them their error and to fight them with the Weapons wherewith they maintain their Principles For if Death be inevitable if there be no Altars of protection against her Arrests if no man have been yet able to secure himself from her and if that by which we live be the means of our Death why are we so much afraid of it And why do we afflict our selves for the suffering of a pain for which Nature hath no remedy We are born under this Law we came into the world to go out of it our Ancestors have beaten the Road and all those who shall come after us will find themselves bound to suffer the punishment of their first Fathers offence Who is not moved with compassion to see Lewis XI when affrighted with the horror of Death he courts the Physicians he promiseth them mountains of Gold to reform his temper and by excessive presents engaged them to give him length of years For as if Divine Providence had forsaken him and that his days had been in the hands of Men he summoned the Hermits from the Forrests and conjured them to request the continuation of his Health by their Prayers and without taking care to amend his Life he only chargeth them with the preservation thereof Sometimes being utterly void of all heavenly confidence he shuts himself up in his Closet causeth all avenues to be stopt the doors to be barracadoed the windows to be close shut and as if Death had not been able to pierce the place of his Retreat he converted his Pallace into a Prison Unhappy man what art thou afraid of is it not what thou must one day undergo Why art thou affrighted at that which is in thy power not to be troubled at Chace from thy Soul this Panick fear resign thy self to Gods Will forgo this vain superstition that renders thee guilty before him and then shalt thou see that thy departure may become an offering to expiate thy offences that Death is but the way of Life and that thou mayst be eternally happy for having generously despised it Though Nature have brought forth nothing into the world that is to endure to eternity though all her workmanship be condemned to dissolution and though all that we behold is but for a few days nevertheless we may say that nothing is totally lost that her labours are rather extinguisht than annihilated and that Death doth not so much determine as interrupt them If the Summer pass away if the Sun retire from our Horizon if the Flowers forsake their Beds and if in our Fields we see no remains of the Vintage and Harvest another year restores them to us and all those Beauties which we look upon as vanisht recover and renew the Face of the Earth by the same means which seemed to have caused their annihilation If Winter steal away if the Snow dissolve and leave bare the tops of our Houses if the Frost cease to harden our Rivers and if the North-wind forbear to shake our Buildings it comes again after a little time and his Months though departed for a while fail not to return to make good his season If darkness prevail upon the light if night hide the Sun from us and if its obscurity keep Earths Beauties from our Eyes the day following causeth the shaddows to flee away and makes us restitution of the Lights which the precedent darkness had deprived us of The Stars which are never at rest which are in perpetual motion and rowl continually over our heads hasten to the point from whence they departed and reassume their Course by the same degrees by which they began their Motions It is with Man as with other Creatures he dies to live again the parts of which he is composed return to their principle as his Body descends to the Earth his Soul mounts to Heaven and escaping her Prison she flies unclog'd to her original Neither do we see any but impious or criminal persons that fear this separation and look upon it as their most rigorous punishment wherewith Divine Justice can chastise them they tremble when they are told of Death they dread the judgments of God which they have despised and are unwilling to leave the Earth because they do not hope to reign in Heaven But just men look on Death without Fear they submissively expect it and wish for it as the ease of their miseries they calmly prepare for it and knowing it to be the Sepulchre of Vice and the Cradle of Vertue they cease not to supplicate the arrival of their change They know by Faith that the World is but a place of banishment that Heaven is their native Country and that they shall one day be called home to receive the reward of their Labours Descend into those solitudes of the ancient Anchorites and you shall there find the examples of this truth there you shall see men who are continually employed in the contemplation of Death who think only upon the day in which they shall be discharged from the Earth who expect it with joy and convert the most dreadful of our punishments into their ordinary imployments Break into their Cells there you shall find them who are loaden with Irons who having their flesh torn with the Whip lean with fasting weakened with watching wish for the end of their Life and like those generous Athletes or Wrestlers of old offer Combat to obtain Death the recompence of their Valor and Courage But waving these Christian Sentiments and to return to Philosophical Arguments I do not well apprehend why we are so much afraid of Death since it brings us so much advantage and that putting an end to our days it makes us infinitely happy or renders us uncapable of further offences For if we have lived as vertuous persons if we have not misspent the time given us for the working out of our Salvation and if we have well employed the moments of our Life why are we unwilling to be taken from it and why desire we not rather to lose it since Death by which it is determined is the passage to a blessed Eternity But if we have gone astray from our duty and if we have been Prodigals of our time why seek we to prolong it and to augment the number of our sins by the extension of our years If we are innocent let us not fear to appear before the Judg and if we are guilty let us not take it in evil part that Heaven calls us from the Earth and taking from us the means of farther Crimes prevents the increase of our Creator's Anger It is to be ignorant of our own condition to fancy that Death is a cruel thing and not to look upon it rather as a favor than a grief of Nature For be it that she give date to the happiness of the just be it that she finish the miseries of the afflicted be it that she give the aged a long day of payment be it that
a Brazen Sky Our Country is that place where we live contented our felicity depends on us and not on our habitation and it is to little purpose to drive us from the Land of our Nativity since into what Coast soever we are carried we bear about us our Vertue which ought to make all our Happiness A Prison seemeth to have something more vexations than Banishment For besides that this deprives us of the advantages of Nature that it is the general Residence of Darkness that it shuts out the Sun Beams and that the light enters not but at the Grates and sighing holes it debars us of Liberty it tumbleth us alive into the Grave and makes us as Exiles in the midst of our own Country The Lawyers confound Imprisonment with Exile and put no difference between the time that we spend in the Dungeon and that which is wasted in Banishment Mean while that which makes others unfortunate is no incommodity to a Wise man His mind never suffers restraint and as he lives content in Solitude he remains at liberty in Prison The Walls which enclose his Body the Chains by which he is fastned to a corner of the Goal cannot limit his Soul He is free whilest his Companion is a Slave and without clearing the Gates that enclose him he takes his advantage to escape into all parts of the World As in his freedom he loaths Voluptuousness he laughs at Pain in Servitude and he careth little into what place they put him since he demands not to have his Portion here upon Earth That which afflicts the weak and makes a Prison so odious to persons of honour is because it is infamous because it passeth in the conceit of Men for Satans habitation the abode of evil Spirits where his family recides and that letting the innocent go free they fancy that none but the unfortunate and miserable are there left behind But all these words ought not to affright us for if we be true Christians let us go in boldly let us prepare our selves to fight with a Tyrant even in his own house and to trample under foot an Usurper who is not less an Enemy to the Just than to the wicked If the hole into which we are thrust be the Possession of Darkness let our Vertue serve us for a Light let our Patience bruise the Fetters let our inward sweet smell expel the Stenches of the place and let our innocence triumph over the rigour of the Goalers We trade well when we gain by our Commerce when our profits exceed our losses and when adventuring some vain pleasures of this life we exchange them for solid and eternal Joys It is really true that the Guard about us those Fetters with which they load our Bodies and the Dungeons in which they bury us alive are advantageous to us they attract us from the Earth they are the Ladders by which our thoughts climbe into Heaven they give us there the contemplation of Divine things and insensibly pour into us Charity with knowledge They do what Providence daily performs in the World and as she gives cessation to the labours of Mortals by the sweet refreshments of night they allay our miseries by the consideration of the rewards they work for us In fine a Prison restoreth to the Soul that which by violence it takes from the Body The liberty of the one ariseth from the servitude of the other as it causeth our sufferings it begins our health and stripping us of the delights of the Earth it leaves us only the desires of Heaven But if the Prisoners be not attended with all comforts yet ought they not to be much afflicted A Prison hath nothing but what may be born with if it have its Shame it hath also its Glory and if it have incommodities that cause it to be hated it hath advantages which have rendred it desirable Some Philosophers have made it the habitation of the Muses they stiled it a Wise mans retirement there they composed the most Excellent of their Works and as if it had been a Schoole they there taught their Disciples Vertue unfortunate men Constancy and their Oppressors Mercy it was there that Anaxagoras studied the Square of the Circle by which he put the greatest Artists to a Nonplus and proved by Reason what they could never demonstrate by Experience It was there that Boetius writ his Consolations by which he shews that it is God that sends afflictions that Philosophy is a proper Remedy and that that which came from so just a Hand could not be offensive but to such as were without hope of reward It was there that St. Paul preached the Gospel that he writ the greatest part of his Epistles that he confuted both the Jews and the Gentiles and proved to all the World that we cannot enter into Glory but through the straight Gate of affliction In fine it is there that we may learn to be sober to be contented with what we have to retrench our selves of superfluous things to contemn Earthly benefits and by a generous violence to prepare for those Mansions where the unfortunate shall be happy the innocent at rest and the Captives free Discourse IV. That Pity and Envy are Enemies to Wisdom AS we see nothing in the world purely simple that all we find there hath a mixture that the Pleasure we tast in it is mingled with pain and that the highest of human Felicity is always attended with troubles and disquiet As there is hardly any compleat Vertue upon Earth as the most excellent have their defects the most enlightened their mists the most innocent their faults and the most couragious their weaknesses it must not be wondered that Vice doth so often deceive us in its appearance and that assuming a proportion of its contrary qualities it needs only a little outward shew to represent it self glorious we magnifie Ambition because she apeth Generosity because she despiseth Dangers affronteth Death and to gain a piece of Earth makes little of all those laborious toyls which give exercise to Valor We esteem Prodigality because it opposeth Covetousness because it claimeth kindred of Liberality and gives largely without hope of reward We pay reverence to the Dissimulation of Politicians because it hath an affinity with Prudence because it hides our Designs covers our Anger and waits for the day of Vengeance We honour Compassion because it resembles Charity because she takes the Prisoners out of the Dungeon comforts the distressed and without any consideration of their merits relieves equally the innocent and the guilty All the Orators have given her Elogies they make her the Vertue of Princes they have lifted up her head above her Companions and do assure us that if Valor and Justice made Kings great it was Compassion that rendred them worthy of our admiration Nothing likens you so much unto the Gods saith Cicero speaking to Cesar as your Compassion your Clemency makes you his Image and if your
pay then in them to whom they are paid But vertue that 's within him she is the only advantage he possesseth and if we may use the words of Senecas Enemies to confirm this Truth she is the sole benefit that will not forsake him when he hath lost his Children when death hath ravisht his friends when ruin hath defaced his pleasant Seats and when oppression or Tyranny hath seized his revenues What ever belongs not to him is Subject to loss Philosophy allows nothing to be permanent but the possession of this that Fortune which bruiseth Scepters in the hands of Kings spares her Empire and this blind fantastick which takes pleasure in reducing the Gods of the Earth to the condition of the meanest Bondmen hath not yet bin able to make her miserable But as she is the whole felicity of her Lovers she wills that they be satisfyed with her delights only and permits them not by courting of outward appearances to turn those things which may divert her Love into objects of their affections To speak truely all the things which we love with so much Passion have nothing of certainty but the miseries that attend them the toil and labours we undergo to obtain them the fear of their loss after such troublesome acquisition the cares we employ to secure them the grief we resent when they are taken from us are not so much the evidence of our wants as of their own Malignity and it is not less easie to resolve whether poverty with its incommodities be more supportable then abundance with all its inseparable torments But Vertue is a benefit as solid as delightful her favors are above Fortunes reach and although she despise the wealth of the avaricious the Pride of the ambitious and the pastimes of the incontinent she doth nevertheless satisfy the desires of all her real Suitors She is their happiness as well as their glory the excellency of Vertue needs no off-sets and she is so jealous of her Lovers that she will not admit their addresses to any thing else when once they have chosen her for their Mistress For if she alone make not a Wise man happy and if any thing else can be found in Nature to dispute her title and quality who should resolve to love her since a Man must often put himself in great hazard to obtain her who would be faithful to her since she rejects what we esteem and cannot inrich us but by teaching us to be poor Those alliances which are so essential to Governments to preserve them in peace and so useful to Families to maintain their concord would be burthensome to Men if any doubt could be put upon that Principle of Vertue the Shepheards would drive her from their Huts as well as Kings from their Court and remembring that friendships are often contracted by the loss of the goods of the Body and of Fortune they would cast off a Vertue that instead of procuring them Benefits strips them naked strength would be odious to Conquerors she who hath so often trampled upon the subdued world might complain of the want of assistants and though she be powerful enough to attract admirers few would be encouraged to fight Battels or attack the Enemy at the hazard of their Lives and Fortunes Gratitude would be vexatious if we were to exercise it at the loss of our Estates and she who teacheth us that it is more glory to give then to receive would cease to be our delight if opinion could perswade us that that which we return is part of the good deed that we must beggar our selves to make satisfaction to the good offices of a friend and that the same Vertue which raised us that friend is not sufficient to acknowledg his favors But to stay no longer about raising the price of Vertue above the goods of the Body and of Fortune who sees not that Man is too generous a Creature to lodg his felicity in such perishable commodities and which cannot establish him in their possession without making him the most unhappy of all created beings For if he believe that to live contented he must feed himself with delicate Meats and seek wherewith to awaken his dull appetite in the diversity of Messes the Beasts that brouze the Grass of the Field will in nothing give way to him they eat with more delight then he they tast the superfluities of the Earth with more pleasure then do the Gourmandizers of Ragousts and admirable sauces and that hunger which seldom forsakes them makes all they eat delightful If he will imagin that to be happy he must swim in fleshly delights and turn voluptuousness top-side-turvy to find matter wherewith to divert his sensualities the Savage Creatures have the advantage of him and take in pleasure with more delight then he The use they make of it is not seconded with repentance or shame and as their desires are more regular then ours they perform the acts of nature without weakning themselves and beget their like scarce loosing any of their own substance But if man will place his glory in the perfections of his Body and will conclude that the benefit of his senses contributeth to his felicity he will be constrained to acknowledg that the irrational Creatures are therein more excellent then he The sight is more peircing in Eagles the tast more faithful in Monkies the feeling more delicate in Spiders and the smell more certain in the Vulture To make Judgment then of the dignity of a Man the way is not to enquire if he ransack Sea and Land to adorn his Table if his Meats be curioussy Cooked if he be served in Gold and Crystal and if all the Objects that knock at the doors of his senses afford him delight If he can sum up Princes for his kindred and Alliances if he be Commander of divers Countries if he be as potent at Court as powerful in his own House and if his name be no less famous abroad then among his Neighbours But whether he be Vertuous whether the purity of his Conscience be the effect of that chearfullness which appeareth in his countenance and whether he hath not any affections but what are conformable to Nature and Reason These two guides are so faithful that he cannot stray by following them and that Vertue which they lead us to is of her self so rich that the possession of her is alone sufficient to vie advantages with the Nobility Empires with Monarchs Wealth with avaricious persons and pleasures with voluptuous Men. For it is she that draws us towards our Maker that restores us to our Ancient Dignities that leads to the Principle from whence we proceeded and that after we have learned to be his Imitators here upon Earth will make us his Friends in Heaven Discourse VII That the Moral Vertues of the Heathen are not Criminal NOthing is more Natural to man then the desire of knowledg it is the first Passion that Occupies his Soul Fooles are
she violently seize the Infant in the Cradle she becomes equally the end of all their Sorrows and as she is the remedy of the infirm and of the guilty she is generally the desire of the just and of the unfortunate But of so many persons as call her to their assistance she is not so much a friend to any as to those to whom she comes without call and whose miseries and apprehensions she anticipates The Earth hath few men that are not beholding to Death and who place her not rather amongst the number of their acquisitions than their losses For by her the slave is taken from under the cruel hand of his Master breaking the twine that fastened his Soul to his Body she gives him a dispensation of his oath of fidelity it is she that sets the Prisoners at large and who knocking off their Irons gives their freedom in despite of their malicious Oppressors it is she that shews the banisht persons the ready way to return to their own Country that teacheth them that they have no abiding place here upon Earth and that it matters not much to what part of the world they be confined since she brings them back to the place from whence they came In fine it is she who fortifies the faint hearted against their misfortunes who laughs at the cruelty of Princes and who constraineth us to believe that the Life we love is a punishment since that which gives it a period puts an end to all our miseries Caius Caligula being Master of this Secret and who had learnt by divers Murthers that Death past for a favor amongst the unfortunate granted it only to his friends he that obtained it must be reconciled to him and Seneca observed that it was not so much an effect of his Rigor as of his Bounty to be put to Death in the time of his Reign He would have thought himself ignorant of the Fundamentals of Tyranny if he had chastised all men with one and the same punishment if he had not put a difference between persons if he had condemned the miserable to death and if he had preserved alive those who deemed themselves happy There were some men during his time that wisht for Death as a favor and desired to be bereaved of Life that they might be no longer Witnesses of his horrible wickedness Caninius Julius received the Sentence of Death with Joy he returned the Emperor thanks for it in the midst of the Senat and whether it were to reproach him of Cruelty or that he would blame the Cowardise of his Compatriots he let him see that Death was not so terrible since it was possible to despise it to avoid the sight of a barbarous Tyrant He knew it was no extraordinary priviledg for a Man to live that Vassals enjoy it as well as their Lords that the condition of Beasts in this point was equal to that of reasonable Creatures and that we must have had but small experience of the calamities of the World to fear what Children suffer without complaining mad men expect without concernment and what the afflicted receive with satisfaction Death hath nothing of Cruelty but opinion Philosophers have augmented our horror by the description of it they have increased our apprehensions in designing to prepare us for it and they have represented her frightful even by reasons that might well serve to enable us to support it Some have imagined that she was the greatest of all our evils because it was necessary that it was the chastisement wherewith the most famous Criminals were punisht and that it was not without cause that man had so much aversion for it since Natures most useless animals used so much indeavor to avoid or divert it Yet we know that Death touches us not but by depriving us of Sense it makes us incapble of suffering pain and in separating our Soul from our Body it makes us insensible of all evils The Epicureans who have vowed an inviolable fidelity to pleasure confess this Truth the Living feel it as little as those that rest in the Grave and as she offends not in the latter because they are deprived of Sense she toucheth not the former because they yet breath If all these Reasons cannot perswade the Peripateticks not to fear Death at least they will diminish their apprehensions of it and will oblige them to confess that Death hath nothing so terrible in it as they had represented her to themselves since an ordinary resolution will serve to endure or vanquish it Seneca who knew that it was a part of his Essence and as quantity which hath its extent and termination it was composed of Life and of Death he prepared to receive it at all times he lookt on each day as the last of his life and to use his own words he wisht for his Change to put an end to his miseries He saith in one Epistle which he writeth to Lucillus that he had been a long time prepared for it that he injoyed not Life but because he was ready to surrender it and that as he had prevented her arrival by his Vertue he could wait his dissolution without Fear and suffer it without Sorrow Discourse IV. That Despair is mixt with Cowardize fury and Injustice THe Love which man beareth to himself is so Just and the cares he carries about him for his own preservation are so reasonable that he may not forgo them without unhinging his frame nor be exempted from the Rules thereof without perverting the very Laws of Nature It is the end of all his actions the foundation of human Society and the principle of that strickt union observed between Lovers and Friends If Aristotle may be credited in this matter a man becomes sufficiently useful to his Neighbour from the time that he retains a Love for himself and being governed by the Rules of vertue stirs up others to practise them by his example From thence the Civilians assert that our will cannot be pure when it considereth a benefit that is out of our power that there is a self love in all our actions that interest is the life of our designs and that we care not to preserve or defend a publique good any further then it concerneth our own particular welfare The Souldier fights not for his native Countrey but because he hopes to secure what himself therein possesseth and as he is a member of that Body he fears his own ruin in the destruction of the Government The Merchant mounts not the threatning Seas but under the hopes of profit the Husbandman doth not cultivate the Earth but because he expects a happy Harvest of his Labours In fine man imitateth his maker in his Love he causeth all Creatures to serve his turn he cherisheth himself with delight he looks upon himself with respect and subduing all things to his mind he adoreth himself as a Diety Although this affection be as just as it is natural and cannot be
so much fixt to the Earth that her desires are limited there and her thoughts are so little generous that she seeks for no other goods but what our common Sense hath set a price upon The honour she pretends to is fickle and vain her Resolutions uncertain her Counsels dark and she passeth Judgment expertè If some times she have good intervals and being hurried by the vanity of the Objects which she pursueth she wing her self towards Heaven yet those agitations are so short and inconstant that they last but a few moments She is presently stagering if what she desireth agree not with our Flesh She gives the Title of Error to our choicest thoughts and pleasing her self with Novelty She soon rallies her Counselers and makes them appeal from their first advices But Reason is the Daughter of Heaven her Extraction augments her Excellence and if some Philosophers may be credited She is a proportion of Gods Essence an effusion of his being and an expression of his Greatness Trismegistus thought her formed of his Substance a Branch of the Diety and as the Sun shooteth forth his light without diminution of his Power God produced Reason from himself without weakening his Nature These bold words though they seem to destroy our Faith by which we know Reason to be a part of our Soul produced by time yet it cannot be denyed but that she is an Image of the Diety having the Characters of the Almighties greatness and that without thinking it Robbery she imitates those perfections that render Him onely worthy of Adoration They also which could not comprehend the adorable Mistery of the Incarnation who doubted whether the Divine Nature were compatible with ours and whether He that was begotten from all Eternity could become Man by time made no difficulty of apprehending that God allied Himself to our Soul by Reason and that he communicated daily with our Spirit by means of this His Image Indeed this production seemeth to be His legitimate Daughter since she hath so much share in his glorious qualities being Heiress of his perfections and bestowing upon our Souls the same Advantages which she hath received from her Father For besides that she representeth the plurality of His Persons by the Trinity of His powers and sheweth us without confusion the unity of His Nature in the division of the faculties whereof it is composed Reason makes her so unchangeable in goodness that she never forsakes her when once she hath owned her repentance never succeeds her wishes her Counsels are as just as her Designs and she is assured she shall keep her innocence so long as all her thoughts please her and that she consult her in all her undertakings So that Reason is the most excellent part of us her glory maketh all our felicity and a Philosopher said truely that if the Spirit were the Soul of the Body Reason was the Soul of our Spirit She is also the most Majestical part of the Soul and if any Philosophers were found so rash as to deprive her of that quality they might boast of having destroyed her by doing violence to themselves Those who value a Man by the abundance of his Treasures who Judg of his Blood by the long continued line of his Ancestors and place his good Fortune in the Beauty of his Mannors his gaudy Apparel and the number of his Servants and Slaves that surround him do plainly discover that they never knew Nature and that they have been ignorant that these gifts which they so much prize are favors that God for the most part vouchsafeth to his Enemies But to know well the Excellencies of a Man to proportion his esteem to his merit he must be viewed in his Shirt Strip him of all that Splendor that dazles our Eyes consider him without those Ornaments that set off his Body and press the plummet to the depth of him to be informed whether Reason hath preserved her priviledges in him if she have not suffered her self to be abused by common opinion if Passions have not deceived her and if she have not permitted Forraign Commodities to prejudice the Productions of her own Countrey to cheat her Subjects and debauch her Ministers I acknowledg with our Divines that Reason is weakened and conceiveth proud designs that her lights are darkened by Sin and that she is subject to illusions since her revolt against God I confess that the Soul since her disobedience is light in her undertakings and embraceth falshood for truth that she often sides with Vice and seldom takes part with Vertue To enlarge upon these defects and to add to her own disorders the Tyranny of her Body I do know that they agree not that this Earth plays the Rebel against the Sun that enlightens it and that overwhelming the Laws of Nature the Mistress becomes often the Captive of her Slave Briefly I know that in her operations she hath need of the Organs of this Tyrant seeing with his Eyes hearing with his Eares judging of the diversity of tastes by his Tongue and that she would be condemned to perpetual ignorance if these parties concerned undertook not to inform her of their knowledg of Colors of Sounds of the softness and hardness of Objects How be it these disorders destroy not her good inclinations She is undistracted in her misery the advantages she had in her innocence are not lost by her fall and although she be thought blind she can yet find out the Truth in the midst of sensual illusions She is so generous in all her Enterprizes that with a little Care to redress her she gives us fresh assurances of her fidelity those Remains of Light that are yet in her since the State of innocence put her in mind of her first Glories and although she be guilty she is yet righteous enough not to commit any thing unworthy of her Birth Her disobedience caused her submission She knows God after she hath offended him She emplores his aid when she remembers her contempt of his Commandments and as she findeth her self bound to restore what she hath robbed Him of she obligeth the Soul to acknowledg Him her only Soveraign The Messengers she sends abroad for forraign intelligence cannot deceive her unless she please their falshoods make her prudent and if they be cunning enough to give her false informations they are neither so powerful nor industrious as to perswade her into the belief of them That Prison that surrounds her cannot arrest her thoughts The Diseases that weaken her Body cannot touch her and as if she held no commerce with the Earth She remains at Liberty in the midst of her Fetters and keeps her health in an infected habitation If Passions are able to obstruct her operations if they can cool that Fire that makes her Act as a Commander in chief they are not able to put it out and if Sin have disfigured this living Image of God it hath not been able to deface her first lineaments the
in the Schools For it is she that preserves his comliness which accommodates the interests both of Body and Soul which gives him strength to contest with the diseases that beset him and in the Opinion of Aristotle it is a Treasure surpassing all the Riches of the Earth If Beauty have her frailties if her Empire last but few days and if after she hath triumphed over a small number of Slaves she become the spoil of old Age or of Death she hath perfections which procure her reverence the reasonable Creatures worship their Creator in his Image vertue serves it self of her in communicating with her Lovers and as if the splendor of Beauty augmented the Majesty of vertue she takes pleasure to employ her when she Acts the Soveraign in the hearts of the Sons of Men. But pleasure is infamous in what shape soever she be drest She is ashamed to apear in publick they who protect condemn her they seek for darkness to possess her and knowing that she is as common to the Beasts as to us they blame her in all their discourses she is of so Malignant a humor that she turneth all our delights to remorses or punishments She courteth not vertue but to corrupt or seduce her If she give her Slaves a smile 't is but to deceive them and more cruel then Tyrants she paies respect to her Enemies and gives death to them that are her sworn faithful Servants Yet have we found Philosophers who have pleaded for her and forceing vertue to take her for a handmaid would afterwards perswade us that the Mistress and this Maid held a very good correspondence Epicurus that sage Professor of delights imagined that Man was born to enjoy her That pleasure ought to be the seasoning of all his actions and that after he had paid his honors to vertue it was lawful for him to aspire to the enjoyment of her Slave As he makes her to assist at her Triumphals he will have her the constant companion of her Labours in all her occupations he renders her assistance necessary he is of opinion that Fortitude it self would fail if the pleasure which she expects from the rout of an Enemy did not Spirit her to Battel and that temperance would be little concerned for the regulation of our Passions if she were not spurred on as well by delight as utility In fine he sayeth that pleasure to a wise Man is no dishonorable companion that the Slave might be courted without wrong to her Mistress and that the conversation of dissolute Women was not more unsuitable to Philosophers then Zenos disciples amongst the Academians I know that Seneca labours to justify this opinion in some part of his Writings and having arraigned the sence given it by them of the party he forms the Authors apology As if he had been of Intelligence with Epicurus rather then with Truth he takes part with him against his adversaries he asserteth that the pleasure whereof he treateth is modest that her humor is not less austere then that of vertue and that if she put on the pleasing ornament of a more cheerful countenance it is but with less difficulty to gain her Mistress a greater number of Lovers I should readily subscribe to this opinion and it were sufficient to know that it proceeds from Seneca to receive it with reverence But as most men abuse it they run to his Doctrin for a Justification of their disorders and supported by his Approbation they believe it is lawful for them to hunt after sensualities I find my self engaged to explain his meaning and to unfold to the Disciples of Epicurus that Seneca is not of their Party though some words have run from his Pen to their advantage If he give a favorable Explication of their Masters meaning they owe it to the greatness of his civility he gives him combat too often to approve the most sordid of his opinions and when he shews them the weakness of pleasure and the merit of vertue he lets them sufficiently know that he employs all those discourses but to perswade them to slight the Maid that she who is her Soveraign may receive their Honors As this is the only Mistress to whom he paies reverence he is concerned for her glory and he would think it a betraying of his Courage if he should reconcile her to an Enemy whom she dispiseth He cannot suffer that she who is content in affliction joyful in the midst of Torments who laughs at Fortune and Triumphs over those evil accidents that strike terror into the most stout hearted men should become the consort of an effeminate who grows pale at the sight of a misfortune who sinks under the assaults of distempers and who turneth the most pleasing delights of vertue into the severest of her own torments to shew us that they are unequal Companions he declares vertue to be Eternal and that pleasures last but for a moment that the one is generous but the other sordid that the one hath its residence in the Soul but the other in the Body that the one is insatiable but the other always attended with content In fine that to affect voluptuousness is to have lost our understanding and to be more sensual then Beasts in making the felicity of rational Creatures to consist in Pleasures Discourse V. That the goods of Fortune cannot make a Wise Man happy THose that proportion their esteem of things by the rule of gain and who judg of their value by the pleasure or credit which may arise from them do wonder that in the Stoick Schools vertue only should be valuable and that honors and wealth which they deem so necessary to humane Life should in their discourses pass for indifferent matters they are so wilfully linckt to the interests of the Flesh that they study only to content that and they would not be thought to be so ignorant of the nature of goodness as to allow that Title to any thing in which the Body hath no share For albeit that vertue have charms sufficient to enamour us that her Beauty invite us to court her and that the felicity which she promiseth to all her Lovers be considerable enough to stir up all men to be her Suitors yet can they not resolve to seek her her benefits seem to them not sufficiently splendid to engage their affections they affect not a Mistress whose Portion will not set them out in the world and dispising all the joys that attend the possession of goodness they have recourse to the Benefits of Fortune the better to establish their conceited happiness Morality that Examiner General of the price of all things which stateth so just an equality between our corporal advantages and the goods of Fortune seemeth to favor their conceits when she promiscuosly confoundeth them with vertue when she calleth the Soveraign and her vassals by one and the same name when she averreth all Gods works to be perfect and giving an Earthly construction to the
others innocent some contend to subject the Soul to the Body and others to make the Body servant to the Mind yet they proceed from one and the same Spring Vertues and Passions have one common Mother and though they have different Objects when they are agitated their birth is nevertheless from one and the same Faculty of the Soul For to joyn the strengh of Reason to the Authority of this great Philosopher and not to undervalue the ingenuity of his Logick for proof of a moral Conclusion if Passions were born with us and if Nature taught us to desire and fear to grieve and to rejoyce we must of necessity infer that all these motions are good that we may follow them wheresoever they lead us and that we cannot err in treading the steps of a Guide who instructs us no less in particular than in our general Actions Now the Peripateticks confess that they are neither good nor bad that they are capable of good or evil and that they may serve as well to Vice as Vertue it must be then concluded that they are not ingrafted upon our Soul since they violently oppose the Works of Nature since they make war upon her Inclinations and seldom form any enterprise but to corrupt or destroy her Nature is so regular in all her Productions that she brings forth nothing superfluous she abhors Monsters no less than Excesses and when her Prodigies come to light which cause so much astonishment in the minds of men it may be said that she is rather passive than active indeed where shall we find any thing of excess in the Creation this sage Mother is determined in her Operations she produceth nothing but by limitations as just as necessary and if we often find inventions or take up customs to exceed it is when we become tyrannical or rebellious But Passions delight in excess the bounds prescribed us by Reason irritate them foreign aids must be called in to stay their disorders and if Virtue be not employed to vanquish or tame them we should see nothing in the world more monstrous and frightful than a man possessed by those evil spirits As the Juris periti account that Law unjust which is not common that a Prince would offend against Equity if he made not his Edicts universal and that those commands are to be had in jealousie wherein the Legislator doth not indifferently tie all his subjects Philosophers hold that Nature ought to be common that she ought to be equally distributed to all men and that as the reasonable Soul is intire in all the Body and undivided in each part she ought also to communicate her perfections and infirmities to all the Nations upon Earth mean while we find some persons subject to Passions which others know nothing of and of so many men as are contained in a Province or State few shall we see that are agitated by one and the same motions Ambition which tyrannizeth over Conquerours is not the Plague of all mankind if some are found to aspire to Grandeurs we see others that despise them if some hunt after Honours others have them in derision and if some will reign over their fellow creatures others find their content in obedience the Hunger of Wealth is not the Passion of a whole City some Citizens fill their Coffers but there are others that draw vanity from Expence Gain renders not every man avaritious and if some amongst them build all their hopes upon their Treasures we find others of them that take pride in their disdain Envy is not so much a contagion as a peculiar evil if some persons have been observed to make war upon Vertue we have seen whole Nations that have built her Temples and Orators that have presented her with Elogies As powerful as Love is he hath not yet been able to subdue an intire Kingdom the most perfect Beauties have gained but few Lovers and those Faces that have thrown so many flames into the hearts of Generals of Armies were not able to touch the affections of their Souldiers Now if all these perturbations of the Soul were natural they would be found equally in all men the Objects and the Sense would not make a different impression upon their imagination as these two causes are necessarily active they would every where propuce the same effects 'T is then an error saith Seneca to imagine that Passions are born with us and that these Children of opinion proceed from the marriage of the Soul with the Body Nature hath not allyed us to Vice she may boast of having brought us forth vertuous though we were conceived in sin the greatest part of our disorders ow birth to our Education and when Passions seduce our Judgments or deprave our Will it must be said that they follow not so much her inclinations as our evil manners We impute them to Nature because we despair of Cure and fancy them to be necessary in as much as they favour our crimes excuse our errors and authorize our injustice To support all these truths it 's needless to make Pillars of Seneca's Inductions or to draw Maxims from Aristotles Reasons which confirm them it is sufficient only to consider man in himself to judg that Passions are forreigners and to teach us from the generosity of his Nature how great an enemy he is to them For what is there of a more quiet Nature than Man and what more furious than Love This famous Tyrant takes force from all things that oppose his designs difficulties encourage him impossibilities encrease his impatience that modesty which preserves the Chastitity of Women redoubles his strength and that Council or Reason which ought to regulate or allay his fury renders him obstinate in his pursuit Man is a lover of Rest and Audacity finds its Contentment in turbulence the one submits to the conduct of Prudence and the other is governed by Temerity the one seeks to avoid Enmity and the other takes pride in creating of Adversaries and the one delights in things facile to acquire and the other engageth in nothing but matters difficult or impossible to compass Nothing upon earth is more affable than Man and nothing do we observe more savage than Anger it is a fury that breaths nothing but vengeance a plague that throws division among friends and a monster who more cruel than the Tyger and Panther turns his weapons upon himself when he cannot force satisfaction for injuries done him Compassion which seems so sutable to mans disposition is not less troublesom to his rest than Anger she afflicts him with evils that touch him not she makes the Chastisements of the vicious his punishment she looks upon the Suffering and considers not the Crime and more unjust than hatred she would bribe Justice if possible to deliver the guilty person and the murtherer from his Sword In fine Passions are mans domestick enemies and unfaithful souldiers who undertaking to defend him and keep him in
action trouble his Government abolish his Empire corrupt his Reason disorder his Will and throw confusion into all the powers of his Soul It 's true we meet with some men in the world whom Nature seemeth to have produced to give the lye to this opinion and whose inclinations constrain us to believe that Passions are grafted in the Soul for we see some so effeminate that a word puts them into a rage a sincere reprehension irritates them and in what method soever you deal with them their anger or indignation is not to be avoided Some from their youth are sordid they affect Wealth almost before they know what it is and it would be more easie to change the face of a Negro into the colour of his Teeth than to pull out of their hearts the desire of heaping up Riches Others are naturally bashful as often as they speak in publick they blush and what art soever is used to make them confident in company they cannot hinder shamefacedness from altering their Countenance It is not hard to answer these Objections and whoever is at the trouble to examine the Nature of Passions will be constrained to acknowledg that nothing is proved though much be said For to proceed in order Anger is not that first motion that arises at the appearance of an evil and which oweth its original rather to the Infirmity of the Body than to the Strength of the Mind but that fury of the Soul which by Aristotle is stiled rational that motion which hurries us to take vengeance and invites us to contrive the ruine of him that hath offended us All those other emotions that prevent the Judgment cannot properly be called Passions and when they trouble or seize the Soul it may be said that she resents but produceth them not and that she rather suffers than operates Generals of Armies have been seen to swoon at the approach of Battel Commanders to grow pale at the sight of an Enemy Souldiers to tremble in putting on their Armour or their Head-piece and all that Valour wherewith they were animated could not hinder them from beginning their Victories with quaking and their Triumphs with signs that brought their Courage into question The most eloquent of Orators found himself often taken with these surprizes and he was astonisht that his Discourses should chase Fear from the minds of his Auditors and that his Reason should not be strong enough to drive apprehension from the possession of his heart to hinder Fear from bereaving him of his Strength to prevent his hairs from standing on end and to oppose his tongues cleaving to the roof of his mouth when he was to speak But all these sudden changes are but corporal and surprizes which borrow their aids from the temper and constitution of the body If Riches make some men covetous it is after the Judgment is seduced Nature hath produced nothing in the whole universe that is able to stir their desires she hides the Gold in the entrals of the Earth she leaves us nothing but the sight of the Heaven and the Stars and knowing that this mettle might corrupt them if she discovered it in its splendor she caused it to grow among the Sands and the Dirt to the end they might despise it True it is that Bashfulness seemeth more natural to man than Avarice and Anger and that he is become impudent and insolent that altereth not his countenance after the commission of a fault or an incivility But this timorous Passion is only the daughter of the Body the Mind hath no share in her Production and if the novelty of a thing occasion it the cause thereof is the leaping of the blood about the Heart hence old men rarely blush the furrows in their front seldom receive a foreign colour and when heat declines their heart it ceaseth to send into the Face that innocent Vermilion that makes the Countenance of Children so amiable As this motion is a pure effect of the Bodies temperature our Players could never yet get her to appear upon the Stage and the most ingenious of them despair at this day of adorning the Countenance of their Actors with this curious colour They represent us Sadness with all her shagrine humors and as silent as she is they find inventions to counterfeit her follies They shew us Fear upon a pale Face and imitate all her actions so well that they seem to tremble grow wan and fall into a swoon Love is the ordinary subject wherewith they entertain their Spectators and the smallest Apes-face of the Society can act the Gallant the Suitor and the mad Lover but none of them have yet been seen that could act the Shame-faced person and if some few have learned to stoop the Head abase the Voice and to look downwards we hardly observe any that have been able to call for Blushes to testifie that the Applauses given to them or the Reproches thrown at them were unpleasing But as Passions depend on us it must not be wondered if they be counterfeited with so much ease if they can become sad and angry audacious and desperate when they please and that consulting the mind and opinion of which they are formed they represent all those outward signs which Passions discover upon the Bodies of such as are possessed by them Discourse IV. That the Senses and opinion are the two Principles of Passions AMong all the advantages which man disputeth with other Creatures and which beget him so much reverence in them of his own Species Philosophy owneth none more glorious then that of knowledg and although she be interressed when she pleads her cause she believes not that the praises given her are any thing but due debt she stiles her the only felicity of them that possess her she makes her the image of the Diety maintains that it is she that lifteth man into Heaven to contemplate there the perfections of her Author and though she know that her Body have need of health to preserve her she is assured that her Soul wants nothing but knowledg to participate of his Eternity By these mens discourse this quality is as immense as absolute present every where including all differences of time coexistant with all Ages and having regard to the original nature and end of every being she finds nothing in the Univers that can confine her but Eternity and he only that is infinite Man is a lover only of what is good and as free an Agent as he is he suffers evil with violence the senses that seduce his imagination reverence his will they cease to provoke him when the understanding hath shewed him that the thing she seeks is not suitable to him and if sometimes she discover a displeasure it is because she hath suffered her self to be deceived by the senses or disordered by false opinions But nothing escapes mans Curiosity he will not be a stranger to any thing in nature the most hidden things stir him to make diligent
disesteem that others have of it we call for our Passions to effect or avoid it To shun then all these disorders and to hinder these turbulent motions from acting without our leave the mind must reign as Soveraign he must prevent the seditions that may arise in the sensitive appetite he must command the imagination to act nothing in his Goverment without his Warrant and that she take care that false opinions seduce not his Reason or abuse his Authority In fine the mind must imitate those oppressed People who deliver themselves from Tyranny by the destruction of the Authors he must prevent the Birth of Passions by the overthrow of false opinions which are the causes and Originals thereof Discourse V. That Passions cannot be of use to Vertue ALthough superstition be an Enemy to Religion as well as to Impiety though the one contemn God and the other own him not aright and though one make vanity of his Error and the other be cheated in his Election yet have there been Orators that have given her Commendations some Philosophers have pleaded her cause and some Kings who by a Policy altogether extraordinary have received her into their Goverment Titus Livius labored to perswade Posterity that she was of use in a common-Wealth that she was serviceable to Monarchs in the conduct of their Subjects and that to keep under a rebellious or insolent People it was often sufficient to get them inspired with the fear of the Gods and the apprehensions of Chastisements That she it was that procured them faithful Ministers that kept the Nobility in awe that allayed the wild humors of the Body politick that brought the factious to Reason and caused their persons throughout their Dominions to be reverenced as the Gods of the Earth In fine that it was she that supported Rome in its minority and that the Worlds first common wealth was more beholding to the superstitions of Numa for her preservation then to the wisdom of her Counselors or the Valor of her Captains Although Passions be almost as direful to man as Vice and that there is but this difference between these two Enemies of his rest the one makes him guilty and the other depraves him the one infects his will and the other disorders his Reason yet the whole Body of modern Philosophy sticks not to approve them with Elogies and of so many sects into which it is divided we find only the Stoicks that declare War against them All Aristotles Disciples applaud them they make them the Exercise of Vertue and call them the aides of nature they will have them the common favors bestowed upon all man-kind and they think they do not well prove the necessity of them unless they seek them in the person of the Son of God They say that man would be without motion if without Passion that it is necessary he should love and hate to avoid being as insensible as Rocks that he cannot be active but by their Motion and that all his advantages would be of no use to him if he called not these domestick Soulders to undertake his Conquests and to preserve him from Enemys that both threaten and assault him That it were to deprive him of Life to spoil him of his affections that they are a part of himself and that as we see no man but loves fertility in his Fields we can find none that would prefer the sterility of his Soul before the most generous of his productions That all our Vertues pine away if they be not animated by their fire and that the best ordered Enterprizes would prove fruitless if these faithful Souldiers undertooke not the charge of their execution For they affirm that Fortitude without Anger is weak and that she that laughs at Tortures brags of assaulting death and makes little of all the terrible things of this World becomes spiritless if this Passion do not warm and give her courage Prudence borrows the greatest part of her Lights from Fear and he that should rob her of this succour would acknowledg her to be left as blind as feeble Temperance is letted in governing her desires in moderateing pleasure in appeasing the seditions of Hope in allaying Grief and in swallowing up Fear In fine that it is to destroy all our Vertues to deprive them of their Employments and to condemn them to perpetual Idleness to strip them of the Subject of their Combats and Triumphs Where say they will be their Victory if they have no Enemy to vanquish or tame And with what Justice shall they compel so many commendations from our Mouths if they must always wallow in rest For if it be a Vertue to restrain Anger to submit affection to Reason to limit our desires to be moderate in Hope and Sadness how can he be vertuous that is without Passion Victorious without Enemys to Conquer And how should Reason be a Soveraign in her Kingdom if she have no Subjects to Command Some men are so much the Enemys of their own happiness that they boast of their Torments they invent curious words to make them necessary and by an obstinacy so much the more unjust as it is universal they will have us esteem that as the principle of all our generous actions which is the Fountain of all our disorders They are not unlike men troubled with the Itch who delight in scratching the Sore that infects their fingers they cherish Ulcers which poison them they abet the faction of Tyrants that oppress them and by a kind of superstition they excuse their defects and allow them benefits which they have not I know that among the Lawiers a common erronious custom passeth for a Law and that an opinion received of many is often a sufficient warant to make it run for a currant truth among the vulgar Spirits yet am I not afraid to oppose it and supported by Senecas Authority I shall endeavor to demonstrate that Passions are not of more use to Vertue then poisons and venemous things to our Health For to shun all the bumbast of Orators and to set forth nothing unworthy of that Roman Philosopher Who shall perswade himself that man must necessarily be the vassal of his Slaves That he cannot be active without their help That all his Enterprises must depend upon their advices And that he must hold his Authority over a number of Rebells that despise his Soveraignty Who shall believe that a wise man cannot be valiant unless he be possest of Anger And that to give his Enemy Battel or rout his Adversaries he must be heated by the most furious of his Passions That he cannot be prudent except he be fearful and that he must of necessity borrow aid of the most cowardly of his attendants wherewith to establish his good Fortune and to guard himself against future Evils That he cannot be provident for his Family without being avaricious nor govern his Children command his Subjects nor put his House in order without tormenting himself about
violence upon all her faculties They puff out the light of his Understanding they corrupt his Will they seduce his Judgment and by a power not much inferiour to Magick Art they throw illusions into his Spirit to trouble his mind If men account Exile cruel because it separates us from all the delights of our own Countrey who will not own that the Tyranny of our Passions is the most severe of our torments since they violently take us from our selves deprive us of the power of Reason and rob us of that liberty which the most unfortunate retain under a load of Irons Fortune which hath set up that unjust distinction amongst men and created Lords and Vassals hath no influence upon Passions as she abandons great men to the fidelity of their Servants she commits the meaner sort to the discretion of their Superiours and she is so little absolute in her Government that we often see the Slaves give Laws to them that command some find ways to be their Masters Companions by the assiduity of their services and others have been made free for their fidelity some others are comforted in their bondage that they have but one Master to satisfie and do easily perswade themselves that an ordinary ingenuity will serve to please a mans humor with whom we daily converse But the passionate are subject to so many Tyrants as they have Passions the agreement we hold with them provokes their displeasure our submission renders them insolent our fidelity augments their fury and they are never more cruel than when we observe their orders or obey their commands Sometimes Bondage is rather to be chosen than Liberty and there be some slaves that would not change conditions with their Masters for though these impose upon their Liberty and permit them not the disposing of their goods or their persons yet must they be charged with the care of providing for them they are responsible for their miscarriages they must take an account of their actions and buy with money that authority which they exercise upon their Wills so that their pretended dominion amounts to a specious subjection and they ought not so much to be stiled their Lords as their Atturneys and their Stewards But Passions are ever savage they form nought but evil designs against their subjects they increase their wounds instead of giving ease they violently over-run Vertue and Liberty together and abusing all their faculties they make their conditions equal with the damned sometimes they give them looks so frightful that the Earth hath nothing more terrible or more insolent and anon they leave in the Soul such a Fear and Grief that nothing is more unhappy Their evil entertainments have procured them the hatred of all Philosophers and even they who out of respect have countenanced the vice of their wise man would not permit that he should be subject to Passions Those to whom servitude is irksom may apply themselves to flight for their deliverance and forsaking the Masters whom they serve betake themselves to Countries where their pursuits cannot reach them if the persons with whom they live be difficult or if the Law of the place admit no Affranchizement they may remove into another and seek that liberty in foreign Dominions which they could not obtain in the Land of their nativity But they who serve Passions carry always their masters with them into what part of the world soever they travel they cannot hide themselves from them and so unhappy is their condition that they cannot sheer clear of them without danger of sinking their Vessel If they abandon their habitations if they throw themselves into the arms of Princes for protection and if all the Provinces they pass thorough be so many Sanctuaries and places of freedom yet are they shackled they carry their fetters with them they remain slaves even in the very bosom of Liberty and the Tyrants under whose command they are listed are so outragious that they spare them as little abroad as at home All that pleases the sense stir up their Grief and that which would cure a sick man is matter of their punishment For if in their Travels they observe spacious Countries if they measure the height of Hills if they fix the Eye upon the current of Rivers if they contemplate the Flowers of pleasant Meadows and meet nothing in their way but what imploys or diverts their Fancy they rather charm than heal their Torments and do not so much deceive their thoughts as their eyes and ears By an unhappiness that shews the misery of their condition they often convert their Remedies into Poisons and change the Objects of their divertisements into subjects of their Grief The sight of remote Lands puts them in mind of their own Countreys the Cities through which they pass represent them the places where they began to suffer the Inhabitants seem to discourse of the passages of their former life the things and beauties they find there awaken their desires and although they are far removed from all that can anoy them they forbear not to conceive Love Hatred Joy and Grief What greater Punishments can be inflicted upon Criminals than to expose them to the Will of so many Tormentors And what more cruel Vengeance can be drawn from an Enemy than to see him a slave in places of the greatest freedom Tormented in the arms of Rest And unhappy amidst all that which ought to deliver him from it Who is not toucht with compassion to behold Alexander when he cuts the Ocean when he traverseth all the parts of the world when he enters the Indies when he makes war upon the Persians when he had conquered Asia when he turns Kingdoms upside down and makes the limits of the Ocean the Frontiers of his Empire For if he command his Army he obeys a multitude of his Passions which act the Tyrant with him if he vanquish his enemies by the Sword he is overcome of his vices and if he be the only Monarch of the Earth he is the subject af Ambition Anger and Impudicity One while he bewailes the death of a Favourite whom his own hand had massacred another while he laments the loss of a Captain which he left in the heat of the Battel one while he retires into solitude to entertain his misfortunes another while deceiving his enemies he is contriving the Conquest of a new World and he whom flattery perswaded to be the God of the Earth tacitly confesseth that he is the most miserable of all men Who judgeth not Hannibal very unhappy when he forsakes the Command of his Souldiers to be made obedient to his Love and when in the midst of a victorious Army brought back from Thrasymene he could not defend himself from the allurements of a Strumpet All that warlike glory which he had acquired in Battel could not divert his Affection and the thought of Triumphs that were preparing for him is not powerful enough to disswade him from laying his Arms at
that the Sea hath swallowed up a whole Fleet of Infidels that the Turks have gained some Islands from the Christians and violently carried away a great number of innocent persons into miserable Captivitie all these evil tidings stir us not we hear them without disturbance and though Nature oblige us to love all men as our Brethren we are not much concerned whether they be miserable provided we are but out of danger the misfortunes of our Neighbours terrifie us not but in proportion to the love we bear them and we fear not their unhappiness but in as much as it may chance to concern our selves This was it that caused St. Austin to define Grief according to the Stoicks a Displeasure of the Soul caused by the opinion of an evil which befalls us contrary to our Will But as the humor of this Passion agrees not with that of its companions she bringeth forth effects that are different from theirs For if Love and Desire treat us with oppression Grief deals with us as a Tyrant and if Hope and Fear treat their guests as slaves Sorrow makes them Martyrs Her malignity extends into all their faculties she benumbs the Body with cold she extinguisheth the heat by which they subsist she dries up the radical moisture by which they live she obstructs the digestion of what they eat she embroils their memory she perverts their judgment she leaves not a member of their Bodies nor any power of their Soul uncorrupted or not weakened In fine if the other Passions be Diseases Grief is a Torment if Love be subject to discontents if Joy be ligh-theaded if Fear be accompanied with imbecillity Sorrow is attended at once with pining anguish and pain she beats down the Spirits with the Body and overthrowing the whole order of their Government puts them into a condition uncapable of acting any thing but what is fatal to their Rest Despair ceaseth to torment us when separated from Grief and our apprehensions are supportable when divided from that unquietness with which the faint-hearted are afflicted Discourse II. That Misfortunes make not a Wise Man sad and that they are equally advantageous to the innocent and the guilty ALbeit I have ever been perswaded that there was a God in Heaven that I know well all Creatures obeyed him and that that Religion which I profess obliged me to pay him reverence although I owned his Power to be infinite that he was equally just and merciful and that the least of his Perfections was as well beyond my expression as out of the reach of my thoughts nevertheless have I sometimes been unable to forbear lifting my head into Heaven to bring his Providence in question and to ask whether the Creator of the Universe were the Governor of the minutes and adventures of our Life It is true that my error lasted but a while and I changed my opinion as soon as I considered the Beauties of Nature when I contemplated these azure Vaults which hang over our heads when I admired the influences of the Stars when I observed the regular order of the Seasons when I examined how the Day succeeded the Night and how the Sun which caused both conveyed his Light and his Heat into all the quarters of the Earth All these wonders easily undeceived me in my misapprehension and wholly ashamed of my infidelity I confessed without difficulty that he who divided the Seas who caused the Fruits to come forth in their seasons who upheld the Earth by its own weight was the same who regulated our Actions who took notice of our Sufferings who assisted us in our warfare and made himself Arbitrator of our Defeat or our Victory But when afterwards I saw that all things were in disorder in the World when I observed in it the guilty happy and the innocent miserable when I considered there the vicious rewarded and the just afflicted I fell again into my first error I appealed from my last opinion and swayed by an injustice which to me seemed equitable I acknowledged no other Providence but that which the Ancients attributed to Destiny and Fortune my Faith lost her self by too great Curiosity and I became an Infidel by desiring too much Knowledg But the Chastisement that waiteth upon sin cured me of this Distemper the punishment of the wicked opened my Eies I complain now no more of the afflictions of the just nor of the felicity of the wicked I know that these are sufficiently miserable by being guilty and that it is not necessary that Divine Justice should abate their Pride since Vice contributeth to their Torment Indeed let a man be as vicious as he will he shall not avoid the Chastisement due to his sin his lewdness is his punishment and how insensible soever he be of his Crimes he cannot shun their punishment after he hath committed them There is no safety here upon Earth but that of innocence and nothing can give rest to our Souls but the justice of our Actions As it was the custom of the Romans to bear the Cross upon which they were to be crucified impious men carry their punishment about them the remorse of Conscience bears them company in all places and they feel themselves condemned before the Witnesses be called ere ever the Judg pass the Sentence and before the Executioner lay hands upon them Those Torments that are visible are not always the most sensible our Body is not at all times the theater of our pain that which wounds this is often offensive only to our imagination and if its violence make it short its modertaion is not insupportable but that which proceeds from our Crimes is eternal it is this only which is able to unite different qualities which is as lasting as cruel which endures longer than that which caused it which encreaseth by its silence and gains strength by its moderation It resembles that famous Tyrant who gave commandment to the Executioners to give their Patients a tedious Death to make them suffer their Torments with longer repetitions to lay on gently that their Death might be the more sensible to them and to send them into the other world by reiterated pains For sin gives us no respite it continues our whole life and by repeated torments conveys us to eternal Death But without spending more time in summing up the Calamities of the wicked it will not be hard for me to satisfie those complaints which most men make against Heaven if I shew that Fortune hath nothing dismal in her that her disgraces cannot make us unhappy that they are rather testimonials of Gods Bounty than of his Anger and that if they are the exercises of the innocent they serve also for remedies to the guilty It is adversity saith an ancient Orator that reforms our Wills that gives courage to the cowardly that constrains the obstinate that teacheth the proud modesty which instructeth the impious in vertue which crowneth the just and punisheth the wicked Seneca
having spoiled us since she could give as well as take let us remember that all things in Nature are subject to decay that men have yet brought forth nothing immortal and that the proudest of their works lasted but a few years Let us by an ingenious deceit imagine that our friends are absent and not dead that they have changed their abode and not their Country that they are removed but not gone from us Let us not be of the humor of those who love not their friends till they have lost them and who doubting of their own affections have recourse to tears for their confirmation If we judg of a man by the more noble part of his composition we are assured that those we lament are not dead that their Souls live content and that that virtue which caused them to excel upon earth hath rendred them for ever blessed in Heaven Let us apply all these Arguments to our Adversities let us thereof make weapons of defence against their assaults when ever they attack us and let us hold for truth that they serve always either to punish our Faults or to make our Vertues more perspicuous Discourse III. That the Wise are happy even in Exile and Prison NOthing doth so much oppose the general opinion of the vulgar as to assert that afflictions are beneficial to a wise man that his misfortunes contribute to his felicity that his disgraces turn to his glory that he may be content under oppression and that that which makes other men unhappy should turn to his profit What say they can it be believed that he should be beholding to Fortune for reducing him to a state of beggary to be lodged all his days upon a dunghil to be deprived of his Wife and Children and to be ungratefully forsaken of his nearest Relations Is it possible to think that Fabricius could be happy in his Exile when after his retirement from the Court his necessities constrained him to dig and delve and to gather with his own hands the Herbs and Roots for his Supper Who will judg it a blessing to Rutilius to be driven from his native Country forced to forsake his Children make bankrupt of his friends and to be confined to a barren corner of the Earth Who shall imagine that Regulus could be content in a Cask set with Spikes by which his wounds were renewed every moment when he could not stir himself without piercing his Body when they constrained him to a continual watching and by a new sort of cruelty they keep open his Eies against the Beams of the Sun Who shall think that Socrates was used as a faithful Citizen when they present him the fatal Cup when the Poison he swallows freezeth his Blood and dispersing her malignity into all his Veins bereaves his Eies of Light his Limbs of Vigor and his Reason of Stability A man must be an enemy to himself to build his felicity upon his misfortunes and be ignorant of the Nature of Happiness to think of arriving there by the help of violent injuries which oppose it Mean while we must own according to Seneca's opinion that Fabricius is happy in his Poverty that Rutilius is content in his Banishment that Regulus meets with nothing of evil in his Torments and that Socrates is not miserable in letting in Death by tedious draughts Calamities astonish only men of ordinary Spirits and he must be ignorant of the condition of human life who fears or flies the miseries that attend it Banishment which is the midway beween Life and Death which deprives the living of conversing with their fellow Creatures and causeth them to bewail the absence of them whom they have not lost is in propriety of Speech but a changing of Habitation and a removal from their Countries the same Sun gives them light where ever they go and without being troubled for the place whither they are to retire they are assured to find a Heaven to cover and the same Earth to sustain them A wise Man is too generous to be restrained to a portion of Earth the whole Globe is his Inheritance he lives here below as a Pilgrim and not as a Citizen and he thinks himself to be upon his Journey every time he is obliged to forsake the place of his Nativity Those Mountains which distinguish Kingdoms and the Rivers which surround their Provinces do not comprehend their Territories His comforts are spread over all the Earth he deemeth that he is arrived in his own Country so often as he is brought into another and as by his mind he possesseth all things he perswades himself to be born in every place into which Providence hath cast him Who doth not laugh at those fools that are fastned with a straw by the Leg to a Table who being tied to a Post by a small thread seem as immovable as if their Bodies were loaden with Fetters and Shackles And yet we see some men agitated by the same Madness They are so much in love with their own Chimney-Corners that they are not to be hauled thence They confine themselves to a piece of Earth and like no Towns but those they were born in and they would think themselves thrown out of the World if they should be forced into fresh Quarters But forsaking the error of the multitude whose judgment a false opinion hath disordered it is not difficult to make appear that Banishment is to be borne that it hath nothing more terrible than the noise of the World that the Banished may live contented and that they suffer nothing in Exile that is able to make them unhappy We see some men voluntarily quit their own to inhabit a foreign Country The People who fill the most stately City of Europe are not all born under one Hemisphere the most remote parts contribute to her composition Strangers are not there less frequent than those of the Country and if there were a general muster of the Occupants I know not whether the number of the Banished would not exceed all that are Natives of Rome Either Delight or Profit is the motive of this exchange of Air Some come thither for Traffick others to hide their enormities Some are perswaded thither by the desire of acquiring Arts and others by a vain hope of heaping up Riches or gaining of Reputation Ambitious men have sought it as a Theatre whereon to expose their Vanities to view and we find no Nation of which some are not very glad to change their Climate for that of this Worlds Paradise But go out of this City which is the common Country of all those People pass into the other Towns which have not her Fame nor Delights Sum up the Inhabitants and you shall find that the greater number are Strangers that their Language is different from that which they learnt in their Infancy that interest tempted them to remove and that by a humour which seemeth strange they often abandon a pleasant Air to seek an Iron or