First, Let us compare the weakness of reason with the sublimity of holy Mysteries. Reason, having a bruise in the fall, is weak even in its own sphere: With how much toil doth it creep from letters to words, and from words to Arts and Sciences? And when it is there, how little doth it know? Can it span the heavens, or measure the vast back-side thereof, or number those golden letters, the stars therein, or understand the Sun, which to have done, Eudoxus would willingly have been burnt up by it, or in one of its beams: tell what light is, touching which there are no less then seven opinions in one of the Schoolmen, which verifies the old saying, Non constat ex lumine naturae quid sit natura luminis? To come lower, can it enter into the treasures of the snow, or ride a circuit with the winds, or take a rational turn with the flux and reflux of the sea, or tell how the massive earth hangs upon nothing, or unkennel an occult quality and draw it out to an open view, or unriddle a lodestone; in which a late Philosopher ⟨p. 51⟩would have the atoms of both Poles to meet and incorporate? Nay, in a common stone, can it dive into the form or nature thereof, dic mihi, quid est lapiditas, said a Learned man; can it strip the meanest creature of the investing accidents, and look upon the pure naked essence thereof? can it comprehend a drop or a dust, in which (saith the profound Bradwardine) there are infinite figures and numbers,1 and consequently infinite Geometrical and Arithmetical conclusions, following one another in order, and having a mutual dependence between themselves, such as no Philosophers can ever reach unto, because being capable only of finite conclusions, they leave behind them infinite unknown? Or, if it look about its own mansion-house, the brain, can it tell where the cells of memory, or the play-house of fancy, or the shop of the animal spirits are situate, or whether all these live together in a family? thousands of such things there are, which may make every one cry out with Socrates, Hoc unum scio, quod nihil scio. And shall such a weakling as this, dunced and posed in every atom within its own sphere, usurp the crown, and rule over sacred mysteries, and pure revelations, which come out of the bosom of God, to be the wonder of Angels and faith of men, and are in a transcendent excess infinitely above and beyond the capacity of both of them?
First, Let us compare the weakness of reason with the sublimity of holy Mysteries. Reason, having a bruise in the fall, is weak even in its own sphear: With how much toil doth it creep from letters to words, and from words to Arts and Sciences? And when it is there, how little doth it know? Can it span the heavens, or measure the vast back-side thereof, or number those golden letters, the stars therein, or understand the Sun, which to have done, Eudoxus would willingly have been burnt up by it, or in one of its beams: tell what light is, touching which there are no less then seven opinions in one of the Schoolmen, which verifies the old saying, Non constat ex lumine naturae quid sit natura luminis? To come lower, can it enter into the treasures of the snow, or ride a circuit with the winds, or take a rational turn with the flux and reflux of the sea, or tell how the massie earth hangs upon nothing, or unkennel an occult quality and draw it out to an open view, or unriddle a loadstone; in which a late Philosopher ⟨p. 51⟩would have the atomes of both Poles to meet and incorporate? Nay, in a common stone, can it dive into the form or nature thereof, dic mihi, quid est lapiditas, said a Learned man; can it strip the meanest creature of the investing accidents, and look upon the pure naked essence thereof? can it comprehend a drop or a dust, in which (saith the profound Bradwardine) there are infinite figures and numbers,1 and consequently infinite Geometrical and Arithmetical conclusions, following one another in order, and having a mutual dependance between themselves, such as no Philosophers can ever reach unto, because being capable only of finite conclusions, they leave behind them infinite unknown? Or, if it look about its own mansion-house, the brain, can it tell where the cells of memory, or the play-house of fancy, or the shop of the animal spirits are scituate, or whether all these live together in a family? thousands of such things there are, which may make every one cry out with Socrates, Hoc unum scio, quod nihil scio. And shall such a weakling as this, dunced and posed in every atome within its own sphear, usurp the crown, and rule over sacred mysteries, and pure revelations, which come out of the bosom of God, to be the wonder of Angels and faith of men, and are in a transcendent excess infinitely above and beyond the capacity of both of them?
- 1De Causâ Dei. l. 1. c. 1. pars 32.
