divinity from the flowers of nature. Nor do I fo forget God, as to adore the name of nature; which I define not, with the fchools, the principle of motion and rest, but that straight and regular line, that fettled and conftant course the wifdom of God hath ordained for the actions of his creatures, according to their feveral kinds. To make a revolution every day is the nature of the fun, because of that necessary courfe which God hath ordained it, from which it cannot fwerve, by a faculty from that voice which first gave it motion. Now this

courfe of nature God feldom alters or perverts, but like an excellent artift hath fo contrived his work, that, with the self-fame inftrument, without a new creation, he may effect his obfcureft defigns. Thus he fweetneth the water with a wood, preferveth the creatures in the ark, which the blaft of his mouth might

have as easily created: for God is like a skilful Geometrician, who when, more easily, and with one ftroke of his compafs, he might defcribe or divide a right line, had yet rather do this in a circle or longer way, according to the conftituted and forelaid principles of his art: yet this rule of his he doth fometimes pervert, to acquaint the the world with his prerogative, left the arrogancy of our reafon fhould question his power, and conclude he could not; and thus I call the effects of nature the works of God, whofe hand and inftrument fhe only is; and therefore to ascribe his actions unto her, is to devolve the honour of the principal agent upon the inftrument; which if with reafon we may do, then let our hammers rife up and boast they have built our houses, and our pens receive the honour of our writings. I hold there is a general beauty in

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the works of God, and therefore no deformity in any kind or species of creature whatsoever: I cannot tell by what logick we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly, they being created in those outward fhapes and figures which beft express the actions of their inward forms; and nature having past that general vifitation of God, who faw that all that he had made was Good, that is, conformable to his will, which abhors deformity, and is the rule of order and beauty there is no deformity but in monftrofity, wherein notwithstanding there is a kind of beauty; nature fo ingeniously contriving the irregular parts, as they become fometimes more remarkable than the principal fabrick. speak yet more narrowly, there was never any thing ugly, or miffhapen but the chaos; wherein notwithstanding, to speak ftrictly, there was no deformity, becaufe no form, F

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RELIGIO MEDICI.

nor was it yet impregnated by the voice of God: now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature; they being both the fervants of his providence: Art is the perfection of nature: were the world now as it was the fixth day, there were yet a chaos; nature hath made one world, and art another. In brief, all things are artificial, for nature is the art of God *

SECT. XVII.

This is the ordinary and open way of his providence, which art and industry have in a good part discovered, whofe effects we may foretel without an oracle; to foreshew these is not prophefy, but prognostication. There is another way full of meanders and labyrinths, whereof the devil and fpirits have no exact ephemerides, and that is a more particular and obfcure method of his providence, directing

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the operations of individuals and fingle effences; this we call fortune, that serpentine and crooked line, whereby he draws those actions his wifdom intends in a more unknown and fecret way; this cryptick and involved method of his providence have I ever admired; nor can I relate the hiftory of my life, the occurrences of my days, the escapes of dangers, and hits of chance, with a Bezo las Manos to fortune, or a bare gramercy to my good stars: Abraham might have thought the ram in the thicket came thither by accident; human reafon would have faid that meer chance conveyed Mofes in the ark to the fight of Pharaoh's daughter: what a labyrinth is there in the ftory of Jofeph, able to convert a Stoick? Surely there are in every man's life certain rubs, doublings and wrenches, which pass a while under the effects of chance, but at the

laft,