To worship God, in some peculiar place, or turning a man’s face towards an image, or determinate place, is not to worship, or honour the place, or image; but to acknowledge it holy, that is to say, to acknowledge the image, or the place to be set apart from common use. For that is the meaning of the word _holy_; which implies no new quality in the place or image, but only a new relation by appropriation to God; and therefore is not idolatry; no more than it was idolatry to worship God before the brazen serpent; or for the Jews, when they were out of their own country, to turn their faces, when they prayed, towards the temple of Jerusalem; or for Moses to put off his shoes when he was before the flaming bush, the ground appertaining to Mount Sinai, which place God had chosen to appear in, and to give his laws to the people of Israel, and was therefore holy ground, not by inherent sanctity, but by separation to God’s use; or for Christians to worship in the churches, which are once solemnly dedicated to God for that purpose, by the authority of the king, or other true representant of the Church. But to worship God, as inanimating, or inhabiting such image, or place; that is to say, in infinite substance in a finite place, is idolatry: for such finite gods, are but idols of the brain, nothing real; and are commonly called in the Scripture by the names of _vanity_, and _lies_, and _nothing_. Also to worship God, not as inanimating, or present in the place, or image; but to the end to be put in mind of him, or of some works of his, in case the place, or image be dedicated, or set up by private authority, and not by the authority of them that are our sovereign pastors, is idolatry. For the commandment is, _thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image_. God commanded Moses to set up the brazen serpent; he did not make it to himself; it was not therefore against the commandment. But the making of the golden calf by Aaron, and the people, as being done without authority from God, was idolatry; not only because they held it for God, but also because they made it for a religious use, without warrant either from God their sovereign, or from Moses, that was his lieutenant.
The Gentiles worshipped for gods, Jupiter and others; that living, were men perhaps that had done great and glorious acts: and for the children of God, divers men and women, supposing them gotten between an immortal deity, and a mortal man. This was idolatry, because they made them so to themselves, having no authority from God, neither in his eternal law of reason, nor in his positive and revealed will. But though our Saviour was a man, whom we also believe to be God immortal, and the Son of God, yet this is no idolatry; because we build not that belief upon our own fancy, or judgment, but upon the Word of God revealed in the Scriptures.
And for the adoration of the Eucharist, if the words of Christ, _this is my body_, signify, _that he himself, and the seeming bread in his hand, and not only so, but that all the seeming morsels of bread that have ever since been, and any time hereafter shall be consecrated by priests, be so many Christ’s bodies, and yet all of them but one body_; then is that no idolatry, because it is authorized by our Saviour: but if that text do not signify that, (for there is no other that can be alleged for it) then, because it is a worship of human institution, it is idolatry.
For it is not enough to say, God can transubstantiate the bread into Christ’s body: for the Gentiles also held God to be omnipotent, and might upon that ground no less excuse their idolatry, by pretending, as well as others, a transubstantiation of their wood, and stone into God Almighty.
Whereas there be, that pretend divine inspiration to be the supernatural entering of the Holy Ghost into a man, and not an acquisition of God’s graces, by doctrine, and study; I think they are in a very dangerous dilemma. For if they worship not the man whom they believe to be so inspired, they fall into impiety; as not adoring God’s supernatural presence. And again, if they worship him, they commit idolatry; for the apostles would never permit themselves to be so worshipped. Therefore the safest way is to believe, that by the descending of the dove upon the apostles; and by Christ’s breathing on them, when he gave them the Holy Ghost; and by the giving of it by imposition of hands, are understood the signs which God has been pleased to use, or ordain to be used, of his promise to assist those persons in their study to preach his kingdom, and in their conversation, that it might not be scandalous, but edifying to others.
[Sidenote: Scandalous worship of images.]
Besides the idolatrous worship of images, there is also a scandalous worship of them; which is also a sin, but not idolatry. For _idolatry_ is to worship by signs of an internal, and real honour: but _scandalous worship_, is but seeming worship, and may sometimes be joined with an inward, and hearty detestation, both of the image, and of the phantastical _demon_, or idol, to which it is dedicated; and proceed only from the fear of death, or other grievous punishment; and is nevertheless a sin in them that so worship, in case they be men whose actions are looked at by others, as lights to guide them by; because following their ways, they cannot but stumble, and fall in the way of religion: whereas the example of those we regard not, works not on us at all, but leaves us to our own diligence and caution; and consequently are no causes of our falling.
If therefore a pastor lawfully called to teach and direct others, or any other, of whose knowledge there is a great opinion, do external honour to an idol for fear; unless he make his fear and unwillingness to it, as evident as the worship; he scandalizeth his brother, by seeming to approve idolatry. For his brother arguing from the action of his teacher, or of him whose knowledge he esteemeth great, concludes it to be lawful in itself. And this scandal is sin, and a _scandal given_. But if one being no pastor, nor of eminent reputation for knowledge in Christian doctrine, do the same, and another follow him; this is no scandal given; for he had no cause to follow such example: but is a pretence of scandal, which he taketh of himself for an excuse before men. For an unlearned man, that is in the power of an idolatrous king, or state, if commanded on pain of death to worship before an idol, he detesteth the idol in his heart, he doth well; though if he had the fortitude to suffer death, rather than worship it, he should do better.
But if a pastor, who as Christ’s messenger, has undertaken to teach Christ’s doctrine to all nations, should do the same, it were not only a sinful scandal, in respect of other Christian men’s consciences, but a perfidious forsaking of his charge.
The sum of that which I have said hitherto, concerning the worship of images, is this, that he that worshippeth in an image, or any creature, either the matter thereof, or any fancy of his own, which he thinketh to dwell in it; or both together; or believeth that such things hear his prayers, or see his devotions, without ears or eyes, committeth idolatry: and he that counterfeiteth such worship for fear of punishment, if he be a man whose example hath power amongst his brethren, committeth a sin. But he that worshippeth the Creator of the world before such an image, or in such a place as he hath not made, or chosen of himself, but taken from the commandment of God’s word, as the Jews did in worshipping God before the cherubims, and before the brazen serpent for a time, and in, or towards the Temple of Jerusalem, which was also but for a time, committeth not idolatry.
Now for the worship of saints, and images, and relics, and other things at this day practised in the Church of Rome, I say they are not allowed by the Word of God, nor brought into the Church of Rome, from the doctrine there taught; but partly left in it at the first conversion of the Gentiles; and afterwards countenanced, and confirmed, and augmented by the bishops of Rome.
[Sidenote: Answer to the argument from the cherubims, and brazen serpent.]
As for the proofs alleged out of Scripture, namely, those examples of images appointed by God to be set up; they were not set up for the people, or any man to worship, but that they should worship God himself before them; as before the cherubims over the ark, and the brazen serpent. For we read not, that the priest, or any other did worship the cherubims; but contrarily we read (_2 Kings_ xviii. 4) that Hezekiah brake in pieces the brazen serpent which Moses had set up, because the people burnt incense to it. Besides, those examples are not put for our imitation, that we also should set up images, under pretence of worshipping God before them; because the words of the second commandment, _thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, &c._ distinguish between the images that God commanded to be set up, and those which we set up to ourselves. And therefore from the cherubims or brazen serpent, to the images of man’s devising; and from the worship commanded by God, to the will-worship of men, the argument is not good.
This also is to be considered, that as Hezekiah brake in pieces the brazen serpent, because the Jews did worship it, to the end they should do so no more; so also Christian sovereigns ought to break down the images which their subjects have been accustomed to worship, that there be no more occasion of such idolatry. For at this day, the ignorant people, where images are worshipped, do really believe there is a divine power in the images; and are told by their pastors, that some of them have spoken; and have bled; and that miracles have been done by them; which they apprehend as done by the saint, which they think either is the image itself, or in it. The Israelites, when they worshipped the calf, did think they worshipped the God that brought them out of Egypt; and yet it was idolatry, because they thought the calf either was that God, or had him in his belly. And though some man may think it impossible for people to be so stupid, as to think the image to be God, or a saint; or to worship it in that notion; yet it is manifest in Scripture to the contrary; where when the golden calf was made, the people said, (_Exod._ xxxii. 4) _These are thy gods, O Israel_; and where the images of Laban (_Gen._ xxxi. 30) are called his gods. And we see daily by experience in all sorts of people, that such men as study nothing but their food and ease, are content to believe any absurdity, rather than to trouble themselves to examine it; holding their faith as it were by entail unalienable, except by an express and new law.
[Sidenote: Painting of fancies no idolatry; but abusing them to religious worship is.]
But they infer from some other places, that it is lawful to paint angels, and also God himself: as from God’s walking in the garden; from Jacob’s seeing God at the top of the ladder; and from other visions, and dreams. But visions, and dreams, whether natural, or supernatural, are but phantasms: and he that painteth an image of any of them, maketh not an image of God, but of his own phantasm, which is making of an idol. I say not, that to draw a picture after a fancy, is a sin; but when it is drawn, to hold it for a representation of God, is against the second commandment; and can be of no use, but to worship. And the same may be said of the images of angels, and of men dead; unless as monuments of friends, or of men worthy remembrance. For such use of an image, is not worship of the image; but a civil honouring of the person, not that is, but that was. But when it is done to the image which we make of a saint, for no other reason, but that we think he heareth our prayers, and is pleased with the honour we do him, when dead, and without sense, we attribute to him more than human power; and therefore it is idolatry.
Seeing therefore there is no authority, neither in the law of Moses, nor in the Gospel, for the religious worship of images, or other representations of God, which men set up to themselves; or for the worship of the image of any creature in heaven or earth, or under the earth: and whereas Christian kings, who are living representants of God, are not to be worshipped by their subjects, by any act that signifieth a greater esteem of his power, than the nature of mortal man is capable of; it cannot be imagined, that the religious worship now in use, was brought into the Church by misunderstanding of the Scripture. It resteth therefore, that it was left in it, by not destroying the images themselves, in the conversion of the Gentiles that worshipped them.
[Sidenote: How idolatry was left in the Church.]
The cause whereof, was the immoderate esteem, and prices set upon the workmanship of them, which made the owners, though converted from worshipping them as they had done religiously for demons, to retain them still in their houses, upon pretence of doing it in the honour of Christ, of the Virgin Mary, and of the Apostles, and other the pastors of the primitive Church; as being easy, by giving them new names, to make that an image of the Virgin Mary, and of her son our Saviour, which before perhaps was called the image of Venus, and Cupid; and so of a Jupiter to make a Barnabas, and of Mercury a Paul, and the like. And as worldly ambition creeping by degrees into the pastors, drew them to an endeavour of pleasing the new-made Christians; and also to a liking of this kind of honour, which they also might hope for after their decease, as well as those that had already gained it: so the worshipping of the images of Christ and his apostles, grew more and more idolatrous; save that somewhat after the time of Constantine, divers emperors, and bishops, and general councils, observed and opposed the unlawfulness thereof; but too late, or too weakly.
[Sidenote: Canonizing of saints.]
The canonizing of saints, is another relic of Gentilism: it is neither a misunderstanding of Scripture, nor a new invention of the Roman Church, but a custom as ancient as the commonwealth of Rome itself. The first that ever was canonized at Rome, was Romulus, and that upon the narration of Julius Proculus, that swore before the senate, he spake with him after his death, and was assured by him, he dwelt in heaven, and was there called _Quirinus_, and would be propitious to the state of their new city: and thereupon the senate gave _public testimony_ of his sanctity. Julius Cæsar, and other emperors after him, had the like _testimony_; that is, were canonized for saints; for by such testimony is CANONIZATION now defined; and is the same with the ἀποθέωσις of the heathen.
[Sidenote: The name of Pontifex.]
It is also from the Roman Heathen, that the Popes have received the name, and power of PONTIFEX MAXIMUS. This was the name of him that in the ancient commonwealth of Rome, had the supreme authority under the senate and people, of regulating all ceremonies and doctrines concerning their religion: and when Augustus Cæsar changed the state into a monarchy, he took to himself no more but this office, and that of tribune of the people, that is to say, the supreme power both in state, and religion; and the succeeding emperors enjoyed the same. But when the emperor Constantine lived, who was the first that professed and authorized Christian religion, it was consonant to his profession, to cause religion to be regulated, under his authority, by the Bishop of Rome: though it do not appear they had so soon the name of Pontifex; but rather, that the succeeding bishops took it of themselves, to countenance the power they exercised over the bishops of the Roman provinces. For it is not any privilege of St. Peter, but the privilege of the city of Rome, which the emperors were always willing to uphold, that gave them such authority over other bishops; as may be evidently seen by that, that the bishop of Constantinople, when the emperor made that city the seat of the empire, pretended to be equal to the bishop of Rome; though at last, not without contention, the Pope carried it, and became the _Pontifex Maximus_; but in right only of the emperor; and not without the bounds of the empire; nor any where, after the emperor had lost his power in Rome; though it were the Pope himself that took his power from him. From whence we may by the way observe, that there is no place for the superiority of the Pope over other bishops, except in the territories whereof he is himself the civil sovereign, and where the emperor having sovereign power civil, hath expressly chosen the Pope for the chief pastor under himself, of his Christian subjects.
[Sidenote: Procession of images.]
The carrying about of images in _procession_, is another relic of the religion of the Greeks, and Romans. For they also carried their idols from place to place, in a kind of chariot, which was peculiarly dedicated to that use, which the Latins called _thensa_, and _vehiculum Deorum_; and the image was placed in a frame, or shrine, which they called _ferculum_: and that which they called _pompa_, is the same that now is named _procession_. According whereunto, amongst the divine honours which were given to Julius Cæsar by the senate, this was one, that in the pomp, or procession, at the Circæan games, he should have _thensam et ferculum_, a sacred chariot and a shrine; which was as much, as to be carried up and down as a god: just as at this day the Popes are carried by Switzers under a canopy.
[Sidenote: Wax candles, and torches lighted.]
To these processions also belonged the bearing of burning torches, and candles, before the images of the gods, both amongst the Greeks, and Romans. For afterwards the emperors of Rome received the same honour; as we read of Caligula, that at his reception to the empire, he was carried from Misenum to Rome, in the midst of a throng of people, the ways beset with altars, and beasts for sacrifice, and burning _torches_: and of Caracalla, that was received into Alexandria with incense, and with casting of flowers, and δαδοῦχίαις, that is, with torches; for δαδοῦχοι were they that amongst the Greeks carried torches lighted in the processions of their gods. And in process of time, the devout, but ignorant people, did many times honour their bishops with the like pomp of wax candles, and the images of our Saviour, and the saints, constantly, in the church itself. And thus came in the use of wax candles; and was also established by some of the ancient Councils.
The heathens had also their _aqua lustralis_, that is to say, _holy water_. The Church of Rome imitates them also in their _holy days_. They had their _bacchanalia_; and we have our _wakes_, answering to them: they their _saturnalia_, and we our _carnivals_, and Shrove-Tuesday’s liberty of servants: they their procession of _Priapus_; we our fetching in, erection, and dancing about _May-poles_; and dancing is one kind of worship: they had their procession called _Ambarvalia_; and we our procession about the fields in the _Rogation-week_. Nor do I think that these are all the ceremonies that have been left in the Church, from the first conversion of the Gentiles; but they are all that I can for the present call to mind; and if a man would well observe that which is delivered in the histories, concerning the religious rites of the Greeks and Romans, I doubt not but he might find many more of these old empty bottles of Gentilism, which the doctors of the Roman Church, either by negligence or ambition, have filled up again with the new wine of Christianity, that will not fail in time to break them.
------- CHAP. XLVI.
OF DARKNESS FROM VAIN PHILOSOPHY, AND FABULOUS TRADITIONS.
[Sidenote: What philosophy is.]
By PHILOSOPHY is understood _the knowledge acquired by reasoning, from the manner of the generation of any thing, to the properties: or from the properties, to some possible way of generation of the same; to the end to be able to produce, as far as matter, and human force permit, such effects, as human life requireth_. So the geometrician, from the construction of figures, findeth out many properties thereof; and from the properties, new ways of their construction, by reasoning; to the end to be able to measure land, and water; and for infinite other uses. So the astronomer, from the rising, setting, and moving of the sun, and stars, in divers parts of the heavens, findeth out the causes of day, and night, and of the different seasons of the year; whereby he keepeth an account of time; and the like of other sciences.
[Sidenote: Prudence no part of philosophy.]
By which definition it is evident, that we are not to account as any part thereof, that original knowledge called experience, in which consisteth prudence; because it is not attained by reasoning, but found as well in brute beasts, as in man; and is but a memory of successions of events in times past, wherein the omission of every little circumstance altering the effect, frustrateth the expectation of the most prudent: whereas nothing is produced by reasoning aright, but general, eternal, and immutable truth.
[Sidenote: No false doctrine is part of philosophy.]
Nor are we therefore to give that name to any false conclusions: for he that reasoneth aright in words he understandeth, can never conclude an error: [Sidenote: No more is revelation supernatural.]
Nor to that which any man knows by supernatural revelation; because it is not acquired by reasoning: [Sidenote: Nor learning taken upon credit of authors.]
Nor that which is gotten by reasoning from the authority of books; because it is not by reasoning from the cause to the effect, nor from the effect to the cause; and is not knowledge but faith.
[Sidenote: Of the beginnings and progress of philosophy.]
The faculty of reasoning being consequent to the use of speech, it was not possible, but that there should have been some general truths found out by reasoning, as ancient almost as language itself. The savages of America, are not without some good moral sentences; also they have a little arithmetic, to add, and divide in numbers not too great: but they are not, therefore, philosophers. For as there were plants of corn and wine in small quantity dispersed in the fields and woods, before men knew their virtue, or made use of them for their nourishment, or planted them apart in fields and vineyards; in which time they fed on acorns, and drank water: so also there have been divers true, general, and profitable speculations from the beginning; as being the natural plants of human reason. But they were at first but few in number; men lived upon gross experience; there was no method; that is to say, no sowing, nor planting of knowledge by itself, apart from the weeds, and common plants of error and conjecture. And the cause of it being the want of leisure from procuring the necessities of life, and defending themselves against their neighbours, it was impossible, till the erecting of great commonwealths, it should be otherwise. _Leisure_ is the mother of _philosophy_; and _Commonwealth_, the mother of _peace_ and _leisure_.
Where first were great and flourishing _cities_, there was first the study of _philosophy_. The _Gymnosophists_ of India, the _Magi_ of Persia, and the _Priests_ of Chaldea and Egypt, are counted the most ancient philosophers; and those countries were the most ancient of kingdoms. _Philosophy_ was not risen to the Grecians, and other people of the west, whose _commonwealths_, no greater perhaps than Lucca or Geneva, had never _peace_, but when their fears of one another were equal; nor the _leisure_ to observe anything but one another. At length, when war had united many of these Grecian lesser cities, into fewer, and greater; then began _seven men_, of several parts of Greece, to get the reputation of being _wise_; some of them for _moral_ and _politic_ sentences; and others for the learning of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, which was _astronomy_, and _geometry_. But we hear not yet of any [Sidenote: Of the schools of philosophy amongst the Athenians.]
After the Athenians, by the overthrow of the Persian armies, had gotten the dominion of the sea; and thereby, of all the islands, and maritime cities of the Archipelago, as well of Asia as Europe; and were grown wealthy; they that had no employment, neither at home nor abroad, had little else to employ themselves in, but either (as St. Luke says, _Acts_ xvii. 21), _in telling and hearing news_, or in discoursing of _philosophy_ publicly to the youth of the city. Every master took some place for that purpose. Plato, in certain public walks called _Academia_, from one _Academus_: Aristotle in the walk of the temple of Pan, called _Lyceum_: others in the _Stoa_, or covered walk, wherein the merchants’ goods were brought to land: others in other places; where they spent the time of their leisure, in teaching or in disputing of their opinions: and some in any place, where they could get the youth of the city together to hear them talk. And this was it which Carneades also did at Rome, when he was ambassador: which caused Cato to advise the senate to dispatch him quickly, for fear of corrupting the manners of the young men, that delighted to hear him speak, as they thought, fine things.
From this it was, that the place where any of them taught, and disputed, was called _schola_, which in their tongue signifieth _leisure_; and their disputations, _diatribæ_, that is to say, _passing of the time_.
Also the philosophers themselves had the name of their sects, some of them from these their Schools: for they that followed Plato’s doctrine, were called _Academics_; the followers of Aristotle _Peripatetics_, from the walk he taught in; and those that Zeno taught _Stoics_, from the _Stoa_; as if we should denominate men from _Moor-fields_, from _Paul’s Church_, and from the _Exchange_, because they meet there often, to prate and loiter.
Nevertheless, men were so much taken with this custom, that in time it spread itself over all Europe, and the best part of Afric; so as there were schools publicly erected and maintained, for lectures and disputations, almost in every commonwealth.
[Sidenote: Of the schools of the Jews.]
There were also schools, anciently, both before and after the time of our Saviour, amongst the Jews; but they were schools of their law. For though they were called _synagogues_, that is to say, congregations of the people; yet, inasmuch as the law was every sabbath-day read, expounded, and disputed in them, they differed not in nature, but in name only, from public schools; and were not only in Jerusalem, but in every city of the Gentiles, where the Jews inhabited. There was such a school at Damascus, whereinto Paul entered, to persecute. There were others at Antioch, Iconium, and Thessalonica, whereinto he entered to dispute: and such was the synagogue of the _Libertines_, _Cyrenians_, _Alexandrians_, _Cilicians_, and those of Asia; that is to say, the school of _Libertines_, and of _Jews_ that were strangers in Jerusalem; and of this school they were that disputed (_Acts_ vi. 9) with St.
Stephen.
[Sidenote: The schools of the Grecians unprofitable.]
But what has been the utility of those schools? What science is there at this day acquired by their readings and disputings? That we have of geometry, which is the mother of all natural science, we are not indebted for it to the schools. Plato, that was the best philosopher of the Greeks, forbad entrance into his school to all that were not already in some measure geometricians. There were many that studied that science to the great advantage of mankind: but there is no mention of their schools; nor was there any sect of geometricians; nor did they then pass under the name of philosophers. The natural philosophy of those schools was rather a dream than science, and set forth in senseless and insignificant language; which cannot be avoided by those that will teach philosophy, without having first attained great knowledge in geometry.
For nature worketh by motion; the ways and degrees whereof cannot be known, without the knowledge of the proportions and properties of lines and figures. Their moral philosophy is but a description of their own passions. For the rule of manners, without civil government, is the law of nature; and in it, the law civil, that determineth what is _honest_ and _dishonest_, what is _just_ and _unjust_, and generally what is _good_ and _evil_. Whereas they make the rules of _good_ and _bad_, by their own _liking_ and _disliking_: by which means, in so great diversity of taste, there is nothing generally agreed on; but every one doth, as far as he dares, whatsoever seemeth good in his own eyes, to the subversion of commonwealth. Their _logic_, which should be the method of reasoning, is nothing else but captions of words, and inventions how to puzzle such as should go about to pose them. To conclude, there is nothing so absurd, that the old philosophers, as Cicero saith, (who was one of them,) have not some of them maintained.
And I believe that scarce anything can be more absurdly said in natural philosophy, than that which now is called _Aristotle’s Metaphysics_; nor more repugnant to government, than much of that he hath said in his _Politics_; nor more ignorantly, than a great part of his _Ethics_.
[Sidenote: The schools of the Jews unprofitable.]
The school of the Jews was originally a school of the law of Moses; who commanded (_Deut._ xxxi. 10) that at the end of every seventh year, at the Feast of the Tabernacles, it should be read to all the people, that they might hear and learn it. Therefore the reading of the law, which was in use after the captivity, every Sabbath day, ought to have had no other end, but the acquainting of the people with the Commandments which they were to obey, and to expound unto them the writings of the prophets. But it is manifest, by the many reprehensions of them by our Saviour, that they corrupted the text of the law with their false commentaries, and vain traditions; and so little understood the prophets, that they did neither acknowledge Christ, nor the works he did, of which the prophets prophesied. So that by their lectures and disputations in their synagogues, they turned the doctrine of their law into a fantastical kind of philosophy, concerning the incomprehensible nature of God, and of spirits; which they compounded of the vain philosophy and theology of the Grecians, mingled with their own fancies, drawn from the obscurer places of the Scripture, and which might most easily be wrested to their purpose; and from the fabulous traditions of their ancestors.
[Sidenote: University, what it is.]
That which is now called an _University_, is a joining together, and an incorporation under one government, of many public schools, in one and the same town or city. In which, the principal schools were ordained for the three professions, that is to say, of the Roman religion, of the Roman law, and of the art of medicine. And for the study of philosophy, it hath no otherwise place, than as a hand-maid to the Roman religion: and since the authority of Aristotle is only current there, that study is not properly philosophy, (the nature whereof dependeth not on authors,) but _Aristotelity_. And for geometry, till of very late times it had no place at all; as being subservient to nothing but rigid truth.
And if any man by the ingenuity of his own nature, had attained to any degree of perfection therein, he was commonly thought a magician, and his art diabolical.
[Sidenote: Errors brought into religion from Aristotle’s metaphysics.]
Now to descend to the particular tenets of vain philosophy, derived to the Universities, and thence into the Church, partly from Aristotle, partly from blindness of understanding; I shall first consider their principles. There is a certain _philosophia prima_, on which all other philosophy ought to depend; and consisteth principally, in right limiting of the significations of such appellations, or names, as are of all others the most universal; which limitations serve to avoid ambiguity and equivocation in reasoning; and are commonly called definitions; such as are the definitions of body, time, place, matter, form, essence, subject, substance, accident, power, act, finite, infinite, quantity, quality, motion, action, passion, and divers others, necessary to the explaining of a man’s conceptions concerning the nature and generation of bodies. The explication, that is, the settling of the meaning, of which, and the like terms, is commonly in the Schools called _metaphysics_; as being a part of the philosophy of Aristotle, which hath that for title. But it is in another sense; for there it signifieth as much as _books written or placed after his natural philosophy_: but the schools take them for _books of supernatural philosophy_: for the word _metaphysics_ will bear both these senses. And indeed that which is there written, is for the most part so far from the possibility of being understood, and so repugnant to natural reason, that whosoever thinketh there is any thing to be understood by it, must needs think it supernatural.
[Sidenote: Errors concerning abstract essences.]
From these metaphysics, which are mingled with the Scripture to make school divinity, we are told, there be in the world certain essences separated from bodies, which they call _abstract essences, and substantial forms_. For the interpreting of which jargon, there is need of somewhat more than ordinary attention in this place. Also I ask pardon of those that are not used to this kind of discourse, for applying myself to those that are. The world, (I mean not the earth only, that denominates the lovers of it _worldly men_, but the _universe_, that is, the whole mass of all things that are), is corporeal, that is to say, body; and hath the dimensions of magnitude, namely, length, breadth, and depth: also every part of body, is likewise body, and hath the like dimensions; and consequently every part of the universe, is body, and that which is not body, is no part of the universe: and because the universe is all, that which is no part of it, is _nothing_; and consequently _no where_. Nor does it follow from hence, that spirits are _nothing_: for they have dimensions, and are therefore really _bodies_; though that name in common speech be given to such bodies only, as are visible, or palpable; that is, that have some degree of opacity. But for spirits, they call them incorporeal; which is a name of more honour, and may therefore with more piety be attributed to God himself; in whom we consider not what attribute expresseth best his nature, which is incomprehensible; but what best expresseth our desire to honour Him.
To know now upon what grounds they say there be _essences abstract_, or _substantial forms_, we are to consider what those words do properly