St. Paula that calls the Cretians liars, doth it but indirectly, and upon quotation of their own poet. *It is as bloody a thought in one way, as Nero's was in another. For by a word we wound a thoufand, and at one blow affaffin the honour of a Nation. It is as compleat a piece of madness to mifcal and rave against the times, or think to recal men to reason, by a fit of paffion. Democritus, that thought to laugh the times into goodness, feems to me as deeply hyponchondriack, as Heraclitus that bewailed them; it moves not my spleen to behold the multitude in their pro*per humours, that is, in their fits of folly and madness, as well understanding that wifdom is not profaned unto the world, and 'tis the privilege of a few to be virtuous. They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also virtue; for contraries, though 2 Tit. i. 12. though they deftroy one another, are yet in the life of one another. Thus virtue (abolish vice) is an idea; again, the community of fincommo doth not difparage goodness; for ness, when vice gains upon the major part, virtue, in whom it remains, becomes more excellent, and being loft in fome, multiplies its goodnefs in others which remain untouched, and perfifts intire in the general inundation. I can therefore behold vice without a fatyr, content only, with an admonition, or instructive reprehenfion; for noble natures, and fuch as are capable of goodnefs, are railed into vice, that might as easily be admo-railler nished into virtue; and we should laughi be all fo far the orators of goodnefs, as to protect her from the power of vice, and maintain the caufe of injured truth. No man can justly cenfure or condemn another, because indeed no man tru into vice ly knows another. This I perceive in myself, for I am in the dark to all the world, and my nearest friends behold me but in a cloud, thofe that know me but fuperficially, think lefs of me than I do of myfelf; thofe of my near acquaintance think more; God, who truly knows me, knows that I am nothing; for he only beholds me and all the world, who looks not on us thro' a derived ray, or a trajection of a fenfible fpecies, but beholds the fubftance without the helps of accidents, and the forms of things, as we their operations. Further, no man can judge another, because no man knows himfelf; for we cenfure others but as they difagree from that humour which we fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and consent with us. So that in conclufion, all is but that we all condemn, felf felf-love. 'Tis the general com- → ? agrees with coldest natures, and fuch as are com-charity plexioned for humility: But how fhall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourfelves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world, yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were, his own executioner. Non occides, is the commandment of God, yet fcarce observed by any man: for I perceive every man is his own atropos, and lends a hand to cut the thread of his own days. Cain was not therefore the first murderer, but Adam, who brought in death; whereof he beheld the practice and example in his own fon Abel, and faw that verified in Z. the the experience of another; which faith could not perfuade him of in the theory of himself. SECT. V. There is I think no man that apprehends his own miferies less than myself, and no man that fo nearly apprehends: anothers. I could lofe an arm without a tear, and with few groans, methinks, be quartered into pieces; yet can I weep most seriously at a play, and receive with a true paffion, the counterfeit griefs of thofe known and professed impostures. It is a barbarous part of inhumanity to add unto any afflicted party's misery, or endeavour to multiply in any man, a pallion, whose fingle nature is already above his patience; this was the greatest affliction of Job, and thofe oblique expoftulations of his friends a deeper injury than the down right blows of the devil. It impostors - See p-4 is |