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with reason,that can fupply them all. We need not labour with fo many arguments to confute judicial aftrology; for if there be a truth therein, it doth not injure divinity: if to be born under Mercury difpofeth us to be witty, under Jupiter to be wealthy, I do not owe a knee unto thefe, but unto that merciful hand that hath ordered my indifferent and uncertain nativity under fuch benevolous afpects. Those that hold that all things were governed by fortune had not erred, had they not persist ed there the Romans, who erected a temple to fortune, acknowledged therein, though in a blinder way, somewhat of divinity; for in a wife fupputation all things begin and end in the Almighty. There is a

nearer way to heaven than Homer's chain; an easy logick may conjoin heaven and earth in one argument, and less than a forites refolve all things into God. For though we chriften

G

naluve

christen effects by their most senfible and nearest caufes, yet is God the true and infallible cause of all; whose concourse though it be general, yet doth it fubdivide itself into the particular actions of every thing, and is that fpirit, by which each fingular effence not only subfifts, but performs its operation.

SECT. XIX.

The bad construction and perverfe comment on thefe pair of second caufes, or vifible hands of tune God, have perverted the devotion of many unto atheism; who, forgetting the honeft advices of faith, have listened unto the confpiracy of paffion and reafon. I have therefore always endeavoured to compofe thofe feuds and angry diffenfions between affection, faith, and reafon: For there is in our foul a kind of * triumvirate, or triple government of three competitors, which

diftracts

diftract the peace of this our common-wealth, no lefs than did that other the state of Rome.

As reafon is a rebel unto faith, fo paffion unto reafon : as the propofitions of faith feem abfurd unto reafon, fo the theorems of reafon unto paffion, and both unto reason; yet a moderate and peaceable difcretion may fo ftate and order the matter, that they may be all kings, and yet make but one monarchy; every one exercifing his fovereignty and prerogative, in a due time and place, according to the restraint and limit of circumftance. There is, as in philosophy, so in divinity, sturdy doubts, and boisterous objections, wherewith the unhappiness of our knowledge too nearly acquainteth us. More of these no man hath known than myself, which I confess I conquered, not in a martial posture, but on my knees. For our endeavours are not only to combat with. our vocation, the coilich

assigned us.

a

with doubts, but likewife to difpute with the devil: the villainy of that fpirit takes a hint of infidelity from our studies, and, by demonftrating a naturality in one way, makes us miftruft a miracle in another. Thus, having perus'd the archidoxes, and read the fecret fympathies of things, he would difuade my belief from the miracle of the brazen ferpent, make me fancy that image wrought by fympathy, and that it was but an Egyptian trick to cure their difeafes without a miracle, Again, having feen fome experiments of * Bitumen, and having read far more of +Naphta, he whispered to my curiofity the fire of the altar might be natural, and bid me miftruft a miracle in Elijah when he intrenched the altar round with water; for that inflammable, fubftance yields not ea-? fily unto water, but flames in the arms of its antagonist: and thus would

b

a Vid. Num. xxi. 5, 9. 1 Kings ch. xviii.

would he inveigle my

belief to

think the * cumbustion of Sodom might be natural, and that there was an afphaltick and bituminous nature in that lake before the fire of Gomorrah. I know that manna is now plentifully gathered in Calabria, and Jofephus tells me in his days 'twas as plentiful in Arabia; the devil therefore made the query, where was then the miracle in the days of Mofés? the Ifraelites faw, in his time, but what the natives of thofe countries behold in ours, Thus the devil play'd at chefs with me, and, yielding a pawn, thought to gain a queen of me, taking advantage of my honeft endeavours; and whilft I labour'd to raise the structure of my reafon, he strove to undermine the edifice of my faith.

SECT. XX.

Neither had thefe, or any other, ever fuch advantage of me, as to

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