SECT. I.

CENT. XVII. and visionary and groundless fancies, were deprived of the fallacious arguments by which they maintained their errors. It cannot also be denied, that the cause of religion received considerable benefit from the labours of those, who either endeavoured to preserve the purity and elegance of the Latin language, or who, beholding with emulation the example of the French, employed their industry in improving and polishing the languages of their respective countries. For it must be evidently both honourable and advantageous to the christian church to have always, in its bosom, men of learning, qualified to write and discourse upon theological subjects with precision, elegance, ease, and perspicuity, that so the ignorant and perverse may be allured to receive instruction, and also be able to comprehend with facility the instructions they receive.

The law of nature is studied

tion.

XXIX. The rules of morality and practice, which with atten- were laid down in the sacred writings, by Christ and his apostles, assumed an advantageous form, received new illustrations, and were supported upon new and solid principles, when that great system of law, that results from the constitution of nature, and the dictates of right reason, began to be studied with more diligence, and investigated with more accuracy and perspicuity than had been the case in preceding ages. In this sublime study of the law of nature, the immortal Grotius led the way in his excellent book Concerning the Rites of War and Peace; and such was the dignity and importance of the subject, that his labours excited the zeal and emulation of men of the most eminent genius and abilities, who turned their principal attention to this noble science. How much the labours of these great men contributed to assist the ministers of the gospel, both in their discourses and writings concerning the duties and obligations of christians,

See Adam. Frid. Glafey, Historia Juris Nature; to which is subjoined his Bibliotheca Juris Naturæ et Gentium.

SECT. I.

may be easily seen by comparing the books of a CENT.XVIL practical kind that have been published since the period now under consideration, with those that were in vogue before that time. [There is scarcely a discourse upon any subject of christian morality, how inconsiderable soever it may be, that does not bear some marks of the improvement which was introduced into the science of morals by those great men, who studied that science in the paths of nature, in the frame and constitution of rational and moral beings, and in the relations by which they are rendered members of one great family, under the inspection and government of one common and universal Parent.] It is unquestionably certain, that since this period the dictates of natural law, and the duties of christian morality, have been more accurately defined; certain evangelical precepts, whose nature and foundations were but imperfectly comprehended in the times of old, more clearly illustrated; the superiority which distinguishes the morality of the gospel from that course of duty that is deducible from the mere light of nature, more fully demonstrated; and those common notions and general principles, which are the foundations of moral obligation, and are every way adapted to dispel all doubts that may arise, and all controversies that may be started, concerning the nature of evangelical righteousness and virtue, established with greater evidence and certainty. It may also be added, that the impiety of those infidels who have had the effrontery to maintain, that the precepts of the gospel are contrary to the dictates of sound reason, repugnant to the constitution of our nature, inconsistent with the interests of civil society, adapted to enervate the mind, and to draw men off from the business, the duties, and enjoyments of life, has been much

e

& This sentence, beginning with There is scarcely a discourse, and ending with Universal Parent, is added by the translator.

• Rouss. Contr. Soc.

SECT. I.

CENT. XVIL more triumphantly refuted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, than in any other period of the christian church.

The state of

the aristoteli

celsistic philo

sophy.

xxx. To these reflections upon the state of learnan and para ing and science in general, it may not be improper to add a particular and separate account of the progress and revolutions of philosophy in the christian schools. At the beginning of this century almost all the European philosophers were divided into two classes, one of which comprehended the peripatetics, and the other the chemists, or fire philosophers, as they were often styled. These two classes contended warmly for many years which should have the pre-eminence; and a great number of laboured and subtile productions were published during the course of this philosophical contest. The peripatetics were in possession of the professorships in almost all the schools of learning, and looked upon all such as presumed either to reject, or even amend the doctrines of Aristotle, as objects of in- · dignation, little less criminal than traitors and rebels. It is however observable, that the greatest part of these supercilious and persecuting doctors, if we except those of the acade.nies of Tubingen, Altorf, Juliers, and Leipsic, were less attached to Aristotle himself than to his modern interpreters and commentators. The chemists spread themselves through almost all Europe, and assumed the obscure and ambiguous title of rosecrucian brethren,

The title of rosecrucians evidently denotes the chemical philosophers, and those who blended the doctrines of religion with the secrets of chemistry. The denomination itself is drawn from the science of chemistry; and they only, who are acquainted with the peculiar language of the chemists can understand its true signification and energy. It is not compounded, as many imagine, of the two words rosa and crux, which signify rose and cross, but of the latter of these words, and the Latin word ros, which signifies dew. Of all natural bodies, dew is the most powerful dissolvent of gold. The cross, in the chemical style, is equivalent to light; because the figure of the cross X exhibits, at the

SECT. I.

which drew at first some degree of respect, as it CENT. XVII. seemed to be borrowed from the arms of Luther, which were a cross placed upon a rose. They inveighed against the peripatetics with a singular degree of bitterness and animosity, represented them as corrupters both of religion and philosophy, and published a multitude of treatises against them, which discovered little else than their folly and their malice. At the head of these fanatics were Robert Fludd, a native of England, and a man of surprising genius; Jacob Behmen, a shoemaker, who lived at Gorlitz; and Michael Mayer. These

same time, the three letters of which the word lux, i. e. light is compounded. Now lux is called by this sect the seed or menstrum of the red dragon; or, in other words, that gross and corporeal light, which, when properly digested and modified, produces gold. From all this it follows, that a rosecrucian philosopher is one, who, by the intervention and assistance of the dew, seeks for light, or in other words, the substance called the philosopher's stone. All other explications of this term are false and chimerical. The interpretations that are given of it by the chem. ists, who love, on all occasions, to involve themselves in intricacy and darkness, are invented merely to deceive those who are strangers to their mysteries. The true energy and meaning of this denomination of rosecrucians did not escape the penetration and sagacity of Gassendi, as appears by his Examen philosophie Fluddanæ, § xv. tom. iii. opp. p. 261. It was however still more fully explained by Renaudot, a famous French physician, in his Conferences Publiques, tom, iv. p. 87. There is a great number of materials and anecdotes relating to the fraternity, rules, observances, and writings of the rose crucians, who made such a noise in this century, to be found in Arnold's Kirchen und Ketzer Historie, part ii. p. 1114.

See for an account of this singular man, from whose writings Jacob Behmen derived all his mystical and rapturous doctrine, Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, vol. i. p. 610, and Histor. et Antiqq. Academiæ Oxoniensis, lib. ii. p. 308. For an account of Helmont, father and son, see Hen. Witte, Memor. Philosoph. Joach. Frid. Feller, in Miscellan. Leibnitian. Several writers beside Arnoldi have given an account of Jacob Behmen.* See Molleri Cimbria Literata, tom. i. p. 376.

•See for a further account of Jacob Behmen, sect. ii. part ii. chap. i. § xl. of this history.

SECT. I.

CENT.XVII. leaders of the sect were followed by John Baptist Helmont, and his son Francis, Christian Knorrius de Rosenroth, Kuhlman, Nollius, Sperber, and many others of various fame. An uniformity of opinion, and a spirit of concord, seem scarcely possible in such a society as this. For as a great part of its doctrine is derived from certain internal feelings, and certain flights of imagination, which can neither be comprehended nor defined, and is supported by certain testimonies of the external senses, whose reports are equally illusory and changeable; so it is remarkable, that among the more eminent writers of this sect, there are scarcely any two who adopt the same tenets and sentiments. There are nevertheless some common principles that are generally embraced, and that serve as a centre of union to the society. They all maintain, that the dissolution of bodies, by the power of fire, is the only way through which men can arrive at true wisdom, and come to discern the first principles of things. They all acknowledge a certain analogy and harmony between the powers of nature and the doctrines of religion, and believe that the Deity governs the kingdom of grace by the same laws with which he rules the kingdom of nature; and hence it is that they employ chemical denominations to express the truths of religion. They all hold, that there is a sort of divine energy, or soul diffused through the frame of the universe, which some call Archæus, others the Universal Spirit, and which others mention under different appellations. They all talk, in the most obscure and superstitious manner, of what they call the signatures of things, of the power of the stars over all corporeal beings, and their particular influence upon the human race, of the efficacy of magic, and the various ranks and orders of demons. In fine, they all agree in throwing out the most crude, incomprehensible notions and ideas, in the most obscure, quaint, and unusual expressions.