What Nature Is

      [23] The words being to be understood of Lumen Naturale [natural light], according to the mindes of the best and most interpreters; it will be very needful to enquire what Nature is, and here we will be sure not to speak one word for Nature, which shall in the least measure tend to the eclipsing of Grace; nay, nothing but what shall make for the greater brightening and amplifying of the free Grace and distinguishing goodnesse of God in Christ; and nothing but what an Augustin, or a Bradwardin¹ those great Patrons of Grace would willingly set their seals unto.

      Well then, as for Nature, though it be not far from any one of us, though it be so intimate to our very beings; though it be printed and engraved upon our essences, and not upon ours only, but upon the whole Creation; and though we put all the letters and Characters of it together as well as we can, yet we shall finde it hard enough, to spell it out, and read what it is; for as it is in corporeal vision, the too much approximation and vicinity of an object do’s stop up and hinder sight, so ’tis also many times in Intellectual Opticks; we see something better at a distance; the soul cannot so easily see its own face, nor so fully explain its own nature. We need some Scholiast or Interpreter, to comment upon our own beings, and to acquaint us with our own Idiomes; and I meet with many Authors that speak of the light of Nature, but I can scarce finde one that tells us what it is. Those famous and learned Triumviri;² SELDEN, that has made it his work to write De Jure Naturali; and Grotius that has said somewhat of it in his book De Jure Belli & Pacis: and Salmasius that has toucht it in his late Treatise De Coma, and in his little Dialogue subordinate to it, in either of which, if he had pleased, he might have described it without a digression; yet none of these (as far as I can finde) give us the least adumbration of it; which notwithstanding was the rather to be expected from them, because the Philosophers had left it in such a cloudy and obscured manner, as if they had never seen Nature face to face, but only through a glasse darkly, and in a riddle. And as we reade of a Painter that represented Nature appearing to Aristotle with a veile and mask upon her face; so truly Aristotle himself painted her as he saw her, with her veile on, for he shews her only wrapt up and muffled in matter and forme, whereas methinks he that could set Intelligences to the wheele to spin out time and [24] motion, should have allowed them also some natural ability for performing so famous a task and imployment, which his head set them about. And truly why Angelical beings should be banished from the Common-wealth of Nature; nay, why they should not properly belong to Physicks as well as other particular beings; or why bodies only should engrosse and monopolize natural Philosophy, and why a soul cannot be admitted into it, unlesse it bring a certificate and commendamus from the body, is a thing altogether unaccountable, unlesse it be resolved into a meer Arbitrary determination, and a Philosophical kinde of Tyranny.

      And yet Aristotles description of Nature³ has been held very sacred, and some of the Schoolmen do even dote upon it. Aquinas tells us in plain termes, Deridendi sunt, qui volunt Aristotelis definitionem corrigere⁴ [those who desire to correct Aristotle’s definition should be laughed at]. The truth is, I make no question but that Aristotles definition is very commensurate to what he meant by Nature; but that he had the