The Works of Sir Thomas Browne Volume I Part 11

SECT. 56

The vulgarity of those judgements that wrap the Church of G.o.d in _Strabo's_ cloak, and restrain it unto _Europe_, seem to me as bad Geographers as _Alexander_, who thought he had Conquer'd all the World, when he had not subdued the half of any part thereof. For we cannot deny the Church of G.o.d both in _Asia_ and _Africa_, if we do not forget the Peregrinations of the Apostles, the deaths of the Martyrs, the Sessions of many, and, even in our reformed judgement, lawful Councils, held in those parts in the minority and nonage of ours. Nor must a few differences, more remarkable in the eyes of man than perhaps in the judgement of G.o.d, excommunicate from Heaven one another, much less those Christians who are in a manner all Martyrs, maintaining their Faith, in the n.o.ble way of persecution, and serving G.o.d in the Fire, whereas we honour him in the Suns.h.i.+ne. 'Tis true, we all hold there is a number of Elect, and many to be saved; yet take our Opinions together, and from the confusion thereof there will be no such thing as salvation, nor shall any one be saved. For first, the Church of _Rome_ condemneth us, we likewise them; the Sub-reformists and Sectaries sentence the Doctrine of our Church as d.a.m.nable; the Atomist, or Familist, reprobates all these; and all these, them again. Thus whilst the Mercies of G.o.d do promise us Heaven, our conceits and opinions exclude us from that place.

There must be, therefore, more than one St. _Peter_: particular Churches and Sects usurp the gates of Heaven, and turn the key against each other: and thus we go to Heaven against each others wills, conceits and opinions; and with as much uncharity as ignorance, do err I fear in points not only of our own, but one an others salvation.

SECT. 57

I believe many are saved, who to man seem reprobated; and many are reprobated, who in the opinion and sentence of man, stand elected: there will appear at the Last day, strange and unexpected examples both of his Justice and his Mercy; and therefore to define either, is folly in man, and insolency even in the Devils: those acute and subtil spirits in all their sagacity, can hardly divine who shall be saved; which if they could Prognostick, their labour were at an end; nor need they compa.s.s the earth seeking whom they may devour. Those who upon a rigid application of the Law, sentence _Solomon_ unto d.a.m.nation, condemn not onely him, but themselves, and the whole World: for by the Letter and written Word of G.o.d, we are without exception in the state of Death; but there is a prerogative of G.o.d, and an arbitrary pleasure above the Letter of his own Law, by which alone we can pretend unto Salvation, and through which _Solomon_ might be as easily saved as those who condemn him.

SECT. 58

The number of those who pretend unto Salvation, and those infinite swarms who think to pa.s.s through the eye of this Needle, have much amazed me. That name and compellation of _little Flock_, doth not comfort, but deject my Devotion; especially when I reflect upon mine own unworthiness, wherein, according to my humble apprehensions, I am below them all. I believe there shall never be an Anarchy in Heaven, but as there are Hierarchies amongst the Angels, so shall there be degrees of priority amongst the Saints. Yet is it (I protest) beyond my ambition to aspire unto the first ranks; my desires onely are, and I shall be happy therein, to be but the last man, and bring up the Rere in Heaven.

SECT. 59

Again, I am confident and fully perswaded, yet dare not take my oath, of my Salvation: I am as it were sure, and do believe without all doubt, that there is such a City as _Constantinople_; yet for me to take my Oath thereon were a kind of Perjury, because I hold no infallible warrant from my own sense to confirm me in the certainty thereof: And truly, though many pretend an absolute certainty of their Salvation, yet when an humble Soul shall contemplate our own unworthiness, she shall meet with many doubts, and suddenly find how little we stand in need of the Precept of St. _Paul_, _Work out your salvation with fear and trembling._ That which is the cause of my Election, I hold to be the cause of my Salvation, which was the mercy and beneplacit of G.o.d, before I was, or the foundation of the World. _Before Abraham was, I am_, is the saying of Christ; yet is it true in some sense, if I say it of myself; for I was not onely before myself, but _Adam_, that is, in the Idea of G.o.d, and the decree of that Synod held from all Eternity. And in this sense, I say, the World was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive: though my grave be _England_, my dying place was Paradise: and _Eve_ miscarried of me, before she conceived of Cain.

SECT. 60

Insolent zeals that do decry good Works, and rely onely upon Faith, take not away merit: for depending upon the efficacy of their Faith, they enforce the condition of G.o.d, and in a more sophistical way do seem to challenge Heaven. It was decreed by G.o.d, that only those that lapt in the water like Dogs, should have the honour to destroy the _Midianites_; yet could none of those justly challenge, or imagine he deserved that honour thereupon. I do not deny, but that true Faith, and such as G.o.d requires, is not onely a mark or token, but also a means of our Salvation; but where to find this, is as obscure to me, as my last end.

And if our Saviour could object unto his own Disciples and Favourites, a Faith, that, to the quant.i.ty of a grain of Mustard-seed, is able to remove Mountains; surely that which we boast of, is not any thing, or at the most, but a remove from nothing. This is the Tenor of my belief; wherein, though there be many things singular, and to the humour of my irregular self; yet if they square not with maturer Judgements I disclaim them, and do no further favour them, than the learned and best judgements shall authorize them.

THE SECOND PART

SECT. 1

Now for that other Virtue of Charity, without which Faith is a meer notion, and of no existence, I have ever endeavoured to nourish the merciful disposition and humane inclination I borrowed from my Parents, and regulate it to the written and prescribed Laws of Charity; and if I hold the true Anatomy of my self, I am delineated and naturally framed to such a piece of virtue. For I am of a const.i.tution so general, that it comforts and sympathizeth with all things; I have no antipathy, or rather Idio-syncrasie, in dyet, humour, air, any thing: I wonder not at the _French_ for their dishes of Frogs, Snails, and Toadstools, nor at the Jews for Locusts and Gra.s.shoppers; but being amongst them, make them my common Viands, and I find they agree with my Stomach as well as theirs. I could digest a Sallad gathered in a Churchyard, as well as in a Garden. I cannot start at the presence of a Serpent, Scorpion, Lizard, or Salamander: at the sight of a Toad or Viper, I find in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in my self those common Antipathies that I can discover in others: Those National repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the _French_, _Italian_, _Spaniard_, or _Dutch_; but where I find their actions in balance with my Country-men's, I honour, love, and embrace them in the same degree.

I was born in the eighth Climate, but seem for to be framed and constellated unto all: I am no Plant that will not prosper out of a Garden: All places, all airs make unto me one Countrey; I am in _England_, every where, and under any Meridian. I have been s.h.i.+pwrackt, yet am not enemy with the Sea or Winds; I can study, play, or sleep in a Tempest. In brief, I am averse from nothing; my Conscience would give me the lye if I should absolutely detest or hate any essence but the Devil; or so at least abhor any thing, but that we might come to composition.

If there be any among those common objects of hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of Reason, Virtue and Religion, the Mult.i.tude; that numerous piece of monstrosity, which taken asunder seem men, and the reasonable creatures of G.o.d; but confused together, make but one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra: it is no breach of Charity to call these Fools; it is the style all holy Writers have afforded them, set down by _Solomon_ in Canonical Scripture, and a point of our Faith to believe so. Neither in the name of Mult.i.tude do I onely include the base and minor sort of people; there is a rabble even amongst the Gentry, a sort of Plebeian heads, whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these; men in the same Level with Mechanicks, though their fortunes do somewhat guild their infirmities, and their purses compound for their follies. But as in casting account, three or four men together come short in account of one man placed by himself below them: So neither are a troop of these ignorant Doradoes, of that true esteem and value, as many a forlorn person, whose condition doth place him below their feet. Let us speak like Politicians, there is a n.o.bility without Heraldry, a natural dignity, whereby one man is ranked with another; another filed before him, according to the quality of his Desert, and preheminence of his good parts: Though the corruption of these times, and the byas of present practice wheel another way. Thus it was in the first and primitive Commonwealths, and is yet in the integrity and Cradle of well-order'd Polities, till corruption getteth ground, ruder desires labouring after that which wiser considerations contemn; every one having a liberty to ama.s.s and heap up riches, and they a licence or faculty to do or purchase any thing.

SECT. 2

This general and indifferent temper of mine doth more neerly dispose me to this n.o.ble virtue. It is a happiness to be born and framed unto virtue, and to grow up from the seeds of nature, rather than the inoculation and forced grafts of education: yet if we are directed only by our particular Natures, and regulate our inclinations by no higher rule than that of our reasons, we are but Moralists; Divinity will still call us Heathens. Therefore this great work of charity must have other motives, ends, and impulsions: I give no alms only to satisfie the hunger of my Brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the Will and Command of my G.o.d: I draw not _my_ purse for his sake that demands it, but his that enjoyned it; I relieve no man upon the Rhetorick of his miseries, nor to content mine own commiserating disposition: for this is still but moral charity, and an act that oweth more to pa.s.sion than reason. He that relieves another upon the bare suggestion and bowels of pity, doth not this so much for his sake, as for his own: for by compa.s.sion we make others misery our own, and so by relieving them, we relieve our selves also. It is as erroneous a conceit to redress other Mens misfortunes upon the common considerations of merciful natures, that it may be one day our own case; for this is a sinister and politick kind of charity, whereby we seem to bespeak the pities of men in the like occasions: and truly I have observed that those professed Eleemosynaries, though in a croud or mult.i.tude, do yet direct and place their pet.i.tions on a few and selected persons: there is surely a Physiognomy, which those experienced and Master Mendicants observe; whereby they instantly discover a merciful aspect, and will single out a face, wherein they spy the signatures and marks of Mercy: for there are mystically in our faces certain Characters which carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that can read _A. B. C._ may read our natures.

I hold moreover that there is a Phytognomy, or Physiognomy, not only of Men but of Plants and Vegetables; and in every one of them, some outward figures which hang as signs or bushes of their inward forms. The Finger of G.o.d hath left an Inscription upon all his works, not graphical, or composed of Letters, but of their several forms, const.i.tutions, parts, and operations; which aptly joyned together do make one word that doth express their natures. By these Letters G.o.d calls the Stars by their names; and by this Alphabet _Adam_ a.s.signed to every creature a name peculiar to its nature. Now there are, besides these Characters in our Faces, certain mystical figures in our Hands, which I dare not call meer dashes, strokes _a la volee_, or at random, because delineated by a Pencil that never works in vain; and hereof I take more particular notice, because I carry that in mine own hand, which I could never read of, nor discover in another. _Aristotle_ I confess, in his acute and singular Book of Physiognomy, hath made no mention of Chiromancy; yet I believe the _Egyptians_, who were neerer addicted to those abstruse and mystical sciences, had a knowledge therein; to which those vagabond and counterfeit _Egyptians_ did after pretend, and perhaps retained a few corrupted principles, which sometimes might verifie their prognosticks.

It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many millions of faces, there should be none alike: Now contrary, I wonder as much how there should be any. He that shall consider how many thousand several words have been carelesly and without study composed out of 24 Letters; withal, how many hundred lines there are to be drawn in the Fabrick of one Man; shall easily find that this variety is necessary: And it will be very hard that they shall so concur, as to make one portract like another. Let a Painter carelesly limb out a million of Faces, and you shall find them all different; yea let him have his Copy before him, yet after all his art there will remain a sensible distinction; for the pattern or example of every thing is the perfectest in that kind, whereof we still come short, though we transcend or go beyond it, because herein it is wide, and agrees not in all points unto the Copy.

Nor doth the similitude of Creatures disparage the variety of Nature, nor any way confound the Works of G.o.d. For even in things alike there is diversity; and those that do seem to accord, do manifestly disagree. And thus is man like G.o.d; for in the same things that we resemble him, we are utterly different from him. There was never any thing so like another, as in all points to concur; there will ever some reserved difference slip in, to prevent the ident.i.ty, without which, two several things would not be alike, but the same, which is impossible.

SECT. 3

But to return from Philosophy to Charity: I hold not so narrow a conceit of this virtue, as to conceive that to give Alms is onely to be Charitable, or think a piece of Liberality can comprehend the Total of Charity. Divinity hath wisely divided the act thereof into many branches, and hath taught us in this narrow way, many paths unto goodness: as many ways as we may do good, so many ways we may be charitable: there are infirmities, not onely of Body, but of Soul, and Fortunes, which do require the merciful hand of our abilities. I cannot contemn a man for ignorance, but behold him with as much pity as I do _Lazarus_. It is no greater Charity to cloath his body, than apparel the nakedness of his Soul. It is an honourable object to see the reasons of other men wear our Liveries, and their borrowed understandings do homage to the bounty of ours: It is the cheapest way of beneficence, and like the natural charity of the Sun, illuminates another without obscuring it self. To be reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness, is the sordidest piece of covetousness, and more contemptible than pecuniary Avarice. To this (as calling my self a Scholar) I am obliged by the duty of my condition: I make not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure of knowledge; I intend no Monopoly, but a community in learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves.

I envy no man that knows more than my self, but pity them that know less. I instruct no man as an exercise of my knowledge, or with an intent rather to nourish and keep it alive in mine own head, then beget and propagate it in his; and in the midst of all my endeavours, there is but one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with my self, nor can be Legacied among my honoured Friends. I cannot fall out, or contemn a man for an errour, or conceive why a difference in Opinion should divide an affection: For Controversies, Disputes, and Argumentations, both in Philosophy and in Divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the Laws of Charity: in all disputes, so much as there is of pa.s.sion, so much there is of nothing to the purpose; for then Reason, like a bad Hound, spends upon a false Scent, and forsakes the question first started. And this is one reason why Controversies are never determined; for though they be amply proposed, they are scarce at all handled, they do so swell with unnecessary Digressions; and the Parenthesis on the party, is often as large as the main discourse upon the subject. The Foundations of Religion are already established, and the Principles of Salvation subscribed unto by all: there remains not many controversies worth a Pa.s.sion, and yet never any disputed without, not only in Divinity, but inferiour Arts: What a at?a????a??a and hot skirmish is betwixt S.

and T. in _Lucian_: How do Grammarians hack and slash for the Genitive case in _Jupiter_? How do they break their own pates to salve that of _Priscian! Si foret in terris, rideret Democritus_. Yea, even amongst wiser militants, how many wounds have been given, and credits slain, for the poor victory of an opinion, or beggerly conquest of a distinction?

Scholars are men of Peace, they bear no Arms, but their tongues are sharper than Actus his razor; their Pens carry farther, and give a lowder report than Thunder: I had rather stand the shock of a Basilisco, than the fury of a merciless Pen. It is not meer Zeal to Learning, or Devotion to the Muses, that wiser Princes Patron the Arts, and carry an indulgent aspect unto Scholars; but a desire to have their names eternized by the memory of their writings, and a fear of the revengeful Pen of succeeding ages: for these are the men, that when they have played their parts, and had their _exits_, must step out and give the moral of their Scenes, and deliver unto Posterity an Inventory of their Virtues and Vices. And surely there goes a great deal of Conscience to the compiling of an History: there is no reproach to the scandal of a Story; it is such an authentick kind of falshood, that with authority belies our good names to all Nations and Posterity.

SECT. 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, mysteries and conditions, but of whole Nations; wherein by opprobrious Epithets we miscal each other, and by an uncharitable Logick, from a disposition in a few, conclude a habit in all.

_Le mutin Anglois, & le bravache Escossois; Le bougre Italian, & le fol Francois; Le poultron Romain, le larron de Gascongne, L'Espagnol superbe, & l'Aleman yurongne_.

St. _Paul_, that calls the _Cretians_ lyars, doth it but indirectly, and upon quotation of their own Poet. It is as b.l.o.o.d.y a thought in one way, as _Nero's_ was in another. For by a word we wound a thousand, and at one blow a.s.sa.s.sine the honour of a Nation. It is as compleat a piece of madness to miscal and rave against the times, or think to recal 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 understanding that wisdom is not prophan'd unto the World, and 'tis the priviledge of a few to be Vertuous. They that endeavour to abolish Vice, destroy also Virtue; for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet in life of one another. Thus Virtue (abolish vice) is an Idea; again, the community of sin doth not disparage goodness; for when Vice gains upon the major part, Virtue, in whom it remains, becomes more excellent; and being lost in some, multiplies its goodness in others, which remain untouched, and persist intire in the general inundation. I can therefore behold Vice without a Satyr, 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 protract 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 my self; 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 my self; those of my neer acquaintance 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 helps 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 laudible in our selves, 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 most do 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 our selves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the World; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were, his own Executioner. _Non occides_, 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 thred of his own days. _Cain_ was not therefore the first Murtherer, 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 perswade him in the Theory of himself.

SECT. 5

There is, I think, no man that apprehends his own miseries less than my self, and no man that so neerly apprehends anothers. 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 true pa.s.sion, the counterfeit grief of those known and professed Impostures. It is a barbarous part of inhumanity to add unto any afflicted parties misery, or indeavour 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 brest into another, and to divide a sorrow almost out of it self; for an affliction, like a dimension, may be so divided, as if not indivisible, at least to become insensible. Now with my friend I desire not to share or partic.i.p.ate, but to engross, his sorrows; that by making them mine own, I may more easily discuss them; for in mine own reason, and within my self, I can command that, which I cannot intreat without my self, 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 any thing 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 my self. 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 my self, 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 my self: I confess I do not observe that order that the Schools ordain our affections, to love our Parents, Wives, Children, and then our Friends; for excepting the injunctions of Religion, I do not find in my self such a necessary 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 me thinks 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 indeed they be really divided, yet are they so united, as they seem but one, and make rather a duality than two distinct souls.

SECT. 6

There are wonders in true affection; it is a body of _Enigma's_, mysteries, and riddles; wherein two so become one, as they both become two: I love my friend before my self, and yet methinks I do not love him enough: some few months hence, my multiplied affection will make me believe I have not loved him at all: when I am from him, I am dead till I be with him; when I am with him, I am not satisfied, but would still be nearer him. United souls are not satisfied with imbraces, but desire to be truly each other; which being impossible, their desires are infinite, and must proceed without a possibility of satisfaction.

Another misery there is in affection, that whom we truly love like our own, we forget their looks, nor can our memory retain the Idea of their faces; and it is no wonder, for they are ourselves, and our affection makes their looks our own. This n.o.ble affection falls not on vulgar and common const.i.tutions, but on such as are mark'd for virtue: he that can love his friend with this n.o.ble ardour, will in a competent degree affect 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 happiness 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 my self in particular, 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, without 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 cannot see one say his prayers, but in stead of imitating him, I fall into a 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: our bad wishes and uncharitable 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.

SECT. 7

To do no injury, nor take none, was a principle, which to my former years, and impatient affections, seemed to contain enough of Morality; but my more setled years, and Christian const.i.tution, have fallen upon severer resolutions. I can hold there is no such thing 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 our selves. I were unjust unto mine own Conscience, if I should say I am at variance with any thing like my self. 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, publick and more hostile adversaries without. The Devil, that did but buffet St. _Paul_, plays methinks at sharp with me. Let me be nothing, if within the compa.s.s of my self I do not find the battail of _Lepanto_, 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 too 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 easie 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, Sacrament, 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 corruption. For there are certain tempers of body, which matcht with an humorous depravity of mind, do hatch and produce vitiosities, whose newness and monstrosity of nature admits no name; this was the temper of that Lecher that fell in love with a Statua, and 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 mens minds also in villany and vices: now the dulness of my reason, and the vulgarity of my disposition, never prompted my invention, nor sollicited my affection unto any of those; 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 my self, that I repute my self the most abjectest piece of mortality. Divines prescribe a fit of sorrow to repentance; there goes indignation, anger, sorrow, hatred, into mine; pa.s.sions of a contrary nature, which neither seem to sute with this action, nor my proper const.i.tution. It is no breach of charity to our selves, 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 common harmony, and keeping in fetters those powers, whose rebellions once Masters, might be the ruine of all.

SECT. 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[C], not onely 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 towr and plume himself over a single line in _Horace_, and shew 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_ and _Patois_ of several Provinces, I understand no less than six Languages; yet I protest I have no higher conceit of my self, 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 onely seen several Countries, beheld the nature of their Climes, the Chorography of their Provinces, Topography of their Cities, but understood their several Laws, Customs, and Policies; yet cannot all this perswade the dulness of my spirit unto such an opinion of my self, 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 onely 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 Countrey, 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 _Cheap-side_. For indeed, heads of capacity, and such as are not full with a handful, or easie 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 any thing. I cannot think that _Homer_ pin'd away upon the riddle of the fishermen; 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 himself upon the flux and reflux of _Euripus_. We do but learn to-day, what our better advanced judgements 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, 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 satisfie 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 conceit 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 contented with the natural blessing of our own reasons, than buy the uncertain knowledge of this life, with sweat and vexation, which Death gives every fool _gratis_, and is an accessary of our glorification.

[C] Farther-sin, 1682.

SECT. 9

I was never yet once, and commend their resolutions who never marry twice: not that I disallow of second marriage; as neither in all cases, of Polygamy, 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 commits in all his life; nor is there any thing that will more deject his cool'd imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed. 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 where ever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the musick of the Sphears: for those well-ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. Whosoever is harmonically composed, delights in harmony; which makes me much distrust the symmetry of those heads which declaim against all Church-Musick. For my self, 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 something 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 Rhythme.

[16]This made _Tacitus_ in the very first line of his Story, fall upon a verse, and _Cicero_ the worst of Poets, but [17]declaiming for a Poet, falls in the very first sentence upon a perfect [18]Hexameter. I feel not in me those sordid and unchristian desires of my profession; I do not secretly implore and wish for Plagues, rejoyce at Famines, revolve Ephemerides and Almanacks, in expectation of malignant Aspects, fatal Conjunctions, and Eclipses: I rejoyce not at unwholesome Springs, nor unseasonable Winters; my Prayer goes with the Husbandman's; I desire every thing in its proper season, that neither men nor the times be put out of temper. Let me be sick my self, if sometimes the malady of my patient be not a disease unto me; I desire rather to cure his infirmities than my own necessities: 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 exempt from their infirmities; there are not only diseases incurable in Physick, but cases indissolvable in Laws, 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 Predecessours, because, though agreeable to reason, yet were not consonant to his own rules, and Logick of his proper Principles. Again, to speak nothing of the Sin against the Holy Ghost, whose cure not onely, 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 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 no Catholicon or universal remedy I know but this, which, though nauseous to queasie stomachs, yet to prepared appet.i.tes is Nectar, and a pleasant potion of immortality.