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THE SECOND BOOKE 257
goodnes admit any correspondencie or similitude with
a thing so base and abject as we are, without extreme
interest and manifest derogation from his divine greatnesse
? Infirmum Dei fortius est hominibus ; et stultum
Dei sapientius est hominibus: 1 ' The weaknesse of God
is stronger than man ; and the foolishnesse of God is
wiser than men.' Stilpo the Philosopher, being demanded
whether the Gods rejoyce at our honours and
sacrifices ; you are indiscreet (said he), let us withdraw
our selves apart if you speake of such matters. Notwithstanding
we prescribe him limits, we lay continuall
siege unto his power by our reasons. (I call our
dreames and our vanities reason, with the dispensation
of Philosophy, which saith that both the foole and the
wicked doe rave and dote by reason, but that it is a
reason of severall and particular forme.) We will
subject him to the vaine and weake apparances of our
understanding : him who hath made both us and our
knowledge. Because nothing is made of nothing: God
was not able to frame the world without matter.
What ? hath God delivered into our hands the keyes,
and the strongest wards of his infinit puissance ? Hath
he obliged himselfe not to exceed the bounds of our
knowledge ? Suppose, oh man, that herein thou hast
beene able to marke some signes of his effects. Thinkest
thou he hath therein employed all he was able to doe,
and that he hath placed all his formes and ideas in
this peece of worke? Thou seest but the order and
policie of this little cell wherein thou art placed. The
question is, whether thou seest it. His divinitie hath
an infinit jurisdiction far beyond that. This peece is
nothing in respect of the whole.
omnia cum COEIO terraque marique,
Nil sunt ad summam summai totius omnem.*
All things that are, with heav'n, with sea, and land,
To th' whole sum me of th' whole summe as nothing stand.
This law thou aleagest is but a municipall law, and
thou knowest not what the universall is: tie thy
¹ 1 Cor. i. 25. ² LUCR. 1. vi. 675.
II. S