Security If Death be at Any time to be Fear'd it is Allwayes to be Fear'd but the way never to Fear it is to be often thinking of it To what end is it to put off for a little while that which we cannot avoid He that Dyes does but follow him that is Dead Why are we then so long afraid of that which is so little a while a doing How miserable are those People that spend their Lives in the Dismal Apprehensions of Death For they are beset on all hands and every Minute in Dread of a surprize We must therefore look about us as if we were in an Enemies Country and Consider our Last hour not as the Punishment but as the Law of Nature The Fear of it is a Continual Palpitation of the Heart and he that overcomes That Terror shall never be troubled with any Other Life is a Navigation we are perpetually wallowing and dashing one against another Sometimes we suffer Shipwrack but we are Alwayes in Danger and in Expectation of it And what is it when it comes but either the End of a Journey or a Passage It is as great a Folly to Fear Death as to Fear Old Age. Nay as to Fear Life it self for he that would not Dye ought not to Live since Death is the Condition of Life Beside that it is a Madness to Fear a thing that is Certain for where there is no Doubt there is no place for Fear WE are still chiding of Fate and even those that exact the most Rigorous Justice betwixt Man and Man are yet themselves Unjust to Providence Why was such a One taken away in the Prime of his Years As if it were the Number of years that makes Death easie to us and not the Temper of the Mind He that would Live a little Longer to Day would be as loth to Dye a Hundred year Hence But which is more Reasonable for Us to obey Nature or for Nature to obey us Go we must at Last and no Matter how soon 'T is the Work of Fate to make us Live Long but 't is the Business of Virtue to make a short Life sufficient Life is to be measur'd by Action not by Time a Man may Dye Old at Thirty and Young at Fourscore Nay the One Lives after Death and the Other Perish'd before he Dy'd I look upon Age among the Effects of Chance How Long I shall Live is in the Power of Others but it is in my Own how Well The largest space of Time is to live till a Man is Wise. He that Dyes of Old Age does no more than go to Bed when he is weary Death is the Test of Life and it is that only which discovers what we are and distinguishes betwixt Ostentation and Virtue A Man may Dispute Cite Great Authorities Talk Learnedly Huff it out and yet be Rotten at Heart But let us Soberly attend our Business and since it is Uncertain When or Where we shall Dye let us look for Death in all Places and at all Times We can never Study that Point too much which we can never come to Experiment whether we know it or no. It is a Blessed thing to dispatch the Business of Life before we Dye and then to Expect Death in the Possession of a Happy Life He 's the Great Man that is willing to Dye when his Life is pleasant to him An Honest Life is not a Greater Good than an Honest Death How many Brave young Men by an Instinct of Nature are carry'd on to Great Actions and even to the Contempt of all Hazards 'T IS Childish to go out of the World Groning and Wailing as we came into 't Our Bodies must be thrown away as the Secondine that wraps up the Infant the other being only the Covering of the Soul We shall then discover the Secrets of Nature the Darkness shall be Discuss'd and our Souls Irradiated with Light and Glory A Glory without a Shadow a Glory that shall surround us and from whence we shall look down and see Day and Night beneath us If we cannot lift up our Eyes toward the Lamp of Heaven without dazling What shall we do when we come to behold the Divine Light in its Illustrious Original That Death which we so much dread and decline is not a Determination but the Intermission of a Life which will return again All those things that are the very Cause of Life are the way to Death We Fear it as we do Fame but it is a great Folly to Fear Words Some People are so impatient of Life that they are still wishing for Death but he that wishes to dye does not desire it Let us rather wait Gods Pleasure and Pray for Health and Life If we have a Mind to Live Why do we wish to dye If we have a Mind to dye we may do it without talking of it Men are a great deal more Resolute in the Article of Death it self than they are about the Circumstances of it For it gives a Man Courage to Consider that his Fate is Inevitable the slow Approches of death are the most Troublesome to us as we see many a Gladiator who upon his wounds will direct his Adversaries weapon to his very Heart though but Timorous perhaps in the Combat There are some that have not the Heart either to Live or Dy and that 's a Sad Case But this we are sure of The Fear of Death is a Continual Slavery as the Contempt of it is Certain Liberty CHAP. XXII Consolations against Death from the Providence and the Necessity of it THIS Life is only a Prelude to Eternity where we are to expect Another Original and Another State of Things We have no Prospect of Heaven Here but at a Distance Let us therefore expect our Last and Decretory Hour with Courage The Last I say to our Bodies but not to our Minds Our Luggage we must leave behind us and return as Naked Out of the World as we came Into 't The day which we fear as our Last is but the Birth-day of our Eternity and it is the only way to 't So that what we Fear as a Rock proves to be but a Port In many Cases to be Desir'd Never to be Refus'd and he that Dyes Young has only made a Quick Voyage on 't Some are Becalm'd Others cut it away before the Wind and we Live just as we Saile First we run our Childhood out of sight our Youth next and then our Middle Age After That follows Old Age and brings us to the Common End of Mankind It is a great Providence that we have more wayes Out of the World than we have Into 't Our Security stands upon a Point the very Article of Death It draws a great many Blessings into a very Narrow Compass And although the Fruit of it does not seem to extend to the Defunct yet the Difficulty of it is more than ballanc'd by the Contemplation of the Future Nay suppose that all the
are brought up only to Carve others to Season and all to serve the Turns of Pomp and Luxury Is it not a Barbarous Custome to make it almost Capital for a Servant only to Cough Sneeze Sigh or but wag his Lips while he is in waiting and to keep him the whole Night Mute and Fasting Yet so it comes to pass that they that dare not speak Before their Masters will not forbear talking Of them and those on the other side that were allow'd a modest Freedom of Speech in their Masters Entertainments were most obstinately silent upon the Torture rather than they would betray them But we live as if a Servant were not made of the same Materials with his Master or to Breath the same Ayr or to Live and Dye under the Same Conditions It is worthy of Observation that the most Imperious Masters over their own Servants are at the same time the most Abject Slaves to the Servants of other Masters I will not distinguish a Servant by his Office but by his Manners The One is the work of Fortune the Other of Virtue But we look only to his Quality and not to his Merit Why should not a Brave Action rather Dignify the Condition of a Servant than the Condition of a Servant Lessen a Brave Action I would not value a Man for his Cloaths or Degree any more than I would do a Horse for his Trappings What if he be a Servant shew me any Man that is not so to his Lusts his Avarice his Ambition his Palate to his Quean nay to other Mens Servants and we are all of us Servants to Fear Insolent we are many of us at Home Servile and Despised Abroad and none are more Liable to be trampled upon than those that have gotten a habit of Giving Affronts by Suffering them What matters it how many Masters we have When 't is but One Slavery And whosoever Contemns That is perfectly Free let his Masters be never so Many That Man is only Free not whom Fortune has a Little Power over but over whom she has none at all Which State of Liberty is an Inestimable Good when we desire Nothing that is either Superfluous or Vitious They are Asses that are made for Burthen and not the Nobler sort of Horses In the Civil Wars betwixt Caesar and Pompey the Question was not who should be Slaves or Free but who should be Master Ambition is the same thing in Private that it is in Publick and the Duties are Effectually the same betwixt the Master of a Kingdom and the Master of a Family As I would treat some Servants kindly Because they are Worthy and Others to make them so so on the Other side I would have a Servant to Reverence his Master and rather to Love him than Fear him Some there are that think this too little for a Master though it is all that we pay even to God himself The Body of a servant may be bought and sold but his Mind is Free EPIST. XVIII We are Iuster to Men than to God Of Life and Death of Good and Evil. IT is without Dispute that the Loss of a Friend is one of the greatest Tryals of Humane Frailty and no Man is so much exalted above the sense of that Calamity as not to be affected with it And yet if a Man bears it Bravely they cry he has no Sense of Piety or Good Nature in him if he sink under it they call him Effeminate so that he lies both wayes under a Reproach But What 's the Ground of your Trouble I beseech you but that he might have Liv'd Longer in respect of his years and in effect that he ought to have done so in regard of his Usefulness to the World I cannot but wonder to see that a Person so Just and so Temperate in all his Dealings with Men and in Business should so exceedingly forget himself in This Point But you have in Excuse of this Error the Failings of the whole VVorld with you for Company For even those that are the most scrupulously Consciencious toward Men are yet Unthankful and Injurious to Providence It is not the Number of Dayes that makes a Life Long but the Full Employment of them upon the main End and Purpose of Life which is the Perfecting of the Mind in making a Man the Absolute Master of Himself Ireckon the Matter of Age among External things the main point is to Live and Die with Honor. Every Man that Lives is upon the way and must go through with his Journy without stopping till he comes at the End And wheresoever it ends if it ends well it is a Perfect Life There is an Invincible Fate that attends all Mortals and one Generation is condemn'd to tread upon the Heels of another Take away from Life the Power of Death and 't is a slavery As Caligula was passing upon the way an Old man that was a Prisoner and with a Beard down to his Girdle made it his request to Caesar that he might be put to death Why sayes Caesar to him are you not dead already So that you see Some Desire it as well as others Fear it And why not When it is one of the Duties of Life to Dye And it is one of the Comforts of it too For the Living are under the Power of Fortune but she has no Dominion at all over the Dead How can Life be Pleasant to any Man that is not prepar'd to part with it Or what Loss can be easier to us than that which can never be Miss'd or Desir'd again I was brought by a Defluxion into a hopeless Consumption and I had it many times in my Thought to Deliver my self from a Miserable Life by a Violent Death But the Tenderness I had for an Aged and Indulgent Father held my hand for thought I to my self it will be very hard for my Father to be without me though I could most willingly part with my self In the Case of a Particular Disease a Physitian may propound a Remedy but the onely Remedy for all Diseases is the Contempt of Death Though I know too that it is the business of a Long Life to Learn That Lesson Oh! The Happiness of distinguishing Good from Evil in the Works of Providence But in stead of raising our Thoughts to the Contemplation of Divine Matters and enquiring into the Original the State and the Appointed Issue of Created Nature we are digging of the Earth and serving of our Avarice Neglecting all the good things that are so frankly offer'd us How great a Folly and Madness is it for Men that are Dying and in the hands of Death already to extend their Hopes and to carry their Ambition and Desires to the Grave Unsatisfy'd For whosoever is tainted with those Hydroptick Appetites can never have enough either of Mony or Power It is a Remarkable thing that among those that place their Happiness in Sense they are the most miserable that seem to be happiest The Riches
greater for his so being WHEN Domitius was besieg'd in Corfinium and the Place brought to great extremity he pressed his servant so earnestly to Poyson him that at last he was prevail'd upon to give him a Potion which it seems was an innocent Opiate and Domitius out-liv'd it Caesar took the Town and gave Domitius his Life but it was his Servant that gave it him first THERE was another Town besieg'd and when it was upon the last pinch two Servants made their escape and went over to the Enemy Upon the Romans entring the Town and in the heat of the Soldiers fury these two Fellows ran directly home took their Mistress out of her house and drave her before them telling every body how barbarously she had us'd them formerly and that they would now have their Revenge when they had her without the Gates they kept her close till the danger was over by which means they gave their Mistress her Life and she gave them their Freedom This was not the Action of a Servile Mind to do so Glorious a thing under an appearance of so great a Villany for if they had not pass'd for Deserters and Parricides they could not have gain'd their End WITH one Instance more and that a very brave one I shall conclude this Chapter IN the Civil Wars of Rome a Party coming to search for a Person of Quality that was proscrib'd a Servant put on his Masters Cloths and deliver'd himself up to the Soldiers as the Master of the House he was taken into Custody and put to death without discovering the Mistake What could be more glorious than for a Servant to dye for his Master in that Age when there were not many Servants that would not betray their Masters So generous a tenderness in a Publick Cruelty So invincible a Faith in a General Corruption What could be more glorious I say than so exalted a Virtue as rather to chuse death for the Reward of his Fidelity than the greatest advantages he might otherwise have had for the violation of it CHAP. IV. It is the Intention not the Matter that makes the Benefit THE Good will of the Benefactor is the Fountain of all Benefits nay it is the Benefit it self or at least the Stamp that makes it valuable and current Some there are I know that take the Matter for the Benefit and taxe the Obligation by weight and measure When any thing is given them they presently cast it up What may such a House be worth Such an Office Such an Estate As if that were the Benefit which is only the Sign and Mark of it For the Obligation rests in the Mind not in the Matter And all those Advantages which we see handle or hold in actual possession by the Courtesie of another are but several Modes or Wayes of Explaining and putting the Good Will in Execution There needs no great subtilty to prove that both Benefits and Injuries receive their value from the Intention when even Brutes themselves are able to decide this Question Tread upon a Dog by chance or put him to pain upon the dressing of a Wound the one he passes by as an Accident and the other in his fashion he acknowledges as a Kindness but offer to strike at him though you do him no hurt at all he flies yet in the face of you even for the Mischief that you barely meant him IT is further to be observ'd that all Benefits are good and like the distributions of Providence made up of Wisdom and Bounty whereas the Gift it self is neither good nor bad but may indifferently be apply'd either to the one or to the other The Benefit is Immortal the Gift Perishable For the Benefit it self continues when we have no longer either the Use or the Matter of it He that is dead was alive He that has lost his Eyes did see and whatsoever is done cannot be rendred undone My Friend for Instance is taken by Pyrates I redeem him and after that he falls into other Pyrates hands his Obligation to me is the same still as if he had preserv'd his Freedom And so if I save a Man from any one Misfortune and he falls into another if I give him a Sum of Money which is afterward taken away by Thieves it comes to the same Case Fortune may deprive us of the Matter of a Benefit but the Benefit it self remains inviolable If the Benefit resided in the Matter that which is good for one Man would be so for another whereas many times the very same thing given to several Persons works contrary effects even to the difference of Life or Death and that which is one bodies Cure proves another bodies Poison Beside that the Timeing of it alters the value and a Crust of Bread upon a pinch is a greater Present than an Imperial Crown What is more Familiar than in a Battel to shoot at an Enemy and kill a Friend Or in stead of a Friend to save an Enemy But yet this disappointment in the Event does not at all operate upon the Intention What if a Man cures me of a Wen with a stroke that was design'd to cut off my head Or with a Malicious blow upon my Stomach breaks an Imposthume or What if he save my Life with a Draught that was prepar'd to Poyson me The Providence of the Issue does not at all discharge the Obliquity of the Intent And the same Reason holds good even in Religion it self It is not the Incense or the Offering that is acceptable to God but the Purity and Devotion of the Worshipper Neither is the bare Will without Action sufficient that is where we have the Means of Acting for in that Case it signifies as little to wish well without well doing as to do good without willing it There must be Effect as well as Intention to make me owe a Benefit but to will against it does wholly discharge it In fine the Conscience alone is the Judge both of Benefits and Injuries IT does not follow now because the Benefit rests in the Good Will that therefore the Good Will should be alwayes a Benefit for if it be not accompany'd with Government and Discretion those Offices which we call Benefits are but the Works of Passion or of Chance and many times the greatest of all Injuries One Man does me good by Mistake another Ignorantly a third upon force but none of these Cases do I take to be an Obligation for they were neither directed to me nor was there any kindness of Intention We do not thank the Seas for the Advantages we receive by Navigation or the Rivers for supplying us with Fish and flowing of our Grounds we do not thank the Trees either for their Fruits or Shades or the Winds for a fair Gale And What 's the difference betwixt a reasonable Creature that does not know and an Inanimate that cannot A good Horse saves one Man's Life a good Sute of Armes Another's and a Man perhaps
Sickness better than Health if we bear it without yielding or repining This is it that overcomes Ill Fortune and Moderates Good for it marches betwixt the One and the Other with an Equal contempt of Both. It turns like Fire all things into it self our Actions and our Friendships are tinctur'd with it and whatever it touches becomes Amiable That which is frail and Mortal rises and falls grows wasts and varies from it self but the State of things Divine is always the same And so is Virtue let the Matter be what it will It is never the worse for the difficulty of the Action nor the Better for the Easiness of it 'T is the same in a Rich Man as in a Poor in a Sickly Man as in a Sound in a Strong as in a Weak The Virtue of the Besieg'd is as great as that of the Besiegers There are some Virtues I confess which a good Man cannot be without and yet he had rather have no Occasion to employ them If there were any difference I should prefer the Virtues of Patience before those of Pleasure for it is braver to break through Difficulties than to temper our delights But though the Subject of Virtue may possibly be against Nature as to be burnt or wounded yet the virtue it self of an Invincible Patience is according to Nature We may seem perhaps to promise more than Humane Nature is able to perform but we speak with a respect to the Mind and not to the Body IF a Man does not Live up to his own Rules it is something yet to have Virtuous Meditations and Good Purposes even without Acting It is Generous the very Adventure of being Good and the bare proposal of an Eminent Course of Life though beyond the force of Humane Frailty to accomplish There is something of Honor yet in the Miscarriage Nay in the Naked Contemplation of it I would receive my own Death with as little trouble as I would hear of another Mans I would bear the same Mind whether I be Rich or Poor whether I get or lose in the World what I have I will not either sordidly spare or prodigally squander away and I will reckon upon Benefits well plac'd as the fairest part of my Possession Not valuing them by Number or Weight but by the Profit and Esteem of the Receiver accompting my self never the Poorer for that which I give to a Worthy Person What I do shall be done for Conscience not Ostentation I will Eat and Drink not to gratifie my Palate or only to fill and empty but to satisfie Nature I will be Chearful to my Friends Mild and Placable to my Enemies I will prevent an honest request if I can foresee it and I will grant it without asking I will look upon the whole World as my Country and upon the Gods both as the Witnesses and the Judges of my Words and Deeds I will live and dye with this Testimony that I lov'd good Studies and a good Conscience that I never invaded another Mans Liberty and that I preserv'd my own I will govern my Life and my Thoughts as if the whole World were to see the One and to read the other for What does it signifie to make any thing a secret to my Neighbour when to God who is the searcher of our hearts all our Privacies are open VIRTUE is divided into two Parts Contemplation and Action The one is deliver'd by Institution the other by Admonition One part of Virtue consists in Discipline the other in Exercise for we must first Learn and then Practice The sooner we begin to apply our selves to it and the more haste we make the longer shall we enjoy the Comforts of a rectify'd mind nay we have the Fruition of it in the very Act of Forming it but it is another sort of delight I must confess that arises from the Contemplation of a Soul which is advanc'd into the Possession of Wisdome and Virtue If it was so great a Comfort to us to pass from the Subjection of our Childhood into a State of Liberty and Business how much greater will it be when we come to cast off the Boyish Levity of our Minds and range our selves among the Philosophers We are past our Minority 't is true but not our Indiscretions and which is yet worse we have the Authority of Seniors and the Weaknesses of Children I might have said of Infants for every little thing frights the one and every trivial phancy the other Whoever studies this point well will find that many things are the less to be fear'd the more terrible they appear To think any thing Good that is not Honest were to reproche Providence for Good Men suffer many Inconveniencies But Virtue like the Sun goes on still with her work let the Air be never so cloudy and finishes her Course Extinguishing likewise all other Splendors and Oppositions Insomuch that Calamity is no more to a Virtuous Mind than a Shower into the Sea That which is Right is not to be valu'd by quantity number or time A Life of a day may be as honest as a Life of a hundred years but yet Virtue in one Man may have a larger Field to shew it self in than in another One Man perhaps may be in a Station to Administer unto Cities and Kingdoms to Contrive good Laws Create Friendships and do beneficial Offices to Mankind 't is another Man's Fortune to be streightned by Poverty or put out of the way by Banishment and yet the latter may be as virtuous as the former and may have as great a Mind as exact a Prudence as inviolable a Justice and as large a Knowledge of things both Divine and Humane without which a Man cannot be happy For virtue is open to all as well to Servants and Exiles as to Princes It is profitable to the World and to it Self at all Distances and in all Conditions and there is no difficulty can excuse a Man from the Exercise of it and it is only to be found in a Wise Man though there may be some faint resemblances of it in the common people The Stoicks hold all Virtues to be equall but yet there 's great variety in the Matter they have to work upon according as it is larger or narrower Illustrious or less Noble of more or less Extent as all good Men are equal that is to say as they are Good but yet one may be Young another Old one may be Rich another Poor one Eminent and Powerful another Unknown and Obscure There are many things which have little or no Grace in themselves and are yet made Glorious and Remarkable by virtue Nothing can be good which gives neither Greatness nor Security to the Mind but on the Contrary infects it with Insolence Arrogance and Tumor Nor does Virtue dwell upon the Tip of the Tongue but in the Temple of a Purify'd heart He that depends upon any other good becomes Covetous of Life and what belongs to 't which
Submit to Bad He must stand upon his Guard against all Assaults He must stick to himself without any dependence upon other People VVhere the Mind is tinctur'd with Philosophy there 's no place for Grief Anxiety or Superfluous Vexations It is prepossess'd with Virtue to the neglect of Fortune which brings us to a degree of security not to be disturb'd 'T is easier to give Counsel than to take it and a Common thing for one Cholerick Man to condemn another VVe may be sometimes Earnest in Advising but not Violent or Tedious Few words with Gentleness and Efficacy are best the misery is that the Wise do not need Counsel and Fools will not take it A Good Man 't is true delights in it and it is a mark of Folly and Ill Nature to hate Reproof To a Friend I would be alwayes Frank and Plain and rather fail in the Success than be wanting in the Matter of Faith and Trust. There are some Precepts that serve in Common both to the Rich and Poor but they are too general as Cure your Avarice and the work is done It is one thing not to desire Mony and another thing not to understand how to use it In the Choice of the Persons we have to do withal we should see that they be worth our while In the Choice of our Business we are to consult Nature and follow our Inclinations He that gives sober Advice to a Witty Droll must look to have every thing turn'd into Ridicule As if you Philosophers sayes Marcellinus did not love your Whores and your Guts as well as other people and then he tells you of such and such that were taken in the Manner We are all sick I must confess and it is not for sick Men to play the Physitians but it is yet Lawful for a Man in an Hospital to discourse of the Common Condition and Distempers of the Place He that should pretend to teach a Mad Man how to Speak Walk and behave himself Were not he the Madder Man of the two He that directs the Pilot makes him move the Helme order the Sayls so or so and make the best of a scant Wind after this or that manner And so should we do in our Counsels Do not tell me what a Man should do in Health or Poverty but shew me the way to be either Sound or Rich. Teach me to Master my Vices For 't is to no purpose so long as I am under their Government to tell me what I must do when I am clear of it In Case of an Avarice a little eas'd a Luxury Moderated a Temerity Restrain'd a Sluggish Humor quicken'd Precepts will then help us forward and tutor us how to behave our selves It is the first and the main Tye of a Soldier his Military Oath which is an Engagement upon him both of Religion and Honor In like manner he that pretends to a Happy Life must first lay a Foundation of Virtue as a Bond upon him to Live and Dye true to that Cause We do not find Felicity in the Veins of the Earth where we dig for Gold nor in the Bottom of the Sea where we fish for Pearl but in a pure and untainted Mind which if it were not Holy were not fit to entertain the Deity He that would be truly Happy must think his own Lot best and so live with men as considering that God sees him and so speak to God as if Men heard him CHAP. VI. No Felicity like Peace of Conscience A GOOD Conscience is the Testimony of a Good Life and the Reward of it This is it that fortifies the Mind against Fortune when a Man has gotten the Mastery of his Passions plac'd his Treasure and his Security within himself Learn'd to be Content with his Condition and that Death is no Evil in it self but only the End of Man He that has dedicated his Mind to Virtue and to the Good of Humane Society whereof he is a Member has consummated all that is either Profitable or Necessary for him to Know or Do toward the Establishment of his Peace Every Man has a Judge and a Witness within himself of all the Good and Ill that he Does which inspires us with great Thoughts and Administers to us wholesome Counsels We have a Veneration for all the VVorks of Nature the Heads of Rivers and the Springs of Medicinal Waters the Horrors of Groves and of Caves strike us with an Impression of Religion and VVorship To see a Man Fearless in Dangers untainted with Lusts Happy in Adversity Compos'd in a Tumult and Laughing at all those things which are generally either Coveted or Fear'd all Men must acknowledge that this can be nothing else but a Beam of Divinity that Influences a Mortal Body And this it is that carries us to the Disquisition of things Divine and Humane VVhat the State of the VVorld was before the Distribution of the First Matter into Parts what Power it was that drew Order out of that Confusion and gave Laws both to the whole and to every Particle thereof VVhat that space is beyond the World and whence proceed the several operations of Nature Shall any Man see the Glory and Order of the Universe so many scatter'd Parts and Qualities wrought into one Mass such a Medly of things which are yet Distinguish'd the World enlighten'd and the Disorders of it so wonderfully Regulated and Shall he not consider the Author and Disposer of all This and whither we our selves shall go when our Souls shall be deliver'd from the Slavery of our Flesh The whole Creation we see conformes to the Dictate of Providence and follows God both as a Governor and as a Guide A Great a Good and a Right Mind is a kind of Divinity lodg'd in Flesh and may be the Blessing of a Slave as well as of a Prince it came from Heaven and 〈◊〉 Heaven it must return and it is a kind of Heavenly Felicity which a pure and virtuous Mind enjoyes in some Degree even upon Earth Whereas Temples of Honor are but empty Names which probably owe their Beginning either to Ambition or to Violence I am strangely transported with the thoughts of Eternity Nay with the Belief of it for I have a profound Veneration for the Opinions of Great Men especially when they promise things so much to My satisfaction for they do Promise them though they do not Prove them In the Question of the Immortality of the Soul it goes very far with me a General Consent to the Opinion of a Future Reward and Punishment which Meditation raises me to the Contempt of this Life in Hope of a Better But still though we know that we have a Soul yet What that Soul is How and from Whence we are utterly Ignorant This only we understand that all the Good and Ill we do is under the Dominion of the Mind that a Clear Conscience States us in an Inviolable Peace And that the greatest Blessing in Nature is that which
best but a Friend of his that was a Stoick and a stout Man reason'd the Matter to him after this manner Marcellinus do not trouble your self as if it were such a mighty business that you have now in hand 't is Nothing to Live all your Servants do it nay your very Beasts too but to Dy Honestly and Resolutely that 's a great point Consider with your self there 's nothing pleasant in Life but what you have tasted already and that which is to Come is but the same over again And how many Men are there in the World that rather chuse to Dye than to suffer the Nauseous Tediousness of the Repetition Upon which discourse he fasted himself to Death It was the Custome of Pacuvius to Solemnize in a kind of Pagentry every day his own Funerals When he had Swill'd and Gourmandiz'd to a Luxurious and Beastly Excess he was carry'd away from Supper to Bed with this Song and Acclamation He has Liv'd he has Liv'd That which he did in Lewdness would become us to do in Sobriety and Prudence If it shall please God to add another Day to our Lives let us thankfully receive it but however it is our Happiest and Securest Course so to compose our selves to Night that we may have no Anxious Dependence upon to Morrow He that can say I have Liv'd this Day makes the next clear again DEATH is the worst that either the Severity of Laws or the Cruelty of Tyrants can impose upon us and it is the Utmost extent of the Dominion of Fortune He that is fortify'd against That must consequently be Superior to all other Difficulties that are but in the Way to 't Nay and in some Occasions it requires more Courage to Live than to Dye He that is not prepar'd for Death shall be perpetually troubled as well with vain Apprehensions as with real Dangers It is not Death it self that is Dreadful but the Fear of it that goes before it When the Mind is under a Consternation there is no State of Life that can please us for we do not so much endeavour to Avoid Mischiefs as to Run away from them and the greatest slaughter is upon a flying Enemy Had not a Man better breathe out his Last once for all than lye Agonizing in pains Consuming by Inches losing of his Blood by Drops and yet how many are there that are ready to betray their Country and their Friends and to prostitute their very Wives and Daughters to preserve a Miserable Carkass Madmen and Children have no apprehension of Death and it were a shame that our Reason should not do as much toward our security as their Folly But the great matter is to Dye Considerately and Chearfully upon the Foundation of Virtue For Life in it self is Irksome and only Eating and Drinking and Feeling in a Circle HOW many are there that betwixt the Apprehensions of Death and the Miseries of Life are at their Wits End what to do with themselves wherefore let us fortifie our selves against those Calamities from which the Prince is no more exempt than the Beggar Pompey the Great had his head taken off by a Boy and an Eunuch young Ptolomy and Photinus Caligula commanded the Tribune Daecimus to kill Lepidus and another Tribune Chaereas did as much for Caligula Never was any Man so Great but he was as Liable to suffer Mischief as he was Able to do it Has not a Thief or an Enemy your Thâ—…ote at his Mercy Nay and the meanest of Servants has the Power of Life and Death over his Master for whosoever contemns his own Life may be the Master of Another bodies You will find in Story that the Displeasure of Servants has been as Fatal as that of Tyrants And what matters it the Power of him we Fear when the thing we Fear is in every Bodies Power Suppose I fall into the hands of an Enemy and the Conqueror Condemns me to be led in Triumph It is but carrying me thither whither I should have gone without him that is to say toward Death whither I have been marching ever since I was born It is the Fear of our Last hour that disquiets all the Rest. By the Justice of all Constitutions Mankind is condemn'd to a Capital Punishment Now how despicable would that Man appear who being Sentenc'd to Death in Common with the whole World should only Petition that he might be the last Man brought to the Block Some Men are particularly afraid of Thunder and yet extremely careless of Other and of greater Dangers as if That were all they have to Fear Will not a Sword a Stone a Feaver do the work as well Suppose the Bolt should hit us it were yet braver to Dye with a Stroke than with the Bare Apprehension of it Beside the Vanity of Imagining that Heaven and Earth should be put into such a Disorder only for the Death of one Man A Good and a Brave Man is not mov'd with Lightening Tempests or Earthquakes but perhaps he would voluntarily plunge himself into that Gulph where otherwise he should only fall the cutting of a Corn or the swallowing of a Fly is enough to dispatch a Man and 't is no matter how great That is that brings me to my Death so long as Death it self is but Little Life is a small matter but 't is a matter of Importance to Contemn it Nature that Begot us expells us and a better and a safer Place is provided for us And what is Death but a Ceasing to be what we were before we are kindled and put out to Cease to Be and not to Begin to Be is the same thing We Dye daily and while we are growing our Life decreases every moment that passes takes away part of it All that 's past is Lost Nay we divide with Death the very Instant that we Live As the last Sand in the Glass does not Measure the Hour but finishes it so the Last moment that we Live does not make up Death but concludes There are some that Pray more earnestly for Death than we do for Life but it is better to receive it chearfully when it Comes than to hasten it before the time BUT What is it that we would live any longer for Not for our Pleasures for those we have tasted over and over even to Satiety so that there 's no point of Luxury that 's New to us But a Man would be loth to leave his Country and his Friends behind him That is to say he would have them go First for that 's the least part of his Care Well! But I would fain live to do more Good and discharge my self in the Offices of Life As if to Dye were not the Duty of every Man that Lives We are loth to Leave our possessions and no Man Swims well with his Luggage We are all of us equally Fearful of Death and Ignorant of Life But What can be more shameful than to be Sollicitous upon the Brink of
them It is true that if I might have my Choice I would have Health and Strength And yet if I come to be visited with Pain or Sickness I will endeavour to emprove them to my Advantage by making a Righteous Judgment of them as I ought to do of all the Appointments of Providence So that as they are not Good in themselves neither are they Evil But matter of Exercise for our Virtues of Temperance on the One hand and of Resignation on the Other EPIST. VII Of Impertinent Studies and Impertinent Men. Philosophers the Best Companions HE that duely Considers the Business of Life and Death will find that he has little time to spare from That Study And yet how we trifle away our hours upon Impertinent Niceties and Cavils Will Platoe's Imaginary Idea's make me an Honest Man There 's neither Certainty in them nor Substance A Mouse is a Syllable but a Syllable does not eat Cheese Therefore a Mouse does not eat Cheese Oh! these Childish Follies Is it for This that we spend our Blood and our Good Humour and grow Grey in our Closets We are a jeasting when we should be helping the Miserable as well our Selves as Others There 's no Sporting with Men in Distress The Felicity of Mankind depends upon the Counsel of Philosophers Let us rather consider what Nature has made Superfluous and what Necessary how Easie our Conditions are and how Delicious That Life which is govern'd by Reason rather than Opinion There are Impertinent Studies as well as Impertinent Men. Didymus the Grammarian Wrote 4000 Books wherein he is much Concern'd to discover Where Homer was born Who was Aeneas's true Mother and whether Anacreon was the greater Whoremaster or Drunkard With other Fopperies that a Man would labor to Forget if he Knew them Is it not an Important Question which of the Two was First the Mallet or the Tongs Some people are extremly Inquisitive to know how many Oars Ulysses had Which was first Written the Illyads or the Odysses or if they were Both done by the same hand A Man is never a Jote the more Learned for this â—…uriosity but much the more Troublesome Am I ever the more Just the more Moderate Valiant or Liberal for knowing that Curius Dentatus was the First that carry'd Elephants in Triumph Teach me my Duty to Providence to my Neighbor and to my Self To Dispute with Socrates to Doubt with Carneades to set up my Rest with Epicurus to Master my Appetites with the Stoiques and to Renounce the World with the Cynick What a deal of Business there is First to make Homer a Philosopher and Secondly in what Classis to Range him One will have him to be a Stoique a Friend to Virtue and an Enemy to Pleasure preferring Honesty even to Immortality it self Another makes him an Epicurean One that loves his Quiet and to spend his Time in Good Company Some are Positive in it that he was a Peripatetique and Others that he was a Sceptique But it is Clear that in being all these things he was not any One of them These Divided Opinions do not at all hinder us from agreeing upon the Main that he was a Wise Man Let us therefore apply our selves to those things that made him so and e'en let the Rest alone It was a Pleasant Humor of Calvicius Saâ—…us a Rich Man and one that menag'd a very Good Fortune with a very Ill Grace He had neither Wit nor Memory but would fain pass for a Learned Man and so took several into his Family And whatsoever they knew he assum'd to Himself There are a sort of People that are never well but at Theatres Spectacles and Publick Places Men of Business but it is only in their Faces for they wander up and down without any Design like Pismires Eager and Empty and every thing they do is only as it happens This is an humor which a Man may call a kind of Restless Lazyness Others you shall have that are perpetually in Haste as if they were Crying Fire or running for a Midwife and all this Hurry perhaps only to Salute some body that had no mind to take Notice of them or some such Trivial Errant At Night when they come Home â—…ir'd and weary ask them Why they went out Where they have been and What they have done 't is a very Slender Accompt they are able to give you and yet the next day they take the same Iaunt over again This is a kind of Phantastical Industry a great deal of Pains taken to no purpose at all Twenty Visits made and no body at home they themselves least of all They that have this Vice are commonly Harkeners Tale-Bearers News-Mongers Meddlers in other Peoples Affairs and Curious after Secrets which a Man can neither safely Hear nor Report These Men of Idle Employment that run up and down eternally vexing Others and themselves too that thrust themselves into all Companies What do they get by 't One Man 's Asleep Another at Supper a Third in Company a Fourth in Haste a Fifth gives them the Slip and when their folly has gone the Round they close up the Day with Shame and Repentance Whereas Zeno Pythagoras Democritus Aristotle Theophrastus and all the Patrons of Philosophy and Virtue they are alwayes at Leisure and in Good Humor Familiar Profitable a Man never comes away empty handed from them but full of Comfort and Satisfaction They make all Past Ages Present to us or Us Their Contemporaries The Dorës of these Men are open Night and Day and in their Conversation there 's neither Danger Treachery nor Expence but we are the Wiser the Happier and the Richer for it How blessedly does a Man spend his time in this Company where we may advise in all the Difficulties of Life Here 's Counsel without Reproach and Praise without Flattery We cannot be the Chusers of our Own Parents but of our Friends we may and Adopt our Selves into these Noble Families This is the way of making Mortality in a Manner to be Immortal The time Past we make to be our Own by Remembrance the Present by Use and the Future by Providence and Foresight That only may properly be said to be the Long Life that draws all Ages into One and That a short one that Forgets the Past Neglects the Present and is Sollicitous for the Time to Come But it is not yet sufficient to know what Plato or Zeno said unless we make it all our Own by Habit and Practice and Emprove both the World and our Selves by an Example of Life Answerable to their Precepts EPIST. VIII Against Singularity of Manners and Behaviour IT is the Humor of many People to be Singular in their Dress and Manner of Life only to the End that they may be taken Notice of Their Cloths forsooth must be Course and Slovenly their Heads and Beards neglected their Lodgings upon the Ground and they live in Open Defiance against Mony What is all this upon the whole
little but it is of Force enough to bring us to our Last End Nay so far should we be from dreading an Eminent Fate more than a Vulgar that on the Contrary since Dye we must we should rather Rejoyce in the Breathing of our Last under a more Glorious Circumstance What if the Ground stand still within its bounds and without any Violence I shall have it over me at Last and 't is all one to me whether I be laid under That or That layes it Self over me But it is a Terrible thing for the Earth to gape and swallow a Man up into a Profound Abyss And what then Is Death any Easier Above Ground What cause have I of Complaint if Nature will do me the honor to Cover me with a Part of her Self Since we must Fall there is a Dignity in the very Manner of it when the World it self is Shock'd for Company Not that I would wish for a Publick Calamity but it is some Satisfaction in my Death that I see the World also to be Mortal Neither are we to take these Extraordinary Revolutions for Divine Judgments as if such Motions of the Heavens and of the Earth were the Denouncings of the VVrath of the Allmighty but they have their Ordinate and their Natural Causes Such as in Proportion we have in our own Bodies and while they seem to Act a Violence they Suffer it But yet for want of knowing the Causes of things they are Dreadful to us and the more so because they happen but seldome But why are we commonly more Afraid of that which we are not Us'd to Because we look upon Nature with our Eyes not with our Reason Rather Computing what she Usually Does than what she is Able to do And we are Punish'd for this Negligence by taking those things to which we are not VVonted to be New and Prodigious The Eclipses of the Sun and Moon Blazing Stars and Meteors while we Admire them we Fear them and since we Fear them because we do not Understand them it is worth our while to Study them that we may no longer Fear them VVhy should I fear a Man a Beast an Arrow or a Lance when I am expos'd to the Encounter of Greater Dangers We are Assaulted by the Nobler parts of Nature it self by the Heavens by the Seas and the Land Our Business is therefore to Defy Death whether Extraordinary or Common No matter for the Menaces of it so long as it Asks no more of us than Age it self will take from us and every petty Accident that befalls us He that Contemns Death What does he Care for either Fire or Water the very Dissolution of the Universe or if the Earth should Open Under him and shew him all the Secrets of the Infernal Pit He would look Down without Trouble In the Place that we are all of us to go to there are no Earthquakes or Thunder-Claps no Tempestuous Seas Neither War nor Pestilence Is it a Small Matter Why do we fear it then Is it a Great Matter Let it rather once fall upon us then always hang over us Why should I dread my Own End when I know that an End I must have and that all Created things are Limited EPIST. XXIV A Discourse of Gods Providence in the Misfortunes of Good Men in this World and in the Prosperity of the Wicked YOu are troubled I perceive that your Servant is run away from you but I do not hear yet that you are either Robb'd or Strangl'd or Poyson'd or Betray'd or Accus'd by him So that you have scap'd well in Comparison with your Fellows And Why should you complain then especially under the Protection of so gracious a Providence as suffers no Man to be miserable but by his own Fault Nor is this a Subject worthy of a wise Mans Consideration Adversity indeed is a terrible thing in Sound and Opinion and that 's all Some Men are Banish'd and strip'd of their Estates Others again are Poor in Plenty which is the basest sort of Beggery Some are overborn by a Popular Tumult that breaks out like a Tempest even in the highest security of a Calm Or like a Thunder-Clap that frights all that are near it There is but One Struck perhaps but the Fear extends to all and affects those that May Suffer as well as those that Doe As in the Discharge of a Piece only with Powder 'T is not the Stroke but the Crack that frights the Birds Adversity I 'll grant you is not a thing to be wish'd no more than War but if it be my Lot to be Torn with the Stone Broken upon the Wheel or to receive Wounds or Maims It shall be my Prayer that I may bear my Fortune as becomes a Wise and an Honest Man We do not Pray for Tortures but for Patience nor for War but for Generosity and Courage in all the Extremities of War if it happens Afflictions are but the Exercise of Virtue and an Honest Man is out of his Element when he is Idle It must be Practice and Patience that Perfects it Do we not see see how one Wrestler provokes another And if he find him not to be his Match he will call for some Body to help him that may put him to all his strength It is a Common Argument against the Justice of Providence in the matter of Reward and Punishment the Misfortunes of Good Men in this World and the Prosperity of the Wicked But it is an easie matter to vindicate the Cause of the Gods There are many things that we call Evil which turn very often to the Advantage of those that suffer them or at least for the Common Good whereof Providence has the greater Care And further they either befall those that bear them willingly or those that deserve them by their Impatience under them And Lastly they come by Divine Appointment and to those that are Good Men even for that very Reason because they are Good Nor is there any thing more Ordinary than for that which we fear'd as a Calamity to prove the Foundation of our Happiness How many are there in the World that enjoy all things to their Own Wish whom God never thought worthy of a Tryal If it might be imagin'd that the Allmighty should take off his Thought from the Care of his Whole Work What more Glorious Spectacle could he reflect upon than a Valiant Man Struggling with Adverse Fortune Or Cato's Standing Upright and Unmov'd under the Shock of a Publick Ruin Let the Whole World sayes he fall into one hand and let Caesar encompass me with his Legions by Land his Shipping at Sea and his Guards at the Gates Cato will yet cut out his way and with That Weapon that was untainted even in the Civil VVar give himself that Liberty which Fate deny'd to his Country Set upon the great VVork then and deliver thy self from the Clog of thy Humanity Juba and Petreius have already done the good office One for the Other
We sayes he have our Dependence elsewhere and should look up to that Power unto which we are indebted for all we we can pretend to that is good And again Seneca sayes very well in his Morals they Worship the Images of the Gods sayes he Kneel to them and Adore them they are hardly ever from them either plying them with Offerings or Sacrifices and yet after all this Reverence to the Image they have no regard at all for the Workman that made it Lactantius again An Invective sayes Seneca in his Exhortations is the Master-Piece of most of our Philosophers and if they fall upon the Subject of Avarice Lust Ambition they lash out into such Excess of Bitterness as if Railing were a Mark of their Profession They make me think of Gally-Pots in an Apothecaries Shop that have Remedies without and Poyson within Lactantius still He that would know all things let him Read Seneca the most lively Describer of Publick Vices and Manners and the smartest Reprehender of them And again As Seneca has it in his Books of Moral Philosophy He is the Brave Man whose Splendor and Authority is the least part of his Greatness that can look Death in the Face without Trouble or Surprize who if his Body were to be broken upon the Wheel or Melted Lead to be pour'd down his Throat would be less concern'd for the Pain it self than for the dignity of bearing it Let no Man sayes Lactantius think himself the safer in his wickedness for want of a Witness for God is Omniscient and to him nothing can be a secret It is an admirable Sentence that Seneca concludes his Exhortations withal GOD sayes he is a Great I know not what an Incomprehensible Power It is to him that we Live and to him that we must approve our selves What does it avail us that our Consciences are hidden from Men when our Souls lie open to God What could a Christian have spoken more to the purpose in this Case than this Divine Pagan And in the Beginning of the same WORK sayes Seneca What is it that we do To what end is it to stand contriving and to hide our selves We are under a Guard and there 's no escaping from our Keeper One Man may be parted from another by Travel Death Sickness But there 's no dividing us from our selves 'T is to no purpose to creep into a Corner where no body shall see us Ridiculous Madness Make it the Case that no Mortal Eye could find us out He that has a Conscience gives Evidence against himself It is truely and excellently spoken of Seneca says Lactantius once again Consider sayes he the Majesty the Goodness and the Venerable Mercies of the Allmighty A Friend that is alwayes at hand What delight can it be to him the slaughter of Innocent Creatures or the Worship of Bloody Sacrifices Let us purge our Minds and lead Virtuous and Honest Lives His Pleasure lies not in the Magnificence of Temples made with Stone but in the Piety and Devotion of Consecrated Hearts In the Book that Seneca wrote against Superstitions treating of Images sayes St. Austin he Writes thus They represent the Holy the Immortal and the Inviolable Gods in the basest Matter and without Life or Motion In the Forms of Men Beasts Fishes some of mix'd Bodies and those Figures they call Deities which if they were but animated would affright a Man and pass for Monsters And then a little farther treating of Natural Theology after citing the Opinions of Philosophers he supposes an Objection against himself Some body will perhaps ask me Would you have me then to believe the Heavens and the Earth to be Gods and some of them above the Moon and some below it Shall I ever be brought to the Opinion of Plato or of Strato the Peripatetick the one of which would have God to be without a Body and the other without a Mind To which he replyes And Do you give more Credit then to the Dreams of T. Tatius Romulus and Hostilius who caused among other Deities even Fear and Paleness to be worship'd The vilest of Humane Affections The one being the Motion of an affrighted Mind and the other not so much the Disease as the Color of a disorder'd Body Are these the Deities that you will rather put your Faith in and place in the Heavens And speaking afterward of their Abominable Customes With what Liberty does he Write One sayes he out of Zeal makes himself an Eunuch another Lances his Armes If this be the way to Please their Gods What should a Man do if he had a Mind to Anger them Or if this be the way to please them they do certainly deserve not to be Worshipp'd at all What a Phrensy is this to imagine that the Gods can be delighted with such Cruelties as even the worst of Men would make a Conscience to inflict The most Barbarous and Notorious of Tyrants some of them have perhaps done it Themselves or Order'd the tearing of men to pieces by Others but they never went so far as to command any man to Torment himself We have heard of those that have suffer'd Castration to gratifie the Lust of their Imperious Masters but never any Man that was forc'd to Act it upon himself They Murther themselves in their very Temples and their Prayers are offer'd up in Blood Whosoever shall but observe what they do and what they suffer will find it so mis-becoming an honest Man so unworthy of a Freeman and so inconsistent with the Action of a Man in his Wits that he must conclude them all to be Mad if it were not that there are so many of them for only their Number is their Justification and their Protection When he comes to reflect sayes St. Augustin upon those Passages which he himself had seen in the Capitol He censures them with Liberty and Resolution and no Man would believe that such things would be done unless in Mockery or Phrenzy What Lamentation is there in the Aegyptian Sacrifices for the loss of Osiris And then what joy for the finding of him again which he makes himself sport with for in truth it is all a Fiction and yet those People that neither lost any thing nor found any thing must express their Sorrows and their Rejoycings to the highest degree But there is only a Certain time sayes he for this Freake and once in a Year people may be allow'd to be Mad. I came into the Capitol sayes Seneca where the several Deities had their several Servants and Attendants their Lictors their Dressers and all in Posture and Action as if they were executing their Offices Some to hold the Glass others to Comb out Iuno's and Minerva's hair one to tell Iupiter what a Clock it is Some Lasses there are that sit Gazing upon the Image and Phansy Iupiter has a kindness for them All these things sayes Seneca a while after a Wise Man will observe for the Law
as who should say Well since you will needs have it so I am content to take it Some again so carelesly as if they hardly knew of any such thing whereas we should rather aggravate the matter You cannot Imagine how many you have oblig'd in this Act there never was so great so kind so seasonable a Courtesie Furnius never gain'd so much upon Augustus as by a Speech upon the getting of his Fathers Pardon for siding with Anthony This Grace sayes he is the only Injury that ever Caesar did me for it has put me upon a necessity of Living and Dying Ungrateful 'T is safer to affront some people than to oblige them for the better a Man deserves the worse they 'll speak of him as if the professing of open hatred to their Benefactors were an Argument that they lie under no Obligation Some people are so sour and ill-natur'd that they take it for an Affront to have an Obligation or a Return offer'd them to the discouragement both of Bounty and of Gratitude together The not doing and the not receiving of Benefits are equally a Mistake He that refuses a new one seems to be offended at an old one and yet sometimes I would neither return a Benefit no nor so much as receive it if I might CHAP. XVII Of Gratitude HE that Preaches Gratitude pleads the Cause both of God and Man for without it we can neither be Sociable nor Religious There is a strange delight in the very purpose and Contemplation of it as well as in the Action when I can say to my self I love my Benefactor What is there in this World that I would not do to oblige and serve him Where I have not the Means of a Requital the very Meditation of it is sufficient A Man is nevertheless an Artist for not having his Tools about him or a Musician because he wants his Fiddle Nor is he the less brave because his hands are bound or the worse Pilot for being upon dry Ground If I have only a Will to be Grateful I am so Let me be upon the Wheele or under the hand of the Executioner Let me be burnt Limb by Limb and my whole Body dropping in the Flames a Good Conscience supports me in all Extremes Nay it is comfortable even in Death it self For when we come to approach that point What care do we take to summon and call to mind all our Benefactors and the Good Offices they have done us that we may leave the World fair and set our Minds in Order Without Gratitude we can neither have Security Peace nor Reputation And it is not therefore the less desirable because it draws many Adventitious Benefits along with it Suppose the Sun the Moon and the Stars had no other Business then only to pass over our heads without any effect upon our Minds or Bodies without any regard to our Health Fruits or Seasons a Man could hardly lift up his Eyes toward the Heavens without wonder and veneration to see so many Millions of Radiant Lights and to observe their Courses and Revolutions even without any respect to the Common good of the Universe But when we come to consider that Providence and Nature are still at Work when we Sleep with the admirable Force and Operation of their Influences and Motions we cannot then but acknowledge their Ornament to be the least part of their value and that they are more to be esteem'd for their Virtue than for their Splendor Their main End and Use is matter of Life and Necessity though they may seem to us more considerable for their Majesty and Beauty And so it is with Gratitude we love it rather for Secondary Ends then for it Self NO Man can be Grateful without Contemning those things that put the Common People out of their Wits We must go into Banishment Lay down our Lives Begger and expose our selves to Reproaches Nay it is often seen that Loyalty suffers the Punishment due to Rebellion and that Treason receives the Rewards of Fidelity As the Benefits of it are many and great so are the hazards which is the Case more or less of all other Virtues and it were hard if this above the rest should be both painful and fruitless So that though we may go currently on with it in smooth way we must yet prepare and resolve if need be to force our passage to 't even if the way were cover'd with Thornes and Serpents and fall back fall edge we must be Grateful still Grateful for the Virtue sake and Grateful over and above upon the point of Interest for it preserves old Friends and gains new ones It is not our business to fish for one Benefit with another and by bestowing a little to get more or to oblige for any sort of Expedience but because I ought to do it and because I love it and that to such a degree that if I could not be Grateful without appearing the contrary if I could not return a Benefit without being suspected of doing an Injury in despite of Infamy it self I would yet be Grateful No Man is greater in my esteem than he that ventures the Fame to preserve the Conscience of an honest Man the one is but Imaginary the other Solid and Inestimable I cannot call him Grateful who in the instant of returning one Benefit has his Eye upon another He that is Grateful for Profit or Fear is like a Woman that is honest only upon the Score of Reputation AS Gratitude is a Necessary and a Glorious so is it also an Obvious a Cheap and an Easie Virtue So Obvious that wheresoever there is a Life there is a place for it So Cheap that the Covetous Man may be Grateful without Expense and so Easie that the Sluggard may be so likewise without Labour And yet it is not without its Niceties too for there may be a Time a Place or Occasion wherein I ought not to return a Benefit Nay wherein I may better disown it than deliver it LET it be understood by the way that 't is one thing to be Grateful for a good Office and another thing to Return it the Good Will is enough in one Case being as much as the one side demands and the other promises but the Effect is requisite in the other The Physitian that has done his best is acquitted though the Patient dies and so is the Advocate though the Clyent may lose his Cause The General of an Army though the Battel be lost is yet worthy of Commendation if he has discharg'd all the parts of a prudent Commander In this Case the one acquits himself though the other be never the better for 't He is a Grateful Man that is alwayes willing and ready and he that seeks for all means and occasions of requiting a Benefit though without attaining his end does a great deal more than the Man that without any trouble makes an immediate Return Suppose my Friend a Prisoner and that
fall under Natural Philosophy Arguments under Rational and Actions under Moral Moral Philosophy is again divided into Matter of Iustice which arises from the Estimation of Things and of Men and into Affections and Actions and a failing in any one of these disorders all the rest For What does it profit us to know the true value of things if we be transported by our Passions or to Master our Appetites without understanding the when the what the how and other Circumstances of our Proceedings For it is one thing to Know the Rate and Dignity of things and another to know the little Nicks and Springs of Acting Natural Philosophy is Conversant about things Corporeal and Incorporeal the disquisition of Causes and Effects and the Contemplation of the Cause of Causes Rational Philosophy is divided into Logick and Rhetorick the One looks after Words Sense and Order the Other Treats barely of Words and the Significations of them Socrates places all Philosophy in Moralls and Wisdome in the distinguishing of Good and Evil. It is the Art and Law of Life and it Teaches us what to do in all Cases and like good Markes-men to hit the White at any distance The force of it is incredible for it gives us in the weakness of a Man the security of a Spirit In Sickness it is as good as a Remedy to us for whatsoever eases the Mind is profitable also to the Body The Physitian may prescribe Dyet and Exercise and accommodate his Rule and Medicine to the Disease but 't is Philosophy that must bring us to a Contempt of Death which is the Remedy of all Diseases In Poverty it gives us Riches or such a State of Mind as makes them superfluous to us It armes us against all Difficulties One Man is prest with Death another with Poverty some with Envy others are offended at Providence and unsatisfied with the Condition of Mankind But Philosophy prompts us to relieve the Prisoner the Infirm the Necessitous the Condemn'd to shew the Ignorant their Errors and rectify their Affections It makes us inspect and govern our Manners it rouzes us where we are faint and drouzy it binds up what is loose and humbles in us that which is Contumacious It delivers the Mind from the Bondage of the Body and raises it up to the Contemplation of its Divine Original Honors Monuments and all the works of Vanity and Ambition are demolished and Destroyed by Time but the Reputation of Wisdome is venerable to Posterity and those that were envy'd or neglected in their Lives are ador'd in their Memories and exempted from the very Laws of Created Nature which has set bounds to all other things The very shadow of Glory carries a Man of Honor upon all dangers to the Contempt of Fire and Sword and it were a shame if Right Reason should not inspire as generous Resolutions into a Man of Virtue NEITHER is Philosophy only profitable to the Publick but one Wise Man helps another even in the Exercise of their Virtues and the One has need of the Other both for Conversation and Counsel for they Kindle a mutual Emulation in good Offices We are not so perfect yet but that many new things remain still to be found out which will give us the reciprocal Advantages of Instructing one another For as one Wicked Man is Contagious to another and the more Vices are mingled the worse it is so is it on the Contrary with Good Men and their Virtues As Men of Letters are the most useful and excellent of Friends so are they the best of Subjects as being better Judges of the Blessings they enjoy under a well-order'd Government and of what they owe to the Magistrate for their Freedome and Protection They are Men of Sobriety and Learning and free from Boasting and Insolence they reprove the Vice without Reproaching the Person for they have learn'd to be Wise without either Pomp or Envy That which we see in high Mountains we find in Philosophers they seem taller near hand then at a distance They are rais'd above other Men but their greatness is substantial Nor do they stand upon the Tiptoe that they may seem higher than they are but content with their own stature they reckon themselves tall enough when Fortune cannot reach them Their Laws are short and yet comprehensive too for they bind all IT is the Bounty of Nature that we live but of Philosophy that we live well which is in truth a greater Benefit than Life it self Not but that Philosophy is also the Gift of Heaven so far as to the Faculty but not to the Science for that must be the business of Industry No Man is born Wise but Wisdom and Virtue require a Tutor though we can easily learn to be Vicious without a Master It is Philosophy that gives us a Veneration for God a Charity for our Neighbor that teaches us our Duty to Heaven and exhorts us to an Agreement one with another It unmasks things that are terrible to us asswages our Lusts refutes our Errors restrains our Luxury Reproves our Avarice and Works strangely upon Tender Natures I could never hear Attalus sayes Seneca upon the Vices of the Age and the Errors of Life without a compassion for Mankind and in his discourses upon Poverty there was something me thought that was more than Humane More than we use saies he is more than we need and only a Burthen to the Bearer That saying of his put me out of countenance at the superfluities of my own fortune And so in his Invectives against vain pleasures he did at such a rate advance the felicities of a Sober Table a Pure Mind and a Chast Body that a man could not hear him without a Love for Continence and Moderation Upon these Lectures of his I deny'd my self for a while after certain delicacies that I had formerly used but in a short time I fell to them again though so sparingly that the Proportion came little short of a Total Abstinence NOW to shew you saies our Author how much earnester my entrance upon Philosophy was than my Progress My Tutor Sotion gave me a wonderful kindness for Pythagoras and after him for Sextius The former forbare shedding of Bloud upon his Metempsychosis and put men in fear of it least they should offer violence to the souls of some of their departed friends or relations Whether sayes he there be a Transmigration or not if it be true there 's no hurt in 't if false there 's frugality and nothing's gotten by Cruelty neither but the cozening a Wolfe perhaps or a Vulture of a Supper Now Sextius abstain'd upon another Account which was that he would not have men inur'd to hardness of heart by the Laceration and tormenting of Living Creatures beside that Nature had sufficiently provided for the Sustenance of Mankind without Bloud This wrought so far upon me that I gave over eating of flesh and in one year made it not only easie to me but
where a Man can hardly pass this day for a Croud may be to Morrow a Desart Wherefore let us set before our Eyes the whole Condition of Humane Nature and consider as well what May happen as what commonly Does The way to make future delights Easie to us in the Sufferance is to make them Familiar to us in the Contemplation How many Cities in Asia Achaia Assyria Macedonia have been swallow'd up by Earthquakes Nay whole Countryes are lost and large Provinces lay'd under Water but time brings all things to an end for all the Works of Mortals are Mortal All Possessions and their Possessors are Uncertain and Perishable and What wonder is it to lose any thing at any time when we must one day lose all THAT which we call our Own is but lent us and what we have receiv'd Gratis we must return without Complaint That which Fortune gives us this hour she may take away the next and he that trusts to her Favours shall either find himself deceiv'd or if he be not he will at least be troubled because he may be so There 's no Defence in Walls Fortifications and Engines against the Power of Fortune we must provide our selves within and when we are safe There we are Invincible we may be Batter'd but not Taken She throws her Gifts among us and we Sweat and Scuffle for them Never considering how few are the better for that which is expected by all Some are transported with what they Get Others tormented for what they Miss and many times there 's a Leg or an Arme broken in a Contest for a Counter She gives us Honors Riches Favours only to take them away again either by Violence or Treachery So that they frequently turn to the damage of the Receiver She throws out Baits for us and sets Traps as we do for Birds and Beasts Her Bounties are Snares and Lime-twigs to us we think that we Take but we are Taken If they had any thing in them that were substantial they would some time or other fill and quiet us but they serve only to provoke our Appetite without any thing more than Pomp and Shew to allay it But the best of it is if a Man cannot mend his Fortune he may yet mend his Manners and put himself so far out of her Reach that whether she Gives or Takes it shall be all one to us for we are never the Greater for the One nor the Less for the Other We call this a Dark Room or That a Light One when 't is in it self neither the one nor the other but only as the Day and the Night renders it And so it is in Riches Strength of Body Beauty Honor Command and likewise in Pain Sickness Banishment Death which are in themselves Middle and Indifferent things and only Good or Bad as they are Influenc'd by Virtue To Weep Lament and Groane is to renounce our Duty and it is the same weakness on the other side to Exult and Rejoyce I would rather Make my Fortune than Expect it being neither depress'd with her Injuries nor dazled with her Favours When Zeno was told that all his Goods were drown'd Why then sayes he Fortune has a Mind to make me a Philosopher 'T is a great Matter for a Man to advance his Mind above her Threats or Flatteries for he that has once gotten the Better of her is safe for ever IT is some Comfort yet to the Unfortunate that Great Men lie under the Lash for Company and that Death spares the Palace no more than the Cottage and that whoever is above Me has a Power also above him Do we not daily see Funerals without Trouble Princes depos'd Countries depopulated Towns sack'd without so much as thinking how soon it may be our own Case Whereas if we would but prepare and arme our selves against the Iniquities of Fortune we should never be surpriz'd When we see any Man Banish'd Beggar'd Tortur'd we are to accompt that though the Mischief fell upon another it was levell'd at us What wonder is it if of so many Thousands of dangers that are constantly hovering about us one comes to hit us at last That which befals any Man may befal every Man and then it breaks the force of a Present Calamity to provide against the Future Whatsoever our Lot is we must bear it as suppose it be Contumely Cruelty Fire Sword Pains Diseases or a Prey to wilde Beasts there 's no struggling nor any Remedy but Moderation 'T is to no purpose to bewail any Part of our Life when Life it self is miserable throughout and the whole Flux of it only a Course of transition from one Misfortune to another A Man may as well wonder that he should be cold in Winter Sick at Sea or have his Bones clatter'd together in a Waggon as at the Encounter of Ill Accidents and Crosses in the Passage of Humane Life And it is in vain to run away from Fortune as if there were any Hiding place wherein she could not find us or to expect any Quiet from her for she makes Life a perpetual State of War without so much as any Respite or Truce This we may conclude upon that her Empire is but Imaginary and that whosoever serves her makes himself a voluntary Slave for the things that are often contemn'd by the Inconsiderate and Always by the Wise are in themselves neither Good nor Evil as Pleasure and Pain Prosperity and Adversity which can only operate upon our Outward Condition without any Proper and Necessary Effect upon the Mind CHAP. XI A Sensual Life is a miserable Life THE Sensuality that we here treat of falls naturally under the Head of Luxury which extends to all the Excesses of Gluttony Lust Effeminacy of Manners and in short to whatsoever concerns the over-great Care of the Carkass TO begin now with the Pleasures of the Palate which deal with us like Aegyptian Thieves that strangle those they embrace What shall we say of the Luxury of Nomentanus and Apicius that entertain'd their very Souls in the Kitchin they have the Choicest Musick for their Eares the most diverting Spectacles for their Eyes the Choicest variety of Meats and Drinks for their Palates What is all this I say but a Merry Madness 'T is true they have their Delights but not without Heavy and Anxious Thoughts even in their very Enjoyments beside that they are follow'd with Repentance and their Frolicks are little more than the Laughter of so many people out of their Wits Their Felicities are full of Disquiet and neither Sincere nor well-Grounded but they have need of one Pleasure to support another and of new Prayers to forgive the Errors of their Former Their Life must needs be wretched that Get with great Pains what they Keep with greater One Diversion overtakes another Hope excites Hope Ambition begets Ambition so that they only change the Matter of their Miseries without seeking any End of them and shall never be
than the rest and yet at last to be out-done by a Hogs-head What shall we say of those Men that Invert the Offices of Day and Night As if our Eyes were only given us to make use of in the Dark Is it Day ' T is time to go to Bed Is it Night ' T is time to Rise Is it toward Morning Let us go to Supper When other People lye down they Rise and lye till next Night to digest the Debauche of the day before 'T is an Argument of Clownery to do as other People do Luxury steals upon us by Degrees First it shews it self in a more than Ordinary Care of our Bodies it slips next into the Furniture of our Houses and it gets then into the Fabrique Curiosity and Expence of the House it self It appears lastly in the Phantastical Excesses of our Tables We change and shuffle our Meats Confound our Sauces Serve that in First that use to be Last and value our Dishes not for the Taste but for the Rarity Nay we are so delicate that we must be told when we are to Eate or Drink when we are Hungry or Weary and we cherish some Vices as Proofs and Arguments of our Happiness The most miserable of Mortals are they that deliver themselves up to their Palates or to their Lusts The Pleasure is short and turns presently Nauseous and the End of it is either Shame or Repentance It is a Brutal Entertainment and Unworthy of a Man to place his Felicity in the Service of the Senses As to the Wrathful the Contentious the Ambitious though the Distemper be great the offence has yet something in it that is Manly but the Basest of Prostitutes are those that Dedicate themselves wholly to Lust what with their Hopes and Fears Anxiety of Thought and perpetual Disquiets they are never well full nor fasting WHAT a deal of Business is now made about our Houses and Dyet which was at first both Obvious and of little Expence Luxury led the way and we have employ'd our Wits in the Ayd of our Vices First we desir'd Superfluities our next step was to Wickedness and in Conclusion we deliver'd up our Minds to our Bodies and so became slaves to our Appetites which before were our Servants and are now become our Masters What was it that brought us to the Extravagance of Embroderyes Perfumes Tirewomen c. We past the bounds of Nature and lash'd out into Superfluities Insomuch that it is now adayes only for Beggars and Clowns to content themselves with what is Sufficient Our Luxury makes us Insolent and Mad. We take upon us Like Princes and flye out for every Trifle as if there were Life and Death in the Case What a Madness is it for a Man to lay out an Estate upon a Table or a Cabinet a Patrimony upon a pair of Pendents and to inflame the Price of Curiosities according to the Hazard either of Breaking or of Losing them To wear Garments that will neither defend a Womans Body nor her Modesty so thin that one would make a Conscience of Swearing she were not Naked For she hardly shewes more in the Privacies of her Amour than in Publick How long shall we Covet and Oppress enlarge our Possessions and accompt That too little for one Man which was formerly enough for a Nation And our Luxury is as Insatiable as our Avarice Where 's that Lake that Sea that Forrest that Spot of Land that is not ransack'd to gratifie our Palate The very Earth is burthen'd with our Buildings not a River nor a Mountain scapes us Oh that there should be such boundless desires in our little Bodies Would not fewer Lodgings serve us We lye but in One and where we are not That is not properly Ours What with our Hooks Snares Nets Dogs c. we are at War with all Living Creatures and nothing comes amiss but that which is either too Cheap or too Common and all this is to gratifie a Phantastical Palate Our Avarice our Ambition our Lusts are Insatiable we enlarge our Possessions swell our Families we rifle Sea and Land for matter of Ornament and Luxury A Bull Contents himself with One Meadow and One Forrest is enough for a Thousand Elephants but the Little Body of a Man devours more than all other Living Creatures We do not Eate to Satisfie Hunger but Ambition we are Dead while we are Alive and our Houses are so much our Tombs that a Man might write our Epitaphs upon our very Doors A Voluptuous Person in Fine can neither be a Good Man a Good Patriot nor a Good Friend for he is transported with his Appetites without considering that the Lot of Man is the Law of Nature A Good Man like a good Soldier will stand his Ground receive Wounds Glory in his Scars and in Death it self Love his Master for whom he Falls with that Divine Precept alwayes in his Mind Follow God Whereas he that complains laments and grones must yield nevertheless and do his Duty though in spite of his Heart Now what a Madness is it for a Man to chuse rather to be lugg'd than to follow and vainly to contend with the Calamities of Humane Life Whatsoever is laid upon us by Necessity we should receive Generously For it is Foolish to strive with what we cannot avoid We are born Subjects and to obey God is Perfect Liberty He that does This shall be Free Safe and Quiet all his Actions shall succeed to his Wish and What can any Man desire more than to want nothing from without and to have all things desirable within himself Pleasures do but weaken our Minds and send us for our support to Fortune who gives us Money only as the Wages of Slavery We must stop our Eyes and our Ears Ulysses had but one Rock to Fear but Humane Life has many Every City nay every Man is one and there 's no trusting even to our nearest Friends Deliver me from the Superstition of taking those things which are Light and Vain for Felicities CHAP XII Avarice and Ambition are Insatiable and Restless THE Man that would be truely Rich must not encrease his Fortune but retrench his Appetites For Riches are not only Superfluous but Mean and little more to the Possessor than to the Looker on What is the end of Ambition and Avarice when at best we are but Stuards of what we falsly call our Own All those things that we pursue with so much hazard and expence of Blood as well to Keep as to Get for which we break Faith and Friendship What are they but the mere Deposita of Fortune And not Ours but already enclining toward a new Master There is nothing our Own but that which we give to our selves and of which we have a Certain and an Inexpugnable Possession Avarice is so Insatiable that it is not in the Power of Liberality to Content it And our Desires are so Boundless that whatever we get is but in the way to
and therefore we Fear it because we do not know what will become of us when we are gone and that Consideration strikes us with an Inexplicable Terror The way to avoid this Distraction is to contract our Business and our Thoughts when the Mind is once setled a Day or an Age is all One to us and the Series of Time which is now our Trouble will be then our delight For he that is Steadily resolv'd against all Uncertainties shall never be disturb'd with the Variety of them Let us make haste therefore to Live since every day to a Wise Man is a New Life For he has done his business the Day before and so prepar'd himself for the next that if it be not his Last he knows yet that it might have been so No Man enjoyes the true Taste of Life but he that is willing and Ready to Quit it THE Wit of Man is not able to Express the Blindness of Humane Folly in taking so much more Care of our Fortunes our Houses and our Money than we do of our Lives Every Body breaks in upon the One Gratis but we betake our selves to Fire and Sword if any Man invades the Other There 's no Dividing in the Case of Patrimony but People share our Time with us at pleasure So Profuse are we of that only thing whereof we may be Honestly Covetous 'T is a Common Practice to ask an Hour or two of a Friend for such or such a business and it is as easily granted both Parties only considering the Occasion and not the Thing it self They never put Time to Accompt which is the most Valuable of all pretious things but because they do not see it they reckon upon it as Nothing and yet these Easie Men when they come to Dye would give the whole World for those hours again which they so Inconsiderately cast away before but there 's no recovering of them If they could number their Dayes that are yet to Come as they can those that are already past How would those very People tremble at the Apprehension of Death though a Hundred year hence that never so much as think of it at present though they know not but it may take them away the next Immediate Minute 'T is an usual saying I would give my Life for such or such a Friend when at the same time we Do give it without so much as thinking of it Nay when That Friend is never the better for it and we our selves the worse Our Time is set and Day and Night we Travel On there 's no Baiting by the way and 't is not in the Power of either Prince or People to prolong it Such is the Love of Life that even those Decrepit Dotards that have lost the Use of it will yet beg the Continuance of it and make themselves Younger than they are as if they could cozen even Fate it self When they fall Sick what promises of Amendment if they scape that Bout What Exclamations against the Folly of their Mis-pent Time And yet if they Recover they Relapse No Man takes Care to Live Well but Long when yet it is in every Bodies Power to do the Former and in no Man 's to do the Latter We consume our Lives in providing the very Instruments of Life and govern our selves still with a Regard to the Future So that we do not Properly Live but we are about to Live How great a shame is it to be laying new Foundations of Life at our last Gasp and for an Old Man that can only prove his Age by his Beard with one Foot in the Grave to go to School again While we are Young we may Learn Our Minds are Tractable and our Bodies fit for Labor and Study but when Age comes On we are seiz'd with Languor and Sloth afflicted with Diseases and at last we leave the World as Ignorant as we came into it Only we Dy worse than we were Born which is none of Natures Fault but Ours for our Fears Suspicions Perfidy c. are from our Selves I wish with all my Soul that I had thought of my End sooner but I must make the more Haste now and Spurr on like those that set out Late upon a Journey It will be better to Learn Late than not at all though it be but only to instruct me how I may leave the Stage with Honor. IN the Division of Life there is time Present Past and to Come What we Do is Short what we Shall do is Doubtful but what we Have done is Certain and out of the Power of Fortune The Passage of Time is wonderfully quick and a Man must look Backward to see it and in that Retro-spect he has all past Ages at a View but the Present gives us the slip Unperceiv'd 'T is but a Moment that we Live and yet we are Dividing it into Childhood Youth Mans Estate and Old Age all which Degrees we bring into that narrow Compass If we do not watch we lose our Opportunities if we do not make Haste we are left behind Our Best hours scape us the Worst are to come The Purest part of our Life runs First and leaves only the Dregs at the Bottom And That Time which is good for nothing else we dedicate to Virtue and only propound to Begin to Live at an Age that very few People arrive at What greater Folly can there be in the World than this Loss of Time the Future being so Uncertain and the Dammages so Irreparable If Death be Necessary why should any Man Fear it And if the Time of it be Uncertain Why should we not alwayes Expect it We should therefore First Prepare our selves by a Virtuous Life against the Dread of an Inevitable Death And it is not for us to put off being Good till such or such a Business is Over for One business draws on Another and we do as good as Sow it one Grain produces more We are not to Philosophize when we have nothing else to do but to attend Wisdome even to the neglect of all things else for we are so far from having Time to spare that the Age of the World would be yet too narrow for the work we have to do nor is it enough not to Omit it but we must not so much as Intermit it THERE is nothing that we can properly call our Own but our Time and yet every Body fools us out of it that has a mind to 't If a Man borrows a Paltry Sum of Money there must be Bonds and Securities and every Common Civility is presently charg'd upon Accompt But he that has my Time thinks he owes me nothing for 't though it be a Debt that Gratitude it self can never repay I cannot call any Man Poor that has Enough yet left be it never so Little 'T is good Advice yet to those that have the World before them to play the Good Husbands betimes for 't is too late to spare at the Bottom
Business of This World should be Forgotten or my Memory traduc'd What 's all this to me I have done my Duty Undoubtedly That which puts an End to all Other Evils cannot be a very great Evil it Self and yet it is no Easie thing for Flesh and Blood to despise Life What if Death comes If it does not stay with us why should we Fear it One Hangs himself for a Mistress Another Leaps the Garret Window to avoid a Cholerick Master a Third runs away and Stabs himself rather than he will be brought back again We see the Force even of our Infirmities and shall we not then do greater things for the Love of Virtue To suffer Death is but the Law of Nature and it is a great Comfort that it can be done but Once In the very Convulsions of it we have This Consolation that our Pain is near an end and that it frees us from all the Miseries of Life What it is we Know not and it were Rash to Condemn what we do not Understand But this we Presume either that we shall pass out of This into a Better Life where we shall Live with Tranquillity and Splendor in Diviner Mansions or else return to our First Principles free from the Sense of any Inconvenience There 's Nothing Immortal nor Many things Lasting but by Diverse wayes every thing comes to an End What an Arrogance is it then when the World it self stands Condemn'd to a Dissolution that Man alone should expect to live for Ever It is Unjust not to allow unto the Giver the Power of disposing of his Own Bounty and a Folly only to value the Present Death is as much a Debt as Mony and Life is but a Journey towards it Some dispatch it Sooner others Later but we must All have the same Period The Thunder-Bolt is undoubtedly Just that draws even from those that are stuck with it a Veneration A Great Soul takes no Delight in Staying with the Body it considers whence it Came and Knows whither it is to Go. The day will come that shall separate this Mixture of Soul and Body of Divine and Humane My Body I will leave where I found it My Soul I will restore to Heaven which would have been There already but for the Clog that keeps it down And beside How many Men have been the worse for longer Living that might have dy'd with Reputation if they had been sooner taken away How many Disappointments of Hopeful Youths that have prov'd Dissolute Men Over and above the Ruines Shipwracks Torments Prisons that attend Long Life A Blessing so deceiptful that if a Child were in Condition to Judge of it and at Liberty to Refuse it he would not take it WHAT Providence has made Necessary Humane Prudence should comply with Chearfully As there is a Necessity of Death so that Necessity is Equal and Invincible No Man has cause of Complaint for that which Every Man must suffer as well as himself When we should dye we Will not and when we would not we must But our Fate is Fixt and Unavoidable is the Decree Why do we then stand Trembling when the Time comes Why do we not as well lament that we did not Live a Thousand years agoe as that we shall not be alive a Thou sand years hence 'T is but travelling the Great Road and to the Place whither we must All go at Last 'T is but submitting to the Law of Nature and to That Lot which the whole World has suffer'd that is gone Before us and so must They too that are to Come After us Nay how many Thousands when our Time comes will Expire in the same Moment with us He that will not Follow shall be drawn by Force And Is it not much better now to do That willingly which we shall otherwise be made to do in spite of our Hearts The Sons of Mortal Parents must expect a Mortal Posterity Death is the End of Great and Small We are Born Helpless and expos'd to the Injuries of all Creatures and of all Weathers The very Necessaries of Life are Deadly to us We meet with our Fate in our Dishes in our Cups and in the very Ayr we Breathe Nay our very Birth is Inauspicious for we come into the World Weeping and in the Middle of our Designs while we are meditating great Matters and stretching of our Thoughts to After Ages Death cuts us off and our longest Date is only the Revolution of a few years One Man Dyes at the Table Another goes away in his Sleep a Third in his Mistress's Armes a Fourth is Stabb'd Another is Stung with an Adder or Crush'd with the Fall of a Horse We have several wayes to our End but the End it self which is Death is still the same Whether we dye by a Sword by a Halter by a Potion or by a Disease 't is all but Death A Child dies in the Swadling Clouts and an Old Man at a Hundred they are Both Mortal alike though the One goes sooner than the Other All that lies betwixt the Cradle and the Grave is Uncertain If we compute the Troubles the Life even of a Child is Long if the Swiftness of the Passage That of an Old Man is short The whole is slippery and Deceiptful and only Death Certain and yet all People Complain of That which never Deceiv'd any Man Senecio rais'd himself from a small Beginning to a Vast Fortune being very well skill'd in the Faculties both of Getting and of Keeping and either of them was sufficient for the doing of his Business He was a Man Infinitely Careful both of his Patrimony and of his Body He gave me a Mornings Visit sayes our Author and after that Visit he went away and spent the rest of the day with a Friend of his that was desperately Sick At Night he was Merry at Supper and seiz'd immediately after with a Squincy which dispatch'd him in a few hours This Man that had Mony at Use in all Places and in the very Course and Height of his Prosperity was thus Cut off How Foolish a thing is it then for a Man to flatter himself with Long Hopes and to Pretend to Dispose of the Future Nay the very Present slips through our Fingers and there is not that moment which we can call our Own How vain a thing is it for us to enter upon Projects and to say to our selves Well! I 'll go Build Purchase Discharge such Offices Settle my Affairs and then Retire We are all of us Born to the same Casualties All equally Frail and Uncertain of To morrow At the very Altar where we Pray for Life we Learn to Dy by seeing the Sacrifices Kill'd before us But there 's no Need of a Wound or Searching the Heart for 't when the Noose of a Cord or Smothering of a Pillow will do the Work All things have their Seasons they Begin they Encrease and they Dye The Heavens and the Earth grow Old and are appointed
their Periods That which we call Death is but a Pause or Suspension and in truth a Progress to Life only our Thoughts look downward upon the Body and not Forward upon things to Come All things under the Sun are Mortal Cities Empires and the time will come when it shall be a Question Where they Were and perchance whether ever they had a Being or no. Some will be destroy'd by War Others by Luxury Fire Inundations Earthquakes Why should it trouble me then to Dye as a Fore-Runner of an Universal Dissolution A Great Mind Submits it self to God and suffers willingly what the Law of the Universe will otherwise bring to pass upon Necessity That good Old Man Bassus though with one Foot in the Grave How Chearful a Mind does he bear He lives in the View of Death and Contemplates his Own End with less Concern of Thought or Countenance than he would do Another Mans. It is a hard Lesson and we are a long time a Learning of it to receive our Death without Trouble especially in the Case of Bassus In Other Deaths there 's a Mixture of Hope A Disease may be Cur'd a Fire Quench'd a falling House either Prop'd or Avoided the Sea may Swallow a Man and throw him Up again A Pardon may Interpose betwixt the Axe and the Body but in the Case of Old Age there 's no Place for either Hope or Intercession Let us Live in our Bodies therefore as if we were only to Lodge in them This Night and to leave them To morrow It is the frequent Thought of Death that must fortifie us against the Necessity of it He that has Arm'd himself against Poverty may Perhaps come to Live in Plenty A Man may strengthen himself against Pain and yet live in a State of Health Against the Loss of Friends and never Lose any But he that fortifies himself against the Fear of Death shall most certainly have Occasion to employ that Virtue It is the Care of a Wise and a Good Man to look to his Manners and Actions and rather how well he Lives than how Long For to Dye Sooner or Later is not the Business but to Dye Well or Ill For Death brings us to Immortality CHAP. XXIII Against Immoderate Sorrow for the Death of Friends NEXT to the Encounter of Death in our Own Bodies the most sensible Calamity to an Honest Man is the Death of a Friend and we are not in truth without some Generous Instances of those that have preferr'd a Friends Life before their Own and yet this Affliction which by Nature is so Grievous to us is by Virtue and Providence made Familiar and Easie TO Lament the Death of a Friend is both Natural and Just A Sigh or a Tear I would allow to his Memory but no Profuse or Obstinate Sorrow Clamorous and Publick Lamentations are not so much the Effects of Grief as of Vain-Glory He that is sadder in Company than Alone shews rather the Ambition of his Sorrow than the Piety of it Nay and in the Violence of his Passion there fall out Twenty things that set him a Laughing At the long Run Time Cures All but it were better done by Moderation and Wisdome Some People do as good as set a watch upon themselves as if they were afraid that their Grief would make an Escape The Ostentation of Grief is many times more than the Grief it self When any Body is within Hearing what Grones and Outcryes when they are Alone and Private all is Hush and Quiet So soon as any body comes in they are at it again and down they throw themselves upon the Bed fall to wringing of their hands and wishing of themselves dead which they might better have done by themselves but their sorrow goes off with the Company We forsake Nature and run over to the Practises of the People that never were the Authors of any thing that is Good If Destiny were to be wrought upon by Tears I would allow you to spend your dayes and nights in Sadness and Mourning Tearing of your Hair and Beating of your Breasts but if Fate be Inexorable and Death will Keep what he has Taken Grief is to no Purpose And yet I would not Advise Insensibility and Hardness It were Inhumanity and not Virtue not to be mov'd at the separation of Familiar Friends and Relations Now in such Cases we cannot Command our selves we cannot forbear weeping and we Ought not to Forbear But let us not pass the Bounds of Affection and run into Imitation within These Limits it is some ease to the Mind A Wise Man gives Way to Tears in Some Cases and Cannot Avoid them in Others When one is struck with the Surprize of Ill Newes as the Death of a Friend or the like or upon the Last Embrace of an Acquaintance under the Hand of an Executioner he lies under a Natural Necessity of Weeping and Trembling In Another Case we may Indulge our Sorrows as upon the Memory of a Dead Friends Conversation or Kindness one may let fall Tears of Generosity and Joy We Favour the One and we are Overcome with the Other and This is Well but we are not upon any Termes to Force them They may flow of their Own accord without derogating from the Dignity of a Wise Man who at the same time both preserves his Gravity and Obeys Nature Nay there is a Certain Decorum even in Weeping for Excess of Sorrow is as Foolish as Profuse Laughter Why do we not as well Cry when our Trees that we took Pleasure in shed their Leaves as at the Loss of Other Satisfactions When the next Season repairs them either with the same again or Others in their Places We may accuse Fate but we cannot alter it for it is Hard and Inexorable and not to be Remov'd either with Reproches or Tears They may carry us to the Dead but never bring Them back again to Us. If Reason does not put an End to our Sorrows Fortune never will One is pinch'd with Poverty Another Sollicited with Ambition and Feares the very Wealth that he Coveted One is troubled for the Loss of Children Another for the Want of them So that we shall sooner want Tears than Matter for them let us therefore spare That for which we have so much Occasion I do confess that in the very Parting of Friends there is something of an Uneasyness and Trouble but it is rather Voluntary than Natural and it is Custome more than Sense that affects us We do rather Impose a Sorrow upon our selves than Submit to it as People Cry when they have Company and when no body looks on all 's well again To Mourn without Measure is Folly and not to Mourn at all is Insensibility The best Temper is betwixt Piety and Reason to be sensible but neither Transported nor Cast down He that can put a stop to his Tears and Pleasures when he will is safe It is an Equal Infelicity to be either too Soft or too
Misfortunes into Blessings 'T is a sad Condition you 'l say for a Man to be barr'd the Freedome of his own Country And is not This the Case of Thousands that we meet every day in the Streets Some for Ambition Others to Negotiate or for Curiosity Delight Friendship Study Experience Luxury Vanity Discontent Some to exercise their Virtues Others their Vices and not a few to Prostitute either their Bodies or their Eloquence To pass now from pleasant Countryes into the worst of Islands Let them be never so barren or Rocky the People never so Barbarous or the Clime never so Intemperate he that is Banish'd thither shall find many Strangers to live there for their Pleasures The Mind of Man is Naturally Curious and Restless which is no wonder considering their Divine Original for Heavenly things are alwayes in Motion Witness the Stars and the Orbs which are perpetually Moving Rowling and Changing of Place according to the Law and Appointment of Nature But here are no Woods you 'l say no Rivers no Gold nor Pearle no Commodity for Traffick or Commerce nay hardly Provision enough to keep the Inhabitants from starving 'T is very Right here are no Palaces no Artificial Grotto's or Materials for Luxury and Excess but we lye under the Protection of Heaven and a Poor Cottage for a Retreat is more worth than the most Magnificent Temple when That Cottage is Consecrated by an Honest Man under the Guard of his Virtues Shall any Man think Banishment Grievous when he may take such Company along with him Nor is there any Banishment but yields enough for our Necessities and no Kingdom is sufficient for Superfluities It is the Mind that makes us Rich in a Desert and if the Body be but kept Alive the Soul Enjoyes all Spiritual Felicities in Abundance What signifies the being Banish'd from one Spot of Ground to Another to a Man that has his Thoughts Above and can look Forward and Backward and whereever he pleases and whereever he is he has the same Matter to work upon The Body is but the Prison or the Clog of the Mind subjected to Punishments Robberies Diseases but the Mind is Sacred and Spiritual and Lyable to no Violence Is it that a Man shall want Garments or Covering in Banishment The Body is as easily Cloth'd as Fed and Nature has made nothing Hard that is Necessary But if nothing will serve us but Rich Embroderies and Scarlet 't is none of Fortunes Fault that we are Poor but our Own Nay suppose a Man should have All restor'd him back again that he has Lost it will come to nothing for he will want more after That to satisfie his Desires than he did before to supply his Necessities Insatiable Desires are not so much a Thirst as a Disease TO come Lower now Where 's That People or Nation that have not chang'd their Place of Abode Some by the Fate of War Others have been cast by Tempests Shipwracks or want of Provisions upon unknown Coasts Some have been forc'd Abroad by Pestilence Sedition Earthquakes Surcharge of People at Home Some Travel to see the World Others for Commerce But in fine it is clear that upon some Reason or other the whole Race of Mankind have shifted their Quarters Chang'd their very Names as well as their Habitations Insomuch that we have lost the very Memorials of what they were All these Transportations of People what are they but Publick Banishments The very Founder of the Roman Empire was an Exile Briefly The whole World has been Transplanted and one Mutation treads upon the Heel of another That which one Man Desires turns another Mans Stomach and he that Proscribes me To Day shall himself be cast out To morrow We have however this Comfort in our Misfortune we have the same Nature the same Providence and we carry our Virtues along with us And This Blessing we owe to that Allmighty Power call it what you will either a God or an Incorporeal Reason a Divine Spirit or Fate and the Unchangeable Course of Causes and Effects It is however so order'd that nothing can be taken from us but what we can well spare and that which is most Magnificent and Valuable continues with us Wherever we go we have the Heavens over our Heads and no further from us than they were before and so long as we can entertain our Eyes and Thoughts with those Glories what matter is it what Ground we tread upon IN the Case of Pain or Sickness 't is only the Body that is affected It may take off the Speed of a Footman or Bind the Hands of a Cobler but the Mind is still at Liberty to Hear Learn Teach Advise and to do other Good Offices 'T is an Example of Publick Benefit a Man that is in Pain and Patient Virtue may shew it self as well in the Bed as in the Field and he that chearfully encounters the Terrors of Death and Corporal Anguish is as great a Man as he that most Generously hazards himself in a Battel A Disease 't is true barrs us of some Pleasures but Procures us others Drink is never so Grateful to us as in a Burning Feaver nor Meat as when we have fasted our selves Sharp and Hungry The Patient may be forbidden some Sensual Satisfaction but no Physitian will forbid us the Delight of the Mind Shall we call any Sick Man Miserable because he must give Over his Intemperance of Wine and Gluttony and betake himself to a Diet of more Sobriety and less Expence and abandon his Luxury which is the Distemper of the Mind as well as of the Body 'T is Troublesome I know at First to abstein from the Pleasures we have been us'd to and to endure Hunger and Thirst but in a Little time we lose the very Appetite and 't is no Trouble then to be without That which we do no not Desire In Diseases there are great Pains but if they be Long they Remit and give us some Intervals of Ease if short and violent either they dispatch Us or Consume Themselves so that either their Respites make them Tolerable or the Extremity makes them short So Merciful is Allmighty God to us that our Torments cannot be very Sharp and Lasting The Acutest Pains are those that Affect the Nerves but there 's this comfort in them too that they will quickly make us Stupid and Insensible In Cases of Extremity let us call to mind the most Eminent Instances of Patience and Courage and turn our Thoughts from our Afflictions to the Contemplation of Virtue Suppose it be the Stone the Gout nay the Rack it self how many have endur'd it without so much as a Grone or a Word speaking without so much as Asking for Relief or giving an Answer to a Question Nay they have laugh'd at the Tormenters upon the very Torture and provok'd them to New Experiments of their Cruelty which they have had still in Derision The Asthma I look upon as of all Diseases the
that look like Anger which cannot properly be call'd so as the Passion of the People against the Gladiators when they hang off and will not dispatch themselves so soon as the Spectators would have them There is something in it of the humor of Children that if they get a fall will never leave Bawling till the Naughty Ground is beaten and then all is well again They are Angry without any Cause or Injury they are deluded by an Imitation of strokes and pacify'd with Counterfeit Tears A False and a Childish Sorrow is appeas'd with as false and as Childish a Revenge They take it for a Contempt if the Gladiators do not immediately cast themselves upon the Swords point They look presently about them from one to another as who should say Do but see my Masters how these Rogues abuse us TO descend to the particular Branches and Varieties would be unnecessary and endless There is a Stubborn a Vindictive a Quarrelsome a Violent a Froward a Sullen a Morose kind of Anger And then we have this Variety in Complication too One goes no further then words Another proceeds immediately to blows without a word speaking a Third sort breaks out into Cursing and Reprochful Language And there are that content themselves with Chiding and Complaining There 's a Conciliable Anger and there is an Implacable but in what form or degree soever it appears all Anger without Exception is Vitious CHAP. II. The Rise of Anger THE Question will be here Whether Anger takes its Rise from Impulse or Judgement That is whether it be mov'd of its own accord or as many other things are from within us that arise we know not how The Clearing of this Point will lead us to greater Matters THE first Motion of Anger is in truth Involuntary and only a kind of Menacing preparation towards it The second deliberates as who should say This Injury should not Pass without a Revenge and there it stops The Third is Impotent and Right or Wrong resolves upon Vengeance The First Motion is not to be avoided nor indeed the Second any more than Yawning for Company Custome and Care may lessen it but Reason it self cannot overcome it The Third as it Rises upon Consideration it must fall so too for that Motion which proceeds with Judgment may be taken away with Judgment A Man thinks himself Injur'd and hath a Mind to be reveng'd but for some Reason lets it rest This is not properly Anger but an Affection overrul'd by Reason A kind of Proposal disapprov'd And What are Reason and Affection but only Changes of the Mind for the better or for the worse Reason Deliberates before it Judges But Anger passes Sentence without Deliberation Reason only attends the Matter in hand but Anger is startled at every Accident It passes the Bounds of Reason and carries it away with it In short Anger is an Agitation of the Mind that proceeds to the Resolution of a Revenge the Mind assenting to it There is no doubt but Anger is mov'd by the Species of an Injury but whether that Motion be Voluntary or Involuntary is the Point in debate though it seems manifest to me that Anger does nothing but where the Mind goes along with it For first to take an Offence and then to meditate a Revenge and after that to lay both Propositions together and say to my self This Injury ought not to have been done but as the Case stands I must do my self right This Discourse can never proceed without the Concurrence of the Will The first motion indeed is single but all the rest is deliberation and Superstructure There is something understood and condemn'd an Indignation conceiv'd and a Revenge propounded This can never be without the Agreement of the Mind to the Matter in deliberation The end of this Question is to know the Nature and Quality of Anger If it be bred in us it will never yield to Reason for all Involuntary Motions are Inevitable and Invincible as a kind of Horror and Shrugging upon the sprinkling of cold Water the Hair standing on end at ill News Giddiness at the sight of a Precipice Blushing at lewd Discourse In these Cases Reason can do no good but Anger may undoubtedly be overcome by Caution and good Counsel for it is a voluntary Vice and not of the Condition of those Accidents that befall us as Frailties of our Humanity Amongst which must be reckon'd the first Motions of the Mind after the Opinion of an Injury receiv'd which it is not in the power of Humane Nature to avoid And this is it that affects us upon the Stage or in a Story Can any Man Read the Death of Pompey and not be touch'd with an Indignation The sound of a Trumpet rouzes the Spirits and provokes Courage It makes a Man sad to see the Shipwrack even of an Enemy and we are as much surpriz'd by fear in other Cases All these Motions are not so much Affections as Preludes to them The Clashing of Armes or the Beating of a Drum excites a War-horse Nay a Song from Xenophantes would make Alexander take his Sword in his hand In all these Cases the Mind rather suffers then acts and therefore it is not an Affection to be Mov'd but to give way to that Motion and to follow willingly what was started by Chance These are not Affections but Impulses of the Body The bravest Man in the World may look pale when he puts on his Armour his knees knock and his heart work before the Battle is joyn'd but these are only Motions whereas Anger is an Excursion and proposes Revenge or Punishment which cannot be without the Mind As Fear flies so Anger Assaults and it is not possible to resolve either upon Violence or Caution without the Concurrence of the Will CHAP. III. Anger may be suppress'd IT is an Idle thing to pretend that we cannot Govern our Anger for some things that we do are much harder than others that we ought to do the wildest Affections may be tam'd by Discipline and there is hardly any thing which the Mind will do but it may do There needs no more Argument in this Case then the Instances of several Persons both Powerful and Impatient that have gotten the Absolute Mastery of themselves in this point THRASIPPUS in his Drink fell foul upon the Cruelties of Pisistratus who when he was urg'd by several about him to make an Example of him return'd this Answer Why should I be Angry with a Man that stumbles upon me blindfold In effect most of our Quarrels are of our own making either by mistake or by Aggravation Anger comes sometimes upon Us but we go oftner to It and in stead of Rejecting it we Call it AUGUSTUS was a great Master of his Passion for Timagines an Historian wrote several bitter things against his Person and his Family which pass'd among the People plausibly enough as Pieces of rash Wit commonly do Caesar advis'd him several times
be oppos'd when there 's a Father Perhaps a Brother or a Friend in the Case against us when we should rather love a Man for it and only wish that he could be honestly of our Party We approve of the Fact and detest the doer of it It is a base thing to hate the Person whom we cannot but Commend but it is a great deal worse yet if we hate him for the very Thing that deserves Commendation The things that we desire if they be such as cannot be Given to One without being Taken away from another must needs set those people together by the Ears that desire the same thing One Man has a design upon my Mistriss another upon mine Inheritance And that which should make Friends makes Enemies our being all of a Mind The General Cause of Anger is the Sense or Opinion of an Injury that is the Opinion either of an Injury Simply done or of an Injury done which we have not deserv'd Some are Naturally given to Anger Others are provok'd to 't by Occasion The Anger of Women and Children is commonly sharp but not lasting Old Men are rather querulous and peevish Hard Labor Diseases Anxiety of Thought and whatsoever hurts the Body or the Mind disposes a Man to be Froward but we must not add fire to fire HE that duely considers the Subject matter of all our Controversies and Quarrels will find them low and Mean and not worth the Thought of a Generous Mind but the greatest Noise of all is about Mony This is it that sets Fathers and Children together by the Ears Husbands and Wives and makes way for Sword and Poyson This is it that tires out Courts of Justice enrages Princes and layes Cities in the Dust to seek for Gold and Silver in the Ruins of them This is it that finds work for the Judge to determine which side is least in the wrong and whose is the more plausible Avarice the Plaintiffs or the Defendents And what is it that we contend for all this while but those Baubles that make us Cry when we should Laugh To see a Rich old Chuff that has no body to leave his Estate to break his heart for a handful of Dirt And a Gouty Usurer that has no other Use of his Fingers left him but to Count withall to see him I say in the Extremity of his Fit wrangling for the odd Mony in his Interest If all that 's precious in Nature were gather'd into one Mass it were not worth the trouble of a Sober Mind It were endless to run over all those ridiculous Passions that ate mov'd about Meats and Drinks and the matter of our Luxury Nay about Words Looks Actions Jealousies Mistakes which are all of them as contemptible Fooleries as those very Bawbles that Children Scratch and Cry for There is nothing Great or Serious in all that which we keep such a Clutter about the Madness of it is that we set too Great a Value upon Trifles One Man flies out upon a Salute a Letter a Speech a Question a Gesture a Wink a Look An Action moves one Man A Word Affects another One Man is tender of his Family another of his Person One sets up for an Orator Another for a Philosopher This Man will not bear Pride nor That Man Opposition He that playes the Tyrant at Home is as gentle as a Lamb abroad Some take Offence if a Man asks a Favour of them and others if he does not Every Man has his weak side let us learn which that is and take a Care of it for the same thing does not work upon all Men alike We are mov'd like Beasts at the Idle appearances of things and the fiercer the Creature the more is it startl'd The sight of a red Cloth enrages a Bull. A Shadow provokes the Asp Nay so unreasonable are some Men that they take Moderate Benefits for Injuries and Squabble about it with their nearest Relations They have done this and that for others they cry And they might have dealt better with us if they had pleas'd Very Good And if it be less than we look'd for it may be yet more than we deserve Of all Unquiet humors this is the worst that will never suffer any Man to be happy so long as he sees a happier Man than himself I have known some Men so weak as to think themselves contemn'd if a Horse did but play the Jade with Them that is yet obedient to Another Rider A Brutal Folly to be Offended at a Mute Animal for no Injury can be done us without the Concurrence of Reason A Beast may hurt us as a Sword or a Stone and no otherwise Nay there are that will complain of foul weather a raging Sea a biting winter as if it were expresly directed to them and this they charge upon Providence whose Operations are all of them so far from being Injurious that they are Beneficial to us HOW Vain and Idle are many of those things that make us stark Mad A resty Horse the overturning of a Glass the falling of a Key the Dragging of a Chair a Jealousie a Misconstruction How shall that Man endure the Extremities of Hunger and Thirst that flies out into a rage only for the putting of a little too much Water in his Wine What haste is there to lay a Servant by the heels or break a Leg or an Arme immediately for 't as if he were not to have the same power over him an hour after that he has at that Instant The Answer of a Servant a Wife a Tenant puts some People out of all Patience and yet they can quarrel with the Government for not allowing them the same Liberty in Publick which they themselves deny to their own Families If they say nothing 't is Contumacy if they Speak or Laugh 't is Insolence As if a Man had his Ears given him only for Musick Whereas we must suffer all sorts of Noises good and bad both of Men and Beasts How Idle is it to start at the tinkling of a Bell or the Creaking of a Door when for all this delicacy we must endure Thunder Neither are our Eyes less Curious and Phantastical than our Ears When we are abroad we can bear well enough with foul wayes nasty Streets Noisome Ditches but à spot upon a Dish at home or an unswept Hearth absolutely distracts us And what 's the Reason but that we are patient in the One place and Phantastically peevish in the other Nothing makes us more Intemperate than Luxury that shrinks at every stroke and starts at every shadow 'T is Death to some to have another sit above them as if a Body were ever the more or the less honest for the Cushion But they are only weak Creatures that think themselves wounded if they be but touch'd One of the Sibarites that saw a Fellow hard at work a digging desir'd him to give over for it made him weary to see him and it was an ordinary
only the want of Success has Kept us from being Criminals This very thing methinks should make us more favourable to Delinquents and to forgive not only our selves but the Gods too of whom we seem to have harder thoughts in taking that to be a Particular Evil directed to us that befalls us only by the Common Law of Mortality In fine no Man living can Absolve himself to his Conscience though to the World perhaps he may 'T is true that we are also Condemn'd to Pains and Diseases and to Death too which is no more than the quitting of a Soul house But Why should any Man complain of Bondage that wheresoever he looks has his way open to Liberty That Precipice that Sea that River that Well there 's Freedome in the bottom of it It hangs upon every Crooked Bow and not only a Mans Throte or his Heart but every vein in his Body opens a Passage to 't TO Conclude where my Proper Virtue fails me I will have recourse to Examples and say to my self Am I greater than Philip or Augustus who both of them put up greater Reproches Many have pardon'd their Enemies and shall not I forgive a neglect a little freedome of the Tongue Nay the Patience but of a Second Thought does the business for though the first shock be violent take it in parts and 't is subdu'd And to wind up all in one word The great Lesson of Mandkin as well in this as in all other Cases is to do as he would be done by CHAP. XII Of Cruelty THERE is so near an Affinity betwixt Anger and Cruelty that many People confound them as if Cruelty were only the Execution of Anger in the Payment of a Revenge which holds in some Cases but not in others There are a sort of Men that take delight in the spilling of Humane blood and in the Death of those that never did them any Injury nor were ever so much as suspected for it As Apollodorus Phalaris Sinis Procrustes and others that burnt Men alive whom we cannot so properly call Angry as Brutal For Anger does necessarily presuppose an Injury either Done or Conceiv'd or Fear'd but the other takes Pleasure in Tormenting without so much as pretending any Provocation to 't and kills merely for killing sake The Original of this Cruelty perhaps was Anger which by frequent Exercise and Custome has lost all sence of Humanity and Mercy and they that are thus affected are so far from the Countenance and Appearance of Men in Anger that they will Laugh Rejoyce and Entertain themselves with the most horrid Spectacles as Racks Iails Gibbets several sorts of Chains and Punishments Dilaceration of Members Stigmatizings and Wild Beasts with other exquisite Inventions of Torture And yet at last the Cruelty it self is more Horrid and Odious than the Means by which it works It is a Bestial madness to Love Mischief beside that 't is Womanish to Rage and Tear a Generous Beast will scorn to do 't when he has any thing at his Mercy It is a Vice for Wolves and Tigers and no less Abominable to the World than Dangerous to it self THE Romans had their Morning and their Meridian Spectacles In the Former they had their Combats of Men with Wild Beasts and in the Latter the Men fought One with Another I went sayes our Author the other day to the Meridian Spectacles in hope of Meeting somewhat of Mirth and Diversion to sweeten the humors of those that had been entertain'd with Blood in the Morning But it prov'd otherwise for compar'd with this Inhumanity the former was a Mercy The whole business was only Murther upon Murther the Combatants fought Naked and every Blow was a Wound They do not contend for Victory but for Death and he that kills one Man is to be kill'd by another By Wounds they are forc'd upon Wounds which they Take and Give upon their bare Breasts Burn that Rogue they cry What Is he afraid of his Flesh Do but see how sneakingly that Rascal dies Look to your selves my Masters and consider on 't Who knows but this may come to be your own Case Wicked Examples seldome fail of Coming home at last to the Authors To destroy a Single Man may be Dangerous but to Murther whole Nations is only a more Glorious Wickedness Private Avarice and Rigour are Condemn'd But Oppression when it comes to be Authoriz'd by an Act of State and to be publickly Commanded though particularly Forbidden becomes a Point of Dignity and Honor. What a shame is it for Men to Enterworry one another when yet the fiercest even of Beasts are at peace with those of their own kind This Brutal Fury puts Philosophy it self to a stand The Drunkard the Glutton the Covetous may be reduc'd Nay and the mischief of it is that no Vice keeps it self within its proper Bounds Luxury runs into Avarice and when the Reverence of Virtue is extinguish'd Men will stick at nothing that carryes profit along with it Mans Blood is shed in Wantonness his Death is a Spectacle for Entertainment and his Grones are Musick When Alexander deliver'd up Lysimachus to a Lyon how glad would he have been to have had Nails and Teeth to have devour'd him himself It would have too much derogated he thought from the dignity of his Wrath to have appointed a Man for the Execution of his Friend Private Cruelties 't is true cannot do much Mischief but in Princes they are a War against Mankind C. CAESAR would commonly for Exercise and Pleasure put Senators and Roman Knights to the Torture and Whip several of them like Slaves or put them to Death with the most accurate Torments merely for the satisfaction of his Cruelty That Caesar that wish'd the People of Rome had but one Neck that he might cut it off at one Blow It was the Employment the Study and the Joy of his Life He would not so much as give the Expiring leave to Grone but caus'd their Mouthes to be stopt with Spunges or for want of them with Rags of their own Cloths that they might not breathe out so much as their last Agonies at Liberty Or perhaps least the tormented should speak something which the Tormentor had no mind to hear Nay he was so Impatient of Delay that he would frequently rise from Supper to have Men kill'd by Torch-light as if his Life and Death had depended upon their dispatch before the next morning To say Nothing how many Fathers were put to death by him in the same night with their Sons which was a kind of Mercy in the prevention of their Mourning And was not Sylla's Cruelty prodigious too which was only stopt for want of Enemies He caused 7000 Citizens of Rome to be slaughter'd at once and some of the Senators being startled at their Cryes that were heard into the Senate-house Let us mind our business sayes Sylla This is nothing but a few Mutineers that I have Order'd to be sent out
which we can either Give or Receive are of very little Conducement to a Happy Life Those things which the Common People gape after are Transitory and Vain Whereas Happiness is Permanent Nor is it to be Estimated by Number Measure or Parts For it is Full and Perfect I do not speak as if I my self were arriv'd at that Blessed State of Repose But it is something yet to be on the Mending hand It is with me as with a Man that 's Creeping out of a Disease he Feels yet some Grudgings of it he is every Foot Examining of his Pulse and suspects every Touch or Heat to be a Relick of his Feaver Just at That rate am I jealous of my self The best Remedy that I know in this Case is to go on with Confidence and not to be missed by the Errors of Other People It is with our Manners as with our Healths 't is a Degree of Virtue the Abatement of Vice as it is a Degree of Health the Abatement of a Fit Some Place their Happiness in Wealth Some in the Liberty of the Body and Others in the Pleasures of the Sense and Palate But What are Mettals Tasts Sounds or Colours to the Mind of a Reasonable Creature He that sets his Heart upon Riches the very Fear of Poverty will be grievous to him He that 's Ambitious shall be gall'd with Envy at any Man that gets before him For in that Case he that is not First is Last I do not speak against Riches neither For if they hurt a Man 't is his Own Folly They may be indeed the Cause of Mischief as they are a Temptation to those that do it In stead of Courage they may Inspire us with Arrogance and in stead of Greatness of Mind with Insolence which is in truth but the Counterfeit of Magnanimity What is it to be a Prisoner and in Chains It is no more than that Condition to which many Princes have been Reduc'd and out of which Many Men have been Advanc'd to the Authority of Princes 'T is not to say I have no Master In time you may have one Might not Hecuba Croesus and the Mother of Darius have said as much And where 's the Happyness of Luxury either when a Man divides his Life betwixt the Kitchin and the Stews betwixt an Anxious Conscience and a Nauseous Stomach Caligula who was born to shew the World what mischief might be done by a Concurrence of Great Wickedness and a Great Fortune Spent near 10 000 l. Sterling upon a Supper The Works and Inventions of it are Prodigious not only in the Counterfeiting of Nature but even in Surpassing it The Romans had their Brooks even in their Parlors and found their Dinners under their Tables The Mullet was reckon'd stale unless it dy'd in the Hand of the Guest And they had their Glasses to put them into that they might the better observe all the Changes and Motions of them in the Last Agony betwixt Life and Death So that they fed their Eyes before their Bodies Look how it Reddens sayes one there 's no Vermilion like it Take notice of these Veins and that same grey brightness upon the Head of it And now he is at 's Last Gasp See how Pale he turns and all of a Colour These people would not have given themselves half this trouble with a Dying Friend Nay they would leave a Father or a Brother at his Last Hour to entertain themselves with the Barbarous Spectacle of an expiring Fish And that which enhances the Esteem of every thing is the Price of it Insomuch that Water it self which ought to be Gratuitous is expos'd to Sale in their Conservatories of Ice and Snow Nay we are troubled that we cannot buy Breath Light and that we have the Ayr it self Gratis As if our Condition were Evil because Nature has left something to us in Common But Luxury contrives wayes to set a Price upon the most Necessary and Communicable Benefits in Nature Even those Benefits which are Free to Birds and Beasts as well as to Men and serve Indifferently for the Use of the most Sluggish Creatures But How comes it that Fountain Water is not Cold enough to Serve us unless it be bound up into Ice So long as the Stomach is Sound Nature discharges her Functions without Trouble But when the Blood comes to be enflam'd with Excess of Wine or Meats Simple Water is not Cold Enough to Allay that Heat and we are forc'd to make use of Remedies which Remedies themselves are Vices We heap Suppers upon Dinners and Dinners upon Suppers without Intermission Good God! How easie is it to quench a Sound and an Honest Thirst But when the Palate is grown Callous we Taste nothing and that which we take for Thirst is only the Rage of a Feaver Hippocrates deliver'd it as an Aphorisme that Women were never Ball'd nor Gouty but in one Singular Case Women have not alter'd their Natures since but they have Chang'd the Course of their Lives for by taking the Liberties of Men they partake as well of their Diseases as of their Wickedness They sit up as much Drink as much nay in their very Appetites they are Masculine too they have lost the Advantages of their Sex by their Vices Our Ancestors when they were Free liv'd either in Caves or in Arbours But Slavery came in with â—…ildings and with Marble I would have him that comes into my House take more Notice of the Master then of the Furniture The Golden Age was before Architecture Arts came in with Luxury and we do not hear of any Philosopher that was either a Locksmith or a Painter Who was the Wiser Man think you he that Invented a Saw or the Other who upon seeing a Boy drink Water out of the Hollow of his Hand Brake his Pitcher with this Check to himself What a Fool am I to trouble my self with Superfluities Carving is one Mans Trade Cooking is Anothers Only he is more miserable that teaches it for Pleasure than he that learns it for Necessity It was Luxury not Philosophy that Invented Fish-Pools as well as Palaces Where in Case of Foul weather at Sea they might have Fishes to supply their Gluttony in Harbor We do not only Pamper our Lusts but Provoke them As if we were to Learn the very Art of Voluptuousness What was it but Avarice that Originally brake the Union of Society and Prov'd the cause of Poverty even to those that were the most Wealthy Every Man Possess'd All till the World came to Appropriate Possessions to themselves In the First Age Nature was both a Law and a Guide and the Best Govern'd Which was but according to Nature too The largest and the strongest Bull leads the Heard the Goodliest Elephant and among Men too in the Blessed times of Innocence the Best was Uppermost They chose Governors for their Manners who neither Acted any Violence nor suffer'd any They Protected the Weak against the Mighty and Perswaded
by a Generous Concurrence of Resolution and Fate but Cato is above Example and does as much scorn to ask his Death of any Man as his Life With what Joy did this Great Man Contemplate Immortality when he took his Book and his Sword together and in Cold Thoughts dispatch'd himself Let this suffice of Cato whose Virtue Providence made use of to Cope with all the Powers of the Earth His Courage took delight in and sought for all Occasions of Hazard keeping his Eye still upon the End without valuing the Difficulties of the Passage The Sufferance is one Part of the Glory and though one Man may scape without Wounds yet he is still more Reverend and Bemarkable that comes off Bloody The Malice of Great Men is grievous you 'll say and yet he Supported the Oppositions of Pompey Caesar and Crassus Is it troublesome to be Repuls'd Vatinius was preferr'd before him Prosperity shews a Man but one part of Humane Nature No Body knows what such a Man is good for Neither in truth does he understand himself for want of Experiment Temporal Happiness is for weak and Vulgar Minds but the subduing of Publick Terrors is a Work that is reserv'd for more Generous Spirits Calamity is the Touch-stone of a Brave Mind that resolves to Live and Dye Free and Master of it self The Combatant brings no Mettal into the Field that was never Batter'd He that has lost Blood and yet keeps his Stomach he that has been under his Enemy and worsted and yet comes on again and gathers heart from his Misfortunes That 's the Man of Hope and Courage But Is it not a very Unjust and a Rigorous Fate that Good Men should be Poor and Friendless All this is no more than the Natural Work of Matter and Form Mean Souls are meanly Principled But there goes more to the making up of a Brave Man that is to work out his way through Difficulties and Storms We are condemn'd to Terrible Encounters and because we cannot according to the Course of Nature Avoid them we have Faculties given us that will Enable us to Bear them Or at the worst we have a Retreat If we will not fight we may fly So that nothing is made more Easie to us than that which is most Necessary to us to Dye No Man is kept in the World against his Will But Adversity is the Better for us all for it is Gods Mercy to shew the World their Errors and that the things they Fear and Covet are neither Good nor Evil being the Common and promiscuous Lot both of Good Men and Bad. If they were Good only the Good should enjoy them And if Bad only the Wicked should suffer them One Man is taken away in a Scuffle for a Wench and another in the Defence of his Country and we find Silver and Gold both in a Temple and in the Stewes Now to shew you that the Virtue which I affect is not so Imaginary and Extravagant as it is taken to be I will allow a Wise Man to Tremble to turn Pale nay and to Grone too And to suffer all the Affections of his Bodily Sense provided that he keep his Mind Firm and Free from submission to his Body and that he do not Repent of his Constancy which is in it self so great a Virtue that there is some Authority even in a pertinacious Error If the Body may be brought by Exercise to the Contempt of Bruises and Wounds How much more easily then may the Mind be Fortify'd against the Assaults of Fortune And though perhaps thrown down and Trod upon yet Recover it self The Body must have Meat and Drink much Labor and Practice whereas the Food and the Business of the Mind is within it self and Virtue is maintain'd without either Toyl or Charge If you say That many Professors of Wisdom are wrought upon by Menaces and Mischiefs these let me tell you are but Proficients and not as yet arriv'd at the State of Wisdom They are not strong enough to practice what they know It is with our Dispositions as with our Cloaths They will take some Colours at One Dipping But others must be steep'd over and over before they will Imbibe them And so for Disciplines they must Soke and lye long before they take the Tincture No Man can receive an Injury and not be mov'd at it But yet he may keep himself Free from Perturbations and so far from being troubled at them that he may make use of them for the Experiment and Tryal of his Virtue keeping himself still moderate Placid Chearful and Safe in a Profound quiet and Fixed in his Station But if a Wise Man cannot be Poor How comes it that he is many times without either Meat Drink Cloaths or Lodging If only Fools are Mad How comes it then that VVise Men have their Alienations of Mind and talk as Idly in a Fever as other people 'T is one thing the Receiving of an Injury and another thing the Conceiving of an Indignation for it It is the Body in This Case that suffers which is the Fools Part but not the Mind That Man is never the worse Pilot that by foul weather is forc'd beside his Business When a Ship springs a Leak we do not presently quarrel either with the Mariners or with the Vessel But some to the Pump others into the Hold to keep the Ship above Water And if we cannot absolutely Master it we must still work on For it is then a great point gain'd if we can but keep it at a stay Some Men are strangely Transported at the Insolence of the Porter that refuses to let them into a Great Mans House They forget that the door of a Prison is more strictly guarded than that of a Palace He that has Business must pay for his Passage and Sweeten him as he would do a Churlish Curr with a Sop. That which is to be Sold is to be Bought He 's a weak Man that rates himself according to the Civility of a Slave Let him have a Reverence for himself and then no matter who despises him What if he should break his Staff or Cause his Master to turn him away or to correct him He that Contends supposes an Equality and even when he has got the better of him admits that there VVas one What if he should receive a Blow Cato the greatest Man of his Age did not only Forgive it but Forget it 'T is not to say That This or That is Tolerable to a Wise Man or Intolerable If VVe do not totally subdue Fortune Fortune Overcomes Us. It is the Foundation of a Happy Life for a Man to depend upon himself but an Absolute Tranquility of Mind and a Freedome from Errors must be the Business of another World EPIST. XXV A VVise and a Good Man is Proof against all Accidents Of Fate THe Book you promis'd me is now come to my hand and I open'd it with an Intent to read it over at Leisure But