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intermixture of practice against the state: much less to nourish seditions, to authorize conspiracies and rebellions, to put the sword into the people's hands, and the like, tending to the subversion of all government, which is the ordinance of God. For 5 this is but to dash the first table against the second; and so to consider men as Christians as we forget that they are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon," that could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed:

"Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum."

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What would he have said if he had known of the massacre in France, or the powder treason of England? He would have been seven times more epicure and atheist than he was. For as the tem-15 poral sword is to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion, so it is a thing monstrous to put into the hands of the common people. Let that be left unto the Anabaptists and other furies. It was great blasphemy when the devil said, "I will ascend 20 and be like the Highest;" but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring him in saying, "I will descend, and be like the prince of darkness." And what is it better to make the cause of religion to descend to the cruel and execrable actions of mur-25 dering princes, butchery of people, and subversion of states and governments? Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven; and to set,

out of the bark of a Christian Church, a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins. Therefore it is most necessary that the Church by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, and all learnings, both Christian and 5 moral, as by their mercury rod, do damn and send to hell for ever those facts and opinions tending to the support of the same; as hath been already in good part done. Surely in counsels concerning religion, that counsel of the apostle would be pre10 fixed, “Ira hominis non implet justitiam Dei." And it was a notable observation of a wise father, and no less ingenuously confessed, "that those which held and persuaded pressure of consciences were commonly interessed therein themselves for their own ends."

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IV. OF REVENGE
Uncultivated

REVENGE is a kind of wild° justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge a man 20 is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over he is superior: for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith, "It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence." °

That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and wise 25 men have enough to do with things present and to come: therefore they do but trifle with themselves

that labour in past matters. There is no man doeth
a wrong for the wrong's sake; but thereby to pur-
chase himself profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the
like. Therefore why should I be angry with a man
for loving himself better than me? And if any man 5
should do wrong merely out of ill-nature, why, yet it
is but like the thorn or briar, which prick or scratch,
because they can do no other. Ban jepreed to dueling
The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those
wrongs which there is no law° to remedy; but then 10
let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is
no law to punish; else a man's enemy is still before-
hand, and it is two for one.°

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Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh; this is the 15 more generous. For the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt as in making the party repent. But base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. anch of Medici family Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a desperate say-20 ing against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable: "You shall read," saith he, "that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends." But yet the spirit of Job was in a 25 better tune: "Shall we," saith he, "take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also?" And so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. 30

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Roman Public revenges are for the most part fortunate; as empur that for the death of Cæsar, for the death of Pertimurdud nax, for the death of Henry III. of France, and many more. But in private revenges it is not so. 5 Nay, rather, vindictive persons live the life of witches, who, as they are mischievous, so end they infortunate.

by

Goldin

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V. OF ADVERSITY

Ir was a high speech of Seneca,° after the manner of the Stoics, that the good things which belong to 10 prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired. "Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia." Certainly if miracles be the command over Nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher 15 speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen), “It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a God." "Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei." This would have done better in poesy, where 20 transcendencies are more allowed. And the poets, indeed, have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets which seemeth not to be without mystery; nay, and to have some approach to the state of 25 a Christian: that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot

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or pitcher; lively describing Christian resolution that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world.

But to speak in a mean°: the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, 5 which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet, even in the Old Testament, if you listen to 10 David's harp you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without 15 comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the 20 pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover° vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

VI. OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION

DISSIMULATION is but a faint kind of policy or 25 wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell truth and to do it. Therefore

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