Valerius Terminus | Page 9

those which
give to contemplation an overlarge scope, do offer too great a restraint
to natural and lawful knowledge, being unjustly jealous that every
reach and depth of knowledge wherewith their conceits have not been
acquainted, should be too high an elevation of man's wit, and a
searching and ravelling too far into God's secrets; an opinion that
ariseth either of envy (which is proud weakness and to be censured and
not confuted), or else of a deceitful simplicity. For if they mean that the
ignorance of a second cause doth make men more devoutly to depend
upon the providence of God, as supposing the effects to come
immediately from his hand, I demand of them, as Job demanded of his
friends, WILL YOU LIE FOR GOD AS MAN WILL FOR MAN TO
GRATIFY HIM? But if any man without any sinister humour doth
indeed make doubt that this digging further and further into the mine of

natural knowledge is a thing without example and uncommended in the
Scriptures, or fruitless; let him remember and be instructed; for behold
it was not that pure light of natural knowledge, whereby man in
paradise was able to give unto every living creature a name according
to his propriety, which gave occasion to the fall; but it was an aspiring
desire to attain to that part of moral knowledge which defineth of good
and evil, whereby to dispute God's commandments and not to depend
upon the revelation of his will, which was the original temptation. And
the first holy records, which within those brief memorials of things
which passed before the flood entered few things as worthy to be
registered but only lineages and propagations, yet nevertheless honour
the remembrance of the inventor both of music and works in metal.
Moses again (who was the reporter) is said to have been seen in all the
Egyptian learning, which nation was early and leading in matter of
knowledge. And Salomon the king, as out of a branch of his wisdom
extraordinarily petitioned and granted from God, is said to have written
a natural history of all that is green from the cedar to the moss, (which
is but a rudiment between putrefaction and an herb,) and also of all that
liveth and moveth. And if the book of Job be turned over, it will be
found to have much aspersion of natural philosophy. Nay, the same
Salomon the king affirmeth directly that the glory of God IS TO
CONCEAL A THING, BUT THE GLORY OF THE KING IS TO
FIND IT OUT, as if according to the innocent play of children the
divine Majesty took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them
found out; for in naming the king he intendeth man, taking such a
condition of man as hath most excellency and greatest commandment
of wits and means, alluding also to his own person, being truly one of
those clearest burning lamps, whereof himself speaketh in another
place, when he saith THE SPIRIT OF MAN IS AS THE LAMB, OF
GOD, WHEREWITH HE SEARCHETH ALL INWARDNESS; which
nature of the soul the same Salomon holding precious and inestimable,
and therein conspiring with the affection of Socrates who scorned the
pretended learned men of his time for raising great benefit of their
learning (whereas Anaxagoras contrariwise and divers others being
born to ample patrimonies decayed them in contemplation), delivereth
it in precept yet remaining, BUY THE TRUTH, AND SELL IT NOT;
AND SO OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE.

And lest any man should retain a scruple as if this thirst of knowledge
were rather an humour of the mind than an emptiness or want in nature
and an instinct from God, the same author defineth of it fully, saying,
GOD HATH MADE EVERY THING IN BEAUTY ACCORDING TO
SEASON; ALSO HE HATH SET THE WORLD IN MAN'S HEART,
YET CAN HE NOT FIND OUT THE WORK WHICH GOD
WORKETH FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END: declaring not
obscurely that God hath framed the mind of man as a glass capable of
the image of the universal world, joying to receive the signature thereof
as the eye is of light, yea not only satisfied in beholding the variety of
things and vicissitude of times, but raised also to find out and discern
those ordinances and decrees which throughout all these changes are
infallibly observed. And although the highest generality of motion or
summary law of nature God should still reserve within his own curtain,
yet many and noble are the inferior and secondary operations which are
within man's sounding. This is a thing which I cannot tell whether I
may so plainly speak as truly conceive, that as all knowledge appeareth
to be a plant of God's own planting, so it may seem the