passes at Home and in our ordinary Course of Affairs The Third is Publick and respects what is exposed to the common View of the World In the First of these there is no manner of Restraint in the Second no Pains or Study to recommend one's Behaviour as being not accountable for our Own Management to Them that live under our Own Roof and Government but all the Reserve and Artifice and Dissimulation is in a manner appropriated to the last of These Now it is much more difficult to be regular and exact in the first of these Degrees than in either of the other and the Examples of Persons that are or have been so have been infinitely fewer and so in proportion the Case stands with the Second too in comparison of the Third sort The Reason is obvious and evident For where there is no body to judge or controul or countermand nay where there is not so much as a Spectator to observe our Actions where we have no apprehension of Punishment for doing amiss no expectation of Reward for doing well we are much more remiss and careless in our Behaviour Reason and Conscience are here the only Guides we have to follow and although These may be some Check yet that is not comparable to the Restraints we feel when placed in open View and made the common Mark of All who must needs see and will take a Freedom of censuring our Actions Applause and Glory fear of Scandal and Reproach or some other Passion of the like Nature are much more powerful Motives these carry and manage us after a very different manner And indeed the greatest part of Mankind are more govern'd by Passions of this Nature than by any strict Sense of Duty and regard to Virtue These put us upon our Guard and teach us Prudence upon force And from the Influence of These it is that many People have the Reputation of Holy and Excellent Persons and behave Themselves as such in the Eye of the World who yet in reality and at the bottom are mere Hypocrites stark nought and rotten at the Core and have not one commendable Quality belonging to them What passes before Men is all Farce and Counterfeit we put it on for Convenience and are concern'd to appear thus to the Spectators but the Truth of us is conceal'd and the Man can have no true Judgment made of him but from what he does in private and alone We must see him in his constant and every-day's Dress and strip him of those Ornaments that set him off when he comes abroad We must know his Temper and his usual Deportment for all the rest is Fiction and Constraint * Universus mundus exercet histrioniam All the World are Actors and play their Parts to please the Audience And it was well observ'd by a Wise Man That none are good except such as are so inwardly and by Themselves And that Virtue is always the same as cautious as prudent upon the account of Conscience as it is in Obedience to the publick Laws and Customs of the World as fearful of offending one's own Self and as careful to avoid the Condemnation of one 's own Breast when no Eye sees us as it is of the Observation and Reproaches of all Mankind Publick Actions such as Exploits in War delivering an Opinion in Senate or Council discharging an Embassy governing a Nation or the like are bright and loud every body sees every body hears of them and therefore These are perform'd with all possible Diligence and Circumspection but such Private and Domestick ones as Chiding Laughing Selling and Buying Borrowing and Paying and Conversing with our own Families and most intimate Acquaintance are silent and dark they make no Noise fear no Discovery and are therefore thought worthy very little or not any Attention or Consideration at all Nay we are sometimes scarce so much as sensible of them when we do them And if in These Men be so unthinking a little Reflection will soon convince us that they are infinitely more so in Those yet more secret and merely internal such as Loving Hating Desiring of which none is or can be conscious but their own Minds There is one Thing more fit to be observed upon this Occasion and a very sad and wicked Thing it is viz. That Men being depraved by a kind of Hypocrisie natural to them have taught Themselves and Others to make a greater Conscience and be infinitely more Scrupulous and concern'd for their outward Behaviour which consists in Shew and Form and is perfectly free and at their own Disposal of no Consequence in the World but all over Set-Countenance and Ceremony Things of no real Difficulty and as little Substance and Effect than they are for inward Miscarriages or private Actions such as are buried in Secrecy and make no Figure but yet are highly Expedient and Necessary very Valuable in Themselves and therefore very Difficult For upon these Last the Reforming of our Souls the Moderating of our Passions and the Regulating our whole Life and Conversation depends And yet the Former are not only preferred before them in our Care and Concern but the Matter is so ordered that even They who find themselves well disposed will by constant Study and Sollicitude to discharge those outward Actions punctually degenerate into Formality of course and by insensible Degrees grow Cold and Negligent in their Regard for the others Now of all these Sorts it is plain that the Men as Hermits for Instance who live in perfect Solitude and have but One of these Three That of the Internal and most private Life only to take Care of are upon better Terms and have an easier Task to discharge than Those that have Two and so likewise he that hath the Domestick Care added to the former and so lies under a Duty in Two Capacities is exposed to less Difficulty than the Persons of a Publick Life and Character upon whom the Care of all the Three Degrees is incumbent CHAP. LIV. A Life of Company and Business compar'd with one of Retirement and Solitude THey that upon all Occasions recommend and cry up a Solitary Life are so far certainly in the Right that it is an Excellent Means of Ease and Quiet a sure Retreat from the Hurry and Troubles of the World a very proper and effectual Defence against the Vices and Extravagances of a profligate Age which are commonly propagated by Infection and Example and are very likely to Spread and Reign where much the greater Part of those we converse with are already tainted with the Disease For not One in a Thousand is Vertuous and Good the Number of Fools is Infinite and the thicker the Crowd the greater the Danger Thus far I say they have Reason on their Side for ill Company is certainly one of the most fatal and ensnaring Things in the World and that not only in Regard of the Corruption but of the Punishment and Vengeance it exposes Men to Accordingly
we may observe how very careful Men that went to Sea used to be that no Blasphemer or profane Person should embark in the same Vessels no profligate wicked Wretch to endanger their Safety or render their Voâ—age Disastrous or Unsuccesful One single Jonas you see whom God was Angry with had like to have lost all the Ship 's Crew And Bias when some wicked Wretches call'd upon their Gods in a Storm made them this ingenious Reproof by way of Raillery Hold your Peace that they may not discover such vile Wretches as you are on board Albuquerque who was Viceroy of the Indies under Emanuel King of Portugal when in extreme Danger laid hold on a young Boy and clung fast to him that so his Innocence might be a Shelter and Sanctuary to him against the Wrath of God So beneficial hath Virtue been esteemed and so destructive Vice not only to the Guilty or the Vitious Persons themselves but to all that are concerned with them or come within the Reach of their Influence But yet to esteem a Life thus retired and at a Distance from Evil absolutely the Best and most Excellent to think it better qualify'd than any other for the Exercise and Perfection of Virtue to call it more Difficult and Unpleasant more Laborious and Painful than any other as some who extol a voluntary renouncing the World would fain persuade us to believe is a mighty Error in themselves or a gross Cheat upon other People For quite contrary it is the most effectual Expedient of throwing off the Cares and troublesome Incumbrances of Life and rendring it light and easie and to say the very Best of it is but a very mean and moderate Attainment an imperfect Beginning or rather a mere Disposition to be Virtuous It is not to meddle with Business to abandon Difficulties and Troubles But how is this done It is not by engaging with and bravely overcoming them but by cowardly running away declining the Combate and hiding ones self from them It is to play least in Sight and be buried alive for fear we should not live well when we are seen No Doubt is to be made but a Prince a Magistrate or Parochial Priest are more perfect more valuable when Good in their kind than Monks and Hermits For in truth such Societies and Seminaries were only design'd to prepare Men for Dignities and Business to qualifie them for Society and the World And Colleges and Cloisters do not give but only lead Men to Usefulness and Perfection He that maintains his Post in the World and satisfies the Duty which the several Relations and Capacities he stands in require from him that converses with Wife and Children and Servants and Neighbours and Friends that manages his own Estate and engages in Business fit for his Condition He I say that undertakes to act so many different Parts and to answer the several Characters as becomes him hath incomparably more Work upon his Hands and is infinitely more Valuable if he perform it than the Recluse who is determined to one single thing and hath only the Duty to himself to take care of For Company and Variety of Conversation is infinitely more hazardous than Solitude and Plenty much harder to manage than Want In a State of Abstinence and Freedom from Business a Man hath but one Pass to guard in the Use and Management of several Things many Considerations must be attended to many Duties discharged and he lyes open to Attacks from several Quarters at once And there is no Doubt in the World to be made but a Man may much more easily conquer Himself to disclaim and refuse Riches and Honours great Offices and gainful Preferments than he can govern himself in the Use or come off with Virtue and just Commendation in the Discharge of them It is no very difficult Matter to live without a Wife but to live with a Wise and behave ones self in all Respects as a Husband ought to do to order and educate Children and bear due Regard and make fit Provisions for a Family and all its Dependencies is a Task Men seldom give themselves the trouble to consider But They that do and make a right Judgment of it will be very far from extolling Caelibacy as some do or think it an Argument of higher Virtue or a State of greater Difficulty than Marriage 2. Nor are Men less mistaken when they suppose that Solitude is a safe Shelter from all manner of Vice and that He who takes Sanctuary in it and sequesters himself from the World rides in Harbour and is out of the Reach of Tempests and Temptations for These find a way to pursue and overtake us even There This is indeed a Convenient Retreat from the Corruptions of ill Company from the Clutter and Crowd of Cares and Business and the Mischiefs that threaten and come upon us from Without but there are other Enemies and Dangers from Within which we always carry about us and cannot run away from Spiritual and Internal Difficulties Domestick and peculiar Evils and the Scripture takes express Notice that the Wilderness was the Place where our Saviour was Assaulted and Tempted by the Devil Retirement is a dangerous Weapon in the Hands of Young Men such as are Hot and Imprudent Rash and Unskilful and there is great Reason to fear that what Crates said to a Young Man whom he found walking all alone is generally true of such Persons and that such when they are by Themselves are in very bad Company This is the Place where Fools lay their wicked Projects here they find Leisure and Opportunities for contriving their own Ruine here they cherish and indulge unlawful Desires file and polish and refine upon their own Passions without Observation without Controul A Man had need be very Wise to know how to make the best Use of Privacy watchful and well fortify'd before he is fit to be trusted with Himself For many times ones Own Hands are the very Worst he can be put into It is an excellent Petition which the Spaniards use even to a Proverb * Guarda mi Dios de mi. Nemo est ex imprudentibus qui sibi relinqui debeat Solitudo omnia persuadet O Lord I beseech thee preserve me from My Self Very few indeed have discretion enough to be left to Themselves and nothing is so bad but Secrecy and Solitude are powerful Temptations to comply with it But for Men to take up their Heels and skulk in a Corner upon any Private and Personal Consideration though it be a lawful and commendable one in it self which yet is the best and not always the Truth of the Case for very often Cowardice and Weakness of Spirit Peevishness and Pets or some other discontented or vicious Passion is at the Bottom of all this pompous and pretended Contempt of the World is to turn Deserter and not dare to stand to our Arms. There is a mighty Difference between forsaking the World and falling out with
OF WISDOM THREE BOOKS Written Originally in French BY THE Sieur de CHARRON With an Account of the AUTHOR Made English By GEORGE STANHOPE D. D. late Fellow of King's-College in Cambridge from the best Edition Corrected and enlarged by the Author a little before his Death LONDON Prinâ—ed for M. Gillyflower M. Bentley H. Bonwick J. Tonson W. Freeman T. Goodwin M. Wotton J. Walthoe S. Manship and R. Parker 1697. THE Sieur de CHARRON's Three Books of WISEDOM Made English London Printed for Mat Gillyflower M Bentley H. Bonwick J. Tonson W. Free man T. Goodwin M. Wotton J. Walthoe S. Manship and R. Parker TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM Lord Dartmouth My Lord IT is now near Two Years since I was desired to employ some of my leisure Hours in considering this Book and putting it into a Condition of becoming somewhat more useful and acceptable than it may without any suspicion of Vanity be said the former Translation could pretend to be A little Time spent in the Perusal satisfy'd me that there was Matter in it not unworthy my Pains and such as it was great Pity Men should want the Knowledge of who understand not the Original And as unreasonable did it seem that others should be discouraged from enquiring into this Author by the Misfortunes which naturally attend even the best Undertakings of this Nature when Time and Improvements of Language have given another Turn to Writing and created a Disrelish for every thing which is not suitable to the Genius of the present Age. The greatest Difficulty which lay upon me was that of finding Opportunities in the midst of those more important Cares of my Profession which neither This nor any other Attempt or Consideration however commendable or beneficial in it self must prevail with me to neglect But here I found even my Duty assisting for That requiring part of my Attendance in a Place of somewhat more Retirement and Ease than where Your Lordship's Father was pleased to fix me I made use of those Advantages to this purpose and finished much the greatest part of the following Book in a way of Diversion as it were and unbending from severer Studies and a more Laborious Station The particular Liberty taken by this Author is a Qualification which the present Generation at least in our Parts of the World will certainly be fond of But it happened to have the same Effect upon Him sometimes which we are not much to wonder if we find very frequent in those of less Judgment and that is over-straining Points of Dispute by affecting to say all which either the Case will bear or which any other Person hath said before This gave Occasion for my interposing sometimes with an Advertisement and that I hope in such a manner as may not have injur'd the Author while it designs the Benefit and Security of my Reader One thing only I cannot forbear adding upon this Occasion that in the midst of all his Free-Thinking he constantly expresses a due and absolute Deference for Revelation and Divine Truths And This indeed was by no means the Effect of his Profession but of his Judgment for Your Lordship is too discerning not to know that as a little and superficial Knowledge in Physick makes Men Quacks so it is not the Abundance but the Defect of Reason and good Sense which makes them Infidels and Scepticks in Religion How little the Sieur de Charron suffer'd his Thoughts to be under the Bondage of any private Respects will be sufficiently evident to any considering Reader from sundry Instances Particularly from what he hath deliver'd upon the Subject of Government in his Third Book In which tho' some Moot Points may seem a little uncouth to Us of this Nation yet if we reflect upon the Constitution under which he liv'd we shall rather have occasion to wonder at his admitting so few reserv'd Cases than mentioning so many Besides that even those mention'd would be of no mighty ill Consequence if always confin'd to those Conditions and Occasions which He hath temper'd and restrain'd them with But passing from the Mysteries of State and pressing unusual Emergencies to the Ordinary Measures of a Publick Administration there is somewhat of an Air so full of Ingenuity and such regard had to the Great Ends for which Government was instituted as a very gentle Application would think an Encomium upon the English Constitution and a sort of Prophetick Satyr upon the late Oppressions of a People to whom he stood nearly related Upon the whole Matter My Lord I have Reason to hope This may prove not only a Book of Good Entertainment but Great Benefit to Persons who have the Capacity and will give themselves the Pains to consider it Were it not so I should not have thought it worth my Trouble and should yet much less have presumed to make an Offer of it to Your Lordship I can with good Confidence say that no Man is better qualified to be a Master of the Subject it treats of The particular and intimate Knowledge of Your Abilities which my being Honour'd with the Care of Your Lordship at the University gave me would bear me out in delivering more upon this Occasion than Your Modesty will permit And indeed the General Opinion of all that have the Honour of Your Lordships Acquaintance saves You that Decency and hath prevented me in this Point The Manly Sense and Wonderful Penetration which appear'd very early in You have given me many pleasing Reflections and I am sure are Foundation sufficient for making Your Lordship a Greater Ornament and Honour to Your Family than even that Nobility which You have by Descent But I must beg leave My Lord to put you in mind that besides Your Own Your Lordship hath a mighty Stock of Honour and Esteem to set out upon deriv'd from the Memory of a Father than whom Few if Any of his Condition are more universally loved and admir'd I say loved my Lord for This as a more rare so is it a more valuable Tribute than that of Honour to Persons of Quality and in Great Offices For where so much is paid to the Station we can make very little Judgment what is sincere and what is the Effect of Formality or Fear or Interest But in His Lordship's Case there was something so Distinguishing in all the Respects paid to Him as plainly shew'd a particular Regard to his Person and that the outward Testimonies were not Things of Course but that he had engag'd the very Hearts of Those who paid them I will not so far seem to distrust Your Lordship's Acceptance of this Address as to make the least Apology for it You will interpret it I doubt not as a Testimony of the Honour I have for You and a Desire to publish my having it to the World And Your Lordship will do me the Justice too to believe that were it in my Power to give any other Evidence of This than such an open Declaration nothing should
Wise draws out his Artillery in Order sets his Philosophical Aphorisms and profitable Sentences in array applies his Similitudes and Examples pertinently and seasonably improves others by his Reading and renders the Histories of former Ages of present and publick Use enriches all he converses with out of his own inexhaustible Mine offers nothing but what issolid and substantial and try'd and is ready upon all occasions like the Wealthy and Prudent Housholder alluded to in the Gospel to bring forth out of his Treasures things new and old Mat. xiii Such beneficial Instructions as may be of use to regulate the Manners of private Persons and direct the Government and Administration of the Publick such as may be serviceable to all Circumstances all the Parts and Duties of Men and teach them both how to Live and how to Die well And when These are introduc'd at seasonable Times and manag'd with Discretion the Beauty and the Pleasure of them is exceeding great as well as the Benefit and Advantage A Word fitly spoken is like Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver Prov. xxv 11. So the Wisest of Men hath express'd the Counsels or Reproofs or Comforts handsomly deliver'd and what can possibly be more grateful more valuable more ornamental The Mouth of a wicked Man quite contrary is a noisom stinking Pit his Breath is contagious and kills like a Pestilence Murders his Neighbour secretly Stabs and wounds his Reputation to Death and then insults over his mangled Honour with a barbarous Triumph It is Sword and Fire and Poyson and Death and Hell and Every thing that is mischievous and destructive The Holy Spirit it self hath allow'd it no better a Character Jam. iii. 6. for St. James hath call'd it a Fire a World of Iniquity a Defiler of the whole Body an Incendiary to the Course of Nature and this Firebrand it self kindled in Hell And the Son of Syrach hath enlarg'd upon the Subject so well Ecclus. xxviii 13-21 that the whole Passage ought to be inserted Curse the Whisperer and Double-Tongued for such have destroy'd many that were at Peace A Backbiting Tongue hath disquieted many and driven them from Nation to Nation strong Cities hath it pull'd down and overthrown the Houses of great Men. Whoso hearkeneth unto it shall never find rest nor dwell quietly The Stroke of the Whip maketh Marks in the Flesh but the Stroke of the Tongue breaketh the Bones Many have fallen by the Edge of the Sword but not so many as have fallen by the Tongue Well is He that is defended from it and hath not pass'd through the Venom thereof who hath not drawn the Yoke thereof nor hath been bound in her Bands For the Yoke thereof is a Yoke of Iron and the Bands thereof are Bands of Brass The Death thereof is an evil Death the Grave is better than it Now These Two Correspondence of Hearing and Speech Hearing and Speech answer and have a near and intimate Relation to one another Each of them single is of no Significance at all and therefore Nature to make Either of them useful found it necessary to supply us with Both. They are the Two Doors of the Soul whereby she sends in and out and holds a Correspondence all the World over nay she does not only send but go for by these two like Vessels with their Orifices joyn'd the Soul communicates and pours out her Thoughts and transfuses her very Self into another's Breast Where these Passages are shut and closed as they are in the Deaf and Dumb the Mind is in perpetual Misery and Solitude For Hearing is the Door for Entrance and Speech for going Abroad By the former of these the Soul receives the Conceptions of others by the latter she imparts and enriches them with her own The mutual Operation of these Two may be resembled to the Flint and the Steel from the Concussion and Strokes whereof Truth like a Sacred Fire is kindled For They agitating and polishing each other scour off the Rust of the Mind brighten and beautifie it and bring all Knowledge to Perfection Only we must observe that these Noble Effects have their first Beginning from the Hearing for Wisdom must needs have been put into the Mind before it can be drawn out from thence And accordingly we see that Persons born Deaf are constantly Dumb too The first thing to be done is to furnish this House within which is ordinarily done by Hearing and then follows the distributing our Stores by Conversation and Speech So that the Good and Evil of what we speak will depend upon the Good and Evil of what we hear For such as we are accustom'd to receive such of necessity we must give back again And therefore a Man should above all things keep his Ears chaste and unpolluted and stop them against Vice and Indecency for this sort of Communication is exceeding infectious Book III. Chap. 43. and taints the Mind presently The Advices that are proper for the Use and Government of our Speech will be insisted upon hereafter CHAP. XII Of the other Faculties viz. Imagination Memory and Appetite THE Fancy or Imaginative Faculty first collects the several Images receiv'd by the Senses forms Idea's out of them and lays them up for use This is done in so accurate and faithful a manner that though the Objects themselves be far distant nay though the Man be asleep and all his Senses lock'd up yet this Faculty represents them to the Mind and Thoughts in Images so strong so lively that the Imagination does the very same to the Understanding now which the Object it self did by the first and freshest Impressions heretofore The Memorative Faculty is the Register and Store-house of all the Idea's and Images first perceiv'd by the Senses and then collected and seal'd up by the Imagination The Appetite seeks and pursues and culls out of all these things so apprehended such of them as appear to be Good and most Agreeable CHAP. XIII Of the Intellectual Faculty which is peculiar to the Humane Soul BEfore we enter upon any other Discourse relating to this Subject it is necessary to observe the Seat or Instrument of this Faculty and then its Action or Method of Operating Now the Seat The Seat and Instrument of the Soul or rather the Throne of the Reasonable Soul where it sits and reigns Supreme is not the Heart as was generally supposed before Plato and Hippocrates but the Brain For the Heart is not capable of Wisdom but is properly the Seat and Source of Vegetation Now the Brain which in Man much exceeds the Quantity assign'd to any other Creature must be so contriv'd and dispos'd that the Reasonable Soul may act freely and in order hereunto the Figure of it must be almost like that of a Ship it must not be a perfect Round it must not be too Great nor too Little though of the Two Extremes the Excess is much less to be found fault with than
the Defect It must be compos'd of a delicate fluid Substance of fine and subtle Parts and these well joyn'd together and all united without any Separation or void Spaces throughout the whole It hath Four small Cavities or Ventricles Three of which lie forward in the middle and are plac'd in a Collateral Line to one another The Fourth lies behind these toward the hinder part of the Head and is single by it self This is the Shop in which the Vital Spirits are first form'd and united in order to the being afterwards converted into Animal Spirits and then convey'd into the Three Cavities that lie forward And these Animal Spirits are the Instruments made use of by the Soul for discharging her several Functions and exercising all her Faculties Those Faculties are likewise Three the Understanding the Memory and the Imagination And these are not exercis'd distinctly and apart nor hath each of them a different Ventricle of the Brain appropriated to it which is all an old and vulgar Errour concerning them but their Operations are alltogether and in common All the Three Faculties exert themselves in all and every of the Three Cavities somewhat like our Bodily Senses which are double and have Two Organs in each of which the same Sense performs all its Operations entire From hence it comes to pass that a Man who is hurt or disabled in Two of these Three Ventricles as one in a Palsie for Instance does yet continue to have the use of all his Three Faculties That is He understands and remembers and forms Idea's still by virtue of that One Cavity which the Disease hath not yet seized upon It is true he does this more weakly and every Operation of every kind is more imperfect than it was formerly because the Strength and Vigour of One is not equal to the united Force of Three But yet it evidently follows from hence that each Faculty hath not its Workhouse in a distinct Apartment and entire to it self alone for then assoon as any of these Ventricles begins to be disabled that Faculty to which it belongs must immediately cease and cou'd never more be exerted in any Degree at all Some Persons have been of Opinion How far the Reasonable Soul is Organical that the Reasonable Soul is not Organical that is that it can act separately and independently and hath no need of any Corporeal Instrument to assist it in the Discharge of its Functions And this Notion they have been more fond of because they imagine it of consequence for proving the Immortality of the Soul Now without engaging in a vast and dark Labyrinth of Dispute about a Matter which we are incapable of knowing perfectly this Question may be brought to a short Issue For if we will but credit our own Eyes and our own Experience every Day gives us Demonstrations which overthrow this Opinion and establish the Contrary It is certain that all Men have not equal Capacities nor do they apprehend things or argue upon them alike but the Disparity is very great and visible between one Man and another It is no less evident that the same Person changes and differs from himself that his Reason is more clear and perfect and strong at one Time and at one Age in one Disposition of Body and in one Circumstance of Fortune and Life than it is in another One Man can do nothing except he have Ease and Leisure another requires Dangers and Difficulties to rouze him and never thinks to purpose till he be prest hard and driven to Extremities A Third finds himself much more capable in Health than in Sickness And a Fourth feels his Mind most vigorous and active then when his Diseases and Weakness have reduc'd his Body lowest The same Man at one Season excels in Judgment and flags in his Fancy so that One Faculty decays in proportion as Another improves Now the most probable Account that can be given for all these Differences and Alterations seems to be a difference in the State and Disposition of the Organs which are to the Soul as Tools to the Artificer Which way but this shall we answer for the strange Effects we see produc'd by Drunkenness by the Bite of a Mad Dog by a high Fever by a Blow upon the Head by the Vapours that rise from the Stomach and annoy the Brain and by several other Accidents which affect any of the Parts thereabouts What Confusions do they make how perfectly stupid and childish and frantick do Men grow upon them lose their Memory quite and feel their Heads turn'd upside down their former Idea's eraced their Judgment destroy'd All the Wisdom of Greece is not able to maintain it self against them and if the Shock be very violent indeed then it does not only disturb and enfeeble but quite drive away the Soul and constrain her to remove out of the Body Now it is plain that these Accidents are purely Corporeal and consequently they cannot affect what is not so they can never fly so high as the exalted and Spiritual Faculties of the Reasonable Soul all that they can do is to vitiate the Organs to put Them out of their Course and intercept the usual Communications and when This is once effected the Soul can no longer act regularly She may command but They cannot obey and if these Organs are sore bruised and distorted very grievously then She and They can no longer subsist together The Lodging is no longer sit to entertain her and she must be gone Now I do by no means see how this Opinion can be guilty of any Prejudice to that of the Immortality of the Soul For first We are not here enquiring what the Soul is but how she operates and what Laws of Action she is bound up to while in Conjunction with a Mortal Body And Secondly The making Use of Corporeal Instruments does by no Means prove the User to be Corporeal or Mortal God without all Question is Immortal and yet God himself does not think it below him to use such and to proportion the Effects and Operations of his Providence to them He produces Men of different Understandings and Parts according to the Constitution of their Parents and the Concurrence of other Natural Causes nay even according to the different Climate and Country and Air they are born in For Greece and Italy have ever been observ'd to produce Men of quicker and clearer Wit than Muscovy and Tartary And as God does in this Case so does the Mind in others It reasons better or worse remembers more or less Faithfully hath a more fruitful or more barren Imagination according as the Organs which are the Corporeal Instruments appointed to serve it upon these Occasions are better or worse disposed to do their Duty Now the Brain is properly the Instrument of the Reasonable Soul and therefore upon the due Temperament of This a great deal must needs indeed the Whole in a manner will depend That therefore shall be the next
to which have a respect to the Appearance of Good such are Love and the several sorts of it Desire Hope Despair Joy and the like And after these we will enter upon those that are excited in us by the Apprehension of Evil which indeed are very numerous as Anger Hatred Envy Jealousie Revenge Cruelty Fear Grief and Compassion CHAP. XIX Of Love in general and at large LOVE is the First Love compared with and distinguished from the rest the Chief the Reigning Passion the rest are all deriv'd from and reduced at last into This But it is of vast extent employ'd upon different Subjects distinguish'd into different sorts and degrees Of These the Three principal that fall within our present purpose and to which all the rest may very well be referr'd are Ambition or â—ride which is the Love of Honour and Greatness Avarice which is the Love of Riches and Sensuality or Carnal Desire which is the Love of Pleasure These I call such as come within our present Design which is to treat of Love as it is vicious and the effect of Passion for Virtuous Love which may be distinguished into Friendship Charity and Natural Affection or Tenderness is out of the compass of this place and will be spoken to under the Virtue of Justice 〈◊〉 III The Three foremention'd Passions are those Three Gulphs and Precipices that drown so great a part of the World in Destruction and Perdition the Plagues of Mankind from the Infection whereof how sew exceeding few escape untouch'd the Corruptions that taint every part of us even All we are and All we have and All we take in hand our Souls and Bodies and Possessions These are the Magazines from whence those Three mortal Enemies of the Peace and Salvation of Mankind the Devil the World and the â—â—â—sh furnish themselves with Arms to assault and destroy us They may in truth be call'd Three Powers or Potentates the commonest and most universal Passions whose Territories are so large that the Apostle hath divided the whole Universe between them 1 John ii 16. All that is in the World says he the Lust of the Flesh and the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life Of these Ambition is the most resin'd and Spiritualiz'd and hath therefore been esteem'd more noble or less Mean than the Two others Sensuality or Love of Pleasure in regard of its being more Natural and Universal for even Beasts which are wholly unacquainted with the other sorts have a share in this is more violent and less vicious When I speak of Violence I mean considering it simply and according to the Nature of the thing For though it may and sometimes does happen that Ambition prevails over it yet this is a particular Distemper a Case excepted from the common Course and general Rules But of all the Rest Avarice is the most stupid and senseless Passion the surest Symptom of a sordid and sickly Mind CHAP. XX. Of Ambition AMbition is a Thirst of Honour and Glory Definition of it a greedy and gluttonous and inordinate Desire of Greatness It is naturally a gentle and pleasing Passion which with much Ease insinuates it self into Great and Generous Spirits and is not driven out again without great Difficulty We all think it our Duty and Commendation to pursue and embrace that which is Good and of all Things that pretend to this Character Honour is most in request and esteem with us And therefore all of us run full speed and put our selves upon the utmost Stretch where This is the Prize The Ambitious Man strives to be first keeps his Eye forward upon the Goal and upon those that have the Start of him but forgets and takes no notice of the many he hath outstript himself He feels more Discontent for One Man that hath got before him than he enjoys Satisfaction for a Thousand that he hath left lagging after Seneca observes very well * Habet hee vitium omnis Ambitio non respicit This is the constant Fault and inseparable ill Quality of Ambition never to look behind it Now Ambition is of two sorts The one aspires after Glory and Honour a Good Reputation a Great and Immortal Name and this is of great Use and publick Benefit It is not only allowable but in some Sense and under certain Qualifications and Restraints highly commendable The other sort affects Greatness and Power and this is generally not only vicious but destructive and of most fatal Consequence to the World Ambition hath this peculiar Advantage 'T is 〈◊〉 to us that the Seeds of it are sown and the Root of it fast sixed in the Heart of every one of us We have a Proverb indeed which tells us Nature is contented with a very little but then we have another too that says with as great Truth the direct contrary That Nature is never satisfy'd nor capable of being contented at all A Man never comes to the End of his Desires so as to set up his Rest but is always for climbing a little higher and growing a little richer No Man goes a moderate pace or chooses to advance leisurely towards Greatness and Glory but lays the Reins in the Neck and rides Whip and Spur. †Natura nostra Imperii est avida ad implendam Cupiditatem praeceps Humane Nature is greedy of Preference and Power and drives furiously on toward the gratifying those Desires And indeed their Speed is oftentimes so great that the Riders are thrown and break their Neck as History and Experience shew a world of Aspiring Men to have done who have paid dear for all their Hopes and lost both Them and Themselves just when they were in view and upon the Point of enjoying their promis'd Happiness This in short is a Passion riveted into and interwoven with our Constitution it seizes us early 't is violent while it lasts and leaves us very late from whence some of the Philosophers have wittily called it the Shirt of the Soul the Vice next our Skin and that which is last pull'd off * Etiam Sapientibus Cupido Gloriae novissimaâ— exuitur For even Wise Men are observ'd to strip off all other Vices before they quit this Desire of Glory and Reputation As Ambition is the most violent and powerful in its Influences and Effects 〈◊〉 Strâ—â—gth and Superiority so is it likewise the loftiest and most noble in its own Nature of any Passion whatsoever The Power and Force of it is manifest in that absolute Mastery it gains over all other things even those which the World is most subdu'd by even all other Passions and Desires Nay even Love it self which sometimes pretends to dispute the Point of Power and Precedence is yet miserably vanquished and tyranniz'd over by it Alexander Scipio and Pompey are so many Instances of this Observation and so are abundance of great Generals besides who have refused to gratifie their Inclinations upon extraordinary fine
upon us It is a very dangerous Enemy destructive to our Quiet and Comfort and if good Care be not taken of it in time wastes and weakens the Soul deprives us of the Use of our Reason disables us from discharging our Duties and looking after her Business and in time spreads a Rust upon the Soul adulterates and deposes the whole Man binds up his Senses and lays his Virtues to sleep when there is most occasion for rowzing and arming them against the Calamity that subdues and oppresses him In order to beget in us a becoming Aversion to this Passion and employing our utmost Strength and Abilities to resist and repel it we shall do well to consider seriously the pernicious Effects of it and discover how foolish how unbecoming and deformed it is how extremely inconsistent with the Character of Wise Men as the Philosophy of the Stoicks most truly represents it But This as Matters are commonly order'd is no such easie Undertaking for it hath learnt to excuse and vindicate and set it self off under the specious Colours of Nature and Affection and Tenderness and Goodness nay the Generality of the World are so far mis-led that they keep it in Countenance pay it Honour and Respect and think it a Duty and a Virtue as if Wisdom and Conscience never appear'd more beautiful than in a Mourning-Dress Now in answer to these vain Pretences in its Favour T is Unnatural we may observe first of all that This is so far from being agreeable to Nature as it wou'd fain be thought that on the Contrary it is rather a Matter of Formality and directly contrary to Nature Which it is very easie to demonstrate if Men will lay aside the Prejudices of Custom and consider it impartially As for those publick and solemn Mournings I mean not this to the prejudice of a real decent and affectionate Concern but for the Mournings which are practis'd with so much Ceremony and Affectation and were so by the Ancients heretofore as well as by the Generality of Mankind at this Day Where I say can we find a greater Cheat a grosser Sham and Banter upon the World How many industrious Impostures and Hypocrisies What artificial Constraints in our Behaviour are sought and counterfeited both by the Persons themselves who are interested in the Occasion of them and of all the rest that are taken in and bear a Part in this melancholy Pomp And as if all this were not enough we refine and improve the Deceit we even Hire Men on purpose to put on this Folly to stand as Mutes or to make dreadful Lamentations to move and heighten a Passion which ought to be supprest to give Groans and Sighs for a Price such as we all know are feign'd and extorted to shed Tears for the Entertainment of the Spectatours such as fall only when they are seen to do so and are immediately dry'd up as soon as the Company retires And pray Where does Nature teach us any thing like This What can there be indeed more absurd and vain what does Nature condemn what does it detest more than such Insincerity This is nothing but Opinion and Fashion the Cause and Cherisher of almost all our Passions the Tyranny of Custom and Vulgar Errour that instructs Men to indulge their Grief in such a formal manner From hence it is that if a Man be not deeply enough affected in his own Person and cannot furnish a sufficient proportion of Tears and hanging Looks out of his own Stock he is thought oblig'd to hire and purchase a Supply from others who make a Trade of it So that for the satisfying what the World calls Decency we put our selves to vast Expence which Nature if we wou'd take Her Judgment is so far from prescribing that She most freely acquits us of nay condemns us for it Is not this in truth a publick and study'd Assront upon Reason and Common Sense a Constraint and a Corrupting of Nature a Prostituting and Debauching of the Manhood in us a Mocking the World and making a Jest of our selves and that for no other purpose but merely to comply with the Notions of the absurd Vulgar which abound in nothing so much as Falshood and Mistake and admire nothing so much as Counterfeit and Disguise Nor are our Private Sorrows much better Private For These whatever they may seem are no more Natural than the former Did Nature inspire or dictate them they wou'd be common to all Mankind they wou'd affect all Mankind almost equally since All partake of the same Nature and differ only in some few some small Circumstances But here we find very different Resentments The same Objects which afflict and grieve some are Matter of Joy and Satisfaction to others and what draws Tears and bitter Cries from one Person and one Country is receiv'd with great Cheerfulness by another What One does Another disapproves and the Friends of Mourners think it their Duty to exhort to comfort to chide them to beg that they wou'd recollect themselves call in Reason and Religion to their Assistance be Men again and dry up their Tears Observe the greatest part of Them who take pains to afflict themselves hear what they say when you have given them this good Counsel They will make no difficulty to acknowledge that it is a Folly and a Weakness to be guilty of excessive Passions they will commend and call those happy who can stand the Shock of Adversity and have so much Goverment of Temper and such Presence of Mind as to meet an Affliction bravely and bear it steadily and set a gallant and Masculine Spirit in array against it Thus they excuse but they dare not justifie their own Concern They say they cannot help it and by that Apology lament if not condemn themselves for this implies they Wish and think it were better if they cou'd overcome their Grief And in truth the thing is very plain in these private Mournings too that Men do not so much sute their Sorrows to their Sufferings as to the receiv'd Notions of those among whom they dwell and converse And if we take a close and nicer View this will discover to us that Opinion is at the bottom of all our immoderate Melancholy That our Torment and Vexation proceeds from the false Representations of Things and that we grieve either sooner than we ought by Anticipation and Fear and sollicitous Apprehensions of what will come hereafter Which like so many false Perspectives set the Object nearer our Sight or else magnifie the Bulk of it to our Eye and so make us grieve more than we ought upon a Supposal of the Calamity being much greater than really it is But still all This is contrary to Nature Unnatural For Grief defarms and defoces all those Excellencies which are most Beautiful and Lovely in us These all are blunted and melted down by this corroding Passion like the Lustre of a Pearl dissolv'd in Vineger And really we are
least was never asserted of Man nor the Powers and Operations of his Reasoning Soul disputed as to the Reality of them except by such as set up for Universal Scepticism and are for reducing all to a State of Confusion and Uncertainty And therefore if because Brutes seem to act by a Faculty which we cannot perfectly account for we should allow to these Brutes some few dusky Glimmerings of Reason which yet there is no absolute Necessity for because they have something like it yet no Impartial Considerer can ever admit that it will bear a Question whether They or We have the Better of this Point or that Some Men excel others more than some again excel Beasts for there is no Man how mean and untaught soever if provided with what we call Common Sense but sinds an Ability in himself nay exercises that Ability every Day even when he does not know or think of it of considering comparing and determining in such a manner as no good Arguments have ever yet been offered to shew that Beasts either do or can do They are justly thought to do somewhat very extraordinary when by long Custom and severe Discipline and daily Example and Instruction brought to imitate some very common Actions of Men But what Divine Heights do Men themselves ascend to when they have proportionable Pains taken with Them And here in Justice the Comparison ought to lie between the Best of each Kind not the Best of One and the Lowest of the Other the most unapt and neglected of Men and the most teachable and improved of Brutes For the Advantages or the Want of Art cannot at all affect the Dispute where the Gifts of Nature are the Matter in Question And these are distributed with so very uneven a Hand in the Case before us that He must be either very Stupid or very Perverse who does not see the mighty Disproportion As to the other Part of this Discourse whether Reason be any Real Benefit and we might not have been as well or better without it I shall only need to add that the several Instances produced here are only such as are Sad and very Reproachful Truths in Regard of those Abuses of Reason Men are Guilty of and the wicked or the mischievous Purposes they pervert it to But as to the Thing it self they are no more a Reflection upon it than the Surfeits and Bestiality of Gluttons and Sots are upon the common Refreshments of Life What is said upon this Occasion will do well indeed to be considered by those vicious and indiscreet Men who apply That as a Spur to their Wickedness and Passion which was intended for a Curb to both And the World ought to be humbled and reformed by a serious Reflection how Accessory Men become to their own Miseries and how obstinately fond they are of them when their very Remedies are industriously turned into the worst of Diseases But All this Notwithstanding Monsieur Charron 's Argument here is abundantly refuted by himself in the last Words of this whole Treatise where he vindicates the Honour of Eloquence from the mischievous Effects which some ill-designing Men apply it to by this Parallel For says he even That Reason and Understanding which is the Peculiar Prerogative of Humane Nature and sets us above Brutes is most miserably abus'd turn'd against God and our selves and made the Occasion of our more inexcusable Ruine But This is only an Accidental Misfortune far from the Natural Tendency of so Noble a Privilege And He who would argue from hence that Mankind had better want these Faculties may justly seem to have degenerated into Brute and to be quite forsaken of all that Reason which he so Wildly and so rashly condemns So just Ground is there for reading this Treatise with those Cautions to be laid down upon the XXXVIIth Chapter and so truly does our Author keep up his Character of an Academick Philosopher CHAP. XXXV The Third Respect under which we proposed to consider Man is by taking a short View and summary Account of his Life The True Value the Continuance and Description of Humane Life and the several Parts or Stages of it ONE very Considerable One indeed of the Principal Of the Worth or just Estimate of Life and most Necessary Points of Wisdom is rightly to understand the True Value of Life and to make so just an Estimate of it as to keep or to lose it to cherish and preserve or to neglect and lay it down and so to manage our selves in the whole Conduct of it as Duty and Decency require There is not any One Case in which Men are more apt to be wanting nor where their Failings are of more Dangerous Consequence for the involving them in new and infinite Difficulties The Mean and the Ignorant the Worldling and the Man of Pleasure and in general all that do not or cannot consider prize Life extravagantly They look upon it as the Supreme Good and prefer it so much before all other Things as not to admit a Comparison between them If Life were to be sold at a Price nay if a short Reprieve only and Lengthening out their Term a little can be had they can think nothing too Dear no Conditions too hard to be submitted to but are satisfied the purchase ought to be made at any Rate For This they tell you is their Happiness and when That is gone All is gone their very Motto is Nothing more precious than Life Vitâ nihil charius They value and love it not only as the Scene of Action and Enjoyment and upon the account of the Conveniences and Opportunities it affords but upon its own supposed intrinsick worth and live merely for the sake of Living And how can we think it strange that such Persons should be so very defective in the rest of their Duty so mis-led with Errours and extravagant Notions when they make the very first Step wrong and set out in so gross a Mistake concerning this great Fundamental Article of Wisdom and Virtue There is also a Contempt of Life that declines as much to Vice in the other Extreme and represents it as a Burden or a Trifle Worth Nothing or Worse than Nothing But this Undervaluing is the effect of Weakness and Ignorance of Pride and Ingratitude For we know very well that when it falls into Wise and Good Hands it is capable of becoming an Instrument of great and general use both to our selves and to others Now I can by no means be of Their Opinion taken literally and plainly who give it out for their Princple That * Optimum non nasci aut quam citissimè aboleri the greatest Happiness is Not to live at all and the next most desirable thing is to live but a very little while Nor is that Argument they use in vindication of this Opinion at all sufficient or Satisfactory What Hurt say they could there be in Non-Existence and what Matter had it been if I were never
upon and under them beginning at Those which are Private and Domestick are mentioned here with no other Design than to give a distinct View of the several States and Conditions of Men It being the Intention of this Present Book only to Know Man in all his Capacities And therefore a great Part of what might be expected upon the Head of Power and Subjection the Reader must be content to wait for till we come to the Third and last Part of this Treatise Where under the Head of Justice these several Chapters and Capacities will come under our Consideration again and the several Duties and Virtues required upon their Account will be specisied and explained But before we enter upon any of them in particular it may not be amiss to premise somewhat briefly concerning Command and Obedience in general These being the Reciprocal Exercises of the Relations here mentioned The Two Foundations and principal Causes of all that Variety of Circumstances in which Mankind have been already described CHAP. XLV Of Command and Obedience THese as I said are the Ground-work upon which all Humane Society is built And the many different Conditions Professions and Relations that go to making it up do all arise from and depend upon Them These Two are Relative Terms they mutually Regard Produce Preserve and Support each other and are equally necessary in all Companies and Communities of Men but are notwithslanding liable to Envy and Opposition Misrepresentation and Complaint All which are the Natural and Constant Effects even of That without which we are not able to Subsist The discontented Populace would reduce their Sovereign to the Condition of a Car-Man The Ambition of Monarchs would represent him greater than a God In Command is imply'd Dignity Dissiculty These Two commonly go together Goodness Ability and all the Characters and Qualities of Grandeur The Command it self that is The Sufficiency the Courage the Authority and other Qualifications of it are deriv'd from above and the Gift of God * Imperium non â—iâ—i divino fato datur Rom. xiii 1. Empire and Dominion are bestowed by the Divine Appointment and There is no Power but of God says the Apostle to the same Purpose From whence it was that Plato said God did not place some Men over others that is not Mere Men and such as were of the Common Sort and Vulgar Qualisications but the Persons whom he set apart and exalted for Government were such as exceeded others were more sinished eminent for some singular Virtue and distinguishing Gift of Heaven in short were somewhat more than Men and such as former Ages gave the Title of Heroes to Obedience is a Matter of Benesit and Advantage of Ease and Necessity The Obeying well is of the Two more conducive to the Publick Peace and Safety than the Commanding wisely and the Consequences of withstanding and refusing the Commands of our Superiours or the complying with them Imperfectly and Negligently are much more Dangerous and Destructive than Ill and Improper Commands Themselves are or want of Skill to Govern Just as in the Case of a Married Life the Husband and Wife are equally obliged to Constancy of Affection and Fidelity to the Bed and the Words in which they Solemnly engage for This are the very Same for both Parties the same Ceremonies and Formalities to signifie and confirm it but yet the Consequences are by no means equal but the Mischiefs of Disloyalty are incomparably More and Greater in an Adulterous Wife than an Adulterous Husband So likewise Commanding and Obeying are equally Duties and necessary in all manner of Societies which unite Men to one another but yet the Disobedience of the Subject draws much greater Inconveniences after it than the Unskillfulness or the real Faults of the Governour Several States and Kingdoms have held out a long Course and been reasonably Prosperous and Flourishing under not only Ignorant but very Wicked Princes and Magistrates by the mere Force of the Unity and Compliance and ready Obedience of the Subjects Which agrees well with the Answer made by a Wise Man to that Question How it came to pass that the Republick of Sparta was so remarkably Flourishing and Whether it proceeded from the Wisdom and good Conduct of their Governours Nay said he I impute it not to their Princes Commanding well but to the Subjects Obeying well But when the People break their Yoak or throw it off and refuse Obedience there is no Remedy but such a State must be ruin'd and fall to the Ground CHAP. XLVI Of Marriage NOtwithslanding the State of Marriage be antecedent to any other of the greatest Antiquity and the highest Importance The very Foundation and Fountain of all Humane Society for Families first and then Commonwealths spring out of it according to that Observation of Cicero The First Union and nearest Relation is between Man and Wife This is the Beginning of Cities the Nursery and first Plantation of all Publick Communities yet it hath had the Ill-Fortune to be disesteem'd and run down by several Persons of considerable Wit and Character who have traduc'd it as a Condition beneath Men of Understanding and drawn up several formal Objections against it in particular These that follow * Prima Societas in Conjugio est quod principium Urbis seminarium Reipublicae Cic. de Offic. Lib. 1. First of all They tell you the Covenants and Obligations they enter into by it Objections against Marriage are unreasonable and unjust we may call it a Band of Union but it is no better than the Chains and Fetters of a Captive For What Consinement can be more insupportable than That by which a Man stakes himself down and becomes a Slave as long as he lives to Care and Trouble and the Humours of another Person For this is the Consequence if the Couple are unsuccessful and unsuitable in their Tempers That there is no Remedy but a Man must stand by his Bargain be it never so bad and continue wretched without any other possible Cure but Death Now what can be more contrary to Equity and Justice than that the Folly of one half Hour should poyson the whole Term of all his Years to come That a Mistake in one's Choice or perhaps a Trick by which he was Trapann'd into this Condition but to be sure an act of Obedience many times to the Commands of a Parent or Complyance with the Advice of a Friend a submitting one's Own Judgment and Inclination to the Pleasure and Disposal of Others What Reason say They is there that any of these Things shou'd engage a Man to perpetual Misery and Torment Were not the other Noose about the Neck the wiser Choice of the Two and to end one's Days and Troubles immediately by leaping headlong from some Rock into the Sea than thus to launch out into an Eternity of Pains to have a Hell upon Earth and always live and lie by a Storm of Jealousie and Ill-nature of Rage and Madness
purpose For had This been a Thing against his Duty and such as the Authority of a Father could in no case extend to he would not they tell you ever have consented to it nor have believed that this Command had proceeded from God but rather have imputed it to some Delusion upon his own Mind if it had been no way reconcilable with Nature the Laws of which God had established in the Beginning and could not be thought so to contradict Himself as by any particular Order to appoint a thing altogether inconsistent with his own General Institution before And accordingly it is observable that Isaac never went about to make any Resistance nor pleaded his own Innocency in Bar to what his Father went about to do as knowing that he only exerted the rightful Power he had over him What Force there is in this Argument I shall not take upon me to determine It is sufficient for my present Purpose to observe That allowing all this yet it does not in any degree take off from the Commendation due to Abraham's Faith for he does not pretend to Sacrifice his Son by Vertue of any such Inherent Right over him nor upon any Provocation or Misdemeanour which Isaac had given him occasion to resent or punish but purely in obedience to the Command of Almighty God The Case does not seem to differ much under the Law of Moses allowing only for some Circumstances as to the manner of exercising this Authority which will be taken notice of by and by Of This and no less Extent the Paternal Power seems to have been formerly in the greatest part of the World and so to have continu'd till the Time of the Roman Emperours Among the Greeks indeed and the Aegyptians Diodor. it does not seem to have been altogether so absolute but even There if a Father happened to kill his Son unjustly and without Provocation the Punishment inflicted for such Barbarity was no other than being shut up with the Dead Body for Three Days together Now the Reasons The Reasons and Effects of it and the Effects of so great and unlimited a Power being allow'd to Fathers over their Children which no doubt was a great advantage for the Advancement of Virtue the Improvement of Manners and Education the restraining preventing and chastising Extravagance and Vice and of great good Consequence to the Publick too seem to have been such as These First The containing Children in their Duty begetting and preserving a due Awe and Reverence in their Minds Then a Regard to several Vices and Enormities which though very grievous in Themselves would yet pass unpunish'd to the great Prejudice of the Publick if they could be taken cognizance of and animadverted upon by no other Ways and Persons but Legal Process and the Sentence of the Magistrate For abundance of These must needs escape such Censure partly because they would be Domestick and Private and partly because there would be no body to inform and prosecute The Parents Themselves were not likely to be so Officious the Nearness of the Relation would render it odious and the Interest of their own Family would restrain them from publishing their own Shame Or if they could be suppos'd to bring all they knew of this kind upon the Open Stage yet we know there are many Vices and Insolencies and Disorders which the Laws and Justice of Nations are not provided with Punishments for To all which we may add that there are many Family-Quarrels between Fathers and Children Brothers and Sisters upon the account of dividing Estates and Goods or several other Things which tho' sit to be canvass'd and corrected within a Man 's own Walls would by no means do well to be ript up and exposed to the World and for These as the Paternal Authority is necessary so it is sufficient to compose and quiet all Parties and put an End to Differences that concern single Families only And it was reasonable for the Law to suppose that no Father would make ill use of this Power that Men might very safely be entrusted with it because of that very tender Affection which Nature inspires all Parents with such as seems altogether inconsistent with Cruelty toward their own Off-spring And this we see the effect of Daily in the frequent Intercessions made by Fathers for the Releasing or Mitigating those publick Punishments which they cannot but be sensible are most justly inflicted there being no greater Torment to any Parent than to see his Children under Pain or Disgrace And where These absolute Prerogatives were allow'd we meet with very few Instances of the exerting their Power and going to the Extremity of it without Offences very heinous indeed so that in truth if we regard the Practice and compare That with the Power it self we shall have reason to look upon it as a useful Terrour a Bugbear to keep Children in Awe and fright them into Obedience rather than any Stretch of Rigour that was actual and in good earnest Now this Paternal Authority was gradually lost and fell to the Ground as it were of it self It s Decay for the Decay of it is in truth to be attributed to Disuse more than to any Law expresly Repealing it or Enacting the contrary and it began most remarkably to decline when the Roman Emperours came to the Government For from the time of Augustus or quickly after it sunk apace and lost all its Vigour And upon this Decay Children grew so stubborn and insolent against their Parents that Seneca in his Address to Nero Lib. 1. de Clem. says their Own Eyes had seen more Parricides punish'd in Five Years then last past than there had been for the space of Seven Hundred Years before that is from the first Foundation of Rome till That time Till then if a Father at any time killed his Children he was called to no Account nor had any Punishment inflicted upon him for the Fact as we may gather evidently by the Examples of Febvins the Senator Salust in Bell. Catalin Valer. Maxim who slew his Son for being engaged in Catiline's Conspiracy and several other Senators who proceeded against their Sons and condemn'd them to Death by virtue of their own Domestick Power such as Cassius Tratius or sentenced them to perpetual Banishment as Manlins Torquatus did his Son Syllanus There were indeed some Laws afterwards which appointed that the Father should bring Informations against the Children that offended L. inauditum ad leg Corn. F. I. in suis de I. posth I. 3. Cod. de pa. potest and deliver them over to publick Justice And the Judge in such Cases was oblig'd to pronounce Sentence as the Father should direct in which there are some Footsteeps of Antiquity And these Laws in abridging the Power of the Fathers proceeded very tenderly and did not take it away entirely and openly but with great Moderation and by halves only These later Ordinances have some Affinity to the
Their Wills are as liable to Levity as Ours but their Power and the Effect of what they will is incomparably greater But still Nature is the same in the Fly as in the Elephant and both are actuated by the same Appetites and Passions Nay let me take leave to add that besides those Passions and Defects and Natural Qualifications and Abatements which they share in common with the least and meanest of their Servants and Adorers there are some Vices and Inconveniences in a manner peculiar to Them alone such as the Eminence of their Condition and the vast Extent of their Power inspires them with a more than ordinary Tendency with vehement and almost unavoidable propensions to The Manners and Temper of Great Persons have been commonly observed by the Wisest and most Discerning Persons to be Invincible Pride The Manners and Dispositions of Great Persons and Self-conceit * Duâ—â—â—s veri insolens Ad recta flecti regius non vult tumor An abounding in their own Sense which is Stiff and Inflexible incapable of Truth and disdaining better advice Licentiousness and Violence †Id esse regni maximum pignus putant si quicquid aliis non licet solis licet which looks upon a Liberty of doing what no body else may do as the particular Distinction and most Glorious Privilege of their Character So that their Favourite Motto is * Quicquid libet licet My Will is a Law Suspicion and Jealousie for they are †Suapte Naturâ Potentiae anxii Naturally tender and fearful of their Power nay fearful sometimes even of their own Children and nearest Relations ‖ Suspectus semper invisusque dominantibus quisquis proximus destinatur adeo ut displiceant etiam civilia Filiorum ingenia The next in Succession is always look'd upon with an Evil and Jealous Eye by the Person in present Possession of the Throne so that any the least Genius of Government or interesting themselves in Publick Affairs is very unacceptable in the Sons of Princes And hence it is that they are so often in Fears and mighty Consternations for * Ingenia Regum prona ad formidinem it is usual and natural to Kings to live under continual Apprehensions The Advantages which Kings and Sovereign Princes have above Those of meaner Condition seem indeed to be Marvellous Great and Glorious but when nicely consider'd they are in Truth but very Thin and Slight and little more than mere Imagination But were they much above what really they are it is certain they are dearly bought at the Expence of the many Weighty Solid and Substantial Troubles and Inconveniences that constantly attend them The Name and the Title of Sovereign the Splendor and Formalities of a Court and all the Pomp and Parade that draws our Eyes and Observation carry a Beautiful and Desirable Appearance such as raises our Wonder and kindles our Wishes and Desires but the Burden and the Inside of all this Shining Pageantry is Hard and Knotty Laborious and Painful There is Honour in Abundance but very little Joy or Ease It is a Publick and an Honourable Servitude an Illustrious Misery a Wealthy Captivity The Chains are of Gold but still they are Chains And it is worth our While to observe the Behaviour and the Reflections of Augustus Marcus Aurelius Pertinax Dioclesian upon this Occasion and the wretched End of most of the Twelve Caesars and many Others of their Successors in the Empire But now in Regard these seem Words of Course only such as very few will give any Credit to because they suffer Themselves to be imposed upon by a gay and deceitful Face of Power I shall think it worth while to clear this Matter by giving a distinct and particular Account of some Inconveniences and Miseries with which the Condition of Sovereign Princes is constantly incumbred First The mighty Dissiculty of acting their Part well In the Discharge of their Office and acquitting Themselves of so weighty a Charge For if it be so very Hard a Thing as we find by sad Experience it is to govern ones self well what infinite Hardship must we in reason suppose there is in governing a Multitude of People It is certainly much more Easie and Pleasant to follow than to lead to have no more to do than only to keep a plain beaten Road than to beat out a Path for Others to obey than to direct and command to answer for one's single self than to be responsible for one's Self and a great many More besides * Ut satius multo jam sit parere quietum Quam regere imperio res velle Lucret. lib. V. And thus 't is better than proud Scepters sway To live a quiet Subject and obey Creech To all This we may add that it is highly Necessary for the Person whose Duty it is to Command to be more excellent and exemplary than Them who are commanded by him as that Great Commander Cyrus very truly observed And this Difficulty we cannot be better made sensible of by any Argument than Matter of Fact which proves to us Experimentally how very few Persons History makes mention of in this Character who have in all Points been what they ought to be Tacitus says that of all the Roman Emperours till that Time Vespasian was the only true good Man and another antient Author hath taken the Confidence to affirm that the Names of all the good Princes that ever were might be engraven within the Compass of a Ring The Second Difficulty may be fixed very Reasonably upon their Pleasures and Delights In their Pleasures and Actions of their Lise of which Men usually think but they think very much amiss that They have a greater Share and more perfect Enjoyment than the rest of Mankind For in truth their Condition in this Respect is insinitely Worse than that of Private Men. The Lustre and Eminence of great Persons gives them great Inconvenience in the Fruition of what it furnishes them with Power and Opportunities for They are too much exposed to Publick View move openly and in check and are perpetually watch'd controul'd and censur'd even to their very Thoughts which the World will always take a Liberty of guessing at and censuring tho' they are no competent Judges nor can possibly have any Knowledge of the Matter Besides this Restraint there is likewise some Disadvantage in the very Easiness they feel of doing whatever their Inclination leads them to and every Thing bending and yielding to their Pleasure for This takes away all that Relish and pleasing Sharpness which is necessary to render a Thing Delightful and Nothing is or can be so to us which hath no Mixture or Dissiculty to recommend and heighten it A Man that never gives himself time to be Dry will never be sensible what Pleasure there is in quenching one's Thirst and all Drinking will be flat and insipid to him Fulness and Plenty is one of the most troublesome
vis abdita quaedam Obterit pulchros fasces saevasque secures Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi haberi videtur Lucret. Lib. 5. And hence we fancy unseen Powers in Things Whose Force and Will such strange Confusion brings And spurns and overthrows our greatest Kings Creech To summ up all in a Word The Condition of Sovereign Princes is above all Others incumbred with Difficulties and exposed to Dangers Their Life provided it be Innocent and Virtuous is infinitely laborious and full of Cares If it be Wicked it is then the Plague and Scourge of the World hated and cursed by all Mankind and whether it be the One or the Other it is beset with inexpressible Hazards For the greater any Governour is the less he can be secure the less he can trust to Himself and yet the more need he hath to be secure and not to trust Others but Himself And this may satisfie us how it comes to pass that the being betray'd and abus'd is a thing very natural and easie to happen a common and almost inseparable Consequence of Government and Sovereign Power Of the Duty of Princes see Book III. Chap. 16. CHAP. L. Of Magistrates THere are great Differences and several Degrees of Magistrates with regard both to the Honour and the Power that belongs to them For These are the two considerable Points to be observ'd in distinguishing them and they are entirely independent upon one another They may be and often are each of them single and alone Sometimes Those Persons who are in the most honourable Posts have yet no great Matter of Authority or Power lodg'd in their Hands as the King's Council Privy-Counsellors in some Governments and Secretaries of State Some have but One of these two Qualifications others have Both and all have them in different Degrees but those are properly and in strict speaking Magistrates in whom both Honour and Power meet together Magistrates are in a middle Station and stand between the Prince and Private Men subordinate to the One but superiour to the Other They carry Justice home and hand it down from above but of this they being only the Ministers and Instruments can have no manner of Power inherent in Themselves when the Prince Himself who is the Fountain of Law and Justice is present As Rivers lose their Name and their Force when they have emptied and incorporated their Waters into the Sea and as Stars disappear at the Approach of the Sun so all the Authority of Magistrates in the Presence of the Sovereign whose Deputies and Vicegerents They are is either totally suspended or upon sufferance only And the Case is the same if we descend a little lower and compare the Commissions of Subalterns and inferiour Officers with Those in a higher and more general Jurisdiction Those that are in the same Commission are all upon the Level there is no Power or Superiority There over one another all that they can do is to consult together and be assisting to each other by concurrence or else to obstruct and restrain each other by opposing what is doing and preventing its being done All Magistrates judge condemn and command either according to the Form and express Letter of the Law and then the Decisions they give and the Sentences they pronounce are nothing else but a putting the Law in execution or else they proceed upon Rules of Equity and reasonable Consideration and then this is call'd the Duty of the Magistrate Magistrates cannot alter their own Decrees nor correct the Judgment they have given without express Permission of the Sovereign upon Penalty of being adjudged Falsifiers of the Publick Records They may indeed revoke their own Orders or they may suspend the Execution of them for some time as they shall see Occasion But when once a Cause is brought to an Issue and Sentence given upon a full and fair Hearing they have no Power to retract that Judgment nor to mend or try it over again without fresh Matter require it Of the Duty of Magistrates See Book III. Chap. 17. CHAP. LI. Lawgivers and Teachers IT is a Practice very usual with some Philosophers and Teachers to prescribe such Laws and Rules as are above the Proportions of Virtue and what the Condition of Humane Nature will suffer very few if any at all to come up to They draw the Images much bigger and more beautiful than the Life or else set us such Patterns of Difficult and Austere Virtue as are impossible for us to equal and so discourage many and render the Attempt it self Dangeous and of ill Consequence to some These are merely the Painter's Fancy like Plato's Republick Sir Thomas More 's Utopia Cicero's Orator or Horace his Poet. Noble Characters indeed and a Collection of acknowledged Excellencies in Speculation but such as the World wants living Instances of The Best and most perfect Law-giver who in marvelous Condescension was pleased himself to be sensible of our Infirmities hath shewed great Tenderness and Compassion for them and wisely consider'd what Humane Nature would bear He hath suited all Things so well to the Capacities of Mankind that those Words of His are True even in this Respect also My Yoke is easie and my Burden is light Now where these Powers are not duly consulted the Laws are first of all Unjust for some Proportion ought to be observ'd between the Command and the Obedience the Duty imposed and the Ability to discharge it I do not say These Commands should not exceed what is usually done but what is possible to be done for what Vanity and Folly is it to oblige People to be always in a Fault and to cut out more Work than can ever be finished Accordingly we may frequently observe that these rigid Stretchers of Laws are the First that expose them to publick Scorn by their own Neglect and like the Pharisees of old lay heavy Burdens upon others which they themselves will not so much as touch with one of their Fingers These Examples are but too obvious in all Professions This is the Way of the World Men direct one Thing and practise another and That not always through Defect or Corruption of Manners but sometimes even out of Judgment and Principle too Another Fault too frequent is That many Persons are exceeding Scrupulous and Nice in Matters which are merely Circumstantial or free and indifferent in their own Nature even above what they express themselves in some of the most necessary and substantial Branches of their Duty such as the Laws of God or the Light of Nature have bound upon them This is much such another Extravagance as lending to other People while we neglect to pay our own Debts A Pharisaical Ostentation which our Heavenly Master so severely exposes the Jewish Elders for and is at the Bottom no better than Hypocrise a mocking of God and Miserable deluding of their own Souls Seneca indeed hath said something concerning the Impracticableness of some Duties which if rightly observ'd is of
good Use but then it must not be over-strain'd nor applyed to all Occasions indifferently * Quoties parum fiduciae est in his in quibus imperas amplius exigendum est quam satis est ut praestetur quantum satis est In hoc omnis Hyperbole excedit ut ad Verum Mendacio veniat When ever says he you have Reason to distrust the due performance of the Precepts or Laws you establish it is necessary to require something more than will just serve the Turn to the intent That which is sufficient may be sure not to be neglected For all Hyperboles and Excesses of this kind are useful to this purpose that Men by having something expressed which is not true may be brought to just Ideas of that which is true With this Quotation our Author ends his Chapter in the older Edition which I thought convenient to add here and not only so but in regard I am sensible what perverse Use Licentious Men may make of the former Objection to the Prejudice of Religion and in particular Vindication of their own Neglects and Vicious Lives and also what Occasions of Scruple and Disquiet it may minister to some well meaning Persons when they compare their own Defects with the Perfection of the Divine Laws I beg the Reader 's Leave to insert at large what a Learned and Excellent Writer of our own hath delivered to this purpose And this I hope if well consider'd may both confute the Licentious and quiet the Doubting and Dissatisfied in the Point before us Laws says he must not be depressed to our Imperfection Dr. Barrow Vol. I. Serm. xxvi nor Rules bent to our Obliquity but we must ascend towards the Perfection of Them and strive to conform our Practice to Their Exactness If what is prescribed be according to the Reason of Things Just and Fit it is enough although our Practice will not reach it For what remaineth may be supply'd by Repentance and Humility in him that should obey by Mercy and Pardon in him that doth command In the Prescription of Duty it is just that what may be required even in Rigour should be precisely determined though in Execution of Justice or Dispensation of Recompence Consideration may be had of our Weakness Whereby both the Authority of our Governour may be maintain'd and his Clemency glorify'd It is of great Use that by comparing the Law with our Practice and in the Perfection of the One discerning the Defect of the Other we may be humbled may be sensible of our Impotency may thence be forced to seek the Helps of Grace and the Benefit of Mercy Were the Rule never so low our Practice would come below it it is therefore expedient that it should be high that at least we may rise higher in Performance than otherwise we should do For the higher we aim the nearer we shall go to the due Pitch as He that aimeth at Heaven although he cannot reach it will yet shoot higher than He that aimeth only at the House Top. The Height of Duty doth prevent Sloth and Decay in Virtue keeping us in wholesom Exercise and in continual Improvement while we are always climbing towards the Top and straining unto farther Attaintment The sincere Prosecution of which Course as it will be more Profitable to Us so it will be no less Acceptable to God than if we could thoroughly fulfill the Law For in Judgment God will only reckon upon the Sincerity and Earnestness of our Endeavour so that if we have done our Best it will be taken as if we had done All. Our Labour will not be lost in the Lord for the Degrees of performance will be considered and he that hath done his Duty in part shall be proportionably recompensed according to that of St. Paul Every Man shall receive his own reward according to his own Work Hence sometimes we are enjoyned to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect and to be Holy as God is Holy otherwhile to go on to Perfection and to press toward the Mark which Precepts in Effect do import the same Thing but the latter implieth the former although in Attainment impossible yet in Attempt very profitable And surely he is likely to write best who proposeth to himself the fairest Copy for his Imitation In fine if we do act what is possible or as we can do conform to the Rule of Duty we may be sure that no Impossibility of any Sublime Law can prejudice us I say of any Law for many perhaps every one Evangelical Law are alike repugnant to corrupt Nature and seem to surmount our Ability Thus far that Reverend Person whose Argument I know not whether I ought to ask pardon for representing so largely but I was willing to give it entire for the greater Satisfaction of Them who think themselves concern'd to consider it And likewise that it might be of more Use when apply'd as very appliable it is to other Laws and Precepts wherein Religion is not immediately concerned In short a Law-Giver and a Judge are two very different Characters and such as require very different Methods and Principles for it is one Thing to Establish and Another to Execute the Law And the want of observing this Distinction occasions all the Complaints and Declamatory Strains we hear against Moral and Revealed Religion as if they imposed Things merely Romantick and Imaginary To all which I add too that though we none of us can attain to Perfection yet most of us might go much greater Lengths towards it than we do And that This is often made an unnecessary Pretence a Cloak to our Folly or Sloth or indulged Vices which when they have all of them been wilful and affected we palliate and excuse by taking Sanctuary very improperly in the Infirmities of Humane Nature the Imperfections and Failings of the best Men and the Impossibility and Impracticableness of the Duties imposed upon us CHAP. LII Of the Common People BY the Common People here we are not to understand all that have no Part in the Government and whose only Business is to Obey but I mean the Rout and vulgar Croud the Dregs and Rubbish of the Common-Wealth Men of a Mean Slavish and Mechanical Spirit and Condition let them cover or call or set Themselves off how they will Now This is a many-headed Monster such as cannot be described in a little Compass Inconstant and Changeable Restless and Rolling like the Waves of the Sea They are ruffled and calmed They approve and disapprove the self-same Thing in a Moment of Time Nothing in the World can be more casie than to manage and turn this Bawble which Way and into what Form you please they Laugh or Cry are Angry or Pleas'd or in any other Passion just as one would have them They love not War for the Sake of its End nor Peace for the Sake of the Quiet it brings but they are fond both of the One and the Other because each is New
Reward of a Man's performing commendably that which is his proper Business to do Thus we find Reason and Common Sense determine us in publick Theatres which are but so many Images in little of this Great Theatre of the Universe The Condition and Splendor of the Character is not enquired into nor weighs at all with our Judgments but He who upon the Stage plays the Part of a Servant or Bussoon if he do it well and to the Life meets with as much Applause as if he had represented a General or an Emperour And he that cannot work in Gold if he shew the Perfection of his Art and carve the Postures and Proportions well in Copper or in Plaister is reputed a good Statuary because this Excellence depends not upon the Fineness or Value of the Materials but in the Skill shewed upon them But yet it seems more reasonable to think that Honour is an Advantage for something more Noble and Sublime than Ordinary and that no Actions but such only which have Difficulty or Danger in them can make just Pretensions to it Those that are but just what they ought to be such as our respective Stations require and proceeding from a Sense of Obligation and Duty cannot aspire to so great Worth nor put in for so ample a Reward a Reward which is disparaged by being made Common or Ordinary and not suited to all Degrees of Persons and Performances Thus every virtuous and chaste Wife and every Man of Integrity and good Conduct is not therefore a Person of Honour For there must go more than Probity to the denominating them so there must be Pains and Difficulty and Danger nay and some will tell you there must be somewhat of general Good and Advantage to the Publick to justifie that Character in its full and true Extent Let a Man's Actions be never so Good never so Useful if they be private and the Advantage redound to himself alone another sort of Payment belongs to them They will have the Approbation of his own Conscience they will procure the Love and Favour and good Word of his Neighbours and Acquaintance they will ensure his Safety and put him under the Protection of the Law but except the Influence and Advantage of them be large and diffusive they cannot come up to Honour for Honour is a publick Thing and implyes more of Dignity and comprehends Splendor and Noise Admiration and Common Fame in the Nature and Notion of it Others add farther that an Honourable Action must not be a part of our Duty but perfectly free and supererogating for if Men were obliged to it all â—retension to Honour is lost The Desire of Honour and Glory and a Sollicitous seeking the Approbation and good Opinion of Others is a very vicious violent and powerful Passion The Inordinacy whereof hath been sufficiently explained and proved already in the Chapter concerning Ambition Chap. xxii But as Bad as it is in it self it does great Service to the Publick For it restrains Mens Extravangancies and keeps them within the Bounds of Decency and Duty it awakens their sleeping Powers shakes off Sloth and kindles in them generous Desires inspires great Thoughts and Glorious Actions Not that it is much for their Credit to be acted and invigorated by so corrupt a Principle but rather a Testimony and strong Evidence of the Weakness and Poverty of our Nature and Condition who are thus forced to use and accept clipt and counterfeit Money in Payment when Standard and true Sterling cannot be had But for the Determining precisely in what Cases and how far this Passion is excusable and where it is to blame and must be rejected and disallow'd and for the making it manifest Book III. In the Virtue of Temperance Ch. XLII that Honour is not the proper Recompence of Virtue I must refer you to those Distinctions and Discourses upon it which will occur hereafter Of the Marks of Honour there is great Variety but the most desirable and charming are Those where there are no Mixtures of private Gain and Interest such as nothing can be drawn out of nor any Share lie in Common for the Advantage of a Vicious Man or of such low and inferiour People as shall pretend to serve the Publick by mean and dishonourable Offices The less of Advantage they bring with them the more Valuable they are And accordingly we find the Ancients infinitely fond of and with all their Industry and Pains aspiring after those which had nothing else to recommend them but purely their being Marks of Distinction and Characteristical Notes of Honour and Virtue Of this Nature in the several Republicks of old were the Garlands of Laurel and Oaken-Leaves and so are the particular Bearings in Coats of Arms at this Day added to the former Charges of the Field upon some special piece of Service distinct Habits and Robes the Prerogative of some Sirname as Africanus to Scipio and the like Precedence and Place in publick Assemblies and Orders of Knighthood It may also fall out that when a Man's Deserts are Notorious and Celebrated it shall be more for his Honour not to have these Ensigns and Marks than to have them And therefore Cato said well that it would make more for the Glory of his Name and Virtues that People should ask why the City had not erected a Statue to his Memory in the Forum than that they should enquire why they had done it CHAP. LXI Of Learning LEarning is without all Dispute a Noble and Beautiful Ornament an Instrument of exceeding use when in the Hands of one that hath the Skill to use it aright But what Place and Proportion it deserves in our Esteem is a Matter not so generally agreed upon And here as in all Cases of the like Nature Men fall into Extremes and are to blame in both Some in overvaluing and Others in disparaging and undervaluing it Some run it up to that Extravagant Height that they will not allow any other Advantage to come near or be thought comparable to it They look upon it as the Supreme Happiness a Ray and Efflux of the Divinity they hunt after it with Eagerness and insatiable Appetite with vast expence and indefatigable Labour and Pains and are content to part with Ease and Health and every Thing in exchange for it Others as much diminish and despise it treat Those with Scorn who make it their Business and Profession And when we have observed this of either side I suppose my Reader will make no Difficulty to allow that a Moderation between both is best most safe most just and reasonable I for my own part were I to execute the Herald's Office in this Dispute should think that Place is without all question due to Integrity and Prudence to Health and Wisdom and Virtue nay See Book III. ch 14. I should not scruple to give precedence to Skill and Dexterity in Business But then for Dignity and Noble Descent and Military Valour I
happen that a Man be obliged to struggle with his own Inclination and must conquer and commit a violence upon his Nature to make it serviceable to his purpose and capable of discharging the Employment he hath taken upon him Or on the other hand if in obedience to Nature and to gratify our Inclination we are either with our own consent or insensibly and against our Wills trapann'd into a Course that falls short of our Duty or runs counter to it what miserable Confusion and Disorder must here needs be How can we ever expect Evenness under so much Force Constancy from so much Constraint or Decorum where every thing is against the Grain For as is well oberved * Si quicquam decoium nihil profecto magis quam aequabilitas Vitae universae singularum actionum quam conservare non possis si aliorum imitans Naturam omittas tuam If there be such a thing as Decency in the world it is seen in nothing more than in an easiness and consistency both of one's whole life in general and of each particular Action in it And this Decorum can never be maintain'd if you live in conformity to other people's dispositions and have no regard to the following your own There cannot be a vainer Imagination than to suppose any thing can last long or be well done and eminently good in its kind or that it can become a Man or sit easy upon him if there be not somewhat of Nature and Inclination in it †Tu nihil invitâ dices faciesve Minervâ Hor. Art Poet. Discern which way your Talent lies Nor vainly struggle with your Genius Lord Roscom * Id quemque decet quod est suum maximè Sic est faciendum ut contra naturam universam nil contendamus eâ servarâ propriam sequamur That which is most a Man 's own is always most graceful And we must always take care so to order matters as first to offer no Violence against Nature in general and then to follow our own Genius in particular But now if it should so fall out that a Man either through Misfortune Imprudence or any other Accident should perceive himself entred into a Profession and course of Life full of Trouble inconvenient and improper and that he is so deeply engaged too that there is no possibility of changing or getting quit of it in this case all that Wisdom and good Conduct hath to do is to resolve upon supporting and sweetning it keeping one's self easy and making the most of it Like skilful Gamesters who when they have an ill Throw mend it in the playing For Plato's Counsel is best upon these occasions the bearing our Chance patiently and managing it to all the Advantage an ill Bargain is capable of You see what a Knack of this kind Nature hath given to some sort of Creatures when the Bees out of an Herb so rough and harsh and dry as Thyme is can extract so sweet a Substance as Honey And this is such an Excellence as all those wise and good Men Imitate who manage Difficulties dextrously and as the Proverb expresses it make a Vartue of Necessity CHAP. V. The First Act or Office of Wisdom The Study of and serious Endeavour after True Piety THE necessary Preparations to Wisdom being thus explained in the former Chapters which are in the manner of laying our Foundation it may now be seasonable to proceed to the Building it self and erect upon this Ground-work the Rules and Precepts of Wisdom And here the First both in Order and Dignity which offers it self to our Consideration concerns true Religion and the Service of Almighty God For certainly Piety ought to have the precedence of all Virtues and is the highest and most honourable in the Scale of Duties But the greater and more important it is the more we are concerned to have a right notion of it especially when to the insinite consequence of the thing we add the danger of being mistaken and withal how very common and easy it is to deceive our selves in this point Great need therefore we have of Caution and good Adâ—ice that we may be truly informed how the Man who makes Wisdom his Aim and Business ought to manage himself upon this weighty occasion And the giving Directions of this nature is the design of my present Discourse after I have first made a short Digression concerning the State and Success of several sorts of Religion in the World Of which I shall chuse to speak but briefly here and refer my Reader for farther Satisfaction to what I have said more at large to this purpose in another Treatise of mine called the Three Truths And first of all Difference of Religions I cannot but take notice how dismal and deplorable a thing the great Variety of Relgions is which either now do or formerly have obtained in the World And which is yet a greater misfortune and reproach the Oddness of some of them Opinions and Rites so fantastical so exorbitant that it is just matter of wonder and astonishment which way the Mind of Man could so far degenerate into Brutality and be so miserably besotted with Frauds and Folly For upon examination it will appear that there is scarce any one thing so high or so low but it hath been Deified and even the vilest and most contemptible parts of the Creation have in some quarter of the World or other found People blind enough to pay them Divine Honours and Adoration Now notwithstanding this Difference be really as vast and as horrid as I have intimated or my Reader can imagine yet there seem to be some General Points in common which like Principles or Fundamentals are such as Most if not All of them have agreed in For however they may wander from one another and take different Paths afterwards yet they set out alike and walk hand in hand for some Considerable Time At least they appear and affect to do so the Devil transforming himself into an Angel of Light and undermining the Truth by Mimicking it as knowing that the most effectual Art to seduce Men is by contriving fair and plausible Lies and dressing up Wickedness in its most engaging Attire To this purpose it is observable that the most prevailing Persuasions have sprung from the same Climate and first drew breath in almost the same Air. Palestine I mean and Arabia which are Countries contiguous to one another Some of their First and main Principles are very near alike such as the Belief of one God the Maker and Governor of all things All own the Providence of God and his Particular Love and Favour for Mankind the Immortality of the Soul a Reward in Reserve for the Good and terrible Punishments which await the Wicked even after this Life some particular Profession and set Form of Solemn and External Worship by which they put up their prayers invoke the Name of God and think that a decent Honour and acceptable
And this they are obliged in Duty and Conscience to do upon the account of the Reasons laid down by me at large in the first and last Chapters of my Third Truth which places alone are sufficient to satisfy those Readers who either have not the opportunity or will not give themselves the trouble of perusing the whole Book One necessary Caution there is yet behind Piety and Probity must go together and he who makes any pretensions to Wisdom must by all means attend to it which is That he do not separate the Piety spoken of in this Chapter from that Probity and Integrity treated of before and so imagining that One of these is sufficient for his purpose be at no pains to qualify himself with the Other and as careful must he be too not to confound and jumble these two together as if they were but two names for one and the same thing For in truth Piety and Probity Devotion and Conscience are distinct in their very nature are derived from different Causes and proceed upon different Motives and Respects I desire indeed that they may go hand in hand and be both united in the Person whom at present I am forming into Wisdom and most certain it is that Either of them without the Other is not cannot be perfect But still they must both meet and both continue distinct and though we would join yet we must take care not to confound them And These are two Precipices which must be diligently avoided and few indeed keep clear of them for either they separate Religion and common Honesty so as to satisfy themselves with one of them alone or else they jumble Godliness and Morality together so as to make them all one or at least to represent them as exactly of the same Species and effects of the same Common Principle The Persons under the former Error Piety without Probity which separate these Two and content themselves with One of them singly are of two sorts For some devote themselves entirely to the Worship and Service of God spend all their time and pains in Praying and Hearing and other holy Ordinances and place all Religion in These but as for Virtue and strict Honesty in their Dealings Sincerity and Charity and the like and in a word living in agreement to their Prayers and practising what they hear and read they have no relish or regard for These things nor make any account of them at all This is a Vice taken notice of as Epidemical and in a manner Natural to the People of the Jews who were above all Mankind addicted to Superstition and upon that account scandalous and detestable to all the World besides and among them the Scribes and Pharisees in a yet more infamous degree The Prophets exclaim against it loudly and afterwards their own Messiah reproaches them with it perpetually He exposes that villanous Hypocrisy Matt. xxi which made their Temple a Den of Thieves which exalted their Ceremonies and outward Observances to the prejudice of inward and substantial Holiness which made a Conscience of Traditions that they might xv under that pretence get a convenient Cloak and Excuse for the most unnatural Barbarities which Tithed Mint and Anise and Cummin xxiii but overlook'd Judgment and Righteousness and Fidelity In one word They were so overrun so extravagantly conceited in the matter of external Devotion and ceremonious Observances that provided they were punctual in These they fancied themselves discharged of all Other Duties nay they took occasion from thence to harden their hearts and thought This would atone for other Faults and give them a Privilege of being wicked This is a sort of Female and Vulgar Piety and vast numbers are tainted with it every where at this very day they lay out all their Diligence and Care upon those little Exercises of outward Devotion for Little sure they are as They use them who never carry the Effects of them home to their Lives and Consciences but Pray and Read and frequent the Church and Ordinances and are not one whit the better Men for doing so This gave occasion to that Proverb A Saint at Church and a Devil at Home They lend their hand and their outside to God pay Him all the demonstrations of Reverence and Respect And a fair outside it is but all This as our Lord told the Pharisees is but a whited Wall and a whited Sepulchre This people honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me Nay they do not only neglect the Practice of other Duties and take no pains to be all of a piece but their very Holiness it self is from a wicked Design they make this Piety a Cover for greater Impieties alledge and depend upon their Devotions first to give them Credit in the World and greater Opportunities to deceive under the Mask of so much Sanctity and then for the extenuating or making a compensation for their Vices and sinful Liberties Others there are who run into a distant and quite contrary Extreme They lay so great Stress upon Virtue and Moral Honesty as to value nothing else and make Religion and Piety strictly so called no part of their Concern This is a Fault observable in some of the Philosophers and may be observed very commonly in people of Atheistical Principles And surely it is the proper Fruit of such a Corrupt Tree for that Men should believe God and his Revelations that they should call Themselves Christians and yet be of opinion that we are excused from all the Acknowledgments and Marks of Homage due and paid to God in our Faith and Worship and That Branch of our Duty which is properly distinguished by the Title of Godliness is very inconsistent and unaccountable These are the two Vicious Extremes whether of the Two is the more or less so I shall not at present take upon me to determine nor will I dispute whether Religion or Morality will stand a Man in greater stead Thus much only give me leave to add by way of Comparison as to Three Considerations which is that the Former as described in the last Paragraph and practised by the Jews is without dispute by much the easier the more pompous and more incident to weak and vulgar Souls The Latter must be allowed infinitely more difficult and laborious it makes less Noise and Ostentation in the World and is more proper to Brave Resolute and Generous Minds for the former reasons as being more substantial and of a larger compass meeting with great opposition and having less to feed Mens Vanity with My business is next with a Second Sort of Men Against them that confound these two who confound and spoil all for want of a just Distinction but perplex these Two and the Grace of God and jumble all together These in truth are defective in all Three When you come to examine the matter strictly they will be found to have neither true Religion nor true Moral Honesty nor true
such order that each Advantage of the Mind hath one belonging to the Body joined and so joined as to be correspondent to it for as Nature hath united Body and Soul together so she seems to have given each of them Accomplishments extremely agreeable and alike Thus Health is to the Body what Probity is to the Mind it is the Probity or good Disposition of the Body as Probity is the Health of the Soul These should be the Sum of our Wishes * Mens sana in Corpore sano Forgive the Gods the rest and stand confin'd To Health of Body and a Virtuous Mind Says the Poet. Beauty is commensurate to Wisdom the Just Measure exact Proportion and Comeliness is the Wisdom of the Body and Wisdom is the Regularity the Decency the Beauty of the Soul Quality and Good Birth is a wonderful Capacity a mighty Disposition to Virtue and these Spiritual Abilities again and Good Parts are the Nobility of the Mind Learning is the Wealth of the Soul and Riches the acquired Advantage of the Body Others I know will differ from me in the Method and Order of ranging these Qualifications for some put all the Advantages of the Mind first and are of opinion that the least of These is more valuable than the best and highest of Those that belong to the Body and others who go not so far yet may not agree in the Preference due to each Particular Every Man in this Case follows his own Sense and from that we cannot but expect great Variety of Judgments will ensue In the next place succeeds a Third Qualification which indeed naturally springs out of the former For Wise Choice from the Sufficiency of passing a just Estimate upon things is derived an Ability of making a Wise Choice and this is not only a matter of Duty and Conscience but very often an Eminent Instance of Wisdom and good Conduct There are indeed some Cases extremely plain and easy as when Difficulty and Vice Honesty and Profit Duty and Inrest stand in competition For the Preeminence in this Comparison is so visible and so vast on one side above the other that whenever these things encounter each other the Advantage lies and the Balance should always fall to the side of Duty though attended with never so great Difficulty and Inconvenience In the Case of Private Persons I mean for possibly there may sometimes be room for an Exception but then this does not often happen and if it do 't is generally in the Administration of Publick Affairs and then too it must be managed with great Tenderness and Circumspection But of This I shall have a more proper season to speak when my Third Book brings us to treat of Prudence in particular But sometimes there is such a Conjuncture of Circumstances that a Man is driven to a very hard Choice As for Instance When we stand inclos'd as it were with Two Vices and there is no getting clear of both Thus History describes that Eminent Father Origen who had it left to him Whether he would commit Idolatry or suffer his Body to be carnally abused by a Moor The first was the Thing he chose and some say he chose amiss Now when we are unhappily involved in such Perplexities and at a loss which way we should incline in the choice of Matters not morally evil the best Rule we can be guided by is to go over to that side where there is the greatest Appearance of Justice and Honesty For though every thing should not afterwards succeed according to our Wish or Expectation yet there will result so pleasing an Applause such Glory and Self-gratulations from within for our having taken the better Part as will make us ample Compensation for our Misfortunes and abundantly support us under them And besides all this If the Worse but seemingly Safer Side had been chosen what Security can we have that the Event would have proved more favourable and why may we not reasonably suppose that the Governour and Lord of Us and all our Fortunes would have been provoked to punish and disappoint us that way too When Matters seem to be so equal that we cannot distinguish which is the better and shorter course we should take that which is the plainest and straightest And in Things manifestly Immoral of which properly speaking there cannot be any Choice we must avoid that which is most detestable and hath more of Villany and Horror in it For this indeed is a Point of Conscience and is more truly a part of Probity than of Prudence But it is very often exceeding hard to satisfy one's self which of Two things of the same kind is the more agreeable to Justice or to Decency or which is preferable in point of Advantage And so likewise of Two Ill Things which is the more Unjust more Indecent and Dishonest or attended with worse Consequences Upon the whole matter then though the Act of chusing is an Act of Probity and Conscience yet the Ability of making this Choice aright is a part of Prudence and sound Judgment I am apt to believe that in such Straights as these the best and safest way will be to follow Nature and to determine that those Things which are most agreeable to Nature are the more just and becoming and that what is most distant from or contrary to Nature is more especially to be avoided and abhorred by us This agrees well with what was formerly delivered in our description of Probity That we ought to be Good Men by the Dictates and Impulse of Nature Before I go off from this Point of Choice give me leave to say one word or two for the resolving a Doubt which some People have started with regard to the Determination of our Wills in these Cases The Question is When Two Things are proposed so Equal and Indifferent that we can give no reason why One should be valued more than the Other what it is that disposes the Soul to take the One and leave the Other The Stoicks pretend that it is a rash Operation of the Soul somewhat Foreign and Extraordinary and beside its proper course But let Them say what they will We may be bold to affirm That there is no g round for the Question and that no Two Things ever do or can present themselves to our Consideration so as to be perfectly Equal and Indifferent to us It frequently happens indeed that the Difference is very small and inconsiderable but still some difference there is something we apprehend in One and not in the Other which casts the Scale and draws us on to a Choice though the Motion be so gentle that we scarce feel it and the Motive so slender that we know not how to express and can very hardly give our selves any account of it But still certain it is that were a Man evenly poized between Two Desires he would never chuse at all For all Choice implies Inclination of the Mind and all Inclination
to our Selves whenever our Inclination shall dispose or the Necessity of our Affairs oblige us to it Nay not only so It is not enough that our Retreat be possible but it must be safe and easy without any great Reluctancy in our Selves or any Damage from Those in whom we Consided On the other hand we should not so far be consident of our Selves as to let this grow into Security and Presumption If we have Friends though they do not bear our whole Weight yet it is not convenient to let go our Hold nor for any Opinion either of our own Abilities or the prosperous Condition of our Affairs to disdain Another's Help or grow negligent and remiss in our Own Care And yet this is oftentimes the Case of Men who think no body so Wise as themselves or have that Opinion of their own Power and Address to imagine every thing will bow before and truckle under them that no body will dare to attempt any thing to their Prejudice or dissatisfaction and from These fond Possessions come to abate of their Pains to despise all Care and so at last are abominably over-reached surprized into Mischief and Ruin and become a Jest and publick Scorn Another and That indeed a very important piece of Advice is Tge katubg gikd ib Occasions To take every thing in its proper Time while it is seasonable and Occasion serves And in order hereunto we must be sure to avoid Precipitation which is a mortal Enemy to Wisdom the bane and confounder of all good Designs And a Vice very usual and much to be seared among People in heat of Youth and all others of a warm and sanguine Complexion And in truth the knowing how to take every thing in the Nick to lay hold on every Opportunity and Advantage and make the best of all times and all means of Action is one of the masterly Perfections of a Wise and Dextrous Manager For we are to consider that every thing hath its Season and even the best things as we may order them may be irregular and out of due Time Now Hast and Hurry is the most contrary to that good Quality that can possibly be imagined for This disorders and confounds All and so at last spoils All. You know the common Proverb * Canis festinans caecos parit catulos Hasty Bitches bring blind Whelps This Precipitation is usually the Effect of some Passion which spurs us on too fast and will not endure to wait till Matters are ripe for Execution †Nam qui cupit festinat qui festinat evertit unde festinatio improvida caeca duo adversissima rectae menti Celeritas Ira. The impatience of desire puts us upon hastening and Hast disorders and undoes all so that This is always improvident and blind Hastiness and Anger are the Two things in the World most distant from a Sober and Judicious Mind Such is the account generally to be given of it though it cannot be denied but these Hasty proceedings are frequently owing to Weakness and want of Judgment Now the contrary Vice of Heaviness and Sloth and Negligence in our Affairs which is sometimes mistaken for Solidity and Thought and wise Caution is no less dangerous and destructive to our Affairs especially then when all Preliminaries are adjusted all Resolutions taken and nothing remains but the Executive part For it is well observed That in Deliberation and Consultation a Man is allowed to spend a great deal of Time because then every Particular is to be nicely weighed every Advice canvassed and out of All compared together the Best to be pitched upon but when we come to Action the case is much otherwise for the Mind is then supposed to be settled and all Doubt over upon which account it is that we are commanded by the Masters of Wisdom to to be Slow in Counsel and Swift in Execution to deliberate at leisure but to sinish apace It is true indeed this Rule is not so universally efficacious but that sometimes we see Events contrary to it A Man stumbles upon Success though he run headlong upon it and proves as Fortunate in the Event though the Time he took to consider was very short and the Resolves he made as rash and imprudent as they were hasty But this is very seldome seen and the few Instances we have of it are owing purely to Chance And Chance is somewhat so distant from the ordinary course of Affairs that a Man can never depend upon it or govern himself by such Events On the contrary He should take great care That these lucky Hits like a winning hand do not tempt us to run too great a Risque and venture upon them boldly For commonly speaking Gamesters give out Losers and all they have to shew for their daring Hastiness is only That Proverb Of Resolving in Hast and Repenting at Leisure Ruin and a fruitless Remorse being commonly the End of such inconsiderate Undertakings These then are the Two Extremes which like Rocks must be avoided and with equal care too for if we Split upon Either our Affairs will be shipwrack'd and lost It is as great a Fault to anticipate a fair occasion and snatch it while it is Green and Crude as it would be to let it Wither and Rot in our Hands The Former is a Defect most incident to Young Men whose Spirits move briskly and their Blood boils in their Veins and whose Desires are so eager and impetuous that they want Patience and cannot be content to let Time and Providence bring things to Maturity and work for them and so these sprightly Men by starting too quick run and catch nothing The Latter is more proper to Stupid Men the Cowardly and Irresolute the Lazy and Unactive For there is need of a Sprightly and Vigilant Soul to discern and to lay hold on favourable Junctures but then at the same time that the Soul must be awake we must see that it be not Restless and Impatient A Man must look before him descry Opportunities at a distance keep his Eye constantly upon them observe all the motions they make towards him make himself ready for their approach and lying thus upon the catch when he sees his time lay fast hold and not let go again till he hath done his Business The Seventh Direction I would give at present Industry and Fortune is for a Man to govern himself well and do his Duty to the Two great Disposers and Superintendants of all Human Affairs Industry I mean or which in this place comes to the same thing Virtue and Fortune It hath long been matter of Controversy which of These carries the greatest Sway and the Question never was or will be decided to the Satisfaction of all People for some have a greater respect for One and some for the Other Thus much at least is past all doubt that both the One and the Other do a great deal both have Power and Credit and both have a
Title indisputable to shew for it for nothing can be more palpably false than that either of these Two does All and the other Nothing Perhaps indeed Matters would go better if it were not thus and Men have reason to wish That the whole Authority were vested in one of them singly For then we should know what to trust to Then our Task would be easy because all our Thought and Diligence would be fixed and determined to one Object whereas now we float between both the Distraction of the Mind renders our Attempts infinitely laborious and full of hazard and we can very hardly attend to both and bring them friendly to conspire together Daily Experience proves this Truth to us for usually those who are very much taken up with the One disregard and perfectly despise the Other Thus the Young and Sanguine the Forward and Daring Men keep Fortune in their Eye and lay the main stress there as you see plainly by their large Hopes and the mighty Successes they promise themselves in every Undertaking And Fortune often rewards this Respect they pay her and declares them her Favourites by the many Prodigious and most Surprizing things wrought by them On the Other hand Men in Years whose Blood is cold and heavy and They consequently calm and slow place all their Expectations in Industry And it cannot be denied but These act the more reasonably of the Two If a Man were disposed to compare them both together and observe what can be alledg'd to determine his Choice on either side we may state the Matter very fairly Thus. He that depends upon Industry takes the Safest Side the more Virtuous and the more Reputable For admit that Fortune run counter and spightfully defeat all his Diligence yet is there still this Satisfaction left that he hath made no false Steps that he suffered in his proper Post doing his Duty and that he hath acquitted himself as became a Wife and an Honest Man Those that take the other course are in great danger of waiting and hoping in vain But if all should succeed to their hearts desire yet still this is none of Their doing nor is there really any Credit or Commendation due to them for it But indeed Wisdom takes a middle Course she advises no Man entirely to devote himself to either of these and though One may be preferred yet not to that degree as to bring the Other into absolute Neglect and Contempt For since Neither can be excluded from our Affairs it is fit we should allow Both a place in our Regard and indeed they are often beholding to one another and an observing Man will easily discern a great deal of Mutual Assistance and a very good Understanding between them We must take care then to discharge our part to Both but Both do not challenge our Respects alike For the Preference is abundantly on the side of Industry for according to that old Motto * Virtute duce comite Fortunà Virtue should lead and Fortune go along with us There is yet one necessary Caution behind which is In all our Behaviour to act with Discretion For This seasons every Action and gives it an agreeable Relish Now Discretion is not any One Particular Quality but a Large and Comprehensive Virtue that mingles with every part of our Duty Indiscretion spoils all and the very best Actions if tainted with it lose all their Beauty and Commendation If a Man design an Act of Beneficence or Charity This is necessary to direct it for neither all Kindnesses are fit to be done nor all sorts of Persons fit to receive them If a Man would vindicate or excuse himself he must do it discreetly for there are some ways of Apologizing which in effect are Bills of Indictment against one's Self and increase the Suspicion instead of clearing our Innocence If a Man would pay Civilities and appear courteous and well-bred he must distinguish and moderate himself here too otherwise he will run into the Excess of Foppery and Affectation or degenerate into Clownish Rudeness and the same may be said of Offering or Accepting or any other Instance of Courtesy and Conversation or indeed of Virtue in general for without this Prudence and discreet Managery even Virtue and the best Intentions can never recommend nay can scarce justify themselves to the Spectators CHAP. XI The Fruits or Good Effects of Wisdom The First Living in a constant Readiness for Death THE Day of our Death is the Principal and most Important of any that belongs to us The Day of Death That which gives the finishing Stroke and fixes the Character upon all the rest for indeed all the Actions of our whole Life must be submitted to this Test This is most truly what we commonly call it The Great Trial The Essay that distinguishes our Alloy and True Standard and it is in the good Success of this Trial that we are to expect the greatest Fruit of all our Studies In order to make a true Judgment of Life we must of necessity inform our selves what sort of Conclusion it hath For the End compleats and crowns the Work and as a Good Death is an Honour to our whole Life so an Ill one casts back Infamy and sullies all that went before You can never give a Just Character of the Player till his Part be at End and the Case of Common Life is so far the same that the Management of the Last Act is incomparably the most difficult of any that belongs to either of them Epaminondas one of the Bravest Men that ever Greece bred when his Opinion was asked To which of the Three he thought the Preference due Chabrias Iphicrates or Himself made answer That this was a Question incapable of being resolved For says he the Man that would determine justly of such a Competition for Honour must stay till he hath seen how we all Three dye The Reason is evident because every other Action of a Man's Life is capable of Hypocrisy and Dissimulation but in this Last Scene alone All is Natural and no room left for Counterfeit or Disguise * Nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo Ejiciuntur eripitur Persona manet Res. Lucret. Lib. 3. For then Mens Words will with their Thoughts agree And all the Mask pull'd off shew what they be Creech Fortune in truth seems to way-lay us here to drive us upon this as her last Reserve to make the utmost Effort upon our Virtue and in one moment overturn all that Character and Credit which we have for many Years with infinite Toil and Anxiety been setting up Oh what a Triumph it would be then to make a Man expire with Laberius his Exclamation †Nimirum hâc die unâ plus vixi mihi quà m vivendum fuit I have lived this one day more than it was for my Honour and Advantage to have lived So truly as well as wisely so every way worthy of Solon was
and restores our Souls to perfect Liberty and true Enjoyment Instead of locking us up in the dark it sets us in the clearest and brightest Light and serves us as we use to deal by the best Fruits when we take off the Skin or Shell or other Covering that so we may see and use them and taste their Natural Excellence It removes us out of a streight inconvenient Dwelling from a Dark and Rheumatick and Diseased Place where we can see but a very little Spot of Heaven and only receive Light by Reflection and at a vast distance through Two little Holes of our Eyes into a Region of absolute Liberty confirmed and uninterrupted Health perpetual and incessant Light a Sun that never sets and Endless Day without any gloomy Intervals * Aequaliter tibi splendebit omne Coeli latus Totam lucem suo loco prope totus aspicies quam nunc per angustissimas ocuâ—orum Vias procul intueris miraris A Place where our Faculties shall be enlarged and all Heaven will display it self to us where we shall not only see Light but dwell with it in its own proper Sphere In a word It delivers us from the very Thing we dread most by making us Immortal and putting a sinal and full Conclusion to that Death which took place from the Instant we came into the World and was finished at our Passage into Eternity †Dies iste quem tanquam extremum reformidas aeterni natalis est For the Day we have such dreadful Apprehensions of as if it were to be our Last is really our First the joyful Birthday into a Life which can never have an End We come now to consider the Second Sort of Resentment which Men are affected with upon the account of Death which is Waiting for and entertaining it with contented and chearful Minds when it comes This is indeed the Quality of a Good a Gentle and well-governed Spirit and the Practice of it is peculiar to a plain easy way of living and to Persons who as they make the best of Life and enjoy the Quiet of it so know very well how to esteem it as it deserves but still they make Reason the Standard of all their Affections and Actions and as they are well satisfied to stay here so they readily obey when Providence thinks fit to call them out of the World This is a Medium very justly tempered a Masterly Greatness of Soul and such an Indifference to all here below as a Life of Retirement and Peace seems best qualified for and the Two Extremes between which it lies are Desiring and Dreading Courting and Running away from Death accoring to that of the Poet * Summum nec metuas diem nec optes With Courage firm and Soul sedate Attend the Motions of thy Fate And whether Death be far or near Live free from eager Wish and anxious Fear Now these Extremes except there be some very particular and uncommon Reason to give them countenance are both of them Vicious and exceeding blameable and when I come hereafter to speak of this Matter in its proper place you will see that nothing less than a very extraordinary Cause can render them so much as excusable To desire and pursue Death is very criminal for it is very unjust to throw away one's Life without a sufficient Reason it is spightful to the World and injurious to our Friends to grudge them the longer Use and Continuance of a thing which may be serviceable to them It is the blackest Ingratitude to God and Nature thus to slight and throw back again the best and most valuable Present they can make us as if it were a Trifle or a Burden not worth our keeping It savours too much of Peevishness and Pride and shews us humoursome and difficult when we cannot be easy and bear the Lot that falls to our share but will needs quit our hands of the Station God hath called us to when there is nothing extraordinary to render it cumbersome And on the other hand to fear and flee Death when summoned to it is an Offence against Nature Justice Reason and every Branch of our Duty since Dying is Natural Necessary and Unavoidable Reasonable and Just First It is Natural Dying is Natural it is a part of that Great Scheme by which the Order of the Universe is established and maintained and the whole World lives and subsists And who are We that all this Regularity should be broken and a new System contrived in Our Favour Death is really one of the Principal and most Material Articles in the Constitution and Administration of this vast Republick and of infinite Use and Advantage it is for determining the Continuance and promoting a Constant Succession of the Works of Nature The Failure of Life in One Instance propagates it afresh in a Thousand others * Sic Rerum Summa novatur Thus Life and Death successive keep their round Things dye to live and by decays abound But which comes nearer home Death is not only a part of this Great Complex and Universal Nature but of thy Own Nature in particular and That every whit as essential a part as that Birth which gave Thee Life So that in cherishing an Aversion and running away from This thou attemptest to flee from thy own self Thy Being is divided equally between Death and Life These are the Two Proprietors and each claims a share and hath an indefeasible Right in every one of us These are the Terms upon which Thou wer't created and Life was given with a Purpose and upon Condition of being taken away rather indeed it was only lent and like all other Trusts or Debts must be demanded back and may be called in at pleasure If then the Thoughts of Dying discontent Thee consider that the Hardship does not lye here but carry thy Reflections higher and be concerned that ever thou wast born For either there is no cause of Repining in either case or else the Ground of all the Complaint lies in having lived at all You had Neighbours Fare and purchased Life at the Market Price which is The laying it down again no body hath it cheaper and therefore they who do not like the Bargain and are loth to go out again should have refused at first and never come into the World at all But this is what Men were they capable of such a Choice would never do if their Fondness of Life be so excessively great The First Breath you drew bound you fast and all the Advances you made toward a more perfect Life were so many Steps toward Death at the same time †Nascentes morimur finisque ab origine pendet Asson as born we dye and our Live's End Upon its first Beginning does depend Manil. Ast 4. To be concerned then that we must Dye is to be concerned that we are Men for every one that is so is Mortal And upon the strength of this Impression it
make the best of Life and all its Advantages slipt through your Fingers what Loss do you sustain in parting with it What would you do with it any longer If you could be trusted on still the Talent would lye unimproved Observe to this purpose the Reasoning of the Poet. * Denique si vocem Rerum Natura repente Mittat hoc aliquoi nostrûm sic increpet ipsa Quid tibi tantopere est Mortalis quòd nimis aegris Luctibus indulges quid mortem congemis ac sles Nam si grata fuit tibi Vita anteacta priorque Et non omnia pertusum congesta quasi in vas Commoda persluxere atque ingrata interiere Cur non ut plenus Vitae conviva recedis Aequo animoque capis securam Stulte quietem Sin ea quae fructus cunque es periêre profusa Vitaque in offensu ' est cur amplius addere quaeris Rursum quod pereat male ingratum accidat omne Nec potius Vitae finem facis atque laboris Lucretius Lib. III. If Nature should begin to speak And thus with loud Complaints our Folly check Fond Mortal what 's the matter thou dost sigh Why all these Fears because thou once must dye And once submit to strong Mortality For if the Race thou hast already run Was pleasant if with Joy thou saw'st the Sun If all thy Pleasures did not pass thy Mind As through a Sieve but left some Sweets behind Why dost thou not then like a Thankful Guest Rise chearfully from Life's abundant Feast And with a Quiet Mind go take thy Rest But if all those Delights are lost and gone Spilt idly all and Life a Burthen grown Then why fond Mortal dost thou ask for more Why still desire t' increase thy wretched Store And wish for what must waste like those before Nor rather free thy self from Pains and Fear And end thy Life and necessary Care Creech Lucret. But besides that we are accountable for the Use of Life while we have it and our Profuseness does but inflame the Reckoning the longer time we have allowed us to Mispend it in we must remember that according to what was urged a little before Life it self is a debt This is as the Principal Sum put into our Hands to Traffick with but such as we should always be ready to pay down upon the Nail whenever it shall be called in again and He who is the Owner and Giver may Demand it the very next Hour How then can you Argue against the Condition of Your own Obligation How can You falsify Your Trust and Act against Your Engagement and Your Duty It is most unreasonable to Shuffle and Flinch and Kick against these Pricks because by Death you ease your self of a mighty Charge and Trouble You make up your great Account and pay in that vast Sum for which you stood responsible and which while in your Custody was liable to great Loss and Hazard Dying is a general thing Every Body does it And can You take it Ill not to be Exempted Do You expect to be the Single Instance the Sole Reserve from Universal Nature to Enjoy a Privilege by your self a Privilege never yet seen nor heard of in the World What unparallel'd Folly and Presumptuous Madness is This Or why should You be afraid to go where all the World goes where you will find innumerable Millions of Men who have taken up their Residence before you come and whither you will be followed by as great a Number afterwards How singular an Affectation is this Death is equally certain to All and therefore it cannot be Unreasonable nor Unjust with respect to You for Equality is the first constituent part of Equity and no Man will be forgotten or overlook'd in this Distribution * Omnes eodem cogimur Omnium Versatur Urna Seriùs ocyus Sors exitura c. Horat. Od. 3. Lib. 11. In the same Road All travel on By All alike the same dark Journey must be gone Our Blended Lots together lye Mingled in one common Urn Sooner or Later out they fly c. IIId Miscell The Third Resentment I mentioned upon this occasion is the Contempt of Death Contempt of Death Good if upon a Good Account and This is a Mark of a Brave and Generous Mind This frequently proceeds from exalted Judgment and strength of Reason and is more peculiarly the Virtue of a Publick Character Elevated Fortune and a Life full of Difficult and Weighty Affairs For to Persons in such Circumstances many Accidents may happen for which no Man ought to scruple Dying and several Prospects present themselves of Things so valuable that they deserve to be preferred even before Life it self Let Other matters succeed how they will This at least is a constant Rule That a Man ought always to be fonder and have a greater Regard for Himself than for a Life led in hurry and publick Business which shews him as it were always in a full Theatre and exposes him to the View and Censure of all the World He must consisider himself not only as a Spectacle but as a Pattern to Mankind and remember That One of the Incumbrances of Honour and Dignity is a necessary Obligation to shine brighter than Common Men to render his Virtue more conspicuous to those below him and to do Things exemplarily Good and Great though it happen to be at the Expence of All that the World calls Dear To such Persons many times the same Methods of safety are denied which private Men might make use of without any reflection upon their Prudence or their Duty They must by no means suffer any diminution of their Honour but when driven to a pinch must Risque and Sacrifice their Lives and trust the Event to Fate The Great Man who cannot command himself so far as to Despise Death is not only made thereby incapable of doing any Gallant and eminently Good Action but he lays himself open to more than ordinary Dangers by this Timorous Spirit and Behaviour and Those too such Dangers as threaten most what requires his best care to preserve For while his great Concern is to preserve his Person and see that Life be under Covert his Duty his Honour Virtue and Probity lie naked and exposed and run a mighty hazard for want of Courage to Protect and Stand by them The Contempt of Death is in effect the very Principle to which the Boldest and most Renowned Exploits are owing the most daring Attempts whether in Good or Ill Designs He that hath Conquered the Fear of Death hath nothing more left to terrify him He hath it in his Power to do what he pleases and may at any time make himself Master of Another Man's Life because he is already Master of his Own And as this Contempt is the true Source of Generosity and undaunted Firmness in Action so is it likewise the very Spirit and Life that quickens and supports that Resolution from whence they proceed Hence Calmness and Constancy
and Perseverance All the Free and Bold Determinations by which Virtue hath expressed her self the Noble and Admired Sentences uttered by Celebrated Persons when reduced to extremity of Danger and Distress Such as shine in Story give lasting Characters to their Authors and transport the Reader with Wonder and Delight a very few of which because they now occur to my Mind I take the Liberty to insert here Helvidius Priscus having received a Message from the Emperor Vespasian not to appear in the Senate or if he came strictly prohibiting him to interpose his Opinion in a Debate which was to be moved there sent back word That his Character of a Senator required his Attendance and he should not refuse his Summons neither should he when There balk any thing that became him but if called upon to give his Judgment would discharge his Conscience and deliver his Sense of the Case freely and without Fear or Reserve The Emperor provoked with what he thought Insolence in this Reply sent a Second Message threatning to put him to Death if he opened his Mouth To which he returned thus Sir said he Did I ever tell the Emperor that I was Immortal His Majesty I suppose will do his Pleasure and I will take care to do my Duty It is in His Power to put me to Death Unjustly but it is in my Own to Dye Virtuously and Gallantly The Lacedemonians when Philip of Macedon Father of Alexander the Great had entred their Country with his Army received a terrible Message from him Threatning what Severity he would use them with if they did not court his Friendship and send to make Terms with him To which one Brisk Fellow Answered in behalf of the whole Republick What Harm can those Men suffer who are not afraid of Death And upon another Dispatch from Philip telling them That he would break all their Measures and prevent the Designs they had formed in their own Defence The Answer was How Sir what break all our Measures No Sure you will not pretend to hinder us from Dying This is a Project which you cannot Defeat Another when his Opinion was asked What course a Man could take to live Free and Easy resolved the Doubt thus That all other Methods were ineffectual except that One of Despising Death We read of a Young Boy who was taken Captive and Sold for a Slave and in Discourse with his Patron who had Bought him Sir says he You shall now see what a purchase you have I should certainly be much to blame and guilty of great Folly should I submit to Live in Slavery when my Liberty is in my own Disposal and I can retrieve it when I please And with that he threw Himself down from the House top and was dashed to pieces While a Person was deliberating with himself in deep perplexity of Thought whether he should quit this Life or not accept that Deliverance but be content to tug on still under the weight of a very heavy Calamity which then oppressed him A Wise Man told him That in His Judgment the Matter under Debate was very small and inconsiderable For What is it says he to Live Thy Slaves nay thy Beasts and Cattel Live but to Dye like a Man of Honour and Integrity and Wisdom to leave the World with remarkable Constancy and Courage This indeed is a thing of moment and worth Studying for To conclude this Argument and to crown it with the most complete and substantial Consideration that can possibly belong to it Our most Holy Religion owes more of its Success in the World and more of its Effect upon Men's Hearts and Lives to this single Principle of getting above the Fear of Death than to any other Human Foundation whatsoever No Man can be an excellently Good Christian who is not Resolute and Brave and upon this Account we find that our Great Master who best understood the Temper of his own Gospel does insist upon taking up the Cross Hating and Despising Life for his sake not Fearing Men who can only destroy the Body and the like which are but other Expressions for the Contempt of Death These he insists upon I say as frequently as earnestly as upon any other Duty or Article of Religion whatsoever Now we must understand That there are many Counterfeits and False Pretences to Bravery upon this Occasion a great many People who look big upon the matter and would fain persuade the World nay perhaps are persuaded Themselves That they Despise Death and yet are in truth afraid of it Thus several People will tell you They do not value Life They would be content nay glad to leave the World but the Ceremony and Process of Dying is what They cannot away with Others again while in perfect soundness of Health and Judgment can think of Death without any Impressions of Horror nay have as They imagine settled their Minds so as to bear the Shock of it Firm and Unmoved and Some have gone farther yet and resolved to make it their Choice their own Act and Deed. This is a Farce very often played insomuch that the Soft the Luxurious Heliogabalus himself had a Part in it and made Sumptuous Preparations that his Death might be as Pompous and Expensive as his Life had been But when These Mighty Men of Valour have come to the Push their Hearts have failed and either Courage was wanting to give the Blow or they have repented of such Hardiness for Rash Heat and Folly as Lucius Domitius particularly who after he had Poysoned himself was sorry for what he had done and would fain have Lived when it was too late Others turn away their Heads draw their Cap over their Eyes and dare not look Death in the Face They think of it as little as they can steal upon it and plunge in all on the sudden They swallow it down like unpalatable Physick and hasten to get to the End of that bitter Potion which goes against their Stomach To this purpose is that saying of Caesar That the Shortest Death is the Best and that of Pliny That a Sudden and Speedy Dispatch is the greatest good Fortune that can happen to Man in this Stateof Mortality Now no Man can truly be said to have Resolution and Courage such as is above the Fear of Death who is afraid of facing and coming up to it who dares not meet and undergo it with his Eyes open and his Thoughts and Senses about him Thus we know several have done and therefore this is no Romantick Excellence above the Power or Capacity of Human Nature Thus did Socrates particularly who had Thirty days time to chew the Cud and digest the Sentence pronounced against him and yet after all this Foresight and Consideration Dyed without the least Disorder or Passion without any Change in Countenance or Temper without any struggle or sign of Reluctancy in the most Calm Composed Chearful manner that you at any other time can suppose a Man in Thus
the Nature of true Religion and the Dignity of an Almighty Majesty these are capable of great Allowances and suit well enough with the Simplicity of the First Ages of the World To This I presume it may suffice to answer That the Case of Moral Duties and Religious Rites is very different The One are purely the result of a reasonable and thinking Mind The Other of a Nature which we must needs be much in the dark about For though Reason would convince me that God is to be worshipped yet He alone can tell me what Worship will be acceptable to him At least if I must beat out my own Track the Notions I entertain of God must direct me Now These might convince a Man that Purity and Sincerity Justice and Goodness and the like must needs please an Infinitely Perfect Being But which way could an Imagination so foreign enter into Mens heads as that God shold be pleased with the Blood and Fat of Beasts Admit These to have been the Chief of their Substance and devoted because as such fittest for them to express their Acknowledgments by that as devoted and entirely set apart to Holy Uses it could not without Sacrilege be partaken of by Men and that from hence the Custom of Burning the Sacrifice took its Original yet what shall we say to the Expiatory Oblations And how could Men by any Strength of Reason comprehend the Possibility of a Vicarious Punishment or hope that the Divine Justice should be appeased by Offerings of this kind and accept the Life of the Offender's Beast instead of the forfeit Life of the Offender himself These things seem to be far out of the Way and Reach of human Discourse it is scarce if at all possible to conceive what should lead the Generality of Mankind to such Consequences such Ideas of God as These And I think little needs be said to convince Men that the Difference is vastly great between such Religious Rites and those Moral Duties which have their foundation in the best Reason and are all of them so coherent so agreeable to sober and uncorrupted Nature that the more we attend and the closer we pursue them the greater Discoveries we shall be sure to make and the more consistent will be all our Actions with the first and most obvious Principles of the Mind So that no Parity of Argument can lye between these Two The Force of this Reason is sufficiently confess'd by the very Learned Asserter of that Other Opinion nor can he deny Spencer Lib. III. Cap. IV. Diss II. Sect. II. as some I think with a design to make short work of it have done that Expiatory Sacrifices were offer'd before the Law But then These are supposed to proceed not from any positive persuasion or good assurance of obtaining Pardon by that means but some Hope that God would have regard to the Pious Intention of the Person and consider and restore him upon that account Which Opinion Arnobius exposes in such a manner as plainly to shew that it generally prevailed and many Testimonies of Heathen Writers themselves confess that they looked upon God to be capable of being mollified and won over as Angry Men are by Submissions and Presents and other sweetning Methods All which Misapprehensions are conceived agreeable to the Darkness of Pagans and the Simplicity of Earlier Ages Now with all due Reverence to the Authority of those Great Men who urge it I can by no means satisfy my self with the Colour they give to these Arguments from the rude unpolished State of Men in the first Ages of the World This I know is a Notion very agreeable to the Heathen Philosophers and Poets and Their Accounts of the Original of this World the Progress of Knowledge and Improvement of Mankind And This might probably agree well enough with that Age when Abraham and his Seed were chosen out from the midst of a dark and degenerate Race But whether it agree with the Times of Abel and Noah and the Antediluvian Fathers will bear a great Dispute We fancy perhaps that before there was any Written Word all was dark but there is no Consequence in That nor will it follow because Arts and Prositable Inventions for the Affairs of this Life grew up with the World that Religion too was in its Infant Weakness and Ignorance in those early Days St. Chrysostom I am sure gives a very different account of the Matter Hom. 1. in Matth. He says the Communications of God's Will were more liberal and frequent then that Men lived in a sort of familiar Acquaintance with him and were personally instructed in Matters necessary and convenient much better enabled to worship and serve him acceptably and because they did not discharge their Duty and answer their Advantages that he withdrew from this Friendly way of conversing with Mankind and then to prevent the utter Loss of Truth by the Wickedness and Weakness of Men a Written Word was judged necessary and That put into Books which the Corruption of Manners had made unsafe and would not permit to continue clear and legible in Men's hearts In the mean while the Preference he manifestly gives both for Knowledge and Purity to the First Ages and compares the Patriarchs at the beginning of the World in this Point to the Apostles at the beginning of Christianity as Parallels in the Advantages of Revelation and Spiritual Wisdom infinitely superior to the succeeding Times of the Church And it is plain from Scripture it self that Enoch Noah and other Persons eminently pious signally rewarded for it and inspired with God's own Spirit were some of those early Sacrificers Persons to whose Character the pretended Simplicity and Ignorance of the first Ages of the World will very ill agree V. There is I must own a Great Prejudice against this Divine Institution of Sacrifices from the Book of Genesis being silent in the thing it being urged as a mighty Improbability that so considerable an Ordinance and One which grew so general should have no mention made of its first Command and Establishment especially when so many things of seemingly less moment are expresly taken notice of and by that means strengthen the Opinion which attributes a matter acknowledged on all hands to be of Consequence to some Original other than Immediately Divine Now if we consider the Design and Manner of the Book of Genesis it will by no means appear strange to us that many things should be omitted This being I conceive intended chiefly to give a short Account of the Creation and Fall of Man the Promise of a Redeemer and to draw down the Line of Descent to the Chosen Seed from whence our Saviour sprung and the People of the Jews the Figure of the Christian Church derived themselves So that Their History and Religion being the principal Subject of the Five Books of Moses we find very little Enlargement upon Particulars till after the Call of Abraham For if we consider the Three first
Aulae Regii Liberi My want of Heirs says he is despised because I have no Children to succeed Me. For the Children of a Prince are the Honour and the Strength of the Court. Thirdly Princes often draw Contempt upon themselves by their Manners and way of Living particularly if they be dissolute and debauch'd sensual and effeminate Slaves to Vice and abandon'd to Luxury and Pleasure especially to Sottishness and Drinking and Gluttony the lowest and most despicable of all Pleasures Also their Behaviour exposes them to it if this be churlish and morose their Discourse when childish and impertinent their Persons when nauscous and notoriously deform'd And thus we are got to the End of what I thought convenient to be premised with relation to the Active part or Administration of a Prince in general We proceed now to handle it more distinctly and particularly But in order hereunto it must be remembred that this as was observ'd in the beginning of this Chapter consists of Two parts the One Civil or that which concerns a State of Peace and publick Tranquillity The Other Military and proper for a State of War For by the former I understand the common and ordinary Methods of Goverment which are of constant and daily use whether in a time of Peace or War By the Latter I mean those Methods which are proper to Martial Discipline and the practice whereof is peculiar to the Time of War only The peaceful and ordinary Administration of a Government is a Province of such vast Comprehension The Peaceable Administration and the Accidents and Occurrences of it so various and unforeseen that it is impossible to reduce it to any general Rules And besides The Prudence of it consists oftentimes as much in forbearing to act as at other times in acting But however I will venture to lay down here some few Heads of Advice which are necessary to be consider'd and may be of some Advantage perhaps when the Duties they prescribe are observ'd duly and improv'd by applying the Substance of those general Intimations to particular Actions and Circumstances First then the Prince is concern'd above all things to take care that he be faithfully and diligently inform'd of all Matters which any way concern him to know The Matters I mean here may be comprehended under Two Heads and consequently the Informations themselves and the Persons made use of in them are of two different Qualities And to render those of each sort what they ought to be these Qualifications are absolutely necessary and in common to both Sincerity and Confidence Secresie and Prudence But tho' these be requisite to both kinds yet they are not so to both equally For the One have occasion for much greater Liberty and Openness and Plain-dealing than the Other The One of these are the Persons whose business it is to put him in Mind of his Duty what he is obliged to and what becomes his Character and not only so but to make him duly sensible of his Faults and Failings and to speak bold Truths to him concerning himself There are no sort of Men in the World who stand in so great need of such Friends as Princes do For they have no Senses of their own nor any other Direction but what is receiv'd from seeing with other People's Eyes and hearing with other People's Ears They sustain a publick Character and have a World of People to satisfie so that every Word and Action of Theirs is the Matter of Censure or Commendation and expos'd to the critical Malice of all Mankind And as they have in this respect more Humours to please so are they less capable of doing it than common Men because they are industriously kept in the Dark and very little of what concerns them is suffer'd to come to their Knowledge And thus for want of better Instruction they do things which prove inconvenient and disgusting and so with all the undesigning Innocence imaginable expose themselves to the Hatred and Resentments of their Subjects All which had certainly been prevented or very easily remedy'd had they been fairly and freely dealt with in time But then it must be said on the other hand that they are in some degree destin'd to this Ignorance or accountable for it Themselves because Matters are so order'd that Frankness of Humour and Home-Truths by way of Admonition or Reproof tho' the best Offices and surest Marks of Friendship and Affection are yet seldom well taken and especially to Princes they are not only unacceptable but sometimes extremely dangerous to the Person who hath Courage and Houesty enough to venture at them And yet this cannot in reason but appear a very criminal Nicety and an Argument of great Weakness when such Persons cannot bear having their Ears grated and made to glow a little for their Good For this Harshness of the Sound is all they can endure They are above Compulsion or Restraint and have the whole Management of themselves left still entirely in their own Disposal The Other sort of Informers are such as are employ'd to bring what we properly call Intelligence by representing all the considerable Actions and Occurrences not only within the Compass of his Dominions and by his own Subjects but by discovering the Projects and Intrigues of neighbouring Courts I say of All that is doing at Home or Abroad wherein either his Own or his Allies or Borderer's Government is either immediately or but remotely concern'd These Two distinct kinds of Correspondents do in some degree answer the Character of those two Friends to Alexander Hephestion and Craterus One of which is said to have loved the King and the other Alexander That is One of them was fond of his Person the Other of his Government One regarded him in his Private the Other in his Publick Capacity * The Description given of this personal Dearness betwixt Alexander and Hephestion hath that among other Circumstances mention'd in it Secretorum omnium arbiter Libertatis quoque in admonendo non alius jus habebat Qu. Curt. Lib. III. 12. but the tenderer Friend dealt most freely with him In the Second place The Prince should always have by him a private Book of Memorandums consisting principally of Three Heads First An Abridgement of all Matters of Publick Concern then depending That by recourse to This he may imform himself at one View what is fit to be done in the present Juncture of Affairs what Matters are already in Motion and want to be compleated that so every thing may be attended to in its proper Season and nothing done out of time or by halves The Second is a List of Persons Names whose Merits may recommend them to his Favour either upon the Account of past Services which call for Rewards and Gratifications or of extraordinary Abilities which qualifie them for Preferments and Places of Trust The Third A Memorial of Gifts and Grants already conferred to whom and upon what Considerations For without a distinct and particular
to entertain must receive Satisfaction from the Second Question I insert this Caution by the way because it frequently falls out that a Man is staked down as it were to one party almost whether he will or no. For though he may not make it any part of his Choice and Design nay though in his own Private Judgment he cannot but disapprove it yet in despight of Intention Inclination and Good Sense he may find himself involved and intangled by some Considerations so Powerful that he cannot with any Decency break through them And these being such Bands as Nature hath ty'd him up in or such as Counterbalance all Motives to the contrary will at least carry a sufficient Excuse for his doing as he does Now this first Question hath several Arguments pro and con and abundance of eminent Instances might be produced of Persons who have behaved themselves directly contrary to each other with regard to it So that differing Judgments and Authorities as well as different Reasons minister just ground of Scruple in the Case The Resolutions which seem to me most convenient to be come to according to the different Circumstances of the Persons concern'd in this Debate are such as follow On the one Hand Nothing seems more agreeable to the Character of a Wise and a Good Man than to have nothing at all to do with the Follies and Factions of the World and therefore such a one cannot do better than to stand by and let them try it out by themselves Especially too if we consider what Account hath already been given of these Divisions how irregular and unlawful they are in their own Nature and first Causes what Wickedness Barbarity and Injustice of all sorts they engage Men in That these are inseparable Attendants of such practices and it is not possible to have any hand in them and continue Innocent I say If all these Considerations be fairly laid together it scarce looks any longer like a Matter of free Choice what a Man may or may not do but seems rather a Point of Duty than of bare Allowance and Permission absolutely to decline any Concern in them And accordingly it appears that several excellent Persons have had so great an abhorrence of these Things and such a Sense of the Personal Obligations they violate that no Considerations could prevail with them to come in particularly Asinius Pollio who the Historian tells us Velleius lib. 3. excused himself for these very Reasons to Agustus when he entreated his Company and Assistance in the Expedition against Mark Anthony But then on the other Hand What shall we say to those Reasons which enforce our Obligation to take part with good Men to protect and strengthen such as much as in us lies and to defend Equity and Right against all that oppose and encroach upon it The Great Solon was so strongly possess'd in Favour of these Engagements that he is for inflicting very severe Punishments upon Them that affect Ease and Obscurity and refuse to appear and act openly in such Exigencies of State And that rigid Professor of Virtue Cato govern'd himself by this Rule for he did not only declare and come into One Party in the Civil Wars of Rome but took a Command among the Malâ— contents under Pompey Now if we would know what Measures are fit to be taken where Judgments are so divided and Reasons probable and plausible enough for each to alledge in his own Justification my poor Opinion is This For Persons of Eminence and Character in the World such as are in publick Trust or great Reputation or extraordinary Abilities and are known to be leading and significant Men in the State These I conceive not only may fall into that Side which they in their Conscience think the best but so far as I am able to discern they are bound to do it For he is a very ill Pilot that steers the Ship in calm and favourable Weather and runs away from the Helm when it grows Foul and Stormy What shall become of the Vessel if the best Hands let her drive when there is the greatest Need of Working her and keeping her tight These Gentlemen ought in Extremities especially to stand in the Gap and act like Men of Honour the Care of the Government is upon them and its Safety or Ruine lyes at the Door But then for Persons in a private Capacity such as make none at all or but very inconsiderable Figure in the Government These are more at their own Liberty For as their Condition supposes all the Assistance they can contribute to be of no mighty consequence so the with-holding that Assistance can do no great Damage And therefore they may be allowed to retire into some Place of Security and seek their own Ease and Quiet at a Distance from the Noise and Clutter of the contending Parties But then both these kind of Men those that do and those that do not declare lie under an Obligation to demean themselves in such manner as I am going to prescribe In the mean while I add thus much only upon the present Subject concerning those who are disposed to come in and act That in the choosing what Party they should side with sometimes the Case is so plain that it is almost impossible they can be mistaken For where the Injustice of the Cause and other Disadvantages are so evident that they look one full in the Face and forbid him no Man of common Sense will go in thither But it often happens that there are Reasons on both Sides Each pretends Right and Justice and each hath Advantages to invite us and then the Difficulty of coming to a Resolution is very great because a Man must not only weigh the Arguments on both Sides and settle the Point of Right and Wrong first but he hath several other Considerations to attend to such as may and ought to carry some Weight with them though they have not immediately respect to the Justice of the Cause And now it may be Seasonable to proceed to the other Part of this Advice which relates to the Behaviour of the Persons under these several Capacities To all which I might satisfie my self with prescribing in one Word Moderation and Temper that they would particularly take Atticus for their Pattern whose Name hath been so much celebrated for his Prudence and Modesty in the midst of that boisterous Age in which he lived One who was always believed in his Judgment to favour the right Side and respected by all good Men for doing so but yet one who behaved himself so Prudently and Inoffensively that he never involved himself in the Common Confusions nor drew down the Displeasure of ill Men or any Inconvenience from that Party who were sensible enough he did not approve their Proceedings But to be a little more particular and first for Them who openly declare themselves It is certain that These ought by no Means to be violent or betray indecent Heats and
is the Fruit of all this Suffering and Expence Why you escape the Severity of the Law A goodly Satisfaction indeed a Man is not punish'd that never deserv'd it But where is the Reparation for all the Trouble and Charge you have been at for This will stick by you and can never be wip'd off tho' the Suspicion and Scandal and all the Dirt that a false Accuser bespatter'd you with may The Plantiff or Informer in the mean while if he can but bring the least Colour of probability for what he depos'd against you comes off clear and a very easie thing it is to make any thing look so suspicious as shall suffice to prevent the recovering of Damages upon him So very niggardly so shamefully miserable is Justice in the Matter of Rewards and gratifying Men for having deserv'd well and so entirely addicted to Punishment Insomuch that now the Word is brought to signifie That by way of Eminence and doing Justice or being obnoxious to Justice is constantly understood in the rigorous Sense as if Justice had nothing else to do but to scourge and take Men off And any Man whose Disposition is litigious and his Malice and Conscience wicked enough to put him upon it may very easily give his Neighbours a great deal of Trouble and Charge and without any danger to himself run them into such Difficulties as will not be possible to get quit of again without considerable Detriment and Disquiet Now if we would consider Justice as to the several parts of our Duty and the Objects in which they terminate these are principally Three For every Man is by virtue of his Nature and Condition a Debtor to God to Himself and to his Neighbour So that One of his Creditors is above him Another is upon the level with him and the Third is Creditor and Debtor both in one Person The Duty to God is but another Phrase for Piety and Religion so that this Head of Justice hath been largely insisted upon already in the Second Part of this Treatise And therefore without troubling the Reader any more upon that Subject I shall betake my self to the other Two yet behind the Duty to our Selves and That to our Neighbour CHAP. VI. Of Justice as That regards a Man's Duty to Himself THis indeed is scatter'd throughout this whole Work and every Chapter is full of it For what else is the Design of the First Book which attempts to bring Men throughly acquainted with Themselves and the Condition of Human Life What else does the Second drive at in teaching Men Wisdom and laying down general Rules for their attaining to it What Lastly makes up this Third Book but especially that part of it which treats of Fortitude and Temperance which are both of them Virtues that have a more direct tendency and immediate Relation to this Matter So that any thing industriously apply'd to this Topick in particular might perhaps be well enough spar'd But however I will here lay down some Directions and give the Matter an express and solemn Consideration in the most compendious Method that conveniently I can 1. The First Advice I shall give upon this Occasion and that which in truth is the Foundation of all the rest is That Men would bethink themselves and take up a Resolution not to live Extempore and at Random from Hand to Mouth and without any Reflection of what they are what will become of them and why they are here and yet as extravagant as all this may seem at first hearing the greatest part of Mankind by far are guilty of it They fool away their Time and never live in good earnest but pass Day after Day without one serious Thought or troubling themselves to look at all before them They have no Relish no Enjoyment of Life nor make any other use of it but only to employ it in unnecessary Trifles and Things by the by Their mighty Projects and busie Cares are rather a Hindrance and Perplexity than any Furtherance to the great Ends of Living Such Men do every thing in earnest but live All their Actions and the little broken Parcels of Life are grave and full of Attention but the Bulk and Substance of Life goes off without any Regard or Consideration at all This is like a Self-evident Principle or a Truth taken for granted in Speculation upon which they never bestow a Second Thought That which is Accidental and Insignificant is made their principal Care and that which ought to be their main Business neglected as if it were only an Additional and Unnecessary thing They are exceeding diligent and importunately sollicitous in other Matters some in acquiring a vast compass of Learning some in aspiring to Honours and Preferments some in heaping up Riches Others are intent upon Pleasures and Diversions Hunting or Play or vain Contrivances to pass away their Time as if This were a Burden and hung upon their Hands Others are taken up in useless Speculations fanciful Notions pretty Inventions Others set up for Men of Business and spend all their Days in Hurry and Noise Others pursue Designs different from all these But amidst this vast Variety of Follies few or none apply themselves to the true Wisdom by studying how to live indeed They are Thoughtful and Anxious entirely given up to and eager of many Matters but Life slips through their Fingers insensibly and is turn'd to no Account This is only in the Nature of a Term a set Period of Time appointed to follow other Business in Now all this is extremely injurious and unreasonable the Source of our greatest Misery the falsest and basest way of betraying our selves and abandoning our true Interest It is perfectly losing and throwing away our Life and the most perfidious as well as the most fatal Breach of Duty we can possibly be guilty of For certainly every Man owes thus much to Himself Not to trisle and be wanting in his greatest Concern To make Life as easie as cheerful as desirable as good to himself as he can which is to be done no other way but by making the most of it in point of Usefulness and good Management For Living well and advisedly is the only Expedient in order to dying so and This is the great Task incumbent upon all Mortals We ought to look upon Life as a Matter of the last Consequence a precious Talent an important Trust of which we must render a strict and very particular Account and therefore are bound to husband it thristily and improve it to the utmost of our Power that we may be found faithful in our Stewardship and gain by the Increase This is our Great Concern All the rest are Toys and Geugaws in comparison inconsiderable and very superficial Advantages I cannot deny indeed but some there are who bestow some Thought of this kind and pretend to set about it with marvellous Application But then this Thoughtfulness comes too late and they begin to live when they are just going to
immoderate Love of Riches Book I. Chap. 23. and the peevish and humoursom Hatred of them have been spoken to in the former parts of this Treatise And therefore all I have now left me to do is to lay down that Golden Rule which consists in the Mean between these two Extremes and that I think will be done in these Five Particulars First It consists in preferring and being pleas'd with them but not setting our Affections upon them Thus the Philosopher describes his Wise Man * Sapiens non amat divitias sed mavult One that is not fond of Riches but yet had rather have them than not A Man may be sensible of the Convenience of a Thing and know how to value it as it deserves without placing his Heart and his Happiness in it Thus for Instance a Person of low Stature and weak Limbs would be glad and well pleas'd to be taller and better built and yet it never breaks his Rest nor makes him reflect upon himself as miserable for not being so He that seeks what Nature desires without Passion and Uneasiness puts himself out of the Power of Fortune and he that is content with what Fortune cannot take away from him is the Man agreeable to this first part of the Character But Secondly If Passion and Anxiety be a Fault even in those who seek to enrich themselves by fair and honest Means only much less can we be allow'd to endeavour our own Profit by the Loss and Detriment of others For this is to feed and grow fat at their Expence No nor yet may we pursue Riches by base and pitiful and sordid Arts but should take care that all our Increase be so honourable and becoming that no Man shall have any Temptation but his own Wickedness and Ill-nature to complain of our Proceedings or grudge us our good Fortune or once to say That it is pity such Blessings should be bestowed upon us Thirdly When the good Providence of God puts these Opportunities and Advantages into our Hands and Wealth comes in upon us in an honest and creditable Way we are not to reject and disdain it but receive it with Thankfulness and Satisfaction and let it in but not let it in too far Riches should be admitted into our Houses but not into our Hearts we may take them into our Possession but not into our Affections For this is going too deep and doing them an Honour much greater than they can ever deserve Fourthly When we have them we should employ them honourably virtuously discreetly and convert them into Instruments of doing good Offices and being obliging to others That the manner of their Going out may be at least as innocent and as creditable as that of their Coming in Lastly Whenever they take their Flight and forsake us we are not to be dejected nor melancholy at the Loss but thould consider that tho' they took themselves away they did not deprive us of any thing which was properly and truly our own And therefore * Si Divitiae effluxerint non auferent nisi semetipfas if they give us the slip there is no Robbery or Wrong in the Case for we had no indeseasible Right in them before In one Word That Man ill deserves the Love and Favour of God and ought to quit all his Pretensions to Virtue and Philosophy and Religion who cannot support himself with these Comforts but allows the Enjoyments of this World the principal Place in his Esteem †Aude Hospes contemnere opes Te quoque dignum Finge Deo Dare to be Poor accept of homely Food Be more than Man and emulate a God Mr. Dryden Of Justice between Man and Man Or The Duty towards our Neighbour ADVERTISEMENT THis Duty is very comprehensive and shoots out into a great many Branches For the convenience of treating it more methodically we will make our first Division into two general Parts The First of these shall contain all such Duties as are Common and Vniversal requir'd from All and every Man to All and every Man And that whether they regard Thought Word or Deed And these are Love Fidelity Truth Freedom in Advising and Admonishing Beneficence Humanity Liberality and Gratitude The Second extends it self to all special Duties such I mean as depend upon particular Reasons and express Obligations which concern some certain Persons and Relations and not others As Those between Husband and Wife Parents and Children Masters and Servants Princes and Subjects Magistrates and Private Persons the Great and the Mean Man CHAP. VII The First Part of Justice or Those Universal Duties due from All to All in Common And first of Love LOVE is a Pure a Holy and a Generous Fire What it is kindled in our Breasts by Nature It s Primitive and Original Warmths were first discern'd in the mutual Affection of Husband and Wife Parents and Children Brothers and Sisters But then cooling by degrees as it dilated it self Art and Human Invention found means to blow it up again and supply fresh Fewel by the Institution of Alliances Societies Fraternities Colleges and other Incorporations by which the parts of Mankind are cemented and united Now in regard that These Artificial Flames underwent the same Fate with those Natural and burnt more feeble and dim as they were expanded and subdivided as also that their Heat is much allay'd by the Mixture of Profit Convenience Delight and such other Selfish Considerations therefore to cherish and recruit this Fire again Choice hath contriv'd to unite its scatter'd Forces and contract them into the narrowest compass that can be by the ferventest and tenderest of all Affections that between true Friends And This indeed is Love in Perfection as much more ardent and endearing and refin'd than any other as the Vital Heat in the Heart is more intense than than of the Liver or the Blood in the Veins Love is the very Life and Soul of the World more necessary to its Subsistence and Well-being say the Philosophers than those two Servants which we cannot want Fire and Water The Latins therefore have given a good Intimation of This in terming Friendship Necessitudo and Friends Necessarii This is the Sun the Staff the Salt of Life all is dark and comfortless without the Light of this cheering Fire all seeble and tottering without this firm Support all flat and insipid till this Seasons and gives it a grateful Relish Ecclus vi 14 16. To this purpose that Wise Man * A Faithful Friend is a strong Defence the Medicine of Lise and He that findeth him sindeth a great Treasure Nor may we suppose this Virtue serviceable and necessary to private Persons only It s Usefulness or that the Pleasures and Charms of it are confin'd to small Numbers and secret Retirements Its Joys and its Beauties are equally nay more ravishing and delightful more useful and seasonable to larger Bodies and publick Communities of Men. For This is the true Mother
to her former Circumstances Whether she did or did not bring a Fortune That alters not the Case one whit such Considerations are quite out of Doors and nothing now lies before him but the present Relation between them He is indeed to be governed by his own Abilities and will do well to secure the main Chance but then all the Frugality upon this Account must extend to the retrenching his own Expences too For whatever Figure he allows himself to make his Wife ought to be supported Suitably and in Proportion to it 3. The providing her with Clothes which is a Right so undoubted that all Laws concur in giving a Wife this Privilege and that in so Solemn and Incommunicable a manner that they have denied the Husband a Power of disposing any thing of this Kind away from her and have not left them liable to the Payment of his just Debts 4. The Rights of the Bed 5. The Loving Cherishing and Protecting her Those Two Extremes which the World are apt to run into are Vicious and Abominable The keeping them under and treating them like Servants and the submitting to them as if they were absolute Mistresses These I take to be the principal and constant Duties Others there are Accidental and Occasional Duties secondary to and consequent upon the former Such as Taking Care of her if she be sick Ransoming her if she be taken Captive Burying her Honourably and according to her Quality if she happen to die and Making Provision by his last Will for her decent Support in her Widowhood and the comfortable Subsistence of the Children she hath brought him The Duties of the Wife are to pay all becoming Honour and Reverence and Respect to her Husband Wive's Duty looking upon him as a kind and Affectionate Master Accordingly the Scripture takes Notice that Women eminent for their Conjugal Virtues used to call their Husbands Lord and it is observable that the same Word in the Hebrew Tongue signifies Lord and Husband both The Imagination that a Woman lessens her self by this respectful and submissive Behaviour is most Frivolous and Foolish for she that discharges this part of her Duty well consults her own more than her Husband's Honour and she that is Insolent and Imperious Humoursome and Perverse does the greatest Injury to her self A Second Duty is Obedience to all his lawful and just Command's complying with his Humours and bringing over her own Inclinations to His For a good and a prudent Wife is like a true Glass which makes an exact Reflection of the Face that looks in it She should have no Design no Passion no Thought particular to her self but to be sure none in Opposition to His. Like Dimensions and Accidents which have no Motion no separate Existence of their own but constantly move with and subsist in the Body whereunto they belong so Wives should always keep close and be from the very Heart and even Affections of their Souls entirely and inseparably united to their Husbands A Third is Service That part especially which relates to the providing him seasonable and Necessary Refreshments over-looking the Kitchin ordering the Table and not disdaining to do any Offices or give him any kind of Assistance about his Person a Duty so fit to be condescended to that the Antients were wont to reckon Washing the Feet in particular among the Instances of Service due from the Wife to her Husband Fourthly Keeping much at Home upon which Account a Wife is compar'd to a Tortoise that carries her House upon her Back and used heretofore to be painted with her Feet Naked an Emblem of her not being provided for stirring abroad This is a modest and decent Reserve requisite at all Times but more especially in the Absence of her Husband For a good Wife is the exact Reverse of the Moon she shines abroad and in full Lustre when near her Sun but disappears and is totally invisible when at a Distance from him A Fifth is Silence for she should never give her self the Liberty of talking much except with her Husband or for him Here indeed her Tongue may take a Loose and is subject to no other Restraint than the speaking no more than is convenient This I confess is a very difficult Point hard of Digestion in this lavish Age where Multitude of Words sets up for a Female Virtue and so rare in all Ages Ecclus xxvi 14. that the Wise Son of Sirach calls a silent Woman a Precious and Particular Gift of God The Sixth is applying her self to Houswifery and good Management Prov. xxxi for though Solomon's Description of a wise and good Woman may be thought too Mean and Mechanical for this refined Generation yet certain it is that the Business of a Family is the most Profitable nay the most Honourable Study they can employ themselves in This is the Reigning Accomplishment That which so far as Fortune is concerned ought to be 〈◊〉 esteemed and regarded in the Choice of a Wife To 〈◊〉 the Truth This is a Fortune singly and by it self the Observation or the Neglect of it without the Addition of any Casualties is sufficient to ruine or to preserve nay to make a Family But This hath the Fate of all other Excellencies too which is to be exceeding rare and scarce There are I confess a great many sordid and scraping Wives but very few good Managers But alas there is a vast deal of Difference between Avarice and Parsimony and provident Care and good Houswifery As to the Enjoyments indulged in a Married State Men should always remember that this is a Chast a Pure and a Religious Union Consecrated to Excellent Mysteries and Holy Purposes and therefore that all the Pleasures of it should be used with Moderation and Sobriety In such Measures only as Prudence and Conscience would direct when consulted seriously and without any Byass from gross and carnal Affections And sure it would very ill become a Society instituted for mutual Comfort and the Advancement of Religion and the preservation of Purity to throw off all Restraint and convert their Privilege of Lawful Delights into an Occasion of abandoning themselves to Sensuality and Licentiousness This is One of those Cases where no certain Bounds can be prescribed but it will highly concern all Persons engaged in this State to consider the Dignity and the Design of it and to keep themselves under such Reserves as may neither profane the one nor evacuate the other CHAP. XIII Good Management THis is a very becoming and necessary Care An Employment not hard to be attained to every Man of common Discretion is capable of it But though the Art be easily learned the constant Exercise of it is Intricate and Laborious by Reason of that Great Variety of Business in which it engages us and though many Matters about which it is managed be small and inconsiderable in themselves yet the constant Succession of them is very troublesome Domestick Cares give great Uneasiness because
they allow of no Intermission but if the Difficulties are occasion'd by the principal Persons in the Family they fret and gall and wrankle inward and scarce admit of any Rest or Remedy The Best Method of rendring this Care easie and effectual is To procure some faithful Servants in whose Honesty we can have entire Confidence and Security To buy in Provisions in their proper Seasons and wait for the best Markets To prevent all unnecessary Waste which is the Province proper to the Mistress of the House To make Necessity and Cleanliness and Order our first Care and when These are served if our Circumstances will extend farther then to provide for Plenty and Shew and Niceness a gentile Appearance and every Thing fashionable in it's Kind To regulate our Expences by cutting off our Superfluous Charge yet so as to have a Regard to Decency and Convenience and grudge Nothing which either Necessity or Duty call for from us One Shilling saved with these Limitations will do us more Credit than Ten idly squandered away But to the avoiding Profuseness we should also add the other commendable Quality of good Contrivance for it is a Mark of great Address when we can make our Peny go a great Way and appear Handsomely with little Charge But above all things a Man must be sure to keep within Compass and sute his way of Living to his present Circumstances For the most probable Prospects are still but Futurities and as such they must needs be uncertain so that there cannot be a more ridiculous Folly than to spend high in Confidence of Reversions and distant Expectations A Master's Eye must be every where and if either He or the Mistress be ignorant and unexperienced in Business they must take Care to conceal this Infirmity and pretend at least to understand all that belongs to them But especially they must never appear Negligent or Remiss but put on an Air of Diligence and Concern however For if once the Servants get a Notion of their being Careless how their Affairs are managed they will not fail to take their Advantage and in a short Time leave them little or nothing to take Care of CHAP. XIV The Duty of Parents and Children THE Duty of Parents and Children is Reciprocal and Natural on both sides Thus far they both agree But if the Obligation be somewhat stricter on the Child's Part that Difference is compensated by being more Ancient on the Parents side For Parents are the Authors and first Cause and of the Two of much greater Consequence to the Publick The Peopling the World with Good Men and Good Patriots is their Work the Educacation and Instruction of Youth is the only Method of effecting it so that here the first Seeds of Political Societies and Institutions are first laid And of the Two Inconveniencies That is much less which the State suffers from the Disobedience and Ingratitude of Children toward their Parents than from the Remisness and Neglect Parents are guilty of toward their Children Hence in the Lacedoemonian and some other very wise Governments there were Mulcts and other Penalties inflicted upon Parents when their Children prov'd Perverse and Ill-tempered And Plato declared he knew no one Instance that needed a Man's Care more or deserved it better than the endeavouring to make a good Son And Crates in great Wrath expostulated thus with his Country-men To what Purpose is all this Pains to heap up great Estates while it is no part of your Concern what manner of Heirs you leave them to This is like a Man's being Nice of his Shooe and Negligent of his Foot What should a Man do with Riches who hath not the Sense nor the Hert to make a good Use of them This is like an embroidered Saddle and sumptuous Furniture upon a Jaded Horse Parents indeed are doubly obliged to the Performance of this Duty In Kindness to themselves as they are their own Offspring and in Regard to the Publick because these young Suckers are the Hopes of the Tree the promising Shoots upon the thriving and kindly cultivating whereof the Strength and Succession of the Body Politick depends So that this is killing Two Birds with One Stone serving one 's own private Interest and promoting the Welfare and Honour of one's Country at the same time Now this Duty consists of Four Parts each of which succeed in order to the other and these are proportion'd to the Four Advantages which Children ought to receive from their Parents in their proper Seasons Life and Nourishment Instruction and partaking of the Advantages of Life with them The First respects the Time of a Child's Existence till his Birth inclusively The Second his Infancy The Third his Youth and the Last his riper Age. Concerning the First of These I shall only say that though it be very little attended to yet is it of mighty Consequence and of strict Obligation For no Man who hath any the least Insight into Nature can be ignorant how hereditary Constitutions and Complexions are And therefore we may be good or ill Parents even before our Children are born And I am sure among other Inducements to the care of Health and a regular Way of living This ought not to be the least that Those who derive their Being from us do depend upon this Care for a great part of their Happiness For by what hath been largely discoursed in the first Book it may plainly appear that the Capacity and Turn of Men's Minds and the Soundness and Vigour of their Bodies are in great Measure owing to a Parents good Constitution And certainly To Men of any Conscience it should be an Eternal Sting and Reproach to reflect what Rottenness and Diseases they entail upon their Posterity by abandoning themselves to Lewdness and Debauchery how dearly those Innocents pay for their Ancestor's Excesses and what a Barbarity it is to send poor Wretches into the World to languith out a Life of Misery and Pain and suffer for Sins which they never committed So Necessary so Important a Virtue is Temperance to Successions and Families as well as to Mens own Persons So Mischievous is Vice and so Subtilly does it propagate its dismal Effects even to those that are yet unborn The Second of these Heads I leave to Physicians and Nurses and having thus briefly dispatch'd the Two First because somewhat foreign to our present Design and necessary to be mention'd only for the rendring this Division compleat I shall proceed to the Third which concerns the Instructing of them and is a Subject more worthy our serious Consideration So soon as the Child begins to move his Soul and the Faculties of That as well as the Organs of his Body shew that he is a Rational and not only a Living Creature Great Application should be used to form him well at first And this Care may be allowed to take Place about Four or Five Years Old for by that time The Memory and Imagination and some little Strokes
rigorous Carriage to him These Five Duties at first Sight may perhaps seem too Rigid but there is no Child who would not allow them to be very reasonable and becoming him to pay did he but give himself the Trouble of considering seriously how much he hath stood his Parents in What Pain and Anxiety what Tender Care and Concern what Trouble and Expence and what a World of Affection went to the bringing of him up But This in Truth is a Computation which no Man is capable of making justly till he come to have Children of his own Then Matters will appear to him quite otherwise than now they do And therefore as the Philosopher who was found riding upon a Hobby-Horse with his little Boy desired that his Friend would forbear to expose that Levity of his till he was a Father himself So in the Case before us whoever shall imagine that the Duty to Parents is carried beyond Equity and Reason or Their Merits to their Children over-rated here we must beg that he will be content to suspend his Final Determination of this Matter till that Time come which alone can make him a competent Judge of it CHAP. XV. Duties of Masters and Servants THere remains now only the Third and Last Part of Private and Domestick Justice to be spoken to which consists of the mutual Duties of that lowest Relation between Masters and Servants Now in Order to a right Understanding of this Matter we must remember that there are different Sorts of Servants and more especially these Three that follow The First are what we call Slaves in which all the World abounded heretofore and the greatest Part of it does so still for except one Quarter of Europe they are still reckoned as part of their Masters Riches and Estate And accordingly they have no Right in any Thing not so much as in their Goods their Children or their own Bodies but their Patron hath an absolute Power to buy and sell them to give them or barter them away and to deal by them in as Arbitrary and Uncontrouled a Manner as We do with our Horses or Cattel or any Beasts of Service Of these we have delivered our Opinion at large in the first Book The Next are Book I. Chap. 43. what we commonly call Servants or Attendants These are Free-Men and have a Right Inviolable in their own Persons and Possessions nay they have such an indefeasible Liberty that it cannot be taken away from them by any Voluntary Compact of their own or any other Means used in Prejudice of it But they are bound to Pay Honor and Respect Obedience and Service for so long a Time and upon such Conditions as have been covenanted for and their Masters accordingly have a Power of commanding correcting and punishing them within the Bounds of Moderation and Discretion The Third Sort are what we may term Hirelings or Workmen which are still less in Subjection than the Former For they are not obliged to Attendance nor Obedience in general but only to the Performance of that Particular Work we take them for and so they only make an Exchange of their Labour and Industry for so much of our Money for those that Hire them have no Authority either to correct them for doing amiss or to command them at large in any other Thing Now The Duty of Masters towards their Servants whether in the Quality of Slaves or of Attendants is Not to use them Barbarously but always to remember that These too are Men of the very same Species withthemselves made up of the same Materials cast in the same Mould descended from the same Ancestors That it is not Nature which hath put any Difference but only Fortune and Fortune is a very Humorsom and changeable Thing for the seems to make her self great Diversion with her Wheel and to triumph in turning those that were at the Bottom up to the Top and tumbling those that sat at the Top down to the Bottom Consequently that the Distinction is not so great as they are willing to imagine nor what can bear them out in keeping their Fellows at so vast a distance and expecting such wonderful Submissions from them For * Sunt homines contubernales humiles amici conservi aequè Fâ—rtunae subjecti these says Seneca are Men and our poor Friends and humble Companions but withall our Fellow-Servants for we are all equally at the Disposal of the same Providence Our Servants then should be treated with Courtesie and Condescension not with proud Disdain and impious Contempt we should rather make it our Business that they may love us than that they may be afraid of us But to deal Roughly and use them Hardly discovers great Inhumanity and Cruelty of Disposition and plainly declares that we should use all Mankind just so if we had them as much at our Mercy and that it is not want of Will but want of Power which hinders us from the Execution of our Barbarous Inclinations We are also obliged to have Regard to their Health to be Kind and Tender of them in Sickness and sad Accidents to Provide for their Instruction and take special Care that they be taught their Duty especially such Things as are Necessary to be known for the Good of their Souls and which their everlasting Salvation may be promoted by The Duty of Servants is to Honour and fear their Masters with regard to this Relation between them whatsoever they may be or how little soever they may deserve such Deference in any other respects To obey them Faithfully and Diligently to be true to their Trust to serve not only in Appearance and while the Master's Eye is upon them but Sincerely Seriously and Cordially out of a Principle of Conscience and without the least mixture of Hypocrisie and Dissimulation To sow no Discord or foment Jealousies and Discontents in the Family to keep Secrets not to turn Whisperers or Hearkeners or busie Bodies not divulging what is done at Home to the Prejudice of their Master but advancing his Interest and vindicating his Reputation as well as assisting and defending his Person so far as lies in their Power And indeed there are several very Noble and Generous and Brave Instances upon Record of eminent Things done by Servants for their Masters nay some of them have gone so far as to hazard their own for the saving their Masters Life or the doing Right to their Honour CHAP. XVI Duty of Princes and Subjects COncerning Princes and their Dignity the Different Measures of their Power the Humors to which this Elevation disposes them the Miseries and Inconveniences of so important a Trust we have had Occasion to speak already in the Forty Sixth Chapter of the First Book as we likewise have done very largely in the Second and Third of this Book concerning their Duty and how they ought to Govern But all this notwithstanding we will just touch upon the main Strokes and general Heads of their Business in this Place
this Sense of the Word three several ways and a different sort of Behaviour is requir'd from Subjects with regard to each of them First he may be so by violating the Laws of God and Nature acting contrary to the establish'd Religion of his Country the express Commands of God or the Native Liberty of Men's Consciences In this Case we must by no means obey him according to the Maxims laid down in Holy Scripture that We ought to obey God rather than Men and to fear Him who hath power over the whole Man more than Him who hath power over one part of the Man only and that the less and more inconsiderable part of him too But then if we can have no Relief by Law or Justice we must not have Recourse to Violence which is the contrary Extreme to a sinful Compliance but keep the middle Way which is to flee or to suffer The Second Case is not quite so bad as the former because it offers no Violence to the Consciences of Men but to their Bodies and Estates only by abusing his Subjects resusing to do them Justice taking away the Liberty of their Persons and the Property of their Estates And here the three Duties mention'd before Honour and Obedience good Wishes and Prayers ought still to be paid with Patience and Submission and a Sense and Acknowledgment of the Wrath of God let loose upon them in this Scourge of an Unjust Prince For there are Three Considerations fit to be attended to upon such Occasions One is That all Power is of God and he that resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God * Principi summum Rerum judicium Dii dederunt Subditis obsequii gloria relicta est Bonos Principes voto expetere qualescunque tolerare The Gods says a very wise and judicious Heathen have committed the Supreme Judgment and last Determination of Humane Affairs to the Prince The Glory of Obedience is the Subject's Portion we must therefore wish and pray that we may have none but Good Princes but when we have them we must endure them whether they be Good or Bad. The Ground and formal Reason of our Obedience does not lie in the Consideration of their Personal Virtues or just and commendable Administration but in their Character and Superiority over us There is a vast difference between True and Good and he who is truly our Governour tho' he be not a good Governour is to be regarded as the Laws themselves are which bind us not upon the Account of their Justice or Convenience but purely upon the Account of their being Laws and having the Sanction that is requisite to give them Authority A Second Reflection upon this Occasion shou'd be That God permits Hypocrites and sets up wicked Men to bear Rule for the Sins of a People and in the Day of his fierce Anger He makes a barbarous unjust Prince the Instrument of his Vengeance and therefore This must be born with the same Temper of Mind with which we submit to other Calamities made use of by God for that Purpose †Quomodo Sterilitatem aut nimios Imbres caetera Naturae mala sic Luxum Avaritiam Dominantium tolerare Like a Blast or a Barren Year Inundations and excessive Rains or other Evils in the Course of Nature so shou'd the Avarice and Luxury of Princes be endur'd by those they oppress says Tacitus Instances of this kind we have in Saul and Nebuchadnezzar and several of the Roman Emperors before Constantine's Time and some others as wicked Tyrants as was possible for them to be and yet Good Men paid them these Three Duties notwithstanding and were commanded so to do by the Prophets and Preachers of those Times in Agreement to our Great Master the Oracle of Truth it self who directs his Disciples to obey those that sat in Moses's Chair tho' in the same Breath he charges those very Governours with Wickedness and Cruelty with binding heavy Burdens Matt. xxiii and laying upon Men's Shoulders more than cou'd be born The Third Case concerns the State in general when the very Fundamentals of Government are endeavour'd to be torn up or over-turn'd when he goes about to change or to take away the Constitution as if for Instance a Prince wou'd make that which is Elective Hereditary or from an Aristocracy or Democracy or any other such mixt Government wou'd engross all to himself and make it an Absolute Monarchy or in any other Case like or equivalent to these shall attempt to alter the State from what it was formerly and ought to continue In this Case Men may and ought to withstand him and to hinder any such Attempts from taking place upon them and That either by Methods of Legal Justice or otherwise For a Prince is not the Master and Disposer of the Constitution but the Guardian and Conservator of it But then This must be done regularly too for the setting such Matters right does not belong to all the Subjects indifferently but to those who are the Trustees of the State or have the Principal Interest in it Who these are the Constitutions of the respective Countries must determine In Elective Kingdoms the Electors in others the Princes of the Blood In Republicks and those Places which have Fundamental Laws the States-General assembled And This I conceive to be the only Case which can justifie Subjects in resisting a Tyrant in this Second Sense of the Word with regard to the Exercise of his Power and the Pretence of Male-Administration What I have hitherto deliver'd upon this last Case is meant of Subjects that is of Those who are not permitted in any Circumstances or upon any Provocation to attempt any thing against their Sovereign of Them I say who are by the Laws declar'd guilty of a Capital Crime if they shall but Counsel or compass or so much as imagine the Death of their King And if so much be allowable to Men under these Obligations and Penalties then no doubt it is lawful nay it is highly commendable and a glorious Action in a Stranger or Foreign Prince to take up Arms for the Defence and Revenge of a whole Nation labouring under unjust Oppression To redress their Wrongs and deliver them from the heavy Yoke of Tyranny as we find Hercules in his Time and afterwards Dion and Timoleon and not long since Tamerlane Prince of the Tartars who defeated Bajazet the Turkish Emperor at the Siege of Constantinople Such is the State of a Subject's Duty to his Prince during his Life-time but when Princes are dead it is but an Act of Justice to examine into their Actions It is indeed a Customary thing so to do and a very reasonable and useful Custom no doubt it is The Nations that observe it find mighty Benefit from this Practice and all good Princes will have reason to encourage and desire it because thus that common Complaint wou'd be quite taken away that all Princes are treated alike and
and faithful Transcript from the Original an Interpreter and Executor of his Master's Will to see that this be duly declared and diligently observed By this Will I mean the Law for this is the Authentick Will of the Prince and the only Declaration of it which Subjects are bound to take notice of Of this the Magistrate is to exact a faithful Account and punctual Observance for which reason we often find him termed by Authors The Living and the Speaking Law Now though it be the Duty of a Magistrate and an excellent Qualification in him to temper Justice with Prudence and Severity with Gentleness and Forbearance yet it must be confessed much more for the common Advantage to have such Magistrates as incline to the excess of Sharpness and Rigour than those who are dispos'd to Mildness and Easiness and Compassion For even God himself who so highly recommends so strictly enjoyns all those humane and soft Dispositions upon other Occasions yet positively forbids a Judge to be moved with Pity The Strict and Harsh Magistrate is the better Restraint the stronger Curb He contains People in Bounds and preserves a due Awe and Obedience of the Laws The Mild and Merciful One exposes the Laws to Contempt makes Magistracy cheap and lessens the Prince who made both the Law and the Magistrate in the Eyes and Esteem of his People In one word There must go two Qualifications to the Capacitating a Man for the discharging this Office compleatly Integrity and Courage The first cannot subsist alone but stands in need of the second to support and back it The former will be sure to keep the Magistrate's Hands clean from Avarice and Partiality and Respect of Persons from Bribery and Gifts which are the Bane and utter Exterminators of Truth and from any other violation of Justice which Plato calls what indeed it ought to be a Pure Unblemished Virgin This will also be a Guard to him against his Passions the Aversions or the Affection he may bear to the Parties concerned and indeed all other Resentments which are but so many Enemies and Underminers of Right and Equity But then he will find great occasion for Courage too to stand his ground against the Menaces and Imperious Sollicitations of Great Men the Requests and Importunities of Friends who fansie they have a sort of Right to dispose of him and will not take a reasonable Resusal To harden him against the Prayers and Tears the loud Cries and bitter Complaints of the Miserable and Afflicted for all these are very moving and forcible inducements a great Violence upon Reason and Duty and yet so committed that there is a plausible appearance of both in the very Diversion they labour to give us from both And the truth is this firmness and inflexible Constancy of Mind is the most masterly Virtue and particular Excellence of a Magistrate that he neither be terrified and subdued by Greatness and Power nor melted by Miseries and deplorable Circumstances These are what very brave Men are often transported by and therefore it is the greater Praise to continue Proof against them For though being softned by the latter have an Air of Good-nature and is more likely to prevail upon the Better sort of Men yer either of the Extreams is sinful and both forreign to the merits of the Cause which is the only thing that lies upon the Judge The Motives to Pity then are very dangerous Temptations and what a Man in Authority ought as much to stop his Ears against as Promises or Threatnings for even that God himself who is Love and Mercy in Persection hath discountenanced this unseasonable Compassion And the same Legislator who said Thou shalt not receive a Gift to blind thine Eyes therewith neither shalt thou accept the Person of the Mighty found it no less necessary for the Good of Mankind and the equal Distribution of Justice no less agreeable to his own Goodness to add that other Command Thou shalt not favour a Poor Man in his Cause CHAP. XVIII The Duty of Great and of Mean Men. THE Duty of Persons of Honour and Quality consists principally in these two Points The lending a strong and powerful Assistance to the Publick employing their Wealth their Interest their Blood in the Maintenance and Preservation of Piety and Justice of the Prince and the Government and in general of the common safety and advantage For they are the Pillars and Supporters upon which these noble Structures stand and by which they must be sustained The other Branch consists in being a mighty Defence and Protection to the Poor and Needy the Injured and Oppressed by interposing their Power on the behalf of such standing between Them and Ruin and giving a Check and Diversion to the Violence of wicked and unreasonable Men. Persons of Honour in a State should be like the Spirits and good Blood in our Bodies which always run to the wounded and the ailing part It was this that rendered Moses so proper to be made the Captain of the Israelitish Nation and the Scripture takes express notice of his Zeal in revenging the Injuries of one of his Brethren who suffered Wrong Act. 7. and slaying the insolent Aegrptian as a Sign that God had Marked him out for a Deliverer of his People Thus Hercules was Deisted among the Heathens for being a Scourge to the Cruelty of Tyrants and a Refuge to those that were Oppress'd and opprobriously Treated by them And those other renouned Names in Antiquity who followed his Example have always been looked upon as Heroes and something more than Men. Particular Honours and distinguishing Rewards were heretofore awarded to all such as to Persons who deserved exceeding well of the Publick and for an Intimation That no Character is more glorious none more attractive of Universal Admiration and profound Respect than that of being a Succour to the Afflicted and Abused and helping those who were in no condition of helping themselves It is by no means true Greatness to appear formidable to any part of Mankind except one's Enemies only The affectation to have others stand in Awe and Dread and to Tremble before one is a mean and pitiful Temper and at the same time that it renders the Man a Terrour it renders him an Odium too a publick Nuisance and a common Enemy Love in this case is more desirable than even Adoration could be without it Such imperious Men betray a fierce and haughty a proud and assuming Disposition This is it which makes them so Contumelious and Disdainful scorning their Inseriours as if they were no better than the Dross and Dung of the World and not Men of the same Nature with their own Great Selves From hence by degrees they degenerate into Barbarity and Insolence abusing all beneath them without the least Pity or Remorse enslaving their Persons invading their Properties and Possessions as if Humanity and Justice were intended only for the Benefit of them who need it least and as if they
had no right to any thing who cannot right themselves All this is infinitely distant from true Greatness and utterly inconsistent with Generosity and a Noble Mind for these never dispose a Man to Cruelty or Contempt but are a Safeguard and Defence and delight in Offices of Courtesie and Condescension of Charity and Mercy The Duty of Mean and Inseriour Persons towards those that are above them is likewise Two-fold First That of Honour and Respect and this not confined meerly to the outward Behaviour and the visible Marks of a Ceremonious distance which is due upon the account of their Quality and Rank in the World considered abstractedly and by it self Be they in themselves what they will in other respects their Virtues or their Vices make no difference in the Case But there is likewise an internal Honour the real Esteem and Affection of the Heart which must constantly attend and put forward the other if they be deserving Persons and lovers of the publick Good Honour and Esteem are therefore capable of very dirserent Senses They are both due to such as are Good for such indeed are all that are truly Great Men. To those who want this substantial Character of Quality we must pay the Civilities of the Cap and the Knee our Bodies may and ought to bow to them but our Hearts cannot for this is done only by paying them our Love and Esteem The other part of this Duty consists in endeavouring to please and be in their good Graces by respectful and voluntary Tenders of our Service To please the Great is not the smallest Praise Creech and putting * Principibus placuisse viris non ultima laus est Horat. Fp. 17. our selves under the shelter of their Protection However if we cannot make them our Friends we should be sure to take care that they may not be our Enemies which Care too must be as Prudent as it is Necessary and rightly tempered with Moderation and Diseretion For nothing is more nauseous than a Cringing Fawning Coxcomb and excessive Officiousness does more harm than good He that declines the Displeasure of a great Man with too sollicitous a Caution or tries to wriggle into his favour by impertinent and unseasonable Addresses does not only discover his own weakness and despicable littleness of Soul but he likewise ministers just occasion of Jealousie and Offence and secretly accuses his Patron of Cruelty or Injustice And therefore what is done of this kind must be unseen and by the by †Non ex professo cavere aut fugere nam quem quis fugit damnut He must not make it his profest Business to decline and keep out of the way of his anger for no Man avoids another who does not in his own Breast condemn and think ill of him at the same time But besides this too anxious and constrained way of making our Court may have another very untoward Effect For if the Person be disposed to do ill and delight to be feared it may be a Temptation to him to Exercise his Power to our prejudice For many times Men take a Pride to crush and insult over the fearful and suspicious and mean unworthy Submissions do but provoke a more extravagant and remorseless Barbarity OF FORTITUDE The Third Cardinal Virtue THE two Virtues which have been insisted upon hitherto are a Rule to Men considered as Members of Society and regard their Deportment and Conversation their Interests and Obligations with Others These two that follow are to govern them within and for themselves They look upon Fortune in her two different Aspects Prosperity and Adversity which are general Terms for all the good or ill Accidents of humane Life and the provision made against them is to arm the Mind by Fortitude against Adversity and in Prosperity to balast and moderate it by Temperance Both these Virtues might indeed be comprehended under the general notion of Constancy which is a tight and even firmness or steadiness of Soul in all manner of outward Accidents or Occurrences so that the Man is neither elevated and transported upon the account of Prosperity nor dejected and disheartened from any Adversity that befalls him CHAP. XIX Of Fortitude in General COurage for so indeed this Virtue ought to be called rather than Fortitude is a right and strong Resolution an equal and uniform steadiness of Mind by which we are enabled to encounter Danger and Difficulty and Pain so that the proper Object and true Matter about which this Virtue is conversant is in general any thing that humane Infirmity is apt to start at or be terrified by Thus Seneca describes it a Quality * Timendorum contemptrix quae terribilia sub jugum libertatem nostram mittentia despicit provocat frangit that despises all things in their own nature formidable that challenges and conquers the cause of our Fears and such as enslave and subdue the native Liberty of the Soul This is of all other Virtues the Gallantest and most Noble and hath always been held in highest Honour and Esteem The Excellence whereof was so rightly apprehended by the Latins Virtus that they gave it the Title of Virtue by way of Singularity and Eminence It is of all others the hardest to be attained the most pompous and splendid and produces the greatest and most illustrious Fruits Magnanimity and Patience Constancy and invincible Perseverance and the rest of that Heroick Catalogue of Godlike Excellencies are all contained under it For which Reason Men greedy of Fame have oftentimes not only entertained Calamities gladly but have even courted and eagerly sought out Hardships and Dangers to gain thereby the greater opportunities of exercising it and exerting themselves It is an impregnable Bulwark a compleat Armour tempered and proved †Munimentum imbecillitatis humanae inexpugnabile quod qui circumdedit sibi securus in hâc vitae obsidione perdurat The Fortification behind which bumane nature lies securely intrenched and he who hath cast up this work about him holds out the siege of Life and can never be taken or dismantled But now in regard that this Matter is not rightly understood and many false Pretenders to this Virtue are set up which are not really of the right Line It may not be amiss to expatiate a little more upon the true Nature of Fortitude and in so doing to discover and reject the vulgar Errours concerning it We will therefore observe four Conditions which are all of them requisite to the forming of this Virtue and if what would pass for such be desective in any one of them That we may be sure is counterfeit and of a Bastard Race As first of all True Courage is universal that is it makes a brave stand against every kind of Difficulty and Danger without distinction and this shews us the mighty mistake of confining this notion of Courage to Military Valour only That indeed gains Esteem with the generality of People because it makes more Shew
Conclusion is this That whatsoever Sacrifices were offered before that time they must necessarily be of Man 's own Devising since we have the Testimony of God declaring in very solemn manner that they were not of His Appointment The Texts insisted upon to this purpose are those two Isaiah I. 11 12. To what purpose is the Multitude of your Sacrifices unto me saith the Lord I am full of the Burnt-Offerings of Rams and the Fat of fed Beasts and I delight not in the Blood of Bullocks or of Lambs or of He-goats when ye come to appear before me who hath required this at your hands to tread my Courts The Other Jerem VII 21 22. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Put your Burnt-offerings unto your Sacrifices and eat Flesh For I spake not unto your Fathers nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning Burnt offerings or Sacrifices Now any One who considers the Occasion of these Passages will find that both of them are intended for a Reproof to the Hypocrisy of the Jews and a Check to that Confidence they reposed in those Ritual Performances though void of that real Devotion and inward Purity which alone was acceptable to God The Context in each place manifestly proves this to have been their design and the want of Comparative degrees in the Hebrew Language wâ—â— suffer no great stress to be laid upon the Negative Form of speech That known instance quoted by our Blessed Lord I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice Matth. IX 13. XII 7. from Hosea VI. 6. is Key sufficient to these before us and can warrant our concluding only thus much from them That God prefers substantial Holiness infinitely before these things that Obedience was That Thing he always required and Sacrifices being in reality but so many professions of That were not properly to be look'd upon as Essential Duties wherein the Israelites part of the Covenant consisted that These were by no means what he aimed at in admitting them to Covenant with himself and consequently when destitute of their Substance and End were empty and insignificant of no account with God and not a Worshipping him but to speak plainly and truly what he very emphatically and contemptuously calls a Treading his Courts I add too that this Text of Jeremiah cannot possibly be taken in a strict and literal Sense since it is manifest God did speak to their Fathers in the very day that he brought them out of Egypt concerning one Sacrifice the Passeover I mean Deut. XVI 1 5 6. 1 Cor. V. 8. which though a Feast yet is it frequently termed a Sacrifice too and therefore some Interpreters here have taken refuge in restraining that Text to Sin-Offerings and Peace Offerings and not extending it to Sacrifices at large 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Zabach LoTizbach which yet will not answer their purpose since the very same Hebrew word which Jeremy makes use of is twice together applied to the Passover by Moses Deut XVI 5 6. II. A Second Argument is drawn from Cain and Abel Offering each the product of his own Labours respectively which makes it probable that such Oblations were the product of a grateful Mind dictating to them that God ought to have some acknowledgment and return made him for his Benefits Now that Nature might inform Men of a Duty incumbent upon them to Worship God and the Common Notions of Gratitude put them upon applying part of their Substance to the Honour and Service of Him who gave the whole Men find easy to apprehend But the difficulty is How Nature should inspire Men with a Thought that Burning this by Fire or otherwise ordering it as the Custom of Sacrificers was is a proper Method of expressing their Honour for and Gratitude to God Again Had Sacrifices been a dictate of Nature How came they ever to be Abolished since the Natural is part of that Law which our Saviour came not to destroy but to perfect and fulfill Mat. V. 17. This Inconvenience Dr. Outram was sensible of and therefore he makes a distinction between the First and Eternal Dictates and Laws of Nature and other Institutions and Ordinances in pursuance of and agreement with those Whether this be sufficient to clear the Difficulty I leave the Reader to judge and for that purpose I have presented him with the whole Passage in the * Id unum hoc in loco monere visum est hos qui suâ cujusque sponte primò Sacrificatum judicant etiamsi fortè quibusdam in locis incautius loqus videantur hunc tamen Sacrificandi ritum ad Natura Leges proprtè dictas aeternas utique immutabiles non referre sed ad ejusmodt Instituta quae Ratio Naturalis excogitaverit tanquam ad conspicuum Dei cultum apta satis idonea Prius illud si qui fecerint ex eo falsi arguuntur quòd Christus Sacrificandi ritus apud Veteres olun usitacos penitus apud Suos delevit qui idem tamen tantum abfuit ut ullas aboleret Naturae Leges ut has omnes Authoritate suâ ratas certas ac firmas fecerit Outram de Sacrif Lib. I. Cap. 1. Sect. IV. Margin One thing only I desire may be observed which is That this Argument of what force soever it may prove for Sacrifices of Thanks yet can give no Countenance at all to Those of any Other Sort and particularly not to the Expiatory which Monsieur Charron hath chiefly regard to if not to them alone in this place III. A Third Reason is taken from the great Design God seems to have had in the Legal Sacrifices That of containing the Israelites within the Worship of One God and in order to it condescending so far to their Infirmities and the Infection they had taken from the Idolatry of Egypt as to conform their Worship and Rites to those of the Heathen World Now it is not to be denied but this seem to have been the Case and probably the best account why such particular Rites were instituted but to make the Argument effectual we must enquire how those Heathen came by Their Sacrifices and Ceremonies For That may be a very good and rational Explanation of the Mosaic Institution which is not a sufficient account of the Patriarchal Religion And in the Sequel of this Discourse my Reader will find occasion to consider whether there were not another End to be served by the Sacrifices both Patriarchal and Levitical which mere Nature could not attain to and therefore a Positive Institution was necessary for the promoting it IV. It may be said Fourthly That as God left the first Ages of the World to the Dictates of Nature and right Reason in the Discovery and Practice of Moral Duties so it is most likely they were left to the same Guidance for the exercise of Religion too and if any Notions and Ceremonies grew common upon this occasion not so agreeable to