" But men must know, that in this theatre
of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers
on. Neither could the like question ever have been received in the
Church, notwithstanding their Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors
sanctorum ejus, by which place they would exalt their civil death
and regular professions, but upon this defence, that the monastical
life is not simple contemplative, but performeth the duty either of
incessant prayers and supplications, which hath been truly esteemed
as an office in the Church, or else of writing or taking
instructions for writing concerning the law of God, as Moses did
when he abode so long in the mount. And so we see Enoch, the
seventh from Adam, who was the first contemplative and walked with
God, yet did also endow the Church with prophecy, which Saint Jude
citeth. But for contemplation which should be finished in itself,
without casting beams upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it
not.
(9) It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and Socrates,
and their schools and successions, on the one side, who placed
felicity in virtue simply or attended, the actions and exercises
whereof do chiefly embrace and concern society; and on the other
side, the Cyrenaics and Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and
made virtue (as it is used in some comedies of errors, wherein the
mistress and the maid change habits) to be but as a servant, without
which pleasure cannot be served and attended; and the reformed
school of the Epicureans, which placed it in serenity of mind and
freedom from perturbation; as if they would have deposed Jupiter
again, and restored Saturn and the first age, when there was no
summer nor winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one air and
season; and Herillus, which placed felicity in extinguishment of the
disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of good and evil,
esteeming things according to the clearness of the desires, or the
reluctation; which opinion was revived in the heresy of the
Anabaptists, measuring things according to the motions of the
spirit, and the constancy or wavering of belief; all which are
manifest to tend to private repose and contentment, and not to point
of society.
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