it by Form, or Nature, or by what you please) yet because they work by an impulsion, which they cannot resist, or by a faculty, infused by the supremest power; we are neither to wonder at, nor to worship, the faculty that worketh, nor the creature wherein it worketh.  But herein lies the wonder:  and to him is the worship due, who hath created such a nature in things, and such a faculty, as neither knowing itself, the matter wherein it worketh, nor the virtue and power which it hath; do yet work all things to their last and uttermost perfection.  And therefore every reasonable man, taking to himself for a ground that which is granted by all antiquity, and by all men truly learned that ever the world had; to wit; that there is a power infinite, and eternal (which also necessity doth prove unto us, without the help of faith, and reason; without the force of authority) all things do as easily follow which have been delivered by divine letters, as the waters of a running river do successfully pursue each other from the first fountains.

This much I say it is, that 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.