mihi pro populo erat: and to the same effect Epicurus, Hoc ego non multis, sed tibi; or (as it hath since lamentably fallen out) I may borrow the resolution of an ancient philosopher, Satis est unus, satis est nullus. For it was for the service of that inestimable prince Henry, the successive hope, and one of the greatest of the Christian world, that I undertook this work. It pleased him to peruse some part thereof, and to pardon what was amiss. It is now left to the world without a master; from which all that is presented hath received both blows and thanks. Eadem probamus, eadem reprehendimus: hic exitus est omnis judicii, in quo lis secundum plures datur. But these discourses are idle. I know that as the charitable will judge charitably, so against those qui gloriantur in malitia my present adversity hath disarmed me. I am on the ground already, and therefore have not far to fall; and for rising again, as in the natural privation there is no recession to habit; so it is seldom seen in the privation politic. I do therefore forbear to style my readers gentle, courteous, and friendly, thereby to beg their good opinions, or to promise a second and third volume, (which I also intend,) if the first receive grace and good acceptance. For that which is already done may be thought enough, and too much; and it is certain, let us claw the reader with never so many courteous phrases, yet shall we evermore be thought fools that write foolishly. For conclusion; all the hope I have lies in this, that I have already found more ungentle and uncourteous readers of my love towards them, and well-deserving of them, than ever I shall do again. For had it been otherwise, I should hardly have had this leisure to have made myself a fool in print. THE FIRST PART OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD: INTREATING OF THE BEGINNING AND FIRST AGES OF THE SAME, FROM THE CREATION UNTO ABRAHAM. BOOK I. CHAP. I. Of the creation and preservation of the world. SECT. I. That the invisible God is seen in his creatures. GOD, whom the wisest men acknowledge to be a power uneffable, and virtue infinite; a light by abundant clarity invisible; an understanding which itself can only comprehend; an essence eternal and spiritual, of absolute pureness and simplicity; was and is pleased to make himself known by the work of the world: in the wonderful magnitude whereof, (all which he embraceth, filleth, and sustaineth,) we behold the image of that glory which cannot be measured, and withal, that one, and yet universal nature which cannot be defined. In the glorious lights of heaven we perceive a shadow of his divine countenance; in his merciful provision for all that live, his manifold goodness; and RALEGH, HIST. WORLD. VOL. I. B lastly, in creating and making existent the world universal, by the absolute art of his own word, his power and almightiness; which power, light, virtue, wisdom, and goodness, being all but attributes of one simple essence, and one God, we in all admire, and in part discern per speculum creaturarum, that is, in the disposition, order, and variety of celestial and terrestrial bodies: terrestrial, in their strange and manifold diversities; celestial, in their beauty and magnitude; which, in their continual and contrary motions, are neither repugnant, intermixed, nor confounded. By these potent effects we approach to the knowledge of the omnipotent Cause, and by these motions, their almighty Mover. In these more than wonderful works, God, saith a Hugo, speaketh unto man: and it is true, that these be those discourses of God, whose effects, all that live witness in themselves; the sensible, in their sensible natures; the reasonable, in their reasonable souls: for, according to bSt. Gregory, Omnis homo eo ipso quod rationalis conditus est, ex ipsa ratione, illum qui se condidit, Deum esse colligere debet: "Every man, in that he is reasonable, out of the same 66 reason may know, that he which made him is God." This God all men behold, saith Job, which is, according to the fathers, dominationem illius conspicere in creaturis, “ to "discern him in his providence by his creatures." That God hath been otherwise seen, to wit, with corporal eyes, exceedeth the small proportion of my understanding, grounded on these places of St. John and d St. Paul; Ye have not heard his voice at any time, neither have ye seen his shape: and again, Whom never man saw, nor can see. : And this, I am sure, agreeth with the nature of God's simplicity of which St. Augustine; Ipsa enim natura, vel substantia, vel quolibet alio nomine appellandum est, idipsum quod Deus est, corporaliter videri non potest; "That nature, a Hugo super Eccles. homil. 8. b Greg. in Mor. Herm. ad fil. Tat. 1.5. Unus vero ingenitus, et non apparens, et immanifestus, omnia autem manifestans, per omnia apparet, et in omnibus. Apparentia solum generatorum est; nihil apparitio quam generatio. c John v. 3. d 1 Tim. vi. 16. 66 or that substance, or by whatsoever name that is to be "called which is God, whatsoever that be, the same cannot "be corporally perceived." And of this opinion were Origen, Cyril, Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzene, Hierome, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Evaristus, Alcuinus, Dionysius Areopagita, Aquinas, and all others of authority. But by his own word, and by this visible world, is God perceived of men; which is also the understood language of the Almighty, vouchsafed to all his creatures, whose hieroglyphical characters are the unnumbered stars, the sun, and moon; written on these large volumes of the firmament; written also on the earth and the seas, by the letters of all those living creatures, and plants, which inhabit and reside therein. Therefore said that learned fCusanus, Mundus universus nihil aliud est,quam Deus explicatus; "The world "universal is nothing else but God expressed." And the invisible things of God, saith & St. Paul, are seen by his creation of the world, being considered in his creatures. all which there was no other cause preceding than his own will, no other matter than his own power, no other workman than his own word, no other consideration than his own infinite goodness. The example and pattern of these his creatures, as he beheld the same in all eternity in the abundance of his own love, so was it at length in the most wise order, by his unchanged will moved, by his high wisdom disposed, and by his almighty power perfected, and made visible. And therefore, saith Mirandula, we ought to love God, ex fide, et ex effectibus, that is, " both per"suaded by his word, and by the effects of the world's crea"tion:" Neque enim qui causa caret, ex causa et origine sciri cognoscique potest, sed vel ex rerum, quæ factæ sunt, quæ Origen, 1. 2. περὶ ἀρχῶν, C. 22. Cyril. et Chrys. in Joh. hom. 14. Greg. Naz. 1. 2. Theolog. Hier. in Esaiam. Aug. 1. 2. de Trin. c. 12. et 13. Greg. Magn. 1. 18. Mor. Evar. Ep. 1. Decret. Alcuin. 1. 2. de Trin. c. 16. D. Areop. c. 4. Col. Hierar. Thom. p. 2. q. 12. Art. 11. et alibi. Deus, qui natura invisibilis est, ut a Of visibilibus posset sciri, opus fecit, quod' opificem sui visibiliter manifestaret, ut per certum incertum sciretur, et ille Deus omnium esse crederetur. Amb. in Epist. ad Rom. C. I. f Cusan. de Gen. Dialog. que fiunt et gubernantur, observatione et collatione, vel ex ipsius Dei verbo: "For he, of whom there is no higher cause, "cannot be known by any knowledge of cause or beginning," saith h Montanus," but either by the observing and conferring of things, which he hath, or doth create and govern, "or else by the word of God himself." 66 SECT. II. That the wisest of the heathen, whose authority is not to be despised, have acknowledged the world to have been created by God. THIS work and creation of the world did most of the ancient and learned philosophers acknowledge, though by divers terms and in a different manner expressed; I mean all those who are entitled by St. Augustine, summi philosophi, "philosophers of highest judgment and understanding.” Mercurius Trismegistus calleth God, Principium universorum, “the original of the universal;" to whom he giveth also the attributes of mens, natura, actus, necessitas, finis, et renovatio. And wherein he truly, with St. Paul, casteth upon God all power; confessing also, that the world was made by God's almighty word, and not by hands: Verbo, non manibus, fabricatus est mundus. Zoroaster (whom Heraclitus followed in opinion) took the word fire to express God by, (as in k Deuteronomy and in St. Paul it is used,) Omnia ex uno igne genita sunt; "All things," saith he, "are caused or produced out of one fire." So did Orpheus plainly teach that the world had beginning in time, from the will of the most high God: whose remarkable words are thus converted; m Cum abscondisset omnia Jupiter summus, deinde in lumen gratum emisit, ex sacro corde operans cogitata et mirabilia: of which I conceive this sense: "When great Jupiter had hidden all things in himself, working out of the love of his sacred 66 heart, he sent thence, or brought forth, into grate |
