The Major Works (English Library) (47 page)

This is a corner-stone in Physiognomy, and holds some Truth not only in particular Persons but also in whole Nations. There are therefore Provincial Faces, National Lips and Noses, which testify not only the Natures of those Countries, but of those which have them elsewhere. Thus we may make
England
the whole Earth, dividing it not only into
Europe, Asia, Africa
, but the particular Regions thereof, and may in some latitude affirm, that there are
Ægyptians, Scythians, Indians
among us; who though born in
England
, yet carry the Faces and Air of those Countries, and are also agreeable and correspondent unto their Natures. Faces look uniformly unto our Eyes: How they appear unto some Animals of a more piercing or differing sight, who are able to discover the inequalities, rubbs, and hairiness of the Skin, is not without good doubt. And therefore in reference unto Man,
Cupid
is said to be blind. Affection should not be too sharp-Eyed, and Love is not to be made by magnifying Glasses. If things were seen as they truly are, the beauty of bodies would be much abridged. And therefore the wise Contriver hath drawn the pictures and outsides of things softly and amiably unto the natural Edge of our Eyes, not leaving them able to discover those uncomely asperities, which make Oyster-shells in good Faces, and Hedghoggs even in
Venus
’s moles.

10. Court not Felicity too far, and weary not the favorable hand of Fortune. Glorious actions have their times, extent and
non ultra
’s.
⁴⁰
To put no end unto Attempts were to make prescription of Successes, and to bespeak unhappiness at the last. For the Line of our Lives is drawn with white and black vicissitudes, wherein the extremes hold seldom one complexion. That
Pompey
should obtain the sirname of Great at twenty five years, that Men in their young and active days should be fortunate and perform notable things, is no observation of deep wonder, they having the strength of their fates before them, nor yet acted their parts in the World, for which they were brought into it: whereas Men of years, matured for counsels and designs, seem to be beyond the vigour of their active fortunes, and high exploits of life, providentially ordained unto Ages best agreeable unto them. And therefore many brave men finding their fortune

grow faint, and feeling its declination, have timely withdrawn themselves from great attempts, and so escaped the ends of mighty Men, disproportionable to their beginnings. But magnanimous Thoughts have so dimmed the Eyes of many, that forgetting the very essence of Fortune, and the vicissitude of good and evil, they apprehend no bottom in felicity; and so have been still tempted on unto mighty Actions, reserved for their destructions. For Fortune lays the Plot of our Adversities in the foundation of our Felicities, blessing us in the first quadrate,
⁴¹
to blast us more sharply in the last. And since in the highest felicities there lieth a capacity of the lowest miseries, she hath this advantage from our happiness to make us truly miserable. For to become acutely miserable we are to be first happy. Affliction smarts most in the most happy state, as having somewhat in it of
Bellisarius
at Beggers bush, or
Bajazet
in the grate.
⁴²
And this the fallen Angels severely understand, who having acted their first part in Heaven, are made sharply miserable by transition, and more afflictively feel the contrary state of Hell.

11. Carry no careless Eye upon the unexpected scenes of things; but ponder the acts of Providence in the publick ends of great and notable Men, set out unto the view of all for no common
memorandums
. The Tragical Exits and unexpected periods of some eminent Persons cannot but amuse
⁴³
considerate Observators; wherein notwithstanding most Men seem to see by extramission, without reception or self-reflexion,
⁴⁴
and conceive themselves unconcerned by the fallacy of their own Exemption: Whereas the Mercy of God hath singled out but few to be the signals of his Justice, leaving the generality of

Mankind to the pædagogy of Example. But the inadvertency of our Natures not well apprehending this favorable method and merciful decimation, and that he sheweth in some what others also deserve; they entertain no sense of his Hand beyond the stroak of themselves. Whereupon the whole becomes necessarily punished, and the contracted Hand of God extended unto universal Judgments: from whence nevertheless the stupidity of our tempers receives but faint impressions, and in the most Tragical state of times holds but starts of good motions. So that to continue us in goodness there must be iterated returns of misery, and a circulation in afflictions is necessary. And since we cannot be wise by warnings, since Plagues are insignificant, except we be personally plagued, since also we cannot be punish’d unto Amendment by proxy or commutation, nor by

vicinity, but contaction;
⁴⁵
there is an unhappy necessity that we must smart in our own Skins, and the provoked arm of the Almighty must fall upon our selves. The capital sufferings of others are rather our monitions
⁴⁶
than acquitments. There is but one who dyed salvifically for us,
⁴⁷
and able to say unto Death, hitherto shalt thou go and no farther; only one enlivening Death, which makes Gardens of Graves, and that which was sowed in Corruption to arise and flourish in Glory: when Death it self shall dye, and living shall have no Period, when the damned shall mourn at the funeral of Death, when Life not Death shall be the wages of sin, when the second Death
⁴⁸
shall prove a miserable Life, and destruction shall be courted.

12. Although their Thoughts may seem too severe, who think that few ill natur’d Men go to Heaven; yet it may be acknowledged that good natur’d Persons are best founded for that place; who enter the World with good Dispositions, and natural Graces, more ready to be advanced by impressions from above, and christianized unto pieties; who carry about them

plain and down right dealing Minds, Humility, Mercy, Charity, and Virtues acceptable unto God and Man. But whatever success they may have as to Heaven, they are the acceptable Men on Earth, and happy is he who hath his quiver full of them for his Friends. These are not the Dens wherein Falshood lurks, and Hypocrisy hides its Head, wherein Frowardness makes its Nest, or where Malice, Hardheartedness, and Oppression love to dwell; not those by whom the Poor get little, and the Rich some times loose all; Men not of retracted Looks, but who carry their Hearts in their Faces, and need not to be look’d upon with perspectives;
⁴⁹
not sordidly or mischievously in-grateful; who cannot learn to ride upon the neck of the afflicted, nor load the heavy laden, but who keep the Temple of
Janus
shut by peaceable and quiet tempers; who make not only the best Friends, but the best Enemies, as easier to forgive than offend, and ready to pass by the second offence, before they avenge the first; who make natural Royalists, obedient Subjects, kind and merciful Princes, verified in our own, one of the best natur’d Kings of this Throne.
⁵⁰
Of the old Roman Emperours the best were the best natur’d; though they made but a small number, and might be writ in a Ring. Many of the rest were as bad Men as Princes; Humorists rather than of good humors, and of good natural parts, rather than of good natures: which did but arm their bad inclinations, and make them wittily wicked.

13. [With what strift
⁵¹
and pains we come into the World we remember not; but ’tis commonly found no easy matter to get out of it.] Many have studied to exasperate the ways of Death, but fewer hours have been spent to soften that necessity. That the smoothest way unto the grave is made by bleeding, as common opinion presumeth, beside the sick and fainting Languors which accompany that effusion, the experiment in
Lucan
and
Seneca
⁵²
will make us doubt; under which the noble Stoick so deeply laboured, that, to conceal his affliction, he was
fain to retire from the sight of his Wife, and not ashamed to implore the merciful hand of his Physician to shorten his misery therein.
Ovid
⁵³
the old Heroes,
⁵⁴
and the Stoicks, who were so afraid of drowning, as dreading thereby, the extinction of their Soul, which they conceived to be a Fire, stood probably in fear of an easier way of Death; wherein the Water, entring the possessions of Air, makes a temperate suffocation, and kills as it were without a Fever. Surely many, who have had the Spirit to destroy themselves, have not been ingenious in the contrivance thereof. ’Twas a dull way practised by
Themistocles
to overwhelm himself with Bulls-blood,
⁵⁵
who, being an
Athenian
, might have held an easier Theory of Death from the state potion of his Country; from which
Socrates
in
Plato
⁵⁶
seemed not to suffer much more than from the fit of an Ague.
Cato
is much to be pitied, who mangled himself with poyniards; And
Hannibal
seems more subtle, who carried his delivery not in the point, but the pummel
⁵⁷
of his Sword.

The
Egyptians
were merciful contrivers, who destroyed their malefactors by Asps, charming their senses into an invincible sleep, and killing as it were with
Hermes
his Rod.
⁵⁸
The Turkish Emperour, odious for other Cruelty, was herein a remarkable Master of Mercy, killing his Favorite in his sleep, and sending him from the shade into the house of darkness.
⁵⁹
He who had been thus destroyed would hardly have bled at the presence of his destroyer; when Men are already dead by metaphor, and pass but from one sleep unto another, wanting herein the
eminent part of severity, to feel themselves to dye, and escaping the sharpest attendant of Death, the lively apprehension thereof. But to learn to dye is better than to study the ways of dying. Death will find some ways to unty or cut the most Gordian Knots of Life, and make men’s miseries as mortal as themselves: whereas evil Spirits, as undying Substances, are un-separable from their calamities; and therefore they everlastingly struggle under their
Augustia
’s,
⁶⁰
and bound up with immortality can never get out of themselves.

PART III

1. ’Tis hard to find a whole Age to imitate, or what Century to propose for Example. Some have been far more approveable than others: but Virtue and Vice, Panegyricks and Satyrs,
¹
scatteringly to be found in all. History sets down not only things laudable, but abominable; things which should never have been or never have been known: So that noble patterns must be fetched here and there from single Persons, rather than whole Nations, and from all Nations, rather than any one. The World was early bad, and the first sin the most deplorable of any.
²
The younger World afforded the oldest Men, and perhaps the Best and the Worst, when length of days made virtuous habits Heroical and immoveable, vitious, inveterate and irreclaimable.
³
And since ’tis said that the imaginations of their hearts were evil, only evil, and continually evil; it may be feared that their sins held pace with their lives; and their Longevity swelling their Impieties, the Longanimity
⁴
of God would no longer endure such vivacious abominations. Their Impieties were surely of a deep dye, which required the whole Element
of Water to wash them away,
⁵
and overwhelmed their memories with themselves; and so shut up the first Windows of Time, leaving no Histories of those longevous
⁶
generations, when Men might have been properly Historians, when
Adam
might have read long Lectures unto
Methuselah
, and
Methuselah
unto
Noah
.
⁷
For had we been happy in just Historical accounts of that unparallel’d World, we might have been acquainted with Wonders, and have understood not a little of the Acts and undertakings of
Moses
his mighty Men, and Men of renown of old; which might have enlarged our Thoughts, and made the World older unto us. For the unknown part of time shortens the estimation, if not the compute of it. What hath escaped our Knowledge falls not under our Consideration, and what is and will be latent is little better than non existent.

2. Some things are dictated for our Instruction, some acted for our Imitation, wherein ’tis best to ascend unto the highest conformity, and to the honour of the Exemplar. He honours God who imitates him. For what we virtuously imitate we approve and Admire; and since we delight not to imitate Inferiors, we aggrandize and magnify those we imitate; since also we are most apt to imitate those we love, we testify our affection in our imitation of the Inimitable. To affect to be like may be no imitation. To act, and not to be what we pretend to imitate, is but a mimical conformation, and carrieth no Virtue in it.
Lucifer
imitated not God, when he said he would be like the Highest,
⁸
and he
⁹
imitated not
Jupiter
, who counterfeited Thunder. Where Imitation can go no farther, let Admiration step on, whereof there is no end in the wisest form of Men. Even Angels and Spirits have enough to admire in their sublimer Natures, Admiration being the act of the Creature and not of God, who doth not Admire himself. Created Natures
allow of swelling Hyperboles; nothing can be said Hyperbolically of God, nor will his Attributes admit of expressions above their own Exuperances.
¹⁰
Trismegistus
his Circle, whose center is every where, and circumference no where,
¹¹
was no Hyperbole. Words cannot exceed, where they cannot express enough. Even the most winged Thoughts fall at the setting out, and reach not the portal of Divinity.

3. In Bivious
¹²
Theorems and
Janus
-faced Doctrines let Virtuous considerations state the determination. Look upon Opinions as thou doest upon the Moon, and chuse not the dark hemisphere for thy contemplation. Embrace not the opacous and blind side of Opinions, but that which looks most Luciferously
¹³
or influentially unto Goodness. ’Tis better to think that there are Guardian Spirits, than that there are no Spirits to Guard us; that vicious Persons are Slaves, than that there is any servitude in Virtue; that times past have been better than times present, than that times were always bad, and that to be Men it suffiseth to be no better than Men in all Ages, and so promiscuously to swim down the turbid stream, and make up the grand confusion. Sow not thy understanding with Opinions, which make nothing of Iniquities, and fallaciously extenuate Transgressions. Look upon Vices and vicious Objects with Hyperbolical Eyes, and rather enlarge their dimensions, that their unseen Deformities may not escape thy sense, and their Poysonous parts and stings may appear massy and monstrous unto thee; for the undiscerned Particles and Atoms of Evil deceive us, and we are undone by the Invisibles of seeming Goodness. We are only deceived in what is not discerned, and to Err is but to be Blind or Dim-sighted as to some Perceptions.

4. To be Honest in a right Line,
¹⁴
and Virtuous by Epitome, be firm unto such Principles of Goodness, as carry in them Volumes of instruction and may abridge thy Labour. And since
instructions are many, hold close unto those, whereon the rest depend. So may we have all in a few, and the Law and the Prophets in a Rule, the Sacred Writ in Stenography,
¹⁵
and the Scripture in a Nut-Shell. To pursue the osseous
¹⁶
and solid part of Goodness, which gives Stability and Rectitude to all the rest; To settle on fundamental Virtues, and bid early defiance unto Mother-vices, which carry in their Bowels the seminals of other Iniquities, makes a short cut in Goodness, and strikes not off an Head but the whole Neck of
Hydra
. For we are carried into the dark Lake, like the
Ægyptian
River into the Sea, by seven principal Ostiaries.
¹⁷
The Mother-Sins of that number are the Deadly engins of Evil Spirits that undo us, and even evil Spirits themselves, and he who is under the Chains thereof is not without a possession.
Mary Magdalene
had more than seven Devils, if these with their Imps were in her, and he who is thus possessed may literally be named
Legion
.
¹⁸
Where such Plants grow and prosper, look for no Champian or Region void of Thorns, but productions like the Tree of
Goa
,
¹⁹
and Forrests of abomination.

5. Guide not the Hand of God, nor order the Finger of the Almighty, unto thy will and pleasure; but sit quiet in the soft showers of Providence, and Favorable distributions in this World, either to thy self or others. And since not only Judgments have their Errands, but Mercies their Commissions; snatch not at every Favour, nor think thy self passed by, if they fall upon thy Neighbour. Rake not up envious displacences at
²⁰
things successful unto others, which the wise Disposer of all thinks not fit for thy self. Reconcile the events of things unto
both beings, that is, of this World and the next: So will there not seem so many Riddles in Providence, nor various inequalities in the dispensation of things below. If thou doest not anoint thy Face, yet put not on sackcloth at the felicities of others. Repining at the Good draws on rejoicing at the evils of others, and so falls into that inhumane Vice,
²¹
for which so few Languages have a name. The blessed Spirits above rejoice at our happiness below; but to be glad at the evils of one another is beyond the malignity of Hell, and falls not on evil Spirits, who, though they rejoice at our unhappiness, take no pleasure at the afflictions of their own Society or of their fellow Natures. Degenerous Heads! who must be fain to learn from such Examples, and to be Taught from the School of Hell.

6. Grain not thy vicious stains, nor deepen those swart
²²
Tinctures, which Temper, Infirmity, or ill habits have set upon thee; and fix not by iterated depravations what time might Efface, or Virtuous washes expunge. He who thus still advanceth in Iniquity deepneth his deformed hue, turns a Shadow into Night, and makes himself a
Negro
in the black Jaundice; and so becomes one of those Lost ones, the disproportionate pores of whose Brains afford no entrance unto good Motions, but reflect and frustrate all Counsels, Deaf unto the Thunder of the Laws, and Rocks unto the Cries of charitable Commiserators. He who hath had the Patience of
Diogenes
, to make Orations unto Statues, may more sensibly apprehend how all Words fall to the Ground, spent upon such a surd
²³
and Earless Generation of Men, stupid unto all Instruction, and rather requiring an Exorcist, than an Orator for their Conversion.

7. Burden not the back of
Aries, Leo
, or
Taurus
, with thy faults, nor make
Saturn, Mars
, or
Venus
, guilty of thy Follies. Think not to fasten thy imperfections on the Stars, and so despairingly conceive thy self under a fatality of being evil. Calculate thy self within, seek not thy self in the Moon, but in thine own Orb or Microcosmical Circumference. Let celestial

aspects admonish and advertise, not conclude and determine thy ways. For since good and bad Stars moralize not our Actions, and neither excuse or commend, acquit or condemn our Good or Bad Deeds at the present or last Bar, since some are Astrologically well disposed who are morally highly vicious; not Celestial Figures, but Virtuous Schemes must denominate and state our Actions. If we rightly understood the Names whereby God calleth the Stars, if we knew his Name for the Dog-Star,
²⁴
or by what appellation
Jupiter, Mars
, and
Saturn
obey his Will, it might be a welcome accession unto Astrology, which speaks great things, and is fain to make use of appellations from Greek and Barbarick Systems. Whatever Influences, Impulsions, or Inclinations there be from the Lights above, it were a piece of wisdom to make one of those Wise men who overrule their Stars,
²⁵
and with their own Militia contend with the Host of Heaven. Unto which attempt there want not Auxiliaries from the whole strength of Morality, supplies from Christian Ethicks, influences also and illuminations from above, more powerfull than the Lights of Heaven.

8. Confound not the distinctions of thy Life which Nature hath divided: that is, Youth, Adolescence, Manhood, and old Age, nor in these divided Periods, wherein thou art in a manner Four, conceive thy self but One. Let every division be happy in its proper Virtues, nor one Vice run through all. Let each distinction have its salutary transition, and critically deliver thee from the imperfections of the former, so ordering the whole, that Prudence and Virtue may have the largest Section. Do as a Child but when thou art a Child, and ride not on a Reed at twenty. He who hath not taken leave of the follies of his Youth, and in his maturer state scarce got out of that division, disproportionately divideth his Days, crowds up the latter part of his Life, and leaves too narrow a corner for the Age of Wisdom, and so hath room to be a Man scarce longer than he hath been a Youth. Rather than to make this confusion, antici
pate the Virtues of Age, and live long without the infirmities of it. So may’st thou count up thy Days as some do
Adams
,
²⁶
that is, by anticipation; so may’st thou be coetaneous
²⁷
unto thy Elders, and a Father unto thy contemporaries.

9. While others are curious in the choice of good Air, and chiefly sollicitous for healthful habitations, Study thou Conversation, and be critical in thy Consortion.
²⁸
The aspects, conjunctions, and configurations of the Stars, which mutually diversify, intend, or qualify their influences, are but the varieties of their nearer or farther conversation with one another, and like the Consortion of Men, whereby they become better or worse, and even Exchange their Natures. Since Men live by Examples, and will be imitating something; order thy imitation to thy Improvement, not thy Ruin. Look not for Roses in
Attalus
His Garden,
²⁹
or wholesome Flowers in a venemous Plantation. And since there is scarce any one bad, but some others are the worse for him; tempt not Contagion by proximity and hazard not thy self in the shadow of Corruption. He who hath not early suffered this Shipwrack, and in his Younger Days escaped this
Charybdis
, may make a happy Voyage, and not come in with black Sails into the port.
³⁰
Self conversation, or to be alone, is better than such Consortion. Some School-men
³¹
tell us, that he is properly alone, with whom in the same place there is no other of the same Species.
Nabuchodonozor
was alone, though among the Beasts of the Field,
³²
and a Wise Man may be tolerably said to be alone though with a Rabble of People, little better than Beasts about him. Unthinking Heads, who have not learn’d to be alone, are in a Prison to themselves,

if they be not also with others: Whereas on the contrary, they whose thoughts are in a fair, and hurry within, are sometimes fain to retire into Company, to be out of the crowd of themselves. He who must needs have Company, must needs have sometimes bad Company. Be able to be alone. Loose not the advantage of Solitude, and the Society of thy self, nor be only content, but delight to be alone and single with Omni-presency.
³³
He who is thus prepared, the Day is not uneasy not the Night black unto him. Darkness may bound his Eyes, not his Imagination. In his Bed he may ly, like
Pompey
and his Sons,
³⁴
in all quarters of the Earth, may speculate the Universe, and enjoy the whole World in the Hermitage of himself. Thus the old
Ascetick
Christians found a Paradise in a Desert, and with little converse on Earth held a conversation in Heaven; thus they Astronomiz’d in Caves, and though they beheld not the Stars, had the Glory of Heaven before them.

10. Let the Characters of good things stand indelibly in thy Mind, and thy Thoughts be active on them. Trust not too much unto suggestions from Reminiscential Amulets, or Artificial
Memorandums
. Let the mortifying
Janus
of
Covarrubias
³⁵
be in thy daily Thoughts, not only on thy Hand and Signets. Rely not alone upon silent and dumb remembrances. Behold not Death’s Heads till thou doest not see them, nor look upon mortifying Objects till thou overlook’st them. Forget not how assuefaction
³⁶
unto any thing minorates
³⁷
the passion from it, how constant Objects loose their hints, and steal an inadvertisement
³⁸
upon us. There is no excuse to forget what every thing prompts unto us. To thoughtful Observators the whole World
is a Phylactery,
³⁹
and every thing we see an Item of the Wisdom, Power, or Goodness of God. Happy are they who verify their Amulets, and make their Phylacteries speak in their Lives and Actions. To run on in despight of the Revulsions and Pul-backs of such Remora’s
⁴⁰
aggravates our transgressions. When Death’s Heads on our Hands
⁴¹
have no influence upon our Heads, and fleshless Cadavers abate not the exorbitances of the Flesh; when Crucifixes upon Mens Hearts suppress not their bad commotions, and his Image who was murdered for us with-holds not from Blood and Murder; Phylacteries prove but formalities, and their despised hints sharpen our condemnations.