priseth will neglect all other contentments it might have as not having a relish or tast moulded and prepared to the savouring of them but like feaverish tongues that when they are even scorched with heat take no delight in the pleasingest liquors but the sweetest drinks seeme bitter to them by reason of their overflowing Gall Soe they even hate whatsoever Good is in their power and thus pine away a long eternity In which the sharpenesse and activity of their paine anguish and sad condition is to bee measured by the sensiblenesse of their natures which being then purely spirituall is in a manner infinitely more then any torment that in this life can bee inflicted upon a dull grosse body To this add the vexation it must bee to them to see how inestimable and infinite a good they have lost and lost meerely by their own fault and for momentary trifles and childrens play and that it was so easie for them to have gained it had they remained but in their right senses and governed themselves according to Reason And then judge in what a tortured condition they must bee of remorse and execrating themselves for their most resupine and senselesse madnesse But if on the other side a Soule be released out of this Prison of clay and flesh with affections setled upon intellectual goods as Truth Knowledge and the like And that it be growne to an irkesome dislike of the flat pleasures of this world and looke upon carnall and sensuall objects with a disdainfull eye as discerning the contemptible inanity in them that is set off onely by their painted outside and above all that it have a longing desire to bee in the society of that supereminent cause of causes in which they know are heaped up the Treasures of all beauty Knowledge Truth Delight and good whatsoever and therefore are impatient at the Delay and reckon all their absence from him as a tedious benithment and in that regard hate their life body as cause of this divorce such a Soule I say must necessarily by reason of the Temper it is wrought into enjoy immediately at the instant of the bodies dissolution and its liberty more contentment more joy more true happinesse then it is possible for a heart of flesh to have scarce any scantling of much lesse to comprehend For immense knowledge is naturall to it as I have touched before Truth which is the adaequated and satisfying object of the understanding is there displayed in her owne Colours or rather without any And that which is the Crown of all and in respect of which all the rest is nothing that infinite entity which above all things this soule thirsteth to bee united unto can not for his owne goodnesse sake deny his embraces to so affectionate a Creature and to such an enflamed love If he should then were that Soule for being the best and for loving him most condemned to be the unhappiest For what joy could shee have in any thing were she barred from what she so infinitely loveth But since the nature of superiour and excellent things is to shower downe their propitious influences wheresoever there is a capacity of receiving them and no obstacle to keep them out like the Sun that illuminateth the whole ayre if no cloud or solid opacous body intervene it followeth clearely that this infinite Sun of Iustice this immense Ocean of goodnesse cannot chuse but environ with his beames and replenish even beyond satietie with his delightsome waters a soule so prepared and tempered to receive them Now my Lord to make use of this discourse and apply it to what begot it be pleased to determine which way will deliver us evenest and smoothest to this happie end of our Iourney To bee vertuous for hope of a reward and through feare of punishment or to be so out of a naturall and inward affection to vertue for vertues and Reasons sake surely one in this latter condition not onely doth those things which will bring him to Beatitude but he is so secured in a manner under an Armour of Proofe that hee is almost invulnerable hee can scarce miscarry hee hath not so much as an inclination to worke contrarily the alluring baites of this World tempt him not hee disliketh hee hateth even his necessary commerce with them whiles hee liveth On the other side the hireling that steereth his course onely by his reward and punishment doth weâ—l I confesse but he doth it with reluctance hee carrieth the Arke Gods Image his Soule safely home it is true but hee loweth pitifully after his calves that hee leaveth behind him among the Philistians In a word he is vertuous but if hee might safely hee would doe vitious things And hence he the ground in nature if so I may say of our Purgatory Meethinkes two such mindes may not unfitly be compared to two Maides whereof one hath a little sprinkling of the green sicknesse and hath more mind to eate ashes Chalke or Leather then meates of solid and good nourishment but for beareth them knowing the languishing condition of Health it will bring her to But the other having a ruddy vigorous and perfect constitution and enjoying a compleate entire eucrasie delights in no food but of good nourriture loathes the others delights Her health is discovered in her lookes and shee is secure from any danger of that Malady whereas the other for all her good dyet beareth in her complexion some sickly testimony of her depraved appetite and if she bee not very Wary shee is in danger of a relapse It falleth fit in this place to examine our Authors apprehension of the end of such honest Worthies and Philosophers as he calleth them that dyed before Christ his incarnation whether any of them could be saved or no Truely my Lord I make no doubt at all but if any followed in the whole Tenor of their lives the dictamens of right Reason but that their Iourney was secure to Heaven Out of the former discourse appeareth what temper of minde is necessary to get thither And that Reason would dictate such a temper to aperfectly judicious man though but in the state of Nature the best and most rationall for him I make no doubt at all But it is most true they are exceeding few if any in whom Reason worketh clearly and is not overswayed by Passion and terrene affections they are few that can discerne what is reasonable to be done in every circumstance Pauci quos aequus amavit Iupiter aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus Dis geniti potuere And fewer that knowing what is best can win of themselves to doe accordingly video meliora proboque deteriora sequor being most mens cases so that after all that can be expected at the hands of nature and reason in their best habit since the lapse of them wee may conclude it would have beene a most difficult thing for any man and a most impossible one for mankinde to attaine unto Beatitude if
intermingling himselfe in the others Woe As Angels that doe us good but have no passion for us But this Gentlemans kindnesse goeth yet further Hee compareth his love of a friend to his love of God the union of friends Soules by affection to the union of three persons in the Trinity and to the Hypostaticall union of two natures in one Christ by the Words Incarnation Most certainely hee expresseth himselfe to bee a right good natur'd man But if Saint Augustine retracted so severely his patheticall expressions for the death of his friend saying they favoured more of the Rhetoricall declamations of a young Orator then of the grave confession of a devout Christian or somewhat to that purpose what censure upon himselfe may wee expect of our Physician if ever hee make any retractation of this discourse concerning his Religion It is no small misfortune to him that after so much time spent and so many places visited in curious search by travelling after the acquisition of so many languages after the wading so deepe in Sciences as appeareth by the ample Inventory and particular hee maketh of himselfe The result of all this should bee to professe ingenuously he had studyed enough onely to become a Scepticke and that having runne through all sorts of Learning hee could finde rest and satisfaction in none This I confesse is the unlucky fate of those that light upon wrong Principles But Master White teacheth us how the Theorems and demonstrations of Physickes may be linked chained together as strongly as continuedly as they are in the Mathematickes if men would but apply themselves to a right method of Study And I doe not finde that Salomon complained of ignorance in the height of knowledge as this Gentleman saith but onely that after he hath rather acknowledged himselfe ignorant of nothing but that hee understood the natures of all Plants from the Cedar to the Hyssop and was acquainted with all the wayes and pathes of wisedome and knowledg hee exclaimeth that all this is but Toyle and vexation of Spirit and therefore adviseth men to change humane Studies into divine contemplations and affections I cannot agree to his Resolution of shutting his Bookes and giving over the search of knowledge and resigning himselfe up to ignorance upon the Reason that moveth him as though it were extreame vanity to wait our dayes in the pursuite of that which by attending but a little longer till Death hath closed the eyes of our body to open those of our Soule wee shall gain with ease wee shall enjoy by infusion and is an accessary of our Glorification It is true assoone as Death hath played the Midwife to our second birth our Soule shall then see all truths more freely then our corporal eyes at our first birth see all bodies and colours by the naturall power of it as I have touched already and not onely upon the grounds our Author giveth Yet farre be it from us to thinke that time lost which in the meane season we shall laboriously imploy to warme our selves with blowing a few little Sparkes of that glorious fire which we shall afterwards in one instant leape into the middle of without danger of Scorching And that for two important Reasons besides severall others too long to mention here the one for the great advantage wee have by learning in this life the other for the huge contentment that the acquisition of it here which implyeth a strong affection to it will be unto us in the next life The want of knowledge in our first Mother which exposed her to bee easily deceived by the Serpents cunning was the roote of all our ensuing Misery and Woe It is as true which wee are taught by irrefragable authority that Omnis peccans ignorat And the well head of all the Calamties and mischiefes in the world eonsisteth of the trouble and bitter waters of ignorance folly and rashnesse to cure which the onely remedy and antidote is the salt of true Learning the bitter Wood of Study painefull meditation and orderly confideration I doe not meane such Study as armeth wrangling Champions for clamorous Schooles where the ability of Subtile disputing to and fro is more prised then the retriving of truth But such as filleth the mind with solid and usefull notions and doth not endanger the swelling it up with windy vanities Besides the sweetest companion and entertainement of a well tempered mind is to converse familiarly with the naked and bewitching beauties of those Mistresses those Verities and Sciences which by faire courting of them they gaine and enjoy every day bring new fresh ones to their Seraglio where the ancientest never grow old or stale Is there any thing so pleasing or so profitable as this Nil dulcius est bene quam inunita tenere Edita doctrinae sapientum templa serena Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre Errare atque viam palanteis quaerere vitae But now if we consider the advantage we shall have in the other life by our affection to Sciences and conversation with them in this it is wonderfull great Indeed that affection is so necessary as without it we shall enjoy little contentment in all the knowledge we shall then bee replenished with for every ones pleasure in the possession of a good is to be measured by his precedent Desire of that good and by the quality of the tast and relish of him that feedeth upon it Wee should therefore prepare and make our â—ast before-hand by assuefaction unto and by often relishing what we shall then be nourished with That Englishman that can drinke nothing but Beere or Ale would be ill bestead were he to goe into Spaine or Italy where nothing but Wine groweth whereas a well experienced Goinfre that can criticise upon the severall tasts of liquors would thinke his Palate in Paradise among those delicious Nectars to use Aretines phrase upon his eating of a Lamprey Who was ever delighted with Tobacco the first time he tooke it who could willingly be without it after hee was a while habituated to the use of it How many examples are there dayly of young men that marrying upon their fathers command not through precedent affections of their own have little comfort in worthy and handsome wives that others would passionately effect ArchÃmedes lost his life for being so ravished with the delight of a Mathematicall demonstration that he could not of a suddaine recall his extasied Spirits to attend the rude Souldiers Summons But instead of him whose minde had beene alwayes sed with such subtile Dyet how many playne Country Gentlemen doth your Lordship and I know that rate the knowledge of their husbandry at a much higher pitch and are extreamely delighted by conversing with that whereas the other would be most tedious and importune to them We may then safely conclude that if we will joy in the Knowledge wee shall have after Death we must in our life time raise within our selves earnest
demonstrated the end of it upon naturall Reason And though the precise time for that generall destruction bee inscrutable yet he learnedly sheweth an ingenious rule whereby to measure in some fort the duration of it without being branded as our author threatneth with convincible and Statute madnesse or with impiety And whereas hee will have the worke of this last great day the summer up of all past dayes to imply annihilation and thereupon interesseth God onely in it I must beg leave to contradict him namely in this point and to affirme that the letting loose then of the activest Element to destroy this face of the World will but beget a change in it and that no annihilation can proceed from God Almighty for his essence being as I said before selfe-existence it is more impossible that Not-being should flow from him then that cold should flow immediately from fire or darkenesse from the actuall presence of light I must needs acknowledge that where he ballanceth life and death against one another and considereth that the latter is to bee a kind of nothing for a moment to become a pure Spirit within one instant and what followeth of this strong thought is extreame handsomely said and argueth very gallant and generous resolutions in him To exemplifie the immortality of the Soule hee needeth not have recourse to the Philosophers stone His owne store furnisheth him with a most pregnant one of reviving a plant the same numericall plant out of his owne ashes But under his favour I beleeve his experiment will faile if under the notion of the fame hee comprehendeth all the Accidents that first accompanied that plant for since in the ashes there remaineth onely the fixed Salt I am very confident that all the colour and much of the odor and Tast of it is flowne away with the Volatile salt What should I say of his making so particular a narration of personall things and private thoughts of his owne the knowledge whereof cannot much conduce to any mans betterment which I make account is the chiefe end of his writing this discourse As where he speaketh of the soundnesse of his body of the course of his dyet of the coolenesse of his blood at the Summer Solstice of his age of his neglect of an Epitaph how long he hath lived or may live what Popes Emperours Kings Grand-Seigniors he hath beene contemporary unto and the like would it not be thought that hee hath a speciall good opinion of himselfe and indeed hee hath reason when he maketh such great Princes the Land-markes in the Chronology of himselfe Surely if hee were to write by retaile the particulars of his owne Story and life it would bee a notable Romanze since he telleth us in one totall summe it is a continued miracle of thirty yeares Though he creepeth gently upon us at the first yet he groweth a Gyant an Attlas to use his owne expression at the last But I will not censure him as hee that made notes upon Balsacs letters and was angry with him for vexing his readers with stories of his Cholikes and voyding of gravell I leave this kind of his expressions without looking further into them In the next place my Lord I shall take occasion from our authors setting so maine a difference betweene morall honesty and vertue or being vertuous to use his owne phrase out of an inbred loyalty to vertue and on the other side being vertuous for a rewards sake To discourse a little concerning Vertue in this life and the effects of it afterwards Truely my Lord however he seemeth to prefer this latter I cannot but value the other much before it if we regard the noblenesse and heroikenesse of the nature and mind from whence they both proceed And if wee consider the Iourneyes end to which each of them carrieth us I am confident the first yeeldeth nothing to the second but indeed both meete in the period of Beatitude To cleare this point which is very well worth the wisest mans seriousest thoughts we must consider what it is that bringeth us to this excellent State to be happy in the other world of eternity and immutability It is agreed on all hands to bee Gods grace and favour to us But all doe not agree by what steps his grace produceth this effect Herein I shall not trouble your Lordshippe with a long discourse how that grace worketh in us which yet I will in a word touch anon that you may conceive what I understand grace to bee but will suppose it to have wrought its effect in us in this life and from thence examine what hinges they are that turn us over to Beatitude and Glory in the next Some consider God as a Iudge that rewardeth or punisheth men according as they cooperated with or repugned to the grace hee gave That according as their actions please or displease him he is well affected towards them or angry with them And accordingly maketh them to the purpose and very home feele the effects of his kindenesse or indignation Others that flye a higher pitch and are so happy Vt rerum poterint cognoscere causas doe conceive that Beatitude and misery in the other life are effects that necessarily and orderly flow out of the nature of those causes that be got them in this life without engaging God Almighty to give a sentence and act the part of a Iudge according to the state of our cause as it shall appeare upon the accusations and pleadings at his great Bar. Much of which manner of expression is metaphoricall and rather adapted to containe vulgar mindes in their duties that are awed with the thought of a severe Iudge sifting every minute action of theirs then such as we must conceive every circumstance to passe so in reality as the literall sound of the words seemes to inferre in ordinary construction and yet all that is true too in its genuine sense But my Lord these more penetrating men and that I conceive are vertuous upon higher and stronger motives for they truely and solidly know why they are so doe consider that what impressions are once made in the spirituall substance of a Soule and what affections it hath once contracted doe ever remaine in it till a contrary and diametrally contradicting judgement and affection doe obliterate it expell it thence This is the reason why Contrition sorrow and hatred for past Sins is encharged us If then the Soule doe goe out of the body with impressions and affections to the objects and pleasures of this life it continually lingreth after them and as Virgill learnedly as well as wittily saith Quae gratia currûm Armorumque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadem sequitur tellure repostos But that being a State wherin those objects neither are nor can be enjoyed it must needs follow that such a Soule must bee in an exceeding anguish sorrow affliction for being deprived of them for want of those it so much
affections to it and desires of it which cannot be barren ones but will presse upon us to gaine some knowledge by way of advance here and the more we attaine unto the more we shall be in Lovè with what remaineth behind To this reason then adding the other how knowledge is the surest proppe and guide of our present life and how it perfecteth a man in that which constituteth him a man his Reason and how it enableth him to read boldly steadily constantly and knowingly in all his wayes And I am confident All men that shall heare the case thus debated will joyne with mee in making it a Suit to our Physitian that hee will keepe his Bookes open and continue that Progresse he hath so happily begun But I believe your Lordship will scarcely joyne with him in his with that wee might procreate and beget Children without the helpe of women or without any conjunction or commerce with that sweete and bewitching Sex Plato taxed his fellow Philosopher though other wise a learned and brave man for not sacrificing to the Graces those gentle female goddesses What thinketh your Lordship of our Physitians bitter censure of that action which Mahomet maketh the essence of his Paradise Indeed besides those his unkindnesses or rather frowardnesses at that tender-hearted Sex which must needes take it ill at his hands me thinketh he setreth marryage at too low a rate which is assuredly the highest and devinest linke of humane society And where he speaketh of Cupid and of Beauty it is in such a phrase as putteth mee in mind of the Learned Greeke Reader in Cambridge his courting of his Mistris out of Stephens his Thesaurus My next observation upon his discourse draweth me to a Logicall consideration of the nature of an exact Syllogisine which kind of reflection though it use to open the doore in the course of Learning and study yet it will necre shut it in my discourse which my following the thred that my Author spinneth assigneth to this place If he had well and throughly considered all that is required to that strict way of managing our Reason he would not have censured Aristotle for condemning the fourth figure out of no other motive but because it was not consonant to his owne principles that it would not fit with the foundations himself had laid though it doe with reason saith he and bee consonant to that which indeed it doth not at all times and in all Circumstances In a perfect Syllogisme the predicate must bee identified with the subject and each extreame with the middle terme and so consequently all three with one another But in Galens fourth figure the case may so fall out as these rules will not be current there As for the good and excellency that he considereth in the worst things and how farre from solitude any man is in a wildernesse These are in his discourse but aequivocall considerations of Good and of Lonclinesse nor are they any wayes pertinent to the morality of that part where he treateth of them I have much adoe to believe what he speaketh confidently that hee is more beholding to Morpheus for Learned and rationall as well as pleasing Dreames then to Mercury for smart and facetious conceptions whom Saturne it seemeth by his relation hath looked asquint upon in his geniture In his concluding Prayer wherein he summeth up all he wisheth me thinketh his arrow is not winged with that fire which I should have expected from him upon this occasion for it is not the peace of Conscience nor the bridling up of ones affections that expresseth the highest delightfulnes and happiest state of a perfect Christian It is love onely that can give us Heaven upon earth as well as in Heaven and bringeth us thither too so that the Thuscan Virgill had reason to say In alte dolcezze Non si puo gioir se non amando And this love must be imployed upon the noblest and highest object not terminated in our friends But of this transcendent and divine part of Charity that looketh directly and immediately upon God himselfe and that is the intrinsecall forme the utmost perfection the scope and finall period of true Religion this Gentlemans intended Theame as I conceive I have no occasion to speak any thing since my Author doth but transiently mention it and that too in such a phrase as ordinary Catechismes speake of it to vulgar capacities Thus my Lord having run through the booke God knowes how sleightly upon so great a suddaine which your Lordship commanded mee to give you an account of there remaineth yet a weightier taske upon me to performe which is to excuse my selfe of presumption for daring to consider any moles in that face which you had marked for a beauty But who shall well consider my manner of proceeding in these remarkes will free me from that censure I offer not at Iudging the prudence and wisedome of this discourse Those are fit enquiries for your Lordships Court of highest appeale in my inferiour one I meddle onely with little knotty peeces of particuler Sciences Matinae apis instar operosa parvus carmina fingo In which it were peradventure a fault for your Lordship to be too well versed your imployments are of a higher and nobler Straine and that concerne the welfare of millions of men Tu regere imperio populos Sackville memento Hae tibi erunt artes pacique imponere morem Such little Studies as these belong onely to those persons that are low in the ranke they hold in the Commonwealth low in their conceptions and low in a languishing and iusting leisure such a one as Virgill calleth Ignobile otium and such a one as I am now dulled withall If Alexander or Caesar should have commended a tract of Land as fit to fight a Battaile in for the Empire of the World or to build a City upon to be the Magazine and staple of all the adjacent countries No body could justly condemne that husbandman who according to his owne narrow art and rules should censure the plaines of Arbela or Pharsalia for being in some places sterile or the meadowes about Alexandria for being sometimes subject to bee overflowen or could taxe ought he should say in that kinde for a contadiction unto the others commendations of those places which are built upon higher and larger principles So my Lord I am confident I shall not be reproached of unmannerlinesse for putting in a demurrer unto a few little particularities in that Noble discourse which your Lordship gave a generall applause unto And by doing so I have given your Lordship the best account I can of my selfe as well as of your Commands You hereby see what my entertainements are and how I play away my time Dorset dum magnus ad alrum Fulminat Oxonium bello victorque volentes Per populos dat jura viamque affectat Olympo May your Counsels there bee happy and successefull ones to bring about that Peace which if wee bee not quickly blessed withall a generall ruine threatneth the whole Kingdome From Winchester house the 22. I thinke I may lay the 23. for I am sure it is morning and I thinke it is day of December 1642. Your Lordships most humble and obedient servant KENELME DIGBY The Postscript My Lord LOoking over these loose papers to point them I perceive I have forgotten what I promised in the eight shee to touch in a word concerning Grace doe not conceive it to be a quality in fused by God Almighty into a Soule Such kind of discoursing satisfiet mee no more in Divinity then in Philosophy I take it to be the whole complex of such reall motives as a soli◠account may be given of them that incline a man to vertue and piety an◠are set on foote by Gods particular Grace and favour to bring that worke to passe As for example To à man planged in Sensuality some great misfortune happeneth that mouldeth his heart to a tendernesse and inclineth him to much thoughtfulnesse In this temper hee meeseth with a Booke or a Preacher that representeth lively to him the danger of his owne condition and giveth him hopes of greater contentment in other objects after hee shall have taken leave of his former beloved Sinnes This begetteth further conversation with prudent and pious men and experienced Physitians in curing the Soules Maladies whereby hee is at last perfectly converted and setled in a coure of Solid Vertue and Piety Now ithese accidents of his misfortune the gentlenesse and softnesse of his nature his falling upon a good Booke his encountring with a patheticke Preacher the impremeditated Chance that brought him to heare his Sermon his meeting with other worthy men and the whole concatenation of all the intervening accidents to worke this good effect in him and that were ranged and disposed from all Eternity by Gods particular goodnesse and providence for his Salvation and without which hee had inevitably beene damned this chaine of causes ordered by God to produce this effect I understand to bee Grace FINIS This story I hav but upon relation yet of a very good hand