222 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



good to them that hate you : Be like to your heavenly 

 Father, that suffereth his rain to fall upon the just and 

 unjust. To this it ought to be applauded, Nee vox 

 hominem sonat : it is a voice beyond the light of 

 nature. So we see the heathen poets, when they fall 

 upon a libertine passion, do still expostulate with laws 

 and moralities, as if they were opposite and malignant 

 to nature ; Et quod natura remittit, invida jura ne- 

 gant. 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 perfection, 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 con 

 ceits 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, argument, 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 par 

 ticipant of some light and discerning touching the per 

 fection 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 ceremonies and figures of the old law were full 

 of reason and signification, much more than the cere 

 monies of idolatry and magic, that are full of non- 

 significants and surd characters. But most specially 



