Factum, dum negat haec, videt beatum.
There are no gods, heavens are toys,
Selius in public justifies;
Because that whilst he thus denies
Their deities, he better thrives.
Cousin-germans to these men are many of our great philosophers and deists, who, though they be more temperate in this life, give many good moral precepts, honest, upright, and sober in their conversation, yet in effect they are the same (accounting no man a good scholar that is not an atheist), nimis altum sapiunt, too much learning makes them mad. Whilst they attribute all to natural causes, [6646]contingence of all things, as Melancthon calls them, Pertinax hominum genus, a peevish generation of men, that misled by philosophy, and the devil's suggestion, their own innate blindness, deny God as much as the rest, hold all religion a fiction, opposite to reason and philosophy, though for fear of magistrates, saith [6647]Vaninus, they durst not publicly profess it. Ask one of them of what religion he is, he scoffingly replies, a philosopher, a Galenist, an [6648]Averroist, and with Rabelais a physician, a peripatetic, an epicure. In spiritual things God must demonstrate all to sense, leave a pawn with them, or else seek some other creditor. They will acknowledge Nature and Fortune, yet not God: though in effect they grant both: for as Scaliger defines, Nature signifies God's ordinary power; or, as Calvin writes, Nature is God's order, and so things extraordinary may be called unnatural: Fortune his unrevealed will; and so we call things changeable that are beside reason and expectation. To this purpose [6649]Minutius in Octavio, and [6650] Seneca well discourseth with them, lib. 4. de beneficiis, cap. 5, 6, 7. “They do not understand what they say; what is Nature but God? call him what thou wilt, Nature, Jupiter, he hath as many names as offices: it comes all to one pass, God is the fountain of all, the first Giver and Preserver, from whom all things depend,” [6651]a quo, et per quem omnia, Nam quocunque vides Deus est, quocunque moveris, “God is all in all, God is everywhere, in every place.” And yet this Seneca, that could confute and blame them, is all out as much to be blamed and confuted himself, as mad himself; for he holds fatum Stoicum, that inevitable Necessity in the other extreme, as those Chaldean astrologers of old did, against whom the prophet Jeremiah so often thunders, and those heathen mathematicians, Nigidius Figulus, magicians, and Priscilianists, whom St. Austin so eagerly confutes, those Arabian questionaries, Novem Judices, Albumazer, Dorotheus, &c., and our countryman [6652]Estuidus, that take upon them to define out of those great conjunction of stars, with Ptolomeus, the periods of kingdoms, or religions, of all future accidents, wars, plagues, schisms, heresies, and what not? all from stars, and such things, saith Maginus, Quae sibi et intelligentiis suis reservavit Deus, which God hath reserved to himself and his angels, they will take upon them to foretell, as if stars were immediate, inevitable causes of all future accidents. Caesar Vaninus, in his book de admirandis naturae Arcanis, dial. 52. de oraculis, is more free, copious, and open, in this explication of this astrological tenet of Ptolemy, than any of our modern writers, Cardan excepted, a true disciple of his master Pomponatius; according to the doctrine of Peripatetics, he refers all apparitions, prodigies, miracles, oracles, accidents, alterations of religions, kingdoms, &c. (for which he is soundly lashed by Marinus Mercennus, as well he deserves), to natural causes (for spirits he will not acknowledge), to that light, motion, influences of heavens and stars, and to the intelligences that move the orbs. Intelligentia quae, movet orbem mediante coelo, &c. Intelligences do all: and after a long discourse of miracles done of old, si haec daemones possint, cur non et intelligentiae, coelorum motrices? And as these great conjunctions, aspects of planets, begin or end, vary, are vertical and predominant, so have religions, rites, ceremonies, and kingdoms their beginning, progress, periods, in urbibus, regibus, religionibus, ac in particularibus hominibus, haec vera ac manifesta, sunt, ut Aristoteles innuere videtur, et quotidiana docet experientia, ut historias perlegens videbit; quid olim in Gentili lege Jove sanctius et illustrius? quid nunc vile magis et execrandum? Ita coelestia corpora pro mortalium beneficio religiones aedificant, et cum cessat influxus, cessat lex,[6653] &c. And because, according to their tenets, the world is eternal, intelligences eternal, influences of stars eternal, kingdoms, religions, alterations shall be likewise eternal, and run round after many ages; Atque iterum ad Troiam magnus mittetur Achilles; renascentur religiones, et ceremoniae, res humanae in idem recident, nihil nunc quod non olim fuit, et post saeculorum revolutiones alias est, erit,[6654]&c. idem specie, saith Vaninus, non individuo quod Plato significavit. These (saith mine [6655]author), these are the decrees of Peripatetics, which though I recite, in obsequium Christianae fidei detestor, as I am a Christian I detest and hate. Thus Peripatetics and astrologians held in former times, and to this effect of old in Rome, saith Dionysius Halicarnassus, lib. 7, when those meteors and prodigies appeared in the air, after the banishment of Coriolanus, [6656] “Men were diversely affected: some said they were God's just judgments for the execution of that good man, some referred all to natural causes, some to stars, some thought they came by chance, some by necessity” decreed ab initio, and could not be altered. The two last opinions of necessity and chance were, it seems, of greater note than the rest.
[6657]Sunt qui in Fortunae jam casibus omnia ponunt,
Et mundum credunt nullo rectore moveri,
Natura, volvente vices, &c.
For the first of chance, as [6658]Sallust likewise informeth us, those old Romans generally received; “They supposed fortune alone gave kingdoms and empires, wealth, honours, offices: and that for two causes; first, because every wicked base unworthy wretch was preferred, rich, potent, &c.; secondly, because of their uncertainty, though never so good, scarce any one enjoyed them long: but after, they began upon better advice to think otherwise, that every man made his own fortune.” The last of Necessity was Seneca's tenet, that God was alligatus causis secundis, so tied to second causes, to that inexorable Necessity, that he could alter nothing of that which was once decreed; sic erat in fatis, it cannot be altered, semel jussit, semper paret Deus, nulla vis rumpit, nullae preces, nec ipsum fulmen, God hath once said it, and it must for ever stand good, no prayers, no threats, nor power, nor thunder itself can alter it. Zeno, Chrysippus, and those other Stoics, as you may read in Tully 2. de divinatione, Gellius, lib. 6. cap. 2. &c., maintained as much. In all ages, there have been such, that either deny God in all, or in part; some deride him, they could have made a better world, and ruled it more orderly themselves, blaspheme him, derogate at their pleasure from him. 'Twas so in [6659]Plato's time, “Some say there be no gods, others that they care not for men, a middle sort grant both.” Si non sit Deus, unde mala? si sit Deus, unde mala? So Cotta argues in Tully, why made he not all good, or at least tenders not the welfare of such as are good? As the woman told Alexander, if he be not at leisure to hear causes, and redress them, why doth he reign? [6660]Sextus Empericus hath many such arguments. Thus perverse men cavil. So it will ever be, some of all sorts, good, bad, indifferent, true, false, zealous, ambidexters, neutralists, lukewarm, libertines, atheists, &c. They will see these religious sectaries agree amongst themselves, be reconciled all, before they will participate with, or believe any: they think in the meantime (which [6661]Celsus objects, and whom Origen confutes), “We Christians adore a person put to [6662]death with no more reason than the barbarous Getes worshipped Zamolxis, the Cilicians Mopsus, the Thebans Amphiaraus, and the Lebadians Trophonius; one religion is as true as another, new fangled devices, all for human respects;” great-witted Aristotle's works are as much authentical to them as Scriptures, subtle Seneca's Epistles as canonical as St. Paul's, Pindarus' Odes as good as the Prophet David's Psalms, Epictetus' Enchiridion equivalent to wise Solomon's Proverbs. They do openly and boldly speak this and more, some of them, in all places and companies. [6663]“Claudius the emperor was angry with Heaven, because it thundered, and challenged Jupiter into the field; with what madness! saith Seneca; he thought Jupiter could not hurt him, but he could hurt Jupiter.” Diagoras, Demonax, Epicurus, Pliny, Lucian, Lucretius,—Contemptorque Deum Mezentius, “professed atheists all” in their times: though not simple atheists neither, as Cicogna proves, lib. 1. cap. 1. they scoffed only at those Pagan gods, their plurality, base and fictitious offices. Gilbertus Cognatus labours much, and so doth Erasmus, to vindicate Lucian from scandal, and there be those that apologise for Epicurus, but all in vain; Lucian scoffs at all, Epicurus he denies all, and Lucretius his scholar defends him in it: