The Major Works (English Library) (16 page)

5. There is I thinke
³⁹
no man that apprehends his owne miseries lesse than my selfe, and no man that so neerely apprehends anothers. I could lose an arme without a teare, and with few groans, mee thinkes, be quartered into pieces; yet can I weepe most seriously at a Play, and receive with a true passion, the counterfeit griefes of those knowne and professed impostures.
⁴⁰
It is a barbarous part of inhumanity to adde unto any
afflicted parties misery, or endeavour to multiply in any man, a passion, whose single nature is already above his patience; this was the greatest affliction of
Job
, and those oblique expostulations of his friends
⁴¹
a deeper injury than the downe-right blowes of the Devill. It is not the teares of our owne eyes onely, but of our friends also, that doe exhaust the current of our sorrowes, which falling into many streames, runne more peaceably, and is contented with a narrower channel. It is an act within the power of charity, to translate a passion out of one breast into another, and to divide a sorrow almost out of it selfe; for an affliction like a dimension
⁴²
may be so divided, as if not indivisible, at least to become insensible. Now with my friend I desire not to share or participate, but to engrosse his sorrowes, that by making them mine owne, I may more easily discusse them; for in mine owne reason, and within my selfe I can command that, which I cannot entreate without my selfe,
and within the circle of another. I have often thought those Noble paires and examples of friendship not so truely Histories of what had beene, 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 mee thinkes upon some grounds I could not performe within the narrow compasse of my selfe. That a man should lay down his life for his friend, seemes strange to vulgar affections, and such as confine themselves within that worldly principle, Charity beginnes at home. For mine owne part I could never remember the relations that I held unto my selfe, nor the respect that I owe unto mine owne nature, in the cause of God, my Country, and my Friends. Next to these three, I doe embrace my selfe; I confesse I doe not observe that order that the Schooles ordaine our affections, to love our Parents, Wifes, Children, and then our Friends, for excepting the injunctions of Religion, I doe not find in my selfe such a necessary and indissoluble Sympathy to all those of my bloud. I hope I do
not breake the fifth Commandement,
⁴³
if I conceive I may love my friend before the nearest of my bloud, even those to whom I owe the principles of life; I never yet cast a true affection on a Woman,
⁴⁴
but I have loved my Friend as I do vertue, my soule, my God. From hence me thinkes I doe conceive how God loves man, what happinesse there is in the love of God. Omitting all other, there are three most mysticall unions; Two natures in one person;
⁴⁵
three persons in one nature; one soule in two bodies. For though indeed they bee really divided, yet are they so united, as they seeme but one, and make rather a duality then two distinct soules.

6. There are wonders in true affection, it is a body of
Ænigmaes
, mysteries and riddles, wherein two so become one, as they both become two; I love my friend before my selfe, and yet me thinkes I do not love him enough; some few months hence my multiplyed affection will make me beleeve I have not loved him at all, when I am from him, I am dead till I bee with him, when I am with him, I am not satisfied, but would still be nearer him: united soules are not satisfied with embraces, but desire to be truely 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 truely love like our owne, wee forget their lookes, nor can our memory retaine the Idea of their faces; and it is no wonder, for they are our selves, and our affections makes their lookes our owne. This noble affection fals not on vulgar and common constitutions, but on such as are mark’d for vertue; he that can love his friend with this noble ardour, will in a competent degree affect all. Now if wee can bring our affections to looke beyond the body, and cast an eye upon the soule, wee have found out the true object, not onely of friendship but charity; and the greatest happinesse that wee can bequeath the soule, is that wherein we
all doe place our last felicity, Salvation, which though it bee 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 selfe in particular, without a catalogue for my friends, nor request a happinesse wherein my sociable disposition doth not desire the fellowship of my neighbour. I never heare the Toll of a passing Bell, though in my mirth, without my prayers and best wishes for the departing spirit; I cannot goe to cure the body of my Patient, but I forget my profession, and call unto God for his soule; I cannot see one say his Prayers, but in stead of imitating him, I fall into a supplication
⁴⁶
for him, who perhaps is no more to mee than a common nature: and if God hath vouchsafed an eare to my supplications, there are surely many happy that never saw me, and enjoy the blessing of mine unknowne devotions. To pray for enemies, that is, for their salvation, is no harsh precept, but the practise of our daily and ordinary devotions. I cannot beleeve the story of the Italian,
⁴⁷
our bad wishes and uncharitable
⁴⁸
desires proceed no further than this life; it is the Devill, and the uncharitable votes of Hell, that desire our misery in the world to come.

7. To doe no injury, nor take none, was a principle, which to my former yeares, and impatient affections, seemed to containe enough of morality, but my more setled yeares and Christian constitution 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 maligne himselfe, that the truest way to love another, is to despise our selves. I were unjust unto mine owne conscience, if I shoul say I am at variance with any thing like my selfe, I finde there are many pieces in this one fabricke of man; this frame is raised upon a masse of Antipathies: I am one mee thinkes, but as the world; wherein notwithstanding there are a swarme of distinct essences, and in
them another world of contrarieties; wee carry private and domesticke enemies within, publike and more hostile adversaries without. The Devill that did but buffet Saint
Paul
,
⁴⁹
playes mee thinkes at sharpe
⁵⁰
with me: Let mee be nothing if within the compasse of my selfe, I doe not find the battell of
Lepanto
,
⁵¹
passion against reason, reason against faith, faith against the Devill, and my conscience against all. There is another man within mee that’s angry with mee, rebukes, commands, and dastards mee.
⁵²
I have no conscience of Marble to resist the hammer of more heavie 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 beliefe, that it is as easie to be forgiven some sinnes, as to commit some others. For my originall sinne, I hold it to be washed away in my Baptisme; for
my actuall transgressions, I compute and reckon with God, but from my last repentance, Sacrament or generall absolution: And therefore am not terrified with the sinnes or madnesse of my youth. I thanke the goodnesse of God I have no sinnes that want a name, I am not singular in offences, my transgressions are Epidemicall, and from the common breath of our corruption.
⁵³
For there are certaine tempers of body, which matcht with an humorous depravity of mind, doe hatch and produce viciosities, whose newnesse and monstrosity of nature admits no name; this was the temper of that Lecher that carnald with a Statua,
⁵⁴
and the constitution of
Nero
in his Spintrian
⁵⁵
recreations. For the heavens are not onely fruitfull in new and unheard of starres,
⁵⁶
the earth in plants and animals, but mens minds also in villany and vices; now the dulnesse of my reason,
and the vulgarity
⁵⁷
of my disposition, never prompted my invention, nor sollicited my affection unto any of these; yet even those common and
quotidian
⁵⁸
infirmities that so necessarily attend me, and doe seeme to bee my very nature, have so dejected me, so broken the estimation that I should have otherwise of my selfe, that I repute my selfe the most abjectest piece of mortality: Divines prescribe a fit of sorrow to repentance, there goes indignation, anger, sorrow, hatred, into mine, passions of a contrary nature, which neither seeme to sute with this action, nor my proper constitution. It is no breach of charity to our selves to be at variance with our vices, nor to abhorre that part of us, which is an enemy to the ground of charity, our God; wherein wee doe but imitate our great selves the world,
⁵⁹
whose divided Antipathies and contrary faces doe 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,
⁶⁰
might bee the ruine of all.

8.1 thanke God, amongst those millions of vices I doe inherit and hold from
Adam
, I have escaped one, and that a mortall 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 circumscribed with a world;
⁶¹
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, adde no feathers unto mine; I have seene a Grammarian toure,
⁶²
and plume himselfe over a single line in
Horace
, and shew more pride in the construction of one Ode,
⁶³
than the Author in the composure
of the whole book. For my owne part, besides the
Jargon
and
Patois
of severall Provinces, I understand no lesse then six Languages,
⁶⁴
yet I protest I have no higher conceit of my selfe than had our Fathers before the confusion of
Babel
, when there was but one Language in the world, and none to boast himselfe either Linguist or Criticke. I have not onely seene severall Countries, beheld the nature of their climes, the Chorography
⁶⁵
of their Provinces, Topography of their Cities, but understood their severall Lawes, Customes and Policies; yet cannot all this perswade the dulnesse of my spirit unto such an opinion of my self, as I behold in nimbler & 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 seene a prating Mariner that could onely name the Poynters
⁶⁶
and the North Starre, out-talke mee, and conceit himselfe a whole
Spheare above mee. I know most of the Plants of my Country and of those about mee; yet me thinkes I do not know so many as when I did but know an hundred, and had scarcely ever Simpled
⁶⁷
further than Cheap-side: for indeed heads of capacity, and such as are not full with a handfull, or easie measure of knowledg, thinke they know nothing, till they know all, which being impossible, they fall upon the opinion of
Socrates
, and onely know they know not any thing.
⁶⁸
I cannot thinke that
Homer
pin’d away upon the riddle of the Fisherman,
⁶⁹
or that
Aristotle
, who understood the uncertainty of knowledge, and confessed so often the reason of man too weake for the workes of nature, did ever drowne himselfe upon the flux and reflux of
Euripus
:
⁷⁰
wee doe but learne 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 himselfe. I have
runne through all sorts, yet finde no rest in any, though our first studies &
junior
endeavors may stile us Peripateticks, Stoicks, or Academicks, yet I perceive the wisest heads prove at last, almost all Scepticks, and stand like
Janus
in the field of knowledge.
⁷¹
I have therefore on common and authentick Philosophy I learned in the Schooles, whereby I discourse and satisfie the reason of other men, another more reserved and drawne from experience, whereby I content mine owne.
Solomon
that complained of ignorance in the height of knowledge,
⁷²
hath not onely humbled my conceits, but discouraged my endeavours. There is yet another conceit that hath sometimes made me shut my bookes; which tels mee it is a vanity to waste our dayes in the blind pursuit of knowledge, it is but attending a little longer, and wee shall enjoy that by instinct and infusion
⁷³
which we endeavour at here by labour and inquisition: it is better to sit downe in a modest ignorance, & rest contented with the naturall blessing of our owne reasons, then buy the uncertaine knowledge of this life, with sweat and vexation, which death gives every foole gratis, and is an accessary of our glorification.

9. I was never yet once, and commend their resolutions who never marry twice,
⁷⁴
not that I disallow of second marriage; as neither in all cases of Polygamy, which considering some times and the unequall number of both sexes may bee also necessary. The whole world
⁷⁵
was made for man, but the twelfth part of man for woman: man is the whole world and the breath of God, woman the rib and crooked piece of man. I could be content
⁷⁶
that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this triviall 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 coold imagination, when hee shall consider what an odde and unworthy piece of folly hee hath committed;
⁷⁷
I speake not in prejudice, nor am averse from that sweet sexe, but naturally amorous of all that is beautifull; I can looke a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an Horse. It is my temper, & I like it the better, to affect all harmony, and sure there is musicke even in the beauty, and the silent note which
Cupid
strikes, farre sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is a musicke where-ever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus farre we may maintain
the musick of the spheares; for those well ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the eare, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony.
⁷⁸
Whatsoever is harmonically composed, delights in harmony; which makes me much distrust the symmetry of those heads which declaime against all
⁷⁹
Church musicke. For my selfe, not only from my obedience but my particular genius, I doe im-brace it; for even that vulgar and Taverne Musicke, which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in mee a deepe fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of the first Composer,
⁸⁰
there is something in it of Divinity more than the eare discovers.
⁸¹
It is an Hieroglyphicall and shadowed lesson of the
whole world, and Creatures of God, such a melody to the eare, as the whole world well understood, would afford the understanding. In briefe, it is a sensible fit of that Harmony, which intellectually sounds in the eares of God. I will not say with
Plato
, the Soule is an Harmony,
⁸²
but harmonicall, and hath its neerest sympathy unto musicke:
⁸³
thus some, whose temper of body agrees, and humours the constitution of their soules, are borne Poets, though indeed all are naturally inclined unto Rhythme. This made
Tacitus
in the very first line of his Story, fall upon a verse;
⁸⁴
and
Cicero
, the worst of Poets, but declayming for a Poet, falls in the very first sentence upon a perfect Hexameter.
⁸⁵
I feele not in me those sordid, and unchristian desires of my profession, I doe not secretly implore and wish for Plagues, rejoyce at Famines, revolve Ephemerides,
⁸⁶
and
Almanacks, in expectation of malignant Aspects, fatall conjunctions,
⁸⁷
and Eclipses: I rejoyce not at unwholsome Springs, nor unseasonable Winters; my Prayer goes with the Husband-mans; I desire every thing in its proper season, that neither men nor the times bee out of temper. Let mee be sicke my selfe, if sometimes the malady of my patient be not a disease unto me, I desire rather to cure his infirmities than my owne necessities, where I do him no good me thinkes it is scarce honest gaine, though I confesse ’tis but the worthy salary of our well-intended endeavours: I am not onely 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 & sake of humanity whose common cause I apprehend as mine own: And to speak more generally, those three Noble professions which al civil Common wealths doe
honour, are raised upon the fall of
Adam
, & are not any exempt from their infirmities; there are not onely diseases incurable in Physicke,
⁸⁸
but cases indissoluble in Lawes, Vices incorrigible in Divinity: if general Councells may erre, I doe not see why particular Courts should be infallible, their perfectest rules are raised upon the erroneous reasons of Man, and the Lawes of one, doe 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 owne rules, and the Logicke of his proper principles. Againe, to speake nothing of the sinne against the Holy Ghost,
⁸⁹
whose cure not onely, but whose nature is unknowne; I can cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others. I can cure vices by Physicke, when they remaine incurable by Divinity, and shall obey my pils, when they contemne their
⁹⁰
precepts. I boast nothing, but plainely say, we all labour against our owne cure, for death is the cure of all diseases. There is no Catholicon or universall remedy I know but this, which thogh nauseous to queasie stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is Nectar and a pleasant potion of immortality.