and those religions some of them so phantasticall, exorbitant, so violently maintained with equall constancie and assurance; whence they infer, that if there be so many religious sects, and denyed by the rest, why may they not be all false? or why should this or that be preferred before the rest? The Scepticks urge this, and amongst others it is the conclusion of Sextus Empericus lib.8. advers. Mathematicos:

after many Philosophical arguments and reasons pro and con that there are Gods, and again that there are no Gods, he so concludes, cum tot inter se pugnent, &c. Una tantum potest esse vera, as Tully likewise disputes: Christians say, they alone worship the true God, pity all other sects, lament their case;

and yet those old Greeks and Romans that worshiped the Divel, as the China’s do now, aut Deos Topicos their own Gods; as Julian the Apostate, Cecilius in Minutius, Celsus and Porphyrius the Philosopher object: and as Machiavel contends, were much more noble, generous, victorious, had a more flourishing common-wealth, better Cities, better Souldiers, better Scholars, better wits. Their Gods often overcame our Gods, did as many miracles, &c.

Saint Cyril, Arnobius, Minutius, with many other ancients, of late Lessius, Morneus, Grotius de verit. Relig. Christianæ, Savanarola de verit. fidei Christianæ, well defend; but Zanchius, Campanella, Marinus Marcennus, Bozius, and Gentilettus answer all these Atheistical arguments at large. But this again troubles many as of old, wicked men generally thrive, professed Atheists thrive,

Nullos esse Deos, inane cœlum, Affirmat Selius: probatque, quod se Factum, dum negat hæc, videt beatum;

There are no Gods, heavens are toyes, Selius in publique justifies; Because that whil’st he thus denyes Their Deities, he better thrives.

This is a prime argument: and most part your most sincere, upright, honest, and good men are depressed, The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, (Eccles.9.11.) nor yet bread to the wise, favour nor riches to men of understanding, but time and chance comes to all.

There was a great plague in Athens (as Thucydides lib.2. relates) in which at last every man with great licentiousness, did what he list, not caring at all for Gods or mens laws. Neither the fear of God nor lawes of men (saith he) awed any man, because the plague swept all away alike, good and bad; they thence concluded it was alike to worship or not worship the Gods, since they perished all alike.

Some cavil and make doubts of Scripture it self, it cannot stand with Gods mercy, that so many should be damned, so many bad, so few good, such have and hold about religions, all stiffe on their side, factious alike, thrive alike, and yet bitterly persecuting and damning each other;

It cannot stand with Gods goodness, protection and providence (as Saint Chrysostome in the Dialect of such discontented persons) to see and suffer one man to be lame, another mad, a third poor and miserable all the dayes of his life, a fourth grievously tormented with sickness and aches, to his last hour. Are these signes and works of Gods providence, to let one man be deaf, another dumb?

A poor honest fellow lives in disgrace, wo and want, wretched he is; when as a wicked caitiffe abounds in superfluitie of wealth, keeps whores, parasites, and what he will himself: Audis Jupiter hæc? Talia multa connectentes, longum reprehensionis sermonem erga dei providentiam contexunt. Thus they mutter and object, (see the rest of their arguments in Marcennus in Genesin, and in Campanella, amply confuted) with many such vain cavils, well known, not worthy the recapitulation or answering, whatsoever they pretend, they are interim of little or no religion.

Cosin-germans to these men, are many of our great Philosophers, and Deists, who though they be more temperate in this life, give many good moral precepts, honest, upright, and sober in their conversation, yet in effect they are the same, (accompting no man a good Scholar that is not an Atheist) nimis altum sapiunt, too much learning makes them mad:

Whiles they attribute all to natural causes, contingence of all things, as Melancthon cals them, Pertinax hominum genus, a peevish Generation of men, that mis-led by Philosophy, and the Divels suggestion, their own innate blindness, deny God as much as the rest, hold all Religion a fiction, opposite to reason and Philosophy, though for fear of Magistrates, saith Vaninus, they durst not publikely profess it.

Ask one of them of what Religion he is, he scoffingly replies, a Philosoper, a Galenist, an Averroist, and with Rablais a Physitian, a Peripatetick, an Epicure. In spiritual things God must demonstrate all to sense, leave a pawn with them, or else seek some other creditor.

They will acknowledge nature and fortune, yet not God: though in effect they grant both: for as Scaliger defines, Nature signifies Gods ordinary power; or as Calvin writes, Nature is Gods order, and so things extraordinary may be called unnatural: Fortune his unrevealed will, and so we call things changeable that are beside reason and expectation.

To this purpose Minutius in Octavio, and Seneca well discourseth with them, lib.4. de beneficiis cap.5.6.7. They do not understand what they say; what is Nature but God? call him what thou wilt, Nature, Jupiter, he hath as many names as Offices: it comes all to one pass, God is the fountain of all, the first Giver and Preserver, from whom all things depend, à quo, & per quem omnia,

Nam quodcunque vides Deus est, quocunque moveris.

God is all in all, God is everywhere, in every place. And yet this Seneca that could confute and blame them, is all out as much to be blamed and confuted himself, as mad himself; for he holds fatum Stoicum, that inevitable necessity in the other extreme,

as those Chaldean Astrologers of old did, against whom the Prophet Jeremy so often Thunders, and those heathen Mathematicians, Nigidius Figulus, Magicians, and Priscilianists, whom S. Austin so eagerly confutes, those Arabian questionaries, Novem Judices, Albumazar, Dorotheus, &c. and our Country-man Estuidus ,

that take upon them to define out of those great conjunctions of Stars, with Ptolomeus, the periods of Kingdoms, of Religions, of all future Accidents, Wars, Plagues, Schismes, Heresies, and what not? all from Stars, and such things, saith Maginus, Quæ sibi & intelligentiis suis reservavit Deus, which God hath reserved to himself and his Angels, they will take upon them to foretell, as if Stars were immediate, inevitable causes of all future Accidents.

Cæsar Vaninus in his Book de admirandis naturæ Arcanis dial.52. de oraculis, is more free, copious and open in the explication of this Astrological Tenent of Ptolomy, than any of our modern Writers, Cardan excepted, a true disciple of his Master Pomponatius, according to the doctrine of Peripateticks, he refers all Apparitions, Prodigies, Miracles, Oracles, Accidents, Alterations of Religions, Kingdoms, &c. (for which he is soundly lashed by Marinus Marcennus, as well he deserves) to natural causes,

(for spirits he will not acknowledge) to that light, motion, influences of Heavens and Stars, and to the Intelligences that move the Orbes. Intelligentia quæ movet orbem mediante Cœlo, &c. Intelligences do all: and after a long Discourse of Miracles done of old, si hæc dæmones possint, cur non & intelligentiæ cœlorum motrices?

And as these great Conjunctions, Aspects of Planets begin or end, vary, are vertical and predominant, so have Religions, Rites, Ceremonies, and Kingdoms their beginning, progress, periods, in Urbibus, Regibus, Religionibus, ac in particularibus hominibus hæc vera ac manifesta sunt, ut Aristoteles innuere videtur, & quotidiana docet experientia, ut historias perlegens videbit;

quid olim in Gentili lege Jove sanctius & illustrius? Quid nunc vile magis & execrandum? Ita cœlestia corpora pro mortalium beneficio religiones ædificant, & cum cessat influxus, cessat lex, &c.

And because according to their Tenents, the world is eternal, intelligences eternal, Influences of Stars eternal, Kingdoms, Religions, alterations shall be likewise eternal, and run round after many Ages; Atque iterum ad Troiam magnus mittetur Achilles; renascentur Religiones, & Ceremoniæ, res humanæ in idem recident, nihil nunc quod non olim fuit, & post sæculorum revolutiones alias est, erit, &c. idem specie, saith Vaninus, non individuo quod Plato significavit.

These (saith mine Author) these are the Decrees of Peripateticks, which though I recite, in obsequium Christianæ fidei detestor, as I am a Christian I detest and hate. Thus Peripateticks and Astrologians held in former times,