Part 4 (1/2)

4.--There is another offence unto charity, which no author hath ever written of, and few take notice of, and that's the reproach, not of whole professions, mys- teries, and conditions, but of whole nations, wherein by opprobrious epithets we miscall each other, and, by an uncharitable logick, from a disposition in a few, con- clude a habit in all.

Le mutin Anglois, et le bravache Escossois Le bougre Italien, et le fol Francois; Le poltron Romain, le larron de Gascogne, L'Espagnol superbe, et l'Alleman yvrogue.

St Paul, that calls the Cretians liars, doth it but in- directly, and upon quotation of their own poet.<88> It is as b.l.o.o.d.y a thought in one way as Nero's was in another.<89> For by a word we wound a thousand, and at one blow a.s.sa.s.sin the honour of a nation. It is as complete a piece of madness to miscall and rave against the times; or think to recall men to reason by a fit of pa.s.sion. Democritus, that thought to laugh the times into goodness, seems to me as deeply hypochondriack as Herac.l.i.tus, that bewailed them. It moves not my spleen to behold the mult.i.tude in their proper humours; that is, in their fits of folly and madness, as well under- standing that wisdom is not profaned unto the world; and it is the privilege of a few to be virtuous. They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also virtue; for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet the life of one another. Thus virtue (abolish vice) is an idea. Again, the community of sin doth not dis- parage goodness; for, when vice gains upon the major part, virtue, in whom it remains, becomes more excel- lent, and, being lost in some, multiplies its goodness in others, which remain untouched, and persist entire in the general inundation. I can therefore behold vice without a satire, content only with an admonition, or instructive reprehension; for n.o.ble natures, and such as are capable of goodness, are railed into vice, that might as easily be admonished into virtue; and we should be all so far the orators of goodness as to protect her from the power of vice, and maintain the cause of injured truth. No man can justly censure or condemn another; because, indeed, no man truly knows another.

This I perceive in myself; for I am in the dark to all the world, and my nearest friends behold me but in a cloud. Those that know me but superficially think less of me than I do of myself; those of my near ac- quaintance think more; G.o.d who truly knows me, knows that I am nothing: for he only beholds me, and all the world, who looks not on us through a derived ray, or a trajection of a sensible species, but beholds the substance without the help of accidents, and the forms of things, as we their operations. Further, no man can judge another, because no man knows himself; for we censure others but as they disagree from that humour which we fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and consent with us. So that in conclusion, all is but that we all condemn, self-love. 'Tis the general complaint of these times, and perhaps of those past, that charity grows cold; which I perceive most verified in those which do most manifest the fires and flames of zeal; for it is a virtue that best agrees with coldest natures, and such as are complexioned for humility. But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? ”Charity begins at home,”

is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were his own executioner.is the commandment of G.o.d, yet scarce observed by any man; for I perceive every man is his own Atropos, and lends a hand to cut the thread of his own days. Cain was not therefore the first murderer, but Adam, who brought in death; whereof he beheld the practice and example in his own son Abel; and saw that verified in the experience of another which faith could not per- suade him in the theory of himself.

5.--There is, I think, no man that apprehends his own miseries less than myself; and no man that so nearly apprehends another's. I could lose an arm without a tear, and with few groans, methinks, be quartered into pieces; yet can I weep most seriously at a play, and receive with a true pa.s.sion the counter- feit griefs of those known and professed impostures. It is a barbarous part of inhumanity to add unto any afflicted parties misery, or endeavour to multiply in any man a pa.s.sion whose single nature is already above his patience. This was the greatest affliction of Job, and those oblique expostulations of his friends a deeper injury than the down-right blows of the devil. It is not the tears of our own eyes only, but of our friends also, that do exhaust the current of our sorrows; which, falling into many streams, runs more peaceably, and is contented with a narrower channel. It is an act within the power of charity, to translate a pa.s.sion out of one breast into another, and to divide a sorrow almost out of itself; for an affliction, like a dimension, may be so divided as, if not indivisible, at least to become in- sensible. Now with my friend I desire not to share or partic.i.p.ate, but to engross, his sorrows; that, by mak- ing them mine own, I may more easily discuss them: for in mine own reason, and within myself, I can com- mand that which I cannot entreat without myself, and within the circle of another. I have often thought those n.o.ble pairs and examples of friends.h.i.+p, not so truly histories of what had been, as fictions of what should be; but I now perceive nothing in them but possibilities, nor anything in the heroick examples of Damon and Pythias, Achilles and Patroclus, which, methinks, upon some grounds, I could not perform within the narrow compa.s.s of myself. That a man should lay down his life for his friend seems strange to vulgar affections and such as confine themselves within that worldly principle, ”Charity begins at home.” For mine own part, I could never remember the relations that I held unto myself, nor the respect that I owe unto my own nature, in the cause of G.o.d, my country, and my friends. Next to these three, I do embrace myself.

I confess I do not observe that order that the schools ordain our affections,--to love our parents, wives, chil- dren, and then our friends; for, excepting the injunc- tions of religion, I do not find in myself such a neces- sary and indissoluble sympathy to all those of my blood.

I hope I do not break the fifth commandment, if I conceive I may love my friend before the nearest of my blood, even those to whom I owe the principles of life.

I never yet cast a true affection on a woman; but I have loved my friend, as I do virtue, my soul, my G.o.d.

From hence, methinks, I do conceive how G.o.d loves man; what happiness there is in the love of G.o.d.

Omitting all other, there are three most mystical unions; two natures in one person; three persons in one nature; one soul in two bodies. For though, in- deed, they be really divided, yet are they so united, as they seem but one, and make rather a duality than two distinct souls.

This n.o.ble affection falls not on vulgar and common const.i.tutions; but on such as are marked for virtue.

He that can love his friend with this n.o.ble ardour will in a competent degree effect all. Now, if we can bring our affections to look beyond the body, and cast an eye upon the soul, we have found out the true object, not only of friends.h.i.+p, but charity: and the greatest happi- ness that we can bequeath the soul is that wherein we all do place our last felicity, salvation; which, though it be not in our power to bestow, it is in our charity and pious invocations to desire, if not procure and further.

I cannot contentedly frame a prayer for myself in par- ticular, without a catalogue for my friends; nor request a happiness wherein my sociable disposition doth not desire the fellows.h.i.+p of my neighbour. I never hear the toll of a pa.s.sing bell, though in my mirth, with- out my prayers and best wishes for the departing spirit.

I cannot go to cure the body of my patient, but I forget my profession, and call unto G.o.d for his soul. I can- not see one say his prayers, but, instead of imitating him, I fall into supplication for him, who perhaps is no more to me than a common nature: and if G.o.d hath vouchsafed an ear to my supplications, there are surely many happy that never saw me, and enjoy the blessing of mine unknown devotions. To pray for enemies, that is, for their salvation, is no harsh precept, but the practice of our daily and ordinary devotions. I cannot believe the story of the Italian;<90> our bad wishes and uncharit- able desires proceed no further than this life; it is the devil, and the uncharitable votes of h.e.l.l, that desire our misery in the world to come.

7.--”To do no injury nor take none” was a prin- ciple which, to my former years and impatient affections, seemed to contain enough of morality, but my more settled years, and Christian const.i.tution, have fallen upon severer resolutions. I can hold there is no such things as injury; that if there be, there is no such injury as revenge, and no such revenge as the contempt of an injury: that to hate another is to malign himself; that the truest way to love another is to despise ourselves.

I were unjust unto mine own conscience if I should say I am at variance with anything like myself. I find there are many pieces in this one fabrick of man; this frame is raised upon a ma.s.s of antipathies: I am one methinks but as the world, wherein notwithstanding there are a swarm of distinct essences, and in them another world of contrarieties; we carry private and domestick enemies within, public and more hostile ad- versaries without. The devil, that did but buffet St Paul, plays methinks at sharp<91> with me. Let me be nothing, if within the compa.s.s of myself, I do not find the battle of Lepanto,<92> pa.s.sion against reason, reason against faith, faith against the devil, and my conscience against all. There is another man within me that's angry with me, rebukes, commands, and dastards me.

I have no conscience of marble, to resist the hammer of more heavy offences: nor yet so soft and waxen, as to take the impression of each single peccadillo or scape of infirmity. I am of a strange belief, that it is as easy to be forgiven some sins as to commit some others. For my original sin, I hold it to be washed away in my baptism; for my actual transgressions, I compute and reckon with G.o.d but from my last repentance, sacra- ment, or general absolution; and therefore am not terrified with the sins or madness of my youth. I thank the goodness of G.o.d, I have no sins that want a name.

I am not singular in offences; my transgressions are epidemical, and from the common breath of our corrup- tion. For there are certain tempers of body which, matched with a humorous depravity of mind, do hath and produce vitiosities, whose newness and monstrosity of nature admits no name; this was the temper of that lecher that carnaled with a statua, and the const.i.tution of Nero in his spintrian recreations. For the heavens are not only fruitful in new and unheard-of stars, the earth in plants and animals, but men's minds also in villany and vices. Now the dulness of my reason, and the vulgarity of my disposition, never prompted my in- vention nor solicited my affection unto any of these;-- yet even those common and quotidian infirmities that so necessarily attend me, and do seem to be my very nature, have so dejected me, so broken the estimation that I should have otherwise of myself, that I repute myself the most abject piece of mortality. Divines pre- scribe a fit of sorrow to repentance: there goes indigna- tion, anger, sorrow, hatred, into mine, pa.s.sions of a con- trary nature, which neither seem to suit with this action, nor my proper const.i.tution. It is no breach of charity to ourselves to be at variance with our vices, nor to abhor that part of us, which is an enemy to the ground of charity, our G.o.d; wherein we do but imitate our great selves, the world, whose divided antipathies and contrary faces do yet carry a charitable regard unto the whole, by their particular discords preserving the com- mon harmony, and keeping in fetters those powers, whose rebellions, once masters, might be the ruin of all.

8.--I thank G.o.d, amongst those millions of vices I do inherit and hold from Adam, I have escaped one, and that a mortal enemy to charity,--the first and father sin, not only of man, but of the devil,--pride; a vice whose name is comprehended in a monosyllable, but in its nature not circ.u.mscribed with a world, I have escaped it in a condition that can hardly avoid it. Those petty acquisitions and reputed perfections, that advance and elevate the conceits of other men, add no feathers unto mine. I have seen a grammarian tower and plume himself over a single line in Horace, and show more pride, in the construction of one ode, than the author in the composure of the whole book. For my own part, besides the jargon andof several provinces, I understand no less than six languages; yet I protest I have no higher conceit of myself than had our fathers before the confusion of Babel, when there was but one language in the world, and none to boast himself either linguist or critick. I have not only seen several coun- tries, beheld the nature of their climes, the chorography of their provinces, topography of their cities, but under- stood their several laws, customs, and policies; yet cannot all this persuade the dulness of my spirit unto such an opinion of myself as I behold in nimbler and conceited heads, that never looked a degree beyond their nests. I know the names and somewhat more of all the constellations in my horizon; yet I have seen a prating mariner, that could only name the pointers and the north-star, out-talk me, and conceit himself a whole sphere above me. I know most of the plants of my country, and of those about me, yet methinks I do not know so many as when I did but know a hundred, and had scarcely ever simpled further than Cheapside.

For, indeed, heads of capacity, and such as are not full with a handful or easy measure of knowledge, think they know nothing till they know all; which being impossible, they fall upon the opinion of Socrates, and only know they know not anything. I cannot think that Homer pined away upon the riddle of the fisher- men, or that Aristotle, who understood the uncertainty of knowledge, and confessed so often the reason of man too weak for the works of nature, did ever drown him- self upon the flux and reflux of Euripus.<93> We do but learn, to-day, what our better advanced judgments will unteach to-morrow; and Aristotle doth but instruct us, as Plato did him, that is, to confute himself. I have run through all sorts, yet find no rest in any: though our first studies and junior endeavours may style us Peripateticks, Stoicks, or Academicks, yet I perceive the wisest heads prove, at last, almost all Scepticks,<94> and stand like Ja.n.u.s in the field of knowledge. I have therefore one common and authentick philosophy I learned in the schools, whereby I discourse and satisfy the reason of other men; another more reserved, and drawn from experience, whereby I content mine own.

Solomon, that complained of ignorance in the height of knowledge, hath not only humbled my conceits, but discouraged my endeavours. There is yet another con- ceit that hath sometimes made me shut my books, which tells me it is a vanity to waste our days in the blind pursuit of knowledge: it is but attending a little longer, and we shall enjoy that, by instinct and infusion, which we endeavour at here by labour and inquisition. It is better to sit down in a modest ignorance, and rest con- tented with the natural blessing of our own reasons, than by the uncertain knowledge of this life with sweat and vexation, which death gives every fool gratis, and is an accessary of our glorification.

9.--I was never yet once, and commend their resolutions who never marry twice. Not that I dis- allow of second marriage; as neither in all cases of poly- gamy, which considering some times, and the unequal number of both s.e.xes, may be also necessary. The whole world was made for man, but the twelfth part of man for woman. Man is the whole world, and the breath of G.o.d; woman the rib and crooked piece of man. I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar way of coition: it is the foolishest act a wise man com- mits in all his life, nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath com- mitted. I speak not in prejudice, nor am averse from that sweet s.e.x, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful. I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an horse. It is my temper, and I like it the better, to affect all harmony; and sure there is musick, even in the beauty and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is a musick wher- ever there is a harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may maintain ”the musick of the spheres:” for those well-ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understand- ing they strike a note most full of harmony. Whatso- ever is harmonically composed delights in harmony, which makes me much distrust the symmetry of those heads which declaim against all church-musick. For myself, not only from my obedience but my particular genius I do embrace it: for even that vulgar and tavern- musick which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of the first composer. There is some- thing in it of divinity more than the ear discovers: it is an hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole world, and creatures of G.o.d,--such a melody to the ear, as the whole world, well understood, would afford the understanding. In brief, it is a sensible fit of that harmony which intellectually sounds in the ears of G.o.d.

I will not say, with Plato, the soul is an harmony, but harmonical, and hath its nearest sympathy unto musick: thus some, whose temper of body agrees, and humours the const.i.tution of their souls, are born poets, though indeed all are naturally inclined unto rhythm. This made Tacitus, in the very first line of his story, fall upon a verse;* and Cicero, the worst of poets, but declaim- ing for a poet, falls in the very first sentence upon a

* ”Urbem a Romam in principio reges habuere.”

perfect hexameter.* I feel not in me those sordid and unchristian desires of my profession; I do not secretly implore and wish for plagues, rejoice at famines, revolve ephemerides and almanacks in expectation of malignant aspects, fatal conjunctions, and eclipses. I rejoice not at unwholesome springs nor unseasonable winters: my prayer goes with the husbandman's; I desire everything in its proper season, that neither men nor the times be out of temper. Let me be sick myself, if sometimes the malady of my patient be not a disease unto me. I desire rather to cure his infirmities than my own neces- sities. Where I do him no good, methinks it is scarce honest gain, though I confess 'tis but the worthy salary of our well intended endeavours. I am not only ashamed but heartily sorry, that, besides death, there are diseases incurable; yet not for my own sake or that they be beyond my art, but for the general cause and sake of humanity, whose common cause I apprehend as mine own. And, to speak more generally, those three n.o.ble professions which all civil commonwealths do honour, are raised upon the fall of Adam, and are not any way exempt from their infirmities. There are not only diseases incurable in physick, but cases indissolv- able in law, vices incorrigible in divinity. If general councils may err, I do not see why particular courts should be infallible: their perfectest rules are raised upon the erroneous reasons of man, and the laws of one do but condemn the rules of another; as Aristotle oft- times the opinions of his predecessors, because, though agreeable to reason, yet were not consonant to his own rules and the logick of his proper principles. Again,-- to speak nothing of the sin against the Holy Ghost,

* ”In qua me non inferior mediocriter esse.”--.

whose cure not only, but whose nature is unknown,--I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than divinity, pride, or avarice in others. I can cure vices by physick when they remain incurable by divinity, and they shall obey my pills when they contemn their precepts. I boast nothing, but plainly say, we all labour against our own cure; for death is the cure of all diseases. There is noor universal remedy I know, but this, which though nauseous to queasy stomachs, yet to pre- pared appet.i.tes is nectar, and a pleasant potion of im- mortality.

10.--For my conversation, it is, like the sun's, with all men, and with a friendly aspect to good and bad. Methinks there is no man bad; and the worst best, that is, while they are kept within the circle of those qualities wherein they are good. There is no man's mind of so discordant and jarring a temper, to which a tuneable disposition may not strike a harmony.

it is the posy<95> of the best natures, and may be inverted on the worst.

There are, in the most depraved and venomous disposi- tions, certain pieces that remain untouched, which by an <96> become more excellent, or by the excellency of their antipathies are able to preserve them- selves from the contagion of their enemy vices, and persist entire beyond the general corruption. For it is also thus in nature: the greatest balsams do lie en- veloped in the bodies of the most powerful corrosives.

I say moreover, and I ground upon experience, that poisons contain within themselves their own antidote, and that which preserves them from the venom of them- selves; without which they were not deleterious to others only, but to themselves also. But it is the cor- ruption that I fear within me; not the contagion of commerce without me. 'Tis that unruly regiment within me, that will destroy me; 'tis that I do infect myself; the man without a navel<97> yet lives in me.

I feel that original canker corrode and devour me: and therefore,”Lord, deliver me from myself!” is a part of my litany, and the first voice of my retired imaginations. There is no man alone, because every man is a microcosm, and carries the whole world about him. * though it be the apothegm of a wise man is yet true in the mouth of a fool: for indeed, though in a wilderness, a man is never alone; not only because he is with himself, and his own thoughts, but because he is with the devil, who ever consorts with our solitude, and is that unruly rebel that musters up those disordered motions which accompany our sequestered imaginations.