Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

100 FRANCIS BACON
some " laud and thanks to God for his
marvellous works, with
prayers imploring His ayde and blessing for the illumination of
our labours, and the turning of them to good and holy uses.
Bright, witty, and humourous as Francis naturally was, sanguine
and hopeful as was his disposition, there is yet a strain of
melancholy in most of his writings. " A gravity beyond his
years " in youth — in mature age a look " as though he pitied
men. " And he did pity them; he grieved and was oppressed at
the thought that " man, the most excellent and noble, the principal
and mighty work of God, wonder of nature, created in
God's image, put into paradise to know him and glorify him, and
to do his will— that this most noble creature,
pitiful change!
is fallen from his first estate, and must eat his meat in sorrow,
subject to death and all manner of intirmities, all kinds of
calamities which befall him in this life, and perad venture eternal
misery in the life to come. "*
The more he cogitated, the more he was assured that the
cause of all this sin and misery is ignorance.
" Ignorance is the
curse of God, but knowledge is the wing by which we fly to
heaven." 2
He reflected that " God created man in His own image, in a
reasonable soul, in innocency, in free-will, in sovereignty. That
He gave him a law and commandment which was in his power
to keep, but ho kept it not; but made a total defection from
God. . . . That upon the fall of man, death and vanity entered
by the justice of God, and the image of God was defaced,
and heaven and earth, which were made for man's use, were
subdued to corruption by his fall, . . . but that the law of
nature was first imprinted in that remnant of light of nature
which was left after the fall ; . . . that the sufferings and
merits of Christ, as they are sufficient to do away the sins of
the whole world, so they are only effectual to those who are
regenerate by the Holy Ghost, who breatheth where He
will, of free grace which quickeneth the spirit of a man.
1 Anatomy of Melancholy, i. 174.
2 3 Heniy YI. iv. 7.