The Works of Sir Thomas Browne Volume I Part 10

SECT. 42

It is not, I confess, an unlawful prayer to desire to surpa.s.s the days of our Saviour, or wish to outlive that age wherein he thought fittest to dye; yet if (as Divinity affirms) there shall be no gray hairs in Heaven, but all shall rise in the perfect state of men, we do but outlive those perfections in this World, to be recalled unto them by a greater Miracle in the next, and run on here but to be retrograde hereafter. Were there any hopes to outlive vice, or a point to be super-annuated from sin, it were worthy our knees to implore the days of _Methuselah_. But age doth not rectifie, but incurvate our natures, turning bad dispositions into worser habits, and (like diseases) brings on incurable vices; for every day as we grow weaker in age, we grow stronger in sin; and the number of our days doth make but our sins innumerable. The same vice committed at sixteen, is not the same, though it agree in all other circ.u.mstances, at forty, but swells and doubles from the circ.u.mstance of our ages, wherein, besides the constant and inexcusable habit of transgressing, the maturity of our judgement cuts off pretence unto excuse or pardon: every sin the oftner it is committed, the more it acquireth in the quality of evil; as it succeeds in time, so it proceeds in degrees of badness; for as they proceed they ever multiply, and like figures in Arithmetick, the last stands for more than all that went before it. And though I think no man can live well once, but he that could live twice, yet for my own part I would not live over my hours past, or begin again the thred of my days: not upon _Cicero's_ ground, because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse: I find my growing Judgment daily instruct me how to be better, but my untamed affections and confirmed vitiosity makes me daily do worse; I find in my confirmed age the same sins I discovered in my youth; I committed many then because I was a Child, and because I commit them still, I am yet an infant. Therefore I perceive a man may be twice a Child before the days of dotage; and stands in need of _aesons_ Bath before threescore.

SECT. 43

And truely there goes a great deal of providence to produce a mans life unto three-score: there is more required than an able temper for those years; though the radical humour contain in it sufficient oyl for seventy, yet I perceive in some it gives no light past thirty: men a.s.sign not all the causes of long life, that write whole Books thereof.

They that found themselves on the radical balsome, or vital sulphur of the parts, determine not why _Abel_ lived not so long as _Adam_. There is therefore a secret glome or bottome of our days: 'twas his wisdom to determine them, but his perpetual and waking providence that fulfils and accomplisheth them; wherein the spirits, our selves, and all the creatures of G.o.d in a secret and disputed way do execute his will. Let them not therefore complain of immaturity that die about thirty; they fall but like the whole World, whose solid and well-composed substance must not expect the duration and period of its const.i.tution: when all things are compleated in it, its age is accomplished; and the last and general fever may as naturally destroy it before six thousand, as me before forty; there is therefore some other hand that twines the thread of life than that of Nature: we are not onely ignorant in Antipathies and occult qualities; our ends are as obscure as our beginnings; the line of our days is drawn by night, and the various effects therein by a pensil that is invisible; wherein though we confess our ignorance, I am sure we do not err if we say it is the hand of G.o.d.

SECT. 44

I am much taken with two verses of _Lucan_, since I have been able not onely as we do at School, to construe, but understand.

_Victurosque Dei celant ut vivere durent.

Felix esse mori._

_We're all deluded, vainly searching ways To make us happy by the length of days; For cunningly to make's protract this breath, The G.o.ds conceal the happiness of Death._

There be many excellent strains in that Poet, wherewith his Stoical Genius hath liberally supplied him; and truely there are singular pieces in the Philosophy of _Zeno_, and doctrine of the Stoicks, which I perceive, delivered in a Pulpit, pa.s.s for current Divinity: yet herein are they in extreams, that can allow a man to be his own _a.s.sa.s.sine_, and so highly extol the end and suicide of _Cato_; this is indeed not to fear death, but yet to be afraid of life. It is a brave act of valour to contemn death; but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live; and herein Religion hath taught us a n.o.ble example: For all the valiant acts of _Curtius_, _Scevola_, or _Codrus_, do not parallel or match that one of _Job_; and sure there is no torture to the rack of a disease, nor any Ponyards in death it self like those in the way or prologue to it. _Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum nihil curo_; I would not die, but care not to be dead. Were I of _Caesar's_ Religion, I should be of his desires, and wish rather to go off at one blow, then to be sawed in pieces by the grating torture of a disease. Men that look no farther than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their const.i.tutions for being sick; but I, that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that Fabrick hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my G.o.d that we can die but once. 'Tis not onely the mischief of diseases, and villany of poysons, that make an end of us; we vainly accuse the fury of Guns, and the new inventions of death; it is in the power of every hand to destroy us, and we are beholding unto every one we meet, he doth not kill us. There is therefore but one comfort left, that, though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death: G.o.d would not exempt himself from that, the misery of immortality in the flesh; he undertook not that was immortal. Certainly there is no happiness within this circle of flesh, nor is it in the Opticks of these eyes to behold felicity; the first day of our Jubilee is Death; the Devil hath therefore failed of his desires; we are happier with death than we should have been without it: there is no misery but in himself, where there is no end of misery; and so indeed in his own sense the Stoick is in the right. He forgets that he can dye who complains of misery; we are in the power of no calamity while death is in our own.

SECT. 45.

Now besides the literal and positive kind of death, there are others whereof Divines make mention, and those I think, not meerly Metaphorical, as mortification, dying unto sin and the World; therefore, I say, every man hath a double Horoscope, one of his humanity, his birth; another of his Christianity, his baptism, and from this do I compute or calculate my Nativity; not reckoning those _Horae combustae_ and odd days, or esteeming my self any thing, before I was my Saviours, and inrolled in the Register of Christ: Whosoever enjoys not this life, I count him but an apparition, though he wear about him the sensible affections of flesh. In these moral acceptions, the way to be immortal is to dye daily; nor can I think I have the true Theory of death, when I contemplate a skull, or behold a Skeleton with those vulgar imaginations it casts upon us; I have therefore enlarged that common _Memento mori_, into a more Christian memorandum, _Memento quatuor Novissima_, those four inevitable points of us all, Death, Judgement, Heaven, and h.e.l.l.

Neither did the contemplations of the Heathens rest in their graves, without further thought of Rhadamanth or some judicial proceeding after death, though in another way, and upon suggestion of their natural reasons. I cannot but marvail from what _Sibyl_ or Oracle they stole the Prophesie of the worlds destruction by fire, or whence _Lucan_ learned to say,

_Communis mundo superest rogus, a.s.sibus astra Misturus.

There yet remains to th' World one common Fire, Wherein our bones with stars shall make one Pyre._

I believe the World grows near its end, yet is neither old nor decayed, nor shall ever perish upon the ruines of its own Principles. As the work of Creation was above nature, so its adversary annihilation; without which the World hath not its end, but its mutation. Now what force should be able to consume it thus far, without the breath of G.o.d, which is the truest consuming flame, my Philosophy cannot inform me. Some believe there went not a minute to the Worlds creation, nor shall there go to its destruction; those six days, so punctually described, make not to them one moment, but rather seem to manifest the method and Idea of the great work of the intellect of G.o.d, than the manner how he proceeded in its operation. I cannot dream that there should be at the last day any such Judicial proceeding, or calling to the Bar, as indeed the Scripture seems to imply, and the literal Commentators do conceive: for unspeakable mysteries in the Scriptures are often delivered in a vulgar and ill.u.s.trative way; and being written unto man, are delivered, not as they truely are, but as they may be understood; wherein notwithstanding the different interpretations according to different capacities may stand firm with our devotion, nor be any way prejudicial to each single edification.

SECT. 46

[Sidenote: _In those days there shall come lyars and false prophets._]

Now to determine the day and year of this inevitable time, is not onely convincible and statute-madness, but also manifest impiety: How shall we interpret _Elias_ 6000 years, or imagine the secret communicated to a Rabbi, which G.o.d hath denyed unto his Angels? It had been an excellent Quaere to have posed the Devil of _Delphos_, and must needs have forced him to some strange amphibology; it hath not onely mocked the predictions of sundry Astrologers in Ages past, but the prophesies of many melancholy heads in these present, who neither understanding reasonably things past or present, pretend a knowledge of things to come; heads ordained onely to manifest the incredible effects of melancholy, and to fulfil old prophecies rather than be the authors of new. In those days there shall come Wars and rumours of Wars, to me seems no prophecy, but a constant truth, in all times verified since it was p.r.o.nounced: There shall be signs in the Moon and Stars; how comes he then like a Thief in the night, when he gives an item of his coming?

That common sign drawn from the revelation of Antichrist, is as obscure as any: in our common compute he hath been come these many years; but for my own part to speak freely, I am half of opinion that Antichrist is the Philosophers stone in Divinity; for the discovery and invention thereof, though there be prescribed rules and probable inductions, yet hath hardly any man attained the perfect discovery thereof. That general opinion that the World grows neer its end, hath possessed all ages past as neerly as ours; I am afraid that the Souls that now depart, cannot escape that lingring expostulation of the Saints under the Altar, _Quousque, Domine? How long, O Lord?_ and groan in the expectation of that great Jubilee.

SECT. 47

This is the day that must make good that great attribute of G.o.d, his Justice; that must reconcile those unanswerable doubts that torment the wisest understandings, and reduce those seeming inequalities, and respective distributions in this world, to an equality and recompensive Justice in the next. This is that one day, that shall include and comprehend all that went before it; wherein, as in the last scene, all the Actors must enter, to compleat and make up the Catastrophe of this great piece. This is the day whose memory hath onely power to make us honest in the dark, and to be vertuous without a witness. _Ipsa sui pretium virtus sibi_, that Vertue is her own reward, is but a cold principle, and not able to maintain our variable resolutions in a constant and setled way of goodness. I have practised that honest artifice of _Seneca_, and in my retired and solitary imaginations, to detain me from the foulness of vice, have fancied to my self the presence of my dear and worthiest friends, before whom I should lose my head, rather than be vitious: yet herein I found that there was nought but moral honesty, and this was not to be vertuous for his sake who must reward us at the last. I have tryed if I could reach that great resolution of his, to be honest without a thought of Heaven or h.e.l.l; and indeed I found, upon a natural inclination, and inbred loyalty unto virtue, that I could serve her without a livery; yet not in that resolved and venerable way, but that the frailty of my nature, upon[A]

easie temptation, might be induced to forget her. The life therefore and spirit of all our actions, is the resurrection, and a stable apprehension that our ashes shall enjoy the fruit of our pious endeavours: without this, all Religion is a fallacy, and those impieties of _Lucian_, _Euripides_, and _Julian_, are no blasphemies, but subtle verities, and Atheists have been the onely Philosophers.

[A] _Insert_ any, 1672.

SECT. 48

How shall the dead arise, is no question of my Faith; to believe only possibilities, is not Faith, but meer Philosophy. Many things are true in Divinity, which are neither inducible by reason, nor confirmable by sense; and many things in Philosophy confirmable by sense, yet not inducible by reason. Thus it is impossible by any solid or demonstrative reasons to perswade a man to believe the conversion of the Needle to the North; though this be possible and true, and easily credible, upon a single experiment unto the sense. I believe that our estranged and divided ashes shall unite again; that our separated dust after so many Pilgrimages and transformations into the parts of Minerals, Plants, Animals, Elements, shall at the Voice of G.o.d return into their primitive shapes, and joyn again to make up their primary and predestinate forms.

As at the Creation there was a separation of that confused ma.s.s into its pieces; so at the destruction thereof there shall be a separation into its distinct individuals. As at the Creation of the World, all the distinct species that we behold lay involved in one ma.s.s, till the fruitful Voice of G.o.d separated this united mult.i.tude into its several species: so at the last day, when those corrupted reliques shall be scattered in the Wilderness of forms, and seem to have forgot their proper habits, G.o.d by a powerful Voice shall command them back into their proper shapes, and call them out by their single individuals: Then shall appear the fertility of _Adam_, and the magick of that sperm that hath dilated into so many millions. I have often beheld as a miracle, that artificial resurrection and revivification of _Mercury_, how being mortified into a thousand shapes, it a.s.sumes again its own, and returns into its numerical self. Let us speak naturally, and like Philosophers, the forms of alterable bodies in these sensible corruptions perish not; nor as we imagine, wholly quit their mansions, but retire and contract themselves into their secret and inaccessible parts, where they may best protect themselves from the action of their Antagonist. A plant or vegetable consumed to ashes, by a contemplative and school-Philosopher seems utterly destroyed, and the form to have taken his leave for ever: But to a sensible Artist the forms are not perished, but withdrawn into their incombustible part, where they lie secure from the action of that devouring element. This is made good by experience, which can from the Ashes of a Plant revive the plant, and from its cinders recal it into its stalk and leaves again. What the Art of man can do in these inferiour pieces, what blasphemy is it to affirm the finger of G.o.d cannot do in these more perfect and sensible structures? This is that mystical Philosophy, from whence no true Scholar becomes an Atheist, but from the visible effects of nature grows up a real Divine, and beholds not in a dream, as _Ezekiel_, but in an ocular and visible object the types of his resurrection.

SECT. 49

Now, the necessary Mansions of our restored selves, are those two contrary and incompatible places we call Heaven and h.e.l.l; to define them, or strictly to determine what and where these are, surpa.s.seth my Divinity. That elegant Apostle which seemed to have a glimpse of Heaven, hath left but a negative description thereof; _which neither eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard, nor can enter into the heart of man_: he was translated out of himself to behold it; but being returned into himself, could not express it. St. _John's_ description by Emerals, Chrysolites, and precious Stones, is too weak to express the material Heaven we behold. Briefly therefore, where the Soul hath the full measure and complement of happiness; where the boundless appet.i.te of that spirit remains compleatly satisfied, that it can neither desire addition nor alteration; that I think is truly Heaven: and this can onely be in the injoynient of that essence, whose infinite goodness is able to terminate the desires of it self, and the unsatiable wishes of ours; wherever G.o.d will thus manifest himself, there is Heaven though within the circle of this sensible world. Thus the Soul of man may be in Heaven any where, even within the limits of his own proper body; and when it ceaseth to live in the body, it may remain in its own soul, that is, its Creator: and thus we may say that St. _Paul_, whether in the body, or out of the body, was yet in Heaven. To place it in the Empyreal, or beyond the tenth sphear, is to forget the world's destruction; for when this sensible world shall be destroyed, all shall then be here as it is now there, an Empyreal Heaven, a _quasi_ vacuity; when to ask where Heaven is, is to demand where the Presence of G.o.d is, or where we have the glory of that happy vision. _Moses_ that was bred up in all the learning of the _Egyptians_, committed a gross absurdity in Philosophy, when with these eyes of flesh he desired to see G.o.d, and pet.i.tioned his Maker, that is, truth it self, to a contradiction. Those that imagine Heaven and h.e.l.l neighbours, and conceive a vicinity between those two extreams, upon consequence of the Parable, where _Dives_ discoursed with _Lazarus_ in _Abraham's_ bosome, do too grosly conceive of those glorified creatures, whose eyes shall easily out-see the Sun, and behold without a perspective the extreamest distances: for if there shall be in our glorified eyes, the faculty of sight and reception of objects, I could think the visible species there to be in as unlimitable a way as now the intellectual. I grant that two bodies placed beyond the tenth sphear, or in a vacuity, according to _Aristotle_'s Philosophy, could not behold each other, because there wants a body or Medium to hand and transport the visible rays of the object unto the sense; but when there shall be a general defect of either Medium to convey, or light to prepare and dispose that Medium, and yet a perfect vision, we must suspend the rules of our Philosophy, and make all good by a more absolute piece of opticks.

SECT. 50

I cannot tell how to say that fire is the essence of h.e.l.l: I know not what to make of Purgatory, or conceive a flame that can either prey upon, or purifie the substance of a Soul: those flames of sulphur mention'd in the Scriptures, I take not to be understood of this present h.e.l.l, but of that to come, where fire shall make up the complement of our tortures, and have a body or subject wherein to manifest its tyranny. Some who have had the honour to be textuary in Divinity, are of opinion it shall be the same specifical fire with ours. This is hard to conceive, yet can I make good how even that may prey upon our bodies, and yet not consume us: for in this material World there are bodies that persist invincible in the powerfullest flames; and though by the action of fire they fall into ignition and liquation, yet will they never suffer a destruction. I would gladly know how _Moses_ with an actual fire calcin'd, or burnt the Golden Calf into powder: for that mystical metal of Gold, whose solary and celestial nature I admire, exposed unto the violence of fire, grows onely hot, and liquifies, but consumeth not; so when the consumable and volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined into a more impregnable and fixed temper, like Gold, though they suffer from the action of flames, they shall never perish, but lye immortal in the arms of fire. And surely if this frame must suffer onely by the action of this element, there will many bodies escape, and not onely Heaven, but Earth will not be at an end, but rather a beginning.

For at present it is not earth, but a composition of fire, water, earth, and air; but at that time, spoiled of these ingredients, it shall appear in a substance more like it self, its ashes. Philosophers that opinioned the worlds destruction by fire, did never dream of annihilation, which is beyond the power of sublunary causes; for the last[B] action of that element is but vitrification, or a reduction of a body into gla.s.s; and therefore some of our Chymicks facetiously affirm, that at the last fire all shall be christallized and reverberated into gla.s.s, which is the utmost action of that element. Nor need we fear this term annihilation, or wonder that G.o.d will destroy the works of his Creation: for man subsisting, who is, and will then truely appear, a Microcosm, the world cannot be said to be destroyed. For the eyes of G.o.d, and perhaps also of our glorified selves, shall as really behold and contemplate the World in its Epitome or contracted essence, as now it doth at large and in its dilated substance. In the seed of a Plant to the eyes of G.o.d, and to the understanding of man, there exists, though in an invisible way, the perfect leaves, flowers, and fruit thereof: (for things that are in _posse_ to the sense, are actually existent to the understanding). Thus G.o.d beholds all things, who contemplates as fully his works in their Epitome, as in their full volume; and beheld as amply the whole world in that little compendium of the sixth day, as in the scattered and dilated pieces of those five before.

[B] Last and proper, 1672.

SECT. 51

Men commonly set forth the torments of h.e.l.l by fire, and the extremity of corporal afflictions, and describe h.e.l.l in the same method that _Mahomet_ doth Heaven. This indeed makes a noise, and drums in popular ears; but if this be the terrible piece thereof, it is not worthy to stand in diameter with Heaven, whose happiness consists in that part that is best able to comprehend it, that immortal essence, that translated divinity and colony of G.o.d, the Soul. Surely though we place h.e.l.l under Earth, the Devil's walk and purlue is about it: men speak too popularly who place it in those flaming mountains, which to grosser apprehensions represent h.e.l.l. The heart of man is the place the Devils dwell in; I feel sometimes a h.e.l.l within my self; _Lucifer_ keeps his Court in my breast; _Legion_ is revived in me. There are as many h.e.l.ls, as _Anaxagoras_ conceited worlds; there was more than one h.e.l.l in _Magdalene_, when there were seven Devils; for every Devil is an h.e.l.l unto himself; he holds enough of torture in his own _ubi_, and needs not the misery of circ.u.mference to afflict him. And thus a distracted Conscience here, is a shadow or introduction unto h.e.l.l hereafter. Who can but pity the merciful intention of those hands that do destroy themselves? the Devil, were it in his power, would do the like; which being impossible, his miseries are endless, and he suffers most in that attribute wherein he is impa.s.sible, his immortality.

SECT. 52

I thank G.o.d that with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of h.e.l.l, nor never grew pale at the description of that place; I have so fixed my contemplations on Heaven, that I have almost forgot the Idea of h.e.l.l, and am afraid rather to lose the Joys of the one, than endure the misery of the other: to be deprived of them is a perfect h.e.l.l, and needs methinks no addition to compleat our afflictions; that terrible term hath never detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof; I fear G.o.d, yet am not afraid of him; his mercies make me ashamed of my sins, before his Judgements afraid thereof: these are the forced and secondary method of his wisdom, which he useth but as the last remedy, and upon provocation; a course rather to deter the wicked, than incite the virtuous to his wors.h.i.+p. I can hardly think there was ever any scared into Heaven; they go the fairest way to Heaven that would serve G.o.d without a h.e.l.l; other Mercenaries, that crouch into him in fear of h.e.l.l, though they term themselves the servants, are indeed but the slaves of the Almighty.

SECT. 53

And to be true, and speak my soul, when I survey the occurrences of my life, and call into account the Finger of G.o.d, I can perceive nothing but an abyss and ma.s.s of mercies, either in general to mankind, or in particular to my self: and whether out of the prejudice of my affection, or an inverting and partial conceit of his mercies, I know not; but those which others term crosses, afflictions, judgements, misfortunes, to me who inquire farther into them then their visible effects, they both appear, and in event have ever proved, the secret and dissembled favours of his affection. It is a singular piece of Wisdom to apprehend truly, and without pa.s.sion, the Works of G.o.d, and so well to distinguish his Justice from his Mercy, as not miscall those n.o.ble Attributes: yet it is likewise an honest piece of Logick, so to dispute and argue the proceedings of G.o.d, as to distinguish even his judgments into mercies.

For G.o.d is merciful unto all, because better to the worst, than the best deserve; and to say he punisheth none in this world, though it be a Paradox, is no absurdity. To one that hath committed Murther, if the Judge should only ordain a Fine, it were a madness to call this a punishment, and to repine at the sentence, rather than admire the clemency of the Judge. Thus our offences being mortal, and deserving not onely Death, but d.a.m.nation; if the goodness of G.o.d be content to traverse and pa.s.s them over with a loss, misfortune, or disease; what frensie were it to term this a punishment, rather than an extremity of mercy; and to groan under the rod of his Judgements, rather than admire the Scepter of his Mercies? Therefore to adore, honour, and admire him, is a debt of grat.i.tude due from the obligation of our nature, states, and conditions; and with these thoughts, he that knows them best, will not deny that I adore him. That I obtain Heaven, and the bliss thereof, is accidental, and not the intended work of my devotion; it being a felicity I can neither think to deserve, nor scarce in modesty to expect. For these two ends of us all, either as rewards or punishments, are mercifully ordained and disproportionably disposed unto our actions; the one being so far beyond our deserts, the other so infinitely below our demerits.

SECT. 54

There is no Salvation to those that believe not in _Christ_, that is, say some, since his Nativity, and as Divinity affirmeth, before also; which makes me much apprehend the ends of those honest Worthies and Philosophers which dyed before his Incarnation. It is hard to place those Souls in h.e.l.l, whose worthy lives do teach us Virtue on Earth: methinks amongst those many subdivisions of h.e.l.l, there might have been one Limbo left for these. What a strange vision will it be to see their Poetical fictions converted into Verities, and their imagined and fancied Furies into real Devils? how strange to them will sound the History of _Adam_, when they shall suffer for him they never heard of?

when they who derive their genealogy from the G.o.ds, shall know they are the unhappy issue of sinful man? It is an insolent part of reason, to controvert the Works of G.o.d, or question the Justice of his proceedings.

Could Humility teach others, as it hath instructed me, to contemplate the infinite and incomprehensible distance betwixt the Creator and the Creature; or did we seriously perpend that one simile of St. _Paul_, _Shall the Vessel say to the Potter, Why hast thou made me thus?_ it would prevent these arrogant disputes of reason, nor would we argue the definitive sentence of G.o.d, either to Heaven or h.e.l.l. Men that live according to the right rule and law of reason, live but in their own kind, as beasts do in theirs; who justly obey the prescript of their natures, and therefore cannot reasonably demand a reward of their actions, as onely obeying the natural dictates of their reason. It will therefore, and must at last appear, that all salvation is through _Christ_; which verity I fear these great examples of virtue must confirm, and make it good, how the perfectest actions of earth have no t.i.tle or claim unto Heaven.

SECT. 55

Nor truely do I think the lives of these or of any other, were ever correspondent, or in all points conformable unto their doctrines. It is evident that _Aristotle_ transgressed the rule of his own Ethicks; the Stoicks that condemn pa.s.sion, and command a man to laugh in _Phalaris_ his Bull, could not endure without a groan a fit of the Stone or Colick.

The _Scepticks_ that affirmed they knew nothing, even in that opinion confute themselves, and thought they knew more than all the World beside. _Diogenes_ I hold to be the most vain-glorious man of his time, and more ambitious in refusing all Honours, than _Alexander_ in rejecting none. Vice and the Devil put a Fallacy upon our Reasons, and provoking us too hastily to run from it, entangle and profound us deeper in it. The Duke of _Venice_, that weds himself unto the Sea by a Ring of Gold, I will not argue of prodigality, because it is a solemnity of good use and consequence in the State: but the Philosopher that threw his money into the Sea to avoid Avarice, was a notorious prodigal. There is no road or ready way to virtue; it is not an easie point of art to disentangle our selves from this riddle, or web of Sin: To perfect virtue, as to Religion, there is required a _Panoplia_, or compleat armour; that whilst we lye at close ward against one Vice, we lye not open to the venny of another. And indeed wiser discretions that have the thred of reason to conduct them, offend without pardon; whereas, under-heads may stumble without dishonour. There go so many circ.u.mstances to piece up one good action, that it is a lesson to be good, and we are forced to be virtuous by the book. Again, the Practice of men holds not an equal pace, yea, and often runs counter to their Theory; we naturally know what is good, but naturally pursue what is evil: the Rhetorick wherewith I perswade another, cannot perswade my self: there is a depraved appet.i.te in us, that will with patience hear the learned instructions of Reason, but yet perform no farther than agrees to its own irregular humour. In brief, we all are monsters, that is, a composition of Man and Beast; wherein we must endeavour to be as the Poets fancy that wise man _Chiron_, that is, to have the region of Man above that of Beast, and Sense to sit but at the feet of Reason.

Lastly, I do desire with G.o.d that all, but yet affirm with men, that few shall know Salvation; that the bridge is narrow, the pa.s.sage strait unto life: yet those who do confine the Church of G.o.d, either to particular Nations, Churches or Families, have made it far narrower then our Saviour ever meant it.