We"re all deluded, vainly searching ways To make us happy by the length of days; For cunningly, to make"s protract this breath, The G.o.ds conceal the happiness of death.
There be many excellent strains in that poet, where- with his stoical genius hath liberally supplied him: and truly there are singular pieces in the philosophy of Zeno,<61> and doctrine of the stoics, which I perceive, delivered in a pulpit, pa.s.s for current divinity: yet herein are they in extremes, that can allow a man to be his own a.s.sa.s.sin, and so highly extol the end and suicide of Cato. This is indeed not to fear death, but yet to be afraid of life. It is a brave act of valour to contemn death; but, where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live: and herein religion hath taught us a n.o.ble example; for all the
* Pharsalia, iv. 519.
valiant acts of Curtius, Scaevola, or Codrus, do not parallel, or match, that one of Job; and sure there is no torture to the rack of a disease, nor any poniards in death itself, like those in the way or prologue unto it.
"Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum nihil curo;" I would not die, but care not to be dead. Were I of Caesar"s religion,<62> I should be of his desires, and wish rather to go off at one blow, than to be sawed in pieces by the grating torture of a disease. Men that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their const.i.tutions for being sick; but I, that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabrick hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and, considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my G.o.d that we can die but once. "Tis not only the mischief of diseases, and the villany of poisons, that make an end of us; we vainly accuse the fury of guns, and the new inventions of death:--it is in the power of every hand to destroy us, and we are beholden unto every one we meet, he doth not kill us. There is therefore but one comfort left, that though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death. G.o.d would not ex- empt himself from that; the misery of immortality in the flesh he undertook not, that was immortal.
Certainly there is no happiness within this circle of flesh; nor is it in the opticks of these eyes to behold felicity. The first day of our jubilee is death; the devil hath therefore failed of his desires; we are hap- pier with death than we should have been without it: there is no misery but in himself, where there is no end of misery; and so indeed, in his own sense, the stoic is in the right.<63> He forgets that he can die, who complains of misery: we are in the power of no calamity while death is in our own.
Sect. 45.--Now, besides this literal and positive kind of death, there are others whereof divines make men- tion, and those, I think, not merely metaphorical, as mortification, dying unto sin and the world. There- fore, I say, every man hath a double horoscope; one of his humanity,--his birth, another of his Christianity,-- his baptism: and from this do I compute or calculate my nativity; not reckoning those horae combustae,<64> and odd days, or esteeming myself anything, before I was my Saviour"s and enrolled in the register of Christ.
Whosoever enjoys not this life, I count him but an apparition, though he wear about him the sensible affections of flesh. In these moral acceptions, the way to be immortal is to die daily; nor can I think I have the true theory of death, when I contemplate a skull or behold a skeleton with those vulgar imaginations it casts upon us. I have therefore enlarged that common memento mori into a more Christian memorandum, memento quatuor novissima,--those four inevitable points of us all, death, judgment, heaven, and h.e.l.l.
Neither did the contemplations of the heathens rest in their graves, without a further thought, of Rhada- manth<65> or some judicial proceeding after death, though in another way, and upon suggestion of their natural reasons. I cannot but marvel from what sibyl or oracle they stole the prophecy of the world"s destruction by fire, or whence Lucan learned to say--
"Communis mundo superest rogus, ossibus astra Misturus--"*
There yet remains to th" world one common fire, Wherein our bones with stars shall make one pyre.
* Pharsalia, vii. 814.
I believe the world grows near its end; yet is neither old nor decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruins of its own principles. As the work of creation was above nature, so its adversary, annihilation; without which the world hath not its end, but its mutation. Now, what force should be able to consume it thus far, with- out the breath of G.o.d, which is the truest consuming flame, my philosophy cannot inform me. Some believe there went not a minute to the world"s creation, nor shall there go to its destruction; those six days, so punctually described, make not to them one moment, but rather seem to manifest the method and idea of that great work of the intellect of G.o.d than the manner how he proceeded in its operation. I cannot dream that there should be at the last day any such judicial pro- ceeding, or calling to the bar, as indeed the Scripture seems to imply, and the literal commentators do con- ceive: for unspeakable mysteries in the Scriptures are often delivered in a vulgar and ill.u.s.trative way, and, being written unto man, are delivered, not as they truly are, but as they may be understood; wherein, notwith- standing, the different interpretations according to dif- ferent capacities may stand firm with our devotion, nor be any way prejudicial to each single edification.
Sect. 46.--Now, to determine the day and year of this inevitable time, is not only convincible and statute madness, but also manifest impiety. How shall we interpret Elias"s six thousand years, or imagine the secret communicated to a Rabbi which G.o.d hath de- nied unto his angels? It had been an excellent quaere to have posed the devil of Delphos, and must needs have forced him to some strange amphibology. It hath not only mocked the predictions of sundry astrologers in ages past, but the prophecies of many melancholy heads in these present; who, neither understanding reasonably things past nor present, pretend a know- ledge of things to come; heads ordained only to mani- fest the incredible effects of melancholy and to fulfil old prophecies,* rather than be the authors of new. "In those days there shall come wars and rumours of wars"
to me seems no prophecy, but a constant truth in all times verified since it was p.r.o.nounced. "There shall be signs in the moon and stars;" how comes he then like a thief in the night, when he gives an item of his coming? That common sign, drawn from the revela- tion of antichrist, is as obscure as any; in our common compute he hath been come these many years; but, for my own part, to speak freely, I am half of opinion that antichrist is the philosopher"s stone in divinity, for the discovery and invention whereof, though there be prescribed rules, and probable inductions, yet hath hardly any man attained the perfect discovery thereof.
That general opinion, that the world grows near its end, hath possessed all ages past as nearly as ours. I am afraid that the souls that now depart cannot escape that lingering expostulation of the saints under the altar, "quousque, Domine?" how long, O Lord? and groan in the expectation of the great jubilee.
Sect. 47.--This is the day that must make good that great attribute of G.o.d, his justice; that must reconcile those unanswerable doubts that torment the wisest understandings; and reduce those seeming inequalities and respective distributions in this world, to an equality and recompensive justice in the next. This is that one day, that shall include and comprehend all that went before it; wherein, as in the last scene, all the actors must enter, to complete and make up the catastrophe of
* "In those days there shall come liars and false prophets."
this great piece. This is the day whose memory hath, only, power to make us honest in the dark, and to be virtuous without a witness. "Ipsa sui pretium virtus sibi," that virtue is her own reward, is but a cold principle, and not able to maintain our variable resolutions in a constant and settled way of goodness. I have practised that honest artifice of Seneca,<66> and, in my retired and solitary imaginations to detain me from the foulness of vice, have fancied to myself the presence of my dear and worthiest friends, before whom I should lose my head rather than be vicious; yet herein I found that there was nought but moral honesty; and this was not to be virtuous for his sake who must reward us at the last. I have tried if I could reach that great resolution of his, to be honest without a thought of heaven or h.e.l.l; and, indeed I found, upon a natural inclination, and inbred loyalty unto virtue, that I could serve her without a livery, yet not in that resolved and venerable way, but that the frailty of my nature, upon an easy temptation, might be induced to forget her. The life, therefore, and spirit of all our actions is the resurrection, and a stable apprehension that our ashes shall enjoy the fruit of our pious endeavours; without this, all religion is a fallacy, and those impieties of Lucian, Euripides, and Julian, are no blasphemies, but subtile verities; and atheists have been the only philosophers.
Sect. 48.--How shall the dead arise, is no question of my faith; to believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere philosophy. Many things are true in divinity, which are neither inducible by reason nor confirmable by sense; and many things in philosophy confirmable by sense, yet not inducible by reason. Thus it is im- possible, by any solid or demonstrative reasons, to per- suade a man to believe the conversion of the needle to the north; though this be possible and true, and easily credible, upon a single experiment unto the sense. I believe that our estranged and divided ashes shall unite again; that our separated dust, after so many pilgrim- ages and transformations into the parts of minerals, plants, animals, elements, shall, at the voice of G.o.d, return into their primitive shapes, and join again to make up their primary and predestinate forms. As at the creation there was a separation of that confused ma.s.s into its pieces; so at the destruction thereof there shall be a separation into its distinct individuals. As, at the creation of the world, all the distinct species that we behold lay involved in one ma.s.s, till the fruitful voice of G.o.d separated this united mult.i.tude into its several species, so, at the last day, when those corrupted relicks shall be scattered in the wilderness of forms, and seem to have forgot their proper habits, G.o.d, by a power- ful voice, shall command them back into their proper shapes, and call them out by their single individuals.
Then shall appear the fertility of Adam, and the magick of that sperm that hath dilated into so many millions.
I have often beheld, as a miracle, that artificial resur- rection and revivification of mercury, how being morti- fied into a thousand shapes, it a.s.sumes again its own, and returns into its numerical self. Let us speak naturally, and like philosophers. The forms of alter- able bodies in these sensible corruptions perish not; nor, as we imagine, wholly quit their mansions; but retire and contract themselves into their secret and unaccessible parts; where they may best protect them- selves from the action of their antagonist. A plant or vegetable consumed to ashes to a contemplative and school-philosopher seems utterly destroyed, and the form to have taken his leave for ever; but to a sensible artist the forms are not perished, but withdrawn into their incombustible part, where they lie secure from the action of that devouring element. This is made good by experience, which can from the ashes of a plant revive the plant, and from its cinders recall it into its stalk and leaves again.<67> What the art of man can do in these inferior pieces, what blasphemy is it to affirm the finger of G.o.d cannot do in those more perfect and sensible structures? This is that mystical philosophy, from whence no true scholar becomes an atheist, but from the visible effects of nature grows up a real divine, and beholds not in a dream, as Ezekiel, but in an ocular and visible object, the types of his resur- rection.
Sect. 49.--Now, the necessary mansions of our restored selves are those two contrary and incompatible places we call heaven and h.e.l.l. To define them, or strictly to determine what and where these are, surpa.s.seth my divinity. That elegant apostle, which seemed to have a glimpse of heaven, hath left but a negative descrip- tion thereof; which "neither eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard, nor can enter into the heart of man:" he was translated out of himself to behold it; but, being re- turned into himself, could not express it. Saint John"s description by emeralds, chrysolites, and precious stones, is too weak to express the material heaven we behold.
Briefly, therefore, where the soul hath the full measure and complement of happiness; where the boundless appet.i.te of that spirit remains completely satisfied that it can neither desire addition nor alteration; that, I think, is truly heaven: and this can only be in the enjoyment of that essence, whose infinite goodness is able to terminate the desires of itself, and the unsatiable wishes of ours. Wherever G.o.d will thus manifest him- self, there is heaven, though within the circle of this sensible world. Thus, the soul of man may be in heaven anywhere, even within the limits of his own proper body; and when it ceaseth to live in the body it may remain in its own soul, that is, its Creator. And thus we may say that Saint Paul, whether in the body or out of the body, was yet in heaven. To place it in the empyreal, or beyond the tenth sphere, is to forget the world"s destruction; for when this sensible world shall be destroyed, all shall then be here as it is now there, an empyreal heaven, a quasi vacuity; when to ask where heaven is, is to demand where the presence of G.o.d is, or where we have the glory of that happy vision. Moses, that was bred up in all the learning of the Egyptians, committed a gross absurdity in philo- sophy, when with these eyes of flesh he desired to see G.o.d, and pet.i.tioned his Maker, that is truth itself, to a contra- diction. Those that imagine heaven and h.e.l.l neighbours, and conceive a vicinity between those two extremes, upon consequence of the parable, where Dives discoursed with Lazarus, in Abraham"s bosom, do too grossly con- ceive of those glorified creatures, whose eyes shall easily out-see the sun, and behold without perspective the extremest distances: for if there shall be, in our glori- fied eyes, the faculty of sight and reception of objects, I could think the visible species there to be in as un- limitable a way as now the intellectual. I grant that two bodies placed beyond the tenth sphere, or in a vacuity, according to Aristotle"s philosophy, could not behold each other, because there wants a body or medium to hand and transport the visible rays of the object unto the sense; but when there shall be a general defect of either medium to convey, or light to prepare and dispose that medium, and yet a perfect vision, we must suspend the rules of our philosophy, and make all good by a more absolute piece of opticks.
Sect. 50.--I cannot tell how to say that fire is the essence of h.e.l.l; I know not what to make of purgatory, or conceive a flame that can either prey upon, or purify the substance of a soul. Those flames of sulphur, men- tioned in the scriptures, I take not to be understood of this present h.e.l.l, but of that to come, where fire shall make up the complement of our tortures, and have a body or subject whereon to manifest its tyranny. Some who have had the honour to be textuary in divinity are of opinion it shall be the same specifical fire with ours.
This is hard to conceive, yet can I make good how even that may prey upon our bodies, and yet not consume us: for in this material world, there are bodies that persist invincible in the powerfulest flames; and though, by the action of fire, they fall into ignition and liquation, yet will they never suffer a destruction. I would gladly know how Moses, with an actual fire, calcined or burnt the golden calf into powder: for that mystical metal of gold, whose solary and celestial nature I admire, ex- posed unto the violence of fire, grows only hot, and liquefies, but consumeth not; so when the consumable and volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined into a more impregnable and fixed temper, like gold, though they suffer from the action of flames, they shall never perish, but lie immortal in the arms of fire. And surely, if this flame must suffer only by the action of this element, there will many bodies escape; and not only heaven, but earth will not be at an end, but rather a beginning. For at present it is not earth, but a composition of fire, water, earth, and air; but at that time, spoiled of these ingredients, it shall appear in a substance more like itself, its ashes. Philosophers that opinioned the world"s destruction by fire, did never dream of annihilation, which is beyond the power of sublunary causes; for the last and proper action of that element is but vitrification, or a reduction of a body into gla.s.s; and therefore some of our chymicks facetiously affirm, that, at the last fire, all shall be crystalized and reverberated into gla.s.s, which is the utmost action of that element. Nor need we fear this term, annihilation, or wonder that G.o.d will destroy the works of his crea- tion: for man subsisting, who is, and will then truly appear, a microcosm, the world cannot be said to be destroyed. For the eyes of G.o.d, and perhaps also of our glorified selves, shall as really behold and contem- plate the world, in its epitome or contracted essence, as now it doth at large and in its dilated substance. In the seed of a plant, to the eyes of G.o.d, and to the under- standing of man, there exists, though in an invisible way, the perfect leaves, flowers, and fruit thereof; for things that are in posse to the sense, are actually existent to the understanding. Thus G.o.d beholds all things, who contemplates as fully his works in their epitome as in their full volume, and beheld as amply the whole world, in that little compendium of the sixth day, as in the scattered and dilated pieces of those five before.
Sect. 51.--Men commonly set forth the torments of h.e.l.l by fire, and the extremity of corporal afflictions, and describe h.e.l.l in the same method that Mahomet doth heaven. This indeed makes a noise, and drums in popular ears: but if this be the terrible piece thereof, it is not worthy to stand in diameter with heaven, whose happiness consists in that part that is best able to com- prehend it, that immortal essence, that translated divinity and colony of G.o.d, the soul. Surely, though we place h.e.l.l under earth, the devil"s walk and purlieu is about it. Men speak too popularly who place it in those flaming mountains, which to grosser apprehensions re- present h.e.l.l. The heart of man is the place the devils dwell in; I feel sometimes a h.e.l.l within myself; Lucifer keeps his court in my breast; Legion is revived in me. There are as many h.e.l.ls as Anaxagoras<68> conceited worlds. There was more than one h.e.l.l in Magdalene, when there were seven devils; for every devil is an h.e.l.l unto himself,<69> he holds enough of torture in his own ubi; and needs not the misery of cir- c.u.mference to afflict him: and thus, a distracted con- science here is a shadow or introduction unto h.e.l.l here- after. Who can but pity the merciful intention of those hands that do destroy themselves? The devil, were it in his power, would do the like; which being im- possible, his miseries are endless, and he suffers most in that attribute wherein he is impa.s.sible, his im- mortality.
Sect. 52.--I thank G.o.d, and with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of h.e.l.l, nor ever grew pale at the description of that place. I have so fixed my contempla- tions on heaven, that I have almost forgot the idea of h.e.l.l; and am afraid rather to lose the joys of the one, than endure the misery of the other: to be deprived of them is a perfect h.e.l.l, and needs methinks no addition to complete our afflictions. That terrible term hath never detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof. I fear G.o.d, yet am not afraid of him; his mercies make me ashamed of my sins, before his judgments afraid thereof: these are the forced and secondary method of his wisdom, which he useth but as the last remedy, and upon provocation;-- a course rather to deter the wicked, than incite the virtuous to his worship. I can hardly think there was ever any scared into heaven: they go the fairest way to heaven that would serve G.o.d without a h.e.l.l: other mercenaries, that crouch unto him in fear of h.e.l.l, though they term themselves the servants, are indeed but the slaves, of the Almighty.
Sect. 53.--And to be true, and speak my soul, when I survey the occurrences of my life, and call into account the finger of G.o.d, I can perceive nothing but an abyss and ma.s.s of mercies, either in general to mankind, or in particular to myself. And, whether out of the prejudice of my affection, or an inverting and partial conceit of his mercies, I know not,--but those which others term crosses, afflictions, judgments, misfortunes, to me, who inquire further into them than their visible effects, they both appear, and in event have ever proved, the secret and dissembled favours of his affection. It is a singular piece of wisdom to apprehend truly, and without pa.s.sion, the works of G.o.d, and so well to distinguish his justice from his mercy as not to miscall those n.o.ble attributes; yet it is likewise an honest piece of logick so to dispute and argue the proceedings of G.o.d as to distinguish even his judgments into mercies. For G.o.d is merciful unto all, because better to the worst than the best deserve; and to say he punisheth none in this world, though it be a paradox, is no absurdity. To one that hath com- mitted murder, if the judge should only ordain a fine, it were a madness to call this a punishment, and to re- pine at the sentence, rather than admire the clemency of the judge. Thus, our offences being mortal, and deserving not only death but d.a.m.nation, if the goodness of G.o.d be content to traverse and pa.s.s them over with a loss, misfortune, or disease; what frenzy were it to term this a punishment, rather than an extremity of mercy, and to groan under the rod of his judgments rather than admire the sceptre of his mercies! There- fore to adore, honour, and admire him, is a debt of grat.i.tude due from the obligation of our nature, states, and conditions: and with these thoughts he that knows them best will not deny that I adore him. That I obtain heaven, and the bliss thereof, is accidental, and not the intended work of my devotion; it being a felicity I can neither think to deserve nor scarce in modesty to expect. For these two ends of us all, either as rewards or punishments, are mercifully ordained and disproportionably disposed unto our actions; the one being so far beyond our deserts, the other so infinitely below our demerits.
Sect. 54.--There is no salvation to those that believe not in Christ; that is, say some, since his nativity, and, as divinity affirmeth, before also; which makes me much apprehend the end of those honest worthies and philosophers which died before his incarnation. It is hard to place those souls in h.e.l.l, whose worthy lives do teach us virtue on earth. Methinks, among those many subdivisions of h.e.l.l, there might have been one limbo left for these. What a strange vision will it be to see their poetical fictions converted into verities, and their imagined and fancied furies into real devils! How strange to them will sound the history of Adam, when they shall suffer for him they never heard of! When they who derive their genealogy from the G.o.ds, shall know they are the unhappy issue of sinful man! It is an insolent part of reason, to controvert the works of G.o.d, or question the justice of his proceedings. Could humility teach others, as it hath instructed me, to con- template the infinite and incomprehensible distance be- twixt the Creator and the creature; or did we seriously perpend that one simile of St Paul, "shall the vessel say to the potter, why hast thou made me thus?" it would prevent these arrogant disputes of reason: nor would we argue the definitive sentence of G.o.d, either to heaven or h.e.l.l. Men that live according to the right rule and law of reason, live but in their own kind, as beasts do in theirs; who justly obey the prescript of their natures, and therefore cannot reasonably demand a reward of their actions, as only obeying the natural dictates of their reason. It will, therefore, and must, at last appear, that all salvation is through Christ; which verity, I fear, these great examples of virtue must con- firm, and make it good how the perfectest actions of earth have no t.i.tle or claim unto heaven.
Sect. 55.--Nor truly do I think the lives of these, or of any other, were ever correspondent, or in all points conformable, unto their doctrines. It is evident that Aristotle transgressed the rule of his own ethicks;<70> the stoicks, that condemn pa.s.sion, and command a man to laugh in Phalaris"s<71> bull, could not endure without a groan a fit of the stone or colick. The scepticks, that affirmed they knew nothing,<72> even in that opinion con- fute themselves, and thought they knew more than all the world beside. Diogenes I hold to be the most vain- glorious man of his time, and more ambitious in refus- ing all honours, than Alexander in rejecting none. Vice and the devil put a fallacy upon our reasons; and, provoking us too hastily to run from it, entangle and profound us deeper in it. The duke of Venice, that weds himself unto the sea, by a ring of gold,<73> I will not accuse of prodigality, because it is a solemnity of good use and consequence in the state: but the philoso- pher, that threw his money into the sea to avoid avarice, was a notorious prodigal.<74> There is no road or ready way to virtue; it is not an easy point of art to dis- entangle ourselves from this riddle or web of sin. To perfect virtue, as to religion, there is required a panoplia, or complete armour; that whilst we lie at close ward against one vice, we lie not open to the veney<75> of another. And indeed wiser discretions, that have the thread of reason to conduct them, offend without a pardon; whereas under heads may stumble without dishonour. There go so many circ.u.mstances to piece up one good action, that it is a lesson to be good, and we are forced to be virtuous by the book. Again, the practice of men holds not an equal pace, yea and often runs counter to their theory; we naturally know what is good, but naturally pursue what is evil: the rhetorick wherewith I persuade another cannot persuade myself.
There is a depraved appet.i.te in us, that will with patience hear the learned instructions of reason, but yet perform no further than agrees to its own irregular humour. In brief, we all are monsters; that is, a com- position of man and beast: wherein we must endeavour to be as the poets fancy that wise man, Chiron; that is, to have the region of man above that of beast, and sense to sit but at the feet of reason. Lastly, I do desire with G.o.d that all, but yet affirm with men that few, shall know salvation,--that the bridge is narrow, the pa.s.sage strait unto life: yet those who do confine the church of G.o.d either to particular nations, churches, or families, have made it far narrower than our Saviour ever meant it.
Sect. 56.--The vulgarity of those judgments that wrap the church of G.o.d in Strabo"s cloak,<76> and restrain it unto Europe, seem to me as bad geographers as Alex- ander, who thought he had conquered all the world, when he had not subdued the half of any part thereof.
For we cannot deny the church of G.o.d both in Asia and Africa, if we do not forget the peregrinations of the apostles, the deaths of the martyrs, the sessions of many and (even in our reformed judgment) lawful councils, held in those parts in the minority and nonage of ours. Nor must a few differences, more re- markable in the eyes of man than, perhaps, in the judgment of G.o.d, excommunicate from heaven one an- other; much less those Christians who are in a manner all martyrs, maintaining their faith in the n.o.ble way of persecution, and serving G.o.d in the fire, whereas we honour him in the sunshine.
"Tis true, we all hold there is a number of elect, and many to be saved; yet, take our opinions together, and from the confusion thereof, there will be no such thing as salvation, nor shall any one be saved: for, first, the church of Rome condemneth us; we likewise them; the sub-reformists and sectaries sentence the doctrine of our church as d.a.m.nable; the atomist, or familist,<77> re- probates all these; and all these, them again. Thus, whilst the mercies of G.o.d do promise us heaven, our conceits and opinions exclude us from that place. There must be therefore more than one St Peter; particular churches and sects usurp the gates of heaven, and turn the key against each other; and thus we go to heaven against each other"s wills, conceits, and opinions, and, with as much uncharity as ignorance, do err, I fear, in points not only of our own, but one another"s salvation.
Sect. 57.--I believe many are saved who to man seem reprobated, and many are reprobated who in the opinion and sentence of man stand elected. There will appear, at the last day, strange and unexpected examples, both of his justice and his mercy; and, therefore, to define either is folly in man, and insolency even in the devils. These acute and subtile spirits, in all their sagacity, can hardly divine who shall be saved; which if they could prognostick, their labour were at an end, nor need they compa.s.s the earth, seeking whom they may devour. Those who, upon a rigid application of the law, sentence Solomon unto d.a.m.nation,<78> condemn not only him, but themselves, and the whole world; for by the letter and written word of G.o.d, we are with- out exception in the state of death: but there is a pre- rogative of G.o.d, and an arbitrary pleasure above the letter of his own law, by which alone we can pretend unto salvation, and through which Solomon might be as easily saved as those who condemn him.
Sect. 58.--The number of those who pretend unto salvation, and those infinite swarms who think to pa.s.s through the eye of this needle, have much amazed me.
That name and compellation of "little flock" doth not comfort, but deject, my devotion; especially when I reflect upon mine own unworthiness, wherein, accord- ing to my humble apprehensions, I am below them all.
I believe there shall never be an anarchy in heaven; but, as there are hierarchies amongst the angels, so shall there be degrees of priority amongst the saints. Yet is it, I protest, beyond my ambition to aspire unto the first ranks; my desires only are, and I shall be happy therein, to be but the last man, and bring up the rear in heaven.
Sect. 59.--Again, I am confident, and fully persuaded, yet dare not take my oath, of my salvation. I am, as it were, sure, and do believe without all doubt, that there is such a city as Constantinople; yet, for me to take my oath thereon were a kind of perjury, because I hold no infallible warrant from my own sense to confirm me in the certainty thereof. And truly, though many pretend to an absolute certainty of their salvation, yet when an humble soul shall contemplate our own un- worthiness, she shall meet with many doubts, and sud- denly find how little we stand in need of the precept of St Paul, "work out your salvation with fear and trem- bling." That which is the cause of my election, I hold to be the cause of my salvation, which was the mercy and beneplacit of G.o.d, before I was, or the foundation of the world. "Before Abraham was, I am," is the saying of Christ, yet is it true in some sense if I say it of myself; for I was not only before myself but Adam, that is, in the idea of G.o.d, and the decree of that synod held from all eternity. And in this sense, I say, the world was before the creation, and at an end before it had a beginning. And thus was I dead before I was alive; though my grave be England, my dying place was Paradise; and Eve miscarried of me, before she con- ceived of Cain.
Sect. 60.--Insolent zeals, that do decry good works and rely only upon faith, take not away merit: for, depending upon the efficacy of their faith, they enforce the condition of G.o.d, and in a more sophistical way do seem to challenge heaven. It was decreed by G.o.d that only those that lapped in the water like dogs, should have the honour to destroy the Midianites; yet could none of those justly challenge, or imagine he deserved, that honour thereupon. I do not deny but that true faith, and such as G.o.d requires, is not only a mark or token, but also a means, of our salvation; but, where to find this, is as obscure to me as my last end. And if our Saviour could object, unto his own disciples and favourites, a faith that, to the quant.i.ty of a grain of mustard seed, is able to remove mountains; surely that which we boast of is not anything, or, at the most, but a remove from nothing.
This is the tenour of my belief; wherein, though there be many things singular, and to the humour of my irregular self, yet, if they square not with maturer judgments, I disclaim them, and do no further favour them than the learned and best judgments shall authorize them.
PART THE SECOND.
Sect. 1.--Now, for that other virtue of charity, without which faith is a mere notion and of no existence, I have ever endeavoured to nourish the merciful disposition and humane inclination I borrowed from my parents, and regulate it to the written and prescribed laws of charity. And, if I hold the true anatomy of myself, I am delineated and naturally framed to such a piece of virtue,--for I am of a const.i.tution so general that it consorts and sympathizeth with all things; I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncrasy, in diet, humour, air, anything. I wonder not at the French for their dishes of frogs, snails, and toadstools, nor at the Jews for locusts and gra.s.shoppers; but, being amongst them, make them my common viands; and I find they agree with my stomach as well as theirs. I could digest a salad gathered in a church-yard as well as in a garden. I cannot start at the presence of a serpent, scorpion, lizard, or salamander; at the sight of a toad or viper, I find in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in myself those common antipathies that I can dis- cover in others: those national repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch; but, where I find their actions in balance with my countrymen"s, I honour, love, and embrace them, in the same degree. I was born in the eighth climate, but seem to be framed and constel- lated unto all. I am no plant that will not prosper out of a garden. All places, all airs, make unto me one country; I am in England everywhere, and under any meridian. I have been shipwrecked, yet am not enemy with the sea or winds; I can study, play, or sleep, in a tempest. In brief I am averse from nothing: my con- science would give me the lie if I should say I abso- lutely detest or hate any essence, but the devil; or so at least abhor anything, but that we might come to composition. If there be any among those common objects of hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, virtue, and religion, the mul- t.i.tude; that numerous piece of monstrosity, which, taken asunder, seem men, and the reasonable creatures of G.o.d, but, confused together, make but one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra.
It is no breach of charity to call these fools; it is the style all holy writers have afforded them, set down by Solomon in canonical Scripture, and a point of our faith to believe so. Neither in the name of mult.i.tude do I only include the base and minor sort of people: there is a rabble even amongst the gentry; a sort of plebeian heads, whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these; men in the same level with mechanicks, though their fortunes do somewhat gild their infirmities, and their purses compound for their follies. But, as in casting account three or four men together come short in account of one man placed by himself below them, so neither are a troop of these ignorant Doradoes<79> of that true esteem and value as many a forlorn person, whose con- dition doth place him below their feet. Let us speak like politicians; there is a n.o.bility without heraldry, a natural dignity, whereby one man is ranked with another, another filed before him, according to the quality of his desert, and pre-eminence of his good parts.
Though the corruption of these times, and the bias of present practice, wheel another way, thus it was in the first and primitive commonwealths, and is yet in the in- tegrity and cradle of well ordered polities: till corrup- tion getteth ground;--ruder desires labouring after that which wiser considerations contemn;--every one having a liberty to ama.s.s and heap up riches, and they a licence or faculty to do or purchase anything.
Sect. 2.--This general and indifferent temper of mine doth more nearly dispose me to this n.o.ble virtue. It is a happiness to be born and framed unto virtue, and to grow up from the seeds of nature, rather than the inoculations and forced grafts of education: yet, if we are directed only by our particular natures, and regulate our inclinations by no higher rule than that of our reasons, we are but moralists; divinity will still call us heathens. Therefore this great work of charity must have other motives, ends, and impulsions. I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my G.o.d; I draw not my purse for his sake that demands it, but his that enjoined it; I relieve no man upon the rhetorick of his miseries, nor to content mine own commiserating disposition; for this is still but moral charity, and an act that oweth more to pa.s.sion than reason. He that relieves another upon the bare suggestion and bowels of pity doth not this so much for his sake as for his own; and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.
It is as erroneous a conceit to redress other men"s misfortunes upon the common considerations of merciful natures, that it may be one day our own case; for this is a sinister and politick kind of charity, whereby we seem to bespeak the pities of men in the like occasions.
And truly I have observed that those professed eleemo- synaries, though in a crowd or mult.i.tude, do yet direct and place their pet.i.tions on a few and selected persons; there is surely a physiognomy, which those experienced and master mendicants observe, whereby they instantly discover a merciful aspect, and will single out a face, wherein they spy the signature and marks of mercy.
For there are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that can read A, B, C, may read our natures. I hold, moreover, that there is a phytognomy, or physiognomy, not only of men, but of plants and vegetables; and is every one of them some outward figures which hang as signs or bushes of their inward forms. The finger of G.o.d hath left an inscription upon all his works, not graphical, or composed of letters, but of their several forms, const.i.tutions, parts, and operations, which, aptly joined together, do make one word that doth express their natures. By these letters G.o.d calls the stars by their names; and by this alphabet Adam a.s.signed to every creature a name peculiar to its nature. Now, there are, besides these characters in our faces, certain mystical figures in our hands, which I dare not call mere dashes, strokes a la volee or at random, because delineated by a pencil that never works in vain; and hereof I take more particular notice, because I carry that in mine own hand which I could never read of nor discover in another. Aristotle, I confess, in his acute and singular book of physiognomy, hath made no mention of chiromancy:<80> yet I believe the Egyptians, who were nearer addicted to those abstruse and mysti- cal sciences, had a knowledge therein: to which those vagabond and counterfeit Egyptians did after<81> pretend, and perhaps retained a few corrupted principles, which sometimes might verify their prognosticks.
It is the common wonder of all men, how, among so many millions of faces, there should be none alike: now, contrary, I wonder as much how there should be any. He that shall consider how many thousand several words have been carelessly and without study composed out of twenty-four letters; withal, how many hundred lines there are to be drawn in the fabrick of one man; shall easily find that this variety is necessary: and it will be very hard that they shall so concur as to make one portrait like another. Let a painter carelessly limn out a million of faces, and you shall find them all different; yes, let him have his copy before him, yet, after all his art, there will remain a sensible distinction: for the pattern or example of everything is the perfectest in that kind, whereof we still come short, though we transcend or go beyond it; because herein it is wide, and agrees not in all points unto its copy. Nor doth the similitude of creatures disparage the variety of nature, nor any way confound the works of G.o.d. For even in things alike there is diversity; and those that do seem to accord do manifestly disagree. And thus is man like G.o.d; for, in the same things that we resemble him we are utterly different from him. There was never anything so like another as in all points to concur; there will ever some reserved difference slip in, to prevent the ident.i.ty; without which two several things would not be alike, but the same, which is impossible.
Sect. 3.--But, to return from philosophy to charity, I hold not so narrow a conceit of this virtue as to con- ceive that to give alms is only to be charitable, or think a piece of liberality can comprehend the total of charity.
Divinity hath wisely divided the act thereof into many branches, and hath taught us, in this narrow way, many paths unto goodness; as many ways as we may do good, so many ways we may be charitable. There are in- firmities not only of body, but of soul and fortunes, which do require the merciful hand of our abilities. I cannot contemn a man for ignorance, but behold him with as much pity as I do Lazarus. It is no greater charity to clothe his body than apparel the nakedness of his soul. It is an honourable object to see the reasons of other men wear our liveries, and their borrowed understandings do homage to the bounty of ours. It is the cheapest way of beneficence, and, like the natural charity of the sun, illuminates another without obscuring itself. To be reserved and caitiff<82> in this part of goodness is the sordidest piece of covetous- ness, and more contemptible than the pecuniary avarice.
To this (as calling myself a scholar) I am obliged by the duty of my condition. I make not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure of knowledge. I intend no monopoly, but a community in learning. I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves. I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less. I instruct no man as an exercise of my knowledge, or with an intent rather to nourish and keep it alive in mine own head than beget and propagate it in his. And, in the midst of all my endeavours, there is but one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with myself, nor can be legacied among my honoured friends.
I cannot fall out or contemn a man for an error, or conceive why a difference in opinion should divide an affection; for controversies, disputes, and argumenta- tions, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity. In all disputes, so much as there is of pa.s.sion, so much there is of nothing to the purpose; for then reason, like a bad hound, spends upon a false scent, and forsakes the question first started. And this is one reason why controversies are never determined; for, though they be amply proposed, they are scarce at all handled; they do so swell with unnecessary digressions; and the parenthesis on the party is often as large as the main discourse upon the subject. The foundations of religion are already established, and the principles of salvation subscribed unto by all. There remain not many controversies worthy a pa.s.sion, and yet never any dispute without, not only in divinity but inferior arts.
What a [Greek omitted] and hot skirmish is betwixt S.
and T. in Lucian!<83> How do grammarians hack and slash for the genitive case in Jupiter!<84> How do they break their own pates, to salve that of Priscian!<85> "Si foret in terris, rideret Democritus." Yes, even amongst wiser militants, how many wounds have been given and credits slain, for the poor victory of an opinion, or beggarly conquest of a distinction! Scholars are men of peace, they bear no arms, but their tongues are sharper than Actius"s razor.<86> their pens carry farther, and give a louder report than thunder. I had rather stand the shock of a basilisko<87> than in the fury of a merciless pen. It is not mere zeal to learning, or devotion to the muses, that wiser princes patron the arts, and carry an indulgent aspect unto scholars; but a desire to have their names eternized by the memory of their writings, and a fear of the revengeful pen of succeeding ages: for these are the men that, when they have played their parts, and had their exits, must step out and give the moral of their scenes, and deliver unto posterity an inventory of their virtues and vices. And surely there goes a great deal of conscience to the compiling of an history: there is no reproach to the scandal of a story; it is such an authentick kind of falsehood, that with authority belies our good names to all nations and posterity.