THE SECOND BOOK. 139 



which is private and particular, as the Holy Faith ; well de 

 claring that it was the same God that gave the Christian law 

 to men, who gave those laws of nature to inanimate creatures 

 that we spake of before ; for we read that the elected saints of 

 God have wished themselves anathematised and razed out of 

 the book of life, in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of 

 communion. 



(8) This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge 

 and determine most of the controversies wherein moral philo 

 sophy is conversant. For first, it decideth the question 

 touching the preferment of the contemplative or active life, 

 and decideth it against Aristotle. For all the reasons which 

 he bringeth for the contemplative are private, and respecting 

 the pleasure and dignity of a man s self (in which respects no 

 question the contemplative life hath the pre-eminence), not 

 much unlike to that comparison which Pythagoras made for 

 the gracing and magnifying of philosophy and contemplation, 

 who being asked what he was, answered, &quot; That if Hiero were 

 ever at the Olympian games, he knew the manner, that some 

 came to try their fortune for the prizes, and some came as 

 merchants to utter their commodities, and some came to make 

 good cheer and meet their friends, and some came to look on ; 

 and that he was one of them that came to look on.&quot; But men 

 must know, that in this theatre of man s life it is reserved only 

 for God and angels to be lookers on. Neither could the like 

 question ever have been received in the Church, notwith 

 standing their Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors sanctorum ejus, 

 by which place they would exalt their civil death and regular 

 professions, but upon this defence, that the monastical life is 

 not simple contemplative, but performeth the duty either of 

 incessant prayers and supplications, which hath been truly 

 esteemed as an office in the Church, or else of writing or taking 

 instructions for writing concerning the law of God, as Moses 

 did when he abode so long in the mount. And so we see 

 Enoch, the seventh from Adam, who was the first contem 

 plative and walked with God, yet did also endow the Church 

 with prophecy, which Saint Jude citeth. But for contempla 

 tion which should be finished in itself, without casting beams 

 upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it not. 



(9) It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and 

 Socrates, and their schools and successions, on the one side, 

 who placed felicity in virtue simply or attended, the actions 

 and exercises whereof do chiefly embrace and concern society ; 

 and on the other side, the Cyrenaics and Epicureans, who 

 placed it in pleasure, and made virtue (as it is used in some 



