254 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [XXV. 3. 



So we see the heathen poets, when they fall upon a 

 libertine passion, do still expostulate with laws and moral 

 ities, as if they were opposite and malignant to nature ; 

 Et quod natura remittit&amp;gt; invida jura negant. So said 

 Dendamis the Indian unto Alexander s messengers, that 

 he had heard somewhat of Pythagoras, and some other 

 of the wise men of Grecia, and that he held them for 

 excellent men : but that they had a fault, which was that 

 they had in too great reverence and veneration a thing 

 they called law and manners. So it must be confessed, 

 that a great part of the law moral is of that perfec 

 tion, whereunto the light of nature cannot aspire : how 

 then is it that man is said to have, by the light and law 

 of nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and vice, 

 justice and wrong, good and evil? Thus, because the 

 light of nature is used in two several senses ; the one, 

 that which springeth from reason, sense, induction, argu 

 ment, according to the laws of heaven and earth; the 

 other, that which is imprinted upon the spirit of man by 

 an inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, 

 which is a sparkle of the purity of his first estate; in 

 which latter sense only he is participant of some light 

 and discerning touching the perfection of the moral law : 

 but how ? sufficient to check the vice, but not to inform 

 the duty. So then the doctrine of religion, as well moral 

 as mystical, is not to be attained but by inspiration and 

 revelation from God. 



4. The use notwithstanding of reason in spiritual things, 

 and the latitude thereof, is very great and general : for it 

 is not for nothing that the apostle calleth religion our 

 reasonable service of God; insomuch as the very cere 

 monies and figures of the old law were full of reason and 

 signification, much more than the ceremonies of idolatry 



