Concerning fortitude; sith evils great and unexpected (the true touchstone of constant minds) do cause oftentimes even them to think upon divine power with fearfullest suspicions, which have been otherwise the most secure despisers thereof⁹; how should we look for any constant resolution of mind in such cases, saving only where unfeigned affection to God-ward hath bred the most assured confidence to be assisted by his hand? For proof whereof, let but the acts of the ancient Jews be indifferently weighed; from whose magnanimity, in causes of most extreme hazard, those strange and unwonted resolutions have grown, which for all circumstances no people under the roof of heaven did ever hitherto match. And that which did always animate them was their mere religion.

Without which, if so be it were possible that all other ornaments of mind might be had in their full perfection, nevertheless the mind that should possess them divorced from piety could be but a spectacle of commiseration; even as that body is, which adorned with sundry other admirable beauties, wanteth eyesight, the chiefest grace that nature hath in that kind to bestow. They which commend so much the felicity of that innocent world, wherein it is said that men of their own accord did embrace fidelity and honesty, not for fear of the magistrate, or because revenge was before their eyes, if at any time they should do otherwise, but that which held the people in awe was the shame of ill-doing, the love of equity and right itself a bar against all oppressions which greatness of power causeth; they which describe unto us any such estate of happiness amongst men, though they speak not of Religion, do notwithstanding declare that which is in truth her only working. For, if Religion did possess sincerely and sufficiently the hearts of all men, there would need no other restraint from evil. This doth not only give life and perfection to all endeavours wherewith it concurreth; but what event soever ensue, it breedeth, if not joy and gladness always, yet always patience, satisfaction, and reasonable contentment of mind. Whereupon it hath been set down as an axiom of good experience, that all things religiously taken in hand are prosperously ended¹⁰; because whether men in the end have that which religion did allow them to desire, or that which it teacheth them contentedly to suffer, they are in neither event unfortunate¹¹.

But lest any man should here conceive, that it greatly skilleth not of what sort our religion be, inasmuch as heathens, Turks, and infidels, impute to religion a great part of the same effects which ourselves ascribe thereunto, they having ours in the same detestation that we theirs; it shall be requisite to observe well, how far forth there may be agreement in the effects of different religions. First, by the bitter strife which riseth oftentimes from small differences in this behalf, and is by so much always greater as the matter is of more importance; we see a general agreement in the secret opinion of men, that every man ought to embrace the religion which is true, and to shun, as hurtful, whatsoever dissenteth from it, but that most, which doth farthest dissent. The generality of which persuasion argueth, that God hath imprinted it by nature, to the end it might be a spur to our industry in searching and maintaining that religion, from which as to swerve in the least points is error, so the capital enemies thereof God hateth as his deadly foes, aliens, and, without repentance, children of endless perdition. Such therefore touching man’s immortal state after this life are not likely to reap benefit by their religion, but to look for the clean contrary, in regard of so important contrariety between it and the true religion.

Nevertheless, inasmuch as the errors of the most seduced this way have been mixed with some truths, we are not to marvel, that although the one did turn to their endless woe and confusion, yet the other had many notable effects as touching the affairs of this present life. There were in these quarters of the world, sixteen hundred years ago, certain speculative men, whose authority disposed the whole religion of those times. By their means it became a received opinion, that the souls of men departing this life do flit out of one body into some other¹². Which opinion, though false, yet entwined with a true, that the souls of men do never perish, abated the fear of death in them which were so resolved, and gave them courage unto all adventures.

The Romans had a vain superstitious custom, in most of their enterprises to conjecture beforehand of the event by certain tokens which they noted in birds, or in the entrails of beasts, or by other the like frivolous divinations. From whence notwithstanding as oft as they could receive any sign which they took to be favourable, it gave them such hope, as if their gods had made them more than half a promise of prosperous success. Which many times was the greatest cause that they did prevail, especially being men of their own natural inclination hopeful and strongly conceited, whatsoever they took in hand. But could their fond superstition have furthered so great attempts without the mixture of a true persuasion concerning the unresistible force of divine power?

Upon the wilful violation of oaths, execrable blasphemies, and like contempts, offered by deriders of religion even unto false gods, fearful tokens of divine revenge have been known to follow. Which occurrents the devouter sort did take for manifest arguments, that the gods whom they worshipped were of power to reward such as sought unto them, and would plague those that feared them not. In this they erred. For (as the wise man rightly noteth concerning such) it was not the power of them by whom they sware, but the vengeance of them that sinned, which punished the offences of the ungodly¹³. It was their hurt untruly to attribute so great power unto false gods. Yet the right conceit which they had, that to perjury vengeance is due, was not without good effect as touching the course of their lives, who feared the wilful violation of oaths in that respect.

And whereas we read so many of them so much commended, some for their mild and merciful disposition, some for their virtuous severity, some for integrity of life, all these were the fruits of true and infallible principles delivered unto us in the word of God as the axioms of our religion, which being imprinted by the God of nature in their hearts also, and taking better root in some than in most others, grew, though not from, yet with and amidst the heaps of manifold repugnant errors; which errors of corrupt religion had also their suitable effects in the lives of the selfsame parties.

Without all controversy, the purer and perfecter our religion is, the worthier effects it hath in them who steadfastly and sincerely embrace it, in others not. They that love the religion which they profess, may have failed in choice, but yet they are sure to reap what benefit the same is able to afford; whereas the best and soundest professed by them that bear it not the like affection, yieldeth them, retaining it in that sort, no benefit. David was a “man after God’s own heart¹⁴,” so termed because his affection was hearty towards God. Beholding the like disposition in them which lived under him, it was his prayer to Almighty God, “O keep this for ever in the purpose and thoughts of the heart of this people¹⁵.” But when, after that David had ended his days in peace, they who succeeded him in place for the most part followed him not in quality; when those kings (some few excepted) to better their worldly estate, (as they thought,) left their own and their people’s ghostly condition uncared for; by woful experience they both did learn, that to forsake the true God of heaven, is to fall into all such evils upon the face of the earth, as men either destitute of grace divine may commit, or unprotected from above endure.

Seeing therefore it doth thus appear that the safety of all estates dependeth upon religion; that religion unfeignedly loved perfecteth men’s abilities unto all kinds of virtuous services in the commonwealth; that men’s desire is in general to hold no religion but the true; and that whatsoever good effects do grow out of their religion, who embrace instead of the true a false, the roots thereof are certain sparks of the light of truth intermingled with the darkness of error, because no religion can wholly and only consist of untruths: we have reason to think that all true virtues are to honour true religion as their parent, and all well-ordered commonweals to love her as their chiefest stay.

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Footnotes

1. [“All this coil is long of you,” Mids. N. Dream, 3. 2. 239, and so Love’s Lab. Lost, 2. 1. 119. Cp. Hales, Golden Remains, p. 206 (1673), “Let the world go well or ill, so it be not long of them:” with allusion to Hooker’s phrase.] 1886. ↩

2. Ps. cxliv. 2. [“My shield, and He in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.”] ↩

3. Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. 2. “Gaudere et gloriari ex fide semper volumus, scientes magis religionibus quam officiis et labore corporis vel sudore nostram Rempublicam contineri.” [t. vi. p. 44. ed. Gothofred.] ↩

4. Ἔστι δ’ οὐθὲν ἐν τοι̑ς πολιτικοι̑ς δυνατὸν πρα̑ξαι ἄνευ του̑ ποι̑όν τινα εἰ̑ναι, λέγω δὲ οἷον σπουδαι̑ον. Τὸ δὲ σπουδαι̑ον εἰ̑ναί ἐστι τὸ τὰς ἀρετὰς ἔχειν. Arist. Magn. Moral. lib. i. cap. 1. ↩

5. Ἀρχὴ δ’ ἀρίστη πάντων τω̑ν ὄντων Θεὸς, ἀρετω̑ν δ’ εὐσέβεια. Philo de Dec. Præcept. [p. 751. ed. Paris. 1640.] ↩

6. 2 Chron. xix. 6. [“Ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment.”] ↩

7. Ἀγαπητὸν μὲν γὰρ καὶ ἑνὶ μόνῳ, κάλλιον δὲ καὶ θειότερον ἔθνει καὶ πόλεσιν. Arist. Ethic. lib. i. cap. 2. ↩

8. [Eccles. xii. 9, 10.] ↩

9. Wisd. xvii. 13. [qu. 11.] ↩

10. Psalm i. 3. ↩

11. Τὸν γὰρ ὡς ἀληθω̑ς ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἔμϕρονα πα̑σας οἰόμεθα τὰς τύχας εὐσχημόνως ϕέρειν, καὶ ἐκ τω̑ν ὑπαρχόντων ἀεὶ τὰ κάλλιστα πράττειν. Arist. Ethic. lib. i. cap. 10. 13. ↩

12. Cæs. de Bell. Gall. lib. vi. [c. 13.] ↩

13. Wisd. xiv. 31. ↩

14. [1 Sam. xiii. 14.] ↩

15. 1 Chron. xxix. 18. ↩