Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients. Francis Bacon

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies, than in any constant belief; for you may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors and fathers of their church were the poets. But the true God hath this attribute, that he is a jealous God; and therefore his worship and religion will endure no mixture nor partner. We shall therefore speak a few words concerning the unity of the church; what are the fruits thereof; what the bounds; and what the means.

      The fruits of unity (next unto the well-pleasing of God, which is all in all), are two; the one towards those that are without the church, the other towards those that are within. For the former, it is certain that heresies and schisms are, of all others, the greatest scandals, yea, more than corruption of manners; for as in the natural body a wound or solution of continuity is worse than a corrupt humor, so in the spiritual; so that nothing doth so much keep men out of the church, and drive men out of the church, as breach of unity; and therefore, whensoever it cometh to that pass that one saith, “Ecce in Deserto,”69 another saith, “Ecce in penetralibus;”70 that is, when some men seek Christ in the conventicles of heretics, and others in an outward face of a church, that voice had need continually to sound in men’s ears, “nolite exire,” “go not out.” The doctor of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation drew him to have a special care of those without) saith: “If a heathen71 come in, and hear you speak with several tongues, will he not say that you are mad?” and, certainly, it is little better: when atheists and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in religion, it doth avert them from the church, and maketh them “to sit down in the chair of the scorners.”72 It is but a light thing to be vouched in so serious a matter, but yet it expresseth well the deformity. There is a master of scoffing, that, in his catalogue of books of a feigned library, sets down this title of a book, “The Morris-Dance73 of Heretics;” for, indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse posture, or cringe, by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldlings and depraved politicians, who are apt to contemn holy things.

      As for the fruit towards those that are within, it is peace, which containeth infinite blessings; it establisheth faith; it kindleth charity; the outward peace of the church distilleth into peace of conscience, and it turneth the labors of writing and reading of controversies into treatises of mortification and devotion.

      Concerning the bounds of unity, the true placing of them importeth exceedingly. There appear to be two extremes; for to certain zealots all speech of pacification is odious. “Is it peace, Jehu?”—“What hast thou to do with peace? turn thee behind me.”74 Peace is not the matter, but following, and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans75 and lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways, and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements, as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man. Both these extremes are to be avoided; which will be done if the league of Christians, penned by our Saviour himself, were in the two cross clauses thereof soundly and plainly expounded: “He that is not with us is against us;”76 and again, “He that is not against us, is with us;” that is, if the points fundamental, and of substance in religion, were truly discerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention. This is a thing may seem to many a matter trivial, and done already; but if it were done less partially, it would be embraced more generally.

      Of this I may give only this advice, according to my small model. Men ought to take heed of rending God’s church by two kinds of controversies; the one is, when the matter of the point controverted is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled only by contradiction; for, as it is noted by one of the fathers, “Christ’s coat indeed had no seam, but the church’s vesture was of divers colors;” whereupon he saith, “In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit,”77 they be two things, unity and uniformity; the other is, when the matter of the point controverted is great, but it is driven to an over-great subtilty and obscurity, so that it becometh a thing rather ingenious than substantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within himself, that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet they themselves would never agree; and if it come so to pass in that distance of judgment, which is between man and man, shall we not think that God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in some of their contradictions, intend the same thing, and accepteth of both? The nature of such controversies is excellently expressed by St. Paul, in the warning and precept that he giveth concerning the same: “Devita profanas vocum novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiæ.”78 Men create oppositions which are not, and put them into new terms, so fixed as, whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect governeth the meaning. There be also two false peaces, or unities; the one, when the peace is grounded but upon an implicit ignorance; for all colors will agree in the dark; the other, when it is pieced up upon a direct admission of contraries in fundamental points; for truth and falsehood, in such things, are like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s image;79 they may cleave, but they will not incorporate.

      Concerning the means of procuring unity, men must beware that, in the procuring or muniting of religious unity, they do not dissolve and deface the laws of charity and of human society. There be two swords amongst Christians, the spiritual and temporal, and both have their due office and place in the maintenance of religion; but we may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet’s sword,80 or like unto it; that is, to propagate religion by wars, or, by sanguinary persecutions, to force consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish seditions, to authorize conspiracies and rebellions, to put the sword into the people’s hands, and the like, tending to the subversion of all government, which is the ordinance of God; for this is but to dash the first table against the second, and so to consider men as Christians, as we forget that they are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon, that could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed;—

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wBDAAMCAgMCAgMDAwMEAwMEBQgFBQQEBQoHBwYIDAoMDAsK CwsNDhIQDQ4RDgsLEBYQERMUFRUVDA8XGBYUGBIUFRT/2wBDAQMEBAUEBQkFBQkUDQsNFBQUFBQU FBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBT/wAARCAWgA4QDASIA AhEBAxEB/8QAHgAAAAYDAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQIDBAUGAAcICQr/xABeEAABAwMDAgQDBQUEBwQF ARkBAgMEAAURBhIhBzETIkFRCBRhCRUycYEWI0KRoVKxwdEXJDNiguHwcpKi8SVDU5OUstIYNDVj c0VVg4SzwkRkdKPTGSaVR1RWtMP/xAAYAQEBAQEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQIDBP/EAB4RAQEBAAID AQEBAAAAAAAAAAABESExQWFxAlES/9oADAMBAAIRAxEAPwDzqtEpwSwFLJaIJWVHgfWlb5K8VTSW nAprGTtPGfrR7wpp1hPyxQUBWXA3/QmmduU0iSC+AWcHdkZqB5YZXgl1LrgS1gEbjgZprdX1uzXC VZSD5MHjH0oLkppckljAZwNu0Y/OnloVFbZV84EYKsoCxn8/0oJC1TCbcnxHE+NghAWrlWO1QHzD /wAx4pWrxs9/XNZISrx1Z5JPBHYj0xU0lcb5HZlv7x8PGSOc+2ffFQO7nMUi3L8FxPjgDeEnJSPW oiwyHUXFACz4as+Jk8Y9zTWE24Jje3KVJVyT/CPXP0qXvC4z0QiAWyArLobGCR6H8qoNqSUstspZ cyyrO4oPc+2aPpiUvY8l5zDKcbVLPAPtk0xsOxDzi5G0RNuF+IPKT6D86NfQh15pcfaqJtwnwx5Q r1/WoAv0p9VxWnxFBtONm04GMd6sVnlLctrJeWnxyDgKOCoehqNsa4zEIC4FsAqy0HRkhP09hmoi 4tvKuDm5KlLUrKCnnI9MfTtQYJ0wTt/iOfMb/wAOT39sVbbtIcRbHzHWPHSkbgg5KR60iFsKh+F4 jIung7cnG/djtn3qvWhiQi6NBCVIWlWVlQxhPrn6YopzpmXJVc0o3rcaUCVhRyAMd6lNVS3m4rPg OYZWSFrbPr6DIob2pmTbnU20tLIUC8lgDcU/p3GaZaVSWlSHJGEQduFF3hJVnjv60D3SUp52M946 yWkEBC1n19RmmGp50pu5lsOLaaSkF СКАЧАТЬ