reason itself hath taught us: and this is
the beginning of knowledge. "Sapientia praecedit, Religio sequitur:
quia prius est Deum scire, consequens colere"; "Sapience goes before,
Religion follows: because it is first to know God, and then to worship
Him." This sapience Plato calleth "absoluti boni scientiam," "the
science of the absolute good": and another "scientiam rerum primarum,
sempiternarum, perpetuarum"[40] For "faith (saith Isidore) is not
extorted by violence; but by reason and examples persuaded": "fides
nequaquam vi extorquetur, sed ratione et exemplis suadetur." I confess
it, that to inquire further, as to the essence of God, of His power,
of His art, and by what means He created the world: or of His secret
judgment, and the causes, is not an effect of reason. "Sed cum ratione
insaniunt," but "they grow mad with reason," that inquire after it.
For as it is no shame, nor dishonor (saith a French author) "de faire
arrest au but qu'on nasceu surpasser," "for a man to rest himself
there where he finds it impossible to pass on further": so whatsoever
is beyond, and out of the reach of true reason, it acknowledged it to
be so; as understanding itself not to be infinite, but according to
the name and nature it hath, to be a teacher, that best knows the end
of his own art. For seeing both reason and necessity teach us (reason,
which is "pars divini spiritus in corpus humanum mersi"[41]) that the
world was made by a power infinite; and yet how it was made, it cannot
teach us: and seeing the same reason and necessity make us know,
that the same infinite power is everywhere in the world; and yet how
everywhere, it cannot inform us: our belief hereof is not weakened,
but greatly strengthened, by our ignorance, because it is the same
reason that tells us, that such a nature cannot be said to be God,
that can be in all conceived by man.

I have already been over-long, to make any large discourse either of
the parts of the following story, or in mine own excuse: especially in
the excuse of this or that passage; seeing the whole is exceeding
weak and defective. Among the grossest, the unsuitable division of
the books, I could not know how to excuse, had I not been directed to
enlarge the building after the foundation was laid, and the first
part finished. All men know that there is no great art in the dividing
evenly of these things, which are subject to number and measure. For
the rest, it suits well enough with a great