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144 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
The like ought to be done, and we should accompany
our faith with all the reason we possesse : Yet alwayes
with this proviso, that we thinke it doth not depend
of us, and that all our strength and arguments can
never attaine to so supernaturall and divine a knowledge
: Except it seize upon us, and as it were enter
into us by an extraordinarie infusion : And unlesse
it also enter into us not onely by discourse, but also
by humane meanes, she is not in her dignitie nor in
her glorie. And verily I feare therfore, that except
this way, we should not enjoy it. Had we fast-hold
on God, by the interposition of a lively faith ; had we
hold-fast on God by himselfe, and not by us; had we
a divine foundation; then should not humane and
worldly occasions have the power so to shake and
totter us, as they have. Our hold would not then
yeeld to so weake a batterie : The love of noveltie;
the constrainte of Princes ; the good successe of one
partie; the rash and casual! changing of our opinions,
should not then have the power to shake and alter our
beleefe. We should not suffer the same to be troubled
at the wil and pleasure of a new argument, and at the
perswasion, no, not of all the rhetorike that ever was :
we should withstand these boistrous billowes with an
inflexible and unmoveable constancie :
lllisos fluctus rupes, ut vasta refundit
Et varias circumlatrantes dissipat undas,
Mole sua. 1
As huge rocks doe regorge th' invective waves,
And dissipate the billowes brawling braves,
Which these gainst those still bellow out.
Those being big and standing stout.
If this raie of Divinitie did in any sort touch us, it
would everie where appeare: Not only our words, but
our actions, would beare some shew and lustre of it.
Whatsoever should proceed from us, might be scene
inlightned with this noble and matchlesse brightnes.
We should blush for shame, that in humane sects there
1 VIRG. AEn. 1. vii.587.