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The Christian Religion's Alliance with Folly
But not to run too far in that which is infinite. To speak briefly,
all Christian religion seems to have a kind of alliance with folly and
in no respect to have any accord with wisdom. Of which if you expect
proofs, consider first that boys, old men, women, and fools are more
delighted with religious and sacred things than others, and to that
purpose are ever next the altars; and this they do by mere impulse
of nature. And in the next place, you see that those first founders of
it were plain, simple persons and most bitter enemies of learning.
Lastly there are no sort of fools seem more out of the way than are
these whom the zeal of Christian religion has once swallowed up; so
that they waste their estates, neglect injuries, suffer themselves
to be cheated, put no difference between friends and enemies, abhor
pleasure, are crammed with poverty, watchings, tears, labors,
reproaches, loathe life, and wish death above all things; in short,
they seem senseless to common understanding, as if their minds lived
elsewhere and not in their own bodies; which, what else is it than
to be mad? For which reason you must not think it so strange if the
apostles seemed to be drunk with new wine, and if Paul appeared to
Festus to be mad.
But now, having once gotten on the lion's skin, go to, and I'll
show you that this happiness of Christians, which they pursue with
so much toil, is nothing else but a kind of madness and folly; far
be it that my words should give any offense, rather consider my
matter. And first, the Christians and Platonists do as good as agree
in this, that the soul is plunged and fettered in the prison of the
body, by the grossness of which it is so tied up and hindered that
it cannot take a view of or enjoy things as they truly are; and for
that cause their master defines philosophy to be a contemplation of
death, because it takes off the mind from visible and corporeal
objects, than which death does no more. And therefore, as long as
the soul uses the organs of the body in that right manner it ought, so
long it is said to be in good state and condition; but when, having
broken its fetters, it endeavors to get loose and assays, as it
were, a flight out of that prison that holds it in, they call it
madness; and if this happen through any distemper or indisposition
of the organs, then, by the common consent of every man, 'tis
downright madness.
And yet we see such kind of men foretell things to come, understand
tongues and letters they never learned before, and seem, as it were,
big with a kind of divinity. Nor is it to be doubted but that it
proceeds from hence, that the mind, being somewhat at liberty from the
infection of the body, begins to put forth itself in its native vigor.
And I conceive 'tis from the same cause that the like often happens to
sick men a little before their death, that they discourse in strain
above mortality as if they were inspired. Again, if this happens
upon the score of religion, though perhaps it may not be the same kind
of madness, yet 'tis so near it that a great many men would judge it
no better, especially when a few inconsiderable people shall differ
from the rest of the world in the whole course of their life. And
therefore it fares with them as, according to the fiction of Plato,
happens to those that being cooped up in a cave stand gaping with
admiration at the shadows of things; and that fugitive who, having
broke from them and returning to them again, told them he had seen
things truly as they were, and that they were the most mistaken in
believing there was nothing but pitiful shadows. For as this wise
man pitied and bewailed their palpable madness that were possessed
with so gross an error, so they in return laughed at him as a doting
fool and cast him out of their company.
In like manner the common sort of men chiefly admire those things
that are most corporeal and almost believe there is nothing beyond
them. Whereas on the contrary, these devout persons, by how much the
nearer anything concerns the body, by so much more they neglect it and
are wholly hurried away with the contemplation of things invisible.
For the one give the first place to riches, the next to their
corporeal pleasures, leaving the last place to their soul, which yet
most of them do scarce believe, because they can't see it with their
eyes. On the contrary, the others first rely wholly on God, the most
unchangeable of all things; and next him, yet on this that comes
nearest him, they bestow the second on their soul; and lastly, for
their body, they neglect that care and condemn and fly money as
superfluity that may be well spared; or if they are forced to meddle
with any of these things, they do it carelessly and much against their
wills, having as if they had it not, and possessing as if they
possessed it not.
There are also in each several things several degrees wherein
they disagree among themselves. And first as to the senses, though all
of them have more or less affinity with the body, yet of these some
are more gross and blockish, as tasting, hearing, seeing, smelling,
touching; some more removed from the body, as memory, intellect, and
the will. And therefore to which of these the mind applies itself,
in that lies its force. But holy men, because the whole bent of
their minds is taken up with those things that are most repugnant to
these grosser senses, they seem brutish and stupid in the common use
of them. Whereas on the contrary, the ordinary sort of people are best
at these, and can do least at the other; from whence it is, as we have
heard, that some of these holy men have by mistake drunk oil for wine.
Again, in the affections of the mind, some have a greater
commerce with the body than others, as lust, desire of meat and sleep,
anger, pride, envy; with which holy men are at irreconcilable
enmity, and contrary, the common people think there's no living
without them. And lastly there are certain middle kind of
affections, and as it were natural to every man, as the love of
one's country, children, parents, friends, and to which the common
people attribute no small matter; whereas the other strive to pluck
them out of their mind: unless insomuch as they arrive to that highest
part of the soul, that they love their parents not as parents- for
what did they get but the body? though yet we owe it to God, not them-
but as good men or women and in whom shines the image of that
highest wisdom which alone they call the chiefest good, and out of
which, they say, there is nothing to be beloved or desired.
And by the same rule do they measure all things else, so that
they make less account of whatever is visible, unless it be altogether
contemptible, than of those things which they cannot see. But they say
that in Sacraments and other religious duties there is both body and
spirit. As in fasting they count it not enough for a man to abstain
from eating, which the common people take for an absolute fast, unless
there be also a lessening of his depraved affections: as that he be
less angry, less proud, than he was wont, that the spirit, being
less clogged with its bodily weight, may be the more intent upon
heavenly things.
In like manner, in the Eucharist, though, say they, it is not to be
esteemed the less that 'tis administered with ceremonies, yet of
itself 'tis of little effect, if not hurtful, unless that which is
spiritual be added to it, to wit, that which is represented under
those visible signs. Now the death of Christ is represented by it,
which all men, vanquishing, abolishing, and, as it were, burying their
carnal affections, ought to express in their lives and conversations
that they may grow up to a newness of life and be one with him and the
same one among another. This a holy man does, and in this is his
only meditation. Whereas on the contrary, the common people think
there's no more in that sacrifice than to be present at the altar
and crowd next it, to have a noise of words and look upon the
ceremonies.
Nor in this alone, which we only proposed by way of example, but in
all his life, and without hypocrisy, does a holy man fly those
things that have any alliance with the body and is wholly ravished
with things eternal, invisible, and spiritual. For which cause there's
so great contrarity of opinion between them, and that too in
everything, that each party thinks the other out of their wits; though
that character, in my judgment, better agrees with those holy men than
the common people: which yet will be more clear if, as I promised, I
briefly show you that that great reward they so much fancy is
nothing else but a kind of madness.
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