have I conferred together in one of mine Epistles unto Hesychius, (of blessed memory) Bishop of Salon, the Epistle is entitled, De fine seculi, of the worlds end. So that▪ I will in this place, relate only that place of Saint Matthew, where CHRIST (the last judge, being then present) shall separate the good from the bad. It is thus. When the Son of Man cometh in his glory, and all the holy Angels with him, Mat. 25, 31 32, 33 etc. then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shallbe gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats, and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left. Then shall the King say to them on his right hand: come ye blessed of my father inherit ye the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world. For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat; I thirsted, and you gave me drink, I was a stranger, and you lodged m●…: I was naked, and ye clothed me, I was sick and ye visited me, I was in prison and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him saying; LORD when saw we thee an hungered and fed thee, or a thirst, and gave thee drink, etc. And the King shall answer, and say unto them, Verily I say unto you in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say unto them on the left hand; Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire which is prepared for the devil and his Angels: for I was an hungered and ye ga●…e me no meat: I thirsted, and ye gave me no drink, etc. Then shall they also answer him saying: LORD when saw we thee hungry, or a thirst, or a stranger; or naked, or in prison, or sick, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, and say, verily I say unto you in as much as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me. And these sh●…ll go into everlasting fire, and the righteous into life eternal. Now john the Evangelist showeth plainly that CHRIST foretold this Io. 5, 22, 23, 24 judgement to be at the resurrection. For having said, The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement unto the Son; Because all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father, he that honoureth not the Son, the s●…e honoureth not the Father that sent him: He addeth forthwith. verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and belee●…eth in him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into (c) judgement, but shall pass from death to life. Behold, here he 〈◊〉 directly that the faithful shall not be judged. How then shall they by his judgement be severed from the faithless, unless judgement be used here for condemnation? For that is the judgement into which, they that hear his word and believe in him that sent him, shall never enter. L. VIVES. TYrus (a) and Sydon] Two Cities on the Coast of Phoenicia, [called now, Suri, and Sai●… postel Niger. (b) He said not] The accusers of the guilty persons are said to condemn him, aswell as the judges. (c) judgement but shall pass] Our translation readeth it, condemnation, but hath passed, Hierome readeth it, transiet. What the first resurrection is, and what the second. CHAP. 6. THen he proceedeth, in these words: Verily▪ verily I say unto you, the hour Io. 5. 25, 26 shall come, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of GOD, and they that hear it shall live. For as the father hath life in himself, so likewise hath ●…ee given unto the Son to have life in himself. He doth not speak as yet of the second resurrection, of that of the bodies, which is to come, but of the first resurrection, which is now. For to distinguish these two he saith, the hour shall come, and now is: Now this is the soul's resurrection, not the bodies; for the souls have their deaths in sin, as the bodies have in nature; and therein were they dead, of whom Our Saviour said, let the dead bury the dead, to wit let the dead in soul, bury the dead in body. So then these words, The hour shall come and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of GOD, and they that hear it, shall live. They that hear it, that is, they that obey it, believe it, and remain in it. He maketh no distinction here, between good and evil, none at all. For it is good for all to hear his voice, and thereby to pass out of the death of sin and impiety, unto life and eternity. Of this death in sin the Apostle speaketh, in these words: If one be dead for all, then were all dead, and he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which 1 Cor. 5 14, 15 died for them and rose again. Thus then, all were dead, in sin, none excepted, either in original sin, or in actual: either by being ignorant of good, or by knowing good and not performing it: and for all these dead souls, one living Son came, and died; living, that is, one without all sin, that such as get life by having their sins remitted, should no more live unto themselves, but unto him that suffered for all our sins, and rose again for all our justifications, that we which believe upon the justifier of the wicked, being justified out of wickedness, and raised (as it were) from death to life, nay be assured to belong unto the first resurrection, that now is. For none but such as are heirs of eternal bliss, have any part in this first resurrection: but the second, is common both ●…o the blessed and the wretched. The first is mercy's resurrection: the second, judgements. And therefore the Psalm saith: I will sing mercy and judgement unto thee O LORD! With this judgement the Evangelist proceedeth, thus: An●… Psal. 101, 1 Io. 5, 27 hath given him power also to execute judgement, in that he is the Son of ma. Lo here now, in that flesh, wherein he was judged, shall he come to be the whole worlds judge. For these words, In that he is the Son of Man, have a direct aim at this. And then he addeth this: Marvel not at this, for the hour shall come in the which, all that are in the graves shall hear Io. 5, 28 his voice; and they shall come forth, which have done good, unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgement. This is that judgement which he put before, for condemnation, when he said, He that heareth my word, etc. shall not come into judgement, but shall pass from death to life, that is, he belongs to the first resurrection, and that belongeth to life, so that he shall not come into condemnation, which he understandeth by the word judgement in this last place, unto the resurrection of judgement. Oh Rise then in the first resurrection all you that will not perish in the the second. For the hour will come, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of GOD, and they that hear it shall live: that is, they shall not come into condemnation, which is called the second death: unto which they shall all be cast headlong after the second resurrection, that arise not in the first. For the hour will come: (he saith not that hour is now, because it shallbe in the worlds end) in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth: but he saith not hear as he said before, and they that hear it, shall live: for they shall not live all in bliss, which is only to be called life, because it is the true life. Yet must they have some life, otherwise they could neither hear nor arise in their quickened flesh.) And why they shall not all live? he giveth this subsequent reason. They that have done good shall come forth unto the resurrection of life: and these only are they that shall live▪ they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation, and these (GOD wot) shall not live, for they shall die the second death. In living badly they have done badly, and in refusing to rise in the first resurrection they have lived badly, or, at least in not continuing their resurrection unto the consummation. So then, as there are two regenerations, one in faith by Baptism, and another in the flesh, by incorruption; so are there two resurrections, the first (That is now) of the soul, preventing the second death. The later (Future) of the body, sending some into the second death, and other some into the life that despiseth and excludeth all death whatsoever. Of the two resurrections: what may be thought of the thousand years mentioned in Saint john's Revelation. CHAP. 7. SAint john the Evangelist in his Revelation speaketh of these two resurrections in such dark manner, as some of our divines, exceeding their own ignorance in the first, do wrest it unto divers ridiculous interpretations. His words are these. And I saw an Angel come down from Heaven having the Apo●…▪ 2●…▪ etc. key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand, And he took that Dragon, that old Serpent which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, ●…d he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and sealed the doors upon him, that he should deceive the people no more, till the thousand years were fulfilled. For after he must be loosed for a little season. And I saw seats, and they set upon them, and judgement was given unto them, and I saw the souls of them which were slain for the testimony of JESUS, and for the word of GOD, and worshipped not the beast, nor his Image, neither had taken his mark upon their foreheads, or on their hands: and they lived and reigned with CHRIST a thousand years. But the rest of the dead men shall not live again until the thousand years be finished: this 〈◊〉 the first resurrection. Blessed and Holy is he that hath his part in the first resurrection, for on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be the Priests of GOD and of CHRIST, and reign with him a thousand years. The chiefest reason that moved many to think that this place implied a corporal resurrection, was drawn from (a) the thousand years, as if the Saints should have a continual Sabbath enduring so long, to wit, a thousand years vacation after the six thousand of trouble, beginning at man's creation and expulsion out of Paradise into the sorrows of mortality, that ●…ce it is written, One day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thous●…d years as one day, therefore six thousand years being finished, (as the six days) the seventh should follow, for the time of Sabbath, and last a thousand years also, all the Saints rising corporally from the dead to ●…elebrate it. This opinion were tolerable, if it proposed only spiritual deights vn●…o the Saints during this space (we were once of the same opinion ourselves▪; but seeing the avouchers hereof affirm that the Saints after this resurrection shall do nothing but revel in fleshly banquets, where (b) the cheer shall exceed both modesty and measure, this is gross, and fit for none but carnal men to believe. But they that are really and truly spiritual, do call those Opinionists, (c) Chiliasts; the word is greek, and many be interpreted, millenaries, or Thousand-yere-ists. To confute them, here is no place, let us rather take the texts true sense along with us. Our LORD JESUS CHRIST saith: No man can enter into 〈◊〉 strong man's house, and take away his goods, unless he first bind the strong Mark. 3, 27 man, and then spoil his house: meaning by this strong man, the devil, because he alone was able to hold mankind in captivity: and meaning by the goods he would take away, his future faithful, whom the devil held as his own in divers sins and impieties. That this Stong-man therefore might be bound, the Apostle saw the Angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand: And he took, (saith he) the Dragon that old serpent, which is, the devil and Satan and bound him a thousand years, that is, restrained him from seducing or withholding them that were to be set free. The thousand years, I think may be taken two ways, either for that this shall fall out in the last thousand, that is, (d) on the sixth day of the works continuance, and then the Sabbath of the Saints should follow, which shall have no night, and bring them blessedness which hath no end: So that thus the Apostle may call the last part of the current thousand (which make the sixth day) a thousand years, using the part for the whole: or else a thousand years is put for eternity, noting the plenitude of time, by a number most perfect. For a thousand, is the solid quadrate of ten: ten times ten, is one hundred, and this is a quadrate, but it is but a plain one. But to produce the solid, multiply ten, by a hundred, and there ariseth one thousand. Now if an hundred be sometimes used for perfection, as we see it is in CHRIST'S words concerning him that should leave all and follow him, saying: He shall receive an hundered-fold more; (which the Apostle seemeth Mat. 19, 29 2 Cor. 6, 10 to expound, saying, As having nothing and yet possessings allthings, for he had said before, unto a faithful man the whole world is his riches) why then may not one thousand, be put for consummation, the rather, in that it is the most solid square that can be drawn from ten? And therefore we interpret that place of the Psalm, He hath always remembered his covenant Ps. 105, 8 and promise that he made to a thousand generations, by taking a thousand, for all in general. On. And ●…ee cast him into the bottomless pit, he cast the devils into that pit that is, the multitude of the wicked, whose malice unto GOD'S Church is bottomless, and their hearts a depth of envy against it: he cast him into this pit, not that he was not there before, but because the devil being shut from amongst the Godly, holds faster possession of the wicked: for he is a most sure hold of the devils, that is not only cast out from GOD'S servants, but pursues them also with a causeless hate: forward. And shut him up, and sealed the door upon him, that he should deceive the people no more till the thousand years were expired, he sealed, that is, his will was to keep it unknown, who belonged to the devil, and who did not. For this is unknown unto this world, for we know not whether he that standeth shall fall, or he that lieth along shall rise again. But how-so-ever this bond restraineth him from tempting the nations that are Gods selected, as he did before. For God chose them before the foundations of the world, meaning to take them out of the power of darkness, and set them in the kingdom of his sons glory, as the Apostle saith. For who knoweth not the devils daily seducing and drawing of others unto eternal torment, though they be none of the predestinate? Nor is it wonder i●… the devil subvert some of those who are even regenerate in Christ, and walk in his ways. For God knoweth those that be his, and the devil cannot draw a soul of them unto damnation. For this God knoweth, as knowing all things to come, not as one man seeth another, in presence, and cannot tell what shall be-come either of him he seeth, or of himself hereafter. The devil was therefore bound and locked up, that he should no more seduce the nations (the Church's members) whom he had held in error and impiety, before they were united unto the Church. It is not said, that he should deceive no man any more, but, that he should deceive the people no more, whereby questionless he meaneth the Church. Proceed: until the thousand years be fulfilled, that is, either the remainder of the sixth day, (the last thousand) or the whole time that the world was to continue. Nor may we understand the devil so to be barred from seducing, that at this time expired, he should seduce those nations again, whereof the Church consisteth, and from which he was forbidden before. But this place is like unto that of the Psalm, Our eyes wait upon the Lord until he have mercy upon us, (for the servants of God take not their eyes from beholding, Ps. ●…23, 〈◊〉 as soon as he hath mercy upon them) or else the order of the words is this, He ●…t him up, and sealed the door upon him until a thousand years were fulfilled, all that cometh between, namely, that he should not deceive the people, having no necessary connexion here-unto, but being to be severally understood, as if it were added afterwards, and so the sense run thus: And he shut him up, and sealed the door upon him until a thousand years were fulfilled, that he should not seduce the people, that is, therefore he shut him up so long, that he should seduce them no more. L. VIVES. FRom the (a) thousand] john's mention of a thousand years in this place, and Christ's words, I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new with Mat 26, 29 you in my Father's kingdom, together with many Prophecies touching Christ's kingdom in Jerusalem, made some imagine that Christ would return into the world, raise the Saints in their bodies, and live a thousand years here on earth in all joy, peace, and prosperity, far exceeding the golden age of the Poets, or that of Sibylla and Esayas. The first Author of this opinion was Papias Bishop of Jerusalem, who lived in the Apostles times. He was seconded by Irenaeus, Apollinarius, Tertullian (lib. de fidelium,) Victorinus 〈◊〉, & Lactantius. (divin. Instit. lib. 7.) And although Hierome deride and scoff at this opinion in many places, yet in his fourth book of his Commentaries upon Hieremy, he saith that he dare not condemn it, because many holy martyrs and religious Christians held it, so great an authority the person sometimes giveth to the position, that we must use great modesty in our dissension with them, and give▪ great reverence to their godliness and gravity. I cannot believe that the Saints held this opinion in that manner that Cerinthus the heretic did, of whom we read this in Eusebius. Cerinthus held that Christ would have an earthly kingdom in Jerusalem, after the resurrection, where the Saints should live in all society of humane lusts and concupiscences. Besides, against all truth of scripture, he held that for a thousand years space this should hold, with revels and marriage, and other works of corruption, only to de●…iue the carnal minded person. Dionysius disputing of S. john's revelation, and reciting some ancient traditions of the Church, hath thus much concerning this man. Cerinthus (quoth he) the author of the Cerinthian heresy, delighted much in getting his sect authority by wresting of scripture. His heresy was, that Christ's Kingdom should be terrestrial and being given up unto lust and gluttony himself, he affirmed nothing but such things as those two affects taught him. That all should abound with banquets and belly-chere and (for the more grace to his assertions) that the feasts of the law should be renewed, and the offering of carnal sacrifices restored. Irenaeus publisheth the secrecy of this heresy in his first book: they that would know it may find it there. Thus far Eusebius. Hist. Eccl. lib. 3. wherefore this was not Papias his opinion, whose original Hierome would otherwise have ascribed unto Cerinthus, who was more ancient than Papias, a little, though both lived in one age: nor would Iraeneus have written against Cerinthus, for he allowed of Papias his opinion, neither did all the sects agree in one as touching this thousand years: but each one taught that which seemed likeliest unto himself, and no wonder, in so vain a fiction. Dionysius of Alexandria (as Hierome affirmeth, In Esai. lib. 18.) wro●… an elegant work in derision of these Chiliasts, and there Golden Jerusalem, their reparation of the temple, their blood of sacrifices, there Sabbath, there circumsitions, there birth, there marriages, there banquets, there sovereignties, their wars, and triumphs. etc. (b) The cheer shall exceed.] So saith Lactantius: The earth shall yield her greatest faecundity, and yield her plenty untilled. The rocky mountains shall sweat honey, the rivers shall run wine, and the fountains milk. (To omit Cerinthus his relations which are far more odious. (c) Chiliast.] 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is a thousand. (d) On the sixth day.] There is a report that in the books of Elias the Prophet it was recorded that the world should last 6000. years, 2000 under vanity, unto Abraham, 2000 under the law unto Christ. and 2000 under Christ, unto the judgement. This by the Hebrews account: for the LXX. have above 3000. years from Adam to Abraham. And in Augustine's time the world lacked not 400 years of the full 6000. So that now, our Vulgar account is above 6700. years. Namely, from Our Saviour, 1522. Whom Eusebius and such as follow the LXX. affirm to have been borne in the year of the world 5100. and somewhat more. Therefore Augustine saith that the later end of the 6000. years, passed along in his time. And Lactantius, who lived before Augustine, under Constantine, saith that in his time there was but 200. of the 6000. years to run. Of the binding and losing of the Devil. CHAP. 8. AFter that (saith S. john) he must be loosed for a season. Well, although the Devil be bound and locked up that he should not seduce the Church, shall he therefore be looosed to seduce it? God forbid. That Church which God predestinated, and settled before the world's foundation, whereof it is written, God knoweth those that be his, that, the Devil shall never seduce: and yet it shallbe on earth even at the time of his losing, as it hath continued in successive estate ever since it was first erected, for by and by after, he saith that, the Devil shall bring his seduced nations in arms against it, whose number shallbe as the sea sands: And they went up (saith he) unto the plain of the earth, and compassed the tents of the Re●…▪ 20, 9, 10, Saints about, and the beloved city, but fire came down from God out of Heaven, and devoured them. And the Devil that deceived them was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false Prophets shallbe tormented even day and night for evermore. But this now belongeth to the last judgement, which I thought good to recite, lest some should suppose that the Devil being let loose again for a season should either find no Church at all, or by his violence and seducements should subvert all he findeth. Wherefore the devils imprisonment during the whole time included in this book (that is from Christ's first coming to his last) is not any particular restraint from seducing the Church, because he could not injure the Church were he never so free: otherwise if his bondage were a set prohibition from seduction what were his freedom but a full permission to seduce? which God forbid should ever be! No his binding is an inhibition of his full power of tempration, which is the means of man's being seduced, either by his violence or his fraudulence. Which if he were suffered to practise in that long time of infirmity, he would pervert and destroy the faith of many such souls as God's goodness will not suffer to be cast down. To avoid this inconvenience, bound he is; And in the last and smallest remainder of time shall he be loosed: for we read that he shall rage in his greatest malice only three years and six months, and he shall hold wars with such foes as all his enmity shall never be able either to conquer or injure. But if he were not let loose at all, his malevolence should be the less conspicuous, and the faithfuls patience the less glorious; briefly it would be less apparent unto how blessed an end GOD had made use of his cursedness, in not debarring him absolutely from tempting the Saints (though he be utterly cast out from their inward man) that they might reap a benefit from his badness: and in binding him firmly in the hearts of such as vow themselves his ●…ectators, lest if his wicked envy had the full scope, he should enter in amongst the weaker members of the Church, and by violence and subtlety together, deter and dissuade them from their faith, their only mean of salvation. Now in the end, he shallbe loosed, that the City of GOD may see what a potent adversary she hath conquered by the grace of her Saviour and redeemer, unto his eternal glory. O what are we, and compare us unto the Saints that shall live to see this! when such an enemy shall be let loose unto them as we can scarcely resist although he be bound! (although no doubt but Christ hath had some soldiers in these our times, who if they had lived in the times to come, would have avoided all the devils traps by their true discrete prudence) or have withstood them with undaunted patience.) This binding of the Devil began when the Church began to spread from judea into other regions, and lasteth yet, and shall do until his time be expired: for men even in these times do refuse the chain wherein he held them, infidelity, and turn unto GOD, and shall do no doubt unto the world's end. And then is he bound in respect of every private man, when the soul that was his vassal, cleareth herself of him, nor ceaseth his shutting upon, when they die wherein he was shut: for the world shall have a continual succession of the haters of Christianity, whilst the earth endureth, and in their hearts the devil shall ever be shut up. But it may be a doubt whether any one shall turn unto GOD, during the space Mat, 12, 29 of his three years and an halves reign, for how can this stand good, How can a man enter into a strong man's house & spoil his goods, except he first bind the strongman, & then spoil his house, if he may do it when the strong man is loose? This seemeth to prove directly that during that space, none shallbe converted, but that the devil shall have a continual fight with those that are in the faith already, of whom he may perhaps conquer some certain number, but none of God's predestinate, not one. For it is not idle that john the Author of this Revelation, saith in one of his Epistles, concerning some Apostatas, They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us they would have continued with us. But what then shall become of the children? for it is incredible, that the Christians 1. joh. 2. 19 should have no children during this space: or that if they had them, they would not see them baptised by one means or other. How then shall these be taken from the devil, the spoil of whose house no man can attain before he bind him? So that it is more credible to avouch, that the church in that time shall neither want decrease nor augmentation, and that the parents in standing stiffly for their children's baptism, (together with others that shall but even then become believers) shall beat the devil back in his greatest liberty: that is, they shall both wittily observe and warily avoid his newest stratagems, and most secret underminings, and by that means keep themselves clear of his merciless clutches. Notwithstanding, that place of Scripture, How can a man enter into a strong man's house, etc. is true, for all that: and according thereunto, the order was, that the strong should first be bound, and his goods taken from him out of all nations, to multiply the church in such sort, that by the true and faithful understanding of the Prophecies that were to be fulfilled, they might take away his goods from him when he was in his greatest freedom: for as we must confess, that because iniquity increaseth, the love of many shall be cold, and Mat. 24. 12 that many of them that are not written in the book of life shall fall before the force of the raging newly loosed devil: So must we consider what faithful shall as then be found on the earth, and how diverse shall even then fly to the bosom of the Church, by God's grace, and the Scriptures plainness: wherein amongst other things, that very end which they see approaching is presaged: and that they shall be both more firm in belief of what they rejected before, and also more strong to withstand the greatest assault and sorest batteries. If this be so, his former binding left his good to all future spoil▪ be he bound or lose, unto which end, these words, How can a man enter into a strong man's house, etc. do principally tend. What is meant by Christ's reigning a thousand years with the Saints, and the difference between that and his eternal reign. CHAP. 9 NOw doubtless whilst the devil is thus bound, Christ reigneth with his Saints the same thousand years, understood both after one manner, that is, all the time from his first coming, not including that kingdom whereof he saith, Co●…e you blessed of my Father, inherit you the kingdom prepared for you: for if there Mat. 24. 34 were not another reigning of Christ with the Saints in another place, whereof himself saith; I am with you always unto the end of the world: the Church now upon earth should not be called his kingdom, or the kingdom of heaven: for Mat. 28. 20 the Scribe that was taught unto the kingdom of God, lived in this thousand years. And the Reapers shall take the tars out of the Church, which grew (until harvest) together with the good corn: which Parable he expoundeth, saying, The Mat. 13. 52 ●…est is the end of the world, and the reapers are the Angels, as then the tars are Mat. 13. 39 40, etc. gathered and burned in the fire: so shall it be in the end of the world. The son of man shall send forth his Angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend. What doth he speak hear of that kingdom where there is no offence? No, but of the Church, that is here below. He saith further: Who-so-ever shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but who-so-ever shall observe and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Thus both these are done in the kingdom of heaven, both the breach of the commandments, and the keeping of them. ●…hen he proceedeth: Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees (that is of such as break what they teach, and as Christ 〈◊〉 elsewhere of them, Say well but do nothing) unless you exceed these, that is, ●…th teach and observe, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now the kingdom where the keeper of the commandments, and the contemner were 〈◊〉 said to be, is one, and the kingdom into which, he that saith and doth not, shall not enter, is another. So then where both sorts are, the church is, that now is: but where the better sort is only, the church is, as it shall be hereafter, utterly exempt from evil. So that the church now on earth is both the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. The Saints reign with him now, but not as they shall do hereafter: yet the tars reign hot with them though they grow in the Church ●…ngst the good seed. They reign with him who do as the Apostle saith: If ye Colos●… 3, 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 be risen▪ with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the 〈◊〉 ●…d of God: Set your affections on things which are above, and not on things 〈◊〉 are on earth, of whom also he saith, that their conversation is in heaven. ●…ly they reign with Christ who are with all his kingdom where he reigneth. 〈◊〉 how do they reign with him at all, who continuing below, until the world's 〈◊〉▪ until his kingdom be purged of all the tars, do nevertheless seek their 〈◊〉 pleasures, and not their redeemers? This book therefore of Iohns●…th ●…th of this kingdom of malice, wherein there are daily conflicts with the ●…my, sometimes with victory, and sometimes with foil, until the time of that most peaceable kingdom approach, where no enemy shall ever show his 〈◊〉; this, and the first resurrection are the subject of the Apostles Revelation. For having said that the devil was bound for a thousand years, and then was to be loosed for a while, he recapitulateth the gifts of the Church during the said thousand years. And I saw seats, (saith he) and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them. This may not be understood of the last judgement: but by the seals are 〈◊〉 the ruler's places of the Church, and the persons themselves by whom it is governed: and for the judgement given them, it cannot be better explained then in these words, whatsoever ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever Mat. 18, 18 ye lose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Therefore saith Saint Paul: 〈◊〉 have I to do to judge them also that be without? do not ye judge them that 〈◊〉 within? On. And I saw the souls of them which were slain for the witness of jesus 1. Cor 5, 12 〈◊〉 for the word of God: understand that which followeth: they reigned with Christ a 〈◊〉 years. These were the martyrs souls, having not their bodies as yet, for 〈◊〉 souls of the Godly are not excluded from the Church, which as it is now is 〈◊〉 kingdom of God. Otherwise she should not mention them, nor celebrate their ●…ories at our communions of the body and blood of Christ: nor were it necessary 〈◊〉 ●…in our perils, to run unto his Baptism, or to be afraid to die without it; nor to seek reconciliation to his church, if a man have incurred any thing that exacteth repentance, or burdeneth his conscience. Why do we those things, but that even such as are dead in the faith, are members of God's Church? Yet are they not with their bodies, and yet nevertheless, their soul's reign with Christ, the whole space of this thousand years. And therefore we read elsewhere in the same book. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: Even so saith the spirit, for they rest from their labours; and their works follow them. Thus than the Church Apo. 14. 13 reigneth with Christ, first in the quick and the dead: for Christ (as the Apostle saith) that he might thenceforth rule both over the quick and the dead. But the Apostle here nameth the souls of the martyrs only, because their kingdom is most glorious after death, as having fought for the truth until death. But this is but Rom. 14 a taking of the part for the whole, for we take this place to include all the dead that belong to christ kingdom, which is, the Church: But the sequel, And which did not worship the beast, neither his Image, neither had taken his mark upon their foreheads, or on their hands: this is meant both of the quick and dead. Now although we must make a more exact inquiry what this beast was, yet is it not against Christianity to interpret it, the society of the wicked, opposed against the come pany of God's servants, and against his holy City. Now his image, that is, his dissimulation, in such as profess religion, and practise infidelity. They feign to be what they are not, and their show (not their truth) procureth them the name of Christians. For this Beast consisteth not only of the professed enemies of Christ and his glorious Hierarchy, but of the tars also, that in the world's end are to be gathered out of the very fields of his own Church. And who are they that adore not the beast, but those of whom Saint Paul's advise taketh effect, Be not 2. Cor. 6, 14. [unequally] yoked with the Infidels? These give him no adoration, no consent, no obedience, nor take his mark, that is, the brand of their own sin, upon their foreheads, by professing it, or on their hands, by working according to it. They that are clear of this, be they living, or be they dead, they reign with Christ all this whole time, from the union unto him, to the end of the time implied in the thousand years. The rest (saith Saint john) shall not live, for now is the joh. 5, 25. hour when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God, and they that he are it shall live, the rest shall not live: but the addition; until the thousand years be finished; implieth, that they shall want life all the time that they should have it, in attaining it, by passing through faith from death to life. And therefore on the day of the general resurrection, they shall rise also, not unto life, but unto judgement, that is, unto condemnation, which is truly called the second death, for he that liveth not before the thousand years be expired, that is, he that heareth not the saviours voice, and passeth not from death to life, during the time of the first resurrection, assuredly shall be thrown both body and soul into the second death, at the day of the second resurrection. For Saint john proceedeth plainly: This (saith he) is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection, and part of it is his, who doth not only arise from death in sin, but continueth firm in his resurrection. On such (saith he) the second death hath no power: But it hath power over the rest of whom he said before, The rest shall not live until the thousand years be finished: because that in all that whole time meant by the thousand years, although that each of them had a bodily life (at one time or other) yet they spent it, and ended it without arising out of the death of iniquity, wherein the devil held them: which resurrection should have been their only mean to have purchased them a part in the first resurrection, over which the second death hath no power. An answer to the objection of some, affirming that resurrection is proper to the body only, and not to the soul. CHAP. 10. SOme object this, that resurrection pertaineth only to the body, and therefore the first resurrection is a bodily one: for that which falleth (say they) that may rise again: but the body falleth by death, (for so is the word Cadaver, a carcase, derived of Cado, to fall▪) Ergo▪ rising again belongeth solely to the body, and not unto the soul. Well, but what will you answer the Apostle, that in as plain terms as may be, he calleth the soul's bettering, a resurrection: they were not revived in the outward man, but in the inward, unto whom he said, If ye then be risen with Christ, seek the things which are above: which he explaineth elsewhere, saying; Rom. 6. 4. Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the father, so we also should walk in newness of life. Hence also is that place: Awake thou that sleepest, Ephes. 5 14 and stand up from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. Now whereas they say, none can rise but those that fall, ergo, the body only can arise, why can they not hear that shrill sound of the spirit. Depart not from him lest you fall, and again, josuah 22. Rom. 14. 4▪ 1. Cor. 1●…▪ ●…2. H●… standeth or falleth to his own master: and further, Let him that thinketh he s●…eth, take heed lest he fall: I think these places mean not of bodily falls, but 〈◊〉 the souls. If then resurrection concern them that fall, and that the soul ●…y also fall; it must needs follow, that the soul may rise again. Now Saint 〈◊〉 having said, On such the second death shall have no power, proceedeth thus: But 〈◊〉 shall be the Priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand ●…es: Now this is not meant only of those whom the Church peculiarly calleth Bishops and Priests, but as we are all called Christians, because of our mystical Chrism, our unction, so are we all Priests in being the members of ●…e Priest. whereupon Saint Peter calleth us, A royal Priesthood, an holy nation▪ And mark how briefly Saint john insinuateth the deity (a) of Christ in these 1. Pe●…. 2, 9 words, of God, and of Christ, that is of the Father and of the Son, yet as he was made the son of man, because of his servants shape, so in the same respect was he made a Priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech, whereof we have spoken diverse times in this work. L. VIVES. DEity (a) of Christ] For it were a damnable and blasphemous injury to God to suffer any one to have Priests, but him alone: the very Gentiles would by no means allow it. 〈◊〉 Philippic. 2. Of Gog and Magog, whom the Devil (at the world's end) shall stir up against the Church of God. CHAP. 11. ANd when the thousand years (saith he) are expired, Satan shall be loosed out R●…▪ 2 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 of his prison and shall go out to deceive the people which are in the four quarters of the earth, even God and Magog, to gather them together into Battle whose number is as the sand of the sea. So then the aim of his decept shallbe this war, for he used divers ways to seduce before, and all tended to evil. He shall leave the dens of his hate, and burst out into open persecution; This shallbe the last persecution, hard before the last judgement, and the Church shall suffer it, all the earth over: the whole city of the Devil shall afflict the City of God at these times in all places. This Gog and this Magog are not to be taken for (a) any particular Barbarous nations, nor for the Geteses and Messagetes, because of their literal affinity, nor for any other Countries beyond the romans jurisdiction: he meaneth all the earth when he saith, The people which are in the four quarters of the Earth, and then addeth that they are Gog and Magog. (b) Gog, is, an house: and Magog, of an house: as if he had said, the house and he that cometh of the house. So that they are the nations wherein the Devil was bound before and now that he is loosed, cometh from thence, they being as the house, and he as coming out of the house. But we refer both these names unto the nations, and neither unto him, they are both the house, because the old enemy is hid and housed in them: and they are of the house, when out of secret hate they burst into open violence. Now where as he saith: They went up into the plain of the Earth, and compassed the tents of the Saints about, and the beloved City, we must not think they came to any one set place, as if the Saints tents were in any one certain nation, or the beloved City either: no, this City is nothing but God's Church, dispersed throughout the whole earth, and being resident in all places, and amongst all nations, as them words, the plain of the Earth, do insinuate: there shall the tents of the Saints stand, there shall the beloved Ctty stand: There shall the fury of the presecuting enemy girt them in with multitudes of all nations united in one rage of persecution: there shall the Church be hedged in with tribulations, and shut up on every side: yet shall she not forsake her warfare, which is signified by the word, Tents. L. VIVES. ANy (a) particular Barbarous.] The jews (saith Hierome) and some of our Christians also following them herein, think that Gog is meant of the Huge nation of the Scythians, beyond Caucasus and the fens of Maeotis, reaching as far as India and the Caspian Sea, and that these (after the Kingdom hath lasted a thousand years at Jerusalem) shal●… be stirred up by the Devil to war against Israel and the Saints, bringing an innumerable multitude with them, first out of Mossoch, which josephus calls Cappadocia, and then out of Thubal, which the Hebrews affirm to be Italy, and he holdeth to be Spain. They shall bring also the Persians, Ethiopians and Lybians, with them of Gomer and Theogorma, to wit, the Galatians and Phrygians, Saba also and Dedan, the Carthaginians, and Tharsians. Thus far Hierome. In Ezch. lib. 11. (b) Gog is an house.] So saith Hierome. So that these two words imply all proud and false knowledge that exalteth itself against the truth. Whether the fire falling from heaven, and devouring them, imply the last torments of the wicked. CHAP. 12. But his following words, fire came down from GOD out of heaven, and devoured them, are not to be understood of that punishment, which these words imply: Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire: for than shall they be cast into the fire; and not fire be cast down upon them. But the first fire insinuateth the firmness of the Saints, that will not yield unto the wills of the wicked: for heaven is the firmament, whose firmness shall burn them up for very zeal and vexation, that they cannot draw the servants of God unto the side of Antichrist. This is the fire from God that shall burn them up, in that God hath so confirmed his Saints, that they become plagues unto their opposites. Now whereas I said zeal, know that zeal is taken in good part or in evil: in good, as here; The zeal of Psal. 69. thine house hath eaten me up: in evil, as here: Zeal hath possessed the ignorant people. And now the fire shall eat up these opposers, but not that fire of the last judgement. Besides if the Apostle by this fire from heaven do imply the plague that shall fall upon such of Antichrists supporters, as Christ at his coming shall find left on earth, yet notwithstanding this shall not be the wickeds last plague, for that shall come upon them afterwards, when they are risen again in their bodies. Whether it be a thousand years until the persecution under Antichrist. CHAP. 13. THis last persecution under Antichrist (as we said before, and the Prophet Daniel proveth) shall last three years and an half: a little space! but whether it belong to the thousand years of the devils bondage, and the Saints reign with Christ; or be a space of time more than the other fully accounted, is a great question. If we hold the first part, than we must say that the Saints with Christ reigned longer than the devil was bound. Indeed the Saints shall reign with him in the very heat of this persecution, and stand out against the devil, when he is in greatest power to molest them. But why then doth the Scripture confine both their reign and the devils bondage to the just sum of a thousand years, seeing the devils captivity is out three years and six months sooner than their kingdom with Christ? well, if we hold the later part, that these three years and a half, are beyond the just thousand, to understand Saint john that the reign of the Saints with Christ, and the devils imprisonment ended both at once; (according to the thousand years which he giveth alike unto both) so that the said time of persecution belongeth neither to the time of the one, nor the other: then we must confess, that during this persecution, the Saints reign not with Christ. But what is he dare affirm, that his members do not reign with him, when they do most firmliest of all, keep their coherence with him? at such ●…e as when the wars do rage, the more apparent is their constancy, and the more frequent is the ascent from martyrdom to glory? If we say they reign not because of the affliction that they endure, we may then infer, that in the times already past, if the Saints were once afflicted, their kingdom with their Saviour ceased: and so they whose souls this Evangelist beheld, namely of those who were slain for the testimony of JESUS, and for the word of God, reigned not with Christ in their persecutions, nor were they the kingdom of Christ, who were Christ's most excellent possessions. Oh this is absurd and abominable! No, the victorious souls of the glorious martyrs, subduing all earthly toils and tortures, went up to reign with Christ (as they had reigned with him before) until the expiration of the thousand years, and then shall take their bodies again, and so reign body and soul with him for evermore. And therefore, in this sore persecution of three years and an half, both the souls of those that suffered for Christ before, and those that are then to suffer, shall reign with him until the world's date be out, and the kingdom begin that shall never have end. Wherefore assuredly the Saints reign with Christ, shall continue longer than Satan's bondage, for they shall reign with God the son their King, three years and an half after Satan be loosed. It remaineth then, that when we hear that, The Priests of God and of Christ, shall reign with him a thousand years, and that after a thousand years the devil shall be loosed, we must understand that either the thousand years are decretively meant of the devils bondage only, and not of the Saints kingdom: or that the years of the Saints kingdom are longer, and they of the devils bondage shorter, or that seeing three years and an half is but a little space, therefore it was not counted, either because the Saint's reign had more than it conceived, or the devils bondage less; as we said of the four hundred years in the sixteen book. The time was more, yet that sum only was set down, and this (if one observe it) is very frequent in the Scriptures. Satan and his followers condemned: A recapitulation of the resurrection, and the last judgement. CHAP. 14. AFter this rehearsal of the last persecution, he proceeds with the success of the devil and his congregation at the last judgement. And the devil (saith he) Rom. 20. 11 that deceived them, was cast into a lake of fire & brimstone, where the beast and the false Prophet shall be tormented even day and night for evermore. The beast (as I said before) is the city of the wicked: his false Prophet is either Antichrist, or his image, the figmet that I spoke of before. After all this, cometh the last judgement, in the second resurrection, to wit, the bodies, and this he relateth by way of recapitulation, as it was revealed unto him, I saw (saith he) a great white throne, and one that sat on it, from whose face flew away both the earth and heaven, and their place was no more found. He saith not, and heaven and earth flew away from his face [as importing their present flight] for that befell not until after the judgement, but, from whose face flew away both heaven and earth, namely afterwards, when the judgement shall be finished, than this heaven and this earth shall cease, and a new world shall begin. But the old one shall not be utterly consumed, it shall only pass through an universal change; and therefore the Apostle saith. The fashion of this world goeth away, and I would have you without care. The fashion goeth away, not the 1. Cor. 7, 31. nature. Well, let us follow Saint john, who after the sight of this throne, etc. proceedeth thus. And I saw the dead both great and small stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened which is the book (a) of life, and the dead were judged of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. Behold, the opening of books, and of one book! This what it was, he showeth: which is the book of life. The other are the holy ones of the Old and New-Testament, that therein might be showed what God had commanded: but in the book (b) of life were the commissions and omissions of every man on ●…th, particularly recorded. If we should imagine this to be an earthly book, 〈◊〉 as ours are, who is he that could imagine how huge a volume it were, or how long the contents of it all, would be a reading? Shall there be as many Angels as men, and each one recite his deeds that were committed to his guard? then shall there not be one book for all, but each one shall have one. I but the Scripture here mentions but one in this kind: It is therefore some divine power ●…ed into the consciences of each peculiar, calling all their works (wonderfully & strangely) unto memory, and so making each man's knowledge accuse or excuse his own conscience: these are all, and singular, judged in themselves. This power divine is called a book, and fitly, for therein is read all the facts that the doer hath committed, by the working of this he remembreth all: But the Apostle to explain the judgement of the dead more fully, and to sh●…w how it compriseth great and small, he makes at it were a return to what he had omitted (or rather deferred) saying, And the sea gave up her dead which were within 〈◊〉, and death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them. This was before that they were judged & yet was the judgement mentioned before so that as I said, he returns, to his intermission, & having said thus much. The sea gave up her dead. etc. As afore, he now proceedeth in the true order, saying, And they were judged every 〈◊〉 according to his works. This he repeateth again here, to show the order 〈◊〉 was to manage the judgement whereof he had spoken before in these words, And the dead were judged of those things which were written in the books, ac●…g to their works. L. VIVES. OF (a) life] So readeth Hierome, and so readeth the vulgar, we find not any that readeth it, Of the life of every one, as it is in some copies of Augustine. The Greek is just as we ●…d, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of life, without addition. Of the dead, whom the Sea, and death, and hell shall give up to judgement. CHAP. 15. But what dead are they that the Sea shall give up? for all that die in the sea are not kept from hell, neither are their bodies kept in the sea: Shall we say that the sea keepeth the death that were good, and hell those that were evil, horrible ●…dity! Who is so sottish as to believe this? no, the sea here is fitly understood to imply the whole world. Christ therefore intending to show that those whom he found on earth at the time appointed, should be judged with those that were to rise again, calleth them dead men, and yet good men, unto whom it was 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. But them he calleth evil of whom he said, Let the dead bury their dead. Besides, they may be called dead, in that their bodies are deaths objects: wherefore the Apostle saith: The 〈◊〉 is dead, because of sin, but the spirit is life for righteousness sake: show that Rom. 8. 12 in a mortal man, there is both a dead body and a living spirit, yet said he not, the body is mortal, but dead, although according to his manner of speech, he had called bodies, mortal, but alittle before. Thus than the sea gave up her dead; the world wave up all mankind that as yet had not approached the grave. And death and hell (quoth he) gave up the dead which were in them. The sea gave up his, for as they were then so were they found: but death and hell had theirs first called to the life which they had, left & then gave them up. Perhaps it were not sufficient to say death only, or hell only, but he saith both, death and hell, death for such as might only die, and not enter hell, and hell for such as did both, for if it be not absurd to believe that the ancient fathers believing in Christ to come, were all at rest (a) in a place far from all torments, (and yet within hell) until Christ's passion, and descension thither set them at liberty: then surely the faithful that are already redeemed by that passion, never know what hell meaneth, from their death until they arise and receive their rewards. And they judged every one according to their deeds: a brief declaration of the judgement. And death and hell (saith he) were cast into the lake of fire: this is the second death, Death and Hell, are but the devil and his angels, the only authors of death and hell's torments. This he did but recite before, when he said, And the Devil that deceived them was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone: But his mystical addition, Where the beast and the false Prophet shall be tormented, etc. That he showeth plainly here: Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Now as for the book of life, it is not meant to put God in remembrance of any thing; lest he should forget, but it showeth who are predestinate unto salvation, for God is not ignorant of their number, neither readeth he this book to find it: his prescience is rather the book itself wherein all are written, that is foreknowen. L. VIVES. IN a (a) place.] They call this place Abraham's bosom: wherein were no pains felt as Christ showeth plainly of Lazarus Luc. 16. and that this place was far from the dungeon of the wicked: but where it is, or what is meant hereby, S. Augustine confesseth that he cannot define. Sup. Genes. lib. 8. These are secrets all unneedfull to be known, and all we unworthy to know them. Of the new Heaven, and the new Earth CHAP. 16. THe judgement of the wicked being past as he foretold, the judgement of the good●…ust follow, for he hath already explained what Christ said in brief They shall go into everlasting pain: now he must express the sequel: And the righteous Mat. 25. into life eternal. And I saw (saith he) a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and earth were gone, and so was thesea, for such was the order described before by him when he saw the great white throne, & one sitting upon it, from whose face they fled. So then they that were not in the book of life being judged, and cast into eternal fire, what, or where it is, I hold is unknown to (a) all but those unto whom it please the spirit to reveal it then shall this world lose the figure by worldly fire, as it was erst destroyed by earthly water. Then (as I said) shall all the world's corruptible qualities be burnt away, all those that held correspondence with our corruption, shall be agreeable with immortality, that the world being so substantially renewed, may be fitly adapted unto the men whose substances are renewed also. But for that which followeth, There 〈◊〉 no more sea, whether it imply that the sea should be dried up by that universal conflagration, or be transformed into a better essence, I cannot easily determine. Heaven and Earth, were read, shallbe renewed but as concerning the sea, I have not read any such matter, that I can remember: unless that other place in this book, of that which he calleth as it were a sea of glass, like unto crystal, import any such alteration. But in that place he speaketh not of the world's end, neither doth he say directly a sea, but, as a sea. Notwithstanding it is the Prophet's guise to speak of truths in mystical manner, and to mix truths and types together: and so he might say, there was no more sea, in the same sense that he said, the sea shall give up her dead, intending that there should be no more turbulent times in the world, which he insinuateth under the word, Sea. L. VIVES. Unknown (a) to all] [To all? nay (Saint Augustine) it seems you were never at the schoole-mens lectures. There is no freshman there, at lest no graduate, but can tell [No word of this in Lowaine copy.] that it is the elementany fire which is between the sphere of the moon, and the air, that shall come down, and purge the earth of dross, together with the air and water. If you like not this, another will tell you, that the beams of the Son kindle a fire in the midst of the air, as in a burning glass, and so work wonders. But I do not blame you: fire was not of that use in your time that it is now of, when e●…y Philosopher (to omit the divines) can carry his mouth, his hands and his feet full of fire 〈◊〉 in the midst of December's cold, and julies' heat. Of Philosophers they become divines, and yet keep their old fiery forms of doctrine still, so that they have far better judgement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hot case than you or your predecessors ever had.] Of the glorification of the Church, after death, for ever. CHAP. 17. AND I john (saith he) saw that Holy City, new jerusalem, come down R●…ue. 21. 2 3, etc. from GOD out of Heaven, prepared as a bride trimmed for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, behold, the Tabernacle of GOD is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shallbe his people, and he himself shallbe their GOD with them. And GOD shall wipeawaie all tears from their eyes, and there shallbe no more death, neither tears, neither crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the first things are passed. And he that sat upon the Throne said, behold, I make allthings new, etc. This city is said to come from Heaven, because the grace of GOD that founded it is heavenly, as GOD saith in Esay. I am the LORD that made thee. Esa. 45 This grace of his came down from heaven even from the beginning, and since, the citizens of GOD have had their increase by the same grace, given 〈◊〉 the spirit, from heaven, in the fount of regeneration. But at the last judgement of GOD by his Son Christ, this only shall appear in a state so glorious, that all the ancient shape shallbe cast aside: for the bodies of each member shall cast aside their old corruption, and put on a new form of immortality. For it were too gross impudence to think that this was 〈◊〉 of the thousand years aforesaid: wherein the Church is said to reign with Christ: because he saith directly, GOD shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and there shallbe no more death, neither sorrows, neither crying, neither shall there be any more pain. Who is so obstinately absurd, or so absurdly obstinate as to aver, that any one Saint (much less the whole society of them) shall pass this transitory life without tears or sorrows, or ever hath passed it, clear of them? seeing that the more holy his desires are, and the more zealous his holiness, the more tears shall bedew his Orisons. Is it not the Heavenly jerusalem (that saith,) My tears have been my meat day Psal. 42, 3 〈◊〉 6, 6 and night? And again: I cause my bed every night to swim, and water my couch with tears and besides: My sorrow is renewed? Are not they his Sons that bewail that which they will not forsake? But be clothed in it that their Rom. 8, 23 mortality may be reinuested with eternity? and having the first fruits of the spirit do sigh in themselves, waiting for the adoption, [that is] the redemption of their bodies? Was not Saint Paul one of the Heavenly City, nay and that the rather in that he took so great care for the earthly Israelites? And when (a) shall death have to do in that City, but when they may say: Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh hell, where is thy (b) victory? The sting of death is sin. This 1 Cor. 15 55 could not be said there where death had no sting: but as for this world, Saint john himself saith: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us. And in this his Revelation, there are many things written for 1 john 1 the excercising of the reader's understanding, and there are but few things, whose understanding may be an induction unto the rest: for he repeateth the same thing, so many ways, that it seems wholly pertinent unto another purpose: and indeed it may often be found as spoken in another kind. But here where he saith: GOD shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, etc.: this is directly meant of the world to come, and the immortality of the Saints, for there shallbe no sorrow, no tears, nor cause of sorrow or tears; if any one think this place obscure let him look for no plainness in the Scriptures. L. VIVES. THy (a) victory?] Some read, contention: but the original is, Victory, and so do Hierom and Ambrose read it, often. Saint Paul hath the place out of Osee. chap. ●…3. ver. 14. and useth it. 1. Cor. 16. ver. 55. (b) When shall death] The City of GOD shall see death, until the words that were said of Christ after his resurrection, Oh hell, where is thy victory? may be said of all our bodies, that is, at the resurrection, when they shallbe like his glorified body. Saint Peter's doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. CHAP. 18. NOw let us hear what Saint Peter saith of this judgement. There shall come (saith he) in the last days, mockers, which will walk after their lusts, and say, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers died, all things continue 〈◊〉 Pet. 3, 4, 5, 6 etc. alike from the beginning of the creation. For this, they (willingly) know not, that the heavens were of old, and the earth that was of the water, and by the water by the word of GOD, wherefore the world, that then was, perished, over-flowed with the water. But the heavens and earth that now are, are kept by the same word in store and reserved unto fire against the day of judgement; and of the destruction of ungodly men. Dearcly beloved be not ignorant of this, that one day with the LORD is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one. day. The LORD is not flack concerning his promise, (as some men count slackness) but is patient toward us, and would have no man to perish, but would have all men to come to repentance. But the day of the LORD will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a noise, and the elements shall melt with 〈◊〉, and the earth with the works that are therein shallbe burnt up. Seeing therefore all these must be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conversation and Godliness, longing for, and hasting unto the coming of the day of GOD, by the which, the heavens being on fire shallbe dissolved and the elements shall melt with heat. But welooke for a new heaven, and a new earth according to his promise wherein dwelleth righteousness. Thus far. Now here is no mention of the resurrection of the dead: but enough concerning the destruction of the world, where his mention of the world's destruction already past, giveth us sufficient warning to believe the dissolution to come. For the world that was then perished (saith he) at that time: (not only the earth, but that part of the air also which the water (a) possessed, or got above, and so consequently almost all those airy regions, which he calleth the heaven, or rather (in the plural) the heavens) but not the spheres wherein the Sun and the Stars have their places, they were not touched: the rest was altered by humidity, and so the earth perished, and lost the first form by the deluge. But the heavens and earth (saith he) that now are) are kept by the same word in store, and reserved unto fire against the day of judgement, and of the destruction of ungodly men. Therefore the same heaven and earth that remained after the deluge, are they that are reserved unto the fire aforesaid, unto the day of judgement and perdition of the wicked. For because of this great change he sticketh not to say, there shallbe a destruction of men also, whereas indeed their essences shall never be anni●…e, although they live in torment. Yea but (may some say) if this old heaven and earth shall at the world's end be burned before the new ones be made, where shall the Saints be in the time of this conflagration, since they have bodies and therefore must be in some bodily place? We may answer, in the upper parts, whither the fire as then shall no more ascend, than the water did in the deluge. For at this day the Saints bodies shallbe movable whither their wills do please: nor need they fear the fire, being now both immortal and incorruptible: (b) for the three children though their bodies were corruptible, were notwithstanding preserved from losing an hair by the fire, and might not the Saints bodies be preserved by the same power? L. VIVES. THe (a) water possessed] For the two upper regions of the air do come just so low that they are bounded with a circle drawn round about the earthly, highest mountains tops. Now the water in the deluge being fifteen cubits higher than the highest mountain, it both drowned that part of the air wherein we live, as also that part of the middle region wherein the birds do usually fly: both which in Holy writ, and in Poetry also are called Heavens. (b) The three] Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, at Babylon, who were cast into a ●…nace for scorning of Nabuchadnezzars golden statue. Dan. 3. Saint Paul's words to the Thessalonians: Of the manifestations of Antichrist whose times shall immediately forerun the day of the Lord. CHAP. 19 I See I must overpass many worthy sayings of the Saints, concerning this day; lest my work should grow to too great a volume: but yet Saint Paul's I may by no means omit. Thus saith he. Now I beseech you brethren by the coming 2. Thess. 2. 1. etc. of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, and by our assembling unto him, that you be not suddenly moved from your mind, nor troubled neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as if it were from us, as though the day of CHRIST were at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come (a) a fugitive first, and that that man of sin be disclosed, even the son of perdition: which is an adversary, and exalteth himself against all is called god, or that is worshipped: so that he sitteth as God in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his due time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he which now withholdeth, shall let till he be taken out of the way: and the wicked man shallbe revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall abolish with the brightness of his coming: even him whose coming is by the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and in all deceivableness of unrighteousness amongst them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And therefore God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe lies; that all they might be damned which believe not in the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. This is doubtless meant of Antichrist and the day of judgement. For this day he saith shall not come, until that Antichrist be come before it, he that is called here a fugitive from the face of the Lord: for if all the ungodly deserve this name ●…y not he most of all? But in what temple of God he is to sit as God, it is doubtful: whether it be the ruined Temple of Solomon, or in the church. For it cannot be any heathen temple. Saint Paul would never call any such the Temple of God. Some therefore do by Antichrist understand the devil and all his domination, together with the whole multitude of his followers: and imagine that it were better to say, he shall sit (b) in Templum dei, as the Temple of God, that is, as though he were the church: as we say (c) Sedet in amicum, he sitteth as a friend, and so forth. But whereas he saith, And now ye know what withholdeth, that is, what stayeth him from being revealed; this implieth that they knew it before, and therefore he doth not relate it here. Wherefore we that know not what they knew, do strive to get understanding of his knowledge of the Apostle, but we cannot; because his addition maketh it the more mystical. For what is this: The mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he that withholdeth shall let till he be taken out of the way? Truly I confess, that I am utterly ignorant of his meaning: but what others conjectures are hereof I will not be silent in. Some say Saint Paul spoke (d) of the state of Rome, and would not be plainer, lest he should incur a slander that he wished Rome's Empire evil fortune, whereas it was hoped that (e) it should continue for ever. By the mystery of iniquity they say he meant Nero, whose deeds were great resemblances of Antichrists, so that some think that he shall rise again and be the true Antichrist. Others think he (f) never died, but vanished, and that he liveth (in (g) that age and vigour wherein he was supposed to be slain) until the time come that he shallbe revealed, and restored to his Kingdom. But this is too presumptuous an opinion. Only these words: He that withholdeth shall let till he be taken out of the way. May not unfitly be understood of Rome, as if he had said. He that now reigneth shall reign until he be taken away, And then the wicked man shallbe revealed. This is Antichrist, no man doubts it. Now some understand these words, Now ye know what withholdeth, and, the mystery of iniquity doth already work; to be meant only of the false christians in the church, who shall increase unto a number which shall make Antichrist a great people: this, say they, is the mystery of iniquity, for it is yet unrevealed: and therefore doth the Apostle animate the faithful to presevere, saying let him that holdeth, hold (for thus they take this place) until he be taken out of the way, that is, until Antichrist and his troops, (this unrevealed mystery of iniquity) depart out of the midst of the church. And unto this do they hold Saint john's words to belong: Babes it is the last time: And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now there are many Antichrists, whereby we know that it 1 joh. 2, 18, 19 is the last time. They went out from us but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. Thus (say they) even as before the end in this time which Saint john calls the last of all, many heretics (whom he calleth many Antichrists) went out of the church, so likewise hereafter all those that belong not unto CHRIST but unto the last, Antichrist shall depart out of the midst of CHRIST'S flock, and then shall the man of sin be revealed. Thus one taketh the Apostles words one way, and another another way, but this he meaneth assuredly, that CHRIST will not come to judge the world until Antichrist be here before him to seduce the world: (although it be GOD'S secret judgement that he should thus seduce it) for his coming shallbe (as it is said) by the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and lying, wonders, and in all deceiviablenesse of unrighteousness amongst them that perish. For than shall Satan be let loose, and work by this Antichrist unto all men's admiration, and yet all in falsehood. Now here is a doubt, whither they be called lying wonders because he doth but delude the eyes in these miracles, and doth not what he seems to do, or because that although they may be real actions, yet the end of them all is to draw ignorant mankind into this false conceit that such things could not be done but by a divine power, because they know not that the devil shall have more power given him then, them ever he had had before? For the fire that fell from Heaven, and burned the house and goods of Holy job, and the whirlwind that smote the building and slew his children, were neither of them false apparitions: yet were they the devils effects, by the power that GOD had given him. Therefore, in what respect these are called lying wonders, shallbe then more apparent. Howsoever, they shall seduce such as deserve to be seduced, because they received not the love of truth that they might be saved: whereupon the Apostle addeth this. Therefore shall GOD send them strong delusion that they should believe lies. GOD shall send it: because his just judgement permits it, though the devils malevolent desire performs it. That all they might be damned which believe not in the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Thus being condemned, they are feduced, and being seduced, condemned. But their seducement is by the secret judgement of God, justly secret, and secretly just; even his that hath judged continually, ever since the world began. But their condemnation shallbe by the last and manifest judgement of JESUS CHRIST, he that judgeth most justly and was most unjustly judged himself. L. VIVES. A (a) Fugitive] The greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a departing, and so the vulgar reads it. (b) In templum dei] So doth the greek read it. (c) Sedet in amicum] The common phrase of scripture. Esto mihi in deum: be thou my God, etc. (d) Of the state of Rome] Lactant. lib. 7. It was a general opinion, that towards the end of the world, there should ten Kings share the Roman Empire amongst them, and that Antichrist should be the eleventh and overcome them all. Hier. in Daniel. But these are idle conjectures. (e) It should continue for ever.] As the old Romans dreamt. So saith jupiter in Virgil. His ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pon●…, Imperium sine fine dedi.— I bound these fortunes by no time, or place, Their state shall ever stand.— (f) Never died] His death in deed was secret; for upon Galba's approach he fled in the night with four only in his company (and his head covered) unto his country house between via Salaria and Momentana, and there stabbed himself, and was buried by his nurses and concubine, in the Sepulchre of the Domitii near to the field. Sueton. (g) In that age] Being two and thirty years old. Saint Paul's doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. CHAP. 20. But the Apostle saith nothing of the resurrection of the dead in this place marry in another place he saith thus, I would not have you ignorant (brethren) 1 Thess. 4, 13, 14, etc. concerning those which sleep, that ye sorrow not even as those which have no hope: for if we believe that JESUS is dead, and is risen again, even so, them which sleep in JESUS, will GOD bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the LORD that we which live and are remaining at the coming of the LORD, shall not prevent those that sleep. For the LORD himself shall descend from heaven with as●…te, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trumpet of GOD, and the dead in CHRIST shall arise first: then shall we which live and remain be caught up with them also in the clouds to meet the LORD in the air, and so shall we ever be with the LORD. Here the Apostle maketh a plain demonstration of the future resurrection, when CHRIST shall come to sit in judgement over both quick and dead. But it is an ordinary question whether those whom CHRIST shall find alive at his coming (whom the Apostle admitteth himself and those with him to be) shall ever die at all, or go immediately in a moment up with the rest to meet CHRIST, and so be forth with immortallized. It is not impossible for them both to die and live again in their very ascension through the air. For these words; And so shall we even be with the LORD, are not to be taken as if we were to continue in the air with him, for he shall not stay in the air, but go and come through it. We meet him coming, but not staying but so shall we ever be with him, that is, in immortal bodies, where ever our stay be. And in this sense the Apostle seems to urge the understanding of this question to be this, that those whom Christ shall find alive, shall nevertheless both die and revive, where he saith. In Christ shall all be made alive: and upon this, by and by 1. Cor. 15. 51. after; That which thou sowest, is not quickened except it die. How then shall those whom Christ shall find alive be quickened in him by immortality, unless they do first die, if these words of the Apostle be true? If we say that the sowing is meant only of those bodies that are returned to the earth, according to the judgement laid upon our transgressing forefathers: Thou art dust, and to dust Gen. 3. 19 shalt thou return: then we must confess, that neither that place of Saint Paul nor this of Genesis concerns their bodies whom Christ at his coming shall find in the body: for those are not sown, because they neither go to the earth, nor return from it, how-so-ever they have a little stay in the air, or otherwise taste not of any death at all. But now the Apostle hath another place of the resurrection. 1. Cor. 15. 22. 36. (a) We shall all rise again, saith he, or (as it is in some copies) we shall all sleep. So then, death going always before resurrection, and sleep in this place implying nothing but death, how shall all rise again, or sleep, if so many as Christ shall find living upon earth, shall neither sleep nor rise again? Now therefore, if we do but avouch that the Saints whom Christ shall find in the flesh, and who shall meet him in the air, do in this rapture leave their bodies for a while, and then take them on again; the doubt is cleared both in the Apostles first words; That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: as also in his later, We shall all rise again, or we shall all sleep: for they shall not be quickened unto immortality, unless they first taste of death: and consequently have a share in the resurrection by means of this their little sleep. And why is it incredible that those bodies should be sown, and revived immortally in the air, when as we believe the Apostle, where he saith plainly, that the resurrection shall be in the twinkling of an eye, and that the dust of the most aged body, shall in one moment concur to retain those members, that thenceforth shall never perish: Nor let us think that that place of Genesis, Thou art dust, etc. concerneth not the Saints, for all that their dead bodies return not to the earth, but are both dead and revived whilst they are in the air. To dust shalt thou return, that is, thou shalt by loss of life, become that which thou wast ere thou hadst life. It was earth in whose face the LORD breathed the breath of life, when man became a living soul: So that it might be said. Thou art living dust, which thou wast not, and thou shalt be ●…lesse dust, as thou wast. Such are all dead bodies even before putrefaction, and such shall they be (if they die) where-so-ever they die, being void of life, which notwithstanding they shall immediately return unto. So then shall they return unto earth, in becoming earth, of living men; as that returns to ashes which is made of ashes, that unto putrefaction which is putrefied, that into a pot which of earth is made a pot, and a thousand other such like instances. But how this shall be, we do but conjecture now, 〈◊〉 shall know till we see it. That (b) there shall be a resurrection of the flesh at the coming of Christ to judge the quick and the dead, all that are christians must confidently believe: nor is our faith in this point any way frivolous, although we know not how this shallbe effected. But, as I said before, so mean I still, to proceed in laying down such places of the Old Testament now, as concern this last judgement, as far as need shallbe; which it shall not be altogether so necessary to stand much upon, if the reader do but aid his understanding with that which is passed before. L. VIVES. WE shall (a) all rise again] The greek copies read this place diversly (Hier. ep. ad Numerium:) for some read it, We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. Eras Annot. Non. Testam, et in Apolog. Hence I think, arose the question whether all should die, or those that lived at the judgement day be made immortal without death. Petrus Lumbardus Sent. 3. dist. 40, showing the difference hereupon between Ambrose and Hierome, dares not determine, because Augustine leaneth to Ambrose, and most of all the greek fathers to Hierome, reading it, we shall not all sleep. And for Ambrose, Erasmus showeth how he stagreth in this assertion. Mean while we do follow him whom we explain. (b) There shallbe a resurrection.] This we must stick to, it is a part of our faith. How it must be, let us leave to GOD, and yoke ourselves in that sweet obedience unto Christ. It sufficeth for a christian to believe this was, or that shallbe, let the means alone to him who concealeth the plainest works of nature from our apprehensions. Esaias his doctrine concerning the judgement and the resurrection. CHAP. 21. THe dead (saith the prophet Esaias) shall arise again; and they shall arise again that were in the graves; and all they shallbe glad that are in the earth: for the Is. 26. 19 Dew that is from thee, is health to them, and the Land (or earth) of the wicked shall fall. All this belongs to the resurrection. And whereas he saith the land of the wicked shall fall, that is to be understood by their bodies which shallbe ruined by damnation. But now if we look well into the resurrection of the Saints, these words, The dead shall arise again, belong to the first resurrection, and these, they shall arise again that were in the graves, unto the second. And as for those holy ones whom CHRIST shall meet in their flesh, this is fitly pertinent unto them: All they shallbe glad that are in the earth: for the dew that is from thee, is health unto them: By health in this place, is meant immortality, for that is the best health, and needs no daily refection to preserve it. The same prophet also speaketh of the judgement, both to the comfort of the Godly, and the terror of the wicked. Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will incline unto them as a flood of peace: and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: Then shall ye suck: ye shallbe borne upon her shoulders, and be joyful upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you, and ye shallbe comforted in jerusalem. And when ye see this your hearts shall rejoice and your bones shall flourish as an herb: and the hand of the Lord shallbe known unto his servants, and his indignation against his enemies. For be hold the Lord will come with fire, and his chariots like a whirlwind, that he may recompense his anger with wrath, and his indignation with a flame of fire, for the LORD will judge with fire, and with his sword, all flesh, and the slain of the LORD shallbe many. Thus you hear, as touching his promises to the good, he inclineth to them like a flood of peace: that is in all peaceful abundance; and such shall our souls be watered withal at the worlds end: (but of this in the last book before) This he extendeth unto them to whom he promiseth such bliss that we may conceive that this flood of beatitude doth sufficiently bedew all the whole region of Heaven, where we are to dwell. But because he bestoweth the peace of incorruption upon corruptible bodies, therefore he saith he will incline, as if he came downwards from above, to make mankind equal with the Angels. By jerusalem we understand not her that serveth with her children, but our free mother (as the Apostle saith) which is eternal, and above; where after the shocks of all our sorrows be passed, we shall be comforted, and rest like infants in her glorious arms, and on her knees. Then shall our rude ignorance be invested in that un-accustomed blessedness; then-shall we see this, and our heart shall rejoice: what shall we see? it is not set down. But what is it but GOD, that so the Gospel might be fulfilled: Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see GOD. And all that bliss which we now believe but, like fraile-men, in far less measure Mat. 5. than it is, we shall then behold and see: Here we hope, there we shall enjoy. But lest we should imagine that those causes of joy concerned, only the spirit; he addeth, And your bones shall flourish as an herb. Here is a plain touch at the resurrection, relating as it were, what he had omitted. These things shall not be done even then when we do see them; but when they are already come to pass, then shall we see them. For he had spoken before of the new heaven and earth in his relations of the promises that were in the end to be performed to the Saints, saying, I will create new Heavens, and a new Earth, and the former shall not he remembered nor come into mind: but be you glad and rejoice therein; for behold I will create jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people as a joy, and I will rejoice in jerusalem, and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping shallbe heard no more in her, nor the voice of crying, etc. This now some apply to the proof of Chiliasme: because that the Prophet's manner is to mingle tropes with truths, to excercise the Reader in a fit inquest of their spiritual meanings, but carnal sloth contents itself with the literal sense only, and never seeks further. Thus far of the Prophet's words before that he wrote what we have in hand: now forward again. And your bones shall flourish like 〈◊〉 herb: that he meaneth only the resurrection of the Saints in this, his addition proves: And the hand of the LORD shallbe known amongst his servants. What is this, but his hand, distinguishing his servants from such as scorn him? of those it followeth. And his indignation against his enemies: or (as another interprets it) (a) against the unfaithful. This is no threatening, but the effect of all his threatenings. For behold (saith he) the LORD will come with fire, and his chariots like a whirlwind that he may recompense his anger with wrath, and his indignation with a flame of fire. For the LORD will judge with fire, and with his sword, all flesh, and the slain of the LORD shallbe many, whither they perish by fire or sword, or whirlwind, all denounce but the pain of the judgement, for he saith that GOD shall come as a whirlwind, that is, unto such as his coming shallbe penal unto. Again his chariots, being spoke in the plural, employ his ministering Angels. But whereas he saith that all flesh shallbe judged by this fire and sword, we do except the Saints, and imply it only to those which mind earthly things, and such minding is deadly: and such as those of whom GOD saith, My spirit shall not alway strive with man, because he is but flesh. But these words. The Phil. 3 Gen. 6 slain (or wounded) of the LORD shallbe many; this implieth the second death. The fire, the sword, and the stroke, may all be understood in a good sense: for GOD hath said he would send fire into the world: And the Holy Ghost descended in the shape of fiery tongues. Again, I came not (saith CHRIST) to send peace, but the sword. And the scripture calls GOD'S Word a two edged sword; because of the two Testaments. Besides, the church in the Canticles, saith that she is wounded with love, even as shot, with the force of love. So that this is plain, and so is this that we read, that the LORD shall come as a Revenger, etc. So then the Prophet proceeds with the destruction of the wicked, under the types of such as in the old law forbore not the for bidden meats, rehearsing the graciousness of the New Testament from CHRIST'S first coming, even unto this judgement we have now in hand. For first, he tells how GOD saith that he cometh to gather the nations, and how they shall come to see his glory. For all have sinned (saith the Apostle) and are deprived of the glory of GOD. He saith also that he will leave signs amongst them to induce them to believe in him, and that he will send his elect into many nations, and far Islands that never heard of his name, to preach his glory to the Gentiles, and to bring their brethren, that is the brethren of the elect Israel (of whom he spoke) into his presence: to bring them for an offering unto GOD in chariots, and upon horses; that is by the ministery of men or angels, unto holy jerusalem, that is now spread throughout the earth in her faithful Citizens. For these when GOD assisteth them, believe; and when they believe, they come unto him. Now GOD in a simile compares them to the children of Israel that offered unto him his sacrifices with psalms in the Temple: as the church doth now in all places: and he promiseth to take of them for priests and for levites, which now we see he doth. For he hath not observed fleshly kindred in his choice now, as he did in the time of Aurons' priesthood: but according to the New Testament where CHRIST is priest after the order of Melchisedech, he selecteth each of his priests according to the merit which GOD'S grace hath stored his soul with: as we now behold: and these (b) Priests are not to be reckoned of for their places (for those the unworthy do often hold) but for their sanctities, which are not common both to good and bad. Now the prophet having thus opened God's mercies to the church, addeth the several ends that shall befall both the good and bad in the last judgement, in these Is. 66, 22, 23, 〈◊〉. w●…ds: As the new heavens and the new earth which I shall make shall remain before me, saith the LORD: even so shall your seed and your name. And from month to month, and from Sabbath to Sabbath shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD: And they shall go forth and look upon the members of the men that have transgressed against me; for their women shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shallbe an abhorring unto all flesh. Thus endeth the Prophet his book, with the end of the world. Some in this place for members, read (c) carcase, hereby intimating the bodies evident punishment, though indeed a carcase is properly nothing but dead flesh: but those bodies shallbe living, otherwise, how should they be sensible of pain? unless we say, they are dead bodies, that is, their souls are fallen into the second death, and so we may fitly call them carcases. And thus is the Prophet's former words also to be taken; The land of the wicked shall fall: Cadaver, a carcase, all knows, cometh of Cado to fall: Now the translators by saying the carcases of the men, do not exclude women from this damnation, but they speak as by the better sex, being that woman was taken out of man. But note especially, that where the Prophet speaking of the blessed, saith, all flesh shall come to worship; He meaneth not all men (for the greater number shallbe in torments) but some shall come out of all nations, to adore him in the Heavenly jerusalem. But as I was a saying, since here is mention of the good by flesh, and of the bad, by carcases; verily after the resurrection of the flesh, our faith whereof, these words do confirm, that which shall confine both the good and bad unto their last limits, shallbe the judgement to come. L. VIVES. AGainst (a) the unfaithful] Hierome, out of the hebrew, and the seventy readeth it, Against his enemies. (b) Priests are not to be] It is not priesthood, nor orders that maketh a man any whit respected of GOD; for these dignities both the Godly and ungodly do share in: but it is purity of conscience, good life, and honest carriage, which have resemblance of that immense, that incorruptible nature of GOD, those win us favour with him. (c) Carcases] So doth Hierome read it. But mark Saint Augustine's uprightness, rather to give a favourable exposition of a translation to which he stood not affected, than any way to cavil at it. How the Saints shall go forth to see the pains of the wicked. CHAP. 22. But how shall the good go forth to see the bad plagued? Shall they leave their blessed habitations, and go corporally to hell, to see them face to face? God forbid: no, they shall go in knowledge. For this implieth that the damned shallbe without, and for this cause the Lord calleth their place, utter darkness, opposite unto that ingress allowed the good servant in these words, Enter into thy masters joy: and lest the wicked should be thought to go in to be seen, rather than the good should go out by knowledge to see them, being to know that which is without: for the tormented shall never know what is done in the Lord's joy: but they that are in that joy, shall know what is done in the utter darkness: Therefore saith the Prophet, they shall go forth; in that they shall know what is without, for if the Prophets through that small part of divine inspiration could know these things before they came to pass: how then shall not these immortals know them being passed, seeing that in them the Lord is all in all? Thus shall the Saints be blessed both in seed, and name. In seed, as Saint john saith, And his seed remaineth in him. In name, as Isaias saith, So shall your name continue; from month to month, and from Sabbath to Sabbath shall they have rest upon rest: passing thus from old and temporal types to new and everlasting truths. But the pains of the wicked, that eternal worm, and that never dying fire, is diversly expounded, either in reference to the body only, or to the soul only, or the fire to belong to the body really, and the worm to the soul figuratively, and this last is the likeliest of the three. But here is no place to discuss peculiars. We must end this volume, as we promised, with the judgement, the separation of good from bad, and the rewards and punishments accordingly distributed. daniel's prophecy of Antichrist; of the judgement, and of the Kingdom of the Saints. CHAP. 23. OF this judgement Daniel prophesieth, saying, that Antichrist shall forerun it: and so he proceedeth to the eternal Kingdom of the Saints: for having in a vision beheld the four beasts, types of the four Monarchies, and the fourth overthrown by a King which all confess to be Antichrist; and then seeing the eternal Empire of the Son of man (CHRIST) to follow:] Daniel (saith he) Was troubled in spirit, in the midst of my body, and the visions of Dan. 7. mine head made me afraid. Therefore I came to one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this: so he told me and showed me the interpretation of these things. These four great beasts are four Kings, which shall arise out of the earth, and they shall take away the Kingdom of the most high, and possess it for ever, even for ever and ever. After this, I would know the truth of the fourth beast which was so unlike the other, very fearful, whose teeth were of Iron, and his nails of Brass, which devoured, broke in pieces and stamped the rest under his feet. Also to know of the ten horns that were on his head, and of the other that came up, before whom three fell, and of the horn that had eyes, and of the month that spoke presumptuous things, whose look was more stout than his fellows: I beheld, and the same horn made battle against the Saints, yea and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of days came, and judgement was given to the Saints of the most high: and the time approached that the Saints possessed the Kingdom. All this Daniel inquired, and then he proceedeth. Then he said, the fourth beast shallbe the fourth Kingdom on the earth, which shallbe unlike to all the Kingdoms and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down and shall break it in pieces. And the ten horns are ten Kings that shall rise, and another shall rise after them, and he shallbe unlike to the first, and he shall subdue three Kings, and shall speak words against the most high, and shall consume the Saints, of the most high, and think that he may change times and laws; and they shallbe given into his hand until a time, and half a time. But the judgement shall sit and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it unto the end: And the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven shallbe given unto the holy people of the most high whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and all powers shall serve and obey him. Even this is the end of the matter. I Daniel had many cogitations which troubled me, and my countenance changed in me but I kept the matter in mine heart. These four Kingdoms, some hold to be (a) those of the Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and romans. How fitly, read Hieromes commentaries upon Daniel, and there you may have full instruction. But that Antichrists Kingdom shallbe most cruel against the Church (although it last but a while) until the Saints receive the Sovereignty, none that reads this place, can make question of. The time, times and half a time is three years and a half: a year, two years and half a year, and this is declared by a number of days afterwards, and by the numbers of months in other places of the Scriptures. Times in this place seemeth indefinite; but the (b) dual number is here used by the LXX. which the Latins have not: but both the greeks and (c) Hebrews have. Time's then standeth but for two times. Now I am afraid (indeed) that we deceive ourselves in the ten Kings whom Antichrist shall find, as ten men, by our account, but there are not so many Kings in the Roman Monarchy, so that Antichrist may come upon us ere we be aware. What if this number imply the fullness of regality, which shallbe expired ere he come, as the numbers of a thousand, a hundred, seven, and divers more do oftentimes signify the whole of a thing? I leave it to judgement. On with Daniel, There shallbe a time of trouble (saith he chap. 12) such as never was since there began to be a nation unto that same time, and at that time thy people shallbe delivered, every one that shallbe found written in the book. And many that sleep in the dust of the Earth shall awake: some to everlasting life, and some to shame and perpetual contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn to righteousness shall shine as the stars, for ever and ever. How like is this place unto that of the Gospel concerning the resurrection? that saith: They that are in the graves: This, they that are in the dust of the Earth that saith, shall come forth: this, shall awake, that, they that have done good, unto eternal life, and they that have done evil unto everlasting damnation: this, some to everlasting life, and some to perpetual shame and contempt. Nor think they differ in that the Gospel saith, all that are in the graves, and the Prophet saith ●…t Many: for the Scripture sometimes useth many for all. So was it said unto Abraham, thou shalt be a father of many nations, and yet in another place, in thy seed shall all nations be blessed. Of this resurrection, it was said thus to Daniel himself a little after; Go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand up in thy lot at the end of the days. L. VIVES. THose of the (a) Assyrians.] For the first beast was like a Lioness, bloody and lustful and like an Eagle, proud, and long lived: and such was the Assyrian Empire: The second like a Bear, rough and fierry, such was Cyrus' founder of the Persian Monarchy. The third like a winged Leopard, headlong, bloody, and rushing upon death: such was the Macedon, who seemed rather to fly to soverainety then go on foot: for how soon did he bring all Asia under? the forth, the strangest, strongest, bloodiest. etc. Of all: such was the Roman Empire, that exceeded Barbarism in cruelty, filling all the world with the rust of her own breeding, with bones of her massacring, with ruins of her causing. (b) The Dual] The ancient greeks had but singular and plural: the dual was added afterwards, which the Latins would not imitate. (Dionys. Grammat.) yet the Greek Poets do often use the plural for the dual, as ye may observe in Homer, etc. (c) Hebrews have] So saith Hierome upon Daniel. David's Prophecies of the world's end, and the last judgement. CHAP. 24. TOuching this last judgement, we find much spoken of it in the Psalms, but I omit the most of it, yet the plainest thereof, I cannot but rehearse. Thou afore time laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: they shall all wax old as doth a garment; as a Psal. 101. 25. 26. vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. What reason now hath Porphyry to praise the Hebrews for their adoration of the greatest God, and yet blame the Christians for avoutching that the world shall have an end, seeing that these books of the Hebrews, whose God he confesseth to be terrible to all the rest, do directly aver it? They shall perish: what? the heavens: the greatest, the safest, the highest part of the world shall perish, and shall not the lesser, and lower do so too? If jove do not like this, whose oracle (as Porphyry saith) hath condemned the Christians credulity, why doth he not condemn the Hebrews also, for leaving this doctrine especially recorded in their holiest writings: But if this jewish wisdom which he doth so commend, affirm that the heavens shall perish, how vain a thing is it, to detest the Christian faith, for avouching that the world shall perish, which if it perish not, then cannot the heavens perish. Now our own scriptures, with which the jews have nothing to do, our gospels and apostolic writings, do all affirm this. The fashion of this world goeth away. The world passeth away. Heaven and earth shall pass away. But I think that passeth away, doth not imply so much as perisheth. But in Saint Peter's Epistle, where he saith, how the world perished being over-flowed with water, is plainly set down both what he meant by the world, how far it perished, and what was reserved for fire, and the perdition of the wicked. And by and by after, The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the Heavens shall pass away with a noise, the elements shall melt with heat, and the earth with the rocks that are therein shall be burnt up; and so concludeth, that seeing all these perish, what manner persons ought ye to be? Now we may understand that those heavens shall perish which he said were reserved for fire, and those elements shall melt which are here below in this mole of discordant natures; wherein also he saith those heavens are reserved, not meaning the upper spheres that are the seats of the stars: for whereas it is written that the stars shall fall from heaven, it is a good proof that the heavens shall remain untouched; (if these words be not figurative, but that the stars shall fall indeed, or some such wondrous apparitions fill this lower air, as Virgil speaketh of, Stella (a) facem ducens multa cum luce cucurrit. A tailed Star flew on, with glistering light. Aeneid. 2. And so hid itself in the woods of Ida.) But this place of the Psalm seems to exempt none of all the heavens from perishing. The heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish: thus as he made all, so all shall be destroyed. Psal. 101. The Pagans scorn (I am sure) to call Saint Peter to defend that Hebrew doctrine which their gods do so approve; by alleging the figurative speaking hereof pars pro toto: all shall perish, meaning only all the lower parts: as the Apostle saith there, that the world perished in the deluge, when it was only the earth, and some part of the air. This shift they will not make, lest they should either yield to Saint Peter, or allow this position, that the fire at the last judgement may do as much as we say the deluge did before: their assertion, that all mankind can never perish, will allow them neither of these evasions. Then they must needs say that when their gods commended the Hebrews wisdom, they had not read this Psalm: but there is another Psalm as plain as this: Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and a mighty tempest shall be moved round about him: He shall call the heaven above, and the earth to judge his people. Gather my Saints together unto me, those that make a covenant with me with sacrifice. This is spoken of Christ, whom we believe shall come from heaven to judge both the quick and the dead. He shall come openly, to judge all most justly, who when he came in secret was judged himself most unjustly. He shall come and shall not be silent, his voice now shall confound the judge before whom he was silent, when he was lead like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, as the Prophet saith of him, and as it was fulfilled in the Gospel. Of this fire and tempest we spoke before, in our discourse of Isaias prophecy touching this point. But his calling the heavens above (that is the Saints) this is that which Saint Paul saith: Then shall we be caught up also in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the ●…yre. For if it meant not this, how could the Heavens be called above, as though they could be any where but above? The words following; And the earth, if you add not, Above here also, may be taken for those that are to be judged, and the heavens for those that shall judge with Christ. And then the calling of the heavens, above implieth the placing of the Saints in seats of judgements, not their raptures into the air. We may further understand it to be his calling of the Angels from their high places, to descend with him to judgement, and by the earth, those that are to be judged. But if we do understand Above at both clauses, it intimateth the Saints raptures directly: putting the heavens for their souls, and the earth for their bodies: to judge (or discern) his people, that is, to separate the sheep from the goats, the good from the bad. Then speaketh he to his Angels, Gather my Saints together unto me: this is done by the Angel's ministry. And whom gather they? Those that make a covenant with me with sacrifice: and this is the duty of all just men to do. For either they must offer their works of mercy (which is above sacrifice, as the Lord saith, I will have mercy and not sacrifice) or else their works of mercy is the sacrifice it Osee. 6. self that appeaseth God's wrath, as I proved in the ninth book of this present volume. In such works do the just make covenants with God, in that they perform them for the promises made them in the New Testament. So then Christ Mat. 25. having gotten his righteous on his right hand, will give them this welcome. Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit ye the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world: for I was an hungered and you gave me to eat: and so forth of the good works, and their eternal rewards which shall be returned for them in the last judgement. L. VIVES. SStella (a) facem ducens] Virg. Aeneid. 2. Anchises being unwilling to leave Troy, and Aeneas being desperate, and resolving to die, jupiter sent them a token for their flight, namely this tailed star: all of which nature (saith Aristotle) are produced by vapours inflamed in the airs mid region. If their forms be only lineal, they call them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, lamps, or torches. Such an one saith Plynie glided amongst the people at noon day, when Germanicus Caesar presented his Sword-players prise: others of them are called Bolidae, and such an one was seen at Mutina. The first sort of these fly burning only at one end, the latter burneth all over. Thus Pliny lib. 2. Malachies Prophecy of the judgement, and of such as are to be purged by fire. CHAP. 25. THe Prophet (a) Malachiel or Malachi, (otherwise called the Angel, and held by some as Hierome saith, and namely by the Hebrews, (b) to be Esdras the Priest that wrote some other parts in the Canon) prophesied of the last judgement in these words. Behold he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts: but who may Mal. 3, 12. abide the day of his coming? and who shall endure when he appeareth? for he is like a purging fire, and like Fuller's Soap: and he shall sit down to try and fine the silver, he shall even fine the sons of Levi, and purify them as gold and silver, that they may bring offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then shall the offerings of judah, and Jerusalem be acceptable unto the Lord as in old time, and in the years afore. And I will come near unto you to judgement, and I will be a swift witness against the soothsayers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that wrong fully keep back the hirelings wages, and vex the widow and the fatherless, and fear not me, saith the Lord of Hosts: for I am the Lord, I change not. These words do seem evidently to imply a purification of some, in the last judgement. For what other thing can be meant by this, He is like a purging fire, and like Fuller's soap, and he shall sit down to try and fine the silver, he shall Isa 4. 4. fine the sons of Levi, and purify them as gold or silver? So saith Esayas: The Lord shall wash the filthiness of the daughters of Zion, and purge the blood of Jerusalem on't of the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgement, and by the spirit of burning. Perhaps this burning may be understood of that separation of the polluted from the pure in that paenall judgement, the good being to live ever after, without any commerce with the bad. But these words; He shall even fine the sons of Levi, and purify them as gold and silver, that they may bring offerings to the Lord in righteousness, do intimate a purgation even of the good, who shall now be cleansed from that injustice wherein they displeased the Lord, & being cleansed, and in their perfection of righteousness, they shall be pure offerings themselves unto him their Lord. For what better or more acceptable oblation for him, than themselves? But let us leave this theme of paenall purgation unto a more fit opportunity. By the sons of Levi, judah and Jerusalem, is meant the Church of God, both of Hebrews and others: but not in that state that it standeth now in: (for as we are now, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us:) but as it shall be then, like a threshing-flore cleansed by the fan of the last judgement, all being penally purged, that needed such a purification, so that now there shall need no more sacrifice for sin, for all that offer such, are in sin, for the remission of which they offer to be freed from it by God's gracious acceptance of their offering. L. VIVES. MAlachiel or (a) Malachi.] I never read that Malachi was ever called Malachiel. Malachi, is in Hebrew, his Angel: and therefore he was called Malachi, for if it were Malachiel, it should be interpreted, the Angel of the Lord: I think therefore it should be read here, Malachi. (b) To be Esdras.] Of this lib. 18. Of the Saints offerings, which God shall accept of, as in the old time, and the years afore. CHAP. 26. To show that the City of God should have no more such custom, it is said that the sons of Levi: shall bring offerings to the Lord in righteousness: therefore not in sin, and consequently not for sin, we may therefore gather by the words following, viz. Then shall the offerings of judah and jerusalem be acceptable unto the Lord, as in old time and in the years afore; that the jews are deceived in believing the. restaurations of their old legal ceremonies: for all the sacrifices of the old Instrument were offered in sin, and for sin, the priest himself (who we must think was the holiest) was expressly commanded by the Lord to offer first for his own sins, and then for the people: we must therefore show how these words, As in old time and in the years afore, are to be taken. They may perhaps imply the time of our first parents being in paradise, for they were then pure, and offered themselves as unspotted oblations to the Lord. But they transgressing, and being therefore thrust out, and all mankind being depraved and condemned in them, since their fall no (a) man but the world's redeemer, and little baptised infants were ever pure from sin: no not the infant of one days age. If it be answered that they are worthily said to offer in righteousness that offer in faith, in that the just liveth by faith, though if he say, he hath no sin he deceives himself, and therefore he saith it not, because he liveth by faith: I say again, is any one so far deceived as to parallel these times of faith with those of the last judgement, wherein those that are to offer those oblations in righteousness are to be purged and refined: Nay, seeing that after that purgation, there shallbe no place for the least imperfection of sin: assuredly the time wherein there shallbe no sin is not to be compared with any, saving with the time before our first parents fall in Paradise, wherein they lived in spotless felicity. So that this it is which is meant by the old time, and the years afore, for such another passage is there in Esaias: After the promise of a new Heaven and a new Earth, amongst the other allegorical promises of beatitudes to the Saints (which study of brevity enforced us to let pass unexpounded) this is one. As the days of the of tree life, shall the days of my people be. This tree, who is it that hath read the Scriptures and knows not that God planted it, and where, and how our first parents Is 25. 22. by sin were debarred from eating of the fruit thereof, and a terrible guard set upon it for ever after? some may say the Prophet by that, meant the days of Christ his Church that now is, and that Christ is that tree, (according to that of Solomon concerning wisdom. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her) and again, that our first parents lived but a small while in Paradise, seeing that they had no children during that space, and therefore when we speak of the time that they were there, we can not speak of any years, as this place doth, In old time and in the years bofore: well this question is too intricate to discuss at this time, and therefore let it pass. There is another meaning of these words also, (besides this) which doth also, exclude the interpretation of this place by the legal and carnal sacrifices as though the restoring of them were such a benefit, for those offerings of the old law being made all of unpolluted beasts, and purely exhibited, did signify spotless and holy men, such as Christ himself only was and no other. Seeing therefore that in the judgement all being cleansed that need cleansing, there shall not be any sin left in the Saints, but each shall offer himself in righteousness unto God, as an immaculate and pure oblation: thus shall it be then as in the years afore, when that was represented typically which at this day shallbe fulfilled truly, for than shall that purity be real in the Saints, which erst was prefigured in the sacrifices. And thus of that. Now as for those that are not worthy of being cleansed, but condemned, thus saith the Prophet: I will come to you in judgement, and I willbe a swift witness against the Soothsayers, and against the adulterers, etc. for I am the Lord, and change not: as if he said your fault hath now made you worse, and my grace once made you better: but I change not. He will be witness himself, because he shall in that judgement need no other. Swift, because he will come on a sudden, unlooked for, and when he is thought to be farthest of: and again because he will convince the guilty conscience without making any words. Inquisition shallbe made in the thoughts of the ungodly, saith the Wisd. 1. 9 wise man. Their conscience also bearing witness (saith the Apostle) and their thoughts accusing one another or excusing, at the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by jesus Christ according to my Gospel. Thus then shall God be a swift witness in calling that presently unto the thoughts which shall forthwith condemn them. L. VIVES. NO (a) man except.] [The question of the Virgin Mary was not yet a foot: but grew afterward [None of this in the Louvain copy. between two orders of friars, both fiery, and led with undaunted generals, the Dominicans by Thomas of Aquin, and the Franciscans by john Duns Scotus. Now the council of Basil decred that she was wholly pure from all touch of sin. But the Dominicans objected that this was no lawful counsel, and the Minorites of the other side avowed that it was true and holy, and called the Dominicans heretics for slandering the power of the Church: so that the matter had come to a shrewd pass, but that Pope Sixtus forbade this theme to be any more disputed of. Thus do these men esteem councils or canons, be they again their pleasures, just as an old wives tale in a Flaxe-shope or at an Alehouse Gossipping.] Of the separation of the good from the bad in the end of the last judgement. CHAP. 27. THat also which I alleged (to another purpose) in the eighteenth book, out of this Prophet belongeth to the last judgement: They shallbe to me, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day that I shall do this, as a flock, for I will spare them as a Malachy. 3 man spareth his own Son that serveth him: then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not, for behold the day cometh, that shall burn as an Oven, and all the proud, yea and all that do wickedly shallbe stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up saith the Lord of Hosts, and shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise, and health shallbe under his wings, and ye shall go forth and grow up as fat Calves. And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shallbe dust under the souls of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hostes. This distance of rewards, and punishments, severing the just from the unjust, is not seen by the transitory light of this worldly sun, but when it appeareth before that sun of righteousness, in the manifesation of the life to come, then shall there be such a judgement as never was before. Moses' Law, to be spiritually understood, for fear of dangerous error. CHAP. 28. But whereas the Prophet proceedeth, saying: Remember the law of Moses my Malachi. servant, which I commended unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judgements, this is fitly added, both to follow the precedent distinction between the followers of the law and the contemners of it, as also to imply that the said law must be spiritually interpreted, that Christ, the distinguisher of the good and bad, may therein be discovered; who spoke not idly himself, when he told the jews saying: Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for Io. 5. 46. be wrote of me, for these men conceiving the Scriptures in a carnallience and not apprehending those earthly promises as types of the eternal ones, fell into those damnable murmurings that they durst be bold to say, (a) It is in vain to serve Mal. 3. 14. God, and what profit is it that we have kept his commandment, and that we walked humbly before the Lord of Hosts? Therefore (b) we count the proud blessed, even they that work wickedness are set up. etc. These their words seem even to compel the prophet to foretell-the last judgement, where the wicked shall be so far from all shadow of happiness, that they shallbe apparently wretched, and the good, so acquit from all lasting misery, that they shall not be touched with any the most transitory, but fully and freely be enthroned in eternal blessedness. For their words before seem to say thus, all that do evil, are good in God's eye, and please him. These grumble against God proceeded merely of the carnal understanding of Moses' law. whereupon the Psalmist saith that he had like to have fallen himself, and that his feet slipped, through his fretting at the foolish, seeing the prosperity of the wicked, in so much that he saith: How doth God know it, or is there knowledge in the most high? and by and by after: Have I cleansed mine heart in vain, and washed mine hands in innocency? but to clear this difficulty, how it should come to pass that the wicked should be happy, and the just miserable, he addeth this: Then thought I to know this, but it was too painful for me, until I went into the Sanctuary of God and then understood I their end. At the day of the Lord it shall not be so, but the misery of the wicked, and the happiness of the Godly shall appear at full, in far other order then the present world can discover. L. VIVES. IT is (a) in vain.] A wicked, fond and absurd complaint, of such as only (like brute beasts) conceive & respect nothing but what is present: look but into the conscience of the wicked and you shall find their hearts torn in pieces: look but upon the time to come, and you shall see a shoal of plagues prepared for them, which you may think are slow, but heaven assureth you, they are sure. (b) We count the wicked] Your account cannot make them fortunate. Helias his coming to convert the jews, before the judgement. CHAP. 29. NOw the Prophet having advised them to remember the law of Moses, because he fore saw that would hereafter miss-interprete much thereof, he addeth: Behold I will send you (a) Heliah the Prophet before the coming of the great and fearful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with cursing. That this great and mighty Prophet Elias shall convert (b) the jews unto Christ before the judgement, by expounding them the law, is most commonly believed and taught of us Christians, and is held as a point of infallible truth. For we may well hope for the coming of him before the judgement of Christ, whom we do truly believe to live in the body at this present hour, without having ever tasted of death. He was taken up by a fiery chariot body and soul from this mortal world, as the scriptures plainly avouch. Therefore when he cometh to give the law a spiritual exposition, which the jews do now understand wholly in a carnal sense, Then shall he turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, (or, the heart of the father unto the child: for the LXX. do often use the singular number for the plural.) that is, the jews shall then understand the law as their holy forefathers had done before them, Moses, the Prophets, and the rest. For the understanding of the father's being brought to the understanding of the children, is the turning of the father's heart unto the children, and the children's consent unto the understanding of the fathers, is the turning of their heart unto the fathers. And whereas the LXX. say: (c) And the heart of a man unto his kinsman: fathers and children are the nearest of kindred, and consequently are meant of in this place. There may be a farther and more choice interpretation of this place, namely that Helias should turn the heart of the father unto the child; not by making the father to love the child, but by teaching that the father loveth him, that the jews who had hated him before, may henceforth love him also. For they hold that God hateth him now, because they hold him to be neither God nor the Son of God: but then shall his heart (in their judgements) be turned unto him, when they are so far turned themselves as to understand how he loveth him. The sequel, And the heart of man unto his kinsman; meaneth, the heart of man unto the man Christ, for he being one God in the form of God, taking the form of a servant, and becoming man, vouchsafed to become our kinsman. This than shall Heliah perform. Lest I come and smite the earth with cursing. The earth, that is, those carnal thoughted jews, that now are, and that now murmur at the Deity, saying, that he delighted in the wicked, and that it is in vain to serve him. L. VIVES. HEliah (a) the Of him read the King. 1. 2. The jews out of this place of Malachi believe that he shall come again before the Messiah, as the Apostles do show in their question concerning his coming, Matt. 17. to which our Saviour in answering that he is come already, doth not reprove the Scribes opinion, but showeth another coming of Heliah before himelfe, which the Scribes did not understand. Origen, for first he had said that Helias must first come and restore all things. But it being generally held that Helias should come before Christ, and it being unknown before which coming of Christ, our Saviour to clear the doubt that might arise of his deity in that the people did not see that Helias was come said, Helias is come already meaning john, of whom he himself had said, If ye will receive it, this is Helias; As if he had said; be not moved in that you think you saw not Helias before me, whom you doubt whether I be the Messias or no. No man can be deceived in the believing that john, who came before me was that Helias who was to come: not that his soul was in john, or that Helias himself in person were come, but in that john came in the spirit and power of Helias to turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, to make the unbelievers righteous, and to prepare me a perfect people, as the Angel promised of him Luc. 1. 17, This great mystery the Lord being willing to point at, and yet not laying it fully open, he elevates the hearts of the audience with his usual phrase upon such occasions, He that hath ears to hear let him hear. And truly john's life came very near Helias his. Both lived in the wilderness, both wore girdles of skins, both reproved vicious Princes and were persecuted by them, both preached the coming of Christ: fitly therefore might john be called another Helias to forerun Christ's first coming, as Helias himself shall do the second. etc. (b) Convert the jews.] Therefore said Christ, Helias must first come. etc. to correct (saith chrysostom) their infidelity and to turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, that is unto the Apostles. And then he maketh a question; If Helias his coming shall do so much good, why did not our Saviour send him before his first coming? Answ. because as then, they held our Saviour himself to be Helias, and yet would not believe him, whereas when at the world's end Helias shall come, after all their tedious expectation, and show them who was the true Messias, then will they all believe him. (c) And the heart of man.] Hierome (and our English vulgar) read it otherwise. That it is not evident in the Old-Testament in such places as say, God shall judge, that it shallbe in the person of Christ, but only by some of the testimonies where the Lord God speaks. CHAP. 30. TO gather the whole number of such places of Scripture as prophesy this judgement, were too tedious. Sufficeth we have proved it out of both the Testaments. But the places of the Old-Testament are not so evident for the coming of Christ (a) in person as them of the New be; for whereas we read in the Old, that the Lord God shall come, it is no consequent that it is meant of Christ: for the Father, the Son. and the holy Ghost are all both Lord and God: which we may not omit to observe. We must therefore first of all make a demonstration of those places in the prophets as do expressly name the Lord God, and yet herein are evidently meant of jesus Christ, as also of those wherein this evidence is not so plain, and yet may be conveniently understood of him nevertheless. There is one place in Isaias, that hath it as plain as may be. Here me O jacob and Israel (saith the said Prophet) my called, I am, I am the first, and I am the last: surely my hand hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right Isa 48. 12. 13. hand hath spanned the Heavens: when I call them, they stand together. All you assemble yourselves, and hear: which amongst them hath declared these things? The Lord hath loved him: he will do his will in Babble, and his arm shallbe against the Chaldaeans. ay, even I have spoken it and I have called him: I have brought him and his ways shall prosper. Come near unto me, hear ye this: I have not spoke it in secret from the beginning, from the time that the thing was, I was there, and now the LORD GOD and his spirit hath sent me. This was he that spoke here as the LORD GOD: and yet it had not been evident that he was Christ, but that he addeth the last clause, the LORD GOD and his spirit hath sent me. For this he spoke of that which was to come, in the form of a servant using the preterperfect tense for the future, as the Prophet doth elsewhere saying, he was led, as a sheep to the slaughter, he doth not say, He shallbe led, but putteth the time passed for the time to come, according to the usual phrase of prophetical speeches. There is also another place in Zacharie, as evident as this: where the Almighty sent the Almighty: and what was that, but that the Father sent the Son? the words are these: Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: After this glory hath he Zach. 2 sent me unto the nations, which spoiled you, for he that toucheth you, toucheth the Apple of his eye. Behold, I will lift my hand upon them; and they shall be a spoil to those that served them, and ye shall know that the Lord of Hosts hath sent me. Behold here, the LORD of hosts saith, that the LORD of hosts hath sent him. Who dare say that these words proceed from any but from Christ, speaking to his lost sheep of Israel? for he saith so himself: I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of Israel: those he compareth here unto the Apple of Mat. 15 his eye, in his most fervent love unto them, and of those lost ones, the Apostles were a part themselves; but after this resurrection, (before which the Holy Ghost (saith john) was not yet given, because that JESUS was not yet glorified) joh. 7 he was also sent unto the gentiles in his Apostles, and so was that of the psalm fulfilled; Thou hast delivered me from the contentions of the people: thou Psal. 18 hast made me the head of the heathen: that those that had spoiled the Israelites and made them slaves, should spoil them no more but become their slaves. This promised he to his Apostles saying, I will make you fishers of men, and again, unto one of them alone, from henceforth thou shalt catch men. Thus shall the nations Mat. 4 Luc. 5 become spoils, but unto a good end, as vessel ta'en from a strong man that is bound by a stronger. The said Prophet also in another place saith (or rather the LORD by him saith) In that day will I seek to destroy all the nations that come against jerusalem, and I will power upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of jerusalem, the Zach. 12 spirit of grace and of compassion, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall lament for him as one mourneth for his only son, and be sorry for him as one is sorry for his first borne. Who is it but GOD that shall rid jerusalem of the foes that come against her, that is, that oppose her faith, or (as some interpret it) that seek to make her captive? who but he can power the spirit of grace and compassion upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of jerusalem? This is God's peculiar, and spoken by God himself in the prophet: and yet that this GOD, who shall do all the wonderful works is CHRIST, the sequel showeth plainly: they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and be sorry etc. For those jews who shall receive the spirit of grace and compassion, in the time to come, shall repent that ever they had insulted over CHRIST in his passion, when they shall see him coming in his Majesty, and know that this is he whose baseness of parentage they had whilom ●…owted at. And their forefathers shall see him too, upon whom they had exercised such impiety, even him shall they behold, but not unto their correction, but unto their confusion. These words there, I will power upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and compassion, etc. do no way concern them, but their progeny only, whom the preaching of Helias shall bring to the true faith. But as we say to the jews, You killed Christ, though it were their predecessors, so shall the progeny of those murderers bewail the death of Christ themselves, though their predecessors, (and not they) were they that did the deed. So than though they receive the spirit of grace and compassion, and so escape the damnation of their forefathers, yet shall they grieve, as if they had been partakers of their predecessors villainy, yet shall it not be guilt, but zeal that shall enforce this grief in them. The LXX. do read this place thus, They shall behold me, over whom they have insulted, but the Hebrews read it, whom they have pierced, which giveth a fuller intimation of the crucifying of Christ. But that insultation in the LXX. was continued even through the whole passion of Christ; Their taking him, binding him, judging him, appareling him with sot-like habits, crowning him with thorn, striking him on the head with reeds, mocking him with feigned reverence, enforcing him to bear his own cross, and crucifying him, even to his very last gasp, was nothing but a continuate insultation. So that laying both the interpretations together (as we do) we express at full, that this place implieth Christ and none other. Therefore, when-so-ever we read in the Prophets that God shall judge the world, though there be no other distinction; that that very word, judge, doth express the Son of man, for by his coming it is, that God's judgement shall be executed. God the Father in his personal presence will judge no man, but hath given all judgement unto his Son, who shall show himself as man, to judge the world even as he showed himself as man to be judged of the world. Who is it of whom God speaketh in Esaias under the name of jacob and Israel, but this son of man that took flesh of Jacob's progeny? jacob my servant, I will stay Isa. 42. upon him. Israel mine elect in whom my soul delighteth, I have put my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgement unto the Gentiles. H●… shall not cry nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets. A bruised Reed shall he not break, and the smoking Flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgement in truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged until he have settled judgement in the earth, and the Isles shall hope in his name. In the Hebrew there is no (b) mention of jacob, nor of Israel, but the LXX. being desirous to show what he meant by his servant; namely that same form of a servant wherein the highest was humbled, added the name of the man, From whose stock he was to derive that servile form. The spirit of God came upon him in form of a Dove, as the Gospel testifieth. He brought forth judgement to the Gentiles, in fore telling them of future things which they never knew of before. He did not cry out, yet ceased he not to preach: Nor was his voice heard with out (or in the street) for such as are cut off from his fold never hear his voice. He neither broke down nor extinguished those jews his persecutors, whose lost integrity, and abandoned light, made them like bruised Reeds, and (c) smoking flax; he spared them, for as yet he was not come to judge them, but to be judged by them. He brought forth judgement in truth, by showing them their future plagues, if they persisted in their malice. His face s●…one on the mount, his fame in the whole world, he neither failed nor fainted, in that both he and his Church stood firm against all persecutions. Therefore his foes never had, nor ever shall have cause to think that fulfilled which they wished in the Psalm, saying; When shall he die and his name perish? until he Psal. 4. 1. have settled judgement in the earth: Lo, here is that we seek. The last judgement, is that which he shall settle upon earth; coming to effect it out of heaven. As for the last words, the Isles shall hope in his name, we see it fulfilled already. Thus then by this which is so un-deniable, is that proved credible, which impudence dares yet deny. For who would ever have hoped for that which the unbelievers themselves do now behold, as well as we, to their utter heart-breaking and confusion? (d) Who did ever look that the Gentiles should embrace Christianity, that had seen the Author thereof bound, beaten, mocked, and crucified? That which one thief durst but hope for upon the cross, in that now do the nations far and wide repose their utmost confidence, and lest they should incur eternal death, are signed with that figure whereupon he suffered his temporal death. Let none therefore make any doubt that Christ shall bring forth such a judgement as the Scriptures do promise, except he believe not the Scriptures, and stand in his own malicious blindness against that which hath enlightened all the world. And this judgement shall consist of these circumstances, partly precedent and partly adjacent: Helias shall come, the jews shall believe, Antichrist shall persecute, Christ shall judge, the dead shall arise, the good and bad shall sever, the world shall burn, and be renewed. All this we must believe shall be, but in what order, our full experience than shall exceed our imperfect intelligence as yet. Yet verily I do think they shall fall out in order as I have rehearsed them. Now remaineth there two books more of this theme, to the perfect performance of our promise: the first of which shall treat of the pains due unto the wicked, and the second of the glories bestowed upon the righteous; wherein if it please GOD, we will subvert the arguments which foolish mortals, and miserable wretches make for themselves against GOD'S holy and divine premises, and against the sacred nutriment given to the soul, by an unspotted faith, thinking themselves the only wisemen in these their ungracious cavils, and deriding all religious instructions as contemptible and rid●…culous. As for those that are wise in GOD, in all that seemeth most incredible unto man, if it be avouched by the holy Scriptures (whose truth we have already sufficiently proved) they lay hold upon the true and omnipotent deity, as the strongest argument against all opposition, for he (they know) cannot possibly speak false in those Scriptures, and withal, can by his divine power effect that which may seem more than most impossible to the un believers. L. VIVES. GHrist (a) in person] According to this judgement of Christ, did the Poets feign th●… judges of hell: for holding jove to be the King of Heaven, they avouched his son to be judge of hell: yet none of his sons that were wholly immortal at first, as Bacchus, Apollo or Mercury was, but a God that had been also a mortal man, and a just man withal: such as Minos, Aeacus, or Rhadamanthus was. This out of Lactantius lib. 7. (b) No mention] Hierom. in 42. Esai (c) Smoking flax] It was a custom of old (saith Plutarch in Quaestionib.) never to put out the snuff of the lamp, but to let it die of itself, and that for divers reasons; first because this fire was somewhat like in nature to that inextinguible immortal fire of heaven, secondly they held this fire to be a living creature, and therefore not to be killed but when it did mischief. (That the fire was aliving creature, the want that it hath of nutriment, and the proper motion, besides the groan it seemeth to give when it is quenched, induced them to affirm). Thirdly, because it is unfit to destroy any thing that belongeth to man's continual use, as fire, or water etc. But we ought to leave them to others when our own turns are served. Thus far Plutarch. The first reason tendeth to religion, the second to mansuetude, the third to humanity. (d) Who did ever look] Christ was not ignora●… of the time to come, nor of the eternity of his doctrine, as his leaving it to the publishing of only twelve weak men, against the malicious opposition of all judea, and his commanding them to preach it throughout the whole world, doth sufficiently prove, besides his prophesying to the Apostles that they should all abandon him and he be led to death that night, and yet again he promiseth them to be with them, to the end of the world. Finis lib. 20. THE CONTENTS OF THE ONE and twentieth book of the City of God. 1. Why the punishment of the damned is here disputed of before the happiness of the Saints. 2. Whether an earthly body may possibly be incorruptible by fire. 3. Whether a fleshly body may possibly endure eternal pain. 4. Nature's testimonies that bodies may remain undiminished in the fire. 5. Of such things as cannot be assuredly known to be such, and yet are not to be doubted of. 6. All strange effects are not natures, some are man's devices, some the devils. 7. God's omnipotency the ground of all belief in things admired. 8. That the alteration of the known nature of any creature, unto a nature unknown, is not opposite, unto the laws of nature. 9 Of Hell, and the quality of the eternal pains therein. 10. Whether the fire of hell, if it be corporal, can take effect upon the incorporeal devils. 11. Whether it be not justice that the time of the pains should be proportioned to the time of the sins and cri●…es. 12. The greatness of Adam's sin, inflicting eternal damnation upon all that are out of the state of grace. 13. Against such as hold that the torments after the judgement, shallbe but the means whereby the souls shallbe purified. 14. The temporal pains of this life afflicting all mankind. 15. That the scope of Gods redeeming us, is wholly pertinent to the world to come. 16. The laws of Grace, that all the ●…regenerate are blessed in. 17. Of some christians that held that hell's pains should not be eternal. 18. Of those that hold that the Intercession of the Saints shall save all men from damnation. 19 Of such as hold that heretics shallbe saved, in that they have partaken of the body of Christ. 20. Of such as allow this deliverance only to wicked and revolted Catholics 21. Of such as affirm that all that abide in the Catholic faith shallbe saved for that faith. 22. Of such as affirm that the sins committed amongst the works of mercy, shall not be called into judgement. 23. Against those that exclude both men & devils from pains eternal. 24. Against those that would prove all damnation frustrate by the prayers of the Saints. 25. Whether that such as being baptised by heretics, become wicked in life, or amongst Catholics, and then fall away into heresies & schisms, or continuing amongst Catholics be of vicious conversation, can have any hope of escaping damnation, by the privilege of the Sacraments. 26. What it is to have Christ for the foundation: where they are, that shallbe saved (as it were) by fire. 27. Against those that think those sins shall not be laid to their charge, wherewith they mixed some works of mercy. FINIS. THE ONE AND twentieth BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD: Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Why the punishment of the damned is here disputed of before the happiness of the Saints. CHAP. 1. SEEing that by the assistance of Our LORD and SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, the judge of the quick and the dead we have brought both the Cities (the one whereof is GOD'S and the other the devils,) unto their intended consummation, we are now to proceed (by the help of GOD) in this book, with the declaration of the punishment due unto the devil and all his confederacy. And this I choose to do before I handle the glories of the blessed, because both these & the wicked are to undergo their sentences in body and soul, and it may seem more incredible for an earthly body to endure undissolued in eternal pains, then without all pain, in everlasting happiness. So that when I have shown the possibility of the first, it may be a great motive unto the confirmation of the later. Nor doth this Method want a precedent from the Scriptures themselves, which sometimes relate the beatitude of the Saints fore-most, as here, They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation and some times afterward, as here, The Son of man shall send forth his Angels, and they shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire, there shallbe wailing and gnashing of teeth: Then shall the just shine like the Sun, in the Kingdom of the Father, and again, And these shall go into everlasting pain, and the righteous into life eternal? Besides, he that will look into the Prophets shall find this orde●… often observed▪ it were too much for me to recite all: my reason why I observe it here, I have set down already. Whether an earthly body may possibly be incorruptible by fire. CHAP. 2. WHat then shall I say unto the unbelievers, to prove that a body carnal and living, may endure undissolued both against death and the force of eternal fire. They will not allow us to ascribe this unto the power of God, but urge us to prove it to them by some example. If we shall answer them that there are some creatures that are indeed corruptible, because mortal & yet do live untouched in the midst of the fire: and likewise, that there are a kind (a) of Worms that live without being hurt in the fervent springs of the hot baths, whose hear sometimes is such as none can endure; and yet those worms do so love 〈◊〉 live in it, that they cannot live without it; this, either they will not believe unless they see it; or if they do see it, or hear it affirmed by sufficient authority, than they cavil at it as an insufficient proof for the proposed question; for that these creatures are not eternal howsoever, and living thus in this heat, nature hath made it the mean of their growth, and nutriment, not of their torment. As though it were not more incredible that fire should nourish any thing rather than not consume it. It is strange for any thing to be tormented by the fire, and yet to live: but it is stranger to live in the fire and not to be tormented. If then this later be credible, why is not the first so also? L. VIVES. A Kind (a) of worms] There are some springs that are hot in their eruptions by reason of their passages by veins of sulphurous matter under ground. Empedocles holds that the fire which is included in divers places of the earth, giveth them this heat Senec. Quaest nat. lib. 3. Their waters are good for many diseases. Many of those natural baths there are in Italy, and likewise in Germany, whereof those of Aquisgrane are the best. Of these baths read Pliny lib. 1. & 32. In these waters do the worms live that he speaketh of. Whether a fleshly body may possibly endure eternal pain. CHAP. 3. YEa but (say they (a) there is no body that can suffer eternally but it must perish a●… length. How can we tell that? Who can tell whether the (b) devils do suffer in their bodies when as the confess they are extremely tormented? If they answer that there is no earthly soul, and visible body, or (to speak all in one) no flesh, that can suffer always and never die, what is this but to ground an assertion upon mere sense, and appearance? for these men know no flesh but mortal, and what they have not known and seen, that they hold impossible. And what an argument it this, to make pain the proof of death, when it is rather the testimony of life? for though our question be, whether any thing living may endure eternal pain and yet live still, yet are we sure it cannot feel any pain at all unless it live, pain being inseparably adherent unto life, if it be in any thing at all. Needs then must that live that is pained, yet is there no necessity that this or that pain should kill it: for all pain doth not kill all the bodies that perish. Some pain indeed must, by reason that the soul and the body are so conjoined that they cannot part without great torment, which the soul giveth place unto, and the mortal frame of man being so weak that it cannot withstand this (c) violence, thereupon are they severed. But afterwards, they shall be so rejoined again, that neither time nor torment shall be able to procure their separation. Wherefore though our flesh as now be such that it cannot suffer all pain, without dying; yet then shall it become of another nature, as death also then shallbe of another nature. For the death then shallbe eternal, and the soul that suffereth it shall neither be able to live, having lost her God and only life, nor yet to avoid torment, having lost all means of death. The first death forceth her from the body against her will, and the second holds her in the body against her will. Yet both are one in this, that they enforce the soul to suffer in the body against her will. Our opponent will allow this, that no flesh as now can suffer the greatest pain, and yet not perish: but they observe not that there is a thing above the body, called a soul, that rules and guides it, and this may suffer all torment and yet remain for ever. Behold now, here is a thing, sensible of sorrow, and yet eternal: this power then that is now in the souls of all, shallbe as then in the bodies of the damned. And if we weigh it well, the pains of the body are rather referred to the soul. The soul it is, and not the body that feels the hurt inflicted upon any part of the body. So that as we call them living, and sensitive bodies, though all the life and sense is from the soul; so likewise do we say they are grieved bodies, though the grief be only in the soul. So then, when the body is hurt, the soul grieveth with the body. When the mind is offended by some inward vexation, than the soul grieveth alone, though it be in the body; and further, it may grieve when it is without the body, as the soul of the rich glutton did in hell, when he said, I am tormented in this flame. But the body wanting a soul grieveth not, nor having a soul, doth it grieve without the soul. If therefore it were meet to draw an argument of death, from the feeling of pain, as if we should say, he may feel pain: ergo, he may die, this should rather infer that the soul may die, because it is that which is the feeler of the pain. But seeing that this is absurd & false, how then can it follow that those bodies which shallbe in pain, shall therefore be subject unto death? Some (d) Platonists hold that those parts of the soul wherein fear, joy, and grief were resident, were mortal, and perished: whereupon Virgil said, Hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent, gaudent, hence (that is, by reason of those mortal parts of the soul) did fear, hope, joy, and grief possess them. But touching this we proved in our fourteenth book, that after that their souls were purged to the uttermost, yet remained there a desire in them, to return unto their bodies: and where desire is, there grief may be. For hope being frustate and missing the aim, turneth into grief and anguish. Wherefore if the soul which doth principally, or only suffer pain, be notwithstanding ((e) after a sort) immortal, then doth it not follow that a body should perish because it is in pain. Lastly, if the body may breed the soul's grief, and yet cannot kill it, this is a plain consequent that pain doth not necessarily infer death. Why then is it not as credible that the fire should grieve those bodies and yet not kill them, as that the body should procure the soul's ●…nguish and yet not the death? Pain therefore is no sufficient argument to prove that death must needs follow it. L. VIVES. THere is (a) no body] A common proposition of Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, Zeno, Cicero, Seneca, & all the ancient Philosophers. (b) Whether the devils] The Platonists dispute among themselves whether the bodies of the Damones have feeling. Some say thus, the feeling lieth only in the Nerves and sinews. The Daemons have now sinews: ergo. Others (as the old Atheists) say that the feeling is not in the sinews but in the spirit that engirteth them, which if it leave the sinew, it becometh stupid, and dead: therefore may the bodies of these Daemons both feel and be felt, and consequently be hurt, and cut in pieces by a more solid body, and yet notwithstanding they do presently rejoin, and so feel the less pain, though they feel some, the more concrete and condensate that their bodies are, the more subject are they to suffer pain, and therefore they do some of them fear swords, and threatenings of casting them down headlong. Mich. Psell. and Marc. Ch●…rrones. Hence it is (perhaps) that Virgil maketh Sibylla bid Aeneas draw his sword, when they went down to hell. Aeneid. 6. (c) Uiolence] Paine (saith Tully Tusc. quaest. 2.) is a violent motion in the body, offending the senses, which if it exceed, oppresseth the vitals and bringeth death: whether it arise of the super-abundance of some quality of the body, of heat, moisture, the spirits, the excrements, or of the defect of any of them, or ab externo, which three are generally the causes of pain. (d) Some Platonists] Aristotle affirms as much De anima lib. (e) After a sort] For it was not from before the beginning, and yet shallbe everlasting: it shall never be made nothing though it shall suffer the second death, and endure, eternally dying. Nature's testimonies that bodies may remain undiminished in the fire. CHAP. 4. IF therefore the (a) Salamander live in the fire (as the most exact naturalists record) and if there be certain famous hills in (b) Sicily that have been on fire continually, from beyond the memory of man, and yet remain whole & vnconsumed, then are these sufficient proofs to show that all doth not consume that burneth, as the soul proveth that all that feeleth pain, doth not perish. Why then should we stand upon any more examples to prove the perpetuity of man's soul and body, without death, or dissolution in everlasting fire and torment? That GOD that endowed nature with so many several and (c) admirable qualities, shall as then give the flesh a quality whereby it shall endure pain and burning for ever. Who was it but he, that hath made the flesh of a (d) dead Peacock to remain always sweet, and without all putrefaction? I thought this unpossible at first, and by chance being at meat in Carthage, a boiled Peacock was served in, and I to try the conclusion, took of some of the Lyre of the breast and caused it to be laid up. After a certain space (sufficient for the putrefaction of any ordinary flesh) I called for it, and smelling to it, found no ill taste in it at all. Laid it up again, and thirty days after, I looked again, it was the same I left it. The like I did an whole year after, and found no change, only it was somewhat more dry and solid? Who gave such cold unto the chaff, that it will keep snow unmelted in it, and withal, such heat, that it will ripen green apples? who gave the fire that wonderful power to make allthings that it burneth black, itself being so bright, and to turn a shining brand into a black coal? Neither doth it always thus. For it will burn stones until they be white, and though it be red, and they whitish, yet doth this their (e) white agree with the light as well as black doth with darkness. Thus the fire burning the wood, to bake the stone, worketh contrary effects upon objects which are (f) not contrary. For stone and wood are different but not opposite, whereas white and black are, the one of which colours the fire effecteth upon the stone, and the other upon the wood, enlighting the first, and darkening the later, though it could not perfect the first but by the help of the later. And what strange things there are in a coal? it is so brittle, that a little blow turns it to powder, and yet so durable that no moisture corrupteth it, no time wasteth it, so that they are wont to (g) lay coals under bounders, and marke-stones for lands, to convince any one that should come hereafter and say this is no bound-stone. What is it that maketh them endure so long in the earth, where wood would easily rot, but that same fire that corrupteth allthings? And then for lime, besides that it is whitened by the fire, it carrieth fire in itself, as taken from the fire, and keepeth it so secret, that it is not discoverable in it by any of our senses, nor known to be in it but by our experience. And therefore we call it quick lime, the invisible fire being as the soul of that visible body. But the wonder is that when it is killed it is quickened. For, to fetch out the fire from it, we cast water upon it, and being could before, that inflameth it, that cooleth all other things being never so hot. So that the lump dying as it were, giveth up the fire that was in it, and afterward remaineth cold if you water it never so: and then for quicke-lyme we call it quenched lime. What thing can be more strange? yes. If you power oil upon it in stead of water, though oil be rather the feeder of fire, yet will it never alter, but remain cold still. If we should have heard thus much of some Indian stone, that we had not, nor could not get to prove it, we should surely imagine it either to be a stark lie, or a strange wonder. But things occurrent unto daily experience, are debased by their frequency, in so much that we have left to wonder at somethings that only India (the farthest continent of the world) hath presented to our view. The diamond is common amongst us, chiefly our jewellers and Lapidaries: and this is (ay) so hard that neither fire, stone, nor steel can once dint it, but only the blood of a goat. But do you think this hardness so much admired now as it was by him that first of all descried it? Such as know it not, may peradventure not believe it, or believing it, one seeing it, may admire it as a rare work of nature: but daily trial ever taketh off the edge of admiration. We know that (k) the loadstone draweth Iron strangely: and surely when I observed it at the first, it made me much aghast. For I beheld the stone draw up an Iron ring and then as if it had given the own power to the ring, the ring drew up an other and made it hang fast by it, as it hung by the stone. So did a third by that, and a fourth by the third, and so until there was hung as it were a chain of rings only by touch of one another, without any inter-linking. Who would not admire the power in this stone, not only inherent in it, but also extending itself through so many circles, and such a distance? Yet stranger was that experiment of this stone which my brother and fellow Bishop Severus, Bishop of Milevita showed me. He told me that he had seen Bathanarius (sometimes a Count of Africa) when he feasted him once at his own house, take the said stone and hold it under a silver plate upon which he laid a piece of Iron: and still as he moved the stone under the plate, so did the Iron move above, the plate not moving at all, and just in the same motion that his hand moved the stone, did the stone move the Iron. This I saw, and this did I hear him report, whom I will believe as well as if I had seen it myself. I have read further-more of this stone, that (l) lay but a diamond near it, and it will not draw Iron at all, but putteth it from it as soon as ever the diamond comes to touch it. These stones are to be found in India. But if the strangeness of them be now no more admired of us, how much less do they admire them where they are as common as our lime, whose strange burning in water (which useth to quench the fire,) and not in oil (which feedeth it) we do now cease to wonder at because it is so frequent. L. VIVES. THe (a) Salamander] Of this creature you may read in Aristotle and Pliny. I have written of it elsewhere. It quensheth fire with the touch, and is in shape like a Lizart. (b) In Sicily] As Aetna, and Hiera, commonly called Volcania, as also in Theon Ochema in Aethiope, Veswius in Campania, Chimaera in Lycia, and in certain places about Hercules pillars, besides Hecla in Island, etc. (c) Admirable qualities] Truly admirable, for they are easy to be wondered at, but most intricate to be searched out. (d) A dead peacock] Many of these examples here are beyond reason, and at the most but explanable by weak conjectures, which we will omit, lest we should seem rather to oppose Saint Augustine then expound him. (e) White agree] It is a light colour, and offends the eye as much as the light: black is the darkest, and strengthens the power visual, like the darkness. (f) Not contrary] Contraries are two opposites of one kind, as black and white, both colours: moist and dry, both qualities, etc. but Substances have no contraries in themselves. (g) To lay coals] As Ctesiphon did under the foundations of Diana's temple in Ephesus. Plin. lib. 36. I think it should be Chersiphron, and not Clesiphon. For so say all the greeks, and Strabo lib. 14. (h) Quick lime] Bernard Valdaura. Sen. Nat quaest. li. 3. ay So hard that neither] Plin. lib. ult. cap. 4. Notwithstanding Bernard Ualdaura showed me diamonds the last year that his father broke with a hammer. But I think they were not Indian nor Arabian diamonds, but Cyprians, or Syderites, for there are many sorts. (k) The Loadstone.] Hereof read Pliny. lib. 36. cap. 16. Sotacus maketh five sorts of it: the Aethiopian, the Macedonian, the Baeotian, the Alexandrian, and the Androlitian. This last is much like silver, and doth not draw Iron. There is a stone (saith Pliny) called the Theamedes, just opposite in nature to the loadstone expelling all Iron from it. (l) Lay but a diamond] Plin. lib. ult. (m) In India] And in other places also. But in India they say there are Rocks of them that draw the ships to them if they have any Iron in them, so that such as sail that way, are feign to join their ships together with pings of wood. Of such things as cannot be assuredly known to be such, and yet are not to be doubted of. CHAP. 5. But the Infidels hearing of miracles, and such things as we cannot make apparent to their sense, fall to ask us the reason of them, which because it surpasseth our human powers to give, they deride them, as false and ridiculous; but let them but give us reason for all the wondrous things that we have seen, or may easily see hereafter, which if they cannot do, then let them not say that there is not, nor can be any thing without a reason why it should be; thus seeing that they are convinced by their own eye sight, I will not therefore run through all relations of authors, but try their cunning in things which are extant for any to see, that will take the pains, (a) The salt of Agrigentum in Sicily, being put in fire melteth into water, and in water, it crackleth like the fire. (b) The Garamantes have a fountain so cold in the day that it cannot be drunk oft: so hot in the night that it cannot be touched. (c) In Epyrus is another, wherein if you quench a torch, you may light it again thereat. The Arcadian (b) Asbest being once inflamed, will never be quenched. There is a kind of figtree in Egypt whose wood (e) sinketh, and being thoroughly steeped, (and the heavier, one would think) it riseth again to the top of the water. The apples of the country of (f) Sodom, are fair to the eye, but being touched, fall to dust and ashes. The Persian (g) Pyrites pressed hard in the hand, burneth it, whereupon it hath the name. (h) The Selenites is another stone wherein the waxing and waning of the Moon is ever visible. The (ay) Mares in Cappadocia conceive with the wind, but their foals live but three years. The trees of (k) Tilon, an I'll in India, never cast their leaves. All these, and thousands more, are no passed things, but visible at this day, each in their places; it were too long for me to recite all, my purpose is otherwise. And now let those Infidels give me the reason of these things, those that will not believe the scriptures, but hold them to be fictions, in that they seem to relate incredible things, such as I have now reckoned! Reason (say they) forbiddeth us to think that a body should burn, and yet not be consumed, that it should feel pain, and yet live everlastingly. O rare disputers! You that can give reason for all miraculous things, give me the reasons of those strange effects of nature before named, of those few only; which if you knew not to be now visible, and not future, but present to the view of those that will make trial, you▪ would be (l) more incredulous in them, then in this which we say shall come to pass hereafter. For which of you would believe us if we should say (as we say that men's bodies hereafter shall burn and not consume, so likewise) that there is a salt that melteth in fire, and crackleth in the water? of a fountain intolerably hot in the night, and intolerably cold in the day? or a stone that burneth him that holdeth it hard, or another, that being once fired, never quensheth; and so of the rest? If we had said, these things shallbe in the world to come, and the infidels had bidden us give the reason why, we could freely confess we could not, the power of GOD in his works surpassing the weakness of human reason: and yet that we knew that GOD did not without reason in putting mortal man by these, past his reason: We know not his will in many things, yet know we that what he willeth is no way impossible, as he hath told us, to whom we must neither impute falseness nor imperfection. But what say our great Reasonists unto those ordinary things which are so common, and yet exceed all reason, and seem to oppose the laws of nature? If we should say they were to come, than the Infidels would forthwith ask reason for them, as they do for that which we say is to come. And therefore seeing that in those works of GOD, man's reason is to seek, as these things are such now, and yet why, no man can tell, so shall the other be also hereafter, beyond human capacity and apprehension. L. VIVES. THe (a) salt] Hereof read Pliny, lib. 21. (b) The Garamantes] Plin. lib. 5. Near unto this fountain is Hammons well, of which you may read more in Diodorus, Lueret: Mela, Ovid, Silius, Solinus etc. (c) In Epirus] Pomp. Mela lib. 2. and Plin. lib. 2. It is called the fountain of jupiter Dodonaeus. (d) Asbest] A stone of an Iron colour. Plin. l 38. (e) Sinketh] Plin. lib. 13. cap. 7. (f) Sodom] Five cities perished in the burning of Sodom. Sodom, Gomorrha, Adama, Seborin and Segor, whereof this last was a little one but all the rest were very large. Paul, Oros. hereof you may read in Solinus his Polyhistor, as also of these apples. Tacitus seemeth to give the infection of the earth and the air from the lake, for the reason of this strange effect upon the fruits. lib. ultimo, Vide Hegesip. lib. 4. Ambros. interpret. (g) Tyrites] So saith Pliny, lib. ult. Pur, in greek, is fire. Some call the Coral pyrites, as Pliny wittnesseth. lib. 36. but there is another Pyrites besides, of the colour of brass. (h) The Selenites] Plin. lib. ult. out of Dioscorides, affirmeth this to be true. ay Mars] So saith Solinus in his description of Cappadocia. And it is commonly held that the Mares of Andaluzia do conceive by the southwest wind, as Homer, Uarro, Columella, Pliny, and Solinus, Pliny's Ape do all affirm. (k) Tilon] Pliny and Theophrastus affirm that it lieth in the read sea. Pliny saith that a ship built of the wood of this Island, will last two hundred years. lib. 16. (l) More incredulous] For some will believe only what they can conceive, and hold allthings else, fictions, nay some are so mad, that they think it the only wisdom to believe just nothing but what they see, despising and deriding the secrets of GOD and nature, which are wisely therefore concealed from the vulgar, and the witless ear. All strange effects are not natures: some are man's devices: some the devils. CHAP. 6. PErhaps they will answer, Oh, these are lies, we believe them not, they are false relations, if these be credible, then believe you also if you list, (for one man hath relared both this and those) that there was a temple of Venus wherein there burned a lamp which no wind nor water could ever quench, so that it was called the inextinguible lamp. This they may object, to put us to our plunges, for if we say it is false, we detract from the truth of our former examples, and if we say it is true we shall seem to avouch a Pagan deity. But as I said in the eighteenth book, we need not believe all that Paganism hath historically published, their histories (as Varro witnesseth) seemeing to conspire in voluntary contention one against an other: but we may, if we will, believe such of their relations as do not contradict those books which we are bound to believe. Experience, and sufficient testimony shall afford us wonders enough of nature, to convince the possibility of what we intent, against those Infidels. As for that lamp of Venus it rather giveth our argument more scope than any way suppresseth it. For unto that, we can add a thousand strange things effected both by human invention and Magical operation. Which if we would deny, we should contradict those very books wherein we believe. Wherefore that lamp either burned by the artificial placing (a) of some Asbest in it, or it was effected by (b) art magic, to procure a religious wonder, or else some devil having honour there under the name of Venus, continued in this apparition for the preservation of men's misbelief. For the (c) devils are alured to inhabit some certain bodies, by the very creatures of (d) God and not their delighting in them, not as other creatures do in meats, but as spirits do in characters and signs ad-apted to their natures, either by stones, herbs, plants, living creatures, charms and ceremonies. And this allurement they do sutly entice man to procure them, either by inspiring him with the secrets thereof, or teaching him the order in a false and flattering apparition, making some few, scholars to them, and teachers to a many more. For man could never know what they love, and what they loath but by their own instructions, which were the first foundations of art Magic. And then do they get the fastest hold of men's hearts (which is all they seek and glory in) when they appear like Angels of light. How ever, their works are strange, and the more admired, the more to be avoided, which their 1. Cor. 11 own natures do persuade us to do; for if these foul devils can work such wonders, what cannot the glorious angels do then? Nay what cannot that GOD do, who hath given such power to the most hated creatures? So then, if human art can effect such rare conclusions, that such as know them not would think them divine effects: (as there was an Iron Image hung (e) in a certain temple, so strangely that the ignorant would have verily believed they had seen a work of GOD'S immediate power, it hung so just between two loade-stones, (whereof one was placed in the roof of the temple, and the other in the floor) without touching of any thing at all,) and as there might be such a trick of man's art, in that inextinguible lamp of Venus, if Magicians, (which the scriptures call sorcerers and enchanters) can do such are exploits by the devils means as Virgil that famous Poet relateth of an Enchantress, in these words. (f) Haec se carminibus promittit solvere mentes Quas velit, hast aliis dur as immittere curas, Sistere aquam flwiis, & vertere sydera retrò, Nocturnosque ci●…t manes, mugire videbis Sub pedibus terram, & descendere montibus Ornos. She said her charms could ease one's heart of pain, Even when she list, and make him grieve again. Stop floods, bring back the stars, and with her breath, Rouse the black fiends, until the earth beneath Groaned, and the trees came marching from the hills etc. If all this be possible to those, how much more than can the power of GOD exceed them in working such things as are incredible to infidelity, but easy to his omnipotency, who hath given virtues unto stones, wit unto man, and such large power unto Angels? his wonderful power exceedeth all wonders, his wisdom permitteth and effecteth all and every particular of them, and cannot he make the most wonderful use of all the parts of that world that he only hath created? L. VIVES. PLacing (a) of some Asbest] Or of a kind of flax that will never be consumed, for such there is. Plin. lib. 19 Piedro Garsia and I saw many lamps of it at Paris, where we saw also a napkin of it thrown into the midst of a fire, and taken out again after a while more white and clean then all the soap in Europe would have made it. Such did Pliny see also, as he saith himself. (b) By art magic] In my father's time there was a tomb ●…ound, wherein there burned a lamp which by the inscription of the tomb, had been lighted therein, the space of one thousand five hundred years and more. Being touched, it fell all to dust. (c) Devils are alured] Of this read more in the eight and tenth books of this present work, and in Psell. de Daem. (d) And not theirs] The Manichees held the devils to be the creators of many things, which this denieth. (e) In a certain temple] In the temple of Serapis of Alexandria. Ruf●…n. Hist. Eccl. lib. 21. (f) Haec se] Aeneid. 4. God's omnipotency the ground of all belief in things admired CHAP. 7. WHy then cannot (a) GOD make the bodies of the dead to rise again, and the damned to suffer torment and yet not to consume, seeing he hath filled heaven, earth, air and water so full of innumerable miracles, and the world; which he made, being a greater miracle than any it containeth? But our adversaries, believing a God that made the world and the other gods, by whom he governeth the world, do not deny, but avoutch that there are powers that effect wonders in the world, either voluntarily, or ceremonially and magically, but when we give them an instance wrought neither by man nor by spirit, they answer us, it is nature, nature hath given it this quality. So than it was nature that made the Agrigentine salt melt in the fire, and crackle in the water. Was it so? this seems rather contrary to the nature of salt, which naturally dissolveth in water, and crakleth in the fire. I but nature (say they) made this particular salt of a quality just opposite. Good: this than is the reason also of the hear and cold of the Garamantine fountain, and of the other that puts out the torch and lighteth it again, as also of the A●…beste, and those other, all which to rehearse were too tedious: There is no other reason belike to be given for them, but, such is their nature. A good brief reason verily, and (b) a sufficient. But GOD being the Author of all nature, why then do they exact a stronger reason of us, when as we in proving that which they hold for an impossibility, affirm that it is thus by the will of Almighty GOD, who is therefore called Almighty because he can do all that he will, having created so many things which were they not to be seen, and confirmed by sufficient testimony, would seem as impossible as the rest, whereas now we know them, partly all, and partly some of us. As for other things that are but reported without ●…estimony, and concern not religion, nor are not taught in scripture, they may, be false, and a man may lawfully refuse to believe them. I do not believe all that I have set down, so firmly that I do make no doubt of some of them, but for that which I have tried, as the burning of lime in water and cooling in oil; the loade-stones drawing of Iron and not moving a straw; the incorruptibility of the Peacocks' flesh, whereas Plato's flesh did putrify; the keeping of snow and the ripening of apples in chaff; the bright fire making the stones of his own col●…our, and wood of the just contrary, these I have seen and believe without any doubt at all: Such also are these, that clear oil should make black spots, and white silver drawn a black line: that coals should turn black, from white wood, brittle of hard ones, and incorruptible of corruptible pieces: together with many other which tediousness forbiddeth me here to insert. For the others, excepting that fountain that quensheth and kindleth again, & the dusty apples of Sodom, I could not get any sufficient proofs to confirm them. Nor met I any that had beheld that fountain of Epyrus, but I found diverse that had seen the like, near unto Grenoble in France. And for the Apples of Sodom, there are both grave authors, and eye-witnesses enough alive, that can affirm it, so that I make no doubt thereof. The rest I leave indifferent, to affirm, or deny; yet I did set them down because they are recorded in our ad●…ersaries own histories, to show them how many things they believe in their own books, without all reason, that will not give credence to us, when we say that God Almighty will do any thing that exceedeth their capacity to conceive. What better or stronger reason can be given for any thing then to say, God Almighty will do this, which he hath promised in those books wherein he promiseth as strange things as this, which he hath performed. He will do it, because he hath said he will: even he, that hath made the incredulous Heathens believe things which they held mere impossibilities. L. VIVES. WHy then (a) cannot God] Seeing the scope of this place is divine, and surpasseth the bounds of nature, as concerning the resurrection, judgement, salvation, and damnation, I [No word of this in the Louvain copy.] wonder that Aquinas, Scotus, Occam, Henricus de Gandavo, Durandus and Petrus de Palude dare define of them according to Aristotle's positions, drawing themselves into such labyrinths of natural questions, that you would rather say they were Athenian Sophisters, than Christian divines.] (b) Sufficient] Man's conceit being so slender and shallow in these causes of things, in so much that Virgil said well, Faelix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas: (c) Grenoble] It was built by Gratian, and called Gratianopolis, Valens being Emperor of the East. It standeth in Dauphin, and retaineth part of the old name. That the alteration of the known nature of any creature, unto a nature unknown, is not opposite unto the laws of nature. CHAP. 8. IF they reply that they will not believe that man's body can endure perpetual burning, because they know it is of no such nature, so that it cannot be said of it, that nature hath given it such a quality, we may answer them out of the scriptures, that man's body before his fall was of such a nature that it could not suffer death: and yet in his fall was altered unto that mortal misery wherein now all mankind liveth, to die at length: and therefore at the resurrection it may undergo such another alteration, unknown to us as yet. But they believe not the Scriptures that relate man's estate in Paradise, if they did, we should not need to stand long with them upon this theme of the pains of the damned: whereas now we must make demonstration out of their own authors, how it is possible that there may be a full alteration of nature in any one object, from the kind of being that it had before, and yet the laws of nature be kept unviolated. Thus we read in Varro's book De Gente Pop. Rom. Castor (saith he) relateth, that in that bright star of Venus (a) which Plautus calls Hesperugo and Homer the glorious (b) Hesperus, befell a most monstrous change both of colour, magnitude, figure and motion: the like never was before nor since: and this saith Adrastus Cyzicenus, and Dion Neapolites (two famous Astronomers) befell in the reign of Ogyges. A monstrous change, saith Varro, and why, but that it seemed contrary to nature: such we say, all portents to be, but we are deceived: for how can that be against nature which is effected by the will of God the Lord and maker of all nature? A portent therefore is not against nature, but against the most common order of nature. But who is he that can relate all the portents recorded by the Gentiles? Let us seek our purpose in this one. What more decretal law hath God laid upon nature in any part of the creation, than he hath in the motions of the heavens? what more legal and fixed order doth any part of nature keep? and yet you see, that when it was the pleasure of Nature's highest sovereign, the brighest star in all the firmament, changed the colour, magnitude and figure, and which is most admirable, the very course and motion. This made a foul disturbance in the rules of the Astrologians (if there were any then) when they observing their fixed descriptions of the eternal course of the stars, durst affirm that there never was, nor never would be any such change as this of Venus was. Indeed we read in the Scripture that the Sun stood still at the prayer of josuah, until the battle was done, and went back to show Hezechias that the Lord had added fifteen years unto his life. As for the miracles done by the virtues of the Saints, these Infidels know them well, and therefore aver them to be done by Magic: whereupon Virgil saith as I related before of the witch, that she could Sistere aquam flwiis & vertere cider a retrò: Virg. Enid. 4. Stop floods, bring back the stars, etc. For the river jordan parted, when josuah lead the people over it, and when Heliah passed it, as likewise when his follower Heliseus divided it with Heliah his cloak, and the sun as we said before went back in the time of Hezechiah. But Varro doth not say that any one desired this change of Venus. Let not the faithless therefore hood wink themselves in the knowledge of nature, as though God's power could not alter the nature of any thing from what it was before unto man's knowledge, although that the known nature of any thing be fully as admirable, but that men admire nothing but rarieties. For what reasonable man doth not see, that in that greatest likeness and most numerous multitude of one work of nature, the face of man, there is such an admirable quality, that were they not all of one form, they should not distinguish man from beast, and yet were they all of one form, one man should not be known from another? Thus likeness and difference are both in one object. But the difference is most admirable, nature itself seeming to exact an uniformity in the proportion thereof, and yet because it is rarieties which we admire, we do wonder far more when we see two (c) so like that one may be easily and is oftentimes deceived in taking the one for the other. But it may be they believe not the relation of Varro, though he be one of their most learned Historians, or do not respect it, because this star did not remain long in this new form, but soon resumed the former shape and course again. Let us therefore give them another example, which together with this of his, I think may suffice to convince, that God is not to be bound to any conditions in the allotting of particular being to any thing, as though he could not make an absolute alteration thereof into an unknown quality of essence. The country of Sodom was whilom otherwise than it is now: it was once like the rest of the land, as fertile and as fair, if not more than the rest, in so much that the Scripture compareth it to Paradise. But being smitten from lieaven (as the Paynim stories themselves record, and all travelers cou●… me) it now is as a field of foot and ashes, and the apples of the soil being fair without are nought but dust within. Behold, it was not such, and yet such it is at this day. Behold a terrible change of nature wrought by nature's Creator? and that it remaineth in that foul estate now, which it was a long time ere it fell into. So then, as God can create what he will, so can he change the nature of what he hath created, at his good pleasure. And hence is the multitude of monsters, visions, pertents, and prodigies, for the particular relation whereof, here is no place. They are called (d) monsters, of Monstro, to show, because they betoken somewhat: And portents and prodiges of portendo, and porrò dico, to presage and foretell somewhat to enshew. But whether they, or the devils, whose care it is to inveigle and entangle the minds of the unperfect, and such as dese●…ve it, do delude the world either by true predictions, or by stumbling on the truth by chance, let their observers & interpreters look to that. But we ought to gather this from all those monsters & prodigies that happen or are said to happen against nature (as the Apostle implied when he spoke of the (e) engraffing of the wild Olive into the Garden Olive, whereby the wild one was made partaker of the root and fatness Rom. ●…1. of the other,) that they all do tell us this, that God will do with the bodies of the dead, according to his promise, no difficulty, no law of nature can or shall prohibit him. And what he hath promised, the last booked declared out of both the Testaments, not in very great measure, but sufficient (I think) for the purpose and volume. L. VIVES. Venus' (a) with.] Here of already. Some call this star Venus, some juno. Arist. De mundo. Some Lucifier, some Hesperus. Higin. lib. 2. It seemeth the biggest star in the firmament. Some say it was the daughter of Shafalus and ●…rocris, who was so fair that she contended with Venus, and therefore was called Venus' Eratasthen. It got the name of Lucifer and Hesperus from rising and setting before and after the Sun. Higinus placeth it above the Sun the Moon and Mercury, following Plato, Aristotle the Egyptians, and all the Old Astronomers. (b) Hesperus.] So doth Cynna in his Smirna. Te matutinis flentem conspexit Eous, Et flentem paulo vidit post Hesperus idem. The day-star, saw thy cheeks with tears bewet, So did it in the evening, when it set. That this was both the day-star and the Euening-●…arre, Pythagoras, or (as some say) Parmenides was the first that observed. Plm. lib. 2. Suidas. (c) Two so like.] Such two twins had Servilius. Cie. Acad. Quaest 4. Such were the Menechmi in Pluatus supposed to be, whom their very mother could not distinguish, such also were the Twins that Quintilian declameth of. And at Mechlin at this day Petrus Apostotius, a Burguer of the town, mine host, hath two toward, and gracious children, so like, that not only strangers, but even their own mother hath mistook them, and so doth the father likewise to this day, calling Peter by his brother john's name, and john by Peter. (d) Monsters.] Thus doth Tully expound these words. De divinat▪ (e) Engraffing.] The wild olive is but a bastard fruit and worse than the other: but it is not the use to engraff bad slips in a better stock, to mar the whole, but good ones in a bad flock to better the fruit. So that the Apostles words seem to imply a deed against nature. Of Hell and the qualities of the eternal pains therein. CHAP. 9 AS God therefore by his Prophet spoke of the pains of the damned, such shall they be: Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched Our Saviour to commend this unto us, putting the parts that scandalise a man, for man's right members, Isa. 66. 24. and bidding him cut them of, addeth this: better it is for thee to enter into life maimed, then having two hands to go into Hell into the fire that never shallbe quenched, where their worm dieth not, and their fire never goeth out, and likewise of the foot: Mar. 9 47. Better for thee to go halting into life, then having two feet to be cast into Hell etc. And so saith he of the eye also, adding the Prophet's words three several times. O whom would not this thunder from the mouth of God strike a i'll terror into, sounding so often? Now as for this worm and this fire, they that make them only mental pains, do say that the fire implieth the burning of the soul in grief and anguish, that now repenteth to late for being severed from the sight of God: after the manner that the Apostle saith: who is offended and I burn not? And this anguish may be meant also by the worm, say they, as it is written, As the moth is 1. Cor. 11. 29. to the garment, and the worm to the wood, So doth sorrow eat the heart of a man. Now such as hold them both mental and real, say that the fire is a bodily plague to the body, and the worm a plague of conscience in the soul. This seemeth more likely in that it is absurd to say, that either the soul or body shallbe clear of pain; yet had I rather take part with them that say they are both bodily, then with those that say that neither of them is so; and therefore that sorrow in the Scriptures though it be not expressed so, yet it is understood to be a fruitless repentance con●…oyned with a corporal torment, for the scripture saith: the vengeance of the (flesh of the) wicked is fire and the worm: he might have said more Eccl. 7. briefly, the vengeance of the wicked, why did he then add of the flesh, but to show that both those plagues, the fire and the worm, shallbe corporal? If he added it because that man shallbe thus plagued for living according to the flesh, (for it is therefore that he incurreth the second death, which the Apostle meaneth of when he saith, If ye live after the flesh ye die:) but every man believe as he like, either giving the fire truly to the body, and the worm figuratively to the soul, or both properly to the body: for we have fully proved already that a creature may burn and yet not consume, may live in pain and yet not die: which he that denieth, knoweth not him that is the author of all nature's wonders, that God who hath made all the miracles that I erst recounted, and thousand thousands more, and more admirable, shutting them all in the world, the most admirable work of all. Let every man therefore choose what to think of this, whether both the fire and the worm plague the body, or whether the worm have a metaphorical reference to the soul. The truth of this question shall then appear plain, when the knowledge of the Saints shall be such as shall require no trial of it, but only shallbe fully satisfied and resolved by the perfection and plenitude of the divine sapience. We know but now in part, until that which is perfect be come, but yet may we not believe those bodies to be such, that the fire can work them no anguish nor torment. L. VIVES. THeir (a) worm.] Is. 66. 24. this is the worm of conscience. Hierome upon this place. Nor is there any villainy (saith Seneca) how ever fortunate, that escapeth unpunished, but is plague to itself by wring the conscience with fear and distrust. And this is Epicurus his reason to prove that man was created to avoid sin, because having committed it, it scourgeth the conscience, and maketh it fear, even without all cause of fear. This out of Seneca, ●…pist. lib. ●…6. And so singeth Iwenall in these words: Exemplo quod●…unque malo committitur, ipsi D●…splicet auctori: prima est haec ultio, quòd se judice nemo nocens absoluitur.— etc. Each deed of mischief first of all dislikes The authout: with this whip Revenge first strikes, That no stained thought can clear itself,— etc. And by and by after: — Cur tamen hos tu●… Euasisse putes, quos diriconscia facti, Mens habet ●…ttionitos▪ & surdo verbere caedit, Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum. Poena autem vehemens, & multo saevior illis, Quas & Ceditius gravis invenit, & Rhadamanthus Nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem. — But why should you suppose Them free, whose soul blacked over with ugly deeds Affrights and tears the conscience still, and feeds Revenge, by nuzzling terror, fear and war, Even in itself. O plagues far lighter far, To bear guilts blisters in a breast unsound, Then Rhadamant, or stern Ceditius found. Nay the conscience confoundeth more than a thousand witnesses. Tully holds there are no other hell furies then those stings of conscience, and that the Poets had that invention from hence. In l. Pis. & Pro Ros●…. Amerin. Hereof you may read more in Quintilians Orations. Whether the fire of hell if it be corporal, can take effect upon the incorporeal devils. CHAP. 10. But here now is another question: whether this fire, if it plague not spiritually, but only by a bodily touch, can inflict any torment upon the devil and his Angels? they are to remain in one fire with the damned, according to our saviours own words: Depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his Angels. But the devils according as some learned men suppose, have bodies of condensate air, such as we feel in a wind; and this air is passable, and may suffer burning, the heating of baths proveth, where the air is set on fire to heat the water, and doth that which first it suffereth. If any will oppose, and say the devils have no bodies at all, the matter is not great, nor much to be stood upon. For why may not unbodyed spirits feel the force of bodily fire, as well as man's incorporeal soul is now included in a carnal shape, and shall at that day be bound into a body for ever. These spiritual devils therefore or those devilish spirits, though strangely, yet shall they be truly bound in this corporal fire, which shall torment them for all that they are incorporeal. Nor shall they be so bound in it, that they shall give it a soul as it were, and so become both one living creature, but as I said, by a wonderful power shall they be so bound that in steed of giving it life, they shall from it receive intolerable torment, although the coherence of spirits and bodies, whereby both become one creature, be as admirable, and exceed all humane capacity. And surely I should think the devils shall burn them, as the rich glutton did, when he cried, saying, I am tormented in this flame, but that I should be answered that that fire was such as his tongue was, to cool which, he seeing Lazarus a far of, entreated him to help him with a little water on the tip of his finger. He was not then in the body but in soul only; such likewise (that is incorporeal) was the fire he burned in, and the water he wished for, as the dreams of those that sleep and the vision of men in ecstasies are, which present the forms of bodies, and yet are not bodies indeed. And though man see these things only in spirit, yet thinketh he himself so like to his body, that he cannot discern whether he have it on or no. But that hell, that ●…ake of fire and brimstone, shall be real, and the fire corporal, burning both men and devils, the one in flesh and the other in air: the one i●… the body adhaerent to the spirit, and the other in spirit only adhaerent to the fire, and yet not infusing life, but feeling torment for one fire shall torment both men and Devils, Christ hath spoken it. Whether it be not justice that the time of the pains should be proportioned to the time of the sins and crimes. CHAP. 11. But some of the adversaries of God's city, hold it injustice for him that hath offended but temporally, to be bound to suffer pain eternally, this (they say) is ●…ly vn●…. As though they knew any law chat adapted the time of the punishment to the time in which the crime was committed. Eight kind of punishments d●…th Tully affirm the laws to inflict: Damages, imprisonment, whipping, like for like, public disgrace, banishment, death, and bondage, which of these can be performed in so little time as the offence is, excepting (a) the fourth, which yields every man the same measure that he meateth unto others, according to that of the law, An eye for an eye, and a to●…th for a tooth? Indeed one may lose his eye by this law, in as small a time as he put out another man's by violenc●…. 〈◊〉 is a man kiss another man's wife, and be therefore adjudged to be whipped, is not that which he did in a moment, paid for by a good deal longer sufferance? is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pleasure repaid with a longer pain? And what for imprison●… 〈◊〉 ●…ry one judged to lie there no longer than he was a doing his villa●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 servant that hath but violently touched his master, is by a just law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many years imprisonment. And as for damages, disgraces, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, are not many of them darelesse, and lasting a man's whole life, wher●… be 〈◊〉 a proportion with the pains eternal. Fully eternal they cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the life which they afflict is but temporal, and yet the sins they 〈◊〉 are all committed in an instant, nor would any man advise that the conti●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 penalty should be measured by the time of the fact, for that, be it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉, or what villainy soever, is quickly dispatched, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be weighed by the length of time, but by the foulness of the crime. 〈◊〉 for him that deserves death by an offence, doth the law hold the time that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ing, to be the satisfaction for his guilt, or his being taken away from the fellowship of men, whether? That than which the terrestrial City can do by the first death, the celestial can effect by the second, in clearing herself of malefactors. For as the laws of the first, cannot call a dead man back again into their society, no more do the laws of the second call him back to salvation that is once entered into the second death. How then is our saviours words (say they) With what measure ye meet, with the same shall men meet to you again. Luc. 6. if temporal sins be rewarded with eternal pains? O but you mark not that those words have a reference to the returning of evil for evil in our nature, and not in one proportion of time: that is, he that doth evil, shall suffer evil, without limitation of any time: although this place be more properly understood of the judgements and condemnations whereof the Lord did there speak. So that he that judgeth unjustly, if he be judged unjustly, is paid in the same measure that he meated withal, though not what he did: for he did wrong in judgement, and such like he suffereth: but he did it unjustly, marry he is repaid according to justice. L. VIVES. EXcepting the (a) fourth] This was one of the Romans laws in the twelve tables, and hereof doth Phavorinus dispute with Sep. Caecilius, in Gellius. lib. 20. The greatness of Adam's sin, inflicting eternal damnation upon all that are out of the state of Grace. CHAP. 12. But therefore doth man imagine, that this infliction of eternal torment is unjustice, because his frail imperfection cannot discern the horribleness of that offence that was the first procurer thereof. For the fuller fruition man had of God, the greater impiety was it for him to renounce him, and therein was he worthy of everlasting evil, in that he destroyed his own good, that otherwise had been everlasting. Hence came damnation upon all the stock of man, parent and progeny under-going one curse, from which none can be ever freed, but by the free and gracious mercy of God, which maketh a separation of mankind, to show in one of the remainders the power of grace, and in the other the revenge of justice. Both which could not be expressed upon all mankind, for if all had tasted of the punishments of justice, the grace and mercy of the redeemer had had no place in any: and again, if all had been redeemed from death, there had been no object left for the manifestation of God's justice: But now there is more left, then taken to mercy, that so it might appear what was due unto all, without any impeachment of God's justice, who notwithstanding having delivered so many, hath herein bound us for ever to praise his gracious commiseration. Against such as hold, that the torments after the judgement shall be but the means whereby the souls shall be purified. CHAP. 13. SOme Platonists there are who though they assign a punishment to every sin, yet hold they that all such inflictions, be they humane or divine, in this life or in the next, tend only to the purgation of the soul from enormities. whereupon Virgil having said of the souls; Hinc metunt cupiuntque, etc. Hence fear, desire, etc., And immediately: Quin ut supremo cum lumine vita reliquit, Non tamen omne mal●…m miseris, nec funditùs omnes Corporeae excedunt pests, penitùsque necesse est, Multa diù concreta modis inolescere miris. Ergo exercentur poenis, veterumque malorum Supplicia expendunt, aliae panduntur inanes Suspensa ad ventos, aliis sub gurgite vasto Insectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni. For when the souls do leave the bodies dead, Their miseries are not yet finished: Nor all their times of torment yet complete: Many small crimes must needs make one that's great. Pain therefore purgeth them, and makes them fair From their old stains: some hang in dusky air, Some in the deep do pay the debt of sin, And fire is chosen to cleanse others in. They that hold this, affirm that no pains at all are to be suffered after death, but only such as purge the souls, and those shall be cleared of all their earthly contagion by some of the three upper elements, the fire, the air, or the water. The air, in that he saith, Suspensae ad ventos: the water, by the words Sub gurgite vasto; the fire is expressly named, aut exuritur igni. Now indeed we do confess that there are certain pains during this life, which do not properly afflict such as are not bettered but made worse by them, but belong only to the reforming of such 〈◊〉 take them for corrections. All other pains, temporal and eternal are laid upon every one as God pleaseth, by his Angels good or bad, either for some sin past, or wherein the party afflicted now liveth, or else to excercise and declare the virtue of his servants. For if one man hurt another (a) willingly, or by chance, it is an offence in him to do any man harm, by will or through ignorance, but God whose secret judgement assigned it to be so, offendeth not at all. As for temporal pain, some endure it here, and some hereafter, and some both here and there, yet all is passed before the last judgement. But all shall not come into these eternal pains, (which notwithstanding shall be eternal after the last judgement, unto them that endure them temporally after death.) For some shall be pardoned in the world to come that are not pardoned in this, and acquitted there and not here from entering into pains eternal, as I said before. L. VIVES. Willingly (a) or by] Willingly, that is, of set purpose, or through a wrong persuasion that 〈◊〉 doth him good when he hurteth him, as the torturers and murderers of the martyrs believed. These were all guilty, nor wa●… their ignorance excusable: which in what cases it may be held pardonable, Augustine disputeth in Quaest vet. & Nou. Testam. The 〈◊〉 all pains of this life afflicting all mankind. CHAP. 14. BUT few the●… 〈◊〉 that endure none of these pains until after death. Some indeed I have known & heard of that never had hours sickness until their dying day, and lived very long, though notwithstanding man's whole life be a pain in that it is a temptation and a warrefare upon earth as Holy job saith, for ignorance is a great punishment, and therefore you see that little children are forced to a avoid it by stripes and sorrows, that also which they learn being such a pain to them, that sometimes they had rather endure the punishments that enforce them learn it, then to learn that which would avoid them (a). Who would not tremble and rather choose to die then to be an infant again, if he were put to such a choice? We begin it with tears, and therein presage our future miseries. Only (b) Zoroastres smiled (they say) when he was borne: but his prodigyous mirth boded him no good: for he was, by report, the first inventor of Magic, which notwithstanding stood him not in a pin's stead in his misfortunes, for Ninus King of Assiriaover came him in battle and took his Kingdom of Bactria from him. So that it is such an impossibility that those words of the Scripture, Great travel is created for all men and an heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam from the day that they go out of their mother's womb, until the day that they return unto the mother of all things, should not be fulfilled, that the very infants, being baptized, and therein quit from all their guilt, which then is only original, are notwithstanding much and often afflicted, yea even sometimes by the incursion of Devils, which notwithstanding cannot hurt them if they die at that tenderness of age. L. VIVES. WHo (a) would.] Some would think themselves much beholding to God if they might begin their days again, but wise Cato in Tully was of another mind. (b) Zoroastres smiled.] He was king of Bactria, the founder of Magic. He lived before the Trojan war 5000. years saith Hermodotus Platonicus. Agnaces taught him. He wrote 100000. verses, Idem. Eudoxus maketh him live 5000. years before Plato his death, and so doth Aristotle. Xanthus' Lydius is as short as these are over in their account, giving but 600, between Zoroastres, and Xerxes' passage into Greece. Pliny doubts whether there were many of this name. But this lived in Ninus his time; he smiled at his birth, and his brain beat so that it would lift up the hand; a presage of his future knowledge. Plin. He lived twenty years in a desert upon cheese, which he had so mixed, that it never grew mouldy nor decayed. That the scope of Gods redeeming us is wholly pertinent to the world to come. CHAP. 15. But yet notwithstanding in this heavy yoke that lieth upon Adam's children from their birth to their burial, we have this one means left us, to live sober, and to weigh that our first parent's sin hath made this life but a pain to us, and that all the promises of the New-Testament belong only to the Heritage laid up for us in the world to come: pledges we have here, but the performance due thereto we shall not have till then. Let us now therefore walk in hope and profiting day by day let us mortify the deeds of the flesh, by the spirit, for God knoweth all that are his, and as many as are led by the spirit of God, are the sons of God, but by grace, not by nature, for God's only son by nature, was made the son of man for us, that we being the sons of men by nature might become the sons of God in him by grace, for he remaining changeless, took our nature upon him, and keeping still his own divinity, that we being changed, might leave our frailty and apnesse to sin, through the participation of his righteousness and immortality and keep that which he had made good in us, by the perfection of that good which is in him: for as we all fell into this misery by one man's sin, so shall we ascend unto that glory by one (deified) man's righteousness. Nor may any imagine that he hath had this pass, until 〈◊〉 be there where there is no temptation but all full of that peace which we seek by these conflicts of the spirit against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit. This war had never been, had man kept his will in that right way wherein it was first placed. But refusing that, now he fighteth in himself, and yet this inconvenience is not so bad as the former, for happier far is he that striveth against sin than he that alloweth it sovereignty over him. Better is war with hope of eternal peace, than thraldom without any thought of freedom. We wish the want of this war though, and God inspireth us to aim at that orderly peace wherein the inferior obeyeth the superior in allthings: but if there were hope of it in this life (as God forbid we should imagine) by yielding to sin, (a) yet ought we rather to stand out against it, in all our miseries, then to give over our freedoms to sin, by yielding to it. L. VIVES. YEt (a) ought we.] So said the Philosophers, even those that held the souls to be mortal: that virtue was more worth than all the glories of a vicious estate, and a greater reward to itself: nay that the virtuous are more happy even in this life, than the vicious, and there●… Christ animates his servants with promises of rewards both in the world to come, and in this that is present The laws of grace, that all the regenerate are blessed in. CHAP. 16. But God's mercy is so great in the vessels whom he hath prepared for glory, that even the first age of man, which is his infancy, where the flesh ruleth without control, and the second, his childhood, where his reason is so weak that it giveth way to all ●…nticements, and the mind is altogether incapable of religious precepts; if notwithstanding they be washed in the fountain of regeneration, and he die at this or that age, he is translated from the powers of darkness to the glories of Christ, and freed from all pains, eternal and purificatory. His regeneration only is sufficient clear that, after death which his carnal generation had contracted with death. But when he cometh to years of discretion, and is capable of good counsel, then must he begin a fierce conflict with vices lest it allure 〈◊〉 to damnation▪ Indeed the freshwater soldier is the more easily put to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 practice will make him valorous, and to pursue victory with all his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he must evermore assay by a weapon called the (a) love of true righ●… 〈◊〉 ●…is is kept in the faith of Christ, for if the command be present, and the 〈◊〉 absent, the very forbidding of the crime inflameth the perverse flesh to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…er into it, sometimes producing open enormities, and sometimes (b) sects ones, farre-worse than the other, in that pride, and ruinous self conceit perswade●… 〈◊〉 that they are virtues. Then therefore sin is quelled, when it is beaten down by they love of God, which none but he and that he doth only, by jesus Christ the mediator of God and man, who made himself mortal, that we might be made eternal: few are so happy to pass their youth without taint of some damnable sin or other, either in deed, opinion, or so; but let them above all, seek to suppress by the fullness of spirit all such evil motions as shall be incited by the looseness of the flesh. Many, having betaken themselves to the law, becoming prevaricators thereof through sin, are afterwards feign to fly unto the law of grace assistant, which making them both truer penitents, and stouter opponents, subiecteth their spirits to God, and so they get the conquest of the flesh. He therefore that will escape hell fire, must be both Baptized and justified in Christ, and this is his only way to pass from the Devil unto him. And let him assuredly believe that there is no purgatory pains but before that great and terrible judgement. Indeed it is true that the fire of Hell shallbe (c) more forcible against some then against others, according to the diversity of their deserts, whether it be adapted in nature to the quality of their merits, or remain one fire unto all, and yet be not felt alike of all. L. VIVES. THe (a) love of.] This made Plato advise men to use their children only to virtuous delights, and to induce a hate of bad things into their minds, which were it observed, out love would then be as much unto virtue as now it is unto carnal pleasures, for custom is another nature: and a good man liketh virtue better than the voluptuary doth sensuality. (b) Secret ones far worse. Plato having feasted certain Gentlemen, spread the Room with mats and dressed his banqueting beds handsomely. In comes Diogenes the Cynic, and falls presently a trampling of the hangings with his dirty feet. Plato coming in, why how now Diogenes quoth he? Nothing said the other, but that I tread down Plato's Pride. Thou dost indeed (saith Plato) but with a pride far greater, for indeed this was a greater vainglory and arrogance in Diogenes that was poor, then in Plato that was rich, and had but prepared these things for his friends. So shall you have a many proud beggars think themselves holier than honest rich men, only for their name sake, as if God respected the goods, and not there minds. They will not be rich, because they think their poverty maketh them more admired Diogenes had wont to do horrible things to make the people observe him, and one day in the midst of winter he fell a washing himself in a cold spring, whither by and by there gathered a great multitude, who seeing him, pitied him, and prayed him to forbear: O no, saith Plato aloud, if you will pity him, get ye all gone: for he saw it was not virtue, but vainglory that made him do thus. (c) More forcible.] According to the words of Christ, 〈◊〉 Mat. 11. ●…be easier for tire and Sydon. etc. Of some Christians that held that Hell's pains should not be eternal. CHAP. 17. NOw must I have a gentle disputation with certain tender hearts of our own religion, who think that God, who hath iu●… doomed the damned unto 〈◊〉 fire, will after a certain space, which his goodness shall think fit for the merit of each man's guilt, deliver them from that torment. And of this opinion was (a) Origen, in far more pitiful manner, for he held that the devils themselves after a set time▪ 〈◊〉, should be loosed from their torments, and become bright 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ●…hey were before. But this, and other of his opinions, chief▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…-volution of misery and bliss which he held that all 〈◊〉 should run in, gave the church cause to pronounce him Anathema: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had lost this seeming pity, by assigning a true misery, after a while, and 〈◊〉 bliss, unto the Saints in heaven, where they (if they were true) could never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to ●…aine. But far otherwise i●… their tenderness of heart, which ●…old that this freedom out of hell shall only be extended unto the souls of the 〈◊〉 after a certain time appointed for every one, so that all at length shall 〈◊〉 to be Saints in heaven. But if this opinion be good and true, because it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the farther it extendeth, the better it is: so that it may as well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 freedom of the devils also, after a longer continuance of time. W●… 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 it with man kind only, and excludeth them? ●…ay but it dares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ they dare not extend their pity unto the devil. But if any one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ go●… beyond them, and yet sinneth in erring more deformedly, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ly against the express word of GOD, though he think to show the more pity herein. L. VIVES. ORigen (a) in] Periarch lib. Of this already. (b) Include the freedom] So did Origen, 〈◊〉 likewise made good Angels become devils in process of time, according to his ima●… circum-●…. Of those that hold that the intercession of the Saints shallsave all men from damnation. CHAP. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with some that seem to reverence the Scriptures, and yet are no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, who would make God far more merciful than the other. For as 〈◊〉 the wicked, they confess, that they deserve to be plagued, but mercy shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hand when it comes to judgement: for God shall give them all 〈◊〉 the prayers and intercession of the Saints, who if they prayed for them 〈◊〉 they 〈◊〉 over them as enemies, will do it much more now when they 〈◊〉 prostrate a●… their feet like slaves. For it is incredible (say they) that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mercy when they are most holy and perfect, who prayed 〈◊〉 their foes, when they were not without sin themselves: Surely than they 〈◊〉 pray for them being now become their suppliants, when as they have no 〈◊〉 at 〈◊〉 left in them. And will not God hear them, when their prayers have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? Then bring they forth the testimony of the Psalm▪ which the 〈◊〉 that held the saving of all the damned after a time, do allege also, but 〈◊〉 that it maketh more for them: the words are these: Hath God for●… 〈◊〉 will be 〈◊〉 up his 〈◊〉 in displeasure? His displeasure (say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all that 〈◊〉 vn〈◊〉 of eternal life, to eternal torment. But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ little or long, how can it be then that the Psalm 〈◊〉 〈…〉 up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in displeasure? It saith not, Will he shut●… 〈◊〉 v●… 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he will not shut them up at all. Thus do they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of GOD is not false, although he condemn none, no more than his threatening to destroy Ninivy was false, though it was not effected (say they) notwithstanding that he promised it without exception. He said not, I will destroy it unless it repent, but plainly▪ without addition, Ninivy shallbe destroyed. This threa●…g do they hold true, because GOD foretold plainly what they had deserved, though he pake not that which he meant to do▪ for though he spared them, yet knew he that they would repent: and yet did he absolutely promise their destruction. This therefore (say they) was true in the truth of his severity, which they had deserved, but not in respect of his mercy, which he did not shut up in displeasure, because he would show mercy unto their prayers, whose pride he had threatened to punish. If therefore he showed mercy then (say they) when he knew he should thereby grieve his holy prophet, how much more will he show it now when all his Saints shall entreat for it? Now this surmise of theirs they think the scriptures do not mention, because men should be reclaimed from vice by fear of tedious or eternal torment, and because some should pray for those that will not amend: and yet the scriptures (say they) do not utterly conceal it: for what doth that of the Psalm intent, How great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee! Thou keepest them secret in thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues. That is, say Psal. 31 19, ●…0 they, this great sweetness of GOD'S mercy it kept secret from us, to keep us in the more awe, and therefore the Apostle saith GOD hath shut up all in unbelief, that he might have mercy on all, to show that he will condemn none. Ro. 11, 32 Yet these Opinionists will not extend this general salvation unto the devils, ●…t make mankind the only object of their pity, promising impunity to their own bad lives withal, by pretending a general mercy of GOD unto the whole generation of man: and in this, they that extend God's mercy unto the devil and his angels, do quite exceed these later. Of such as hold that heretics shallbe saved, in that they have partaken of the body of CHRIST. CHAP. 19 OThers there are, that clear not hell of all, but only of such as are baptised and partakers of Christ's body, and these (they say) are saved, be their lives or doctrines whatsoever, whereupon CHRIST himself said, This is the bread which cometh down from heaven that he which eateth of it should not die▪ I am the joh. 〈◊〉 ●…ing bread which came down from heaven. Therefore (say these men) must all such 〈◊〉 saved of necessity, and glorified by everlasting life. Of such as allow this deliverance only to wicked and revolted Catholics. CHAP. 20. ANother sort restrain the former position only to Catholics, line they never so vilely, because they have received CHRIST truly and been 〈◊〉 in his body: of which the Apostle faith; We that are many, are one bread, 1 C●…. 10 17. 〈◊〉 one body, because we all are partakers of one bread. So that fall they into never ●…o 〈◊〉 afterwards, yea even into Paganism, yet because they received the Baptism of Christ in his Church, they shall not perish for ever, but ●…hall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life, 〈◊〉 shall their guilt make their torments everlasting, 〈◊〉 temporal▪ though they may last a long time, and be extremely 〈◊〉▪ Of such as affirm that all that abide in the Catholic faith, shall be saved for that faith ●…ly, be their lives never so worthy of damnation. CHAP. 21. THere 〈◊〉 some▪ who because it is written▪ He that endureth to the end, he shall 〈◊〉 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do affirm that only they that continue Catholics (howsoever they live) shall be saved by the merit of that foundation, whereof the Apostle 〈◊〉, Other foundation can no man try, then that which is laid, which is Christ 〈◊〉. C●…. 3. 〈◊〉 And if any man build on this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, tim●…▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day [of the Lord] shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by the fire, and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work that he hath built upon abide, he shall receive wages. If any man's work burn, he shall lose, 〈◊〉 he shall be▪ 〈◊〉 himself, yet as it were by fire. So that all Christian Ca●… 〈◊〉 say ●…hey) having Christ for their foundation (which no heretics 〈◊〉 off from his body) be their lives good or bad, (as those that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or stubble upon this foundation) shall nevertheless be sa●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i●…, shall be delivered after they have endured the pains of the 〈◊〉 which punisheth the wicked in the last judgement. Of such 〈◊〉 affirm that the sins committed amongst the works of mercy, shall not be called into judgement. CHAP. 22. ANd some I have met with, that hold that none shall be damned eternally, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a●… neglected to satisfy for their sins by almsdeeds: alleging 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ Th●… shall be judgement merciless unto him that showeth no mercy. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (say they) though he amend not his life, but live sin●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full works, shall nevertheless have so merciful a iudg●…, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall either not be punished at all, or at least be freed from his 〈◊〉 after his sufferance of them for some certain space, more or less. And 〈◊〉 the judge of quick and dead would mention no other thing in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those on both sides of him, for the salvation of the one part, and the 〈◊〉 of the other, but only the almes-det●…s which they had either done 〈◊〉. To which also (say they) doth that part of the Lords prayer per●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. For he 〈◊〉 an offence done to him, doth a work (a) of mercy: which Christ 〈◊〉 ●…ee said: If ye do forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly fa●… 〈◊〉 but if ye do not forgive men their trespasses, no more will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forgive you 〈◊〉 trespasses. So that here-unto belongeth also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There shall be judgement merciless, etc. The LORD said not, Your small trespasses (say they) nor your great, but, generally, your trespasses, and therefore they hold that those that live never so viciously until their dying day, have notwithstanding their sins absolutely pardoned every day by this prayer used every day, if withal they do remember, freely to forgive all such as have offended them, when they entreat for pardon, when all those errors are confuted, I will GOD willing make an end of this present book. L. VIVES. A (a) Work of mercy] For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is the properly, mercy of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to have mercy, as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, come of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and in divers more examples. Against those that exclude both men and devils from pains eternal. CHAP. 23. FIrst than we must show why ' the church hath condemned them that affirm that even the very devils after a time of torment, shallbe taken to mercy. The reason is this, those holy men, so many and so learned in both the laws of GOD, the Old and the New, did not envy the mundification and beatitude of those spirits, after their long, and great extremity of torture, but they saw well, that the words of Our Saviour could not be untrue, which he promised to pronounce in the last judgement, saying: Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his Angels. Hereby showing Mat. 25 that they should burn in everlasting fire: likewise in the Revelation; The devil that deceived them was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet shallbe tormented even day and night for evermore. There he saith, everlasting, and here for evermore, in both places excluding all termination Apo●…. 20 and end of the time. Wherefore there is no reason either stronger or plainer to assure our belief that the devil and his angels shall never more return to the glory and righteousness of their Saints, then because the scriptures, that deceive no man, tell us directly and plainly, that GOD hath not spared them, but 〈◊〉 them down into hell, and delivered them unto chains of darkness, there to be 〈◊〉 unto the damnation in the just judgement, then to be cast into eternal fire, and there to burn for evermore. If this be true, how can either all, or any men be 2 Pet. 〈◊〉 ●…iuered out of this eternity of pains, if our faith whereby we believe the de●… to be everlastingly tormented, be not hereby infringed? for if those (either all or some part) to whom it shallbe said, Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels, shall not continue for e●… in the fire, what reason have we to think that the devil and his angels 〈◊〉? Shall the word of GOD spoken alike both to men and devils, be proved 〈◊〉 upon the devils and not upon the men? So indeed should man's surmises ●…of more certainty than God's promises. But seeing that cannot be, they 〈◊〉 desire to escape this pain eternal, must cease to argue against GOD, and 〈◊〉 his yoke upon them while they have time. For what a fondness were it to value the pains eternal by a fire only of a long conti●…▪ but yet to believe assuredly that life eternal hath no end at all, seeing 〈◊〉 the LORD in the same place including both these parts in one sen●… 〈◊〉 ●…plainely, These shall go into everlasting pains, and the righteous into life 〈◊〉. Thus doth he make them parallels: here is everlasting pains, and there 〈◊〉 eternal life. Now to say this life shall never end, but that pain shall, were gro●…sly absurd. Wherefore seeing that the eternal life of the Saints shall be without end, so therefore is it a consequent that the everlasting pain of the damned shallbe as endless as the others beatitude. Against those that would prove all damnation frustrate by the praters of the Saints. CHAP. 24. THis is also against those who under colour of more pity, oppose the express word of GOD: and say that GOD'S promises are true in that men are worthy of the plagues he threatens, not that they shallbe laid upon them. For he will give them (say they) unto the entreaties of his Saints, who willbe the readier to pray for them then, in that they are more purely holy, and their prayers willbe the more powerful, in that they are utterly exempt from all touch of sin and corruption. Well, and why then in this their pure holiness, and powreful●…se of prayer will they not entreat for the Angels that are to be cast into everlasting 〈◊〉, that it would please GOD to mitigate his sentence, and set them free from that intolerable fire? Some perhaps will pretend that the holy angels 〈◊〉 join with the Saints (as then their follows) in prayer both the Angels and men also that are guilty of damnation, that God in his mercy would be pleased to pardon their wicked merit. But there is no sound christian that ever held his, or ever will hold it: for otherwise, there were no reason why the Church should not pray for the devil and his Angels, seeing that her LORD GOD hath willed her to pray for her enemies. But the same cause that stayeth the Church for praying for the damned spirits (her known enemies) at this day, the ●…ame shall hinder her for praying for the reprobate souls, at this day of judgement, notwithstanding her fullness of perfection. As now, she prayeth 〈◊〉 her enemies in mankind, because this is the time of wholesome repentance, and therefore her chief petition for them, is, that GOD would grant them peni●… 〈◊〉. Tim. 2. and escape from the snares of the devil, who are taken of him at his will, as the Apostle ●…aith. But if the church had this light that she could know any of those w●… (though they live yet upon the earth, yet) are predestinated to go with the devil into that everlasting fire; she would offer as few prayers for them, as she doth for him. But seeing that she hath not this knowledge, therefore prayeth 〈◊〉 for all her foes in the flesh, and ye is not heard for them all, but only for those who are predestinated to become her sons, though they be as yet her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. If any shall die her impenitent foes, and not return into her bo●… 〈◊〉, doth she pray for them? No, because they that before death are not 〈◊〉 into CHRIST, are afterward reputed as associates of the devil: And 〈◊〉 the same cause that forbids her to pray for the reprobate souls as then, stopp●…●…er for praying for the Apostatical Angels as now: and the ●…ame reason 〈◊〉 why we pray for all men living, and yet will not pray for the wicked, nor 〈◊〉, being dead. For the prayer either of the Church, or of some Godly persons is heard (a) for some departed this life: but for them which being regenerate in Christ, have not spent their life so wickedly, that they may be judged unworthy of such mercy: or else so devoutly, that they may be found to have no need of such mercy. Even as also after the resurrection there shallbe some of the dead, which shall obtain mercy after the punishments, which the spirits of the dead do suffer, that they be not cast into everlasting fire. For otherwise that should not be truly spoken concerning some. That they shall not be forgiven neither in this world, nor in the world to come: unless there were some, who although Math. 12, 32 they have no remission in this, yet might have it in the world to come. But when it shallbe said of the judge of the quick, and the dead. Come ye blessed of my father, possess the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world: and Math. 25, 34, 41 to others on the contrary, Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil, and his angels: it were too much presumption to say, that any of them should escape everlasting punishment, whom the Lord hath condemned to eternal torments, & so go about by the persuasion of this presumption, either also to despair, or doubt of eternal life. Let no man therefore so understand the Psalmist, when he saith, Will God forget to have mercy, or will he shut up his loving kindness in displeasure: that he suppose that the sentence of GOD is Psal. 7. 7 true concerning the good, false concerning the wicked, or that it is true concerning good men, and evil angels: but concerning evil men to be false? For that which is recorded in the Psalm, belongeth to the vessels of mercy, and to the sons of the promise, of which the Prophet himself was one, who when he had said, Will God forget to have mercy: will he shut up his loving kindness in displeasure? straigth-way addeth And I said, it is mine own infirmity, I will remember the years 〈◊〉 the right hand of the highest. Verily he hath declared what he meant by these words. Will the LORD shut up his loving kindness in displeasure? For truly this mortal life, is the displeasure of God, wherein man is made like unto vanity, and 〈◊〉 days pass away like a shadow. In which displeasure nevertheless GOD will not Psal. 14, 3, 4. Math. 5. 45 forget to be gracious by causing his sun to shine upon the good, and the evil, and the 〈◊〉 to fall upon the just, and unjust: and so he doth not shut up his loving kindness in displeasure, and especially in that, which the psalm expresseth here saying. I will remember the years of the right hand of the highest: because in this most miserable life, which is the displeasure of God, he changeth the vessels of mercy into a better state, although as yet his displeasure remaineth in the misery of this corruption: because he doth not shut up his mercies in his displeasure. When as therefore the verity of this divine song may be fulfilled in this manner, it is not necessary, that it should be understood of that place, where they which pertain not to the City of GOD, shallbe punished with everlasting punishment. But 〈◊〉 which please to stretch this sentence even to the torments of the damned, at least let them so understand it, that the displeasure of GOD remaining in them which is due to eternal punishment, yet nevertheless that God doth not shut up his loving kindness in this his heavy displeasure, and causeth them not to 〈◊〉 tormented with such rigour of punishments, as they have deserved: [Yet not 〈◊〉 that they may (b) escape,] or at any time have an end of those punish●…, but that they shallbe more easy than they have deserved. For so both 〈◊〉 ●…tch of GOD shall remain, and he shall not shut up his loving ●…dnesse in his displeasure. But I do not confirm this thing, because I do 〈◊〉 contradict it. 〈◊〉 not only I, but the sacred and divine Scripture doth reprove, and convince them most plainly and fully, which think that to be spoken rather by the way of threatening, then truly, when it is said. Depart from me ye wicked, 〈◊〉. 25 into ●…sting fire, and also. They shall go into everlasting punishment: and their 〈◊〉 shall not die, and the fire shall not be extinguished▪ etc. For the Ninivites 〈◊〉. 20 〈◊〉. 66 〈◊〉. 3. 〈◊〉 fruitful repentance in this life as in the field, in which GOD would have that to be sown with tears, which should afterwards be reaped with joy. And yet who will deny that to be fulfilled in them which the LORD, had spoken before, unless he cannot well perceive, that the Lord doth not only overthrow sinners in his anger, but likewise in his mercy? for sinners are confounded by two manner of ways, either as the Sodomites, that men suffer punishments for their sins, or as the Ninivits, that the sins of men, be destroyed by repenting. For Ninivy is destroyed which was evil, and good Ninivy is built, which was not. For the walls, and houses standing still, the City is overthrown in her wicked 〈◊〉: And so though the Prophet was grieved, because that came not to 〈◊〉, which those men feared to come by his propehcy: nevertheless that was ●…ought to pass, which was foretold by the foreknowledge of God: because 〈◊〉, which had forespoken it, how it was to be fulfilled in a better manner. But that they may know who are merciful towards an obstinate sinner, what that meaneth which is written. How great, oh LORD, is the multitude of thy sweetness, which thou hast hidden for them that fear thee? let them also read that, which followeth. But thou hast performed it to them which hope in thee. For what is, Thou 〈◊〉 hidden for them which fear thee, Thou hast performed to them which hope in thee: but that the righteousness of GOD is not sweet unto them because they know it 〈◊〉 which establish their own righteousness for the fear of punishments, which righteousness is in the law? For they have not tasted of it. For they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 themselves, not in him, and therefore the multitude of the sweetness of GOD 〈◊〉 hidden unto them, for truly they fear GOD but with that servile 〈◊〉, which is not in love, because perfect love casteth away fear. Therefore he performeth his sweetness to them which hope in him by inspiring his love into them, that when they glory with chaste fear, not in that which love casteth away, but which remaineth for ever and ever, they may glory in the LORD. For Christ is the righteousness of God. Who unto us of GOD, (as the Apostle saith) is made wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. That 〈◊〉 C●…. 1, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is written. Let him which rejoiceth, rejoice in the LORD. They which will establish their own righteousness, know not this righteousness, which grace 〈◊〉 C●…. 10, 〈◊〉. doth give without merits, and therefore they are not subject to the righteousness of GOD which is CHRIST. In which righteousness there is great a●… 〈◊〉 of the sweetness of GOD, wherefore it is said in the Psalm: Taste 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how sweet the Lord is. And we truly having a taste, and not our fill of it in this 〈◊〉 pilgrimage, do rather hunger, and thirst after it, that we may be sa●… 〈◊〉 it afterward, when we see him as he is, and that shallbe fulfilled which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. I shallbe satisfied when thy glory shallbe manifested. So CHRIST ef●… abundance of his sweetness to those which hope in him. But if 〈◊〉. ●…7, 15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ sweetness which they think to be theirs for them which fear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will not condemn the wicked, that not knowing this thing, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they might live well, and so there may be some which may pray 〈◊〉 wicked, how then doth he perform it to them which hope in him? seeing, that, 〈◊〉 they dream, by this sweetness he will not condemn them which do not hope in him. Therefore let us seek that sweetness of his, which he performeth to them which hope in him, and not that which he is thought to effect unto them which contemn and blaspheme him. (c) In vain therefore man inquireth that, when he is departed out of the body, which he hath neglected to obtain to himself being in the body. That saying also of the Apostle, (d) For God hath shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all, is not spoken to that end that he will condemn none, but it appeareth before in what sense it was spoken. For when as the Apostle spoke unto the Gentiles, to whom now believing, he wrote his Epistles, concerning the jews, who should afterward believe: As ye, (saith he) in time past have not believed GOD. Yet now have obtained mercy through their unbelief: even so now have they not believed by the mercy showed unto you, that they may also obtain mercy. Then he addeth, whereby they flatter themselves in their errors, and saith, For GOD hath shut up all in unbelief, Rom. 11. 32 that he may have mercy on all. Who are they all, but they of whom he did speak, saying, as it were Both ye and they? Therefore GOD hath shut up both Gentiles, and jews all in unbelief, whom he foreknew, and predestinated to be made like the Image of his Son: that being ashamed and cast down by repenting for the bitterness of their unbelief, and converted by believing, unto the sweetness of the mercies of GOD, might proclaim that in the Psalm. How great is the multitude of thy sweetness, Oh Lord, which thou hast laid up for Psalm. 30. them which fear thee: but hast performed it to them which hope, not in themselves, but in thee. Therefore he hath mercy on all the vessels of mercy, What meaneth of all? That is to say, of those of the Gentiles, and also of those of the jews whom he hath predestinated, called, justified, glorified, not of all men, and will con●…mne none of those. L. VIVES. FOr (a) some departed this life.] In the ancient books printed at Bruges and Coline, those ten or twelve lines which follow are not to be found: for it is written in this manner, For the prayer either of the Church or of some godly persons is heard for some departed this ●…fe, but for them whose life hath not been spent so wickedly being regenerate in Christ, etc. Those things which follow are not extant in them, neither in the copies printed at Friburge. Nevertheless the stile is not dissonant from Augustine's phrase; peradventure they are either wanting in some books, or else are added here out of some other work of Augustine, as the first Scholion, afterward adjoined to the context of the speech. Yet not so that they may (b) escape.]. The particle of negation is to be put foremost, that we may read it, yet not so that they may undergo those punishments at any time. In vain (c) therefore man] In the Bruges copy it is read thus. In vain therefore doth man inquire that after this body which he hath neglected to get in the body. (d) For GOD hath shut up all in unbelief] Commonly we read all things in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is to say, all men. Paul signifieth that no man hath any occasion to boast that he is glorious unto GOD by his own merits, 〈◊〉 that it is wholly to be attributed to the goodness and bounty of GOD. Whether that such as being baptised by heretics, become wicked in life, or amongst Catholics, and then fall away into heresies and schisms, or continuing amongst Catholics, be of vicious conversation, can have any hope of escaping damnation, by the privilege of the Sacraments. CHAP. 12. NOw let us answer those, who do both exclude the devils from salvation, (as the other before do) and also all men besides whatsoever, excepting such 〈◊〉 are 〈◊〉 in CHRIST, and made partakers of his body and blood, and these they will have saved, be their lives never so spotted by sin or heresy. 〈◊〉 ●…ostle doth plainly control them, saying, The works of the flesh are 〈◊〉, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, wantonness, Idolatry, etc. 〈◊〉 such like whereof I tell you now as I told you before that they which do such things 〈◊〉 not inherit the Kingdom of GOD. This were false now, if that such men should become Saints, at any time whatsoever. But this is true scripture, and therefore that shall never come to pass. And if they be never made 〈◊〉 of the joys of heaven, then shall they be evermore bound in the ●…ines of 〈◊〉, for there is no medium, wherein he that is not in bliss, might ●…ue a pla●… free from torment. 〈…〉 And therefore it is fit, we see how our saviours words may be understood ●…ere he saith: This is the bread that came down from heaven that he 〈◊〉. 6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of it, should not die. I am the living bread which came down from hea●… 〈◊〉 of this bread, he shall live for ever etc. Those whom we 〈◊〉 answer by and by, have gotten an interpretation for these places, somewhat more restrained than those whom we are to answer at this present. For those other do not promise delivery to all that receive the Sacraments, but only to the Catholics (of what manner of life soever) for they only are those that receive the body of CHRIST, not only sacramentally, but 〈◊〉 al●…, (〈◊〉 they) as being the true members of his body, whereof the Apostle saith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are one bread and one body. He therefore 〈…〉. that is in this ●…ity of CHRIST'S members in one body, the sacrament whereof the faithful do daily communicate, he is truly said to receive 〈◊〉 body, and to drink the blood of CHRIST. So that Heretics and 〈◊〉 who are cut off from this body, may indeed receive the same 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 them no good, but a great deal of hurt, in that great 〈◊〉 it will both make their pains more heavy, and their continuance 〈◊〉. For they are not in that unity of peace, which is expressed (a) in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. But ●…ow these that can observe, that he that is not in CHRIST, cannot receive his body 〈◊〉 do overshoote themselves in promising absolution (at one time or other) to all the ●…ators of superstition, Idolatry, or heresy. First, because they ought 〈◊〉 observe how absurd, and far from all likely hood 〈◊〉, that those (be they more or less) that have left the church and become 〈◊〉 heretics, should be in beer estate then those whom they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be heretics with them, before that they were Catholics, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 church, if to be baptised, and to receive CHRIST'S body in the church, be the causes of those arch-heretiques delivery. For an Apostata, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the faith he hath once professed, is worse than he that op●…●…hat he did never profess. Secondly, in that the Apostle himself 〈◊〉 them, concluding of the works of the flesh, that, They which 〈◊〉 ●…ll 〈◊〉 the Kingdom of GOD. 〈◊〉 therefore, and wicked men, secure themselves by their continuance 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 it is written. He th●… endureth to the end, he shallbe saved; nor by 〈◊〉 ●…quity renounce Christ, their justice, in committing fornication, and either 〈◊〉 any part of those fleshly works which the Apostle re●…) counteth, or such uncleanesses as he would not name: for of all such, he ●…aith expressly, they shall not inherit the Kingdom of GOD. Wherefore the doers of such deeds cannot but be in eternal pains, in that they are excluded from the everlasting joys. For this kind of perseverance of theirs, is no perseverance in CHRIST, because it is not a true perseverance in his faith, which the Apostle defineth, to be such as worketh by love. And love (as he saith elsewhere) worketh not evil. So then these are no true receivers of CHRIST'S body, in that they are none of his true members. For (to omit other allegations) they cannot be both the members of CHRIST and the members of an harlot. And CHRIST himself saying he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me & I in him, showeth what it is to receive Christ (not joh. 6. only sacramentally, but) truly: for this is to dwell in Christ and Christ in ●…m. For thus he spoke as if he had said He that dwelleth not in me, nor I in him, cannot say he eateth my flesh, or drinketh my blood. They therefore that are not members of CHRIST, are not in him: they that make themselves the members of an harlot, are no members of CHRIST, unless they purge away their badness by repentance, and return to his goodness by a true reconciliation. L. VIVES. EXpressed (a) in this sacrament.] For all partake of one bread, which is a great bond of 〈◊〉. Again, this mystical bread is made of many grains of corn, losing their proper forms to be all incorporated into one mass or body. So, many are received into the church, and at th●… entrance, they put off their own proper enormities, and being linked to the rest 〈◊〉 love, and charity, seem now no more what they were before, but are incorporate into one body, the church. Baptism maketh us both brethren, and one also: and mutual charity giveth form, colour, taste, and perfection▪ to the whole body. So that there could not have been given a more fit type of the Church, then that which CHRIST gave in his institution. What it is to have CHRIST for the foundation: who they are, that shallbe saved (as it were) by fire. CHAP. 26. I But christian Catholics (say they) have CHRIST for their foundation, from whom they fell not, though they built badly upon it, in resemblance of timber, straw, and stubble. So that faith is true, which holds CHRIST the foundation, and though it bear some loss, in that the things which are built upon it, burn away, yet hath it power to save him that holdeth it, (after some time of sufferance.) But let Saint james answer these men in a word; If a man say he ●…th faith, and have no works, can the faith save him? Who then is that (say they) of whom Saint Paul saith: He shallbe safe himself, nevertheless (as it were) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? well, we will see who that is: but surely it is no such as these would have 〈◊〉, for else, the Apostles condradict one another. For if one saith, though a man have lived wickedly, yet shall he be saved by faith, through fire: and the other, If he have no works, can his faith save him? Then shall we soon find who it is that shallbe saved by fire, if first of all, we find what it is to have Christ for the foundation. Together which, first, from the nature of the simyly, there is no work in building before the f●…dation. Now every one hath CHRIST in his heart thus far, that 〈◊〉 ●…ct of temporal things, (and sometimes of things unlawful) still ●…eth Christ for the foundation thereof. But if he prefer these things 〈◊〉 CHRIST, though he seem to hold his faith, yet CHRIST is no foundation unto him, in that he prefers those vanities before him. And if ●…ee both contemn good instructions, and prosecute bad actions, how much the sooner shall he be convinced to set Christ at nothing, to esteem him at no value in vainer respects, by neglicting his command and allowance, and in prevarication of both, following his own lustful exorbitances: wherefore, if any christian love an h●…r lot, and become one body with her by coupling with her, he hath 〈◊〉 Cor. 〈◊〉 not Christ f●… his foundation. And if a man love his wife, according to Christ, who can deny but that he hath Christ for his foundation? Admit his love be 〈◊〉, worldly, concupiscential, as the Gentiles loved, that knew not Christ▪ all this the Apostle doth bear with, and therefore still may Christ be such a man's foundation. For if he prefer not these carnal affects before Christ, though he build straw and stubble upon his foundation, yet Christ is that still, and therefore such a man shallbe saved by fire. For the fire of tribulation shall purge away those carnal and worldly affections, which the bond of marriage doth acquit from being damnable: and unto this fire, all the calamities accident in this kind, as, barrenness, loss of children, etc. have reference. And in this case, he that buildeth thus, shall lose, because his building shall not last, and these losses shall grieve him in that their fruition did delight him. Yet shall the worth of his foundation save him, in that if the persecu●… should put it to his choice, whether he would have Christ, or these his 〈◊〉 he would choose Christ, and leave all the rest. Now shall you hear 〈◊〉 describe a builder upon this foundation with gold, silver, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The unmarried (saith he) careth for the things of the LORD, 〈◊〉. 7. ●…2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the LORD. And now for him that buildeth with wood, straw and 〈◊〉. He that is married, caretb for the things of the world, how he may please his wife. Every man's work shallbe made manifest, for the day of the LORD shall Cor. 3 declare it, that is the day of tribulation, for, it shallbe revealed by the fire. This tribulation he calleth fire, as we read also in another place. The fur●… 〈◊〉. ●…7 proveth the potter's vessel, and so doth the temptation. [of tribulation] try man's thoughts. So then, the fire shall try every man's work: and if any work 〈◊〉 (as his will, that careth for the things of the LORD, and how to ●…ase him) he shall receive wages, that is, he shall receive him, of whom 〈◊〉 thought, and for whom he cared. But if any 〈◊〉 work burn he shall 〈◊〉 because he shall not have his delights that he loved; yet shall he be 〈◊〉 in that he held his foundation, maugre all tribulation: but as it were by 〈◊〉 for that which he possessed in alluring love, he shall forge with 〈◊〉 sorrow. This (think I) is the fire, that shall enrich the one and ●…ge the other, trying both, yet condemning neither. If we say th●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of here is that whereof CHRIST spoke to those on his left 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from me ye cursed into everlasting fire; and that all such 〈◊〉 builded 〈◊〉, straw, and stubble upon their foundation, are part of the said cursed, who notwithstanding after a time of torment, are to be dedelivered by the merit of their foundation; then can we not think that those on the right hand, to whom he shall say, Come you blessed, etc. Are any other saving those that built gold, silver and precious stones upon the said foundation. But this fire of which the Apostle speaketh, shall be as a trial both to the good and the bad: both shall pass through it, for the word saith, Every man's work shall 1 Cor. 3. 13. be made manifest, for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by the fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If the fire try both, and he that hath an abiding work, be rewarded, and he whose work shall burn, shall be endamaged, then cannot this be that everlasting fire. For into that shall none enter but the cursed, on the left hand, in the last judgement, whereas the blessed shall pass through this, wherein some of them shallbe so tried, that their building shall abide vnconsumed, and othersome shall have their work burned, and yet shall be saved themselves, in that their love unto Christ exceeded all their carnal imperfections. And if they be saved, then shall they stand on Christ's right hand, and shall be part of those to whom it shall be said, Come you blessed of my father inherit the kingdom, etc. and not on the left hand amongst the cursed, to whom it shall be said, Depart from me, etc. For none of these shall be saved by fire, but all of them shall be bound for ever in that place where the worm never dieth, there shall they burn world without end. But as for the time between the bodily death, and the last judgement, if any one say that the spirits of the dead are all that while tried in such fire as never moveth those that have not built wood; straw, or stubble, afflicting only such as have wrought such works, either here, or there, or both; or that man's worldly affects (being venial) shall ●…e the purging fire of tribulation only in this world, and not in the other; if any hold thus, I contradict him not, perhaps he may hold the truth. To this tribu●… also may belong the death of body, drawn from our first parent's sin, and inflicted upon each man sooner, or later according to his building. So may also the Church's persecutions, wherein the Martyrs were crowned, and all the rest afflicted: For these calamities (like fire) tried both sorts of the buildings, consuming both works and work men, where they found not Christ for the foundation; and consuming the works only (and saving the workmen by this loss) where they did find him, and stubble, etc. built upon him: but where they found works remaining to eternal life, there they consumed nothing at all. Now in the last days, in the time of antichrist shall be such a persecution as never was before▪ And many buildings both of gold and stubble, being all founded upon Christ, shall then be tried by this fire, which will return joy to some, and loss to others, and yet destroy none of them by reason of their firm foundation. But whosoever he be, that loveth (I do not say his wife, with carnal affection, but even) such shows of piety as are utter alliens from this sensuality, with such a blind desire that he preferreth them before Christ, this man hath not Christ for his foundation, and therefore shall neither be saved by 〈◊〉, no●… otherwise, because he cannot be conjoined with Christ, who faith plainly of such men, He that loveth father or mother more than me, is unworthy of Mat. 1●… me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. But he that loveth them carnaliy, & yet preferreth Christ for his foundation, and had rather lose them all, then Christ, if he were driven to the loss of one, such a man shall be saved, but as it were by fire, that is his grief in the losing of them must needs be as great as his delight was in enjoying them, But he that loves father, mother, etc. according to Christ, to bring them unto his Kingdom, or be delighted in th●… because they are the members of Christ, this love shall never burn away li●…●…ood, straw, stubble, but shall stand as a building of gold, silver, and pre●… 〈◊〉▪ for how can a man love that, more than Christ, which he loveth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sake only. L. VIVES. 〈◊〉 day of (a) the Lord] whereunto all secrets are referred, to be revealed, and therefore they are worthy of reprehension that dare presume to censure acts that are doubtful 〈◊〉 ●…rable only by conjectures, seem they never so bad. 〈◊〉 th●…se that think those sins shall not be laid to their 〈◊〉, wherewith they mixed some works of mercy. CHAP. 27. NOw a word with those that hold none damned but such as neglect to do works of mercy worthy of their sins; because S. james saith, There shall be 〈◊〉 merciless to him that showeth no mercy: he therefore that doth show mer●…▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. say they) be his life never so burdened with sin and corruption, shall not withstanding have a merciful judgement, which will either acquit him from all pains, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deli●… 〈◊〉 after a time of sufferance. And this made Christ distinguish 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…om 〈◊〉 ●…obate only by their performance, and not performance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the one whereof is rewarded with everlasting joy, and the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as for their daily sins, that they may b●… pardoned through 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉, the Lords prayer (say they) doth sufficiently prove: for as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 christian ●…aith not this prayer, so likewise is there no daily 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when we say, And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 we perform this later clause accordingly: for Christ (say they) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will forgive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but he said generally, he will forgive you yours. Be they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so 〈◊〉▪ never so ordinary, never so continual, yet works of mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them all away▪ well, they do well in giving their advice, to perform works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy of their ●…ns: for if they should have said that any works of merc●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the greatest and most customary sins, they should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ for so ●…ight the richest man for his (a) ten ●…ence a day, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for all his fornications, homicides, and other sins whatso●…▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beyond comparison to affirm this, then questionless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 works are that are worthy of pardon for sin, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoke, saying, Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of amendment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that such as 〈◊〉 their own souls by continual sin, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meant of in this place: first because they do take vio●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 th●…n they bestow charitably on the poor, and yet in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…eed Christ (b) and 〈◊〉 liber●…y of sinning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon their damnation, 〈◊〉 if they should give 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the poor members of Christ to redeem one only 〈◊〉, yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 evil did 〈◊〉 ●…straine them from any more such 〈◊〉, they 〈◊〉 ●…by 〈◊〉 good at all: he therefore that will clear his sins by his works, must begin first at himself: for it is unfit to do that to our neighbour which we will not do to ourself, Christ himself saying, thou shalt love Mat. 22. Eccl. 30. neighbour as thyself: and again, Love thine own soul (if thou wilt please God) he therefore that doth not this work of mercy (that is the pleasing of God) to Eccl. 14. his own soul, how can he be said to do works of mercy sufficient to redeem his sins? for it is written, He that is wicked to himself to whom will he Eccl. 21. be good? for almsdeeds do lift up the prayers of men to God. What saith the Scriptures? My son, hast thou sinned? do so no more, but pray for thy sins past, that they may be forgiven thee, for this cause therefore must we do almesdeeds, that when we pray, our prayer may be heard, that we may leave our former vices, and obtain refreshment for ourselves by those works of mercy. Now Christ saith that he will impute the doing and omission of almesdeeds unto those of the judgement, to show how powerful they are to expiate offences past, not to protect the continuers in sin, for those that will not abjure the courses of impiety, cannot be said to perform any works of mercy. And these Mat. 25. 45 words of Christ, In as much as you did it not unto one of these, you did it not unto me, imply that they did no such works as they imagined; for if they gave bread unto the hungered Christian, as if it were unto Christ himself: for GOD careth not to whom you give, but with what intent you give. He therefore that loveth Christ in his members, giveth alms with intent to join himself to Christ, not that he may have leave to leave him without being punished, for the more one loveth what Christ reproveth, the farther of doth he depart from Christ, for what profiteth Baptism unless justification joh. 3 follow it? doth not he that said, Unless a man be borne again of water and of the spirit, he shall not enter into the Kingdom of GOD; say also, unless your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and pharisees, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven? why do men run to Baptism for fear of the first, and do not draw near to righteousness for fear of the later? Therefore as he that checketh his brother's sin, in charity, by telling him he is a fool, notwithstanding all this, is not guilty of Hell fire: so, on the other side, he that loveth not Christ in his members, giveth no alms to a Christian (as unto a Christian) though he stretch forth his hand unto one of Christ's poor members: and he that refu●…eth to be justified in Christ, doth not love Christ in any respect. But if one call his brother fool, in reproachful contempt, rather than with intent to reform his imperfection, all the almesdeeds this man can do, will never benefit him, unless he be reconciled to him whom he hath injured, Mat. 5. for it followeth in the same place. If then thou bringest thy gift unto the altar, and t●…re remember'st that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thine offering, and go thy way: first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift. So that it is nothing worth to do works of mercy to expiate any sin, and yet to continue in the sin still. As for the Lords prayer, it doth indeed blot out our daily sins, it being daily said, And forgive us our trespasses, if withal the following clause be not only said, but performed also. As we forgive them that ●…respasse against us. But indeed, we say this prayer because we do sin, not that we might 〈◊〉, for Our 〈◊〉 showeth us in this, that live we never so careful of shunning corruption, yet do we every day fall int●… some sins for the remission of which we ought both to pray, and to pardon such a●… have offended us, that we may be pardoned ourselves. Wherefore Christ saith not this, If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you yours, to give hope to any man to persever in daily crimes (whether we be borne out by authority, or commit them by sleight and subtlety:) but to instruct us, that we are not without sin, though we may be without crime, as God advised the priests in the Old-Testament first to offer for their own sins, and then for the people's. Let us mark these words of our great Lord and master with attention and diligence. He doth not say, your heavenly father will forgive you any sin whatsoever, but, he will forgive you yours, for in this place he taught his disciples (being already justified) their daily prayer, what meaneth he then by this same (yours) but such sins as the righteous themselves cannot be without? wherefore whereas they that would hereby take occasion to continue in sin, affirm that Christ meant the greatest sins, because he said not, your smaller sins, but your in general: we on the contrary side considering unto whom he spoke, do understand his words to concern small sins only, in that they to whom they were spoken were now cleared of their greater. Nor are those great sins indeed (which every one ought to reform himself, and avoid) ever forgiven, unless the guilty do fulfil the foresaid clause, As we forgive them that trespass against us, for if the least sins (whereunto the righteous themselves are prone) cannot be remitted but upon that condition, then much less shall the great and Criminous ones have this pardon, though they that used them, do cease their further practice, if they continue inexorable in forgiving such as have offended them, for the Lord saith, If ye do not Mat. 6. forgive men their trespasses, no more will your Heavenly father forgive you your trespasses. And Saint james his words are to the same purpose: there shallbe judgement merciless to him that showeth no mercy. Remember but the servant whom his master pardoned of a debt of 10000 talents, and yet made him to lie for it afterwards, because he would not forgive his fellow a debt but of an hundred pence. Wherefore in the vessels of mercy, and the sons of promise the same Apostles words are truly effected, mercy rejoiceth against (or above) judgement, for those that lived so holily that they received others into the everlasting habitations, who had made them their friends with the riches of iniquity; they themselves were delivered by his mercy who justifieth the sinner by rewarding him according to grace, not according to merit. He that professed this, I was received to mercy (that I might be one of the faithful) was one of this justified number. Indeed such as are received by this number into the everlasting habitations, are not of that merit that they could be saved without the intercession of the Church triumphant, and therefore in them doth mercy more evidently elevate itself above judgement. Yet may we not think that every wicked man (being without reformation) can be admitted thither, though he have been beneficial to the Saints and afforded them helps from his riches, which whether he had gotten by sinister means, or otherwise, yet are no true riches (but only in the thoughts of iniquity) unto him, because he knoweth not the true riches wherewith they abound that help such as he is into those eternal mansions. Wherefore there must be a certain mean in the lives of such mercy that it be neither so bad, that the alms deeds done unto those who being made friends to the doers, may help them to Heaven be altogether fruitless, nor yet so good, that their own sanctity without the mercies and suffrages of those whom they have made there friends, can possess them of so high a beatitude. Now I have often wondered that Virgil should have up this sentence of Christ, Make you friends of the riches of iniquity, that they may receive you into the everlasting habitations. Where unto this is much like. He that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet, shall have a Lu●…. ●…6. 9 Mat. 10. 41. Prophet's reward, etc. for this Poet, in describing of the (c) Elysian fields, which they held the blessed souls to inhabit, doth not only place those there whose proper merits have deserved it, but also addeth this: Qui●… sui memores alios fecêre merendo, that is, such as respecting their own future estate, deserved to be Aeneid. 6. remembered by those others. Just as if he had said, as every humble Christian saith commonly in commending himself to some holy man or other. Remember me, and endeavoureth to procure this remembrance by desert. But what the mean is here, and what those sins are which hinder a man from heaven, and yet are remitted by the intercession of his holy friends, it is both difficult to find, and dangerous to determine. I have sought thus long myself, and yet could never find them out. Perhaps they are concealed to stir us the rather to avoid all sin. For if we knew for what sins we might expect the intercession of Saints, our natural idleness would draw us on securely in them, and make us rely so wholly upon the help of others, that we should never seek to avoid them by reforming ourselves, but trust only to those our friends whom we had procured by the unrighteous Mammon: whereas now, although our venial sin continue with us, and in what measure we know not, yet our study to profit by prayer, is both more fervent, and our desire to win us friends of the Saints, better performed. But both these deliveries, both by ourselves and others, tend wholly to keep us out of the fire eternal, not to free us after we once be in it. For such as interpret that place of scripture. Some fell in good ground, and brought forth fruit, Mat. 13. some thirty-fold, some sixty, some an hundred; by the Saints, according to the diversity of their merit, that some should deliver thirty men, some sixty, some a hundred, nevertheless do suppose that this delivery shall be at the judgement, and not after it. By which opinion one observing what occasion diverse took to live in all looseness and exorbitance, supposing that by this means all men might be saved, is said to give this witty answer: We ought for this cause rather to live uprightly to increase the number of the intercessors, lest otherwise there should be so few, that every one might save his thirty, his sixty, or his hundred, and yet an infinite company might remain unsaved: of which, why might not he be one that nuzzled himself in his rash hope of help from another? And thus much against those who not contemning the authority of our Scriptures, do notwithstanding wrest them to evil meanings, following their own fantasies, and not the holy ghosts true intention. But since we have given them their answer, we must now, (as we promised) give an end to this present volume. L. VIVES. HIs (a) ten pence] Behold here Saint Augustine reckoneth ten pence a day for a small alms: but how many have we now that give so much? how many potentates see you give four pence a day to the poor: nay they think much with a penny or two pence. But after the Dice, let Ducats go by thousands, their fools and jesters shall have showers of their beneficence powered upon them, 'tis a great man's part, an emblem of Noblesse: but ask them a penny for Christ's sake, and they are either as mute as stones, or grieve at the sight of the gift they part from. Respect of virtue now is low laid. (b) They purchase] So you shall have diverse, take up freely they care not where, nor of whom, nor in what fashion; and then break, turn counterfeit banquerupts, and satisfy their creditors with ten at the hundred, and think they have made a good hand of it, and shall redeem all with a little alms. O fools that think that God is taken with pence! no, it is the mind that he respecteth, such as is resident only in honest breasts. thieves and villains have now and then money good store, and disperse it bountifully. But let no man trust in his wealth, or to purchase heaven with a piece of silver. (c) The Elysi●… fields] Servius derives the name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a dissolution of the soul from the body. Where these fields are it is uncertain. Plato placeth them in the firmament, full of all delights that can be imagined. Others place them in the hollow sphere of the Moon (Seru.) where the air is pure, and undisturbed. Of this opinion Lucan seemeth to be. Phars. 9 Pythagoras also, and Plato were of opinion that this part of the air was inhabited with Daemons, Demigods and Heroes. Hear what Lucan saith of the spirit of Pompey: — Sequitur convexa tonantis, Quà niger astriferis connectitur axibus aër, Quodque patet terras as inter, lunaeque meatus, Semidei manes habitant, quos ignea virtus Innocuos vita patientes aetheris imi Fecit, & aternos animam collegit in ignes. — up to that round ithyes, Where the dark air doth kiss the spangled skies. For in that region 'twixt the Moon and us, The Demigods, and spirits generous Of those whom virtuous ardour guided well (On earth) in everlasting glory dwell. Homer saith, that the Elysian fields are in the farthest parts of Spain, whence the Favonian winds blow. Witness Strabo, who saith also that the River Limaea, (now called Livia) was whilom called Lethe. So doth Silius and Mela call it: when Decimus Brutus lead the Roman soldiers that way, they were afraid to pass it, lest they should have forgotten their country, wives, friends, themselves and all. The translation of Strabo calleth it Ess●…, but it is an error. Silius saith it runs amongst the Gravii. Mela, amongst the Celtici. Indeed the Insulae fortunata (a second Elysium) are not far from this part of Spain. Finis lib. 21. THE CONTENTS OF THE TWO and twentieth book of the City of God. 1. Of the estate of Angels and of Men. 2. Of the eternal and unchangeable will of God. 3. The promise of the Saints eternal bliss, and the wickeds perpetual torment. 4. Against the wisemen of the world that hold it impossible for man's body to be transported up to the dwellings of joy in heaven. 5. Of the resurrection of the body, believed by the whole world, excepting some few. 6▪ That love made the romans deify their founder Romulus, and faith made the Church to love her Lord and master Christ jesus. 7. That the belief of Christ's deity was wrought by God's power, not man's persuasion. 8. Of the miracles which have been, and are as yet wrought, to procure and confirm the world's belief in Christ. 9 That all the miracles done by the Martyrs in the name of Christ, were only confirmations of that faith, whereby the Mariyrs believed in Christ. 10. How much honour the Martyrs deserve in obtaining miracles for the worship of the true God, in respect of the Devils, whose works tend all to make men think that they are Gods. 11. Against the Platonists, that oppose the elevation of the body up to Heaven by arguments of elementary ponderosity. 12. Against the Infidel's calumnies, cast out in scorn of the Christians belief of the resurrection. 13. Whether Abortives belong not to the resurrection, if they belong to the dead. 14. Whether Infants shall rise again in the stature that they died in. 15. Whether all of the resurrection shall be of the stature of Christ. 16. What is meant by the confirmation of the Saints unto the Image of the Son of God. 17. Whether that women shall retain their proper sex in the resurrection. 18. Of Christ the perfect man, and the Church, his body and fullness. 19 That our bodies in the resurrection shall have no imperfection at all, whatsoever they have had during this life, but shall ●…e perfect both in quantity and quality. 20. That every man's body, how ever dispersed here, shall be restored him perfect at the resurrection. 21. What new and spiritual bodies shall be given unto the Saints. 22. Of man's miseries drawn upon him by his first parents, and taken away from him, only by Christ's merits and gracious goodness. 23. Of accidents, severed from the common estate of man, and peculiar only to the just and righteous. 24. Of the goods that God hath bestowed upon this miserable life of ours. 25. Of the obstinacy of some few in denying the resurrection, which the whole world believeth, as it was foretold. 26. That Porphiries opinion that the blessed souls should have no bodies, is confuted by Plato himself, who saith that the Creator promised the inferior Deities, that they should never lose their bodies. 27. Contrarieties between Plato and Porphery, wherein if either should yield unto other, both should find out the truth. 28. What either Plato, Labeo or Varro might have availed to the true faith of the resurrection, if they had had an harmony in their opinions. 29. Of the quality of the vision, with which the Saints shall see GOD in the world to come. 30. Of the eternal felicity of the City of GOD, and the perpetual Sabbath. FINIS. THE TWO AND twentieth BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD▪ Written by Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, unto Marcellinus. Of the estate of Angels and of men. CHAP. 1. THIS present volume, being the last of this whole work, shall contain a discourse of the eternal beatitude of the City of God. Which City is not called eternal, as if it should continue for the space of so many, or so many thousand ages, and then have an end, but as it is written in the Gospel, Of his kingdom there shall be none end. Nor shall this perpetuity preserve the form by succession, as Luc. 1 a Bay tree seemeth to keep a continual verdure, though one leaf fall of, and another spring up: but every Citizen therein shall be immortal, and man shall attain to that which the Angels have never foregone. This God the founder of this City, will effect: for so he hath promised, who cannot lie, and who to confirm the rest hath effected part of his promises already. He it is that made the world, with all things sensible and intelligible therein, whose chief work the spirits were, to whom he gave an understanding, making them capable of his contemplation, and combining them in one holy and united society, which we call the City of God, holy and heavenly, wherein God is their life, their nutriment, and their beatitude. He gave a free election also unto those intellectual natures, that if they would for sake him, who was their bliss, they should presently be enthralled in misery. And foreknowing that certain of the Angels, proudly presuming that themselves were sufficient beatitude to themselves, would forsake him, and all good with him, he did not abridge them of his power, knowing it a more powerful thing to make good use of such as were evil, then to exclude evil for altogether. Nor had there been any evil at all, but that those spirits (though good, yet mutable) which were form by the omnipotent and unchangeable Deity, procured such evil unto themselves by sin: which very sin, proved that their natures were good in themselves. For if they had not been so (although inferior to the maker) their apostasy had not fallen so heavy upon them. For as blindness being a defect, proveth plainly that the eye was made to see, the excellency of the eye being hereby made more apparent (for otherwise blindness were no defect) so those natures enjoying GOD, proved themselves to be created good, in their very fall, and that eternal misery that fell upon them for forsaking GOD, who hath given assurance of eternal perseverance unto those that stood firm in him, as a fit reward for their constancy. He also made man, upright of a free election, earthly, yet worthy of Heaven, if he stuck fast to his Creator, otherwise, to partake of such misery as sorted with a nature of that kind: and foreknowing likewise, that he would break the law that he bound him to, and forsake his Maker, yet did he not take away his freedom of election, foreseeing the good use that he would make of this evil, by restoring man to his grace by means of a man, borne of the condemned seed of mankind, and by gathering so many unto this grace as should supply the places of the fallen Angels, and so preserve (and perhaps augment) the number of the heavenly Inhabitants. For evil men do much against the will of God, but yet his wisdom foresees that all such actions as seem to oppose his will, do tend to such ends as he foreknew to be good and just. And therefore, whereas God is said To change his will, that is to turn his meekness into anger, against some persons, the change in this c●…se is in the persons, and not in him: and they find him changed in their sufferances, as a sore eye findeth the sun sharp, and being cured, finds it comfortable, whereas this change was in the eye and not in the sun, which keeps his office as he did at first. For God's operation in the hearts of the obedient, is said to be his will, whereupon the Apostle faith, It is God that worketh in you both will and deed. For even as that righteousness Phil, 2. wherein both God himself is righteous, and whereby also a man that is justified of God is such, is termed the righteousness of God; So also is that law which he giveth unto man, called his law, whereas it is rather pertinent unto man then unto him. For those were men unto whom Christ said, It is written also in your law; though we read elsewhere, The law of his God is in his heart: and according Io. 8. Ps●…l, 37. unto his will, which God worketh in man, himself is said to will it, because he worketh it in others who do will it, as he is said to know that which he maketh the ignorant to know. For whereas S. Peter saith, We now knowing God, yea rather being known of God we may not hereby gather that God came but as then to the knowledge of those who he had predestinate before the foundations of the world, but God as then is said to know that which he made known to others. Of this phrase of speech I have spoken (I remember) heretofore. And according unto this Will, whereby we say that God willeth that which he maketh others to will, who know not what is to come, he willeth many things, and yet effecteth them not. The promise of the Saints eternal bliss, and the wickeds perpetual torment. CHAP. 2. FOr the Saints do will many things that are inspired with his holy will, and yet are not done by him, as when they pray for any one, it is not he that causeth this their prayer, though he do produce this will of prayer in them, by his holy spirit. And therefore when the Saints do will, and pray according to God, we may well say that God willeth it and yet worketh it not, as we say he willeth that himself, which he maketh others to wil But according to his eternal will, joined with his foreknowledge, thereby did he create all that he pleased, in heaven and in earth, and hath wrought all things already, as well future as past or present. But when as the time of manifestation of any thing which God fore-knoweth to come, is not yet come, we say, It shall be when God will: & if both the time be uncertain, and the thing itself, than we say, It shall be if God will: not that God shall have any other will as than, than he had before, but because that shall be then effected, which his eternal, unchanging will, had from all eternity ordained. The promise of the Saints eternal bliss, and the wickeds perpetual torment. CHAP. 3. WHerefore (to omit many words) As we see his promise to Abraham. In thy seed shall all nations be blessed, fulfilled in Christ, so shall that be fulfilled hereafter which was promised to the said seed by the Prophet, The dead shall live, Gen, 12. Isay, 26. Isay, 65 even with their bodies shall they rise. And whereas he saith, I will create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind, But be you glad, and rejoice in the things I shall create; For behold I will create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people as a joy, etc. And by another Prophet, At that time shall thy people be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book of life, and many that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake, some to ever lasting life, and some Dan. 12. to shame and perpetual contempt: And again, they shall take the kingdom of the Saints of the most High, and possess it for ever, even for ever and ever. And by and by after, His Kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. etc. Together with all such places as I either put into the twentieth book, or left untouched; All these things shall come to pass, and those have already which the infidels would never believe. For the same GOD promised them both, even he whom the pagan gods do tremble before, as Porphyry a worthy Philosopher of theirs confesseth. Against the wise men of the world that hold it impossible for man's body to be transported up to the dwellings of joy i●… heaven. CHAP. 4. But the learned of the world think that they oppose this all-conuerting power very strongly, as touching the resurrection, when they use that place of Cicero in his third book de repub. Who having affirmed that Romulus and Hercules were both deified, yet were (a) not their bodies (saith he) translated into heaven, for nature will allow an earthly body no place but in the earth. This is the wise man's argument, which GOD knows how vain it is: for admit that we were all mere spirits, without bodies, dwelling in heaven▪ and being ignorant of all earthly creatures, and it should be told us, that one day we should be bound in corporal bodies, might we not then use this objection to more power, and refuse to believe that nature would ever suffer an ●…ncorporeall substance to be bound or circumscribed by a corporeal one? Yet is the earth full of vegetable souls, strangely combined with earthly bodies. Why then cannot God that made this creature, transport an earthly body into heaven, as well as he can bring a soul (a purer essence than any celestial body) down from heaven, and enclose it in a form of earth. Can this little piece of earth include so excellent a nature in it, and live by it, and cannot heaven entertain it▪ nor keep it in it, seeing that it liveth by an essence more excellent than heaven itself is? Indeed this shall not come to pass as yet, because it is not his pleasure who made this that we daily see and so respect not, in a far more admirable manner than that shall be which those wise men believe not: for why is it not more strange that a most pure and incorporeal soul should be chained to an earthly body, then that an earthly body should be lifted up to heaven, which is but a body itself? Only because the first we see daily in ourselves, & the second we have yet never seen. But reason will tell one that it is a more divine work to join bodies and souls, then to join bodies to bodies though never so different in natures, as if the one be heavenly & the other of earth. L VIVES. YEt were not (a) their bodies] But Romulus his body was not to be found, and therefore the vulgar believed that it was gone up to heaven. And the greeks say that Aesculapius restored Hercules his body to the former soundness, and so it was taken up into the skies. Of the resurrection of the body, believed by the whole world excepting some few. CHAP. 5. THis was once incredible. But now we see the whole world believes that Christ's body is taken up to heaven. The resurrection of the body, and the ascension unto bliss is believed now by all the earth, learned and unlearned embrace it, only some few reject it: If it be credible, what fools are they not to believe it: if it be not, how incredible a thing is it, that it should be so generally believed! These two incredible things, to wit the resurrection, and the worlds belief thereof, Our Lord jesus Christ (a) promised should come to pass, before Mat. 27. that he had effected either of them. Now one of them (the worlds belief of the resurrection) we see is come to pass already; why then should we despair of the other, that this incredible thing which the world believeth, should come to pass as well as that other? Especially seeing that they are both promised in those scriptures, whereby the world believed. The manner of which belief is more incredible than the rest; That men ignorant in all arts, without Rhetoric, Logic or Grammar, plain Fishers should be sent by Christ into the sea of this world, only with the nets of faith, and draw such an innumerable multitude of fishes of all sorts, so much the stranger, in that they took many rare Philosophers. So that this may well be accounted the third incredible thing, and yet all three are come to pass. It is incredible that Christ should rise again in the flesh, and carry it up to heaven with him. It is incredible that the world should believe this: and it is incredible that this belief should be effected by a small sort of poor, simple, unlearned men. The first of these our adversaries believe not: the second they behold, and cannot tell how it is wrought, if it be not done by the third. Christ's resurrection and ascension is taught and believed all the world over▪ if it be incredible, why doth all the world believe it? If many noble, learned and mighty persons, or men of great sway had said they had seen it, and should have divulged it abroad, it had been no marvel if the world had believed them, and unbelievers should have been thought hardly off. But seeing that the world believeth it from the mouths of a few, mean, obscure and ignorant men, why do not our obstinate adversaries believe the whole world which believed those simple, mean, and unlearned witnesses, because that the deity itself in these poor shapes did work the more effectually, and far more admirably: for their proofs & persuasions lay not in words, but wonders: and such as had not seen Christ risen again, and ascending, believed their affirmations thereof, because they confirmed them with miracles: for whereas they spoke but one language, or (at the most) but two, before, now of a sudden, they spoke all the tongues of all nations. They cured a man that had been forty yerres lame, ever from his mother's breasts, only by the very name of jesus Christ. Their handkerchiefs helped diseases; the sick persons got themselves laid in the way where they should pass, that they might have help from their very shadows, and amongst all these miracles done by the name of Christ, they razed some from the dead. If these things be true as they are written, then may all these be added to the three former incredibles: thus do we bring a multitude of incredible effects to persuade our adversaries but unto the belief of one, namely the resurrection, and yet their horrible obstinacy will not let them see the light: If they believe not that the Apostles wrought any such things for confirmation of the resurrection of Christ, sufficeth then that the whole world believed them without miracles, which is a miracle as great as any of the rest, L. VIVES. CHrist (a) promised] In the house of Simon the leper, and when he sent out his Apostles to preach. Mat. 27. and promised that his Gospel should pass throughout the world, and that he would rise again the third day. That Love made the Romans deify their founder Romulus, and Faith made the Church to love her Lord and master Christ jesus. CHAP. 6. Let us hear what Tully saith of the fabulous deity of Romulus it is more admirable in Romulus (saith he) that the rest of the deified men lived in the times of ignorance, where there was more scope for fiction, and where the rude vulgar were far more credulous. But Romulus we see lived, within (a) this 600. years, since which time (and before also) learning hath been (b) more common, and the ignorance of elder times utterly abolished. Thus sai●…h Tully: and by and by after, Hereby it is evident, that Homer was long before Romulus, so that in the later times, men grew learned, and fictions were well near wholly excluded, whereas antiquity hath given credence to some very unlikely fables: but our modern ages being more polished, deride and reject all things that seem impossible. Thus saith the most learned and eloquent man, that Romulus his divinity was the more admirable, because his times were witty, and kept no place for fabulous assertions. But who believed this deity, but Rome, as then a little thing (god knows) and a young? posterity indeed must needs preserve the traditions of antiquity, every one sucked superstition from his nurse, whilst, the city grew to such power, that s●…ming in soveraingty to stand above the nations under it, she powered the belief of this deity of his▪ throughout her conquered Provinces, that they should affirm Romulus to be a god (howsoever they thought) lest they should scandalise the founder of their Lady and mistress, in saying other wise of him then error of love (not love of error) had induced her to believe. Now Christ likewise though he founded the Celestial City, yet doth not she think him a God for founding of her, but she is rather founded for thinking him to be a God. Rome being already built and finished, adored her founder in a temple: but the Heavenly Jerusalem placeth Christ her founder in the foundation of her faith, that hereby she may be built and perfited. love made Rome believe that Romulus was a god: & the belief that CHRIST is GOD, made his City to love him. So that even as Rome had an object for her love, which she was ready to honour with a false belief: So the City of GOD hath an object for her saith which she is ever ready to honour with a true and rightly grounded love. For as touching Christ, besides those many miracles, the holy Prophets also did teach him to be God, long before his coming: which as the fathers believed should come to pass, so that we do now see that they are come to pass. But as touching Romulus, we read that he built Rome, and reigned in it, not that this was prophesied before: but as for his deifying, their books affirm that it was believed, but they show not how it was effected, for there were no miracles to prove it. The she Wolf that fed the two brethren with her milk, which is held so miraculous, what doth this prove as concerning his deity? If this she Wolf were not a strumpet, but a brute beast, yet the accident concerning both the brethren alike, why was not (d) Remus deified for company? And who is there that if he be forbidden upon pain of death, to say that Hercules, Romulus, or such, are deities, had rather loof his life, then leave to affirm it? What nation would worship Romulus as a God, if it were not for fear of Rome? But on the other side, who is he that can number those that have suffered death willingly in what form of cruelty soever, rather than deny the deity of Christ? A light and little fear of the Roman power, compelled divers inferior cities to honour Romulus as a god: but neither fear of power, torment, nor death could hinder an infinite multitude of Martyrs, all the world through, both to believe and profess that Christ was God. Nor did his City, though she were as then a pilgrim upon earth, and had huge multitudes within her, ever go about to (e) defend her temporal estate against her persecutors, by force, but neglected that, to gain her place in eternity. Her people were bound, imprisoned, beaten, racked, burnt, torn, butchered, and yet multiplied. Their fight for life, was the contempt of life for their Saviour. Tully in his 3▪ De rep.. (Or I am deceived) argueth that a just City never should take arms, but either for her safety or faith. What he means by safety, be showeth elsewhere. From those pains (saith he) which the fondest may feel, as poverty, banishment, stripes, imprisonment or so, do private men escape, by the ready dispatch of death. But this death which seemeth to free private men from pains, is pain itself unto a city For the aim of a cities continuance, should be eternity. Death therefore is not so natural to a common wealth as to a private man, he may often times be driven to wish for it: but when a city is destroyed, the whole world seems (in a manner) to perish with it. Thus saith Tully holding the world's eternity with the Platonists. So then he would have a city to take arms for her safety, that is, for her continuance for ever here upon earth, although her members perish, and renew successively, as the leaves of the Olive and laurel trees, and such like as they are: for death (saith he) may free private men from misery, but it is misery itself unto a commonwealth. And therefore it is a question whether the Saguntines did well, in choosing the destruction of their city, before the breach of faith with the commonwealth of Rome; an act which all the world commendeth. But I cannot see how they could possibly keep this rule, that a City should not take arms but either for her faith or safety. For when these two are jointly endangered, that one cannot be saved without the others loss, one cannot determine which should be chosen. If the Saguntines had chosen to preserve their safety, they had broken their faith: If their faith, then should they lose their safety, as indeed they did. But the safety of the City of GOD is such, that it is preserved (or rather purchased) by faith, and faith being once lost, the safety cannot possibly but perish also. This cogitation with a firm and patient resolution, crowned so many Martyrs for Christ, when as Romulus never had so much as one man that would die in defence of his deity. L VIVES. WIthin this (a) 600. years] Tully speaketh not this of his own times, but in the person of Scipio Africanus the younger, and Laelius, which Scipio lived about 602. years after the building of Rome, which was not 600. years after the death of Romulus. (b) Moore common] For in those times lived Orpheus, Musaeus, Linus, Philamnon, Thamyris, Orius, 〈◊〉, Aristheas, Proconnesius, Pronetidas of Athens, Euculus of Cyprus, Phenius of Ithaca, Ho●…r, etc. (c) Otherwise] That is in saying, he was but a man, whereas the Romans held him for a God. james Passavant playeth the fool rarely in this place, but it is not worth relating (d) Why was 〈◊〉 Remus] He had a little Temple upon Auenti●…e, but it was an obscure one, and rather like an Hero's temple then a gods. (e) To defend] She might have repulsed injuries by force and awed her adversaries by power, but she deemed it fitter for such as professed the Gospel of Christ, to suffer, then to offer, to die then to kill, to lose their body rather than the soul. That the belief of Christ's Deity was wrought by God's power, not man's persuasion. CHAP. 7. But it is absurd to make any mention of the false Deity of Romulus, when we speak of Christ. But if the age of Romulus, almost 600. years before Scipio, were so stored with men of understanding, that no impossibility could enter their belief: how much more wise were they 600. years after, in Tulliestime, in Tiberius his, and in the days of CHRIST'S coming? So that his resurrection and ascension would have been rejected as fictions and impossibilities, if either the power of God or the multitude of miracles had not persuaded the contrary, teaching that it was now shown in Christ, and hereafter to be shown in all men besides, and averring it strongly against all horrid persecutions throughout the whole world, through which the blood of the Martyrs made it spread and flourish. They read the Prophets, observed a concordance, and a concurrence of all those miracles, the truth confirmed the novelty, being not contrary to reason, so that at the last, the World embraced and professed that which before it had hated and persecuted. Of the miracles which hath been and are as yet wrought to procure and confirm the world's belief in Christ-CHAP. 8. But how cometh it (say they) that you have no such miracles now adays, as you say were done of yore? I might answer, that they were necessary, before the world believed, to induce it to believe: and he that seeketh to be confirmed by wonders now, is to be wondered at most of all himself: in refusing to belee●… what all the world believeth besides him. But this they object, implieth that they believe not that there were any miracles done at all? No? why then is Christ's ascension in the flesh so generally avowed? why doth the world in such learned and circumspect times, believe such incredible things, without seeing them confirmed by miracles? were they credible, and therefore believed? why then do not they themselves believe them? Our conclusion is brief▪ either this incredible thing which was not seen, was confirmed by other incrediles which were seen, or else this being so credible that it need no miracle to prove it, condemneth their own gross incredulity, that will not believe it. This I say to silence fools: for we cannot deny but that the miraculous Ascension of Christ in the flesh was ratified unto us by the power of many other miracles. The Scriptures do both relate them, and the end whereunto they tended. They were written to work faith in men, & the faith they wrought hath made them far more famous. They are read to induce the people to believe, & yet should not be read but that they are believed: and for miracles, there are some wrought as yet, partly by the Sacraments, partly by the memories and prayers of the Saints, but they are not so famous, nor so glorious as the other; for the Scriptures which were to be divulged in all places, hath given lustre to the first, in the knowledges of all nations, whereas the later are known but unto the cities where they are done, or some parts about them. And generally, there are few that know them there, and many that do not, if the City be great; & when they relate them to others, they are not believed so fully, & so absolutely as the other, although they be declared by one christian to another. The miracle that was done at milan when I was there, might well become famous, both because the City was of great largeness, and likewise for the great concourse of people that came to the Shrine of Protasius (a) and of Gervase, where the blind man obtained his sight. The bodies of A blind man recovers sight, Innocentius, these two Martyrs lay long unknown, until (b) Ambrose the Bishop had notice of them, by a relation in a dream. But that at Carthage, whence Innocentius, one that had been an advocate of the neighbour state, received his health, was unknown unto the most, whereas notwithstanding I was present, and saw it with mine eyes, for he was the man that gave entertainment unto me & my brother Alipius, not being Clergymen as yet, but only lay christians, and we dwelled as then in his house: he lay sick of a many fistulas bred in his fundament, & those secret parts of the body: the Chyurgions had lanced him, and put him to extreme and bitter pains, whereas notwithstanding they had left one part untouched which they must perforce make incision into ●…re they could possibly cure him: but they cured all the rest, only that, being omitted troubled them exceedingly, and made all their applications tend to no purpose. Innocentius marking their protractions, and fearing another incision (which a Physician that dwelled in his house had told him they would be driven to make, whom they would not suffer to see how they cut him, whereupon Innocentius had angrily barred him his house, & could scarcely be brought to receive him again) at last he burst forth, saying, will you cut me again? will it come to his sayings, whom you will not have to see your tricks? But they mocked at the ignorance of the Physician and bad Innocentius be of good cheer, there was no such matter. Well the time passed on, but no help of the malady could be seen: the Chyurgions did still promise fair, that they would cure him by salve & not by incision. Now they had got an old man and a cunning Chyurgion called (c) Ammonius to join with them, & he viewing the sore, affirmed as much as they; which assurance of his did satisfy Innocentius that he himself did now begin to gibe and jest at his other Physician that said he must be cut again. Well to be brief, when they had spent some weeks more, they all left him, showing (to their shame) that he could not possible be cured but by incision. This, and the excessive fear thereof struck him immediately beyond his senses, but recollecting of himself he bade them begun, and never more come at him, being enforced now by necessity, to send for a cunning Surgeon of Alexandria, one that was held a rare Artist to perform that which his anger wuold not let the others do. The man coming to him, and (like a workman observing the work of the others by the scars they had left) like a honest man, advised him to let them finish the cure who had ta'en that great pains with it, as he had with wonder observed, for true it was, that incision was the only means to cure him, but that it was far from him to deprive those of the honour of their industry whose pains in the cure he saw had been so exceeding great. So the former Surgeons were sent for to perform it, and this Alexandrian must stand by, and see them open the part which was otherwise held to be uncurable. The business was put off until the next day. But the Surgeons being all departed, the house was so filled with sorrow for the grief of their master, that it showed more like a preparation for a funeral then any thing else, and was very hardly suppressed. Now he was daily visited by divers holy men, and namely by Saturninus (of blessed memory) the Bishop of uzali, and Gelosus Priest, and Deacon of the Church of Carthage, as also by Bishop Aurelius, who only is yet living of all these three: a man of worthy respect, and one with whom I now and then had conferred about the wonderful works of God, I have often taken occasion to speak of this, and sound that he remembered it exceeding well. These men visiting him towards the evening, he prayed them all to come again the next day to be spectators of his death, rather than his pains, for his former sufferings had so terrified him, that he made no question but that he should immediately perish under the surgeons hands. They on the other side bade him be comforted, trust in God, and bear his will with patience. Then went we to prayers, and kneeling of us down, he threw himself forcibly on his face, as if one had thrust him on, and so began to pray, with such passion of mind, such floods of tears, such groans and sobs (even almost to the stopping of his breath) that it is utterly inexplicable. Whether the rest prayed, or marked him I know not; for myself, could not pray a jot, only I said in my heart, Lord whose prayers wilt thou hear, if thou hear not his? for me thought his prayer could not but procure his suit: well we rose, and being blessed by the Bishop, we departed the room, he in the mean time entreating them to come to him in the morning, and they strengthening his spirit with as good consolations as they could give him. The feared morning was now come, the holy men came, according to their promises: so did the Surgeons, the terrible Irons were made ready, and all things fit for such a work, whilst all the company sat silent in a deep amazement. The chief and such as had more authority than the rest, comforted him as well as they could, his body was laid fit for the hand of him that was to cut him, the clothes untied, the place bared, the Surgeon vieweth it with his knife in his hand ready to launce it, feeling with his fingers where the ulcerous matter shouldlye: at length, having made an absolute trial of all the part that was before affected, he found the orifice firmly closed, and every place thereof as sound and as solid as it was first created. Then joy & praises unto God (with tears of comfort) were yielded on all sides beyond the power my pen hath to describe them. In the same town, one Innocentia, a devout woman, and one of the chief in the city had a canker on her breast, a kind of sore, which the Surgeons told her is utterly (d) incurable: wherefore they ●…se either to cut the infected part away, or for the prolonging of the life (as Hypocrates they say doth advise) to omit all attempt of ●…uring it. This a skilful Physician (her familiar friend) told her, so that she now sought help of none but the Lord, who told her in a dream, that at (e) Easter next (which then drew near) she should mark, on the woman's side by the fount, what woman she was that (being then Baptized) should first meet her, and that she should in treat her to sign the sore with the sign of the cross. She did it, and was cured. The former Physician that had wished her to abstain from all attempt of cure, seeing her afterwards whole and sound whom he knew certainly to have had that uncurable ulcer before, earnestly desired to know how she was cured, longing to find the medicine that had frustrated Hypocrates his Aphorism. She told him: He presently with a voice (as if he had contemned it, in so much that she feared exceedingly that he would have spoken blasphemy) replied: Why I thought you would have told me some strange thing, she standing all amazed, john. 21. Why is it so strange, (quoth he) for CHRIST to heal a Canker, that could raise one to life that had been four days dead? When I first heard of this, it grieved me that so great a miracle wrought upon so great a parsonage should be so suppressed, whereupon I thought it good to give her a checking admonition thereof, and meeting her and questioning the matter, she told me she had not concealed it, so that I went and inquired of her fellow matrons, who told me, they never heard of it. Behold (said I to her, before them) have you not concealed it, when as your nearest familiars do not know of it? whereupon she ●…ell to relate the whole order of it, unto their great admiration, and the glorification of GOD. There was also a Physician, in the same town, much troubled with the Gout, who having given up his name to A Physician sick of the Gout baptized. be baptized, the night before he should receive this sacrament, in his sleep was forbidden it by a crew of curled headed Negro boys, which he knew to be Devils, but he refusing to obey them, they stamped on his feet, so that they put him to most extreme pain, yet he keeping his firm resolve, and being baptized the next day, was freed both from his pain and the cause thereof, so that he never had the Gout in all his days after. But who knew this man? we did, and a few of our neighbour brethren, otherwise it had been utterly unknown. One of (f) Curubis was by Baptism freed bo●…h from the Palsy, and the excessive tumour of the Genitories, so that he went from the font as found a man as ever was borne. Where was this known but in Curubis, and unto a few besides? But when I heard of it, I got Bishop Aurelius to send him to Carthage, notwithstanding that it was first told me by men of sufficient credit. Hesperius, one that hath been a Captain, and liveth at this day by Hespe●…, us, hath a little Farm, called Zubedi, in the liberties of fussali which he having observed (by the harm done to his servants and cattle) to be haunted with evil spirits he entreated one of our Priests, (in mine absence) to go thither and expel them by prayer. One went, prayed, and ministered the Communion, and by GOD'S mercy the Devil was quit from the place ever after. Now he had a little of the earth wherein the Sepulchre of CHRIST standeth, bestowed upon him by a friend, which he had hung up in his Chamber for the better a voidance of those wicked illusions from his own person. Now they being expelled, he knew not what to do with this earth being not willing, for the reverence he bore it, to keep it any longer in his lodging. So I, and my fellow Maximus Bishop of Synica, being at the next town, he prayed us to come to his house, we did, he told us all the matter, and requested that this Earth might be buried somewhere, and made a place for prayer, and for the Christians to celebrate God's service in, and it was done accordingly. Now there was a country youth that was troubled with the Palsy, who hearing of this, desired his Parents to bring him thither: They did so, where he prayed, and was presently cured. Victoriana is a town some thirty miles from Hippo regium. There is a memorial of the two Martyrs of milan. Gervase and Protasius, and thither they carried a young man who bathing himself in Gervase & Protasius summer, at noon day was possessed with a Devil. Being brought hither, he lay as one dead, or very near death: mean while the Lady of the village, (as custom is) entered the place unto evening prayers, with her maids and certain votaresses, and began to sing Psalms, which sound, made the man start up as in an affright, and with a terrible raving he catched fast hold upon the Altar, whence he durst not once move, but held it as if he had been bound to it. Then the Devili within him began mournfully to cry for mercy, relating how and when he entered the man, and lastly saying that he would leave him: he named what parts of him he would spoil at his departure, and saying these words, departed. But one of the man's eyes fell down upon his cheek, and hung only by a little string, all the pupil of it (with is naturally black) becoming white, which the people (whom his cries had called: seeing, they fell to help him with their prayers: and though they rejoiced at the recovery of his wits, yet sorrowed they for the loss of his eye, and advised him to get a Surgeon for it. But his sister's husband, who brought him thither, replied, saying, the GOD that delivered him from the Devil, hath power to restore him his eye; which said he put it into the place as well as he could, and bound it up with his napkin: wishing him not to lose it until seven days were passed, which doing, he found it as sound as ever it was. At this place were many others helped, whom it were to long to rehearse particularly. I knew a Virgin in Hippon, who was freed from the Devil, only by anointing with oil mixed with the tears of the Priest that prayed for her. I know a Bishop who by prayer dispossessed the Devil being in a youth that he never saw. There was one Florentius here of Hippo, a poor and Godly Oldman, who getting his living by mending of shoes, lost his upper garment, and being not able to buy another, he came to the shrine of the twenty Martinres and prayed aloud unto them, to help him to raiments. A sort of scoffing youths overheard him, and at his departure, followed him with mocks, ask him if he had begged fifty (g) halfpennies of the martyrs to buy him a coat withal. But he, going quietly on, spied a great fish, a new cast up by the sea, and yet panting, which fish, by their permission that were by, he took, and carried it to one Carchosus a cook a good Christian, and fold it to him for 300. half pence, intending to bestow this money upon will for his wife to spin, and make into a garment for him. The Cook cutting up the fish, found a ring of gold in his belly, which amazing him, his conscience made him send for the poor man, and give him the ring, saying to him: behold how the twenty Martyrs have appareled you. When Bishop Proiectus brought Saint Stevens relics to the Town called Aquae Tibilitanae, there were a many people flocked together to honour them. Amongst whom there was a blind woman, who prayed them to lead her to the Bishop that bore the holy relics. So the bishop gave her certain flowers which he had in his hand, she took them, put them to her eyes, and presently had her sight restored, in so much that she passed speedily on, before all the rest, as now not needing any more to be guided. So Bishop Lucillus bearing the relics of the said Martyr, enshrined in the castle of (b) Synice, near to Hippo, was thereby absolutely cured of a fistula wherewith he had been long vexed, and was come to that pass that he every day expected when the Chyurgion should launce it: but he was never troubled with it after that day. Eucherius a Spanish Priest, that dwelled at Calame, was cured of the stone by the same relics, which Bishop Posidius brought thither, and being afterwards laid out for dead of another disease, by the help of the said Martyr (unto whose shrine they brought him) was restored unto his former life and soundness. There was one Martialis a great man, of good years, but a great foe to CHRIST, who dwelled in this place. This man's daughter was a Christian, and married unto a Christian. The father being very sick was entreated by them both with prayers and tears, to become a Christian, but he utterly and angrily refused. So the husband thought it good to go to Saint Stevens shrine, and there to pray the LORD to send his father in law into a better mind, and to embrace CHRIST JESUS without further delay. For this he prayed with great zeal and affect, with showers of tears, and storms of religious sighs, and then departing, he took some of the flowers from off the Altar, and in the night laid them at his father's head, who slept well that night, and in the morning, called in all haste for the Bishop, who was then at Hippo with me. They told him therefore so: he forthwith sends for the Priests, and when they came told them presently that he believed, and so was immediately baptised, to the amazement of them all. This man all the time he lived after, had this saying continually in his mouth. LORD Acts, 7. 59 JESUS receive my spirit: These were his last words, though he knew them not to be Saint Stevens, for he lived not long after. At this place also were two healed of the Gout, a citizen and a stranger: The citizen knew by example what to do to be rid of his pain, but the stranger had it revealed unto him. There is a place called Andurus, where S. Steven hath a part of his body remaining also. A child being in the Street, certain Oxen that drew a cart, growing unruly, left the way, and overrun the child with the wheel, so that it lay all crushed, and past all hope of life. The mother snatched it up and ran to the shrine with it, where laying it down, it recovered both life and full strength again in an instant, being absolutely cured of all hurt whatsoever. Near this place, at Caspalia, dwelled a Votaress, who being sick and past recovery, sent her garment to the shrine, but ere it came back, she was dead, yet her parents covered her with it, which done, she presently revived and was as sound as ever. The like happened to one Bassus, a Syrian that dwelled at Hippo. Praying for his sick daughter at Saint Stevens, and having her garment with him, word came by a boy that she was dead. But as he was at prayer, his friends met the boy, (before he had been with him) and bade him not to tell him there, lest he went mourning through the streets. So he coming home, and finding all in tears, he laid her garment upon her, and she presently revived. So likewise Ireneus his son, a Collector, being dead, and ready to go out for burial, one advised to anoint him with some of Saint Stephen's oil. They did so, and he revived. Elusinus likewise a Captain, seeing his son dead, took him and laid him upon the shrine that is in his farm in our Suburbs, where after he had prayed a while, he found him revived? What shall I do, my promises binds me to be brief, whereas doubtless many that shall read these things, will grieve that I have omitted so many that are known both to them and me. But I entreat their pardon that they would consider how tedious a task it is, so that my promised respect of brevity will not allow it. For if I should but believe all the miracles done by the memorial of Saint Steven, only at Cala●…a and Hippo, It should be a work of many volumes, and yet not be perfect neither; I could not relate all, but only such as are recorded for the knowledge of the people, for that we desire, when we see our times produce wonders like to those of yore, that they should not be utterly in vain, by being lost in forgetfulness, and oblivion. It is not yet two years since the shrine was built at Hippo, and although we our s●…lues do know many miracles done there since, that are recorded, yet are there almost seventy volumes written of those that have been recorded since that time to this. But at Calama, the shrine is more ancient, the miracles more often, and the books far more in number. At Vzali also, near Utica have many miracles been wrought by the power of the said Martyr, where Bishop E●…dius erected his memorial, long before this of ours. But there they did not use to record them, though it may be they have begun such a custom of late. For when we were there, we advised Petronia (a Noble woman who was cured of an old disease which all the Physicians had given over) to have the order of her miraculous cure drawn in a book (as the Bishop of that place liked) and that it might be read unto the people: And she did accordingly. Wherein was one strange passage, which I cannot omit, though my time will hardly allow me to relate it. A certain jew had advised her to take a ring, with a stone set in it that is found (ay) in the reins of an Ox, and sow it in a girdle of hair which she must wear upon her skin, under all her other raiments. This girdle she had on, when she set forth to come to the Martyr's shrine, but having left Carthage before, and dwelling at a house of her own by the River (k) Bagrada, as she rose to go on the rest of her journey, she spied the ring lie at her feet: Whereat wondering, she felt for her girdle, and finding it tied, as she had bound it, she imagined that the ring was broken, and so worn out: But finding it whole, than she took this as a good presage of her future recovery, and loofing her girdle, cast both it and the ring into the River. Now they that will not believe that JESUS CHRIST was borne without interruption of the virginal parts, nor passed into his Apostles when the doors were shut, neither will they believe this. But when they examine it, and find it true, then let them believe the other. The woman is of noble birth, nobly married, and dwelleth at Carthage▪ so great a City, so great a person in the City cannot lie unknown to any that are inquisitive. And the Martyr by whose prayer she was cured believed in him that was borne of an eternal virgin, and entered to his Disciples when the doors were shut: And lastly (whereunto all hath reference) who ascended into heaven in the flesh, wherein he rose again from death: for which faith this Martyr lost his life. So that we see there are miracles at this day, wrought by GOD, with what means he liketh best who wrought them of yore: but they are not so famous, nor fastened in the memory by often reading, that they might not be forgotten. For although we have gotten a good custom of late, to read the relations of such as these miracles are wrought upon, unto the people, yet perhaps they are read but once, which they that are present do hear, but no one else: nor do they that hear them, keep them long in remembrance, nor will any of them take the pains to relate them to those that have not heard them. We had one miracle wrought amongst us, so famous, and so worthy, that I think not one of Hippon but saw it, or knoweth it, and not one that knoweth it that can ever forget it. There were seven brethren, and three sisters (borne all of one couple in (l) Caesarea, a city of Cappadocia) their parents were noble; Their father being newly dead, and they giving their mother some cause of anger, she laid an heavy (m) curse upon them all, which was so seconded by GOD'S judgement, that they were all taken with an horrible trembling of all their whole bodies: which ugly sight they themselves loathing that their countrymen should behold, became vagrant through most parts of the Roman Empire. Two of them, Paul and Palladia came to us, being notified by their miseries in many other places. They came some sifteene days before Easter, and every day they visited Saint Stevens shrine, humbly beseeching GO at length to have mercy upon them, and to restore them their former health. Where-so-ever they went, they drew the eyes of all men upon them, and some that knew how they came so plagued, told it unto others, that all might know it. Now was Easter day come, and many were come to Church in the morning, amongst whom this Paul was one, and had gotten him to the bars that enclosed Saint Stevens relics, and there was praying, having hold of the bars: Presently he fell flat down, and lay as if he had slept, but trembled not as he had used to do before, ever in his sleep. The people were all amazed, some feared, some pitied him, some would have raised him, and other some say nay, rather expect the event: presently he started up, and rose as sound a man as ever he was borne. With that, all the Church resounded again, with loud acclamations and praises to GOD. And then they came flocking to me, who was about to come forth to them, every one telling me this strange and miraculous event. I rejoiced, and thanked GOD within myself: Presently enters the young man, and falleth down at my knees, I took him up, and kissed him, so forth we went unto the people, who filled the Church, and did nothing but cry, GOD be thanked, GOD be praised. Every mouth uttered this: I saluted them, and then the cry redoubled. At length, silence being made, the Scriptures were read, and when it was Sermon time, I made only a brief exhortation to them, according to the time, and that present joy. For in so great a work of GOD, I did leave them to think of it themselves, rather than to give ear to others. The young man dined with us, and related the whole story of his mother and brethren's misery. The next day, after my Sermon, I told the people that to morrow they should hear the whole order of this miracle read unto them: which I doing, made the youngman and his sister stand both upon the steps that go up into the chancel, (wherein I had a place aloft, to speak from thence to the people) that the congregation might see them both. So they all viewed them, the brother standing sound and firm, and the sister trembling every joint of her. And they that saw not him, might know God's mercy shown to him by seeing his sister, and discern both what to give thanks for in him, and what to pray for in her. The relation being read, I willed them to depart out of the people's sight, and began to dispute of the cause of this, when as suddenly there arose another acclamation from about the shrine. They that hearkened unto me, left me, and drew thither, for the maid when she departed from the steps, went thither to pray, and assoon as she touched the grate, she was so wrapped as he was, and so restored to the perfect use of all her limbs. So while I was ask the reason of this noise, the people brings her unto the Choir to me, being now fully as sound as her brother. And then arose such an exultation, that one would have thought it should never have end. And the maid was brought thither where she had stood before. Then the people rejoiced that she was like her brother now, as had lamented that she was unlike him before, seeing that the will of the Almighty had prevented their intents to pray for her. This their joy was so lowdlie expressed, that it was able to strike the strongest ear with stupor. And what was in their hearts that rejoiced thus, but the faith of CHRIST, for which Saint Steven shed his blood. L. VIVES. PRotasius (a) and Gervase] Sons to Vitalis, a Gentleman of Rome, and a Martyr, and Valeria his wife. Frederick the first translated their bodies from Milan to Brisach in Germany. (b) Ambrose] That famous Father of the Church, and Bishop of Milan. (c) Ammonius] Not that famous Platonist, origen's master. (d) Uncurable] Yet Galen and Avicen▪ teach the cure: marry it must not then be at the fullness of the malevolence, for than it cannot be rooted out. Celsus reckons three kinds of Cankers. First Cacoethes, with a ●…all rooted ulcer, swelling the parts adjoining: the second, with no ulcer at all: the third is called Thymius, arising from melancholy burnt by choler. (e) At Easter next] It was a custom as then, between Easter and Whitsuntide to Baptizm persons of discretion, and such as required it. There are many additions in this Chapter (I make no question) foisted in by such as make a practice of depraving authors of authority: ●…ome I will cut off, and other some I will but touch at. (f) Curubis] A free town in Africa, near to Mercury his promontory, beyond Carthage. Plin. lib. 4. Ptolom. (g) Halfpences] The Latin word is Phollis, which is either a weight, containing three hundred & twelve pound, and six ounces, or it is a kind of tribute, or (when it is used in the masculine gender, as it is here) it is the same that Obolus is with us, an halfpenny. Alciat. Hesich de temp. divis. l. 6. Suidas, etc. (h) Since] It may be put for Thirissa, a place which Ptolemy placeth near Hippo Diarrhytus, the same that Pliny corruptly calleth Ticisa, and Tirisa. lib. 5. Or perhaps it is Sitisa, for there were such a people in Mauritania Caesariensis. ay Found in the reins] Of this I never read. Pliny (lib. 30.) saith there is a little one in the head of an Ox, which he casieth out when he feareth death, and that (if one can get it) it is wonderful good to further the growth of the teeth, being worn about one's neck. But I see no reason why a stone should not grow in an Ox's kidney sooner than in a man's. His heat is more, his blood and humours far groser. (k) Bagrada] It riseth out of Mapsar, a mountain of Lybia the farther, and passing through Africa, falleth into our sea at Utica. Strabo. (l) Caesarea, a City of Cappadocia] Cappadocia is a part of Asia minor, bounded on the west with Galatia and Paphlagonia, on the east with Armenia the less, and on the north with the Euxine sea, it hath the name from the river that passeth between it and Galatia. For it was before called Leuco Syria, white Syria, in respect of that Syria by mount Taurus, whose people are of swarthy and sunne-burnt complexions, Strabo. They were called Syrians of Syrus, son to Apollo, and Sinope, who gave the name also to Sinope where Diogenes the Cynic was borne. Herodot. Plutarch. Now amongst the other cities of Cappadocia, there was Diocaesarea, Neocaesarea, upon the river Lycus, and Caesarea by mount Aegeus: as witnesseth Pliny, Solinus, Ptolemy, and Ammianus. This town (saith Sextus Rufus) was called Caesarea, in honour of Augustus Caesar. But Eusebius saith that Tiberius, having expelled Archelaus, gave it this name, whereas it was called Mazaca before, as the forenamed authors do affirm. Perhaps he did so in memory of his father Augustus. This Mazaca was called the mother of the Cappadocian cities. Solinus, Martianus Capella. Strabo saith it was called Eusebia, and maketh it the Metropolitan city of Cappadocia. There were excellent horses bred in this liberty, as Claudian saith. And Basil, that great father, was borne in this town. (m) An heavy curse] Children ought ever to avoid their parents curses, as ominous, and confirmed by many horrible examples. (n) Chancel] The text calleth it Exedra, which signifieth a place full of seats, such as the ancient Philosophers disputed in. Vitru. lib. 5. But I wonder much that Uitrwius saith there were none in Italy, when as Tully saith that Crassus the Orator, and Cotta the Arch-flamine had such, belonging to their houses. But those in Churches, we do usually call the Quire, or Chancel, as Augustine useth the word here: and such the Monks, and Canons have in their Cloisters. Budaeus in Pandectas. That all the miracles done by the Martyrs in the name of CHRIST, were only confirmations of that faith, whereby the Martyrs believed in CHRIST. CHAP. 9 AND what doth all this multitude of miracles, but confirm that faith which holdeth that CHRIST rose again in the flesh, and so ascended into heaven? For the Martyrs were all but Martyrs, that is, witnesses of this; and for this, they suffered the malice of the cruel world, which they never resisted, but subdued by sufferance. For this faith they died, obtaining this of him for whom they died. For this, their patience made the way for the power of these so powerful miracles to follow. For if this resurrection had not been past, in CHRIST, or had not been to come, as CHRIST promised, as well as those Prophets that promised CHRIST; how cometh it that the martyrs that died for this belief should have the power to work such wonders? For whether GOD himself, (who being eternal can effect things temporal by such wondrous means) hath wrought these things of himself, or by his ministers, or by the souls of the martyrs, as if he wrought by living men, or by his Angels over whom he hath an invisible, unchangeable, and merely intellectual command, (so that those things which the Martyrs are said to do, be only wrought by their prayers, and not by their powers): be they effected by this means, or by that; they do nevertheless in every particular, tend only to confirm that faith which professeth the resurrection of the flesh unto all eternity. How much honour the Martyrs deserve in obtaining miracles for the worship of the true God; in respect of the Devils, whose works tend all to make men think that they are Gods. CHAP. 10. But it may be, here they will say, that they Gods have also wrought wonders: very well, they must come now to compare their deities with our dead men. Will they say (think you) that they have gods that have been men, such as Romulus, Hercules, etc. Well, but we make no Gods of our Martyrs, the Martyrs and we have both but one God, and no more. But the miracles that the Pagans ascribe unto their Idolds, are no way comparable to the wonders wrought by our Martyrs. But as Moses overthrew the enchanters of Pharaoh, so do our martyrs ●…xod. 8 overthrow their devils, who wrought those wonders out of their own pride, only to gain the reputation of Gods. But our Martyrs (or rather GOD himself through their prayers) wrought unto another end, only to confirm that faith which excludeth multitude of Gods, and believeth but in one. The Pagans built Temples to those Devils, ordaining Priests and sacrifices for them, as for Gods. But we build our martyrs no temples, but only erect them monuments, as in memory of men departed, whose spirits are at rest in God. We erect no altars to sacrifice to them, we offer only to him who is both their God and ours, at which offering those conquerors of the world as men of God, have each one his peculiar commemoration, but no invocation at all. For the sacrifice is offered unto Cod, though it be in memory of them, and he that offereth it, is a Priest of the Lord, and not of theirs, and the offering is the body of the Lord, which is not offered unto them, because they are that body themselves. Whose miracles shall we then believe? Theirs that would be accounted for Gods by those to whom they show them; or theirs which tend all to confirm our belief in one GOD, which is CHRIST? Those that would have their filthiest acts held sacred, or those that will not have their very virtues held sacred in respect of their own glories, but referred unto his glory, who hath imparted such goodness unto them? Let us believe them that do both work miracles, and teach the truth: for this latter gave them power to perform the former. A chief point of which truth is this. CHRIST rose again in the flesh, and showed the immortality of the resurrection in his own body, which he promised unto us in the end of this world, or in the beginning of the next. Against the Platonists that oppose the elevation of the body up to heaven, by arguments of elementary ponderosity. CHAP. 11. AGainst this promise do many (whose thoughts God knoweth to be vain) make opposition Psal▪ 93. out of the nature of elements: Plato (their Mr.) teaching them that the two most contrary bodies of the world are combined by other two means: that is, by air, and water. Therefore (say they) earth being lowest, water next, than air, and then the heaven, earth cannot possibly be contained in heaven▪ every element having his peculiar poise, and tending naturally to his proper place. See with what vain, weak, and weightless arguments man's infirmity opposeth God's omnipotency! Why then are there so many earthly bodies in the air▪ air being the third element from earth? Cannot he that gave birds (that are earthly bodies) feathers, of power to sustain them in the air, give the like power to glorified and immortal bodies, to possess the heaven? Again, if this reason of theirs were true, all that cannot fly, should live under the earth, as fishes do in the water. Why then do not the earthly creatures live in the water, which is the next element unto earth, but in the air, which is the third? And seeing they belong to the earth, why doth the next element above the earth presently choke them, and drown them, and the third feed and nourish them? Are the elements out of order here now, or are their arguments out of reason? I will not stand here to make a rehearsal of what I spoke in the thirteen book, of many terrene substances of great weight, as Led, Iron, etc. which notwithstanding may have such a form given it, that it will swim, and support itself upon the water. And cannot God almighty give the body of man such a form likewise that it may ascend, and support itself in heaven? Let them stick to their method of elements (which is all their trust) yet can they not tell what to say to my former assertion. For earth is the lowest element, and then water and air successively, and heaven the fourth and highest, but the soul is a fifth essence above them all. Aristotle calleth it a fifth (a) body, and Plato saith it is utterly incorporeal. If it were the fifth in order, than were it above the rest: but being incorporeal, it is much more above all substances corporeal. What doth it then in a lump of earth, it being the most subtle, and this the most gross essence? It being the most active, and this the most unweeldy! Cannot the excellency of it have power to lift up this? Hath the nature of the body power to draw down a soul from heaven, and shall not the soul have power to carry the body thither whence it came itself? And now if we should examine the miracles which they parallel with those of our martyrs, we should find proofs against themselves out of their own relations. One of their greatest ones is that which Varro reports of a vestal votaress, who being suspected of whoredom, filled a Sieve with the water of Tiber and carried it unto her judges, without spilling a drop. Who was it that kept the water in the siue, so that not one drop passed through those thousand holes? Some God, or some Devil, they must needs say. Well, if he were a God, is he greater than he that made the world? if than an inferior God, Angel, or Devil had this power to dispose thus of an heavy element, that the very nature of it seemed altered; cannot then the Almighty maker of the whole world, take away the ponderosity of earth, and give the quickened body an ability to dwell in the same place that the quickening spirit shall elect? And whereas they place the air between the fire above, and the water beneath, how cometh it that we oftentimes find it between water and water, or between water and earth; for what will they make of those watery clouds, between which and the sea, the air hath an ordinary passage? What order of the elements doth appoint, that those floods of rain that fall upon the earth below the air, should first hang in the clouds above the air? And why is air in the midst between the heaven, and the earth, if it were (as they say) to have the place between the heavens and the waters, as water is between it and the earth? And lastly, if the elements be so disposed as that the two means, air and water, do combine the two extremes, fire and earth, heaven being in the highest place, and earth in the lowest, as the world's foundation, and therefore (say they) impossible to be in heaven; what do we then with fire here upon earth? for if this order of theirs be kept inviolate, then, as earth cannot have any place in fire, no more should fire have any in earth: as that which is lowest cannot have residence aloft, no more should that which is aloft have residence below. But we see this order renuersed: We have fire both on the earth, and in the earth: the mountain tops give it up in abundance, nay more, we see that fire is produced out of earth●…, namely of wood, and stones, and what are these but earthly bodies? yea but the elementary fire (say they) is pure, hurtless, quiet, and eternal: and this of ours, turbulent, smoky, corrupting, and corruptible. Yet doth it not corrupt nor hurt the hills wherein it burneth perpetually, nor the hollows within ground, where it worketh most powerfully. It is not like the other indeed, but adapted unto the convenient use of man. But why then may we not believe that the nature of a corruptible body may be made incorruptible, and fit for heaven, as well as we see the elementary fire made corruptible, and fit for us? So that these arguments drawn from the sight and qualities of the elements, can no way diminish the power that Almighty God hath, to make man's body of a quality fit and able to inhabit the heavens. L. VIVES. A Fifth (a) body] But Aristotle frees the soul from all corporeal being, as you may read De anima, lib. 1. disputing against Democritus, Empedocles, Alcm●…on, Plato and Xenocrates. But indeed, Plato teaching that the soul was composed of celestial fire taken from the stars, and withal, that the stars were composed of the elementary bodies, made Aristotle think (elsewhere) that it was of an elementary nature as well as the stars whence it was taken. But in this he mistook himself and miss-understood his master. But indeed Saint Augustine in this place taketh the opinion of Aristotle from Tully (for Aristotle's books were rare, and untranslated as then) who saith that he held their soul to be quintam naturam, which Saint Augustine calleth quintum corpus, a fifth body, several from the elementary compounds. But indeed it is a question whether Aristotle hold the soul to be corporeal or no, he is obscure on both sides, though his followers ●…old that it is absolutely incorporeal, as we hold generally at this day. And Tullyes' words were cause both of Saint Augustine's miss-prision, and likewise set almost all the Grecians both of this age and the last, against himself, for calling the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, whereas they say Aristotle calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, habitio perfecta, and not motio pere●…nis, as Tullyes' word implieth. But alas, why should Tully be so baited for so small an error? O let us be ashamed to upbraid the father of Latin eloquence with any misprision, for his errors are generally more learned than our labours! Against the Infidel's calumnies, cast out in scorn of the Christians belief of the resurrection. CHAP. 12. But in their scrupulous inquiries, touching this point, they come against us with such scoffs as these: Whether shall the Ab-ortive births have any part in the resurrection? And seeing the LORD saith, there shall no●… one hair of your headperish, whether shall all men be of one stature and bigness or no? If they be, how shall the Ab-ortives (if they rise again) have that at the resurrection which they wanted at the first? Or if they do not rise again because they were never borne, but cast out, we may make the same doubt of infants, where shall they have that bigness of body which they wanted when they died? for they you know are capable of regeneration, and therefore must have their part in the resurrection. And then these Pagans ask us, of what height and quantity shall men's bodies be then? If they be as tall as ever was any man then both little and many great ones shall want that which they wanted here on earth, and whence shall they have it? But if it be true that Saint Paul saith, th●…t we shall meet unto the measure of the age of the fullness of CHRIST, and again if that Eph. 〈◊〉 place, He predestinated [them] to be made like to the Image of his Son, imply Rom. 8 that all the members of Christ's Kingdom shallbe like him in shape and stature, then must many men (say they) forego part of the stature which they had upon earth. And then where is that great protection of every hair, if there be such a diminution made of the stature and body. Besides, we make a question (say they) whether man shall arise withal the hair that ever the Barber cut from his head. If he do, who will not loathe such an ugly sight? for so likewise must it follow that he have on all the parings of his nails. And where is then that comeliness, which ought in that immortality to be so far exceeding that of this world, while man is in corruption? But if he do not rise with all his hair, than it is lost, and where is your scriptures then? Thus they proceed unto fatness and leanness. If all be a like (say they) than one shall be fat and another lean. So that some must lose flesh, and some must gain: some must have what they wanted and some must leave what they had. Besides, as touching the putrefaction, and dissolution of men's bodies, part going into dust, part into air, part into fire, part into the guts of beasts and birds; part are drowned and dissolved into water, these accidents trouble them much, and make them think that such bodies, can never gather to flesh again. Then pass they to deformities, as monstrous births, misseshapen members, scars and such like; enquiring with scoffs what forms these shall have in the resurrection. For if we say they shall be all taken away, than they come upon us with our doctrine that CHRIST arose with his wounds upon him still. But their most difficult question of all, is, whose flesh shall that man's Bee in the resurrection, which is eaten by another man through compulsion of hunger? for it is turned into his flesh that eateth it, and filleth the parts that famine had made hollow, and lean. Whether therefore, shall he have it again that ought it at first, or he that eat it and so ought it afterwards? These doubts are put unto our resolutions by the scorners of our faith in the resurrection, and they themselves do either estate men's souls for ever in a state never certain, but now wretched, and now blessed (as Plato doth) or else with Porphyry they affirm that these revolutions do toss the soul along time, but notwithstanding have a final end at last, leaving the spirit at rest, but being utterly separated from the body for ever. Whether Ab-ortives, belong not to the resurrection, if they belong to the dead. CHAP. 13. TO all which objections of theirs, I mean by GOD'S help to answer, and first, as touching Ab-ortives, which die after they are quick in the mother's womb, that such shall rise again, I dare neither affirm nor deny. Yet, if they be reckoned amongst the dead, I see no reason to exclude them from the resurrection. For either all the dead shall not rise again, and the souls that had no bodies, saving in the mother's womb, shall continue bodiless for ever: or else all souls shall have their bodies again, and consequently they whose bodies perished before the time of perfection. Which soever of these two, be received for truth, that which we will now (by and by) affirm concerning Infants is to be understood of Ab-ortives also, if they have any part in the resurrection. Whether Infants shall rise again in the stature that they died in. CHAP. 14. NOw as touching infants, I say they shall not rise again with that littleness of body in which they died: the sudden and strange power of GOD shall give them a stature of full growth. For Our saviours words, There shall not one heir of our heads perish, do only promise them all that they had before, not excluding an addition of what they had not before. The infant wanted the perfection of his body's quantity (as every (a) perfect infant wanteth) that is, it was not come to the full height and bigness, which all are borne to have, and have at their birth, potentially (not actually) as all the members of man are potentially in the generative sperm, though the child may want some of them (as namely the teeth) when it is borne. In which ability of substance, that which is not apparent until afterwards, lieth (as one would say) wound up before, from the first original of the said substance. And in this ability, or possibility, the infant may be said to be tall, or low already, because he shall prove such hereafter. Which may secure us from all loss of body or part of body in the resurrection: for if we should be made all a like, never so tall, or giantlike, yet such as were reduced from a taller stature unto that, should lose no part of their body: for Christ hath said they should not lose an hair. And as for the means of addition, how can that wondrous workman of the world want fit substance to add where he thinketh good? L. VIVES. Every (a) perfect infant] Every thing hath a set quantity which it cannot exceed, and hath a power to attain to it, from the generative causes whereof the thing itself is produced: by which power, if it be not hindered, it dilateth itself gradually in time▪ till it come to the fullness, where it either resteth, or declineth again as it grew up. This manner of augmentation proceedeth from the qualities that nature hath infused into every thing, and neither from matter nor form. Whether all of the resurrection shallbe of the stature of Christ. CHAP. 15. But Christ himself arose in the same stature wherein he died: nor may we say that at the resurrection he shall put on any other height or quantity, then that wherein he appeared unto his disciples after he was risen again, or become as tall as any man ever was. Now if we say that all shall be made equal unto his stature, then must many that were taller, loose part of their bodies against the express words of CHRIST. Every one therefore shall arise in that stature which he either had at his full man's state, or should have had, if he had not died before. As for Saint Paul's words of the measure of the fullness of CHRIST, they either imply that all his members as then being joined with him their head, should make up the times consummation, or if they tend to the resurrection, the meaning is that all should arise neither younger, nor elder, but just of that age whereat CHRIST himself suffered and rose again. For the learned authors of this world say that about thirty years, man is in his full state, and from that time, he declineth to an age of more gravity and decay: wherefore the Apostle saith not, unto the measure of the body, nor unto the measure of the stature, but, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of CHRIST. [What is meant by the conformation of the Saints unto the Image of the Son of GOD. CHAP. 16. ANd whereas he saith that the predestinate shallbe made like to the Image of Rom. 8 the Son of GOD, this may be understood of the inward man; for he saith elsewhere, fashion not yourselves like unto this world, but be ye changed by the renewing Rom. 1●… of your mind. So then, when we are changed from being like the world, we are made like unto the Image of the Son of God. Besides, we may take it thus, that as he was made like us in mortality, so we should be made like him in immortality, and thus it is pertinent to the resurrection. But if that it concern the form of our rising again, than it speaketh (as the other place doth) only of the age of our bodies, not of their quantities. Wherefore all men shall arise in the stature that they either were of, or should have been of in their fullness of man's state: although indeed it is no matter what bodies they have, of old men or of infants, the soul and body being both absolute and without all infirmity. So that if any one say that every man shall rise again in the same stature wherein he died, it is not an opinion that requireth much opposition. Whether that women shall retain their proper sex in the resurrection CHAP. 17. THere are some, who out of these words of Saint Paul, Till we all meet together in the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of GOD, unto a perfect man Eph. 4 and unto the measure of the age of the fullness of JESUS CHRIST, would prove that no woman shall retain her sex in the resurrection, but all shall become men: for GOD (say they) made man only of earth, and woman of man. But I am rather of their mind that hold a resurrection in both sexes. For there shall be none of that lust, which caused man's confusion. For our first parents before their fall, were both naked, and were not ashamed. So at the later day, the sin shallbe taken away, and yet nature still preserved. The sex in woman is no corruption, it is natural, and as then shallbe free both from childbirth, nor shall the female parts be any more powerful to stir up the lusts of the beholders (for all lust shall then be extinguished) but praise and glory shallbe be given to GOD for creating what was not, and for freeing that from corruption which he had created. For, In the beginning when a rib was taken from Adam being a sleep, to make E●…e, this was a plain prophecy (a) of Christ and the Church. Adam's sleep was CHRIST'S death, from whose side being opened with a spear as he hung upon the cross, came blood and water, the two Sacraments whereby the church is built up. For the word of the text is not formavit, nor finxit, but Aedific●…it eam in mulierem he built her up into a woman. So the Apostle calleth ●…ph. 4 the church, the edification of the body of CHRIST. The ●…man therefore was GOD'S creature as well as man: but made of man, (b) for unity sake. And in the manner thereof was a plain figure of Christ and his Church. He therefore that made both sexes will raise them both to life. And JESUS himself, being questioned by the Sadduces, that deny the resurrection, which of the seven brethren should have her to wife at the resurrection whom they had all had before, answered them saying, Ye are deceived, not knowing the Scriptures nor Mat. 22 the power of GOD. And whereas he might have said (if it had been so) she whom you inquire of shallbe a man at that day, and not a woman, he said no such matter, but only this, In the resurrection they neither marry wives nor wives, are bestowed in marriage, but are as the Angels of GOD in Heaven. That is, they are like them in felicity, not in flesh: nor in their resurrection, which the Angels need not, because they cannot die. So that CHRIST doth not deny that there shallbe women at the resurrection, but only marriage: whereas if there should have been none of the female sex, he might have answered the Sadduces more easily by saving so: but he affirmed that there should be both sexes, in these words; They neither marry wives, that is, men do not, nor wives are bestowed in marriage, that is, women are not. So that there shallbe there both such as use to marry, and such as use to be married here in this world. L. VIVES. Prophesy (a) of Christ] Ephes. 5. (b) For unity sake] That their concord might be the more, the one knowing that he brought forth the other, and the other that she came of him. So should man and wife think themselves but one thing, nothing should divide them, and this is the preservation of peace in their family. Of CHRIST, the perfect man, and the Church, his body, and fullness. CHAP. 18. NOw touching Saint Paul's words, Till we all meet together etc. unto a perfect man, were to observe the circumstances of the whole speech, which is this. He that descended▪ is even the same that ascended, far above all heavens that he might fill all things. He therefore gave some to be Apostles, and some Prophets, and some Eph. 4 Evangelists, and some Pastors and teachers, for the gathering together of the Saints, and for the work of their ministry and for the edification of the body of CHRIST, till we all meet together in the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of GOD, unto a perfect man and unto the measure of the age of the fullness of CHRIST: that we may henceforth be no more children, wavering and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the deceit of men, and with craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But let us follow the truth in love, and in allthings grow up into him, which is the head, that is, CHRIST, by whom all the body being coupled and knit together by every joint, for the furniture thereof according to the effectual power which is in the measure of every part, receiveth increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. Behold here the perfect man, head and body, consisting of all members; which shallbe complete in due time. But as yet the body increaseth daily in members, as the church enlargeth, to which it is said, ye are the body of CHRIST, and members for your part: and again; for his body's sake, which is 1 Cor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 1 Ephes. 4 the Church: and in another place: For we being many, are one bread, and one body. Of the edification whereof you hear what Saint Paul saith here: for the gathering together of the Saints, and for the work of the ministry, and for the edification of the body of CHRIST. And then he addeth that which all this concerneth: Till we all meet together etc. unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ. Which measure, unto what body it pertaineth, he showeth, saying, Let us in all things grow up into him which is the head, that is CHRIST, by whom all the body etc. So that both the measure of the whole body, and of each part therein, is this measure of fullness whereof the Apostle speaketh here, and also elsewhere, saying of Christ, He hath given him to be the head over all the Church which is his body, his fullness, who filleth all in all. But if this belong to the form of the resurrection, why may we not imagine woman to be included by man, as in that place, Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, giveh the same blessing also to such women as fear him. That our bodies in the resurrection shall have no imperfection at all, whatsoever they have had during this life, but shall be perfect both in quantity and quality. CHAP. 19 NOw what shall I say concerning man's hair, and nails? understand but that then no part of body shall perish, yet so as no deformity shall abide, and it includeth, that such parts as do procure those deformities shallbe resident only in the whole lump, not upon any part where they may offend the eye. As for example, make a pot of clay; mar it, and make it again: it is not necessary that the clay which was in the handle before should be in the handle now again, and so of the bottom and the parts: sufficeth that it is the same clay it was before. Wherefore the cut hair, and nails, shall not return to deform their places, yet shall they not perish (if they return) but have their congruent places in the same flesh from whence they had their being. Although that our saviours words may rather be understood of the number of our hairs, than the length, whereupon he saith elsewhere, All the hairs of your head are numbered. Luc. 12 I say not this to imply that any essential part of the body shall perish, but that which ariseth out of deformity, and showeth the wretched estate of mortality, shall so return that the substance shall be there, and the deformity gone. For if a statuary having for some purpose made a deformed statue, can mould, or cast it new and comely, with the same substance of matter, and yet without all the former miss-shapednesse; neither cutting away any of the exorbitant parts that deformed the whole, no●… using any other means but only the new casting of his metal, or moulding of his matter; what shall we think of the Almighty Molder of the whole world? Cannot he then take away men's deformities of body, common or extraordinary (being only notes of our present misery, and far excluded from our future bliss) as well as a common statuary can reform a misshapen statue of stone, wood, clay or metal? Wherefore the fat, or the lean need never fear to be such hereafter, as if they could choose, they would not be now. For all bodily beauty, (a) is a good congruence in the members, joined with a pleasing colour. And where that is not, there is evermore dislike, either by reason of superfluity, or defect. Wherefore there shallbe no cause of dislike through incongruence of parts, where the deformed ones are reform, the defects supplied, and the excesses fitly proportioned. And for colour, how glorious will it be! The just shall shine as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father. And this lustre was rather hidden from the Apostles eyes at CHRIST'S resurrection, then wanting in his body. For man's weak eyes could not have endured it, and CHRIST was rather to make them to know him then to show them his glory, as he manifested by letting them touch his wounds, by eating, and drinking with them, which he did not for any need of meat or sustenance, but because he had power to do it. And when a things is present thus, and not seen, with other things that are present and seen (as this glory was, unseen, being with his person, which was seen) this in greek, is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Latins translate it in Genesis, caecitas, blindness. The Sodomites were smitten with it, when they sought Lot's door, and Gen. 19 could not find it. But if it had been direct blindness, they would rather have sought for guides to lead them home, then for this door which they could not find. L. VIVES. BEauty (a) is] So saith Tully Tuse. quest. 3. who maketh beauty of two sorts: one, wherein dignity excelleth, another wherein comeliness. Aristotle giveth every part of man's life a several beauty. 〈◊〉. 1. That every man's body, how ever dispersed here, shall be restored him, perfect, at the Resurrection. CHAP. 20. Our love unto the Martyrs is of that nature that we desire to behold the scars of their wounds (borne for the name of Christ) even in their glorification, and perhaps so we shall. For they will not deform, but grace them as then, and give out a lustre of their virtue, not bodily, albeit in the body. But if any of them lost any member for his Saviour, surely he shall not want that in the resurrection, for unto such was it said, not an hair of your heads shall Luck. 21 perish. But if CHRIST'S pleasure be to make their scars apparent in the world to come, then shall those members also that were cut off have visible marks in the place whence they were cut, and where they are rejoined, for although all their miserable hurts shall not be their visible, yet their shallbe some, which nevertheless shallbe no more called hurts, but honours. And far be it from us to think (a) GOD'S power insufficient to recollect and unite every atom of the body, were it burnt, or torn by beasts, or fallen to dust, or dissolved into moisture, or exhaled into air. GOD forbid that any corner of nature (though it may be unknown to us) should lie hid from the eye and power of the almighty. (b) Tully (their great author) going about to define GOD, as well as he could; affirmed him to be. Mens soluta & libera, secreta ab omni concretione mortali, omnia sentiens & movens ispaque motu predita sempiterno. A free and unbounded intellect, separate from all mortal composition, moving and knowing allthings and moving eternally in himself. This he found in the great Philosophers. Now then to come up to them, what can lie hid from him that knoweth all? what can avoid his power that moveth all? And now may we answer the doubt that seemeth most difficult: that is, whose flesh shall that man's Bee at the resurrection, which another man eateth? ●…c) Ancient stories, and late experience have lamentably informed us, that this hath often come to pass that one man hath eaten another: in which case none will say that all the flesh went quite through the body, and none was turned into nutriment: the meager places becoming by this only meat, more full and fleshy do prove the contarry. Now than my premises shall serve to resolve this Ambiguity. The flesh of the famished man that hunger consumed, is exhaled into air, and thence (as we said before) the Creator can fetch it again. This flesh therefore of the man that was eaten, shall return to the first owner, of whom the famished man doth but as it were borrow it, and so must repay it again. And that of his own which famine dried up into air, shallbe recollected, and restored into some convenient place of his body, which were it so consumed that no part thereof remained in nature, yet GOD could fetch it again at an instant, and when he would himself. But seeing that the very heirs of our head are secured us, it were absurd to imagine that famine should have the power to deprive us of so much of our flesh. These things being duly considered, this is the sum of all, that in the Resurrection every man shall arise with the same body that he had, or should have had in his fullest growth, in all comeliness, and without deformity of any the least member. To preserve with comeliness, if some what be taken from any unshapely part, and decently disposed of amongst the rest (that it be not lost, and withal, that the congruence be observed) we may without absurdity believe that there may be some addition unto the stature of the body; the inconvenience that was visible in one part, being invisibly distributed (and so annihilated) amongst the rest. If any one avow precisely that every man shall arise in the proper stature of his growth which he had when he died, we do not oppose it, so that he grant unto an utter abolishing of all deformity, dullness and corruptibility of the said form and stature, as things that bee●…it not that Kingdom, wherein the sons of promise shallbe ●…uall to the Angels of GOD, if not in their bodies, nor ages, yet in absolut●… perfection and beatitude. L. VIVES. TO think (a) God's power] The Governor of a family (if he be wise and diligent) knows at an instant where to fetch any think in his house, be his rooms never so large, and many; and shall we think that GOD cannot do the like in the world, unto whose wisdom it is but a very casket? (b) Tully] Tusc. quaest. lib. 1. (c) Ancient stories] Many Cities in strait sieges have been driven to this. There is also a people, called Anthropophagis, or Cannibals, that live upon man's flesh. What new and spiritual bodies shallbe given unto the Saints. CHAP. 21. EVery part therefore of the bodies, peryshing either in death, or after it, in the grave, or wheresoever, shallbe restored, renewed, and of a natural, and corruptible body, it shall become immortal, spiritual and incorruptible. Be it all made into powder, and dust, by chance, or cruelty, or dissolved into air, or water, so that no part remain undispersed, yet shall it not, yet can it not, be kept hidden from the omnipotency of the Creator, who will not have one hair of the head to perish. Thus shall the spiritual flesh become subject to the spirit, yet shall it be flesh still, as the carnal spirit before was subject to the flesh, and yet a spirit still. A proof of which, we have in the deformity of our penal estate. For they were carnal in respect of the spirit indeed, (not merely of the flesh) to whom Saint Paul said, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual men, but as unto carnal. So man in this life is called spiritual, though he Cor. 3 be carnal still, and have a law in his members, rebelling against the law of his mind. But he shallbe spiritual in body, when he riseth again, ●…o that it is so●… a ●…urall body, but raised a spiritual body, as the said Apostle saith. But of the measure of this spiritual grace, what and how great Cor. 15 it shallbe in the body, I fear to determine: for it were rashness to go a●… it. But seeing we may not conceal the joy of our hope for the glorifying of GOD, and seeing that it was said from the very bowels of divine rapture, Oh LORD, I have loved the habitation of thine house! we may by GOD'S help, Psal 26, 8 make a conjecture from the goods imparted to us in this transitory life, how great the glories shallbe that we shall receive in the other, which as yet we neither have tried, nor can any way truly describe. I omit man's estate before his fall; our first parent's happiness in the fertile Paradise, which was so short, that their progeny had no taste of it. Who is he that can express the boundless mercies of GOD shown unto mankind, even in this life that we all try, and wherein we suffer temptations, or rather a continual temptation (be we never so vigilant) all the time that we enjoy it? Of man's miseries, drawn upon him by his first parents, and taken away from him only by CHRIST'S merits, and gracious goodness. CHAP. 22. COncerning man's first original, our present life (if such a miserable estate be to be called a life) doth sufficiently prove that all his progeny was condemned in him. What else doth that horrid gulf of ignorance confirm, whence all error hath birth, and wherein all the sons of Adam are so deeply drenshed, that none can be freed without toil, fear and sorrow? what else doth our love of vanities affirm, whence there ariseth such a tempest of cares, sorrows, repine, fears, mad exultations, discords, altercations, wars, treasons, furies, hates, deceits, flatteries, thefts, rapines, perjuries, pride, ambition, envy, murder, parricide, cruelty, villainy, luxury, impudence, unchasteness, fornications, adulteries, incests, several sorts of sins against nature, (beastly even to be named) sacrilege, heresy, blasphemy, oppression, calumnies, circumuentions, cozenages, false witnesses, false judgements, violence, robberies, and such like, out of my remembrance to reckon, but not excluded from the life of man? All these evils are belonging to man, and arise out of the root of that error and perverse affection which every Son of Adam brings into the world with him. For who knoweth not in what a mist of ignorance (as we see in infants) and with what a crew of vain desires (as we see in boys) all mankind entereth this world? so that (a) might he be left unto his own election, he would fall into most of the foresaid mischiefs. But the hand of GOD bearing a rain upon our condemned souls, and pouring our his mercies upon us (not shutting them up in displeasure) law, and instruction were revealed unto the capacity of man, to awake us out of those lethargies of ignorance, and to withstand those former incursions, which notwithstanding is not done without great toil and trouble. For what imply those fears whereby we keep little children in order? what do teachers, rods, fer●…laes, thongs, and such like, but confirm this? And that discipline of the scriptures that saith that our sons must be beaten on the sides whilst they are children, lest they wax stubborn, and either past, or very near past reformation? What is the end of all these, but to abolish ignorance, and to bridle corruption both which we come wrapped into the world withal? what is our labour to remember things, our labour to learn, and our ignorance without this labour; our agility got by toil, and our dullness if we neglect it? doth not all declare the promptness of our nature (in itself) unto all viciousness, and the care that must be had in reclaiming it? Sloth, dullness, and negligence, are all vices that avoid labour, and yet labour itself is but a profitable pain. But to omit the pains that enforce children tolearne the (scarcely useful) books that please their parents▪ how huge a band of pains attend the firmer state of man, and be not peculiarly inflicted on the wicked, but generally impendent over us all, through our common estate in misery? who can recount them, who can conceive them? What fears, what calamities ●…doth the loss of children, of goods, or of credit, the false dealing of others, false suspect, open violence, and all other mischiefs inflicted by others, heap upon the heart of man? being generally accompanied with poverty, inprisonment, bands, banishments, tortures, loss of limbs or senses, prostitution to beastly lust, and other such horrid events? So are we afflicted on the other side with chances ab externo, with cold, heat, storms, showers, deluges, lightning, thunder, earthquakes, falls of houses, fury of beasts, poisons of airs, waters, plants, and beasts of a thousand forts, stinging of serpents, biting of mad dogs, a strange accident, wherein a beast most sociable and familiar with man, shall sometimes become more to be feared then a Lion or a Dragon, infecting him whom he biteth, with such a furious madness, that he is to be feared of his family worse than any wild beast? what misery do Navigators now and then endure? or travelers by land? what man can walk any where free from sudden accidents? (b) One coming home from the court, (being sound enough of his feet) fell down, broke his leg, and died of▪ 〈◊〉, who would have thought this that had seen him sitting in the court? Heli the Priest, fell from his chair where he ●…ate and broke his neck. What fears are husbandmen, yea all men subject unto, that the fruits should be hurt by the heavens, or earth, or caterpillars, or locusts or such other pernicious things? yet when they have gathered them and laid them up, they are secured: notwithstanding I have known granaries full of 〈◊〉 borne quite away with an inundation. Who can be secured by his own innocency against the innumerable incursions of the devils, when as we see that they do sometimes afflict little baptised infants (who are as innocent as can be) and (by the permission of GOD) even upon their harmless bodies, do show the miseries of this life, and excite us all to labour for the bliss of the other? Besides, man's body we see how subject it is to (c) diseases, more than physic can either cure or comprehend. And in most of these, we see how offensive the very medicines are that cure them, nay even our very meat we eat, during the time of the maladies domination. Hath not extremity of heat made man to drink his own urine, and others too? Hath not hunger enforced man to eat man, and to kill one another to make meat of; yea even the mother to massacre and devour her own child? Nay is not our very (d) sleep (which we term rest) sometimes so fraught with disquiet, that it disturbs the soul, and all her powers at once, by objecting such horrid terrors to the fantasy, and with such an expression, that she cannot discern them from true terrors? This is ordinary in some diseases: besides that the deceitful fiends sometimes will▪ so delude the eye of a sound man with such apparitions, that although they make no f●…rther impression into him, yet they persuade the sense that they are truly so as they seem, and the devils desire is ever to deceive. From all these miserable engagements, (representing a kind of direct hell) we are not freed but by the grace of JESUS CHRIST, For this is his name; JESUS IS A SAVIOUR, and he it is that will save us from a worse life, or rather a perpetual death, after this life: for although we have many and great comforts by the Saints in this life, yet the benefits hereof are not given at every one's request, lest we should apply our faith unto those transitory respects, whereas it rather concerneth the purchase of a life which shallbe absolutely free from all inconvenience. And the more faithful that one is in this life, the greater confirmation hath he from grace, to endure those miseries without fainting, whereunto the Paynin authors refer their true Philosophy; which their Gods, (e) as Tully saith, revealed unto some few of them (f) There was never (saith he) nor could there be a greater gift given unto man, than this. Thus our adversaries are feign to confess that true Philosophy is a divine gift: which being (as they confess) the only help against our human miseries, and coming from above, hence than it appeareth that all mankind was condemned to suffer miseries. But as they confess that this help was the greatest gift that GOD ever gave, so do we avow and believe, that it was given by no other God but he to whom even the worshippers of many gods, give the pre-eminence. L. VIVES. MIght (a) he be left] There was never wild beast more unruly than man would be, if education and discipline did not repress him: he would make all his reason serve to compass his apperites, and become as brutish and fond as the very brutest beast of all (b) One coming] Of such accidents as this read Pliny lib. 7. cap. 4. and Valer. Max. lib. 9 (c) Diseases] As the pox, (call them French, Neapolitan, Spanish, or what you will, they are indeed, Indian, and came from thence hither. children are borne with them, in the Spanish Indies.) or the pestilent sweat that killeth so quickly: the ancient writers never mention these. Such another strange disease a Nobleman lay sick of at Bruges, when I was there, the Emperor Charles being as then in the town. john Martin Poblatio told me that he had never read of the like, and yet I will avouch his theory in physic so exact, that either the ancient physicians never wrote of it, or if they did, their books are lost and perished. (d) Sleep] So Dido complaineth to her sister of her frightful dreams. Uirg. Aeneid. (e) As Tully saith] But where, I cannot find, unless it be in his 5. de finibus. (f) There was never] The words of Plato in his Timaeus translated by Tully towards the end of the dialogue. Tully●…ath ●…ath it also in his fifth the Legib. Of accidents, severed from the common estate of man, and peculiar only to the just and righteous. CHAP. 23. BEsides those calamities that lie generally upon all, the righteous have a peculiar labour, to resist vice, and be continually in combat with dangerous temptations. The flesh is sometimes furious, sometimes remiss, but always rebellious against the spirit, and the spirit hath the same sorts of conflict against the flesh: so that we cannot do as we would, or expel all concupiscence, but we strive (by the help of GOD) to suppress it by not consenting, and to curb it as well as we can, by a continual vigilance: lest we should be deceived by likelihoods, or subtleties, or involued in errors, lest we should take good for evil and evil for good, lest fear should hold us from what we should do, and desire entice to us do what we should not: lest the sun should set upon our anger: lest enmity should make us return mischief for mischief; lest ingratitude should make us forget our benefactors; least evil reports should molest our good conscience; lest our rash suspect of others should deceive us, or others false suspect of us, deject us▪ lest sin should bring our bodies to obey it: lest our members should be given up as weapons to sin: lest our eye should follow our appetite: lest desire of revenge should draw us to inconvenience: lest our sight or our thought should stay too long upon a sinful delight: lest we should give willing ear to evil and undecent talk▪ least our lust should become our law: and lest that we ourselves in this dangerous conflict should either hope to win the victory by our own strength, or having gotten it, should give the glory to ourselves, and not to his grace of whom Saint Paul saith: Thanks be unto GOD, who hath given us victory through our Lord jesus Christ: and elsewhere: In all these things we are more than conqueror through him that 1. Cor. 15 Rom. 8. 37 loved us. But yet we are to know this, that stand we never so strong against sin, or subdue it never so much: yet as long as we are mortal, we have cause every day to say, Forgive us our trespasses. But when we ascend into that Kingdom where immortality dwelleth, we shall neither have wars wherein to fight, nor trespasses to pray for, nor had not had any here below, if our natures had kept the gifts of their first creation. And therefore these conflicts, wherein we are endangered, and whence we desire (by a final victory) freedom, are part of those miseries wherewith the life of man is continually molested. Of the goods that GOD hath bestowed upon this miserable life of ours. CHAP. 24. NOw let us see what goods the Great Creator hath bestowed in his mercy upon this life of ours made miserable by his justice. The first was that blessing before our Parents fall, Increase and multiply, fill the earth, etc. And this he revoked not, for all that they sinned, but left the gift of fruitfulness to their condemned offspring: nor could their crime abolish that power of the (seede-producing) seed inherent, and as it were woven up in the bodies of man and woman: unto which nevertheless death was annexed, so that in one and the same current (as it were) of mankind, ran both the evil merited by the parent, and the good, bestowed by the creator. In which original evil, lieth sin, and punishment: and in which original good, lieth propagation, and conformation or information. But of those evils, the one whereof (sin) came from our own audaciousness, and the other, (punishment) from the judgement of GOD, we have said sufficient already. This place is for the goods which GOD hath given, and doth still give to the condemned state of man. In which condemnation of his GOD took not all from him that he had given him, (for so he should have ceased to have had any being) nor did he resign his power over him, when he gave him thrall to the Devil, for the Devil himself is his thrall, he is cause of his subsistence, he that is only and absolutely essential, and giveth all things essence under him, gave the Devil his being also. Of these two goods therefore which we said that his Almighty goodness had allowed our nature (how ever depraved, and cursed) he gave the first (propagation) as a blessing in the beginning of his works from which he rested the seventh day. The second, (conformation) he giveth as yet, unto every work which he as yet effecteth. For if he should but withhold his efficient power from the creatures of the earth, they could neither increase to any further perfection, nor continue in the state wherein he should leave them. So then GOD creating man, gave him a power to propagate others, and to allow them a power of propagation also, yet no necessity, for that GOD can deprive them of it, whom he pleaseth: but it was his gift unto the first parents of mankind, and he having once given, hath not taken it any more away from all mankind. But although sin did not abolish this propagation, yet it made it far less than it had been if sin had not been. For man being in honour, understood not, and so was compared unto beasts, begetting such like as himself: yet hath he Psalm. 49. a little spark left him of that reason whereby he was like the image of GOD. Now if this propagation wanted conformation, nature could keep no form nor similitude in her several productions. For if man and woman had not had copulation, and that GOD nevertheless would have filled the earth with men, as he made Adam without generation of man or woman, so could he have made all the rest. But man and woman coupling, cannot beget unless he create. For as Saint Paul saith in a spiritual sense, touching man's conformation in righteousness: Neither is he that planteth, any thing, nor he that watereth, but GOD that giveth the increase: so may we say here; Neither is 1. Cor. 3. he that soweth any thing, nor she that conceiveth, but GOD that giveth the form. It is his daily work that the seed unsoldeth itself out of a secret clew as it were, and brings the potential forms into such actual decorum. It is he that maketh that strange combination of a nature incorporeal (the ruler) and a nature corporeal (the subject) by which the whole becometh a living creature. A work so admirable, that it is able to amaze the mind, and force praise to the Creator from it, being observed not only in man, whose reason giveth him excellence above all other creatures, but even in the least fly that is, one may behold this wondrous and stupendious combination. It is he that given man's spirit an apprehension (which seemeth, together with reason, to lie dead in an infant, until years bring it to use) where-by he hath a power to conceive knowledge, discipline, and all habits of truth and good quality, and by which he may extract the understanding of all the virtues, of prudence, justice fortitude, and temperance, to be thereby the better armed against viciousness and incited to subdue them by the contemplation of that high and unchangeable goodness: which height, although it do not attain unto, yet who can sufficiently declare how great a good it is, and how wonderful a work of the Highest, being considered in other respects? for besides the disciplines of good behaviour, and the ways to eternal happiness (which are called virtues) and besides the grace of GOD which is in JESUS CHRIST, imparted only to the sons of the promise, man's invention hath brought forth so many and such rare sciences, and arts (partly (a) necessary, and partly voluntary) that the excellency of his capacity maketh the rare goodness of his creation apparent, even then when he goeth about things that are either superfluous or pernicious, and showeth from what an excellent gift, he hath those his inventions and practices. What varieties hath man found out in Buildings, Attires, Husbandry, Navigation, Sculpture, and Imagery? what perfection hath he shown in the shows of theatres, in taming, kill, and catching wild beasts? What millions of inventions hath he against others, and for himself in poisons, arms, engines, stratagems, and such like? What thousands of medicines, for the health, of meats for the wezand, of means and figures to persuade, of eloquent phrases to delight, of verses to disport, of musical inventions and instruments? How excellent an invention is Geography, Arithmetic, Astrology, and the rest? How large is the capacity of man, if we should stand upon particulars? Lastly, how cunningly, and with what exquisite wit, have the Philosophers, and the Heretics defended their very errors: it is strange to imagine? for here we speak of the nature of man's soul in general, as man is mortal, without any reference to the tract of truth, whereby he cometh to the life eternal. Now therefore seeing that the true and only GOD, that ruleth all in his almighty power and justice, was the creator of this excellent essence himself; doubtless man had never fallen into such misery, (which many shall never be freed from, and some shall) if the sin of those that first incurred it, had not been extremely malicious. Come now to the body: though it be mortal as the beasts are, and more weaker than many of theirs are, yet mark what great goodness, and providence is shown herein by GOD Almighty. Are not all the sinews and members disposed in such fit places, and the whole body so composed, as if one would say, Such an habitation is fittest for a spirit of reason? You see the other creatures have a groveling posture, and look towards earth, whereas man's upright form bids him continually respect the things in heaven. The nimbleness of his tongue and hand, in speaking, and writing, and working in trades, what doth it but declare for whose use they were made so? Yet (excluding respect of work,) the very congruence, and parilitie of the parts do so concur, that one cannot discern whether man's body were made more for use, or for comeliness. For there is no part of use in man, that hath not the proper decorum, as we should better discern, if we knew the numbers of the proportions wherein each part is combined to the other, which we may perhaps come to learn by those that are apparent. As for the rest that are not seen, as the courses of the veins, sinews, and arteries, and the secrets of the spirituals, we cannot come to know their numbers: for though some butcherly Surgeons (b) (Anotamists they call them) have often cut up dead men, (and live men sometimes) to learn the posture of man's inward parts, and which way to make incisions, and to effect their cures; yet those members whereof I speak, and whereof the (c) harmony and proportion of man's whole body doth consist, no man could ever find, or durst ever undertake to inquire, which if they could be known, we should find more reason, and pleasing contemplation in the forming of the interior parts, than we can observe or collect from those that lie open to the eye. There are some parts of the body that concern decorum only, and are of no use: such are the paps on the breasts of men, and the beard, which is no strengthening, but an ornament to the face, as the naked chins of women (which being weaker, were otherwise to have this strengthening also) do plainly declare. Now if there be no exterior part of man that is useful, which is not also comely, and if there be also parts in man that are comely and not useful, then GOD in the framing of man's body, had a greater respect of dignity then of necessity. For necessity shall cease, the time shall come when we shall do nothing but enjoy our (lustless) beauties, for which we must especially glorify him, to whom the Psalm saith; Thou hast put on praise, and comeliness. And then for the beauty and use of other creatures, which God hath set before the eyes of man (though as yet miserable, and amongst miseries) what man is able to recount them? the universal gracefulness of the heavens, the earth, and the sea, the brightness of the light in the Sun, Moon, and Stars, the shades of the woods, the colours and smells of flowers, the numbers of birds, and their varied hews and songs, the many forms of beasts and fishes, whereof the least are the rarest (for the fabric of the Bee or Pismire is more admired than the Whales) and the strange alterations in the colour of the sea, (as being in several garments) now one green, than another; now blue, and then purple? How pleasing a sight sometimes it is to see it rough, and how more pleasing when it is calm? And O what a hand is that, that giveth so many meats to assuage hunger? so many tastes to those meats (without help of Cook) and so many medecinall powers to those tastes? How delightful is the days reciprocation with the night? the temperateness of the air, and the works of nature in the barks of trees, and skins of beasts? O who can draw the particulars? How tedious should I be in every peculiar of these few, that I have here as it were heaped together, if I should stand upon them one by one? Yet are all these but solaces of man's miseries, no way pertinent to his glories. What are they then that his bliss shall give him, if that his misery have such blessings as these? What will GOD give them whom he hath predestinated unto life, having given such great things even to them whom he hath predestinated unto death? What will he give them in his kingdom, for whom he sent his only son to suffer all injuries, even to death, upon earth? Whereupon Saint Paul saith unto them; He who spared not his own son, but gave him Rom. 8. for us all unto death, how shall he not with Him give us all things also? When this promise is fulfilled, O what shall we be then? How glorious shall the soul of man be, without all stain and sin, that can either subdue or oppose it, or against which it need to contend; perfect in all virtue, and enthroned in all perfection of peace? How great, how delightful, how true, shall our knowledge of all things be there, without all error, without all labour, where we shall drink at the spring head of GOD'S sapience, without all difficulty, and in all felicity? How perfect shall our bodies be, being wholly subject unto their spirits, and there-by sufficiently quickened, and nourished without any other sustenance? for they shall now be no more natural, but spiritual, they shall have the substance of ●…sh, quite exempt from all fleshly corruption. L. VIVES. PArtly (a) necessary] Such as husbandry, the Art of Spinning, weaving, and such as man cannot live without. (b) Anatomists] that is, cutters up; of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a section, incision, or cutting. (c) Harmony] The congruence, connexion, and concurrence of any thing may be called so: it cometh of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to adapt, or compose a thing proportionably. Of the obstinacy of some few in denying the resurrection, which the whole world believeth, as it was foretold. CHAP. 25. BUT as touching the goods of the mind, which the blessed shall enjoy after this life, the Philosophers and we are both of one mind. Our difference is concerning the resurrection which they deny with all the power they have: but the increase of the believers hath left us but a few opposers; CHRIST, (that disproved the obstinate even in his proper body) gathering all unto his faith, learned and unlearned, wise and simple. The world believed GOD'S promise in this; who promised also that it should believe this. It was (a) not Peter magic that wrought it, but it was that GOD, of whom (as I have said often, and as Porphyry confesseth from their own Oracles) all their Gods do stand in awe and dread. Porphyry calls him GOD the Father, and King of GOD'S: But GOD forbid that we should believe his promises as they do, that will not believe what he had promised, that the world should believe. For why should we not rather believe as the world doth, and as it was prophesied it should, and leave them to their own idle talk that will not believe this that the world was promised to believe? for if they say we must take it in another sense; because they will not do that GOD whom they have commended, so much injury, as to say his Scriptures are idle things; Yet surely they injure him as much, or more, in saying they must be understood otherwise then the world understandeth them, which is, as GOD both promised and performed. Why cannot GOD raise the flesh unto eternal life? Is it a work unworthy of God? Touching his omnipotency, whereby he worketh so many wonders, I have said enough already. If they would show me a thing which he cannot do: I will tell them he cannot lie. Let us therefore believe only what he can do, and not believe what he cannot. If they do not then believe that he can lie, let them believe that he will do what he promiseth. And let them believe as the world believes, which (he promised) should believe, and whose belief he both produced, and praised. And how prove they the work of the resurrection any way unworthy of GOD? There shall be no corruption there-in, and that is all the evil that can be-fall the body. Of the elementary orders, we have spoken already: as also of the possibility of the swift motion of the incorruptible body. Of man's bodily health in this world, and the weakness of it in respect of immortality, I think our thirteenth book containeth what will satisfy. Let such as have not read this book, or will not rehearse what they have read, read the passages of this present volume already recorded. L. VIVES. NOt (a) Peter's Magic] He toucheth at Porphyryes slandering of Saint Peter with sorcery and Magical enchantments: as you may read in the end of the eighteenth book. That Porphyryes opinion that the blessed souls should have no bodiss, is confuted by Plato himself, who saith that the Creator promised the inferior deities, that they should never lose their bodies. CHAP. 26. YEa but (saith Porphyry) a blessed soul must have no body: so that the body's incorruptibility is nothing worth, if the soul cannot be blessed unless it want a body. But hereof we have sufficiently argued in the thirteenth book: only I will rehearse but one only thing. If this were true, than Plato their great Master must go reform his books, and say that the GOD'S must go and leave their bodies (for he saith they all have celestial bodies) that is, they must die, ere they can be blessed: how-so-ever that he hath made them, promised them immortality, and an eternal dwelling in their bodies, to assure them of their bliss: and this should come from his powerful will, not from their natures. The same Plato in the same place, overthrows their reason that say there shall be no resurrection, because it is impossible for GOD the uncreated maker of the other Gods, promising them eternity, saith plainly that he will do a thing which is impossible: for thus (quoth Plato) he said unto them. Because you are created, you cannot but he mortal and dissoluble: yet shall you never die, nor be dissolved; fate shall not control my will, which is a greater bond for your perpetuity, than all those where-by you are composed. No man that heareth this, (be he never so doltish, so he be not deaf) will make any question that this was an impossibility which Plato's Creator promised the deities which he had made. For saying, You cannot be eternal, yet by my will you shall be eternal, what is it but to say, my will shall make you a thing impossible? He therefore that (as Plato saith) did promise to effect this impossibility, will also raise the flesh in an incorruptible, spiritual and immortal quality. Why do they now cry out that that is impossible which GOD hath promised, which the world hath believed, and which it was promised it should believe, seeing that Plato himself is of our mind, and saith that GOD can work impossibilities? Therefore it must not be the want of a body, but the possession of one utterly incorruptible, that the soul shall be blessed in. And what such body shall be so fit for their joy, as that wherein (whilst it was corruptible) they endured such woe? They shall not then be plagued with that desire that Virgil relateth out of Plato, saying: Rursus & incipiunt in corpora velle reverti. Now 'gan they wish to live on earth again. I mean, when they have their bodies that they desired, they shall no more desire any bodies: but shall possess those for ever, without being ever severed from them so much as one moment. Contrarieties between Plato and Porphyry, wherein if either should yield unto other, both should find out the truth. CHAP. 27. PLato and Porphyry held divers opinions, which if they could have come to reconcile, they might perhaps have proved Christians. Plato said, That the soul could not be always without a body: but that the souls of the wisest, at length should return into bodies again. Porphyry said, That when the purged soul ascendeth to the father, it returns no more to the infection of this world. Now if Plato had yielded unto Porphyry, that the souls return should be only into an humane body: and Porphyry unto Plato, that the soul should never return unto the miseries of a corruptible body, if both of them jointly had held both these positions, I think it would have followed, both that the souls should return into bodies, and also into such bodies as were befitting them for eternal felicity. For Plato saith, The holy souls shall return to humane bodies: and Porphyry saith; The holy souls shall not return to the evils of this world. Let Porphyry therefore say with Plato, They shall return unto bodies: and Plato with Porphyry, they shall not return unto evils: And then they shall-both say; They shall return unto such bodies as shall not molest them with any evils, namely those wherein GOD hath promised that the blessed souls should have their eternal dwellings. For this I think they would both grant us; that if they confessed a return of the souls of the just into immortal bodies, it should be into those wherein they suffered the miseries of this world, and wherein they served GOD so faithfully, that they obtained an everlasting delivery from all future calamities. What either Plato, Labeo, or Varro might have availed to the true faith of the resurrection, if there had been an Harmony in their opinions. CHAP. 28. SOme of us liking and loving Plato (a) for a certain eloquent and excellent kind of speaking: and because his opinion hath been true in some things, say, that he thought some thing like unto that which we do, concerning the Resurrection of the (b) dead. Which thing Tully so toucheth in lib. de rep.. that he affirmeth that he rather spoke in sport, than that he had any intent to relate it, as a matter of truth. For (c) he declareth a man revived and related some things agreeable to Plato's disputations. (d) Labeo also saith, that there were two which died both in one day, and that they met together in a crossway, and that atferward they were commanded to return again to their bodies, and then that they decreed to live in perpetual love together, and that it was so until they died afterward. But these authors have declared, that they had such a resurrection of body, as they have had, whom truly we have known to have risen again, and to have been restored to this life: but they do not declare it in that manner, that they should not die again. Yet Marcus Varro recordeth a more strange, admirable, and wonderful matter, in his books which he wrote of a Nation of the people of Rome. I have thought good to set down his own words. Certain Genethliaci (wizards) Have written, (saith he) that there is a regeneration, Genethliaci. or second birth in men to be borne again, which the greeks call (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They have written, that it is brought to pass, and effected in the space of four hundred and forty years: so that the same body and soul which had been foretime knit together, should return again into the same conjunction and union they had before. Truly this Varro, or those Genethliaci (I know not who they are For he hath related their opinion concealing their names) have said something, which although it be false, because the souls returning into the bodies, which they have before managed, will never after forsake them: notwithstanding it serveth to stop the mouth of those babblers, and to overthrow the strong hold of many arguments of that impossibility. For they do not think it an impossible thing which have thought these things, that dead bodies resolved into air, dust, ashes, humours, bodies of devouring beasts, or of men themselves, should return again to that they have been. Wherefore let Plato, and Porphyry, or such rather, as do affect them and are now living, if they accord with us, that holy souls shall return to their bodies, as Plato saith, but not to return to any eiuls as Porphyry saith, that that sequel may follow, which our Christian faith doth declare, to wit, that they shall receive such bodies, as they shall live happily in them eternally without any evil: Let them (I say) assume and take this also from Varro, that they return to the same bodies in which they had been before time, and then there shall be a sweet harmony between them, concerning the resurrection of the flesh eternally. L. VIVES. FOr (a) certain.] Three things moved not only Greece, but the whole world to applaud Plato, to wit, integrity of life, sanctity of precepts, and eloquence. The (b) dead Euseb lib. 11. thinketh that Plato learned the alteration of the world, the resurrection and the judgement of the damned, out of the books of Moses' 〈◊〉 Plato relateth that all earthly things shall perish, a cercaine space of time being expired, and that the frame of the world shall be moved and shaken with wonderful and strange ●…otions, not without a great destruction, and overthrow of all living creatures: and then that a little time after, it shall rest and be at quiet by the assistance of the highest God, who shall receive the government of it, that it may not fall and perish, endowing it with an everlasting flourishing estate, and with immortality. (c) For he declareth] Herus Pamphilius, who died in battle (Plato in fine in lib. de rep) writeth that he was restored to life the tenth day after his death. Cicero saith, macrob. lib. 1.) may Herus Pamphilius. be grieved that this fable was scoffed at, although of the unlearned, knowing it well enough himself, nevertheless avoiding the scandal of a foolish reprehension, he had rather tell it that he was razed, than that he revived. (d) Labeo] Plin, lib. 7. setteth down some examples of them which being carried forth to their grave revived again, and Plutarch in 〈◊〉. de anima relateth that one Enarchus returned to life again after he died, who said that his soul did Enarchus. depart indeed out of his body, but by the commandment of Pluto it was restored to his body again, those hellish spirits being grievously punished by their Prince, who commanded to bring one Nicandas a tanner, and a wrestler, forgetting their errant and foully mistaking the man went to Enarchus in stead of Nicandas who died within a little while after. (e) Genethliaci] They are mathematical petty soothsayers, or fortune-tellers, which by the day of Nicandas. Nativity presage what shall happen in the whole course of man's life. Gellius hath the Chaldaeans and the Genethliaci both in one place lib. 14. Against them (saith he) who name themselves Caldaeans, or Genethliaci, and profess to prognosticate future things by the motion and posture of the stars. (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] Regeneration or a second birth, Lactant. also lib. 7. rehearseth these words of Chrysippus the stoic out of his book de providentia, by which he confirmeth a return after death. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. And we (saith he) certain revolutions of time being complete and finished, after our death, shall be restored to the same figure and shape which we have now. Of the quality of the vision, with which the Saints shall see GOD in the world to come. CHAP. 29. NOw let us see what the Saints shall do in their immortal and spiritual bodies, their flesh living now no more carnally but spiritually: so far forth as the Lord shall vouchsafe to enable us. And truly what manner of action or (a) rather rest and quietness it shall be, if I say the truth, I know not. For I have never seen it by the senses of the body. But if I shall say I have seen it by the mind, that is by the understanding, (alas) how great, or what is our understanding in comparison of that exceeding excellency? For there is, the peace of God which Philip, 4. passeth all understanding, as the Apostle saith, what understanding, but ours, or peradventure of all the holy Angels? For it doth not pass the understanding of God. If therefore the Saints shall live in the peace of GOD, without doubt they shall live in that peace, Which passeth all understanding. Now there is no doubt, but that it passeth our understanding. But if it also pass the understanding of Angels, for he seemeth not to except them when he saith, All understanding; then according to this saying we ought to understand that we are not able, nor any Angels to know that peace wherewith GOD himself is pacified, in such sort as GOD knoweth it. But we being made partakers of his peace, according to the measure of our capacity, shall obtain a most excellent peace in us, and amongst us, and with him, according to the quantity of our excellency: In this manner the holy Angels according to their measure do know the same: but men now do know it in a far lower degree, although they excel in acuity of understanding. We must consider what a great man did say, We know in part, and we prophecy in part, until that come which is perfect. And we see now in a glass in a dark 1 Cor, 13. speaking: but then we shall see him face to face. So do the holy Angels now see which are called also our Angels, because we being delivered from the power of darkness, and translated to the kingdom of God, having received the pledge of the Spirit, have already begun to pertain to them, with whom we shall enjoy that most holy and pleasant City of God, of which we have already written so many books. So therefore the Angels are ours, which are the Angels of God, even as the Christ of God, is our Christ. They are the Angels of GOD, because they have not forsaken God: they are ours, because they have begun to account Math, 22. us their Citizens. For the Lord jesus hath said, Take heed you do not despise one Math, 18. 10. of these little ones: For I say unto you, that their Angels do always behold the face of my father, which is in heaven. As therefore they do see, so also we shall see, but as yet we do not see so. Wherefore the Apostle saith that which I have spoken a little before. We see now in a glass in a dark speaking: but then we shall see him face to face. Therefore that vision is kept for us being the reward of faith, of which also the Apostle john speaking saith; When he shall appear, we shall be like unto him, because we shall see him as he is. 1. john. 3. But we must understand by the face of GOD, his manifestation, and not to be any such member, as we have in the body, and do call it by that name. Wherefore when it is demanded of us, what the Saints shall do in that spiritual body, I do not say, that I see now, but I say, that I believe: according to that which I read in the Psalm. I believed, and therefore I spoke. I say Psalm. 115 therefore, that they shall see GOD in the body, but whether by the same manner, as we now see by the body, the Sun, Moon, Stars, Sea and Earth, it is no small question. It is a hard thing to say, that then the Saints shall have such bodies, that they cannot shut and open their eyes, when they will. But it is more hard to say, that who-so-ever shall shut their eyes there, shall not see GOD. For if the Prophet Heliseus absent in body, saw his servant Giezi receiving the gifts which Naaman gave unto him, whom the aforesaid Prophet had 4, King. 5. cleansed from the deformity of his leprosy, which the wicked servant thought he had done secretly, his master not seeing him: how much more shall the Saints in that spiritual body see all things, not only if they shut their eyes, but also from whence they are absent in body? For than shall that be perfect of which the Apostle speaking, saith, We know in part, and Prophecy in part: but when that shall come which is perfect, that which is in part, shall be done away. Afterward that he might declare by some similitude, how much this life doth differ from that which shall be, not of all sorts of men, but also of them which are endued here with an especial holiness, he saith. When I was a child, I understood as a child, I did speak as a child, I thought as a child, 1. Cor. 13. but when I became a man, I put away childish things. We see now in a Glass in a darke-speaking, but then we shall see face to see. Now I know in part, but then shall I know, even as I am known. If therefore in this life, where the prophesy of admirable men is to be compared to that life, as children to a young man: Notwithstanding Heliseus saw his servant receiving gifts where he himself was not: shall therefore the Saints stand in need of corporal eyes to see those things which are to be seen, which Heliseus being absent needed not to see his servant? For when that which is perfect is come, neither now the corruptible body shall any more aggravate the soul: and no incorruptible thing shall hinder it? For according to the LXX. interpreters, these are the words of the Prophet to Giezi: Did not my heart go with thee, and I knew that the man turned back from his chariot to meet thee, and thou hast received money, etc. But as Hierome hath interpreted it out of the Hebrew: Was not my heart, (saith he) in presence, when the man returned from his Chariot to meet thee? Therefore the Prophet said, That he saw this thing with his heart, wonderfully aided by the divine power, as no man doubteth. But how much more shall all abound with that gift, when GOD shall be all things in all? Nevertheless those corporal eyes also shall have their office, and shall be in their place, and the spirit shall use them by the spiritual body. For the Prophet did use them to see things present, though he needed not them to see his absent servant, which present things he was able to see by the spirit, though he did shut his eyes, even as he saw things absent, where he was not with them. GOD forbid therefore, that we should say that the Saints shall not see GOD in that life, their eyes being shut, whom they shall all always see by the spirit. But whether they shall also see by the eyes of the body, when they shall have them open, from hence there ariseth a question. For if they shall be able to do no more, in the spiritual body by that means, as they are spiritual eyes, than those are able which we have now, without all doubt they shall not be able to see GOD: Therefore they shall be of a far other power, if that incorporate nature shall be seen by them, which is contained in no place, but is whole every where. For we do not say, because we say that GOD is both in heaven and also in earth. (For he saith by the Prophet, I fill heaven and earth.) Hier. 25. that he hath one part in heaven, and another in earth, but he is whole in heaven, and whole in earth, not at several times, but he is both together, which no corporal nature can be. Therefore there shall be a more excellent and potent force of those eyes, not that they may see more sharply than some serpents and Eagles are reported to see: for those living creatures by their greatest sharpness of seeing can see nothing but bodies, but that they may also see incorporate things. And it may be, that great power of seeing was granted for a time to the eyes of holy job, yea in that mortal body, when he saith to GOD. By the job. 7. hearing of the ear I did he are thee before, but now my eye doth see thee, therefore I despised myself, consumed, and esteemed myself to be earth and ashes. Although there is nothing to the contrary, but that the eye of the heart may be understood, concerning Ephes. 1. which eyes the Apostle saith: To have the eyes of your heart enlightened. But no Christian man doubteth, that GOD shallbe seen with them, when he shallbe seen which faithfully receiveth that which GOD the master saith: Blessed are the pure in heart, because they shall see GOD. But it now is in question, whether Math. 5. he may be seen there also with corporal eyes. For that which is written; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God, without any knot, or scruple Luke. 3. of difficulty may so be understood, as if it had been said. And every man shall see the CHRIST of GOD, who as he hath been seen in body shall likewise be seen in body, when he shall judge the quick, and the dead. But that he is the Salvation of GOD, there are also many other testimonies of the Scriptures. But the words of that worthy and reverent old man Simeon declare it more evidently: who, after he had received the Infant CHRIST into Luc. 2. his hands, Now (saith he) lettest thou thy servant, O LORD, depart in peace, according to thy word: because mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Also, that, which the above recited job saith, as it is found in many copies taken from the Hebrew: And I shall see GOD in my flesh. verily he prophesied the job. 19 Resurrection of the flesh without all doubt, yet he said not, By my flesh. For if he had said so, GOD CHRIST might have been understood, who shallbe seen in the flesh by the flesh: now indeed it may also be taken, In my flesh, (b) I shall see GOD: as if he had said. I shallbe in my flesh, when I shall see GOD. And that which the Apostle saith, Face to face: doth not compel us that 1. Cor. 13. we believe that we shall see GOD by this corporal face, where there are corporal eyes, whom we shall see by the spirit without intermission. For unless there were a face also of the inward man, the same Apostle 2. Cor. 3. would not say. But we beholding the glory of the LORD with the face unuayled are transformed into the same Image from glory into glory, as it were to the spirit of the LORD. Neither do we otherwise understand that which is sung in the Psalm. Come unto him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not Psal. 33. 34 be ashamed. For by faith we come unto GOD, which as it is evident, belongeth to the heart and not to the body (universally). But because we know not now how near the spiritual body shall approach, for we speak of a thing of which we have no experience, where some things are, which cannot otherwise be understood, the authority of the divine Scriptures doth not resist, but secure us: It must needs be that that happen in us which is read in the book of Wisdom: The thoughts of men are fearful, and our foresights are uncertain. For if that manner Wisdom. 〈◊〉 of arguing of the Philosophers, by which they dispute that intelligible things are so to be seen by the aspect of the understanding; and sensible, that is to say, corporal things, so to be seen by the sense of the body, that neither the understanding can be able to behold intelligible things by the body, nor corporal things by themselves, can be most certain unto us, truly it should likewise be certain, that God could not be seen by the eyes of a spiritual body. But both true reason, and prophetical authority will deride this manner of disputing. For who is such an obstinate and opposite enemy to the truth, that he dare say, that God knoweth not these corporal things? Hath he therefore a body by the eyes of which he may learn those things? Further-more doth not that, which we spoke a little before of the Prophet Heliseus, declare sufficiently also, that corporal things may be seen by the spirit, not by the body? For when his servant received rewards, though it was corporally done, yet the Prophet saw it, not by Kings. 4. 5. the body but by the spirit. As therefore it is manifest, that bodies are seen by the spirit: what if there shall be such a great power of the spiritual body, that the spirit may also be seen by the body? For God is a spirit. Moreover, every man knoweth his own life, by which he liveth now in the body, and which doth make these earthly members grow and increase, and maketh them living, by the inward sense, and not by the eyes of the body. But he seeth the lives of other men by the body, when as they are invisible. For from whence do we discern living bodies from un-living, unless we see the bodies and lives together. But we do not see with corporal eyes the lives without bodies. Wherefore it may be, and it is very credible, that then we shall so see the worldly bodies of the new heaven, and new earth, as we see GOD present every where, and also governing all corporal things, by the bodies we shall carry, and which we shall see, where-so-ever we shall turn our eyes, most evidently all clouds of obscurity being removed; not in such sorts as the invisible things of GOD are seen now, being understood by those things which are made, in a glass, darkly and in part, where faith prevaileth more in us, by which we believe, than the object of things which we see by corporal eyes. But even as, so soon as we behold men amongst whom we live, being alive, and performing vital motions: we do not believe that they live, but we see them to live, when we cannot see their life without bodies: which notwithstanding we clearly behold by the bodies, all ambiguity being removed: so where-so-ever we shall turn about these spiritual eyes of our bodies, we shall likewise see incorporate GOD governing all things by our bodies. GOD therefore shall either so be seen by those eyes, because they have something in that excellency, like unto the understanding whereby the incorporal nature may be seen, which is either hard or impossible to declare by any examples or testimonies of divine Scriptures: or that which is more easily to be understood, God shall be so known, & conspicuous unto us, that he may be seen by the spirit of every one of us, in every one of us, may be seen of another in another, may be seen in himself, may be seen in the new heaven and in the new earth, and in every creature, which shall be then: may be seen also by the bodies in every body, where-so-ever the eyes of the spiritual body shall be directed by the sight coming thither. Also our thoughts shall be open, and discovered to one another. For than shall that be fulfilled which the Apostle intimateth when he said. judge not any thing before the time, until the Lord come, who will lighten things that are hid in darkness, and make the counsels of the heart manifest, and then 1. Cor. 4. shall every man have praise of GOD. L. VIVES. OR (a) rather rest] For there shall be a rest from all labours, & I know not by what means, the name of rest is more delightful and sweet than of action: therefore Aristotle nominateth that contemplation, which he maketh the chiefest beatitude, by the name of Rest. Besides the Sabbath is that, to wit, a ceasing from labour and a sempeternall rest. (b) I shall see God] It is read in some ancient copies of Augustine. I shall see God my saviour. But we do neither read it in Hieromes translation, neither doth it seem ●…o be added of Augustine by those words which follow. For he speaketh of God without the manhood. Further if he had added Saviour, he should have seemed to have spoken of Christ. Of the eternal felicity of the City of God, and the perpetual Sabbath. CHAP. 30. HOw great (a) shall that felicity be, where there shall be no evil thing, where no good thing shall lie hidden, there we shall have leisure to utter forth the praises of God, which shall be all things in all? For what other thing is done, where we shall not rest with any slothfulness, nor labour for any want I know not. I am admonished also by the holy song, where I read, or hear. Blessed are they Psalm. 83. oh Lord, which dwell in thy house, they shall praise thee for ever and ever. All the members and bowels of the incorruptible body which we now see distributed to diverse uses of necessity, because then there shall not be that necessity, but a full, sure, secure, everlasting felicity, shall be advanced and go forward in the praises of God. For then all the numbers (of which I have already spoken) of the corporal Harmony shall not lie hid, which now lie hid: being disposed inwardly and out-wardly through all the members of the body, and with other things which shall be seen there, being great and wonderful; shall kindle the reasonable souls with delight of such a reasonable beauty to sound forth the praises of such a great and excellent workman. What the motions of those bodies shall be there, I dare not rashly define, when I am not able to dive into the depth of that mystery. Nevertheless both the motion & state, as the form of them, shall be comely & decent, whatsoever it shall be, where there shall be nothing which shall not be comely. Truly where the spirit will, there forthwith shall the body be: neither will the spirit will any thing, which may not beseem the body, nor the spirit. There shall be true glory, where no man shall be praised for error or flattery. True honour, which shall be denied unto none which is worthy, shall be given unto none unworthy. But neither shall any unworthy person covet after it, where none is permitted to be, but he which is worthy. There is true peace, where no man suffereth any thing which may molest him, either of himself, or of any other. He himself shall be the reward of virtue, which hath given virtue, and hath promised himself unto him, than whom nothing can be better and greater. For what other thing is that, which he hath said by the Prophet: I willbe their GOD, and they shallbe Leu●…. 26 my people: but I willbe whereby they shallbe satisfied: I will be whatsoever is lawfully desired of men, life, health, food, abundance, glory, honour, peace, and all good things? For so also is that rightly understood, which the Apostle saith. 1. Cor. 15 That GOD may be all in all. He shallbe the end of our desires, who shallbe seen without end, who shallbe loved without any satiety, and praised without any tediousness. This function, this affection, this action verily shallbe unto all as the eternal life shallbe common to all. But who is sufficient to think, much more to utter what degrees there shall also be of the rewards for merits, of the honours, Degrees of rewards. and glories? But we must not doubt, but that there shallbe degrees. And also that Blessed City shall see that in itself, that no inferior shall envy his superior: even as now the other Angels do not envy the archangels: as every one would not be which he hath not received, although he be combined with a most peaceable bond of concord to him which hath received, by which the finger will not be the eye in the body, when as a peaceable conjunction, and knitting together of the whole flesh doth contain both members. Therefore one shall so have a gift less than another hath, that he also hath this gift, that he will have no more. Neither therefore shall they not have free will, because sins shall not delight them. For it shallbe more free being freed from the delight of sinning to an undeclinable and steadfast delight of not sinning. For the first freewill, which was given to man, when he was created righteous, had power not to sin, but it had also power to sin: but this last freewill shallbe more powerful than that, because it shall not be able to sin. But this also by the gift of GOD, not by the possibily of his own nature. For it is one thing to be GOD, another thing to be partaker of GOD. GOD cannot sin by nature, but he which is partaker of GOD, receiveth from him, that he cannot sin. But there were degrees to be observed of the divine gift, that the first freewill might be given, whereby man might be able not to sin: the last whereby he might not be able to sin: and the first did pertain to obtain a merit, the later to receive a reward. But because that nature sinned, when it might sin, it is freed by a more bountiful grace, that it may be brought to that liberty, in which it cannot sin. For as the first immortality, which Adam lost by sinning, was to be able not to die. For so the will of piety and equity shallbe free from being lost as the will of felicity is free from being lost. For as by sinning we neither kept piety nor felicity: neither truly have we lost the will of felicity, felicity, being lost. Truly is GOD himself therefore to be denied to ●…aue freewill, because he cannot sin? Therefore the freewill of that City shall both be one in all, and also inseparable in every one, freed from all evil, and filled with all good, enjoying an everlasting pleasure of eternal joys, forgetful of faults, forgetful of punishments, neither therefore so forgetful of her deliverance, that she be ungrateful to her deliverer. For so much as concerneth reasonable knowledge she is mindful also of her evils, which are past: but so much as concerneth the experience of the senses, altogether unmindful. For a most skilful Physician also knoweth almost all diseases of the body, as they are known by art: but as they are felt in the body, he knoweth not many, which he hath not suffered. As therefore there are two knowledges of Two knowledges of evils. evils: one, by which they are not hidden from the power of the understanding, the other, by which they are infixed to the senses of him, that feeleth them (for all vices are otherwise known by the doctrine of wisdom, and otherwise by the most wicked life of a foolish man) so there are two forgetfulnesses of evils. For a skilful and learned man doth forget them one way, and he that hath had experience and suffered them, forgetteth them another way. The former, if he neglect his skill, the later, if he want misery. According to this forgetfulness, which I have set down in the later place, the Saints shall not be mindful of evils past. For they shall want all evils, so that they shall be abolished utterly from their senses. Nevertheless that power of knowledge, which shallbe great in them, shall not only know their own evils passed, but also the everlasting misery of the damned. Otherwise if they shall not know that they have been miserable, how, as the psalm saith, Shall they sing the mercies of the LORD for ever? Psal. 88 Then which song nothing verily shallbe more delightful to that City, to the glory of the love of CHRIST, by whose blood we are delivered. There shallbe perfected, Be at rest and see, because I am GOD. Because there shallbe the most Psal. 45 great Sabbath having no evening. Which the LORD commended unto us in the first works of the world, where it is read. And GOD rested the seventh day from all his works he made, and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his works, Gen. 2 which GOD began to make. For we ourselves also be the seventh day, when we shall be replenished, and repaired with his benediction and sanctification. There being freed from toil we shall see, because he is GOD, which we ourselves would have been when we fell from him, hearing from the Seducer: Ye shallbe as goods: and departing from the true GOD, by whose means we should be gods Gene. 3 by participation of him, not by forsaking him. For what have we done without him, but that we have failed from him and gone back in his anger? Of whom we being restored and perfected with a greater grace shall rest for ever, seeing that he is GOD, with whom we shallbe replenished, when he shallbe all in all: for our good works also, although they are rather understood to be his then ours, are then imputed unto us to obtain this Sabbath: because if we shall atrribute them unto ourselves, they shallbe servile, when it is said of the Sabbath. Ye shall De●…t. 5 not do any servile work in it. For which cause it is said also by the Prophet Ezechiel. And I have given my Sabbaths unto them for a sign between me, and them, Ezech, 20 that they might know, that I am the LORD, which sanctify them? Then shall we know this thing perfectly, and we shall perfectly rest and shall perfectly see, that he is GOD. If therefore that number of ages, as of days be accounted according to the distinctions of times, which seem to be expressed in the sacred Scriptures, that Sabbath day shall appear more evidently, because it is found to be the seventh, that the first age, as it were the first day, be from Adam unto the flood, than the second from thence unto Abraham, not by equality of times, Three ages before the coming of Christ. but by number of generations. For they are found to have a tenth number. From hence now, as Matthew the Evangelist doth conclude, three ages do follow even unto the coming of CHRIST, every one of which is expressed by fourteen Generations. From Abraham unto David is one, from thence even until the Transmigration into Babylon, is another, the third from thence unto the incarnate Nativity of CHRIST. So all of them are made five. Now this age is the sixth, to be measured by no number, because of that which is spoken. It is not for you to know the seasons, which the father hath placed in his own power. Act. 1 After this age GOD shall rest as in the seventh day, when GOD shall make that same seventh day to rest in himself, which we shallbe. Furthermore it would take up a long time to discourse now exactly of every one of those several ages. But this seventh shallbe our Sabbath, whose end shall not be the evening, but the LORDS day, as the eight eternal day, which is sanctified and made holy by the resurrection of CHRIST, not only prefiguring the eternal rest of the spirit, but also of the body. There we shall rest, and see, we shall see, and love, we shall love, and we shall praise: Behold what shallbe in the end without end! For what other thing is our end, but to come to that Kingdom of which there is no end. (b) I think I have discharged the debt of this great work by the help of GOD. Let them which think I have done too little, and they which think I have done too much, grant me a favourable pardon: But let them, which think I have performed enough, accepting it with a kind congratulation, give no thanks unto me, but unto the LORD with me. Amen. L. VIVES. HOw (a) great shall that felicity be] Innumerable things might be said, but Augustine is to be imitated in this, and we must neither speak, nor write any thing rashly of so sacred and holy a matter; neither is it lawful for us to search out that by Philosophy and disputations of men, which the LORD hath commanded to be most secret, neither hath unuailed to the eyes, nor uttered to the ears, nor hath infused into the thoughts and understandings of mortal men. It is his will, that we should believe them to be great, and admirable, and only to hope after them, then at last to understand them, when we being made partakers of our desire, shall behold openly all things being present, and with our eyes, and so conjoined and affixed unto ourselves, that we may so know, as we are now known: neither ought we to inquire, whether that blessedness be an action of the understanding, or rather of the will: whether our understanding shall behold all things in GOD, or whether it shallbe restrained from some things: lest if we inquire these things over contentiously there be neither blessedness of our understanding, nor of our will, nor we see any thing in GOD. Allthings shallbe full of joys, and beatitudes, not only the will and understanding, but the eyes, ears, hands, the whole body, the whole mind, the whole soul. We shall see all things in GOD, which we will, and every one shallbe content with the degree of his own felicity: nor will envy another, whom he shall behold to be nearer unto GOD, because every man shallbe so blessed, as he shall desire. I think (a) I have discharged the debt of this great work.] And I likewise think that I have finished, no less work and disburdened myself of no less labour than Augustine thinketh he hath done. For the burden of these mean and light Commentaries hath been as heavy to our imbecility and unskilfullnesse; as the admirable burden of those volumes was to the vigour and strength of his wit, learning, and sanctity. If I have said any thing which may please, let the Reader give thanks unto GOD for me; if any thing which may displease let him pardon me for GOD'S sake, and let things well spoken, obtain favour for things il-spoken. But if he shall kindly amend and take away the errors, he shall deserve a good turn of me and the Readers, which peradventure relying upon me might be deceived. FINIS. An alphabetical Index pointing out memorable matters contained in these books of the City of God. A ARion, who he was. fol. 24 Ttilius Regulus. fol. 26 Abraham no murderer. fol. 37 Agamemnon who he was. fol. 34 Atis, who he was. fol. 56 Alcibiades, his law. fol. 64 Aeschines, who he was. fol. 69 Aristodemus, who he was. ibid. Attelan Comedies. fol. 73 Athens laws imitated in Rome. fol. 78 Agrarian laws. fol. 84 Apollo and Neptune build Troy. fol. 108 Anubis, who he was. fol. 76 Aedile, his office. fol. 103 Athenian ambassadors. fol. 90 Ages of men. fol. 117 Aesculapius who he was. fol. 120 Aetna's burning. fol. 157 Assyrian monarchy. fol. 161 Anaximander, who he was. fol. 299 Anaximines, who he was. fol. 300 Anaxogoras, who he was. ibid. Archelaus who he was. ibid. Aristippus, who he was. fol. 302 Antisthenes, who he was. ibid. Atlas, who he was. fol. 313 Aristole who he was. fol. 318 Academia, what it was. ibid. Alcibiades, who he was. fol. 507 Ark compared to man's body. fol. 566 Antipodes, who they are. fol. 584 Aratus, who he was. fol. 598 Actisanes his law against thieves. fol. 600 Anna, her prophecy of Christ. fol. 624 Aaron's priesthood a shadow of the future priesthood. fol. 631 Anointing of Kings a type of Christ. fol. 636 Abraham's birth. fol. 656 Apis who he was. fol. 662 Apis the Ox. fol. 663 Argus King of Argos. ibid. Attica, what country it is. fol. 669 Athens, why so called. fol. 670 Apollos, plates. fol. 676 Antaeus, who he was. fol. 677 Aconitum, how it grew. fol. 682 Amphion, who he was. fol. 684 Admetus, who he was. fol. 686 Andromeda, who she was. fol. 687 Agamemnon, who he was. fol. 690 Apuleius Lucian, who he was. fol. 695 Aeneas, who he was. fol. 696 Aeneas deified. fol. 698 Archon, what kind of magistrate. fol. 700 Aventine, a mountain why so called. fol. 701 Amos the prophet. fol. 703 Abdi, who he was. fol. 718 Abacuc, who he was. ibid. Anaxagoras his opinion of heaven. fol. 731 Alexander the great his death. ibid. Alexander's coming to jerusalem. 736 B BErecinthia mother of the gods. fol. 56 Budaeus, his praises. fol. 80 brethren killing one another. fol. 100 Belus who he was. fol. 577 Babylon's confusion. fol. 577 Bersheba, what it is. fol. 613 Beggar differing from the word poor. fol. 627 Babylon what it is. fol. 657 Busyris who he was. fol. 677 Bellerephon, who he was. fol. 684 Bona Dea who she was. fol. 691 Bias, who he was. fol. 711 Baruch who he was. fol. 722 Book of life. fol. 809 C Conqueror's custom. fol. 9 Claudian family. fol. 10 City what it is. fol. 25 Cleombrotus. fol. 34. 35 Cato's, who they were. fol. 36 Cato's their integrity. ibid. Cato, his son. fol. 37 Cavea, what it was in the Theatre. fol. 47 Circensian plays. fol. 48 Consus, who he was. ibid. Cibeles, invention. fol. 56 Cleon, who he was. fol 67 Censor, who he was. ibid. Cleophon who he was. ibid. Caecilius who he was. fol. 68 Curia what it was. fol. 71 Censors view of the city. fol. 73 Cynocephalus, who he was. fol. 75 Camillus exiled from his country. fol. 79 Consus a god. fol. 81 Consuls first elected. ibid. Camillus who he was. ibid. Christ the founder of a new City. fol. 83 Commonwealth, what it is. fol. 88 Cinna's wars against his country. fol. 93 Carbo, who he was. ibid. Capitol preserved by geese. ibid. Catiline his conditions. fol. 96 Christians name hateful at Rome. fol 55 Charthaginian wars begun. fol. 46 Caesar's family. fol. 111 Caius Fimbria, who he was. fol. 114 Cyri who they were. fol. 125 Concord's temple. fol. 143 Catulus his death. fol. 146 Catiline his death. fol. 149 Christ's birth time. fol. 150 Cicero's death. ibid. Caesar's death. fol. 151 Cyrus Persian Monarch. fol. 162 Curtius who he was. fol. 179 Causes threefold. fol. 210 Camillus his kindness to his country. fol. 222 Curtius his voluntary death. fol. 222 Constanstine the first christian Emperor. fol. 23 Claudian who he was. fol. 233 Ceres sacrifices. fol. 280 Crocodile, what it is. fol. 335 Cyprian, who he was. fol. 336 Cynikes who they were. fol. 523 Circumcision a type of regeneration. fol. 602 Cyniphes, what they are. fol. 618 Canticles, what they are. fol. 648 Cecrops who he was. fol. 667 Centaurs, why so named. fol. 681 Cerberus band-dog of hell. ibid. chimera the monster. fol. 684 Castor and Pollux, who they were. fol. 689 Circe, who she was. fol. 693. Codrus, who he was. fol. 698. Creusa, who she was. fol. 698. Caesar's whence so named. fol. 700. Captivity of juda. fol. 710. Chilo, who he was. ibid. Cleobulus, who he was. fol. 711. Cyrus, who he was. ibid. Christ's birth. fol, 738. Churches ten persecutors. fol. 743. 744. Calculators cashered. fol. 747. Christians upbraided with killing of children. fol. 747. Christians believe not in Peter-but in Christ. fol, 748. Cacus, who he was. fol. 768. Cerinthus, his heresy. fol. 800. Cappadocia, what it is. fol. 891. Comeliensse of man's body. fol. 908. D DAnae, who she was. fol. 63. Decimus Laberius, who he was. fol. 72. Discord a goddess. fol. 143 Decius his valour. fol. 180. Dictatorship, what it was. fol. 224. Diogenes Laertius, who he was. fol. 300. Death of the soul. fol. 470. Death remaineth after Baptism. fol. 470. Difference of the earthly and heavenly City. 532. David a type of Christ. fol. 635. Deucalion, who he was. fol. 670. Danaus', who he was. fol. 673. Dionysius, how many so called. fol. 675. Daedalus, who he was. fol. 685. Danae, who she was. fol. 686. Delborah who she was. fol. 690. Diomedes, who he was. fol. 692. Diomedes, fellows become birds. ibidem. Devil, what he may do. fol. 694. David's and Solomon's praises. fol. 700. Daniel, who he was. fol. 722. Diogenes treading down Plato's pride. 857. Diogenes taxed of vain glory ibidem. E EVpolis, a Poet. fol. 64. Ennius, who he was fol. 91. Eternal City. fol. 220. Eternal ●…fe, what it is. fol. 256. Epictetus, who he was. fol. 342. Envy, not ambition moved Cain to murder Abel. fol. 536. Eudoxus, who he was. fol. 598. Ephod, what it is. fol. 630. Eben Ezer, what it signifieth. fol. 633. Eusebius a Historiographer. fol. 669. Europa, who she was. fol. 677. Erichthonius, who he was. fol. 677. Esaias the Prophet. fol. 709. Esaias his prophesy. fol. 715. Esaias, his death. fol. 716. Ephrata, what it is. fol. 717. Epicurus, opinion of the gods. fol. 731. Epiphanes, who he was. fol. 736. F Fabius', a Roman conqueror. fol. 11. Famous men. fol. 48. Fugalia, what they were. fol. 60. Fugia, a goddess. fol. 60. Floralia, what feasts they were. fol. 65. Febris, a goddess. fol. 76. Friendship and faction. fol. 91 Flora, what she was. fol. 10●… Fabricius, who he was. fol. 105. Fate, what it is. fol. 98. Fortune's casualties what they are, fol. 198. Fate of no force. fol. 208. Fabricius a scorner of riches. fol. 224. Faunus, who he was. fol. 691. Felicity not perfect in this life. fol. 757. Father of a family why so called. fol. 774. Fire eternal how to be understood. fol. 822. G GRacchi, who they were. fol. 93. Getulia, what it is. fol. 128. Gracchus Caius his death. fol. 142. Gratidianus his death. 148. Gold, when first coined. fol. 181. GOD'S prescience no cause of events. fol. 212. Gratians death. fol. 231. Ganymede who he was. fol. 287. Greek Sages seven. fol. 299. Gellius, who he was. fol. 342. GOD'S creatures are all good. fol. 560. Gorgon's what they v●…re. fol. 683. Gog, and Magog, h●…v to be understood. fol 806. GOD can do all thing●… saving to make a lie. fol. 910. H HYperbolus, who he was. fol. 67. Harmony of a commonwealth. fol. 88 Hadrianus, who he was. fol. 191. Hydromancy, what it is. fol. 294. Hebrews, why so called. fol. 577. Holy spirit, why called the finger of God. fol. 617. Ie●…alem why so called. fol. 640. Ha●…ocrates, who he was. fol. 66●…. Hercules, six of that name. fol. 667. Holy street in Rome. fol. 675. Hercules' manner of death. fol. 677. Hieremy his prophecy. fol. 709. Hose his prophecy. fol. 714. Herod the King. fol 737. Heretics profit the Church. fol. 742. I janus, who he was. fol. 116. julianus, who he was. fol. 191. jovianus, who he was. fol. 191. jovinians death. fol. 231. john the Anchorite. fol. 233. Israel what it signifieth. fol. 614. judah his blessing explained. fol. 615. Infants why so called. fol. 618. justice to be performed in his life only. fol. 626. Inquisition made by the Lord, how it is taken. fol. 631. India what is is. fol. 656. Inachus, who he was. fol. 659. Io, who she was. fol. 660. Isis who she was. ibid. Ixion who he was. fol. 680. Iphigenia, who she was. fol. 696. jonas the prophet. fol. 713. joel the prophet. fol. 714. Israel, who are so called. fol. 714. joel his prophecy. fol. 716. Idumaea where it is. fol. 718. job, whence he descended. fol. 739. julian the Apostata. fol. 745. judgement day when it shallbe. fol. 793. john Bapt. life like unto the life of Elias. fol. 831. Incredible things. fol. 879. Innocentius, his miraculous c●…re. fol. 883. L LAbeos, who they were. fol. 70 Laws of the twelve Tables. fol. 78 Lycurgus, his laws. ibid. Law, what it is. fol. 80 L. Furius Pylus a cunning latinist. fol. 90 Lycurgus, who he was. fol. 379 Lawful hate. fol. 503 Lyberi, how it is used by the latins. fol. 615 lupercals, what they are. fol. 674 Liber, why so called. fol. 675 Labyrinth what it was. fol. 680 Linus who he was. fol. 688 Laurentum, why so called. fol. 690 Latinuses who he was. fol. 692 Labdon, who he was. fol. 698 M Manlius Torquatus. fol. 37 Marius, who he was. fol. 93 Marius his happiness. fol. 94 Marius, his cruelty. fol. 95 Metellus his felicity. fol 96 Marius, his flight. ibid. Marica, a goddess. ibid. Mithridates, who he was. fol. 98 Megalesian plays. fol. 58 Mettellus who he was. fol. 135 Man, how he sinneth. fol. 212 Mercury, who he was. fol. 272 Moon drunk up by an Ass. fol. 384 Man form. fol. 492 Maspha, what it signifieth. fol. 633 Moses his birth. fol. 665 Minerva who she was. fol. 668 Marathus who he was. fol. 673 Minos who he was. fol. 677 Minotaur what it was. fol. 679. Medusa who she was. fol. 683 Musaeus who he was. fol. 988. Mycenae why so called. fol. 690. Mnestheus, who he was. fol. 697. Melanthus, who he was. fol. 699. Micheas the prophet. fol. 713. Micheas his prophecy. fol. 776. Man desireth four things by nature. fol. 751. Man what he is. fol. 755. Miracles related by Augustine. fol. 883. N NAsica prohibiteth sitting at plays. fol. 47. Neptune's prophesy. fol. 108. Numitor and his children. fol. 112. Nigidius Figulus who he was. fol. 201. Nero Caesar, who he was. fol. 225. Ninivy the City. fol. 576. Number of seven signifieth the church's perfection. fol. 625. Nabuchadonosors' wars. fol. 709. Naum, when he lived. fol. 718. Ninivy a figure of the church. fol. 734. Nature's primitive gifts. fol. 755. O OPtimates, who they were. fol. 91. Olympus what Mount it is. fol. 569. Osiris, who he was. fol. 662. Ogyges, who he was. fol. 668. Oedipus, who he was. fol. 686. Orpheus who he was. fol. 688. Ozias the prophet. fol. 713. origen's opinion of the restoration of the devils to their former state. fol. 657. P PAlladium image. fol. 4. Phoenix, who he was. fol. 9 〈◊〉 bishop of Nola. fol. 17. People, how they are styled. fol. 35. Priests, called Galli. fol. 57 Pericles, who he was. fol. 67. Plato accounted a Demi-god. fol. 73. Priapus a god. fol. 75. Pomona a goddess. fol. 77. Patriots and the people divided. fol. 83. Porsenna, his wars. fol. 84. Portian and Sempronian laws. ibid. Posthumus, who he was. fol. 98. Prodigious sounds of battles. fol. 100 Plato expels some poets. fol. 74. Pyrrhus, who he was. fol. 133. P●…s war. fol. 145. Piety what it is. fol. 183. Pompey his death. fol. 231. Plato his riddle. fol. 286. Pluto, why so called. fol. 289. Plato who he was. fol. 303. Porphyry who he was. fol. 319. Plotine who he was. ibid. Proteus' who he was. fol. 374. Pigmies, what they be. fol. 582. Prophecy spoken to Heli fulfilled in Christ. fol. 628. Psalms, who made them. fol. 640. Psaltery what it is. fol. 641. Philo who he was. fol. 649. Pelasgus, who he was. fol. 659. Phoroneus, why called a judge. fol. 660. Prometheus who he was. fol. 665. Pandora, who she was. fol. 666. Phorbus who he was. fol. 667. 〈◊〉 and Helle who they were. fol. 〈◊〉 ●…. 〈◊〉 the winged-horse. fol. 684. Perseus who he was. fol. 687. Portumnus, what he is. fol. 689. Picus, who he was. fol. 690. Pitacus who he was. fol. 710. Periander, who he was. fol. 711. Ptolemy, who he was. fol. 731. Philadelpus why so called. fol. 732. Pompey his wars in Africa. fol. 736. Proselyte, what he is. fol. 740. Peter accused of sorcery. fol. 746. Purgatory not to be found before the day of judgement. fol. 857. Paul's words of the measure of fullness, expounded. fol. 897. Propagation not abolished, though diminished by sin. fol. 907. R Romans' judgement in a case of life and death. fol. 31. romans greedy of praise. fol. 32. Roman orders. fol. 73. Roman priests, called Flamines. fol. 76. Romulus a god. fol. 77. Rome taken by the Galls. fol. 93. Roman Theatre first erected. fol. fol. 47. Rome's salutations. fol. 86. Rome punishing offenders. fol. 84. Roman government threefold. fol. 91. Remus his death. fol. 113. Romulus' his death. fol. 127. Regulus his fidelity. 223. Radagasius King of the Goths. fol. 229. Roinocorura what it is. fol. 600. Repentance of God, what it is. fol. 632. Rabbi Salomon's opinion of the authors of the psalms. fol. 641. Rhadamanthus, who he was. fol. 700. Roboams folly. ibid. Rome second Babylon. fol. 702. Rome imperious Babylon. fol. 763. S Syracuse, a City. fol, 11. Sacking of a City. fol. 12. Scipio Nasica, who he was. fol. 45. Sanctuaries what they were. fol. 49. Scipio's, who they were. fol. 66. Scipio's, which were brethren. fol. 68 Seditions between great men and people. fol. 79. Sabine virgins forced. fol. 80. Sardanapalus, last King of the Assyrians. fol. 86. Sardanapalus, his Epitaph. ibid. Sylla, who he was. fol. 93. Sylla, and Marius his war ibid. Sylla, his cruelty. fol. 98. Sempronian law. fol. 109. Saguntum, what it was. fol. 138. Salves war. fol. 145. Sertorius his death. fol. 149. Scaevola his fortitude. fol. 179. Silver, when first coined. fol. 181. Socrates, who he was. fol. 300. Schools of Athens. fol. 319. Scripture speaketh of God according to our weak understanding. fol. 565. Saul's reiections a figure of Christ's kingdom. fol. 632. Solomon, a figure of Christ. fol. 634. Zion what it signifieth. fol. 643. Sotadicall verses what they are. fol. 642. Sycionians first King. fol. 657. Semiramis, who she was. ibid. Sarpedon, who he was. fol. 677. Sphynx, her riddle. fol. 686. Stercutius, who he was. fol. 691. Swinging games. fol. 698. Sangus, who he was. ibid. Sibyls, who they were. fol. 703. Sages or wise men of Greece. fol. 710. Solon, who he was. ibidem. Septuagints, who they were. fol. 732. Sanctum sanctorum. fol. 736. Society subject to crosses. fol. 761. Servant not read in Scripture before Noah cursed his son. fol. 773. Sin, mother of servitude. ibid. Saints, where they shallbe at the burning of the world. fol. 8●…3. Sodomites blindness, of what kind it was. fol. 300. T THomas Moor his praises. fol. 62. Tarquin Collatine exiled from Rome. fol. 79. Tarquin the proud his death. fol. 83. Tribunes first elected. fol. 84. Tiberius Gracchus a lawgiver. fol. 90. Tyrannus, what and whence. fol. 91. Tarpeia, who she was. fol. 122. Tables of proscription. fol. 148. Torquatus putting his son to death. fol. 222. Theodosius, who he was. fol. 231. Theodosius, his humility. fol. 234. Thales Miletus, who he was. fol. 299. Trismegistus, who he was. fol. 335. Thurimachus, who he was. fol. 659. Triton the Lake. fol. 668. Triple penalty i●…osed on the Athenian women. fol. 670. Triptolemus, who he was. fol. 679. Taurus, who he was. fol. 680. Tautanes, who he was. fol. 697. Thales, who he was. fol. 710. Theman, where it is. fol. 720. Time of Christ's death. fol. 749. Tully his sorrow for his daughter's death. fol. 706. thieves have a kind of peace. fol. 767. Temples why erected to Martyrs. fol. 898. V W●…an, who he was. fol. 168. ●…tary poverty. fol. 223. V●…, who he was. fol. 234. Valentinian the elder. fol. 745. Valens law. fol. 746. vives complaint for dec●…ed charity. fol. 873. W WArs of Africa. fol. 84. Wine, how found out. fol. 675. whores ●…ed she 〈◊〉. fol. 701. Worm of the wicked how to be understood. fol. 822. Will of God how it is changed. fol. 887. X XEnocrates, who he was. fol. 318. Xerxes, who he was. fol. 659. Xanthus', who he was. fol. 676. Z ZEphanie the Prophet. fol. 722. Zeal, how to be taken. fol. 807. Zoroastres, who he was. fol. 855. ERRATA. Folio, 24. l, 22. r, example for example. f, 25. l, 33. r, forego for forge f, 32. l, 26. r, thirst after glory for this of glory. f. 〈◊〉▪ l, 2●…. r, seeing for being f, 40. l, 31. r, her for his. f, 43. l, 18. r, it for if. f, 53 l, 17. r, hands for heads. f, 62. l, 25. r. 〈◊〉 ●…or worships. f, 69. l, 27. r, this for is. f, 88 line 24. read proviso for provision. f, 108. line I. read per, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. l, 26, r, the for their. f, 109. l, 18, r, leving for living. 118. l, 6. fifth for first f, 128. l, 23. r, field ●…or filled. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be. f, 230. l, 9 cry for cringes. l, 15. r, call for all. f, 259. l, ult. r, and Diana for Diana and. f, 240. l, 〈◊〉▪ 〈◊〉 ●…ers 〈◊〉 o●… f, 321. l, 41 r, forbid for forbade f, 334▪ l, 16. r, wife for wife: f, 339, l. 29. r, not for not. f, 〈…〉. l, 35. 〈◊〉, than was he also for then we also. f, 396. l, 22. r, then for the. f, ●…30. l, 28. r, nul●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. f, 〈◊〉. l, 〈◊〉 r, worlds for words. f, 464. l, 3. r, them for then. f, 503 l, 8. r, which for with. f, 558. l, 3. r, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l, 1●…. read swim for some: f, 608. line 34 r, desired for edisred f, 632. l, 32. read event for even. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 repairing for repaying f, 760, line 7. r, man for many: f, 767, line 9 r, cruelty for cruelly, f, 798, 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 many▪ f, 〈◊〉, l, 〈◊〉 r, dead for death. f, 810, l, 4. r, gave for wave. f, 811, l, 4▪ r, we for were f, 815. l, 36. 〈…〉▪ l, 34. r, of the for the of▪ f, 852, l, 5, r, then for them f, 898, l, 33. r, saying for saving. f, 906, l, 6●… 〈◊〉 to for to us.