2 1 o The Advancement of Learning 



suffer eth 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 Hght of nature. So we see the heathen 

 poets, when they fall upon a libertine passion, do still 

 expostulate with laws and moraUties, as if they were 

 opposite and malignant to nature; 



Et quod natura remittit, 

 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 GrcBcia, and that he held them for excellent 

 men : hut that they had a fault, which was that they had in too 

 great reverence and veneration a thing which 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 

 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, 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 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 rehgion our 

 reasonable service of God ; ^ insomuch as the very ceremonies 

 and figures of the old law were full of reason and significa- 

 tion, much more than the ceremonies of idolatry and magic, 

 that are full of non-significants and surd characters. But 

 most especially the Christian faith, as in all things, so in 



» Matth. V. 44. • Virg. Mn. i. 328. » Ovid, Met. x. 330. 



• Plut. Alexander. 65— etf^uer? fikv avri^ yeyov^uai doKov<rip ol AvSfKt, 

 \lav 8^ Tovs vdfiovt al<rxvp6fieyoi /Se/SiwWi'ot. 



• Rom. xii. i. 



