RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 BY SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 EDITED 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 I). LLOYD ROBERTS 
 
 M.D.. F.R.C.P. 
 
 New Edition 
 
 MANCHESTER 
 
 SHERRATT AND HUGHES 
 1902 
 
1st Revised Edition, December, 1898 
 
ft 132-7 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or 
 
THE EDITOR 
 
 CORDIALLY AND RESPECTFULLY 
 
 DEDICATES THIS EDITION OF THE ' RELIGIO MEDICI 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS OF 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 TO HIS FRIEND 
 THE REVEREND THE MOST HONOURABLE 
 
 THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBY 
 
 CANON OF ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL 
 WINDSOR 
 
 
 
The text of this edition of Sir Thomas Browne's 
 best-known essays has been carefully revised. A 
 short posthumous tract 'On Dreams' has been 
 added, published originally by Wilkin from the 
 Sloane MSS. in the British Museum. I have to 
 thank my friend Mr. C. W. Suttonfor his assist- 
 anee in reading the proof-sheets. 
 
 MANCHESTER, November 1897. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION . ix 
 
 RELIGIO MEDICI . 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 LETTER TO A FRIEND . 
 
 ON DREAMS . . 281 
 
 URN BURIAL - 241 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE, in his best-known work, 
 the Religio Medici, speaks of his earlier life as 
 'a miracle of thirty years, which to relate 
 were not a history but a piece of poetry/ yet 
 its actual incidents justify no such description. 
 
 This apparent hyperbolism must, therefore, 
 be understood to refer rather to its subjective 
 than its objective development. The follow- 
 ing sketch will show that his life, from 
 beginning to end, when the troublous times 
 that were contemporaneous with it are borne 
 in mind, was almost remarkable for its absolute 
 uneventfulness. In fact, so strangely oblivious 
 does he appear to have been to the stupendous 
 dramas enacted all around him, that scarcely 
 any evidences of their effect upon his quiet 
 and studious life can be found in his writings ; 
 he seems to have been almost as undisturbed 
 by e the drums and tramplings ' of the terrible 
 struggle that rent the kingdom in twain, as 
 the peaceful dead who claimed so large a 
 share of his attention. 
 
 He was born in the city of London on 
 October 19, 1605 the year of the Gunpowder 
 
x BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 Plot in the parish of St. Michael, Cheapside. 
 His father, who was of gentle birth, was a 
 presumably successful business man, either 
 merchant or mercer, tracing his descent from 
 ' an ancient and genteel family ' belonging to 
 Upton in Cheshire, and it is on record that he 
 was related to a Countess of Devonshire, whom 
 he greatly resembled. He was in the habit 
 of uncovering the breast of his infant son, 
 when he was sleeping, kissing it, and praying 
 over him, in imitation of Origen's father, * that 
 the Holy Ghost would take possession there.' 
 
 Sir Thomas's mother was the daughter of 
 a Paul Garraway of Lewes, Sussex, but of her 
 very little is known. She lost her husband 
 while her son was in his nonage, and she 
 married again ; her second husband, Sir 
 Thomas Button, being ' a very worthy 
 gentleman who enjoyed an honourable post 
 in the government of Ireland/ 
 
 There is reason to doubt whether the 
 fortune of about 9000 of which a third 
 was left to the mother was fairly appor- 
 tioned between Thomas and his brother and 
 two sisters, for it is stated that he was 
 defrauded by the rapacity of his guardians. 
 Be this as it may, his education was not 
 neglected. He obtained a scholarship at 
 Winchester in l6l6 the year of Shake- 
 speare's death ; and in the beginning of 
 

 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 1623, when in his eighteenth year, he was 
 entered as a fellow-commoner at Broadgate 
 Hall, Oxford, soon after endowed as a 
 college, and taking its name from the 
 Earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the 
 university. 
 
 Here he earned the warm and lasting 
 esteem of his tutor, Dr. Thomas Lushington. 
 There is little doubt that his university 
 career was distinguished not only by his rare 
 intellectual qualifications, but by the display 
 of a singularly attractive disposition; for we 
 find in after-years that his college friends had 
 much to do in shaping his career. He was 
 admitted to his Bachelor's degree January 
 31, 1626-7, and proceeded Master of Arts in 
 his twenty-third year. 
 
 From this time the study of medicine 
 appears to have claimed his special attention, 
 and he soon began to practise in the 
 neighbourhood of Oxford. He quickly, 
 however, gave up his work, in order that 
 he might avail himself of the opportunity 
 of accompanying his stepfather, Sir Thomas 
 Button, in an official tour through Ireland, 
 undertaken for the purpose of inspecting and 
 reporting upon the condition of its forts and 
 castles, the country then being in one of its 
 periodically disturbed states. 
 
 From Ireland he continued his travels to 
 
xii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 France, where he visited the principal places 
 of interest. Very few autobiographical details 
 are available regarding this period, but we 
 find him in after-years, in a letter to his son, 
 speaking of his experiences of Rochelle, as 
 ( a place of too much good fellowship and a 
 very drinking town, more than other parts of 
 France/ 
 
 He made a considerable stay at Mont- 
 pellier, then a famous school of medicine, 
 whence he proceeded to Padua, the most 
 renowned of the Italian universities. Here 
 existed the most celebrated school of medicine 
 in the world; and here Harvey and nearly 
 all the seventeenth-century doctors of any 
 fame passed their curriculum under the 
 greatest teachers of the age. 
 
 Doubtless during this period the young 
 student acquired his ready knowledge of 
 French and Italian, and obtained an exten- 
 sive acquaintance with the literature of both 
 countries, drinking deeply from the rich 
 storehouses of Dante and Montaigne ; for 
 the influence of the daring sublimity of the 
 one and the almost self-effacing philosophic 
 toleration of the other is most strongly 
 marked in Sir Thomas Browne's subsequent 
 writings. 
 
 Perhaps the following is one of the most 
 striking of the many interesting parallelisms 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 that could be pointed out, showing how 
 nearly he approached Montaigne in at least 
 one side of his character. Montaigne wrote : 
 ' I look upon all men as my countrymen, 
 and embrace a Polander as heartily as a 
 Frenchman, preferring the universal and 
 common tie to this national tie/ (Book HI. 
 chap, viii.) 
 
 In the Religio Medici, Part 11. sect, i., 
 Browne writes : ' I feel not in myself those 
 common antipathies that I can discover in 
 others : those natural repugnances do not 
 touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice 
 the French, Italian, Spanish, or Dutch ; but 
 where I find their actions in balance with 
 my countrymen, I honour, love, and embrace 
 them in the same degree/ Many similar 
 lines of convergence can be found by careful 
 comparison of these two authors, who, while 
 in some respects so dissimilar, yet strangely 
 approximate in thoughts that are common to 
 both. 
 
 Browne's foreign travel was concluded 
 about 1633, when he was in his twenty- 
 eighth year, he having finished his medical 
 studies at Leyden, where he took the degree 
 of Doctor of Medicine. It must be re- 
 membered that at this time foreign medical 
 degrees were regarded with much greater 
 esteem than at present, and the fact, already 
 
xiv BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 alluded to, of the eminent positions held 
 by the schools of Montpellier and Padua suffi- 
 ciently explains why English doctors sought 
 their diplomas abroad rather than at home. 
 
 Within a few years of his return Browne 
 was incorporated Doctor of Medicine at 
 Oxford (1637), showing that a foreign degree 
 was considered a sufficient reason for the 
 bestowal of an English degree honoris causa. 
 
 After his return to England, Dr. Browne 
 appears to have established himself in 
 practice at Shipden Hall, near Halifax ; and 
 at this place, in the enforced leisure that 
 generally falls to the lot of the } r oung 
 doctor, he doubtless wrote his first and most 
 famous work, the Religio Medici. Internal 
 evidences, derived from the references he 
 makes to his age in the Religio Medici, 
 almost certainly fix the actual year in 
 which this unique ' piece of serene wisdom' 
 was written as 1635, when he was in his 
 thirtieth year. He wrote : ' As yet I have 
 not seen one revolution of Saturn, nor hath 
 my pulse beat thirty years ' ; and again, in 
 his preface to the edition of 164-3: 'This, 
 I confess, about seven years past, with some 
 others of affinity thereto, for my private 
 exercise and satisfaction, I had at leisure 
 hours composed.' 
 
 This treatise, written so soon after 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 Browne's return from his student life in 
 France and Italy, retains the varied im- 
 pressions made upon his mind by the 
 opposite schools of thought he had passed 
 through, and is an elaborate apology for 
 his belief. No further proof of its breadth 
 and liberality is needed than the fact that 
 its author was claimed both by Romanists 
 and Quakers as a member of their far 
 differing creeds ! 
 
 It may be presumed that the Shipden Hall 
 practice was not very lucrative or promis- 
 ing, for in 1637 he removed to Norwich, at 
 the earnest solicitation of his former college 
 tutor, who had then become rector of the 
 neighbouring parish of Burnham Westgate. 
 To the persuasions of Dr. Lushington were 
 joined those of Sir Nicholas Bacon of Gilling- 
 ham, Justinian Lewyn, 1 who had just taken 
 his degree as Doctor of Law at Pembroke 
 College (June 30, 1637), and Sir Charles Le 
 Gros of Crostwick, 2 all Norfolk worthies, who 
 desired to bring so promising and learned a man 
 within the circle of their immediate influence. 
 
 1 Judge-Marshall of the Army under Thomas, Earl of 
 Arundel, in the Scotch expedition of 1639, and after that 
 one of the Masters in Ordinary in the High Court of 
 Chancery, a knight and commissionary and official of 
 Norfolk. Wood's Fasti. 
 
 2 The father of Thomas le Gros, to whom Hydriotaphia 
 was dedicated. 
 
xvi BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 Within a very short time of his coming to 
 Norwich where he spent the remainder of 
 his life his fame as a physician was quickly 
 established, and Whitefoot, his contemporary 
 biographer, says, 'He was much resorted to 
 for his admirable skill in physick.' 
 
 In 1641 he strengthened his Norfolk con- 
 nections by marrying Dorothy, the fourth 
 daughter of Edward Mileham of Burlingham 
 St. Peter, <a lady,' says Whitefoot, <of such 
 symmetrical proportion to her worthy hus- 
 band, both in the graces of her body and 
 mind, that they seemed to come together by 
 a kind of natural magnetism/ 
 
 This marriage afforded contemporary wits a 
 seasonable opportunity of railing at him, for 
 having so soon done violence to the slighting 
 allusions to matrimony he had made in a well- 
 known passage in the Religio Medici. 1 An 
 amusing instance of this raillery occurs in 
 Howell's delightful Epistolce Ho-Eliance? It is 
 interesting to note with reference to these 
 curious passages, that Montaigne had before 
 expressed himself very much in the same 
 direction. 3 
 
 In spite of Browne's anti-matrimonial 
 theories, he lived most happily with the lady 
 
 1 Religio Medici, Part 11. sect. ix. 
 
 2 Howell's Familiar Letters, sect. vi. letter ix, 
 
 3 Essais de Montaigne, 1. ill. chap. v. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 of his choice, and during the forty-one years 
 of wedlock she bore him twelve children. 
 Among these should be especially mentioned 
 his eldest son Edward, who followed his 
 father's profession with very considerable 
 success, acquiring, as years passed by, no 
 little fame. He was appointed physician to 
 Charles n., and afterwards to Bartholomew's 
 Hospital; in 1705 he became President of 
 the Royal College of Physicians, and was so 
 variously accomplished, that his royal master 
 said of him, ' he was as learned as any of his 
 college, and as well-bred as any of the Court.' 
 Sir Thomas Browne believed that habits of 
 independence could be best developed in his 
 children by sending them early abroad, and 
 his son Thomas was sent off alone to France 
 at the perilously early age of fourteen. Some 
 of his daughters also certainly visited France, 
 as may be seen from passages in his domestic 
 correspondence. The following passages 
 from the letters written by Browne to his 
 son Thomas are characteristic and of great 
 interest. He is exhorted f to cast off pudor 
 rusticus,' to put on ( a commendable boldness,' 
 and to ' have a good handsome garb of body ' , 
 especially to 'hold firm to the Protestant 
 religion, and be diligent in going to church,' 
 and above all to 'be constant, not negligent 
 in your daily private prayers, and habituate 
 b - 
 
xviii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 your heart in your tender days unto the fear 
 and reverence of God.' This youth appears 
 to have been a lad of rare spirit, but he 
 unfortunately died suddenly at the beginning 
 of a most promising career in the navy. 
 Of the daughters, one, Anne, married a 
 grandson of Lord Fairfax, and another, Eliza- 
 beth, became the wife of Captain George 
 Lyttelton. It is to Mrs. Lyttelton that the 
 world owes a few scattered recollections of her 
 father, which are all the more valuable because 
 the materials for his biography are so scanty. 
 
 The domestic correspondence of this family 
 of which a considerable portion is included 
 in Simon Wilkin's splendid edition l of Sir 
 Thomas Browne's works give glimpses of a 
 home life of singular happiness; the letters 
 addressed to the children by their father 
 breathe a spirit of deej)j3aternal love, inter- 
 mingled with a jwide knowledge^jLthe-woi-ld, 
 and a -rare_jwisdom delightfully free Jromall 
 narrow prgjucRces^ In this estimable .fSrmly, 
 kindly hospitality and consideration for the 
 opinions of others were deeply fostered, and, 
 moreover, they cultivated an intelligent in- 
 terest in the wonders of nature, an interest 
 which at that period must certainly have 
 appeared remarkable. 
 
 1 Coleridge, in referring to this edition, said it was one 
 of the best-edited books in the English language. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 Evelyn, in describing Sir Thomas Browne's 
 house, speaks of it as f a paradise and cabinet 
 of rarities, and that of the best collections, 
 especially medals, books, plants, and natural 
 things.' He adds, ' Sir Thomas had a col- 
 lection of the eggs of all the foule and birds 
 he could procure.' 
 
 In 1642, the year of the outbreak of the 
 Civil War, and that following his marriage, 
 the Religio Medici which had been circulating 
 in manuscript for some time, and of which 
 several copies appear to have been made 
 found its way to the press, and was published 
 without any clue to its author's name. 
 
 Browne complained bitterly of this 'sur- 
 reptitious ' publication, and immediately took 
 steps to prepare a ' full and intended copy of 
 that piece, which was most imperfectly and 
 surreptitiously published before.' 
 
 Opinion differs as to the good faith of 
 Browne's anger, and Dr. Johnson goes so 
 far as to say : ' It is easy to convey an im- 
 perfect book by a distant hand to the press, 
 and plead the circulation of a false copy as an 
 excuse for publishing the true, or to correct 
 what is found faulty or offensive, and charge 
 the errors on the transcriber's depravation.' 
 
 This question is much too lengthy to enter 
 upon here, for there is much to be said on 
 both sides. Whether or not the author was 
 
xx BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 altogether innocent of the intention to issue 
 Religio Medici in a tentative manner in an 
 apparently unauthorised form, it is certain 
 that the work immediately aroused a very 
 widespread interest. Sir Kenelm Digby at 
 that time under arrest at Winchester House 
 having his attention directed to it by the 
 Earl of Dorset, at once perused it, and within 
 twenty-four hours wrote a review upon it 
 which formed a book in itself. 
 
 As soon as Dr. Browne heard of the exis- 
 tence of these ' observations ' (which were not 
 altogether favourable to him), he wrote very 
 courteously and apologetically to Sir Kenelm, 
 begging him to withhold the publication of 
 his review until he had seen the 'full and 
 intended copy/ Sir Kenelm wrote an equally 
 polite reply, expressing his regret at the 
 hastiness of his remarks; nevertheless, his 
 animadversions anticipated the appearance of 
 the authorised edition. In fact, so much 
 interest did the book attract, that, before the 
 authorised edition could be prepared, another 
 edition of the unauthorised imprint was issued. 
 Of the two editions bearing the date of 164-2, 
 it is still a vexed question which is the earlier. 
 
 The discussion of this point must be left, for 
 however interesting it may be to bibliophiles, 
 it is certainly one upon which there can be no 
 absolute decision. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 The fame of the Religio Medici soon spread 
 throughout Europe; John Merry weather, as 
 a labour of love, quickly translated it into 
 Latin, his translation being published both 
 at Leyden and Paris. Eventually, Dutch, 
 French, and German translations were made, 
 and Browne himself refers to an Italian 
 edition, but no copy is known to exist. The 
 Holy See conferred upon the Religio Medici 
 the distinction of consigning it to the cata- 
 logue of the Index Expurgatorius. 
 
 It was at this stage of Sir Thomas Browne's 
 life that he was constrained, by the outbreak 
 of the Civil War, to take a decided political 
 side. In 1643 we find him combining with 
 over four hundred of the principal citizens of 
 Norwich in refusing to contribute to the fund 
 for regaining the town of Newcastle, thus mani- 
 festing his sympathy with the Royalist party. 
 
 Little other evidence is forthcoming to in- 
 dicate that the troublous times very seriously 
 interfered with the ordinary tenor of Dr. 
 Browne's useful and philosophic life, for in 
 the very heat of the struggle (1646) appeared 
 his great work, Pseudodoxia Epidemical Of 
 
 1 Pseudodoxia Epidemica ; or Enquiries into very many 
 Received Tenets and Commonly Presumed Truths. By 
 Thomas Browne, Doctor of Physick. Jul. Scalig. Ex 
 libris colligcre quce prodidcrunt authores, longe est peri- 
 culosissimum ; rerum ipsarum cognitio vcra e rebus ipsis 
 est. London. Printed by T. H. for Edward Dod, and 
 are to be sold in Ivie Lane. 1646. 
 
xxii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 this curious book, better known by the title 
 of Vulgar Errors, it is only necessary to say 
 that it fully established its author's reputa- 
 tion as a writer of encyclopaedic knowledge. 
 Possessed of vast and recondite learning, 
 though by no means free from the credulity 
 of his time, treating alchemy, magic, judicial 
 astrology, and witchcraft as worthy of his 
 serious belief, in this work he displays powers 
 of investigation and faculties for scientific 
 research far in advance of his contemporaries. 
 
 Interesting allusions to Dr. Browne as a 
 medical adviser of considerable repute are 
 found in Loveday's Letters, a curious collec- 
 tion of flowery epistles published in 1662. 
 Loveday was clearly a hopeless consumptive, 
 and many of his letters contain somewhat 
 tedious descriptions of the progress of his 
 malady. He writes of the ( great Dr. B. ' ; 
 and again, ' If your affairs call you to Norwich, 
 ... I would gladly have the opinion of Dr. 
 B., from whose advice I fancy most hope of 
 all.' And in a later letter he writes, ' I would 
 gladly find Dr. B. not mistaken in the situa- 
 tion of my malady. ... I have a strong fancy 
 that I shall reap much benefit by those lotions 
 he speaks of, and therefore when you go next 
 to Norwich let me intreat you to take a note 
 of the ingredients from his dictates.' 
 
 It is, of course, open to dispute that 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 Dr. B. of Norwich may not be Dr. Browne of 
 Norwich, but the use of the epithet e great ' 
 removes, we think, all reasonable doubt on 
 the subject. 
 
 Although Dr. Browne's literary reputation 
 was now established, he did not escape attack, 
 his most persistent opponent being one Alex- 
 ander Ross, who had attacked the Religio 
 Medici in a work entitled Medicus Medicatus, 
 which achieved the reward, according to Dr- 
 Johnson, of being ( universally neglected by 
 the world.' The Pseudodoxia Epidemica called 
 from the same source another attack, entitled 
 Arcana Microcosmi. But these and similar 
 attacks have long reached an oblivion that 
 would be complete were it not for the fame 
 of the works that stirred spiteful and puny 
 pens into motion. 
 
 By this time the fame of Dr. Browne was 
 so well established that his advice was sought 
 on all sides, not only on professional, but on 
 literary, antiquarian, and scientific subjects ; 
 and there is no doubt that his numerous cor- 
 respondents and his extensive practice kept 
 him very busily employed. And so the years 
 passed, filled with stirring and eventful in- 
 cidents, and yet without calling forth any 
 comment from this extraordinary man; the 
 struggles of his countrymen for liberty seeming 
 dwarfed into insignificance compared with 
 
xxiv BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 his philosophic comraunings with the mighty 
 dead. 
 
 In 1656, Joseph Hall, then Bishop of 
 Norwich, died. Dr. Browne, his faithful 
 physician and loving friend for many years, 
 attended the bishop in his last illness. At 
 this time we find Browne corresponding with 
 Evelyn and Dugdale, and very shortly after, 
 in 16.5 8 the year of Cromwell's death 
 Hydriotaphia, his most characteristic work, 
 appeared. It is in this work that the sombre 
 and majestic grandeur of his style finds its 
 most marked expression. 
 
 The Garden of Cyrus, published the same 
 year, shows a minute knowledge of botany, 
 conjoined with a strange mixture of mysticism. 
 To find everything that is in the shape of a 
 quincunx the figure of five as formed by a 
 domino he ransacks all creation, and, taking 
 his title from Cyrus's garden, where the trees 
 were so arranged, he finds, as Coleridge said, 
 ' quincunxes in heaven above, quincunxes in 
 earth below, and quincunxes in water beneath 
 the earth; quincunxes in deity, quincunxes 
 in the mind of man, quincunxes in bones, in 
 the optic nerves, in roots of trees, in leaves, in 
 petals, in everything/ In this fantastic work 
 curious conceits and a fanciful vein of humour 
 intermingle with passages of the greatest 
 beauty and harmony. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 In 1664 an incident occurred which his 
 ardent admirers have found difficult to palliate 
 it is undoubtedly true that his evidence 
 largely conduced to secure the conviction of 
 two wretched women for the then capital 
 offence of witchcraft. These victims of a 
 cruel superstition were tried before Sir 
 Matthew Hale at Bury St. Edmunds, and 
 Browne declared that 'the fits were natural, 
 but heightened by the devil's co-operating 
 with the malice of the witches, at whose 
 instance he did the villainies.' 
 
 Credulity touching occult subjects was 
 certainly the weakest side of Sir Thomas 
 Browne's character. We find him corre- 
 sponding seriously with William Lilly, the 
 astrologer, and reckoning as worthy of 
 credence Dr. Lee, the alchemist, who affirmed 
 on oath that the goldsmiths of Prague had 
 bought silver from him which had been trans- 
 muted from pewter dishes and flagons. 
 
 In 1671, in his sixty-sixth year, he was 
 knighted by Charles n., on the occasion of 
 a royal visit to Norwich. 
 
 In 1672 we find Sir Thomas Browne bearing 
 testimony to the marvellous precociousness of 
 the boy William Wotton, in the following 
 terms : 
 
 'I do hereby declare and certify, that I 
 
xxvi BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 heard William Wotton, son to Mr. Henry 
 Wotton, of Wrentham, of the age of six years, 
 read a stanza in Spencer very distinctly, and 
 pronounce it properly. As also some verses 
 in the first Eclogue of Virgil, which I purposely 
 chose out, and also construe the same truly. 
 Also some verses in Homer, and the Carmina 
 Aurea of Pythagoras, which he read well and 
 construed. As he did also the first verse of 
 the fourth chapter of Genesis in Hebrew, 
 which I purposely chose out. 
 
 'Tno. BROWNE. 
 
 'July 20th, 1672.' 
 
 In this year the marriage of Dr. Edward 
 Browne occurred, and his residence in London, 
 where he settled, led to so constant an inter- 
 change of letters between father and son, 
 that this paternal correspondence must have 
 occupied much of Sir Thomas's time. 
 
 The last decade of this distinguished 
 physician's life affords scarcely any incident 
 to record. Interesting details are, however, 
 available to show how generously he associ- 
 ated himself with the furtherance of educa- 
 tional schemes. 
 
 During this period he subscribed liberally 
 towards the building of a new library for 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, and he remem- 
 bered his indebtedness to Winton by con- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 tributing towards the building of a new school. 
 Oxford also shared his generosity, for he 
 rendered substantial assistance in aid of the 
 reparation of Christ College. 
 
 While he continued his experimental in- 
 vestigations to the close of his life, he pub- 
 lished nothing after 1658. His last extant 
 letter was written to his son Edward on June 
 16, 1682, and before the close of the same 
 year on October 1.9 on the very day of his 
 birth, Sir Thomas succumbed to a short but 
 fatal attack of colic, having just completed his 
 seventy-seventh year. 
 
 He was buried in the Church of St. Peter's, 
 Mancroft, Norwich, where his widow erected 
 a monument to his memory. 
 
 Strange to say, the very fate that he had 
 so strongly deprecated befell his remains, for, 
 in 1840, the lid of his coffin was accidentally 
 broken open by a blow from a workman's 
 pickaxe, and, to quote his own words, his 
 bones were 'knav'd out of his grave/ his 
 skull being deposited on show in the museum 
 of Norwich hospital. 
 
 At the request of the widow, the Rev. John 
 Whitefoot, rector of Heigham, who had a 
 ' particular acquaintance' with Sir Thomas 
 Browne for two-thirds of his life, drew up 
 ' some minutes ' of the career of his greatly 
 esteemed friend ; from this quaintly interest- 
 
xxviii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 ing source of information we learn that ' for a 
 character of his person, his complexion and 
 hair was answerable to his name, his stature 
 was moderate, and habit of body neither fat 
 nor lean, but tva-dpKos. In his habit of 
 clothing he had an aversion to all finery, and 
 affected plainness, both in the fashion and 
 ornaments. He ever wore a cloke or boots, 
 when few others did. He kept himself 
 always very warm, and thought it most safe 
 so to do. 
 
 ' The horizon of his understanding was much 
 larger than the hemisphere of the world. He 
 could tell the number of the visible stars in his 
 horizon, and call them all by their names that 
 had any ; and of the earth he had such a 
 minute and exact geographical knowledge, as 
 if he had been by Divine Providence ordained 
 surveyor-general of the whole terrestrial orb, 
 and its products, minerals, plants and animals. 
 . . . His memory . . . was capacious and 
 tenacious ... he was excellent company 
 when he was at leisure, and expressed more 
 light than heat in the temper of his brain. 
 He had power over his affections and passions 
 . . . but he hath very rarely been known to 
 have been overcome by any of them. ... He 
 was never seen to be transported with mirth 
 or dejected with sadness, always cheerful, 
 but rarely merry . . . seldom heard to break 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 a jest. . . . His modesty was visible in a 
 natural habitual blush,, increased upon the 
 least occasion, and oft discovered without any 
 observable cause. Free from loquacity, some- 
 thing difficult to be engaged in any discourse,, 
 though when he was so, it was always singular 
 and never trite or vulgar. Parsimonious in 
 nothing but his time . . . when he had any 
 to spare from his drudging practice, he was 
 scarce patient of any diversion from his 
 study; so impatient of sloth and idleness, 
 that he would say he could not do nothing. 
 He understood most of the European lan- 
 guages. . . . Latin and Greek he understood 
 critically, 
 
 ' He attended the public service very con- 
 stantly, when not withheld by his practice ; 
 he never missed the sacrament of his parish, if 
 he were in town. ... I visited him much near 
 his end, when he had not strength to hear or 
 speak much ; the last words I heard from him 
 were, besides some expressions of clearness, 
 that he did freely submit to the will of God, 
 being without fear. 
 
 ( He was liberal in his house entertainments 
 and in his charity ; he left a comfortable, but 
 no great estate, both to his lady and his 
 children, gained by his own industry, having 
 spent the greater part of his patrimony in his 
 travels.' 
 
xxx BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 In 1686 a collective edition of Sir Thomas 
 Browne's works was published, said to have 
 been edited by Dr. (afterwards Archbishop) 
 Tenison, and in 1712 a volume appeared, 
 entitled Posthumous Works of the learned Sir 
 Thomas Browne, KnL, M.D., late of Norwich ; 
 but until 1835, when Simon Wilkin issued a 
 masterly edition of the complete works, there 
 was no scholarly and carefully edited text of 
 this great author's works. To the laborious 
 and painstaking patience of Mr. Wilkin every 
 lover of Sir Thomas Browne is under very great 
 obligation, as indeed is the present editor. 
 
 In reprinting the Religio Medici, very con- 
 siderable difficulty has been felt in deciding 
 which of the editions, at least twelve in 
 number published during its author's lifetime, 
 can be taken as authoritative. 
 
 The two first editions, those of 1642, as 
 already stated, were both, to use Sir Thomas 
 Browne's own term, surreptitious. 
 
 That of 1643, carefully prepared by the 
 author for publication, can be taken as un- 
 doubtedly authoritative. Every one of the 
 subsequent editions published during the 
 author's lifetime vary more or less, and, as 
 has been justly pointed out, they contain 
 variations that could scarcely have been 
 inserted without the author's sanction ; yet all 
 are undoubtedly more or less corrupt, and 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 almost justify the opinion that, after the publi- 
 cation of the first revised edition that of 
 1643 the author took little if any trouble to 
 secure an absolutely correct text. We may 
 perhaps assume that most of the altera- 
 tions are due rather to printer than author, 
 especially as the table of errata issued with 
 the authentic edition of 1643 was never acted 
 upon in any of the subsequent editions until 
 Mr. Wilkin made use of it. 
 
 For these reasons, the text of 1643 has been 
 followed in this reprint, and I am greatly 
 indebted to Mr. Martin Hood Wilkin, the son 
 of Mr. Simon Wilkin, for the opportunity of 
 being able to consult this very rare edition of 
 the Religio Medici. 
 
 The valuable reprints edited by Mr. Wilkin 
 and Dr. Greenhill have been consulted, with 
 much advantage. The careful editions of John 
 Peace and of the Rev. Henry Gardiner have 
 also proved of great service. With very few 
 exceptions, the notes are identical with those 
 of the author himself, and the marginal 
 analyses are reprinted from Gardiner, who 
 appears to have taken them with but slight 
 alteration from Peace's edition. While Sir 
 Thomas Browne's spelling of rare and now 
 obsolete words has been followed precisely, 
 it has not been thought necessary to per- 
 petuate the capricious and unstable spelling 
 
xxxii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 of ordinary words, differing as they do in 
 every early edition. Nearly every existing 
 edition, of which a list is given on page xxxvi., 
 has been consulted in order to afford the 
 reader the greatest possible help by the 
 punctuation adopted ; that of the early editions 
 is often obviously the result of typographical 
 misunderstanding. 
 
 Christian Morals called by Dr. Edward 
 Browne the continuation of the Religio Medici, 
 and therefore given in immediate sequence to 
 it has been carefully reprinted from the first 
 edition, published in 1716, and edited by 
 Archdeacon Jeffrey. The marginal abstract 
 is reprinted from Peace's edition. 
 
 The Letter to a Friend, which appears to have 
 been written in 1672, shortly after Christian 
 Morals, is reprinted from the first edition, 
 edited by the son of the author, and published 
 in 1690. Hydriotaphia or Urn Burial has been 
 reprinted from the edition of 1658 (the first), 
 with the exception of a few typographical cor- 
 rections, amended in the subsequent edition. 
 
 The same rule has been applied to each of 
 these works as that followed in the Rcligio 
 Medici the original orthography is always 
 retained where the slightest interest can be 
 attached to it. 
 
 With reference to Urn Burial a subject 
 which under the name of cremation now largely 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 occupies the attention of sanitarians it is 
 worthy of note that Sir Thomas Browne was, 
 amongst moderns, one of the earliest writers 
 who approached it from a philosophical point 
 of view. And when the narrow prejudices 
 against this salutary practice are remembered, 
 existing with but little diminution even to the 
 present day, the enlightened argument of this 
 remarkable treatise shows how very completely 
 Sir Thomas, at least upon this point, had freed 
 himself from the theological trammels in which 
 he was educated. 
 
 Apart from economical and moral considera- 
 tions, from a medical point of view, no doubt, 
 the ever-increasing density of the population, 
 especially of large cities, and the best means 
 of disposing of the dead, without risk of in- 
 jury to the living, will soon become a burning 
 question in more senses than one. Cremation 
 appears to be the only safe method of render- 
 ing the dead innocuous to the living. Sooner 
 or later, we shall be driven to return to the 
 wiser methods of Greece and Rome. The 
 only valid objection to the universal applica- 
 tion of cremation is the occasional danger 
 which may arise of the destruction of the 
 material evidence of poisoning : but it is pre- 
 ferable that now and then a criminal should 
 escape justice, than that the health of the 
 innocent community should be jeopardised. 
 c 
 
miv BIOGRAPHICAL ESTRODUCTION 
 
 That Sir Thomas Browne should have 
 viewed incineration so favourably, testifies 
 to his eminently practical and tolerant 
 wisdom so far in advance of the age 
 in which he lived; his name will always 
 be imperishably identified with the beauti- 
 fully symbolic custom of committing the 
 dead to the embrace of fire, the very emblem 
 of purification itself. 
 
 'To read Urn Burial for the first time/ it 
 has been well said, 'is, indeed, one of the 
 keenest enjoyments that a man can have, and 
 once read it can never be forgotten.' 
 
 De Quincey asks : ' Where shall one hope 
 to find music so Miltonic, an intonation 
 of such solemn chords as are struck in the 
 opening bar of a passage in Urn Burial? 
 What a melodious ascent as of a prelude to 
 some impassioned requiem breathing from 
 the pomps of earth, and from the sanctities 
 of the grave ! What a Jluctus decumanus of 
 rhetoric ! Time expounded, not by genera- 
 tions or centuries, but by the vast periods 
 of conquests and dynasties: by cycles of 
 Pharaohs and Ptolemies. Antiochi, and 
 Arsacides ! And these vast successions of 
 time distinguished and figured by the uproars 
 which revolve at their inaugurations ; by the 
 drums and tramplings rolling overhead upon 
 the chambers of forgotten dead the trepida- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xxxv 
 
 tions of time and mortality vexing at secular 
 intervals the everlasting sabbaths of the grave ! 
 Show us, O pedant, such another strain from 
 the oratory of Greece and Rome ! ' 
 
 Charles Lamb, an enthusiastic admirer of 
 Urn Burial, quotes from its author more 
 than from any other, and not infrequently 
 his style shows kinship with that of Sir 
 Thomas Browne's. 
 
 Carlyle says : ' The conclusion of the essay 
 on Urn-burial is absolutely beautiful : a still 
 elegiac mood, so soft, so deep, so solemn and 
 tender, like the song of some departed saint 
 flitting faint under the everlasting canopy of 
 night ; an echo of deepest meaning " from the 
 great and famous nations of the dead." ' 
 
 Coleridge, Southey, Hazlitt, Lytton, and 
 among later writers Leslie Stephen, Walter 
 Pater, and John Addington Symonds, have all 
 paid loving tribute to Sir Thomas Browne; 
 yet it cannot be said that he is read and 
 appreciated as he deserves to be. This small 
 volume is added to the various editions that 
 already exist of the choicest of his works, in 
 the hope that it may induce many to make 
 him their frequent companion. 
 
 I must gratefully acknowledge the assistance 
 rendered to me in the collation of the various 
 texts by my friend Mr. W. H. Bennett. 
 
 D. LLOYD ROBERTS. 
 
xxxvi LIST OF EDITIONS 
 
 LIST of EDITIONS of the Religio Medici 
 in the possession of the Editor, and 
 used in the preparation of the following 
 text : 
 
 1642 Small 8vo, London, Crooke (two editions). 
 
 1G43 London, Crooke. 
 
 1645 ,, London, Crooke (two editions). 
 
 1658 Small folio, with marginal notes by S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 1659 Small Svo, London, Crook. 
 
 1669 London, Crook. 
 
 1669 ,, Another copy with marginal notes by 
 
 S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 1672 Small 4to, London, Crook. 
 1682 Small 8vo, London, Scot, Basset, etc. 
 1685 Folio, London, Scott, Basset, etc. 
 1736 I2mo, London, Torbuck. 
 1754 Small Sve, Edinburgh, printed by W. Ruddiman, 
 
 jun. 
 1831 I2mo, Oxford, Vincent. Edited by Thomas 
 
 Chapman. 
 1835 Svo, London, Pickering. Edited by Simon 
 
 Wilkin. 
 
 1844 Svo, London, Longman. Edited by John Peace. 
 1845 Small Svo, London, Pickering. Edited by Rev. 
 
 Henry Gardiner, M.A. 
 1852 Small Svo, London, H. G. Bohn. 
 1869 Small Svo, London, Sampson Low, Son, - & 
 
 Marston. Edited by J. \T. Willis Bund, 
 
 M.A., LL.B. 
 1881 Small Svo, London, Macmillan. Edited by W. A. 
 
 Greenhill, M.D. Oxon. 
 
TO THE READER 
 
 CERTAINLY that man were greedy of life who 
 should desire to live when all the world were 
 at an end ; and he must needs be very im- 
 patient who would repine at death in the 
 society of all things that suffer under it. Had 
 not almost every man suffered by the press, 
 or were not the tyranny thereof become 
 universal, I had not wanted reason for com- 
 plaint : but in times wherein I have lived 
 to behold the highest perversion of that 
 excellent invention, the name of His Majesty 
 defamed, the honour of Parliament depraved, 
 the writings of both depravedly, anticipatively, 
 counterfeitly imprinted : complaints may seem 
 ridiculous in private persons ; and men of my 
 condition may be as incapable of affronts,, as 
 hopeless of their reparations. And truly had 
 not the duty I owe unto the importunity of 
 friends, and the allegiance I must ever ac- 
 knowledge unto truth, prevailed with me ; the 
 inactivity of my disposition might have made 
 these sufferings continual, and time, that 
 brings other things to light, should have 
 satisfied me in the remedy of its oblivion. 
 
xxxviii TO THE READER 
 
 But because things evidently false are not 
 only printed, but many things of truth most 
 falsely set forth ; in this latter I could not but 
 think myself engaged. For though we have 
 no power to redress the former, yet in the 
 other the reparation being within ourselves, I 
 have at present represented unto the world a 
 full and intended copy of that piece, which 
 was most imperfectly and surreptitiously pub- 
 lished before. 
 
 This I confess, about seven years past, with 
 some others of affinity thereto, for my private 
 exercise and satisfaction, I had at leisurable 
 hours composed ; which being communicated 
 unto one, it became common unto many, and 
 was by transcription successively corrupted, 
 until it arrived in a most depraved copy at the 
 press. He that shall peruse that work, and 
 shall take notice of sundry particularities and 
 personal expressions therein, will easily discern 
 the intention was not publick : and bgingJL 
 private exercise directed to myself, what is 
 delivered therein was rather a memorial unto 
 me, than an example or rule unto any other : 
 and therefore if there be any singularity there- 
 in correspondent unto the private conceptions 
 of any man, it doth not advantage them ; or if 
 dissentaneous thereunto, it no way overthrows 
 them. It was penned in such a place, and with 
 such disadvantage, that (I protest) from the 
 
TO THE READER xxxix 
 
 first setting of pen upon paper, I had not 
 the assistance of any good book, whereby to 
 promote my invention or relieve my memory ; 
 and therefore there might be many real 
 lapses therein, which others might take 
 notice of, and more than I suspected myself. 
 It was set down many years past, and was 
 'the sense of my conceptions at that time, 
 not an immutable law unto my advancing 
 judgment at all times; and therefore there 
 might be many things therein plausible unto 
 my passed apprehension, which are not agree- 
 able unto my present self. There are many 
 things delivered rhetorically, many expressions 
 therein merely tropical, and as they best illus- 
 trate my intention; and therefore also there 
 are many things to be taken in a soft and 
 flexible sense, and not to be called unto the 
 rigid test of reason. Lastly, all that is con- 
 tained therein is in submission unto maturer 
 discernments; and as I have declared, shall 
 no further father them than the best and 
 learned judgments shall authorize them : under 
 favour of which considerations, I have made 
 its secrecy publick, and committed the truth 
 thereof to every ingenuous reader. 
 
 THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
OF 
 
 RELIGIO' MEDICI 
 
 THE FIRST PART 
 
 FOR my religion, though there be several Our 
 
 * , . , , , Physician a 
 
 circumstances that might persuade the world Christian. 
 I have none at all, as the general scandal 
 of my profession, the natural course of my 
 studies, the indifferency of my behaviour and 
 discourse in matters of religion (neither 
 .violently defending one, nor with that com- 
 mon ardour and contention opposing another), 
 yet, in despite hereof, I dare without 
 usurpation assume the honourable style of a 
 Christian. Not that I merely owe this title 
 to the font, my education, or clime wherein 
 I was born, as being bred up either to con- 
 firm those principles my parents instilled into 
 my unwary understanding, or by a general 
 consent proceed in the religion of my country; 
 but Having in my riper years and confirmed 
 judgment seen and examined all, I find myself 
 obliged by the principles of grace, and the 
 law of mine own reason, to embrace no other 
 name but this : neither doth herein my EPA! 
 so far make me forget the general charity I 
 owe unto humanity, as rather to hate than 
 pity Turks, Infidels, and (what is worse) Jews; 
 rather contenting myself to enjoy that happy 
 A 
 
Our 
 Physician a 
 
 2 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 style, than maligning those who refuse so 
 glorious a title. 
 
 II. But, because the name of a Christian is 
 Ch'SS.an a become too general to express our faith (there 
 
 being a geography of religion sjis_well as lands, 
 and every clime distinguished^ not only by 
 their laws and limits, but circumscribed by 
 their doctrines and rules of faith), to be 
 particular, I am of that reformed new-cast 
 religion, wherein I dislike nothing but the 
 name ; of the same belief our Saviour taught, 
 the apostles disseminated, the fathers author- 
 ized, and the martyrs confirmed ; but, by the 
 sinister ends of princes, the ambition and 
 avarice of prelates, and the fatal corruption 
 of times, so decayed, impaired, and fallen from 
 its native beauty, that it required the careful 
 and charitable hand of these times to restore 
 it to its primitive integrity. Now, the acci- 
 dental occasion whereon, the slender means 
 whereby, the low and abject condition of the 
 person by whom so good a work was set on 
 foot, which in our adversaries beget contempt 
 and scorn, fills me with wonder, and is the 
 very same objection the insolent Pagans first 
 cast at Christ and his disciples. 
 
 III. Yet have I not so shaken hands with 
 those desperate resolutions (who had rather 
 venture at large their decayed bottom than 
 bring her in to be new-trimmed in the dock ; 
 who had rather promiscuously retain all than 
 abridge any, and obstinately be what they are 
 than what they have been) as to stand in 
 diameter and sword's point with them. We 
 have reformed from them, not against them : 
 
 Differences 
 of opinions 
 need not 
 separate 
 Christians. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI ;* 
 
 for, omitting those improperations and terms 
 of scurrility betwixt us, which only difference 
 our affections, and not our cause, there is 
 between us one common name and appella- 
 tion, one faith and necessary body of principles 
 common to us both; and therefore I am not 
 scrupulous to converse and live with them, to 
 enter their churches in defect of ours, and 
 either pray with them, or for them. I could 
 never perceive any rational consequence from 
 those many texts which prohibit the children 
 of Israel to pollute themselves with the 
 temples of the heathens; we being all 
 Christians, and not divided by such detested 
 impieties as might profane our prayers, or 
 the place wherein we make them ; or that 
 a resolved conscience may not adore her 
 Creator anywhere, especially in places devoted 
 to his service; where, if their devotions offend 
 him, mine may please him; if theirs profane/ 
 it, mine may hallow it. Holy water and 
 crucifix (dangerous to the common people) 
 deceive not my judgment, nor abuse my 
 devotion at all. I am, I confess, naturally 
 inclined to that which misguided zeal terms 
 superstition : my common conversation I do 
 acknowledge austere, my behaviour full of 
 rigour, sometimes not without morosity ; yet, 
 at my devotion I love to use the civility of 
 my knee, my hat, and hand, with all those 
 outward, and sensible motions which may ex- 
 press or promote my invisible devotion. I 
 should violate my own arm rather than a 
 church; nor willingly deface the name of 
 saint or martyr. At the sight of a cross, or 
 
4 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 crucifix, I can dispense with my hat, but 
 scarce with the thought or memory of my 
 Saviour. I cannot laugh at, but rather pity 
 the fruitless journeys of pilgrims, or contemn 
 the miserable condition of friars ; for, though 
 misplaced in circumstance, there is something 
 in it of devotion. I could never hear the Ave 
 Marie bell l without an elevation, or think it 
 a sufficient warrant, because they erred in one 
 circumstance, for me to err in all, that is, in 
 silence and dumb contempt. Whilst, there- 
 fore, they directed their devotions to her, I 
 offered mine to God, and rectified the errors 
 of their prayers by rightly ordering mine own. 
 At a solemn procession I have wept abundantly, 
 while my consorts, blind with opposition and 
 prejudice, have fallen into an access of scorn 
 and laughter. There are, questionless, both 
 in Greek, Roman, and African churches, 
 solemnities and ceremonies, whereof the wiser 
 zeals do make a Christian use ; and stand 
 condemned by us, not as evil in themselves, 
 but as allurements and baits of superstition 
 to those vulgar heads that look asquinJLon the 
 face of truth, and those unstable judgments 
 that cannot consist in the narrow point and 
 centre of virtue without a reel or stagger to 
 the circumference. 
 
 Of Reforma- IV. As there were many reformers, so like- 
 wise many reformations; every country pro- 
 ceeding in a particular way and method, 
 
 1 A church-bell, that tolls every day at six and twelve 
 of the clock ; at the hearing whereof every one, in what 
 place soever, either of house or street, betakes himself to 
 his prayer, which is commonly directed to the Virgin. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 5 
 
 according as their national interest, together 
 with their constitution and clime inclined 
 them : some angrily and with extremity ; 
 others calmly and with mediocrity, not rend- 
 ing, but easily dividing the community, and 
 leaving an honest possibility of a reconciliation; 
 which, though peaceable spirits do desire, and 
 may conceive that revolution of time and the 
 mercies of God may effect, yet that judgment 
 that shall consider the present antipathies 
 between the two extremes, their contrarieties 
 in condition, affection, and opinion, may, with 
 the same hopes, expect an union in the poles 
 of heaven. 
 
 V. But, to difference myself nearer, and Of the 
 draw into a lesser circle ; there is no church England! 
 whose every part so squares unto my con- 
 science, whose articles, constitutions, and cus- 
 toms seem so consonant unto reason, and, as 
 it were, framed to my particular devotion, as 
 this whereof I hold my belief, the Church of 
 England ; to whose faith I am a sworn subject, 
 and therefore, in a double obligation, subscribe 
 unto her Articles, and endeavour to observe 
 her Constitutions. Whatsoever is beyond, as 
 \points indifferent, I observe according to the 
 rules of my private reason, or the humour and 
 fashion of my devotion ; neither believing this 
 because Luther affirmed it, or disproving that, 
 because Calvin hath disavouched it. I con- 
 demn not all things in the Council of Trent, 
 nor approve all in the Synod of Dort. In 
 brief, where the .Scripture is silent, the Church 
 is my text; where that speaks, 'tis but my 
 comment; where there is a joint silence of 
 
6 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 both, I borrow not the rules of my religion 
 from Rome or Geneva, but the dictates of my 
 own reason. It is an unjust scancfaTof our 
 adversaries, and a gross error in ourselves, 
 to compute the nativity of^our_ religion from 
 Henry the Eighth; who, though lie rejected 
 the Pope, refused not the faith of Rome, and 
 effected no more than what his own pre- 
 decessors desired and assayed in ages past, 
 and was conceived the State of Venice would 
 have attempted in our days. It is as uncharit- 
 able a point in us to fall upon those popular 
 scurrilities and opprobrious ^scoffs of the Bishop 
 of Rome, to whom, as a temporal prince, we 
 owe the duty of good language. I confess 
 there is cause of passion between us : by his 
 sentence I stand excommunicated; heretick is 
 the best language he affords me : yet can no 
 ear witness I ever returned to him the name 
 of Antichrist, Man of Sin, or Whore of Babylon. 
 It is the method of charity to suffer without 
 reaction: those usual satires and invectives 
 of the pulpit may perchance produce a good 
 effect on the vulgar, whose ears are opener to 
 rhetorick than logick ; yet do they in no wise 
 confirm the faith of wiser believers, who know 
 that a good cause needs not to be patroned 
 by a passion, but can sustain itself upon a 
 temperate dispute. 
 
 Disputes in VI. I could never divide myself from any 
 
 wisefy " man u P on the difference of an opinion, or be 
 
 avoided. angry with his judgment for not agreeing 
 
 with me in that from which perhaps within 
 
 a few days I should disse_ii myself. I have 
 
 no genius to disputes in religion, and have 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 often thought it wisdom to _jdeclin them, 
 especially upon a disadvantage, or when the 
 cause of truth might suffer in the weakness 
 of my patronage. Where we desire to be 
 informed, 'tis good to contest with men above 
 ourselves ; but to confirm and establish our 
 opinion 'tis best to argue with judgments 
 below our own, that the frequent spoils^ and 
 victories over their reasons may settle in our- 
 ~selves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our 
 own. Every man is not a proper champion 
 for truth, nor fit to takejirp_the gaunti(et"m 
 the cause of 'verity'; many, from the ignorance 
 of these maxims, and an inconsiderate zeal 
 unto truth, have too rashly charged the troops 
 of error, and remain as trophies unto the 
 enemies of truth. 'A man may be in as just 
 possession of truth "as of a city, and yet be 
 forced to surrender ;\ 'tis therefore far better 
 to enjoy her with peace than to hazard her 
 on a battle. If, therefore, there rise any 
 doubts in my way, I do forget them, or at 
 least defer them, till my better settled judg- 
 ment and more manly reason be able to re- 
 solve them; for I^percejve^every man's own 
 reason is his best^^dipus, and will, upon a 
 reasonable truce, find a way to loose those 
 bonds wherewith the subtleties of error have 
 enchaine4 our more flexible and tender judg- Fantasies in 
 ments. -In philosophy, where truth seems ^"^5, 
 double-faced, there is no man more paradoxi- as giving ' 
 cal than myself: but in divinity jjoye_tojkeep emJrsT^ 
 the road ; ajid, though not in an implicit, yet 
 alf humble faith, follow the great wheel of the 
 Church, by which I move ; not reserving any 
 
8 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 ! proper poles, or motion from the epicycle of 
 my own brain. By this means I leave no gap 
 for heresies, schisms, or errors, of which at 
 present I hope I shall not injure truth to say 
 whereof our I have no taint or tincture. I must confess 
 cwSeth to m y greener studies have been polluted with 
 have had two two or three ; not any begotten in the latter 
 centuries, but old and obsolete, such as could 
 never have been revived but by such extrava- 
 gant and irregular heads as mine. For, in- 
 deed, heresies perish not with their authors; 
 but, like the river Arethusa, though they lose 
 their currents in one place, they rise up again 
 in another.T One general council is not able 
 to extirpate one single heresy : it may be 
 cancelled for the present; but revolution of 
 time, and the like aspects from heaven, will 
 restore it, when it will flourish till it be con- 
 demned again. For, as though there were a 
 metempsychosis, and the soul v of one man 
 passed into another, opinions do find, after 
 certain revolutions, men and minds like those 
 that first begat them. To see ourselves again, 
 we need not look for Plato's year; 1 every man 
 is not only himself; there hath been many 
 Diogenes, and as many Timons, though but 
 a few of that name ; men are lived over again ; 
 the world is now as it was in ages past ; there 
 was none then, but there hath been some one 
 since that parallels him, and is, as it were, his 
 revived self. 
 
 1 A revolution of certain thousand years, when all 
 things should return unto their former estate, and he be 
 teaching again in his school, as when he delivered this 
 opinion. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 9 
 
 VII. Now the first of mine was that of the 
 Arabians ; that the souls of men perished with i 
 their bodies, but should yet be raised again ^ is a h ^ d 
 at the last day ; not that I did absolutely with the 
 conceive a mortality of the soul, but if that body ' 
 were (which faith, not philosophy, hath yet 
 thoroughly disproved), and that both entered 
 the grave together, yet I held^ the same con-, 
 ceit thereof that we all do of the body, that 
 it should rise again. Surely it is but the 
 merits of our unworthy natures, if we sleep in 
 darkness until the last alarum. A serious 
 reflex upon my own unworthiness did make 
 me backward from challenging this prerogative 
 of my soul : so I might enjoy my Saviour at 
 the last, I could with patience do nothing 
 almost unto eternity. The second was that snd, That all . 
 of Origen ; that God would not persist in his Sybe 
 vengeance for ever, but after a definite time saved J 
 of his wrath he would release the damned 
 souls from torture ; which error I fell into 
 upon a serious contemplation of the great 
 Attribute of God, his mercy; and did a little 
 cherish it in myself, because I found therein 
 no malice, and a ready weight to sway me 
 from the other extreme of despair, whereunto 
 melancholy and contemplative natures are too 
 easily disposed. A third there is which I did 3rd, That we 
 never positively maintain or practise, but have fbr S the Pra 
 often wished it had been consonant to truth Dead - 
 and not offensive to my religion, and that is, 
 the prayer for the dead ; whereunto I was 
 inclined from some charitable inducements, 
 whereby I could scarce contain "~my "prayers 
 for a friend at the ringing of a bell, or behold 
 
10 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 his corpse without an oraison for his soul. 
 'Twas a good way methought to be remem- 
 bered by posterity, and far more noble than 
 But these an history. These opinions I never maintained 
 notTogrow with pertinacity, or endeavoured to inveigle 
 into heresies. an y man's belief unto mine, nor so much as 
 ever revealed, or disputed them with my 
 dearest friends; by which means I neither 
 propagated them in others, nor confirmed 
 them in myself: but, suffering them to flame 
 upon their own substance without addition of 
 new fuel, they went out insensibly of them- 
 selves ; therefore these opinions, though con- 
 demned by lawful councils, were not heresies 
 in me, but bare errors, and single lapses of 
 my understanding, without a joint depravity 
 of my will. Those have not only depraved 
 understandings, but diseased affections, which 
 cannot enjoy a singularity without a heresy, 
 or be the author of an opinion without they 
 be of a sect also. This was the villainy of 
 the first schism of Lucifer ; who was not 
 content to err alone, but drew into his faction 
 many legions of spirits ; and upon this experi- 
 ence he tempted only Eve, as well understand- 
 ing the communicable nature of sin, and that 
 to deceive but one was tacitly and upon 
 consequence to delude them both. 
 
 St. Matt. VIII. That heresies should arise we have 
 
 ?Cw.\L% the prophecy of Christ ; but that old ones 
 Of the mani- should be abolished we hold no prediction. 
 
 fold nature m , . i i . i 
 
 of schism, 1 hat there must be heresies, is true not only 
 in our c h urcn > but also in any other : even in 
 doctrines heretical there will be super-heresies ; 
 and Arians, not only divided from their church, 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 11 
 
 but also among themselves : for heads that 
 are disposed unto schism, and complexionally 
 propense to innovation, are naturally indisposed 
 for a community; nor will be ever confined 
 unto the order or economy of one body ; and 
 therefore, when they separate from others, 
 they knit but loosely among themselves ; nor 
 contented with a general breach or dichotomy 
 with their church, do subdivide and mince 
 themselves almost into atoms. 'Tis true, that 
 men of singular parts and humours have not 
 been free from singular opinions and conceits 
 in all ages; retaining something not only 
 beside the opinion of his own church or any 
 other, but also any particular author ; which, 
 notwithstanding, a sober judgment may do 
 without offence or heresy; for there is yet, 
 after all the decrees of councils, and the 
 niceties of the schools, many things, untouched, 
 unimagined, wherein the liberty of an honest 
 reason may play and expatiate with security, 
 and far without the circle of an heresy. 
 
 IX. As for those wingy mysteries in divinity Mysteries in 
 and airy subtleties in religion, which have JJjjJ^be 
 unhinged the brains of better heads, they approached 
 never stretched the pia mater of mine. Me-^ 1 
 thinks there be not impossibilities enough 
 in" religion for an active faith: the deepest 
 mysteries ours contains have not on]y been 
 illustrated, but maintained, by syllogism and 
 the rule of reason. I love to lose myself in 
 a mystery ; to pursue my reason to an Rom. xi. 33, 
 altitudo ! 'Tis my solitary recreation to pose etc ' 
 my apprehension with those involved enigmas 
 and riddles of the Trinity, with Incarnation 
 
12 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 and Resurrection. I can answer all the objec- 
 tions of Satan and my rebellious reason with 
 that odd resolution I learned of Tertullian, 
 DeCame Certum est quia impossibile est. I desire to 
 Ckristi, c. 5. exercise my faith in the difficultest point ; 
 for, to credit ordinary and visible objects, is 
 not faith, but persuasion. Some believe the 
 better for seeing Christ liis sepulchre ; and, 
 when they have seen the Red Sea, doubt not 
 of the miracle. Now contrarily, I bless myself, 
 'and am thankful, that I lived not in the days 
 of miracles; that I never saw Christ nor his 
 disciples. I would not have been one of those 
 Israelites that passed the Red Sea; nor one 
 \of. Christ's patients on whom he wrought his 
 wonders : then had my faith been thrust upon 
 Blessed are me ; nor should I enjoy that greater blessing 
 hale no? ^ pronounced to all that believe and saw not. 
 seen, and ; "Tis an easy and necessary belief to credit ^ 
 believe^. \ what our eye and sense hath examined, I 
 St. John i believe he was dead, and buried, and rose 
 
 xx. 29. . j . i i_ . i 
 
 again : and desire to see him in his glory, 
 rather than to contemplate him in his cenotaph 
 or sepulchre. Nor is this much to believe ; 
 as we have reason, we owe this faith unto 
 history : they only had the advantage of a 
 bold and noble faith, who lived before his 
 coming, who upon obscure prophecies and 
 mystical types could raise a belief, and expect 
 apparent impossibilities. 
 
 The armour X. 'Tis true, there is an edge in all firm 
 
 Christian belief, and with an easy metaphor we may say, 
 
 Eph. vi. ie. the sword of faith ; but in these obscurities I 
 
 rather use it in the adjunct the apostle gives 
 
 it, a buckler ; under which I perceive a wary 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 13 
 
 qombatant may lie invulnerable. Since I was 
 of understanding to know we knew nothing, 
 my reason hath been more pliable to the will 
 of faith : I am now content to understand a 
 mystery without a rigid definition, in an easy 
 anoT^latonick description. That allegorical 
 description of Hermes J pleaseth me beyond 
 all the metaphysical definitions of divines. 
 Where I cannot satisfy my reason, I love to 
 humour my fancy : I had as lieve you tell 
 me that anima est angclus hominis, est corpus 
 Dei, as ei/reAe^eta ; lux est umbra Dei, as actus 
 perspicui. Where there is an obscurity too 
 deep for our reason, 'tis good to sit down 
 with a description, periphrasis, or adumbra- 
 tion ; for by acquainting our reason how 
 unable it is to display the visible and obvious 
 effects of nature, it becomes more humble and 
 submissive unto the subtleties of faith : and 
 thus I teach my haggard and unreclaimed 
 reason to stoop unto the lure of faith. I be- T 
 lieve there was already a tree whose fruit our 
 unhappy parents tasted, though, in the same 
 chapter, when God forbids it, 'tis positively 
 said, the plants of the field were not yet 
 grown ; for God had not caused it to rain upon Gen. ii. 5. 
 the earth. I believe that the serpent (if we 
 shall literally understand it) from his proper 
 form and figure, made his motion on his belly, Gen. Hi. 14. 
 before the curse. I find the trial of the 
 pucelage and virginity of women, which God Deut. xxii. 
 ordained the Jews, is very fallible. Experi- I3> etc- 
 ence and history informs me, that not only 
 many particular women, but likewise whole 
 1 SphcBra cujus centrum ubique, circumferentia nullibi. 
 
14 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 nations have escaped the curse of childbirth, 
 which God seems to pronounce upon the 
 whole sex; yet do I believe that all this is 
 true, which, indeed, my reason would per- 
 suade me to be false : and this, I think, is no 
 vulgar part of faith, to believe a thing not 
 only above, but contrary to reason, and against 
 the arguments of our proper senses. 
 
 XI. In my solitary and retired imagination 
 
 HORACE, (neque enim cum portions aut me 
 
 Sat. i. 4 . 133. Lectulus accepit, desum mihi), 
 
 I remember I am not alone; and therefore 
 forget not to contemplate him and his attri- 
 butes, who is ever with me, especially those 
 two mighty ones, his wisdom and eternity. 
 With the one I recreate, with the other I 
 
 The Eternity confound, my understanding : for who can 
 speak of eternity without a solecism, or think 
 thereof without an ecstasy ? Time we may 
 comprehend; 'tis but five days elder than 
 ourselves, and hath the same horoscope with 
 the world ; but to retire so far back as to 
 apprehend a beginning, to give such an in- 
 finite start forward as to conceive an end, in 
 an essence that we affirm hath neither the 
 one nor the other, it puts my reason to St. 
 Paul's sanctuary : my philosophy dares not 
 say the angels can do it. God hath not made 
 a creature that can comprehend him ; 'tis a 
 
 EX. iii. 14. privilege of his own nature. I AM THAT 
 I AM, was his own definition unto Moses; 
 and 'twas a short one to confound mortality, 
 that durst question God, or ask him what he 
 was. Indeed, he only is ; all others have and 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 15 
 
 shall be ; but in eternity there is no distinc- 
 tion of tenses; and therefore that terrible 
 term predestination, which hath troubled so 
 many weak heads to conceive, and the wisest 
 to explain, is in respect to God no prescious 
 determination of our estates to come, but a 
 definitive blast of his will already fulfilled, and 
 at the instant that he first decreed it ; for to 
 his eternity, which is indivisible, and all to- 
 gether, the last trump is already sounded, the 
 reprobates "m ""the flame, and the blessed in 
 Abraham's bosom. St. Peter speaks modestly, St. Luke 
 when he saith, a thousand years to God are but 2 V p e t. 2 iii. 
 as one day ; for, to speak like a philosopher, 
 those continued instances of time which flow 
 into a thousand years, make not to him one 
 moment. What to us is to come, to his 
 eternity is present ; his whole duration being 
 but one permanent point, without succession, 
 -parts, flux, or division. 
 
 XII. There is no attribute that adds more Of the 
 difficulty to the mystery of the Trinity, where, Trinit y- 
 though in a relative way of Father and Son, 
 we must deny a priority. I wonder how p* Ccelo, 
 Aristotle could conceive the world eternal, *' I0 ' 3 ' 
 or how he could make good two eternities. 
 His similitude, of a triangle comprehended in P 
 a square, doth somewhat illustrate the trinity "' 
 of our souls, and that the triple unity of God ; 
 for there is in us not three, but a trinity of 
 souls ; because there is in us, if not three dis- 
 tinct souls, yet differing faculties, that can 
 and do subsist apart in different subjects, and 
 yet in us are so united as to make but one 
 soul and substance. If one soul were so per- 
 
16 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 feet as to inform three distinct bodies, that 
 were a petty trinity. Conceive the distinct 
 number of three, not divided nor separated 
 by the intellect, but actually comprehended 
 in its unity, and that is a perfect trinity. 
 I have often admired the mystical way of 
 Pythagoras, and the secret magick of num- 
 bers. Beware of philosophy, is a precept not 
 to be received in too large a sense : for, in 
 this mass of nature, there is a set of things 
 that carry in their front, though not in 
 capital letters, yet in stenography and short 
 characters, something of divinity; which, to 
 wiser reasons, serve as luminaries in the abyss 
 of knowledge, and, to judicious beliefs, as 
 scales and roundles to mount the pinnacles 
 The visible and highest pieces of divinity. The severe 
 Sa?e a of schools shall never laugh me out of the philo- 
 the invisible. S ophy of Hermes, that this visible world is 
 hut a. picture of ffje invisible, wherein, as 
 in a pourtract, things are not truly, but in 
 equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit 
 some more real substance in that invisible 
 fabrick. 
 
 The Wisdom XIII. That other attribute, wherewith I 
 recreate my devotion, is his wisdom, in which 
 I am happy; and for the contemplation of 
 this only, do not repent me that I was bred 
 in the way of study. The advantage I have 
 of the vulgar, with the content and happiness 
 I conceive therein, is an ample recompense 
 for all my endeavours, in what part of know- 
 ledge soever. Wisdom is his most beauteous 
 i Kings attribute : no man can attain unto it : yet 
 i. s, etc. Solomon pleased God when he desired it. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 17 
 
 He is wise, because he knows all things ; and 
 he knoweth all things, because he made them 
 all: but his greatest Jqiawledgfi_i& Ju^cjam- 
 prehendirig that he made not, that is, himself. 
 And this is also the greatest knowledge in 
 man. For this do I honour my own pro- 
 fession, and embrace the counsel even of the 
 devil himself; had he read such a lecture in 
 paradise as he did at Delphos, 1 we had better 
 known ourselves, nor had we stood in fear to 
 know him. I know he is wise in all, wonder- 
 ful in what we conceive, but far more in what 
 we comprehend not ; for we behold him but 
 asquint, upon reflex or shadow; our under- 
 standing is dimmer than Moses' eye, we are 
 ignorant of the back parts or lower side of 
 his divinity. Therefore to pry into the maze 
 of his counsels, is not only folly in man, but 
 presumption even in angels ; like us, they are 
 his servants, not his senators; he holds no 
 council but that mystical one of the Trinity, 
 wherein though there be three Persons, there 
 is but one mind that decrees without con- 
 tradiction ; nor needs he any, his actions 
 are not begot with deliberation, his wisdom 
 naturally knows what is best; his intellect 
 stands ready fraught with the superlative and 
 purest ideas of goodness; consultation and 
 election, which are two motions in us, make 
 but one in him; his actions springing from 
 his power, at the first touch of his will. 
 These are contemplations metaphysical; my 
 humble speculations have another method, 
 and are content to trace and discover those 
 1 rVwflt creavrdv, Nosce teipsum. 
 B 
 
18 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 expressions he hath left in his creatures, and 
 
 NO danger the obvious effects of nature. There is no 
 
 ig a to e tXe danger to profound these mysteries, no sanc- 
 
 ge hand of turn sanctorum ill philosophy; the world was 
 
 works? ' made to be inhabited by beasts, but stu^jej 
 
 flyiri r > nntfim'nlatpd by mail * 'tis the debt of 
 
 our reason we owe unto God, and the homage 
 
 we pay for not being beasts; without this 
 
 the world is still as though it had not been, 
 
 or as it was before the sixth day, when as yet 
 
 there was not a creature that could conceive 
 
 or say there was a world. The wisdorq^f 
 
 God receives small honour from those vulgar 
 
 Jieacis that rudely stare about, and witK a 
 
 grossrusticity admire his works : those highly 
 
 magnify him, ~' 
 
 acts, and deliberate research i 
 return the cmty of a devout and leajpef] ajl- 
 smirat JQ.n7 Therefore 
 
 Search while thou wilt, and let thy reason go 
 
 To ransom truth e'en to th' abyss below ; 
 
 Rally the scattered causes, and that line 
 
 Which nature twists, be able to untwine. 
 
 It is thy Maker's will, for unto none 
 
 But unto reason can he e'er be known. 
 
 The devils do know thee, but those damned 
 
 meteours 
 
 Build not thy glory, but confound thy creatures. 
 Teach my endeavours so thy works to read, 
 That learning them in thee I may proceed. 
 Give thou my reason that instructive flight, 
 Whose weary wings may on thy hands still light. 
 Teach me to soar aloft, yet ever so, 
 When near the sun, to stoop again below. 
 Thus shall my humble feathers safely hover, 
 And, though near earth, more than the heavens 
 
 discover. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 19 
 
 And then at last, when homeward I shall drive, 
 Rich with the spoils of nature, to my hive, 
 There will I sit, like that industrious fly, 
 Buzzing thy praises, which shall never die 
 Till death abrupts them, and succeeding glory 
 Bid me go on in a more lasting story. 
 
 And this is almost all wherein an humble 
 creature may endeavour to requite, and some 
 way to retribute unto his Creator ; for if not he St. Matt. 
 that sayeth < Lord, Lord,' but he that doeth the vii> "' 
 will of the Father shall be saved, certainly our 
 wills must be our performances, and our 
 intents make out our actions ; otherwise our 
 pious labours shall find anxiety in their graves, 
 and our best endeavours not hope, but fear, 
 a resurrection. 
 
 XIV. There is but one first cause, and four Every 
 second causes of all things. Some are with- e^nce h 
 out efficient, as God ; others without matter, its proper 
 as angels ; some without form, as the first 
 matter: but every essence, created or un- 
 created, hath its final cause, and some positive 
 end both ot its essence and operation. Tins 
 is the cause I grope after in the works 4)!' 
 nature ; on^ThisTiangs the providence of God. 
 Yo raise so beauteous a structure as the world 
 and the creatures thereof was but his art ; 
 but their sundry and divided operations, with 
 their predestinated ends, are from the treasury 
 of his wisdom. In the causes, nature, and . 
 affection of the eclipse of sun and moon, there- 
 is most excellent speculation ; but to profound 
 farther, and tp contemplate a reason why his 
 providence hath so disposed and ordered their 
 motions in that vast circle, as to conjoin and 
 
 
 end. 
 
20 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 obscure each other, is a sweeter piece of 
 reason, and a diviner point of philosophy. 
 Therefore, sometimes, and in some things, 
 there appears to me as much divinity in 
 Galen his books, De Usu Partium, as in Suarez' 
 Metaphysicks. Had Aristotle been as curious 
 in the enquiry of this cause as he was of the 
 other, he had not left behind him an imperfect 
 piece of philosophy, but an absolute tract of 
 divinity. 
 
 XV. Notura nihil agit frustra, is the only 
 vain. indisputable axiom in philosophy. There are 
 
 no grotesques in nature ; nor any thing framed 
 to fill up empty cantons, and unnecessary 
 spaces. In the most imperfect creatures, 
 and such as were not preserved in the ark, 
 but, having their seeds and principles in the 
 womb of nature, are everywhere, where the 
 power of sun is ; in these is the wisdom of his 
 hand discovered. Out of this rank Solomon 
 chose the object of his admiration ; indeed, 
 Prov. vi. 6-8 ; what reason may not go to school to the 
 cxx. 24-2 . w isdom of bees, ants, and spiders ? What 
 wise hand teacheth them to do what reason 
 cannot teach us ? Ruder heads stand amazed 
 at those prodigious pieces of nature, whales, ' 
 elephants, dromedaries, and camels ; these, I 
 confess, are the colossus and majestick pieces 
 of her hand; but in these narrow engines 
 there is more curious mathematicks ; and the 
 civility of these little citizens more neatly 
 sets forth the wisdom of their Maker. Who 
 admires not Regio-Montanus his fly beyond 
 his eagle ; * or wonders not more at the 
 1 Regio-Montanus [1436-75], otherwise John Miiller of 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 21 
 
 operation of two souls in those little bodies 
 than but one in the trunk of a cedar ? I 
 could never content my contemplation with 
 those general pieces of wonder, the flux and 
 reflux of the sea, the increase of Nile, the 
 conversion of the needle to the north ; and 
 have studied to match and parallel those in 
 the more obvious and neglected pieces of 
 nature which, without further travel, I can do 
 in the cosmography of myself. We carry 
 _JgJtlL_ u A. Jj? e wonders we seek without "us : 
 there is lall Africa arid heF prodigies in us. 
 We are that bold and adventurous piece of 
 nature, which he that studies, wisely learns 
 in a compendium what others labour at in a 
 divided piece and endless volume. 
 
 XVI. Thus there are two books from Nature a 
 whence I collect my divinity. Besides 
 written one of God, another of his servant, 
 nature, that universal and publick manuscript, 
 that lies expansed unto the eyes of all. Those 
 that never saw him in the one have discovered 
 him in the other : this was the Scripture and 
 Theology of the heathens ; the natural motion 
 of the sun made them more admire him than 
 its supernatural station did the children of 
 Israel. The ordinary effect of nature wrought josh. x. 12, 
 more admiration in them than, in the other, I3> 
 all his miracles. Surely the heathens knew 
 better how to join and read these mystical 
 letters than we Christians, who cast a more 
 careless eye on these common hieroglyphicks, 
 and disdain to suck divinity from the flowers 
 
 Konigsberg, made a mechanical iron fly and wooden eagle, 
 both of which were able to fly. 
 
22 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 of nature. Nor do I so forget God as to 
 adore the name nature; which I define not, 
 with the schools, the principle of motion and 
 rest, but, that straight and regular line, that 
 settled and constant course the wisdom of 
 God hath ordained the actions of his creatures, 
 according to their several kinds. To make a 
 revolution every day is the nature of the sun, 
 because of that necessary course which God 
 hath ordained it, from which it cannot swerve 
 but by a faculty from that voice which first 
 did give it motion. Now this course of nature 
 God seldom alters or perverts ; but, like an 
 excellent artist, hath so contrived his work, 
 that with the self-same instrument, without 
 a new creation, he may effect his obscurest 
 designs. Thus he sweeteneth the water with 
 a wood, preserveth the creatures in the ark, 
 which the blast of his mouth might have as 
 easily created ; for God is like a skilful JL 
 geometrician, who, when more easily, and 
 with one stroke of his compass, he might 
 describe or divide a right line, had yet rather 
 do this in a circle or longer way, according 
 to the constituted and forelaid principles of 
 his art: yet this rule of his he doth some- 
 times pervert, to acquaint the world with 
 his prerogative, lest the arrogancy of our 
 reason should question his power, and con- 
 clude he could not. And thus I call the 
 effects of nature the works of God, whose 
 hand and instrument she only is ; and 
 therefore to ascribe his actions unto her, is 
 to devolve the honour of the principal 
 agent upon the instrument ; which if with 
 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 23 
 
 reason we may do, then let our hammers rise 
 
 up and boast they have built our houses, and 
 
 our pens receive the honour of our writings. 
 
 I hold there is a general beauty in the works 
 
 of God, and therefore no deformity in any Eccius. 
 
 kind or species of creature whatsoever. I wfscL xv. It. 
 
 cannot tell by what logick we call a toad, a 
 
 bear, or an elephant ugly ; they being created 
 
 in those outward shapes and figures which 
 
 best express the actions of their inward forms ; 
 
 and having past that general visitation of God, Gen. i. 31. 
 
 who saw that all that he had made was good, 
 
 that is, conformable to his will, which abhors 
 
 deformity, and is the rule of order and beauty. 
 
 There is no deformity but in monstrosity ; 
 
 wherein, notwithstanding, there is a kind of 
 
 beauty ; nature so ingeniously contriving the 
 
 irregular parts as they become sometimes 
 
 more remarkable than the principal fabrick. 
 
 To speak yet more narrowly, there was never 
 
 any thing ugly or mis-shapen but the chaos ; 
 
 wherein, notwithstanding, to speak strictly, 
 
 there was no deformity, because no form ; nor 
 
 was it yet impregnate by the voice of God. 
 
 Now, nature is not at variance with art, nor 
 
 art with nature ; they being both the servants 
 
 of his providence. Art is the perfection of 'Nature the 
 
 nature. Were the world now as it was the SddS^ 
 
 sixth day, there were yet a chaos. Nature govern the 
 
 hath made one world, and art another. In\ 
 
 brief, all things are artificial ; for nature is the ) 
 
 art of God, 
 
 XVII. This is the ordinary and open way of 
 his providence, which art and industry have 
 in a good part discovered ; whose effects we 
 
24 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 Providence ma y foretell without an oracle. To foreshow 
 
 often falsely . -, . . , . 
 
 called these is not prophecy, but prognostication. 
 
 Fortune. There is another way, full of meanders and 
 labyrinths, whereof the devil and spirits have 
 no exact ephemerides : and that is a more 
 particular and obscure method of his provi- 
 dence ; directing the operations of individuals 
 and single essences : this we call fortune ; that 
 serpentine and crooked line, whereby he draws 
 those actions his wisdom intends in a more 
 unknown and secret way. This cryptick and 
 involved method of his providence have I ever 
 admired ; nor can I relate the history of my 
 life, the occurrences of my days, the escapes 
 of dangers, and hits of chance, with a bezo las 
 manos to Fortune, or a bare gramercy to my 
 
 Gen. xxii. 13. good stars. Abraham might have thought the 
 ram in the thicket came thither by accident : 
 human reason would have said that mere 
 
 EX. ii. 3 . chance conveyed Moses in the ark to the sight 
 of Pharaoh's daughter. What a labyrinth is 
 
 Gen. xxxvii. there in the story of Joseph, able to convert a 
 stoick. Surely there are in every man's life 
 certain rubs, doublings, and wrenches, which 
 pass a while under the effects of chance ; but 
 at the last, well examined, prove the mere 
 hand of God. 'Twas not dumb chance that, 
 to discover the fougade, or powder plot, con- 
 trived a miscarriage m" the letter. I like the 
 victory of '88 the better for that one occur- 
 rence which our enemies imputed to our dis- 
 honour and the partiality of fortune ; to wit, 
 the tempests-and contrariety of winds. King 
 Philip did not detract from the nation, when 
 he said, he sent his armada to fight with men, 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 25 
 
 and not to combat with the winds. Where 
 there is a manifest disproportion between the 
 powers and forces of two several agents, upon 
 a maxim of reason we may promise the victory 
 to the superior: but when unexpected acci- 
 dents slip in, and unthought-of occurrences 
 intervene, these must proceed from a power 
 that owes no obedience to those axioms; 
 where, as in the writing upon the wall, we Dan. v. 5. 
 may behold the hand, but see not the spring 
 that moves it. The success of that petty pro- 
 vince of Holland (of which the Grand Seignior 
 proudly said, ' If they should trouble him, as 
 they did the Spaniard, he would send his men 
 with shovels and pickaxes, and throw it into 
 the sea') I cannot altogether ascribe to the 
 ingenuity and industry of the people, but to 
 the mercy of God, that hath disposed them to 
 such a thriving genius ; and to the will of his 
 providence, that disposeth her favour to each 
 country in their preordinate season. All can- 
 not be happy at once ; for, because the glory 
 of one state depends upon the ruin of another, 
 there is a revolution and vicissitude of their 
 greatness, and must obey the swing of that 
 wheel not moved by intelligences, but by the 
 hand of God, whereby all estates arise to their 
 zenith and vertical points, according to their 
 predestinated periods. For the lives, not only 
 of men, but of commonweals and the whole 
 world, run riot upon an helix that still en- 
 largeth ; but on a circle, where, arriving to 
 their meridian, they decline in obscurity, and 
 fall under the horizon again. 
 
 XVIII. These must not therefore be named 
 
26 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 the effects of fortune but in a relative way, 
 and as we term the works of nature. It 
 was tne ig noran ce of man's reason that begat 
 this very name, and by a careless term 
 miscalled the providence of God: for there 
 is no liberty for causes to operate in a loose 
 and straggling way; nor any effect whatso- 
 ever but hath its warrant from some universal 
 or superior cause. 'Tis not a ridiculous 
 devotion to say a prayer before a game at 
 tables ; for even in sortilegies and matters 
 of greatest uncertainty, there is a settled 
 and preordered course of effects. 'Tis we 
 that are blind, not fortune. Because our 
 eye is too dim to discover the mystery of her 
 effects, we foolishly paint her blind, and 
 hoodwink the providence of the Almighty. 
 I cannot justify that contemptible proverb, 
 that fools only are fortunate ; or that insolent 
 paradox, that a nise man is out of the reach of 
 fortune ; much less those opprobrious epithets 
 of poets, whore, bawd, and strumpet. 'Tis, I 
 confess, the common fate of men of singular 
 gifts of mind, to be destitute of those of 
 fortune ; which doth not any way deject the 
 spirit of wiser judgments, who throughly 
 understand the justice of this proceeding; 
 and, being enriched with higher donatives, 
 cast a more careless eye on these vulgar parts 
 of felicity. 'Tis a most unjust ambition to 
 desire to engross the mercies of the Almighty, 
 nor to be content with the goods of mind, 
 without a possession of those of body or for- 
 tune : and it is an error, worse than heresy, to 
 adore these complimental and circumstantial 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 27 
 
 pieces of felicity, and undervalue those per- 
 fections and essential points of happiness 
 wherein we resemble our Maker. To wiser 
 desires it is satisfaction enough to deserve, 
 though not to enjoy, the favours of fortune. 
 Let providence provide for fools : 'tis not 
 partiality, but equity, in God, who deals with 
 us but as our natural parents. Those that 
 are able of body and mind he leaves to their 
 deserts ; to those of weaker merit he imparts 
 a larger portion ; and pieces out the defect of 
 one by the excess of the other. Thus have 
 we no just quarrel with nature for leaving 
 us naked ; or to envy the horns, hoofs, skins, 
 and furs of other creatures ; being provided 
 with reason, that can supply them all. We 
 need not labour, with so many arguments, 
 to confute judicial astrology; for, if there 
 be a truth therein, it doth not injure divinity. 
 If to be born under Mercury disposeth us 
 to be witty ; under Jupiter to be wealthy ; 
 I do not owe a knee unto these, but unto 
 that merciful hand that hath ordered my 
 indifferent and uncertain nativity unto such 
 benevolous aspects. Those that hold that 
 all things were governed by fortune, had 
 not erred, had they not persisted there. 
 The Romans, that erected a temple to For- 
 tune, acknowledged therein, though in a 
 blinder way, somewhat of divinity; for, in 
 a wise supputation, all things begin and end 
 in the Almighty. There is a nearer way niad, viii. 
 to heaven than Homer's chain ; an easy l8 - 
 logick may conjoin heaven and earth in one 
 argument, and, with less than a sorites, 
 
28 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 resolve all things into God. For though we 
 christen effects by their most sensible and 
 nearest causes, yet is God the true and 
 infallible cause of all ; whose concourse, 
 though it be general, yet doth it subdivide 
 itself into the particular actions of every 
 thing, and is that spirit, by which each 
 singular essence not only subsists, but per- 
 forms its operation. 
 
 Danger of XIX. The bad construction and perverse 
 the f Fir n st mg comment on these pair of second causes, or 
 with Second visible hands of God, have perverted the 
 devotion of many unto atheism ; who, for- 
 getting the honest advisees of faith, have 
 listened unto the conspiracy of passion and 
 reason. I have therefore always endea- 
 voured to compose those feuds and angry 
 dissentions between affection, faith, and 
 reason : for there is in our soul a kind of 
 N triumvirate, or triple government of three 
 competitors, which distract the peace of this 
 our commonwealth not less than did that 
 other the state of Rome. 
 
 Passion, As reason is a rebel unto faith, so passion 
 
 Faith* ' unto reason. As the propositions of faith 
 seem absurd unto reason, so the theorems of 
 reason unto passion, and both unto reason ; 
 yet a moderate and peaceable discretion may 
 so state and order the matter, that they may 
 be all kings, and yet make but one monarchy : 
 every one exercising his sovereignty and 
 prerogative in a due time and place*, accord- 
 ing to the restraint and limit of circumstance. 
 There is, as in philosophy, so in divinity, 
 sturdy doubts, and boisterous objections, 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 29 
 
 wherewith the unhappiness of our know- 
 ledge too nearly acquainteth us. More of 
 these no man hath known than myself; 
 which I confess I conquered, not in a mar- 
 tial posture, but on my knees. For our 
 endeavours are not only to combat with 
 doubts, but always to dispute with the devil. 
 The villainy of that spirit takes a hint of 
 infidelity from our studies; and, by demon- 
 strating a naturality in one way, makes 
 us mistrust a miracle in another. Thus, 
 having perused the Archidoxis, and read 
 the secret sympathies of things, he would 
 dissuade my belief from the miracle of the 
 Brazen Serpent ; make me conceit that image Numb. 
 worked by sympathy, and was but an Egyp- xxl- 9- 
 tian trick to cure their diseases without a 
 miracle. Again, having seen some experi- 
 ments of bitumen, and having read far more 
 of naphtha, he whispered to my curiosity 
 the fire of the altar might be natural, and 
 bid me mistrust a miracle in Elias, when i Kings xviii. 
 he intrenched the altar round with water; 
 for that inflammable substance yields not 
 easily unto water, but flames in the arms 
 of its antagonist. And thus would he in- 
 veigle my belief to think the combustion 
 of Sodom might be natural, and that there Gen. xix. 24. 
 was an asphaltick and bituminous nature in 
 that lake before the fire of Gomorrah. I 
 know that manna is now plentifully gathered 
 in Calabria; and Josephus tells me, in his Antig.jud. 
 days 'twas as plentiful in Arabia. The " L *' 5 ' 
 devil therefore made the query, Where was 
 then the miracle in the days of Moses ? The Ex. xvi. 
 
30 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 Israelites saw but that, in his time, the 
 natives of those countries behold in ours. 
 Thus the devil played at chess with me, and, 
 yielding a pawn, thought to gain a queen of 
 me ; taking advantage of my honest endea- 
 vours; and, whilst I laboured to raise the 
 structure of my reason, he strived to under- 
 mine the edifice of my faith. 
 
 Atheism can XX. Neither had these or any other ever 
 rdly exist. suc ^ advantage of me, as to incline me to 
 any point of infidelity or desperate positions 
 of atheism; for I have been these many 
 years of opinion there was never any. Those 
 that held religion was the difference of man 
 from beasts have spoken probably, and pro- 
 ceed upon a principle as inductive as the 
 other. That doctrine of Epicurus, that denied 
 the providence of God, was no atheism, but 
 a magnificent and high-strained conceit of 
 his majesty, which he deemed too sublime 
 to mind the trivial actions of those inferior 
 creatures. That fatal necessity of the Stoicks 
 is nothing but the immutable law of his will. 
 Those that heretofore denied the divinity of 
 the Holy Ghost have been condemned but 
 as hereticks; and those that now deny our 
 Saviour (though more than hereticks) are not 
 so much as atheists : for though they deny 
 two persons in the Trinity, they hold, as we 
 do, there is but one God. 
 
 That villain and secretary of hell that 
 composed that miscreant piece Of the Three 
 Imposters, though divided from all religions, 
 and was neither Jew, Turk, nor Christian, 
 was not a positive atheist. I confess fevery 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 31 
 
 country hath its Machiavel, every age its 
 Lucian, whereof common heads must not 
 hear, nor more advanced judgments too 
 rashly venture on. 'Tis the rhetorick of 
 Satan; and may pervert a loose or prejudi- 
 cate belief. 
 
 XXI. I confess I have perused them all, inconsist- 
 and can discover nothing that may startle a unbelief. 
 discreet belief; yet are there heads carried 
 off with the wind and breath of such 
 motives. I remember a Doctor in Physick, 
 of Italy, who could not perfectly believe 
 the immortality of the soul, because Galen 
 seemed to make a doubt thereof. With 
 another I was familiarly acquainted, in France, 
 a divine, and a man of singular parts, that on 
 the same point was so plunged and gravelled 
 with three lines of Seneca, 1 that all our 
 antidotes, drawn from both Scripture and 
 philosophy, could not expel the poison of his 
 error. There are a set of heads that can 
 credit the relations of mariners, yet question 
 the testimonies of Saint Paul : and peremp- 
 torily maintain the traditions of ^Elian or 
 Pliny; yet in histories of Scripture raise 
 queries and objections : believing no more 
 than they can parallel in human authors. I 
 confess there are in Scripture stories that do 
 exceed the fable of poets, and, to a captious 
 reader, sound like Garagantua or Bevis. 
 Search all the legends of times past, and the 
 
 1 An toti morimur, nullaque pars manet 
 Nostri? .... 
 
 Post mortem nihil cst, ipsaque mors nihil . . . 
 Mors individua cst noxia corpori, 
 Nee parcens an im&. (Troad, 379, etc.) 
 
32 
 
 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 Many ques- 
 tions may be 
 raised not 
 worthy of 
 solution ; 
 
 Gen. viii. 8. 
 
 St. John xi. 
 
 Gen. ii. 21. 
 
 Gen. i. 27. 
 
 fabulous conceits of these present, and 'twill 
 be hard to find one that deserves to carry 
 the buckler unto Sampson ; yet is all this of 
 an easy possibility, if we conceive a divine 
 concourse, or an influence but from the little 
 finger of the Almighty. It is impossible that, 
 either in the discourse of man or in the 
 infallible voice of God, to the weakness of 
 our apprehensions there should not appear 
 irregularities, contradictions, and antinomies : 
 myself could show a catalogue of doubts, 
 never yet imagined nor questioned, as I know, 
 which are not resolved at the first hearing; 
 not fantastick queries or objections of air; for 
 I cannot hear of atoms in divinity. I can 
 read the history of the pigeon that was sent 
 out of the ark, and returned no more, yet not 
 question how she found out her mate that 
 was left behind : that Lazarus was raised from 
 the dead, yet not demand where, in the in- 
 terim, his soul awaited ; or raise a law-case, 
 whether his heir might lawfully detain his 
 inheritance bequeathed unto him by his 
 death ; and he, though restored to life, have 
 no plea or title unto his former possessions. 
 Whether Eve was framed out of the left side 
 of Adam, I dispute not ; because I stand not 
 yet assured which is the right side of a man ; 
 or whether there be any such distinction in 
 nature. That she was edified out of the rib 
 of Adam, I believe ; yet raise no question who 
 shall arise with that rib at the resurrection. 
 Whether Adam was an hermaphrodite, as the 
 Rabbins contend upon the letter of the text ; 
 because it is contrary to reason there should 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 33 
 
 be an hermaphrodite, before there was a 
 woman, or a composition of two natures, be- 
 fore there was a second composed. Likewise, 
 whether the world was created in autumn, 
 summer, or the spring ; because it was created 
 in them all : for, whatsoever sign the sun 
 possesseth, those four seasons are actually 
 existent. It is the nature of this luminary 
 to distinguish the several seasons of the year ; 
 all which it makes at one time in the whole 
 earth, and successive in any part thereof. 
 There are a bundle of curiosities, not only in 
 philosophy but in divinity, proposed and dis- 
 cussed by men of most supposed abilities, 
 which indeed are not worthy our vacant hours, 
 much less our serious studies ; pieces only fit 
 to be placed in Pantagruel's library, or bound 
 up with Tartaretus, De Modo Cacandi. 
 
 XXII. These are niceties that become not others, which 
 those that peruse so serious a mystery. There ra 
 are others more generally questioned, and 
 called to the bar, yet methinks, of an easy 
 and possible truth. 
 
 'Tis ridiculous to put off or drown the 
 general flood of Noah in that particular inun- 
 dation of Deucalion. That there was a deluge 
 once seems not to me so great a miracle as 
 that there is not one always. How all the 
 kinds of creatures, not only in their own 
 bulks, but with a competency of food and Gen. vi. 14, 
 sustenance, might be preserved in one ark, etl 
 and within the extent of three hundred cubits, 
 to a reason that rightly examines it, will 
 appear very feasible. There is another secret, 
 not contained in the Scripture, which is more 
 c 
 
34 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 hard to comprehend, and put the honest 
 Father to the refuge of a miracle ; and that is, 
 not only how the distinct pieces of the world, 
 and divided islands, should be first planted 
 by men, but inhabited by tigers, panthers, 
 and bears. How America abounded with 
 beasts of prey and noxious animals, yet con- 
 tained not in it that necessary creature, a 
 horse, is very strange. By what passage 
 those, not only birds, but dangerous and un- 
 welcome beasts, came over. How there be 
 creatures there, which are not found in this 
 triple continent. All which must needs be 
 strange unto us, that hold but one ark ; and 
 that the creatures began their progress from 
 the mountains of Ararat. They who, to salve 
 this, would make the deluge particular, pro- 
 ceed upon a principle that I can no way 
 rant; not only upon the negative of Holy 
 criptures, but of mine own reason, whereby 
 I can make it probable that the world was as 
 well peopled in the time of Noah as in ours ; 
 and fifteen hundred years, to people the 
 world, as full a time for them as four thou- 
 sand years since have been to us. 
 
 There are other assertions and common 
 tenents drawn from Scripture, and generally 
 / believed as Scripture, whereunto, notwith- 
 standing, I would never betray the liberty of 
 Gen. v. my reason. 'Tis a postulate to me, that 
 Methusalem was the longest lived of all the 
 children of Adam : and no man will be able 
 to prove it, when, from the process of the 
 text, I can manifest it may be otherwise. 
 That Judas perished by hanging himself, 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 35 
 
 there is no certainty in Scripture : though,, St. Matt. 
 in one place, it seems to affirm it, and by a xx 
 doubtful word hath given occasion to translate 
 it ; yet, in another place, in a more punctual Acts i. 18. 
 description, it makes it improbable, and seems 
 to overthrow it. That our fathers, after the 
 flood, erected the tower of Babel, to preserve 
 themselves against a second deluge, is gener- 
 ally opinioned and believed ; yet is there 
 another intention of theirs expressed in Scrip- 
 ture. Besides, it is improbable, from the 
 circumstance of the place ; that is, a plain Gen. xi. 4. 
 in the land of Shinar. These are no points 
 of faith ; and therefore may admit a free 
 dispute. There are yet others, and those 
 familiarly concluded from the text, wherein 
 (under favour) I see no consequence. The 
 Church of Rome confidently proves the 
 opinion of tutelary angels, from that answer, 
 when Peter knocked at the door, ' Tis not he, Acts xii. 15. 
 but his angel; that is, might some say, his 
 messenger, or somebody from him ; for so the 
 original signifies ; and is as likely to be the 
 doubtful family's meaning. This exposition 
 I once suggested to a young divine that an- 
 swered upon this point ; to which I remember 
 the Franciscan opponent replied no more, 
 but, That it was a new, and no authentick 
 interpretation. 
 
 XXIII. These are but the conclusions and J^J 1 ^. 
 fallible discourses of man upon the word of books 6 . 5 ' 
 God ; for such I do believe the Holy Scrip- 
 tures; yet, were it of man, I could not 
 choose but say, it was the singularest and 
 superlative piece that hath been extant since 
 
36 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 the creation. Were I a pagan, I should 
 not refrain the lecture of it; and cannot 
 but commend the judgment of Ptolemy, 
 that thought not his library complete with- 
 out it. The Alcoran of the Turks (I speak 
 without prejudice) is an ill-composed piece, 
 containing in it vain and ridiculous errors 
 in philosophy, impossibilities, fictions, and 
 vanities beyond laughter, maintained by 
 evident and open sophisms, the policy of 
 ignorance, deposition of universities, and 
 banishment of learning, that hath gotten 
 foot by arms and violence : this, without a 
 blow, hath disseminated itself through the 
 whole earth. It is not unremarkable what 
 Philo first observed, that the law of Moses 
 continued two thousand years without the 
 least alteration ; whereas, we see, the laws of 
 other commonweals do alter with occasions : 
 and even those that pretended their original 
 from some divinity, to have vanished with- 
 out trace or memory. I believe, besides 
 Zoroaster there were divers that writ before 
 Moses; who, notwithstanding, have suffered 
 the common fate of time. Men's works 
 have an age, like themselves ; and though 
 they outlive their authors, yet have they a 
 stint and period to their duration. This 
 only is a work too hard for the teeth of 
 time, and cannot perish but in the general 
 flames, when all things shall confess their ashes. 
 Of making XXIV. I have heard some with deep sighs 
 b*no lament the lost lines of Cicero; others with 
 end'(Eccl. as many groans deplore the combustion of 
 the library of Alexandria : for my own part, 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 37 
 
 I think there be too many in the world; 
 and could with patience behold the urn 
 and ashes of the Vatican, could I, with a 
 few others, recover the perished leaves of 
 Solomon. I would not omit a copy of i Kings iv. 
 Enoch's Pillars, had they many nearer 32 
 authors than Josephus, or did not relish Antig. Jud. 
 somewhat of the fable. Some men have 1 ' 
 written more than others have spoken. 
 Pineda quotes more authors, in one work, 1 
 than are necessary in a whole world. Of 
 those three great inventions 2 in Germany, 
 there are two which are not without their 
 incommodities, and 'tis disputable whether 
 they exceed not their use and commodities. 
 Tis not a melancholy utinam of mine own, 
 but the desires of better heads, that there 
 were a general synod: not to unite the 
 incompatible difference of religion, but for 
 the benefit of learning; to reduce it, as it 
 lay at first, in a few and solid authors, and 
 to condemn to the fire those swarms and 
 millions of rhapsodies, begotten only to dis- 
 tract and abuse the weaker judgments of 
 scholars, and to maintain the trade and 
 mystery of typographers. 
 
 XXV. I cannot but wonder with what 
 exceptions the Samaritans could confine their 
 belief to the Pentateuch, or five books of 
 Moses. I am ashamed at the rabbinical 
 interpretation of the Jews upon the Old 
 Testament, as much as their defection from 
 
 1 Pineda, in his Monarchia Ecclesiastica, quotes one 
 thousand and forty authors. 
 
 2 Guns, printing, and the mariner's compass. 
 
 
38 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 the New. And truly it is beyond wonder 
 how that contemptible and degenerate issue 
 of Jacob, once so devoted to ethnick super- 
 stition, and so easily seduced to the idolatry 
 of their neighbours, should now, in such 
 an obstinate and peremptory belief, adhere 
 unto their own doctrine, expect impossi- 
 bilities, and, in the face and eye of the 
 church, persist without the least hope of 
 conversion. This is a vice in them that were 
 a virtue in us : for obstinacy in a bad cause 
 is but constancy in a good. And herein [ 
 and want of must accuse those of my own religion ; for 
 S^? cy there is not any of such a fugitive faith, such 
 Christians, an unstable belief, as a Christian ; none that 
 do so oft transform themselves, not unto 
 several shapes of Christianity and of the same 
 species, but unto more unnatural and contrary 
 forms of Jew and Mahometan ; that from the 
 name of Saviour can condescend to the bare 
 term of prophet : and from an old belief that 
 he is come fall to a new expectation of his 
 coming. It is the promise of Christ to make 
 St. John us all one flock : but how and when this 
 union shall be, is as obscure to me as the 
 last day. Of those four members of religion 
 we hold a slender proportion. There are, I 
 confess, some new additions ; yet small to 
 those which accrue to our adversaries; and 
 those only drawn from the revolt of pagans ; 
 men but of negative impieties ; and such as 
 deny Christ, but because they never heard 
 of him. But the religion of the Jew is 
 expressly against the Christian, and the 
 Mahometan against both. For the Turk, in 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 39 
 
 the bulk he now stands, he is beyond all 
 hope of conversion; if he fall asunder there 
 may be conceived hopes ; but not without 
 strong improbabilities. The Jew is obstinate 
 in all fortunes; the persecution of fifteen 
 hundred years hath but confirmed them in 
 their error. They have already endured what- 
 soever may be inflicted : and have suffered, 
 in a bad cause, even to the condemnation of 
 their enemies. Persecution is a bad and in- 
 direct way to plant religion. It hath been 
 the unhappy method of angry devotions, not 
 only to confirm honest religion, but wicked 
 heresies and extravagant opinions. It was The blood 
 the first stone and basis of our faith ; none jJStyrs the 
 can more justly boast of persecutions, and seed of the 
 glory in the number and valour of martyrs ; 
 for, to speak properly, those are true and 
 almost only examples of fortitude ; those that 
 are fetched from the field, or drawn from the 
 actions of the camp, are not oft-times so 
 truly precedents of valour as audacity, and, 
 at the best, attain but to some bastard piece 
 of fortitude. If we shall strictly examine 
 the circumstances and requisites which Aris- 
 totle requires to true and perfect valour, we Etk. 
 shall find the name only in his master, "' 6 " 
 Alexander, and as little in that Roman worthy, 
 Julius Caesar; and if any, in that easy and 
 active way, have done so nobly as to deserve 
 that name, yet, in the passive and more 
 terrible piece, these have surpassed, and in 
 a more heroical way may claim the honour 
 of that title. 'Tis not in the power of every 
 honest faith to proceed thus far, or pass to 
 
40 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 heaven through the flames. Every one hath 
 it not in that full measure, nor in so audacious 
 and resolute a temper, as to endure those 
 terrible tests and trials; who, notwithstand- 
 ing, in a peaceable way do truly adore their 
 Saviour, and have (no doubt) a faith accept- 
 able in the eye of God. 
 
 Mart al J s a who XXVI. Now, as all that die in war are not 
 sufferin W termed soldiers, so neither can I properly term 
 
 ReifeSn? f a11 those that suffer in ma tters of religion, 
 martyrs. The council of Constance condemns 
 John Huss for an heretick ; the stories of his 
 own party style him a martyr. He must 
 needs offend the divinity of both, that says 
 he was neither the one nor the other. There 
 are many (questionless) canonized on earth, 
 that shall never be saints in heaven ; and 
 have their names in histories and martyro- 
 logies, who in the eyes of God are not so 
 perfect martyrs as was that wise heathen 
 Socrates, that suffered on a fundamental point 
 of religion, the unity of God. I have often 
 pitied the miserable bishop 1 that suffered in 
 the cause of antipodes, yet cannot choose 
 but accuse him of as much madness for ex- 
 posing his living on such a trifle, as those of 
 ignorance and folly, that condemned him. 
 I think my conscience will not give me the 
 lie, if I say there are not many extant, that, 
 in a noble way, fear the face of death less 
 than myself; yet from the moral duty I owe 
 to the commandment of God, and the natural 
 respects that I tender unto the conservation 
 of my essence and being, I would not perish 
 1 Virgilius. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 41 
 
 upon a ceremony, politick points, or indiflfer- 
 ency : nor is my belief of that untractable 
 temper as not to bow at their obstacles, or 
 connive at matters wherein there are not 
 manifest impieties. The leaven, therefore, 
 and ferment of all, not only civil but religious 
 actions, is wisdom; without which, to com- 
 mit ourselves to the flames is homicide, and 
 (I fear) but to pass through one fire into 
 another. 
 
 XXVII. That miracles are ceased, I can of Miracles, 
 neither prove nor absolutely deny, much less 
 define the time and period of their cessation. 
 That they survived Christ is manifest upon 
 record of Scripture : that they outlived the Acts xvi. 18. 
 apostles also, and were revived at the con- 
 version of nations, many years after, we can- 
 not deny, if we shall not question those writers 
 whose testimonies we do not controvert in 
 points that make for our own opinions : there- 
 fore, that may have some truth in it, that is 
 reported by the Jesuits of their miracles in 
 the Indies. I could wish it were true, or had 
 any other testimony than their own pens. 
 They may easily believe those miracles abroad., 
 who daily conceive a greater at home, 
 the transmutation of those visible elements 
 into the body and blood of our Saviour ; for 
 the conversion of water into wine, which he St. John n. 
 wrought in Cana, or what the devil would 
 have had him done in the wilderness, of 
 stones into bread, compared to this, will St. Matt. 
 scarce deserve the name of a miracle : though, lv 
 indeed, to speak properly, there is not one All Miracles 
 miracle greater than another; they being the l^God. easy 
 
42 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 extraordinary effect of the hand of God, to 
 which all things are of an equal facility ; and 
 to create the world as easy as one single 
 creature. For this is also a miracle ; not only 
 to produce effects against or above^ nature, 
 but before nature ; and to create nature, as 
 great a miracle as to contradict or transcend 
 her. We do too narrowly define the power 
 of God, restraining it to our capacities. I 
 hold that God can do all things : how he 
 should work contradictions, I do not under- 
 stand, yet dare not, therefore, deny. I cannot 
 see why the angel of God should question 
 Esdras to recall the time past, if it were 
 beyond his own power; or that God should 
 pose mortality in that which he was not able 
 to perform himself. I will not say that God 
 cannot, but he will not, perform many things, 
 which we plainly affirm he cannot. This, 
 I am sure, is the mannerliest proposition ; 
 wherein, notwithstanding, I hold no paradox : 
 for, strictly, his power is the same with his 
 will ; and they both, with all the rest, do 
 make but one God. 
 
 XXVIII. Therefore, that miracles have 
 been, I do believe ; that they may yet be 
 wrought by the living, I do not deny : but 
 have no confidence in those which are 
 fathered on the dead. And this hath ever 
 made me suspect the efficacy of reliques, to 
 examine the bones, question the habits and 
 appurtenances of saints, and even of Christ 
 himself. I cannot conceive why the cross 
 that Helena found, and whereon Christ him- 
 self died, should have power to restore others 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 43 
 
 unto life. I excuse not Constantine from a 
 fall off his horse, or a mischief from his 
 enemies, upon the wearing those nails on his 
 bridle which our Saviour bore upon the cross 
 in his hands. I compute among your pice 
 fraudes, nor many degrees before consecrated 
 swords and roses, that which Baldwyn, King 
 of Jerusalem, returned the Genovese for their 
 costs and pains in his war ; to wit, the ashes 
 of John the Baptist. Those that hold the 
 sanctity of their souls doth leave behind a 
 tincture and sacred faculty on their bodies, 
 speak naturally of miracles, and do not salve 
 the doubt. Now, one reason \ I tender so 
 little devotion unto" reTTqucs is, I think, the 
 slenHer and doubtful respect I have always 
 KeTcTTmto antiquities; for that, indeed, which 
 1 admire" is" far before antiquity; that is, 
 Eternity ; and that is, God himself ; who, 
 though he be styled the Antient of Days, can- Dan. vii. 
 not receive the adjunct of antiquity, who was 9' 22< 
 before the world, and shall be after it, yet 
 is not older than it : for, in his years there is 
 no climacter : his duration is eternity ; and 
 far more venerable than antiquity. 
 
 XXIX. But, above all things, I wonder how Oracles. 
 the curiosity of wiser heads could pass that 
 great and indisputable miracle, the cessation of 
 oracles ; and in what swoon their reasons lay, 
 to content themselves, and sit down with such 
 a far-fetched and ridiculous reason as Plutarch De Orac. 
 alledgeth for it. The Jews, that can believe D tf"t*> 
 the supernatural solstice of the sun in the 
 days of Joshua, have yet the impudence to josh. x. 13. 
 deny the eclipse, which every pagan confessed, 
 
44 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 at his death ; but for this, it is evident beyond 
 all contradiction : the devil himself confessed 
 it. 1 Certainly it is not a warrantable curiosity 
 to examine the verity of Scripture by the 
 concordance of human history ; or seek to 
 confirm the chronicle of Hester or Daniel by 
 the authority of Megasthenes or Herodotus. 
 I confess, I have had an unhappy curiosity this 
 way, till I laughed myself out of it with a piece 
 
 JUST. Hist, of Justin, where he delivers that the children 
 of Israel, for being scabbed, were banished out 
 of jEgypt. And truly, since I have under- 
 stood the occurrences of the world, and know 
 in what counterfeit shapes and deceitful vizards 
 times present represent on the stage things 
 past, I do believe them little more than things 
 to come. Some have been of my opinion, 
 and endeavoured to write the history of their 
 own lives ; wherein Moses hath outgone them 
 
 Deut. xxxiv. all, and left not only the story of his life, but, 
 as some will have it, of his death also. 
 
 Witchcraft. XXX. It is a riddle to me, how this story of 
 oracles hath not wormed out of the world that 
 doubtful conceit of spirits and witches; how 
 so many learned heads should so far forget 
 their metaphysicks, and destroy the ladder 
 and scale of creatures, as to question the 
 existence of spirits ; for my part, I have ever 
 believed, and do now know, that there are 
 witches. They that doubt of these do not 
 only deny them, but spirits; and are obliquely, 
 and upon consequence, a sort, not of infidels, 
 but atheists. Those that, to confute their 
 incredulity, desire to see apparitions, shall, 
 1 In his Oracle to Augustus. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 45 
 
 questionless, never behold any, nor have the 
 power to be so much as witches. The devil 
 hath made them already in a heresy as capital 
 as witchcraft; and to appear to them were 
 but to convert them. Of all the delusions 
 wherewith he deceives mortality, there is not 
 any that puzzleth me more than the leger- 
 demain of changelings. I do not credit those 
 transformations of reasonable creatures into 
 beasts, or that a devil hath a power to tran- 
 speciate a man into a horse, who tempted 
 Christ (as a trial of his divinity) to convert but St. Matt, 
 stones into bread. I could believe that spirits lv ' 3 ' 
 use with man the act of carnality ; and that in 
 both sexes. I conceive they may assume, 
 steal, or contrive a body wherein there may be 
 action enough to content decrepit lust, or 
 passion to satisfy more active veneries ; yet, 
 in both, without a possibility of generation : 
 and therefore that opinion that Antichrist 
 should be born of the tribe of Dan, by con- 
 junction with the devil is ridiculous, and a 
 conceit fitter for a rabbin than a Christian. I 
 hold that the devil doth really possess some 
 men ; the spirit of melancholy others ; the 
 spirit of delusion others : that, as the devil is 
 concealed and denied by some, so God and 
 good angels are pretended by others, whereof 
 the late defection of the maid of Germany 1 
 hath left a pregnant example. 
 
 XXXI. Again, I believe that all that use Philosophy 
 
 sorceries, incantations, and spells, are not 
 
 witches, or, as we term them, magicians. I 
 
 conceive there is a traditional magick, not 
 
 1 That lived, without meat, on the smell of a rose. 
 
4o RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 learned immediately from the devil, but at 
 second hand from his scholars, who, having 
 once the secret betrayed, are able and do 
 empirically practise without his advice ; they 
 both proceeding upon the principles of nature, 
 where actives, aptly conjoined to disposed 
 passives, will, under any master, produce 
 their effects. Thus, I think, at first, a great 
 part of philosophy was witchcraft; which, 
 being afterward derived to one another, 
 proved bat philosophy, and was indeed no 
 more than the honest effects of nature : what 
 invented by us, is philosophy; learned from 
 Tbesneges- him, is magick. We do surely owe the 
 discovery of many secrets to the discover) of 
 good and bad angels. I could never pass that 
 sentence of Paracelsus without an asterisk, or 
 
 Le. opera Dei. 1 
 
 think that many mysteries .ascribed to 
 our own inventions have been the courteous 
 revelations of spirits ; for those noble essences 
 in heaven bear a friendly regard unto their 
 fellow-natures on earth ; and therefore believe 
 that those many prodigies and ominous pro- 
 gnosticks, which foreran the ruin of states, 
 princes, and private persons, are the charitable 
 premonitions of good angels, which more 
 careless inquiries term but the effects of 
 chance and nature. 
 
 b* =:-:: XXXII. Now, besides hese particular and 
 divided spirits, there may be (for ought I 
 know) an universal and common spirit to the 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 47 
 
 whole world. It was the opinion of Plato, 
 and it is yet of the Hermetical philosophers. 
 If there be a common nature that unites and 
 ties the scattered and divided individuals into 
 one species, why may there not be one that 
 unites them all ? However, I am sure there 
 is a common spirit that plays within us, yet 
 makes no part of us ; and that is, the Spirit of 
 God ; the fire and scintillation of that noble 
 and mighty essence, which is the life and 
 radical heat of spirits, and those essences that 
 know not the virtue of the sun ; a fire quite 
 contrary to the fire of hell. This is that 
 gentle heat that brooded on the waters, and Gen. i. 2 . 
 in six days hatched the world; this is that 
 irradiation that dispels the mists of hell, the 
 clouds of horror, fear, sorrow, despair; and 
 preserves the region of the mind in serenity. 
 Whosoever feels not the warm gale and gentle 
 ventilation of this spirit (though I feel his 
 pulse) I dare not say he lives ; for truly with- 
 out this, to me, there is no heat under the 
 tropick ; nor any light, though I dwelt in 
 the body of the sun. 
 
 As when the labouring sun hath wrought his track 
 
 Up to the top of lofty Cancer's back, 
 
 The icy ocean cracks, the frozen pole 
 
 Thaws with the heat of the celestial coal ; 
 
 So when thy absent beams begin t' impart 
 
 Again a solstice on my frozen heart, 
 
 My winter 's o'er, my drooping spirits sing, 
 
 And every part revives into a spring. 
 
 But if thy quickening beams a while decline, 
 
 And with their light bless not this orb of mine, 
 
 A chilly frost surpriseth every member, 
 
 And iii the midst of June I feel December. 
 
48 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 Oh how this earthly temper doth debase 
 The noble soul,, in this her humble place ! 
 Whose wingy nature ever doth aspire 
 To reach that place whence first it took its fire. 
 These flames I feel, which in my heart do dwell, 
 Are not thy beams, but take their fire from hell. 
 Oh quench them all ! and let thy Light divine 
 Be as the sun to this poor orb of mine ! 
 And to thy sacred Spirit convert those fires. 
 Whose earthly fumes choke my devout aspires ! 
 
 Of guardian XXXIII. Therefore, for spirits, I am so far 
 amSpirhs." from denying their existence, that I could 
 easily believe, that not only whole countries, 
 but particular persons,, have their tutelary and 
 guardian angels. It is not a new opinion of 
 the Church of Rome, but an old one of 
 Pythagoras and Plato : there is no heresy in 
 it : and if not manifestly defined in Scripture, 
 yet is it an opinion of a good and wholesome 
 use in the course and actions of a man's life, 
 and would serve as an hypothesis to salve 
 many doubts whereof common philosophy 
 affordeth no solution. Now, if you demand 
 my opinion and metaphysicks of their natures, 
 I confess them very shallow ; most of *them 
 in a negative way, like that of God ; or in a 
 comparative, between ourselves and fellow- 
 creatures ; for there is in this universe a stair, 
 or manifest scale of creatures, rising not 
 disorderly, or in confusion, but with a comely 
 method and proportion. Between creatures 
 of mere existence and things of life there is a 
 large disproportion of nature : between plants 
 and animals, or creatures of sense, a wider 
 difference: between them and man, a far 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 49 
 
 greater : and if the proportion hold on, be- 
 tween man and angels there should be yet 
 a greater. We do not comprehend their 
 natures who retain the first definition of 
 Porphyry, 1 and distinguish them from our- 
 selves by immortality; for before his fall, 
 man also was immortal : yet must we needs 
 affirm that he had a different essence from 
 the angels. Having, therefore, no certain 
 knowledge of their natures, 'tis no bad 
 method of the schools, whatsoever perfection 
 we find obscurely in ourselves, in a more 
 complete and absolute way to ascribe unto 
 them. I believe they have an extemporary 
 knowledge, and, upon the first motion of 
 their reason, do what we cannot without 
 study or deliberation : that they know things 
 by their forms, and define, by specifical dif- 
 ference, what we describe by accidents and 
 properties: and therefore probabilities to us 
 may be demonstrations unto them : that they 
 have knowledge not only of the specifical, 
 but numerical forms of individuals, and under- 
 stand by what reserved difference each single 
 hypostasis (besides the relation to its species) 
 becomes its numerical self. That, as the soul 
 hath a power to move the body it informs, 
 so there's a faculty to move any, though 
 inform none : ours upon restraint of time, 
 place, and distance : but that invisible hand 
 that conveyed Habakkuk to the lion's den, or Bel and the 
 Philip to Azotus, infringeth this rule, and Jc 
 hath a secret conveyance wherewith mortality 
 is not acquainted. If they have that intuitive 
 1 J^ssentice rationalis immortcUis. 
 D 
 
50 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 knowledge, whereby, as in reflection, they 
 behold the thoughts of one another, I cannot 
 peremptorily deny but they know a great 
 part of ours. They that, to refute the invo- 
 cation of saints, have denied that they have 
 any knowledge of our affairs below, have 
 proceeded too far, and must pardon my 
 opinion, till I can thoroughly answer that 
 St. Luke piece of Scripture, At the conversion of a sinner, 
 the angels in heaven rejoice. I cannot, with 
 those in that great father, securely interpret 
 the work of the first day, fiat lux, to the 
 creation of angels; though I confess there is 
 not any creature that hath so near a glimpse 
 of their nature, as light in the sun and 
 elements : we style it a bare accident, but, 
 where it subsists alone, 'tis a spiritual 
 substance, and may be an angel : in brief, 
 conceive light invisible, and that is a spirit. 
 Man a XXXIV. These are certainly the magisterial 
 
 paiSSngof an d masterpieces of the Creator; the flower, 
 
 alfcreafS f r ( &S W6 ma y Sa ^^ t ^ 6 ^ es ^ P art ^ nothing ; 
 
 essences. actually existing, what we are but in hopes, 
 ' and probability. jWe are only that- amphi- 
 bious piece, between a corporal and a 
 spiritual essence; that middle form that 
 links those two together, and makes good 
 the method of God and nature, that jumps 
 not from extremes, but unites the incom- 
 patible distances by some middle and par- 
 ticipating natures. That we are the breath 
 and similitude of God, it is indisputable, and 
 
 Gen. i. 27 ; upon record of Holy Scripture : but to call 
 ourselves a microcosm, or little world, I 
 thought it only a pleasant trope of rhetorick, 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 51 
 
 till my near judgment and second thoughts 
 told me there was a real truth therein. For, 
 first we are a rude mass, and in the rank of 
 creatures which only are, and have a dull 
 kind of being, not yet privileged with life or 
 preferred to sense or reason ; next we live 
 the life of plants, the life of animals, the life 
 of men, and at last the life of spirits : running 
 on, in one mysterious nature, those five 
 kinds of existences, which comprehend the 
 creatures, not only of the world, but of the 
 universe. I Thus is man that great and true 
 amp/Mum, whose nature is disposed to live, 
 not only like other creatures in divers 
 elements, but in divided and distinguished 
 worlds ; for though there be but one to sense 
 there are two to reason ; the one visible, the 
 other invisible, whereof Moses seems to have 
 left description, and of the other so obscurely, 
 that some parts thereof are yet in controversy. 
 And truly, for the first chapters of Genesis, I 
 must confess a good deal of obscurity; though 
 divines have, to the power of human reason, 
 endeavoured to make all go in a literal mean- 
 ing, yet those allegorical interpretations are 
 also probable, and perhaps the mystical 
 method of Moses bred up in the hieroglyphical 
 schools of the Egyptians. 
 
 XXXV. Now for that immaterial world, Of Creation. 
 methinks we need not wander so far as the 
 first inoveable ; 1 for, even in this material 
 fabrick, the spirits walk as freely exempt from 
 the affection of time, place, and motion, as 
 beyond the extremest circumference. Do but 
 1 Primum mobile. 
 
52 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 extract from the corpulency of bodies, or re- 
 solve things beyond their first matter, and 
 you discover the habitation of angels ; which 
 if I call the ubiquitary and omnipresent 
 essence of God, I hope I shall not offend 
 divinity : for, before the creation of the world, 
 God was really all things. For the angels he 
 created no new world, or determinate man- 
 St. Matt. sion, and therefore they are everywhere where 
 xvm. 10. j g n j g essence ^ an( j do ij ve ^ a t a distance even, 
 
 in himself. That God made all things for 
 man, is in some sense true ; yet, not so far as 
 to subordinate the creation of those purer 
 creatures unto ours; though, as ministering 
 Heb. i. 14. spirits, they do, and are willing to fulfil the 
 will of God in these lower and sublunary 
 affairs of man. God made all things for him- 
 self; and it is~ impossible he should make^ 
 tFTem'for aiiy~oITi"ei r "erid than" his own glory : 
 it is all he can receive, and all that is without 
 himself; for, honour, being an external ad- 
 junct, and in the honourer rather than in the 
 person honoured, it was necessary to make j^ 
 rjL . . creature from whom he might receive this 
 Tiomage : and that is, in the other world, 
 angels, In this, man ; which when we neglect, 
 WJT forget the_yery_, encT ..Q f" our creation, and. 
 may justly provoke God^ not only to repent 
 Gen. vi. 6; .that he hath made the world, but that ^e 
 ix. 9-17- hath sworn he would not destroy it. That 
 tHefe is but one world is a conclusion of faith ; 
 Aristotle with all his philosophy hath not 
 been able to prove it : and as weakly that the 
 world was eternal ; that dispute much troubled 
 the pen of the antient philosophers, but Moses 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 53 
 
 decided that question, and all is salved with 
 the new term of a creation, that is, a produc- 
 tion of something out of nothing. And what 
 is that? Whatsoever is opposite to some- 
 thing; or, more exactly, that which is truly 
 contrary unto God : for he only is ; all others 
 have an existence with dependency, and are 
 something but by a distinction. And herein 
 is divinity conformant unto philosophy, and 
 generation not only founded on contrarieties, 
 but also creation. God, being all things, is 
 contrary unto nothing, out of which were 
 made all things, and so nothing became some- 
 thing, and omneity informed nullity into an 
 essence. 
 
 XXXVI. The whole creation is a mystery, Man the 
 and particularly that of man. At the blast of rfSSkS 
 His mouth were the rest of the creatures Gen. i. 20-25. 
 made ; and at His bare word they started out 
 of nothing : but in the frame of man (as the 
 text describes it) He played the sensible Gen. ii. 7 . 
 operator, and seemed not so much to create 
 s make him. When He had separated the 
 materials of other creatures there consequently 
 resulted a form and soul ; but, having raised 
 the walls of man, He was driven to a second 
 and harder creation, of a substance like Him- 
 self, an incorruptible and immortal soul. For 
 these two affections we have the philosophy 
 and opinion of the heathens, the flat affirma- 
 tive of Plato, and not a negative from Aristotle. 
 There is another scruple cast in by divinity 
 (concerning its production) much disputed in 
 the German auditories, and with that indiffer- 
 ency and equality of arguments, as leave the 
 
54 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 controversy undetermined. I am not of 
 opera, tom. Paracelsus' mind, that boldly delivers a receipt 
 Ed. P Fra:of. to ma ke a man without conjunction; yet can- 
 not but wonder at the multitude of heads 
 that do deny traduction, having no other 
 argument to confirm their belief than that 
 rhetorical sentence and antimetathesis of 
 Augustine, Creando infunditur, infundendo 
 creatur. Either opinion will consist well 
 enough with religion : yet I should rather 
 incline to this, did not one objection haunt 
 me, not wrung from speculations and subtleties, 
 but from common sense and observation ; not 
 picked from the leaves of any author, but 
 bred amongst the weeds and tares of my own 
 brain. And this is a conclusion from the 
 equivocal and monstrous productions in the 
 copulation of man with beast : for if the soul 
 of man be not transmitted and transfused in 
 the seed of the parents, why are not those 
 productions merely beasts, but have also an 
 impression and tincture of reason in as high a 
 measure, as it can evidence itself in those 
 improper organs ? Nor, truly, can I peremp- 
 torily deny that the soul, in this her sublunary 
 estate, is wholly, and in all acceptions, in- 
 organical : but that, for the performance of 
 her ordinary actions, is required not only a 
 symmetry and proper disposition of organs, 
 but a crasis and temper correspondent to its 
 operations ; yet is not this mass of flesh and 
 visible structure the instrument and proper 
 corps of the soul, but rather of sense, and that 
 the hand of reason. In our study of anatomy 
 there is a mass of mysterious philosophy, and 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 55 
 
 such as reduced the very heathens to divinity ; 
 yet amongst all those rare discoveries and 
 curious pieces I find in the fabrick of man, I 
 do not so much content myself, as in that I 
 find not ; that is, no organ or instrument for 
 the rational soul ; for in the brain, which we 
 term the seat of reason, there is not anything 
 of moment more than I can discover in the 
 crany of a beast : and this is a sensible and 
 no inconsiderable argument of the inorganity 
 of the soul, at least in that sense^we usually 
 so receive it. Thus we are men, and we know 
 not how ; there is something in us that can 
 be without us, and will be after us, though it 
 is strange that it hath no history what it was 
 before us, nor cannot tell how it entered in 
 us. 
 
 XXXVII. Now, for these walls of flesh, Of the perish- 
 wherein the soul doth seem to be immured able lody ' 
 before the resurrection, it is nothing but an 
 elemental composition, and a fabrick that must 
 fall to ashes. All flesh is grass, is not only isa. xl. 6. 
 metaphorically, but literally, true; for all 
 those creatures we behold are but the herbs 
 of the field, digested into flesh in them, or 
 more remotely carnified in ourselves. Nay, 
 further, we are what we all abhor, anthropo- 
 phagi, and cannibals, devourers not only of 
 men, but of ourselves ; and that not in an alle- 
 gory but a positive truth ; for all this mass of 
 flesh which we behold came in at our mouths ; 
 this frame we look upon, hath been upon our 
 trenchers ; in brief, we have devoured our- 
 selves. I cannot believe the wisdom of 
 Pythagoras did ever positively, and in a literal 
 
56 
 
 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 sense, affirm his metempsychosis, or impossible 
 transmigration of the souls of men into beasts. 
 Of all metamorphoses or transmigrations, I 
 believe only one, that is, of Lot's wife; for 
 
 Gen. xix. 26. that of Nebuchodonosor proceeded not so far. 
 In all others I conceive there is no further 
 verity than is contained in their implicit sense 
 and morality. I believe that the whole frame 
 of a beast doth perish, and is left in the same 
 state after death as before it was materialled 
 unto life ; that the souls of men know neither 
 contrary nor corruption ; that they subsist 
 beyond the body, and outlive death by the 
 privilege of their proper natures, and without 
 a miracle ; that the souls of the faithful, as 
 they leave earth, take possession of heaven ; 
 that those apparitions and ghosts of departed 
 persons are not the wandering souls of men, 
 but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting 
 and suggesting us unto mischief, blood, and 
 villainy, instilling and stealing into our 
 hearts ; that the blessed spirits are not at rest 
 in their graves, but wander, solicitous of the 
 affairs of the world. That those phantasms 
 appear often, and do frequent cemeteries, 
 charnel-houses, and churches, it is because 
 those are the dormitories of the dead, where 
 the devil, like n insolent champion, beholds 
 with pride the spoils and trophies of his 
 victory in Adam. 
 
 Death hath XXXVIII. This is that dismal conquest we 
 a11 deplore, that makes us so often cry, Adam, 
 quid fecisti ? I thank God I have not those 
 strait ligaments, or narrow obligations to the 
 world, as to dote on life, or be convulsed and 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 57 
 
 tremble at the name of death. Not that I am 
 insensible of the dread or horror thereof; or, 
 by raking into the bowels of the deceased, 
 continual sight of anatomies, skeletons, or 
 cadaverous reliques, like vespilloes, or grave- 
 makers, I am become stupid, or have forgot 
 the apprehension of mortality ; but that 
 marshalling all the horrors, and contemplating 
 the extremities thereof, I find not anything 
 therein able to daunt the courage of a man, 
 much less a well resolved Christian ; and 
 therefore am not angry at the error of our first 
 parents, or unwilling to bear a part of this 
 common fate, and like the best of them to 
 die ; that is, to cease to breathe, to take a 
 farewell of the elements ; to be a kind of 
 nothing for a moment ; to be within one 
 instant of a spirit. When I take a full view 
 and circle of myself without this reasonable 
 moderator and equal piece of justice, Death, 
 I do conceive myself the miserablest person 
 extant. Were there not another life that I 
 hope for, all the vanities of the world should 
 not entreat a moment's breath from me. 
 Could the devil work my belief to imagine I 
 could never die, I would not outlive that very 
 thought. I have so abject a conceit of this 
 common^ way of existence, this retaining to 
 the sun and elements, I cannot think this is 
 to be a man, or to live according to the, 
 dignity of humanity. In expectation of aj 
 better, I can with patience embrace this life ; 
 yet, in my best meditations, do often defy 
 death. I honour any man that contemns it ; 
 nor can I highly love any that is afraid of it : 
 
58 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 this makes me naturally love a soldier, and 
 honour those tattered and contemptible 
 regiments that will die at the command of a 
 sergeant. For a Pagan there may be some 
 motives to be in love with life : but for a 
 Christian to be amazed at death, I see not 
 how he can escape this dilemma, that he is 
 too sensible of this life, or hopeless of the life 
 to come. 
 
 Marihas XXXIX. Some divines count Adam thirty 
 
 vears ^ at his creation, because they suppose 
 him created in the perfect age and stature of 
 man. And surely we are all out of the com- 
 putation of our age, and eveiy man is some 
 months elder than he bethinks him ; for we 
 live, move, have a being, and are subject to 
 the actions of the elements, and the malice of 
 diseases, in that other world, the truest 
 microcosm, the womb of our mother. ; For 
 besides that general and common existence 
 we are conceived to hold in our chaos, and 
 whilst we sleep within the bosom of our 
 causes, we enjoy a being and life in three 
 distinct worlds, wherein we receive most 
 manifest graduations. In that obscure world 
 and womb of our mother,, our time is short, 
 computed by the moon ; yet longer than the 
 days of many creatures that behold the sun ; 
 ourselves being not yet without life, sense, 
 and reason ; though, for the manifestation of 
 its actions, it awaits the opportunity of objects, 
 and seems to live there but in its root and 
 soul of vegetation. Entering afterwards upon 
 the scene of the world, we arise up and become 
 another creature ; performing the reasonable 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 59 
 
 actions of man, and obscurely manifesting that 
 part of divinity in us, but not in complement 
 and perfection, till we have once more cast 
 our secondine, that is, this slough of flesh, and 
 are delivered into the last world, that is, that 
 ineffable place of Paul, that proper ubi of spirits. 2 Cor. xii. 4. 
 The smattering I have of the philosophers' 
 stone (which is something more than the 
 perfect exaltation of gold) hath taught me a 
 great deal of divinity, and instructed my 
 belief, how that immortal spirit and incorrup- 
 tible substance of my soul may lie obscure, 
 and sleep a while within this house of flesh. 
 Those strange and mystical transmigrations 
 that I have observed in silkworms turned my 
 philosophy into divinity. There is in these 
 works of nature, which seem to puzzle reason, 
 something divine ; and hath more in it than 
 the eye of a common spectator doth discover. 
 
 XL. I am naturally bashful ; nor hath con- Death to be 
 versation, age, or travel been able to effront ^ e t j n f 
 or enharden me ; yet I have one part of feared. 
 modesty, which I have seldom discovered in 
 another, that is (to speak truly), I am not so 
 much afraid of death as ashamed thereof; 'tis 
 the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, 
 that in a moment can so disfigure us, that our 
 nearest friends, wife, and children, stand afraid, 
 and start at us. The birds and beasts of the 
 field, that before, in a natural fear, obeyed us, 
 forgetting all allegiance, begin to prey upon 
 us. This very conceit hath, in a tempest, 
 disposed and left me willing to be swallowed 
 up in the abyss of waters, wherein I had 
 perished unseen, unpitied, without wondering 
 
60 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 eyes, tears of pity, lectures of mortality, and 
 none had said, 
 
 VIKGIL, Quantum mutatus ab illo ! 
 
 sEn. 11. 274. 
 
 Not that I am ashamed of the anatomy of my 
 parts, or can accuse nature for playing the 
 bungler in any part of me, or my own vitious 
 life for contracting any shameful disease upon 
 me, whereby I might not call myself as whole- 
 some a morsel for the worms as any. 
 
 XLI. Some, upon the courage of a fruitful 
 issue, wherein, as in the truest chronicle, they 
 seem to outlive themselves, can with greater 
 patience away with death. This conceit and 
 counterfeit subsisting in our progenies seems 
 to me a mere fallacy, unworthy the desires of 
 a man, that can but conceive a thought of the 
 next world : who, in a nobler ambition, should 
 desire to live in his substance in heaven, 
 rather than his name and shadow in the earth. 
 And therefore, at my death, I mean to take a 
 total adieu of the world, not caring for a 
 monument, history or epitaph : not somuch as 
 the bare memory of my name to be found 
 anywhere, but in the universal register of 
 God. I am not yet so cynical, as to approve 
 the testament of Diogenes, 1 nor do I 
 altogether allow that rodomontado of Lucan ; 
 
 Coelo tegitur, qui non habet urnam ; 
 
 He that unburied lies wants not his hearse ; 
 For unto him a tomb 's the universe : 
 
 but commend, in my calmer judgment, those 
 
 1 "Who willed his friend not to bury him, but to hang 
 him up with a staff in his hand to fright away the crows. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 61 
 
 ingenuous intentions that desire to sleep by 
 the urns of their fathers, and strive to go the 
 neatest way unto corruption. I do not envy 
 the temper of crows and daws, nor the 
 numerous and weary days of our fathers before 
 the flood. If there be any truth in astrology, 
 I may outlive a jubilee ; as yet I have not 
 seen one revolution of Saturn, 1 nor hath my 
 pulse beat thirty years, and yet, excepting one, 
 have seen the ashes and left under ground, 
 all the kings of Europe; have been con- 
 temporary to three emperors, four grand 
 signiors, and as many popes : 2 methinks I 
 have outlived myself, and begin to be weary 
 of the sun"; I have shaked hands with delight 
 in my warm blood and canicular days; I 
 perceive I do anticipate the vices of age ; the 
 world to me is but a dream or mock-show, and 
 we all therein but pantaloons and an ticks, to 
 my severer contemplations. 
 
 XLII. It is not, I confess, an unlawful Length of 
 prayer to desire to surpass the days of our 
 Saviour^or wish to outlive that age wherein for > 
 he thought fittest to die ; yet, if (as divinity 
 affirms) there shall be no grey hairs in heaven, 
 but all shall rise in the perfect state of men, 
 we do but outlive those perfections in this 
 world, to be recalled unto them by a greater 
 miracle in the next, and run on here but to 
 be retrograde hereafter. Were there any 
 
 1 The planet Saturn maketh his revolution once in thirty 
 years. 
 
 "2 Rodolph n., Matthias, and Ferdinand n., emperors 
 of Germany; Achmet i., Mustapha i., Othman 11., and 
 Amuratlnv., grand signiors ; Leoxi., Paulv., Gregory xv., 
 and Urban vin., popes. 
 
62 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 hopes to outlive vice, or a point to be super- 
 annuated from sin, it were worthy our knees 
 for age doth to implore the days of Methuselah. But age 
 
 but increase -i ,1 . * i j 
 
 our vices. doth not rectify, but mcurvate our natures, 
 turning bad dispositions into worser habits, 
 and (like diseases) brings on incurable vices ; 
 I for every day, as we grow weaker in age, we 
 grow stronger in sin, and the number of our 
 days doth but make our sins innumerable. 
 The same vice committed at sixteen, is not 
 the same, though it agree in all other cir- 
 cumstances, at forty ; but swells and doubles 
 from the circumstance of our ages, wherein, 
 besides the constant and inexcusable habit of 
 transgressing, the maturity of our judgment 
 cuts off pretence unto excuse or pardon. 
 Every sin, the oftener it is committed, the 
 more it acquireth in the quality of evil ; as it 
 succeeds in time, so it proceeds in degrees of 
 badness ; for as they proceed they ever mul- 
 tiply, and, like figures in arithmetick, the 
 last stands for more than all that went before 
 it. And, though I think no man can live well 
 once, but he that could live twice, yet, for 
 my own part, I would not live over my hours 
 past, or begin again the thread of my days ; 
 not upon Cicero's ground, because I have lived 
 them well, but for fear I should live them 
 worse. I find my growing judgment daily 
 instruct me liow to be better, but my untamed 
 affections and confirmed vitiosity_^akes_jne, 
 cfaily do worse. I find in my confirmed age 
 the sunTg sins I discovered in my youth ; I 
 committed many then because I was a child ; 
 and, because I commit them still, I am yet 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 63 
 
 an infant. Therefore I perceive a man may 
 be twice a child, before the days of dotage ; 
 and stand in need of ^Eson's bath before three- OVID, Met. 
 
 vii. 617. 
 
 score. 
 
 XLIII. And truly there goes a great deal A special 
 of providence to produce a man's life unto preserves 06 
 threescore ; there is more required than an our lives - 
 able temper for those years ; though the 
 radical humour contain in it sufficient oil for 
 seventy, yet I perceive in some it gives no 
 light past thirty : men assign not all the 
 causes of long life, that write whole books 
 thereof. They that found themselves on the 
 radical balsam, or vital sulphur of the parts, 
 determine not why Abel lived not so long as 
 Adam. There is therefore a secret glome or 
 bottom of our days : 'twas his wisdom to de- 
 termine them : but his perpetual and waking 
 providence that fulfils and accomplisheth 
 them ; wherein the spirits, ourselves, and all 
 the creatures of God in a secret and disputed 
 way, do execute his will. Let them not there- 
 fore complain of immaturity that die about 
 thirty : they fall but like the whole world, 
 whose solid and well-composed substance 
 must not expect the duration and period of 
 its constitution : when all things are com- 
 
 Eleted in it, its age is accomplished ; and the 
 ist and general fever may as naturally de- 
 stroy it before six thousand, as me before 
 forty. There is therefore some other hand 
 that twines the thread of life than that of 
 nature; we are not only ignorant in anti- 
 pathies and occult qualities ; our ends are as 
 obscure as our beginnings ; the line of our 
 
64 
 
 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 days is drawn by night, and the various 
 effects therein by a pencil that is invisible ; 
 wherein, though we confess our ignorance, 
 I am sure we do not err if we say, it is the 
 hand of God. 
 
 XLIV. I am much taken with two verses 
 of Lucan, since I have been able not only, 
 as we do at school, to construe, but under- 
 stand 
 
 Phars. Victurosque Dei celant ut vivere durent, 
 
 lv> 5I9> Felix esse mori. 
 
 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 gods conceal the happiness of death. 
 
 Though There be many excellent strains in that poet, 
 be a desired, wherewith his Stoical genius hath liberally 
 yet suicide supplied him : and truly there are singular 
 
 is unlawful. . AI . .1 1.1 ir-r/ j j 1_ 
 
 pieces in the philosophy ot Zeno, and doctrine 
 of the Stoicks, which I perceive, delivered in 
 a pulpit, pass for current divinity ; yet herein 
 are they in extremes, that can allow a man 
 to be his own assassin, 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 noble 
 example ; for all the 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 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 05 
 
 death itself, like those in the way or prologue 
 unto it. 
 
 Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum nihil euro ; CICERO, 
 
 , , , Tusc. Qucest. 
 
 I would not die, but care not to be dead. i. 3. 
 
 Were I of Caesar's religion, 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 fur- 
 ther than their outsides, think health an 
 appertenance unto life, and quarrel with their 
 constitutions 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, con- 
 sidering the thousand doors that lead to death, 
 do thank my God that we can die but once. 
 'Tis not only the mischief of diseases, and the 
 villainy 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 be- 
 holding 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. God 
 would not exempt himself from that ; the 
 misery of immortality in the flesh he under- 
 took not, that was in it 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 desire ; we are happier with death than 
 E 
 
66 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 we should h&ve 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 Stoick is in the right. He forgets that he 
 can die, who complains of misery : we are in 
 the power of no calamity while death is in our 
 own. 
 Death the XLV. Now, besides this literal and positive 
 
 gate through . . , ., , ' 
 
 which we kind ot death, there are others whereof 
 ity. divines make mention, and those, I think, 
 not merely metaphorical, as mortification, 
 dying unto sin and the world. Therefore, 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 reckon- 
 ing those korce combustce?- and odd days, or 
 esteeming myself any thing, before I was my 
 Saviour's, and inrolled 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 ima- 
 ginations it casts upon us. I have therefore 
 enlarged that common memento mori into a 
 more Christian memorandum, memento quatuoi 
 novissima, those four inevitable points of us all, 
 Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Neither 
 did the contemplations of the heathens rest 
 in their graves, without a further thought of 
 
 1 That time when the moon is in conjunction, and 
 obscured by the sun, the astrologers call horce combusts. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 67 
 
 Rhadamanth or some judicial proceeding after 
 death, though in another way, and upon sug- 
 gestion 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. 
 
 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 is 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, without the breath of God, 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 the great work of the 
 intellect of God than the manner how he 
 proceeded in its operation. I cannot dream 
 that there should be at the last day any such 
 judicial proceeding, or calling to the bar, as 
 indeed the Scripture seems to imply, and the 
 literal commentators do conceive : for un- 
 speakable mysteries in the Scriptures are 
 often delivered in a vulgar and illustrative 
 way, and, being written unto man, are 
 
08 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 delivered, not as they truly are, but as they 
 may be understood ; wherein, notwithstand- 
 ing, the different interpretations according 
 to different capacities may stand firm with 
 our devotion, nor be any way prejudicial to 
 each single edification. 
 
 The end of XLVI. Now, to determine the day and year 
 the world. Q f ^^ mev jt a k} e time, is not only convincible 
 and statute madness, but also manifest impiety. 
 How shall we interpret Elias' six thousand 
 years, or imagine the secret communicated to 
 a Rabbi which God hath denied unto his 
 St. Matt. angels ? It had been an excellent quaere to 
 have posed the Devil of Delphos l and must 
 needs have forced him to some strange am- 
 phibology. 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 or present, pretend a 
 knowledge of things to come ; heads ordained 
 only to manifest the incredible effects of 
 melancholy, and to fulfil old prophecies, 2 
 St. Matt. 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 
 St. Luke pronounced. There shall be signs in Ike moon 
 i X jhess. v. 2. an d 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 revelation 
 of antichrist, is as obscure as any; in our 
 common compute he hath been come these 
 
 1 The oracle of Apollo. 
 
 2 In those days there shall come liars and false prophets. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 69 
 
 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 ? Hoiv long, Rev. vi. 9, 
 O Lord ? and groan in the expectation of the I0 
 great jubilee. 
 
 XLVII. 'This is the day that must make The Day of 
 good that great attribute of God, his justice^ Judgment - 
 that must reconcile those unanswerable doubts 
 that torment the wisest understandings ; and 
 reduce those seeming inequalities and re- 
 spective 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 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. CLAUDIAN. 
 
 De Mallii 
 
 f 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 
 
70 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 Epist. i. xi. artifice of Seneca, 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 vitious ; 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 hell ; 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 tempta- 
 tion, 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. 
 
 i Cor. xv. 35. XLVIII. How shall the dead arise ? is no 
 
 St e i<S e of the question of my faith ; to believe only possi- 
 
 dead. bilities 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 impossible, by any solid 
 
 or demonstrative reasons, to persuade a man 
 
 to believe the conversion of the needle to 
 
RELIGIO MEDII 71 
 
 the north ; though this be possible and true, 
 
 and easily credible, upon a single experiment 
 
 unto the sense. VI. believe that our estranged 
 
 and divided ashes shall unite again ; that our 
 
 separated dust,, after so many pilgrimages and 
 
 transformations into the parts of minerals, 
 
 plants, animals, elements, shall, at the voice 
 
 of God, 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 "confCRed mass into 
 
 its species; 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 mass, till the fruitful voice of 
 
 God separated this united multitude into its 
 
 several species, so, at the last day, when those' 
 
 corrupted reliques shall be scattered in the 
 
 wilderness of forms, and seem to have forgot 
 
 their proper habits, God, by a powerful 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 Types of the 
 
 often beheld, as a miracle, that artificial * e n s " rrec ' 
 
 resurrection and revivification of mercury, 
 
 how being mortified into a thousand shapes, < 
 
 it assumes again its own, and returns into 
 
 its numerical self. Let us speak naturally, 
 
 and like philosophers ; the forms of alterable 
 
 bodies in these sensible corruptions perish 
 
 not; nor, as we imagine, wholly quit their 
 
 mansions ; but retire and contract themselves 
 
72 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 into their secret and unaccessible parts; where 
 they may best protect themselves from the 
 action of their antagonist. A plant or vege- 
 table 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 incombus- 
 tible 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. What the art of man can do in these 
 inferior pieces, what blasphemy is it to affirm 
 the finger of God cannot do in these 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 resurrection. 
 
 XLIX. Now, the necessary mansions of our 
 restored selves are those two contrary and 
 incompatible places we call Heaven and Hell. 
 To define them, or strictly to determine what 
 and where these are, surpasseth my divinity. 
 That elegant apostle, which seemed to have a 
 glimpse of heaven, hath left but a negative 
 
 1 Cor. ii. 9. description thereof; which neither eye hath 
 
 seen, nor ear hath heard, nor can enter into the 
 heart of man : he was translated out of himself 
 
 2 Cor. xii. 2 . to behold it; but, being returned into himself, 
 
 could not express it. Saint John's description 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 73 
 
 by emeralds, chrysolites., and precious stones, Rev. xxi. 
 is too weak to express the material heaven we I9 " 2T> 
 behold. Briefly, therefore, where the soul 
 hath the full measure and complement of 
 happiness; where the boundless appetite 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 God will thus manifest 
 .himself, there is heaven, though~wItFiii 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 2 Cor. xii. 
 in the body or out of the body, was yet in 2 " 4 ' 
 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 God 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 EX. xxxiii. 
 gross absurdity in philosophy, when with l8 - 
 these eyes of flesh he desired to see God, 
 and petitioned his Maker, that is Truth 
 itself, to a contradiction. Those that imagine 
 heaven and hell neighbours, and conceive a 
 
74 
 
 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 St. Luke 
 xvi. 19, etc 
 
 vicinity between those two extremes, upon 
 consequence of the parable, where Dives 
 discoursed with Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, 
 do too grossly conceive of those glorified 
 creatures, whose eyes shall easily out-see the 
 sun, and behold without a perspective the 
 extremest distances ; for if there shall be, in 
 our glorified eyes, the faculty of sight and 
 reception of objects, I could think the visible 
 species there to be in as unlimitable 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 trans- 
 port 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. 
 
 L. I cannot tell how to say that fire is the 
 essence of hell ; I know not what to make of 
 purgatory, or conceive a flame that can either 
 prey upon, or purify the substance of a soul. 
 Rev. xxi. 8. Those flames of sulphur, mentioned in the 
 Scriptures, I take not to be understood of this 
 present hell, but of that to come, where fire 
 shall make up the complement of our 
 tortures, and have a body or subject wherein 
 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 
 
 Of fire as 
 an agent in 
 destruction. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 75 
 
 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. r~I would gladly know Ex. 
 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, exposed 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 frame 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 
 glass ; and therefore some of our chymicks 
 facetiously affirm, that, at the last fire, all shall 
 be crystallized and reverberated into glass, 
 which is the utmost action of that element. 
 
7G RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 Nor need we fear this term, annihilation, or 
 wonder that God will destroy the works of his 
 creation : for man subsisting, who is, and will 
 then truly appear, a microcosm, the world 
 cannot be said to be destroyed. For the 
 eyes of God, and perhaps also of our glorified 
 selves, shall as really behold and contemplate 
 the w r orld, 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 God, and to the understanding 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 
 God 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. 
 The heart of LI. Men commonly set forth the torments 
 
 cwn torment ^ ^ell ^7 ^ TG > an( ^ tfle extrem ity of Corporal 
 
 ' afflictions, and describe hell 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 comprehend it, that 
 immortal essence, that translated divinity and 
 colony of God, the soul. Surely, though we 
 place hell under earth, the devil's walk and 
 purlieu is about it. Men speak too popularly 
 who place it in those flaming mountains, which 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 77 
 
 to grosser apprehensions represent hell, The 
 heart of man is the place the devils dwell in ; 
 rTeeTsometimes a hell witliirTmyself ; Lucifer 
 "keeps" his court in my breast ; Legion is 
 revived in me. There are as many hells as 
 Anaxagoras conceited worlds. There was St. Luke 
 more than one hell in Magdalene, when vm ' 2 ' 
 there were seven devils ; for every devil is an 
 hell unto himself; he holds enough of torture 
 in his own ubi ; and needs not the misery 
 of circumference to afflict him : and thus, a 
 distracted conscience here is a shadow or 
 introduction unto hell hereafter. 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 impossible, his miseries are endless, and 
 he suffers most in that attribute wherein he is 
 impassible, his immortality. 
 
 LI I. I thank God, and with joy I mention 
 it, I was never afraid of hell, nor never grew 
 pale at the description of that place, i I have 
 so fixed my contemplations on heaven, that I Contempia- 
 have almost forgot the idea of hell ; and am Heaven. 
 afraid rather to lose the joys of the one, than 
 endure the misery of the other : to be deprived 
 of them is a perfect hell, 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 God, 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 
 
78 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 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 
 God without a hell : other mercenaries, that 
 crouch unto him in fear of hell, though they 
 term themselves the servants, are indeed but 
 the slaves of the Almighty. 
 Thejudg- LI II. And to be true, and speak my soul, 
 
 mentsofGod , T ., e -\>r 
 
 to be re- when 1 survey the occurrences or my life, 
 
 proofs^f 5 anc * ca ^ * nto accoun t tne finger of God, I can 
 affection. perceive nothing but an abyss and mass 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 farther 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 with'out 
 passion, the works of God, and so well to 
 distinguish his justice from his mercy as not 
 to miscall those noble attributes ; yet it is 
 likewise an honest piece of logick so to 
 dispute and argue the proceedings of God 
 as to distinguish even his judgments into 
 mercies. [ For God 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. N To one that hath committed 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 79 
 
 murther, if the judge should only ordain a 
 fine, it were a madness to call this a punish- 
 ment, and to repine at the sentence, rather 
 than admire the clemency of the judge. 
 Thus, our offences being mortal, and deserv- 
 ing not only death but damnation, if the 
 goodness of God be content to traverse and 
 pass 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! Therefore, to adore, honour, 
 and admire him, is a debt of gratitude 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 disproportionally dis- 
 posed unto our actions; the one being so 
 far beyond our deserts, the other so infinitely 
 below our demerits. 
 
 LIV. There is no salvation to those that Salvation 
 believe not in Christ ; that is, say some, since 
 his nativity, and as divinity affirmeth, before 
 also ; which makes me much apprehend the 
 ends of those honest worthies and philo- 
 sophers which died before his incarnation. 
 It is hard to place those souls in hell, whose 
 worthy lives do teach us virtue on earth. 
 
80 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 Methinks, amongst those many subdivisions 
 of hell, 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 gods, shall know they are the unhappy 
 issue of sinful man ! It is an insolent part 
 of reason, to controvert the works of God, 
 or question the justice of his proceedings. 
 Could humility teach others, as it hath in- 
 structed me, to contemplate the infinite and 
 incomprehensible distance betwixt the Creator 
 and the creature ; or did we seriously perpend 
 Rom. ix. 20. 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 God, either to heaven or hell. 
 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 confirm, and make 
 it good how /the perfectest actions of earth 
 have no title or claim unto heaven. 
 
 LV. Nor truly do I think the lives of these, 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 81 
 
 or of any other, were ever correspondent, or pur practice 
 in all points conformable unto their doctrines. 
 It is evident that Aristotle transgressed the theory. 
 rule of his own ethicks; the Stoicks, that 
 condemn passion., and command a man to 
 laugh in Phalaris his bull, could not en- 
 dure without a groan a fit of the stone or 
 colick. The scepticks that affirmed they 
 knew nothing, even in that opinion confute 
 themselves, and thought they knew more 
 than all the world beside. Diogenes I hold 
 to be the most vainglorious man of his time, 
 and more ambitious in refusing 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, 1 by a ring of gold, I will not argue of 
 prodigality, because it is a solemnity of good 
 use and consequence in the state : but the 
 philosopher that threw his money into the 
 sea to avoid avarice, was a notorious prodigal. 
 There is no road or ready way to virtue ; it is 
 not an easy point of art to disentangle our- 
 selves 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 venny of another. And 
 indeed wiser discretions, that have the thread 
 of reason to conduct them, offend without a 
 pardon; whereas underheads may stumble 
 without dishonour. There go so many circum- 
 1 Vide Howell's Familiar Letters, Book i. Letter xxxi. 
 
82 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 stances 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; jwe 
 naturally know what is good, but naturally 
 pursue what is evil : [the rhetorick wherewith 
 I persuade another cannot persuade myself. 
 There is a depraved appetite in us, that will 
 with patience hear the learned instructions of 
 reason, but yet perform no farther than agrees 
 to its own irregular humour. In brief, we all 
 are monsters ; that is, a composition 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 God that all, 
 i Tim. ii. 4 . but yet affirm with men that few, shall know 
 salvation ; that the bridge is narrow, the pass- 
 age strait unto life : yet those who do confine 
 the Church of God either to particular nations, 
 churches, or families, have made it far narrower 
 than our Saviour ever meant it. 
 
 The Church LVI. The vulgarity of those judgments 
 
 cir?um- n0t that wrap the Church of God in Strabo's 
 
 scribed. cloak, 1 and restrain it unto Europe, seem to 
 
 me as bad geographers as Alexander, 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 
 
 God both in Asia and Africa, if we do not 
 
 forget the peregrinations of the apostles, the 
 
 1 The world as known to Strabo, and compared in shape 
 by him to a cloak. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 83 
 
 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 differ- 
 ences, more remarkable in the eyes of man, 
 than, perhaps, in the judgment of God, ex- 
 communicate from heaven one another ; much 
 less those Christians who are in a manner all 
 martyrs, maintaining their faith in the noble 
 way of persecution, and serving God in the 
 fire, whereas we honour him but in the sun- 
 shine. 'Tis true, we all hold there is a number A sectarian 
 of elect, and many to be saved ; yet, take our tocharSy Ue 
 opinions together, and from the confusion 
 thereof there will be no such thing as salva- 
 tion, nor shall any one be saved : for, first, the 
 Church of Rome condemneth us ; we likewise 
 them ; the sub-reformists and sectaries sen- 
 tence the doctrine of our Church as damnable ; 
 the atomist, or familist, 1 reprobates all these ; 
 and all these, them again. Thus, whilst the 
 mercies of God 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 opin- 
 ions, and, with as much uncharity as ignorance, 
 do err, I fear, in points not only of our own, 
 but one another's salvation. 
 
 LVII. I believe many are saved who to man 'Judge not, 
 seem reprobated, and many are reprobated n 
 
 1 Members of a whimsical sect which sprung up about 
 1575. 
 
84 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 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 de- 
 fine either is folly in man, and insolency even 
 in the devils. Those 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 
 
 i St. Peter compass the earth, seeking whom they may de- 
 vour. Those who upon a rigid application of 
 the law, sentence Solomon unto damnation, 
 condemn not only him, but themselves and 
 the whole world ; for by the letter and written 
 word of God, we are without exception in the 
 state of death : but there is a prerogative of 
 God, 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. 
 
 But few are LVIII. The number of those who pretend 
 unto salvation, and those infinite swarms who 
 think to pass through the eye of this needle, 
 have much amazed me. That name and com- 
 
 St. Luke pellation 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 hierar- 
 chies 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 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 85 
 
 I shall be happy therein) to be but the last 
 man, and bring up the rear in heaven, 
 
 LIX. Again, I am confident, and fully per- Our confid- 
 suaded, yet dare not take my oath, of my S^God's 
 salvation. I am, as it were, sure, and do mercy. 
 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, be- 
 cause I hold no infallible warrant from my 
 own sense to confirm me in the certainty 
 thereof. And truly, though many pretend an 
 absolute certainty of their salvation, yet, 
 when an humble soul shall contemplate her 
 own unworthiness, she shall meet with many 
 doubts, and suddenly find how little we stand 
 in need of the precept of St. Paul, Work out Phil. ii. 12. 
 your salvation with fear and trembling. That 
 which is the cause of my election, I hold 
 to be the cause of my salvation, which was the 
 mercy and beneplacit of God, before I was, or 
 the foundation of the world. Before Abraham St. John 
 was, I am, is the saying of Christ, yet is it viii< s8 ' 
 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 God, 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 conceived of Cain. 
 
 LX. i Insolent zeals, that do decry good Faith, 
 works and rely only upon faith, take not away 
 merit : for, depending upon the efficacy of 
 
86 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 their faith, they enforce the condition of God, 
 and in a more sophistical way do seem to 
 challenge heaven. It was decreed by God 
 judges that only those that lapt 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 God 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 
 
 xlii M 2 o" as m y ^ as * enc ^ ^ n ^ ^ our Saviour could 
 object, unto his own disciples and favourites, 
 a faith that, to the quantity of a grain of 
 mustard seed, is able to remove mountains; 
 surely that which we boast of is not any- 
 thing, 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 father them 
 than the learned and best judgments shall 
 authorise them. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 87 
 
 THE SECOND PART 
 
 Now for that other virtue of charity, without Charity. 
 which faith is a mere notion and of no 
 existence,, I have ever endeavoured to nourish 
 the merciful disposition and humane inclina- 
 tion 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 constitution 
 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 grasshoppers ; 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 churchyard 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 discover 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 
 
88 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 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 for to be framed and constellated 
 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 every- 
 where, and under any meridian. I have been 
 shipwracked, 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 conscience would give me the lie if I 
 should say I absolutely detest or hate any 
 essence, but the devil; or so at least abhor 
 anything, but that we might come to com- 
 position. 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 multitude; that 
 numerous piece of monstrosity, which, taken 
 asunder, seem men, and the reasonable 
 creatures of God, 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 multitude 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 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 89 
 
 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 of that true esteem 
 and value as many a forlorn person, whose 
 condition doth place him below their feet. 
 Let us speak like politicians; there is a 
 nobility 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 integrity and cradle of well ordered 
 polities : till corruption getteth ground ; ruder 
 desires labouring after that which wiser con- 
 siderations contemn; every one having a 
 liberty to amass and heap up riches, and 
 they a licence or faculty to do or purchase 
 anything. 
 
 II. This general and indifferent temper of Charity must 
 
 I.. IT . .1 spring from 
 
 mine doth more nearly dispose me to this a proper 
 noble virtue. It is a happiness to be born m o tive - 
 and framed unto virtue, and to grow up from 
 the seeds of nature, rather than the inocula- 
 tion and forced graffs 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 
 
90 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my 
 brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will 
 and command of my God ; 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 passion 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 : for by compassion we make 
 other's misery our 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 
 The nature truly I have observed that these professed 
 bdngsstgni- eleemosynaries, though in a crowd or multi- 
 fied in their tude, do vet direct and place their petitions 
 
 outward ^ i i i i 
 
 forms. 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 
 signatures 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 cannot read ABC may Tead our 
 natures. I hold, moreover, that there is a 
 phytognomy, or physiognomy, not only of men, 
 but of plants and vegetables ; and in every 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 91 
 
 one of them some outward figures which hang 
 as signs or bushes of their inward forms. The 
 finger of God hath left an inscription upon 
 all his works, not graphical, or composed of 
 letters, but of their several forms, constitutions, 
 parts, and operations, which, aptly joined 
 together, do make one word that doth express 
 their natures. By these letters God calls the PS. cxlvii. 4. 
 stars by their names; and by this alphabet 
 Adam assigned to every creature a name Gen. ii. 
 peculiar to its nature. Now there are, besides I9> 20> 
 these characters in our faces, certain mystical Of chiro- 
 figures in our hands] which I dare not call mere manc y- 
 dashes, strokes a la voice 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 : yet I believe the Egyptians, 
 who were nearer addicted to those abstruse 
 and mystical sciences, had a knowledge 
 therein : to which those vagabond and counter- 
 feit Egyptians did after pretend, and perhaps 
 retained a few corrupted principles, which 
 sometimes might verify their prognosticks. 
 
 It is the common wonder of all men, how, Variety of 
 among so many millions of faces, there should ^^Jin 
 be none alike : now, contrary, I wonder as nature. 
 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 
 
92 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 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 portract like another. Let a painter 
 carelessly limn out a million faces, and you 
 shall find them all different : yea, 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 ; j 
 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 
 God. For even in things alike there is 
 diversity ; and those that do seem to accord 
 do manifestly disagree. And thus is man 
 like God; 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 clip in, to 
 prevent the identity; without which two 
 several things would not be alike, but the 
 same, which is impossible. 
 
 The souls of HI, But, to return from philosophy to 
 
 c?eatSeTas cnar ity> I hold not so narrow a conceit of this 
 
 much the virtue as to conceive that to give alms is only 
 
 chiritVL to be charitable, or think a piece of liberality 
 
 their bodies. ca n 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 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 93 
 
 may be charitable. There are infirmities 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 in this part of good- 
 ness is the sordidest piece of covetousness, 
 and more contemptible than the pecuniary 
 avarice. To this (as calling myself a scholar) The duty of 
 I am obliged by the duty of my condition. I kSedfe. 
 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 can- Differences 
 not fall out or contemn a man for an error. fo P ini 
 
 i -i.rr* . i -i T need not 
 
 or conceive why a difference in opinion should divide affec- 
 divide an affection; for controversies, disputes, tlon * 
 
94 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 and argumentations, 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 passion, 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 fountains of 
 religion are already established, and the 
 principles of salvation subscribed unto by all. 
 There remains not many controversies worth 
 a passion, and yet never any disputed without, 
 not only in divinity but inferior arts. What 
 a f3arpa^ofjivoiJ.a-^La and hot skirmish is be- 
 twixt S. and T. in Lucian ! l How doth 
 grammarians hack and slash for the genitive 
 case 2 in Jupiter I How do they break their 
 own pates, to salve that of Priscian ! 
 
 Siforet in terris, rideret Democritus. 
 
 Yea, 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 
 
 1 In his Dialog, judicium vocalium, in which Sigma 
 complains, in an oration made to the vowels, that Tau 
 has robbed him of many words, which should begin with 
 Sigina. 
 
 2 Whether Jovis or Jupitris. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 95 
 
 are sharper than Actius his razor ; l their pens 
 carry farther, and give a louder report than 
 thunder. I had rather stand in the shock of 
 a basilisco 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 com- 
 piling 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. 
 
 IV. There is another offence unto charity, National 
 which no author hath ever written of, and 
 few take notice of, and that's the reproach, 
 not of whole professions, mysteries, and con- 
 ditions, but of whole nations, wherein by 
 opprobrious epithets we miscal each other, and, 
 by an uncharitable logick, from a disposition in 
 a few, conclude a habit in all. 
 
 Le mutin Anglois, et le bravache Escossois 
 Le bougre It a lien, et lefol Franpois ; 
 Le poltron Romain, le larron de Gascogne, 
 L'Espagnol superbe, et FAleman yvrogne. 
 
 1 Accius Naevius, the chief augur, who is reported by 
 Livy to have cut a whetstone through with a razor. 
 
96 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 Tit. i. 12. St. Paul, 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 thousand, and at one blow 
 assassine the honour of a nation. It is as 
 complete a piece of madness to miscal and 
 rave against the times ; or think to recall men 
 to reason by a fit of passion. Democritus, 
 that thought to laugh the times into good- 
 ness, seems to me as deeply hypochondriack 
 as Heraclitus that bewailed them. It moves 
 not my spleen to behold the multitude in 
 their proper humours ; that is, in their fits of 
 folly and madness, as well understanding that 
 wisdom 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 they de- 
 stroy one another, are yet the life of one 
 another. Thus virtue (abolish vice) is an 
 idea. Again, the community of sin doth not 
 disparage goodness; for, when vice gains 
 upon the major part, virtue, in whom it 
 remains, becomes more excellent, and being 
 lost in some, multiplies its goodness in others 
 which remain untouched, and persists entire 
 in the general inundation. I can therefore 
 behold vice without a satire, content only 
 with an admonition, or instructive reprehen- 
 sion ; for noble natures, and such as are 
 capable of goodness, are railed into vice, 
 that might as easily be admonished into 
 virtue ; and we should be all so far the 
 orators of goodness as to protect her from 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 97 
 
 the power of vice, and maintain the cause of 
 injured truth. ^No man can justly censure or 
 condemn another; because, indeed, no man 
 truly knows another. I This I perceive in Man most 
 myself; for I am in the dark to all the world, ^ek'now!" 
 and my nearest friends behold me but in a ledge of 
 cloud. Those that know me but superficially l 
 think less of me than I do of myself; those 
 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 through a 
 derived ray, or a trajection of a sensible 
 species, but beholds the substance without 
 the helps of accidents, and the forms of 
 things, as we their operations. Further] no 
 man can judge another, because no man 
 knows himself j for we censure others but as 
 they disagree from that humour which we 
 fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend 
 ^thfiTS^but for that wherein they seem to 
 quadrate and consent with us. So that in 
 conclusion, all is but that we all condemn, 
 self-love. 'Tis the general complaint of these 
 times, and perhaps of those past, that charity 
 grows cold ; which I perceive most verified 
 in those which most do manifest the fires and 
 flames of zeal ; for it is a virtue that best 
 agrees with coldest natures, and such as are 
 complexioned for humility. But how shall 
 we expect charity towards others, when we 
 are uncharitable to ourselves ? 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 com- Ex. xx. 13 
 
98 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 mandment of God, yet scarce 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 there- 
 fore the first murtherer, but Adam, who 
 brought in death ; whereof he beheld the 
 practice and example in his own son Abel ; 
 and saw that verified in the experience of 
 another which faith could not persuade him 
 in the theory of himself. 
 
 V. There is, I think, no man that appre- 
 hends his own miseries less than myself; 
 and no man that so nearly apprehends an- 
 other's. I could lose 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 passion 
 the counterfeit griefs of those 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 passion whose single nature is 
 already above his patience. This was the 
 jobxix. greatest affliction of Job, and those oblique 
 expostulations of his friends a deeper injury 
 than the downright blows of the devil. It is 
 not the tears of our own eyes only, but of 
 our friends also, that do exhaust the current 
 of our sorrows ; which, falling into many 
 streams, runs more peaceably, and is con- 
 tented with a narrower channel. It is an 
 act within the power of charity, to translate 
 a passion out of one breast into another, and 
 to divide a sorrow almost out of itself; for 
 an affliction, like a dimension, may be so 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 99 
 
 divided as, if not indivisible, at least to 
 become insensible. Now with my friend I 
 desire not to share or participate, but to 
 engross his sorrows; that, by making them 
 mine own, I may more easily discuss them : 
 for in mine own reason, and within myself, 
 I can command that which I cannot entreat 
 without myself, and within the circle of 
 another. I have often thought those noble 
 pairs and examples of friendship not so truly 
 histories of what had been, as fictions of what 
 should be; but I now perceive nothing in 
 them but possibilities, nor anything in the 
 heroick examples of Damon and Pythias, 
 Achilles and Patroclus, which, methinks, 
 upon some grounds, I could not perform 
 within the narrow compass of myself. That 
 a man should lay down his life for his friend 
 seems strange to vulgar affections and such 
 as confine themselves within that worldly 
 principle, Charity begins at home. For mine 
 own part, I could never remember the rela- 
 tions that I held unto myself, nor the respect 
 that I owe unto mine own nature, in the 
 cause of God, my country, and my friends. 
 Next to these three, I do embrace myself. 
 I confess I do not observe that order that the 
 schools ordain our affections : to love our 
 parents, wives, children, and then our friends; 
 for, excepting the injunctions of religion, I 
 do not find in myself such a necessary and 
 indissoluble sympathy to all those of my 
 blood. I hope I do not break the fifth com- 
 mandment if I conceive I may love my friend 
 before the nearest of my blood, even those to 
 
100 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 whom I owe the principles of life. I never 
 yet cast a true affection on a woman ; but I 
 have loved my friend, as I do virtue, my soul, 
 my God. From hence, methinks, I do con- 
 ceive how God loves man; what happiness 
 there is in the love of God. Omitting all 
 other, there are three most mystical unions ; 
 two natures in one person; three persons in 
 one nature ; one soul in two bodies. For 
 though, indeed, they be really divided, yet 
 are they so united, as they seem but one, 
 and make rather a duality than two distinct 
 souls. 
 
 The mystery VI. There are wonders in true affection. 
 
 affection. ^ * s a body of enigmas, mysteries, and 
 riddles ; wherein two so become one as they 
 both become two : I love my friend before 
 myself, and yet, methinks, I do not love 
 him enough. Some few months hence, my 
 multiplied affection will make me believe I 
 have not loved him at all. When I am from 
 him, I am dead till I be with him ; when I 
 am with him I am not satisfied, but would 
 still be nearer him. United souls are not 
 satisfied with embraces, but desire to be 
 truly each other; which being impossible, 
 their desires are infinite, and must proceed 
 without a possibility of satisfaction. Another 
 misery there is in affection ; that whom we 
 truly love like our own selves, we forget their 
 looks, nor can our memory retain the idea of 
 their faces ; and it is no wonder, for they are 
 ourselves, and our affection makes their looks 
 our own. This noble affection falls not on 
 vulgar and common constitutions; but on such 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 101 
 
 as are marked for virtue. He that can love 
 his friend with this noble ardour will in a 
 competent degree affect all. Now if we can 
 bring our affections to look beyond the body, 
 and cast an eye upon the soul, we have found 
 out the true object, not only of friendship, 
 but charity : and the greatest happiness that 
 we can bequeath the soul is that wherein we 
 all do place our last felicity, salvation ; which, 
 though it be not in our power to bestow, it is 
 in our charity and pious invocations to desire, 
 if not procure and further. I cannot con- 
 tentedly frame a prayer for myself in par- 
 ticular, without a catalogue for my friends ; 
 nor request a happiness wherein my sociable 
 disposition doth not desire the fellowship of 
 my neighbour. I never hear the toll of a 
 passing bell, though in my mirth, without my 
 prayers and best wishes for the departing 
 spirit. I cannot go to cure the body of my 
 patient, but I forget my profession, and call 
 unto God for his soul. I cannot see one say 
 his prayers, but, instead of imitating him, 
 I fall into supplication for him, who perhaps 
 is no more to me than a common nature ; 
 and if God hath vouchsafed an ear to my 
 supplications, there are surely many happy 
 that never saw me, and enjoy the blessing 
 of mine unknown devotions. To pray for 
 enemies, that is, for their salvation, is no 
 harsh precept, but the practice of our daily 
 and ordinary devotions. I cannot believe 
 the story of the Italian ; our bad wishes and 
 uncharitable desires proceed no further than 
 this life ; it is the devil, and the uncharitable 
 
102 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 votes of hell, that desire our misery in the 
 world to come. 
 
 To forgive is VII. To do no injury nor take none was a 
 revenue 61651 principle which, to my former years and im- 
 patient affections, seemed to contain enough 
 of morality, but my more settled years and 
 Christian constitution have fallen upon severer 
 resolutions. I can hold there is no such thing 
 as injury; that if there be, there is no such 
 injury as revenge, and no such revenge as the 
 contempt of an injury; that to hate another 
 is to malign himself; that the truest way to 
 love another is to despise ourselves. I were 
 unjust unto mine own conscience if I should 
 say I am at variance with anything like myself. 
 I find there are many pieces in this one fabrick 
 of man; this frame is raised upon a mass of 
 antipathies : I am one methinks but as the 
 world, wherein notwithstanding there are a 
 swarm of distinct essences, and in them 
 another world of contrarieties; we carry 
 private and domestic enemies within, publick 
 and more hostile adversaries without. The 
 2 Cor. xii. 7 . devil, that did but buffet St. Paul, plays me- 
 thiiiks at sharp with me. Let me be nothing, 
 if within the compass of myself, I do not find 
 the battle of Lepanto, passion against reason, 
 reason against faith, faith against the devil, 
 and my conscience against all. There is 
 another man within me that 's angry with me, 
 rebukes, commands, and dastards me. I have 
 no conscience of marble, to resist the hammer 
 of more heavy offences : nor yet so soft and 
 waxen, as to take the impression of each 
 single peccadillo or scape of infirmity. I am 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 103 
 
 of a strange belief, that it is as easy to be 
 forgiven some sins as to commit some others. 
 For my original sin, I hold it to be washed 
 away in my baptism; for my actual trans- 
 gressions, I compute and reckon with God 
 but from my last repentance, sacrament, or 
 general absolution; and therefore am not 
 terrified with the sins or madness of my 
 youth. I thank the goodness of God, I have 
 no sins that want a name. I am not singular 
 in offences ; my transgressions are epidemical, 
 and from the common breath of our corrup- 
 tion. For there are certain tempers of body 
 which, matched with an humorous depravity 
 of mind, do hatch and produce vitiosities 
 whose newness and monstrosity of nature 
 admits no name ; this was the temper of that 
 lecher that carnaled with a statua, and the 
 constitution of Nero in his spintrian recrea- 
 tions. For the heavens are not only fruitful 
 in new and unheard-of stars, the earth in 
 plants and animals, but men's minds also in 
 villainy and vices. Now the dulness of my 
 reason, and the vulgarity of my disposition, 
 never prompted my invention nor solicited 
 my affection unto any of these; yet even 
 those common and quotidian infirmities that 
 so necessarily attend me, and do seem to be 
 my very nature, have so dejected me, so 
 broken the estimation that I should have 
 otherwise of myself, that I repute myself the 
 most abjectest piece of mortality. Divines 
 prescribe a fit of sorrow to repentance : there 
 goes indignation, anger, sorrow, hatred, into 
 mine, passions of a contrary nature, which 
 
104 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 neither seem to suit with this action, nor my 
 proper constitution. It is no breach of charity 
 to ourselves to be at variance with our vices, 
 nor to abhor that part of us which is an enemy 
 to the ground of charity, our God ; wherein 
 we do but imitate our great selves, the world, 
 whose divided antipathies and contrary faces 
 do yet carry a charitable regard unto the 
 whole, by their particular discords preserving 
 the common harmony, and keeping in fetters 
 those powers, whose rebellions, once masters, 
 might be the ruin of all. 
 
 Of pride and VIII. I thank God, amongst those millions 
 of vices I do inherit and hold from Adam) I 
 have escaped one, and that a mortal enemy to 
 charity, the first and father sin, not only of 
 man, but of the devil, pride ; a vice whose 
 name is comprehended in a monosyllable, but 
 in its nature not circumscribed with a world, 
 I have escaped it in a condition that can hardly 
 avoid it. Those petty acquisitions and reputed 
 perfections, that advance and elevate the con- 
 ceits of other men, add no feathers unto mine. 
 I have seen a grammarian tower and plume 
 himself over a single line in Horace, and show 
 more pride, in the construction of one ode, 
 than the author in the composure of the whole 
 book. For my own part, besides the jargon 
 and patois of several provinces, I understand 
 no less than six languages; yet I protest I 
 have no higher conceit of myself than had our 
 fathers before the confusion of Babel, when 
 there was but one language in the world, and 
 none to boast himself either linguist or critick. 
 I have not only seen several countries, beheld 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 105 
 
 the nature of their climes, the chorography of 
 their provinces, topography of their cities, but 
 understood their several laws, customs, and 
 policies ; yet cannot all this persuade the dul- 
 ness of my spirit unto such an opinion of my- 
 self as I behold in nimbler and conceited 
 heads, that never looked a degree beyond 
 their nests. I know the names and somewhat 
 more of all the constellations in my horizon ; 
 yet I have seen a prating mariner, that could 
 only name the pointers and the north-star, 
 out-talk me, and conceit himself a whole sphere 
 above me. I know most of the plants of 
 my country, and of those about me, yet me- 
 thinks I do not know so many as when I did 
 but know a hundred, and had scarcely ever 
 simpled further than Cheapside. For, indeed, 
 heads of capacity, and such as are not full with 
 a handful or easy measure of knowledge, think 
 they know nothing till they know all ; which 
 being impossible, they fall upon the opinion 
 of Socrates, and only know they know not any 
 thing. I cannot think that Homer pined 
 away upon the riddle of the fisherman, or that 
 Aristotle, who understood the uncertainty of 
 knowledge, and confessed so often the reason 
 of man too weak for the works of nature, did 
 ever drown himself upon the flux and reflux 
 of Euripus. We do but learn, to-day, what 
 our better advanced judgments will unteach 
 to-morrow; and Aristotle doth but instruct 
 us, as Plato did him, that is, to confute him- 
 self. I have run through all sorts, yet find no 
 rest in any : though our first studies and junior 
 endeavours may style us Peripateticks, Stoicks, 
 
106 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 or Academicks, yet I perceive the wisest heads 
 prove, at last, almost all Scepticks, and stand 
 like Janus in the field of knowledge. I have 
 therefore one common and authentick philo- 
 sophy I learned in the schools, whereby I 
 discourse and satisfy the reason of other men ; 
 another more reserved, and drawn from 
 experience, whereby I content mine own. 
 Solomon,, that complained of ignorance in the 
 height of knowledge, hath not only humbled 
 my conceits, but discouraged my endeavours. 
 There is yet another conceit that hath some- 
 times made me shut my books, which tells me 
 it is a vanity to waste our days in the blind 
 pursuit of knowledge: it is but attending a 
 little longer, and we shall enjoy that, by in- 
 stinct and infusion, which we endeavour at 
 here by labour and inquisition. It is better 
 to sit down in a modest ignorance, and rest 
 contented with the natural blessing of our own 
 reasons, than buy the uncertain knowledge of 
 this life, with sweat and vexation, which death 
 gives every fool gratis, and is an accessary of 
 our glorification. 
 
 Of marriage IX. I was never yet once, and commend 
 mony"" their resolutions who never marry twice. Not 
 that I disallow of second marriage ; as neither 
 in all cases of polygamy, which considering 
 some times., and the unequal number of both 
 sexes, may be also necessary. The whole 
 world was made for man, but the twelfth part 
 of man for woman. Man is the whole world, 
 and the breath of God ; woman the rib and 
 crooked piece of man. I could be content 
 that we might procreate like trees, without 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 107 
 
 conjunction, or that there were any way to 
 perpetuate the world without this trivial and 
 vulgar way of coition : it is the foolishest act 
 a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there 
 any thing that will more deject his cooled 
 imagination, when he shall consider what an 
 odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath com- 
 mitted. I speak not in prejudice, nor am 
 averse from that sweet sex, but naturally 
 amorous of all that is beautiful. I can look a 
 whole day with delight upon a handsome 
 picture, though it be but of an horse. It is 
 my temper, and I like it the better, to affect all 
 harmony ; and sure there is musick, even in the 
 beauty and the silent note which Cupid strikes, 
 far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. 
 For there is a musick wherever there is a har- 
 mony, order, or proportion ; and thus far we 
 may maintain the musick of the spheres : for 
 those well-ordered motions, and regular paces, 
 though they give no sound unto the ear, yet 
 to the understanding they strike a note most 
 full of harmony. Whatsoever is harmonically 
 composed delights in harmony, which makes 
 me much distrust the symmetry of those heads 
 which declaim against all church-musick. For 
 myself, not only from my obedience but my 
 particular genius, I do embrace it : for even 
 that vulgar and tavern-musick, which makes 
 one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a 
 deep fit of devotion, and a profound contem- 
 plation of the First Composer. There is some- 
 thing in it of divinity more than the ear dis- 
 covers : it is an hieroglyphical and shadowed 
 lesson of the whole world and creatures of 
 
108 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 God ; such a melody to the ear, as the whole 
 world, well understood, would afford the un- 
 derstanding. In brief, it is a sensible fit of 
 that harmony which intellectually sounds in 
 the ears of God. I will not say, with Plato, 
 pjued. c. 36. the soul is an harmony, but harmonical, and 
 hath its nearest sympathy unto musick : thus 
 some, whose temper of body agrees, and 
 humours the constitution of their souls, are 
 born poets, though indeed all are naturally 
 inclined unto rhythm. This made Tacitus, in 
 the very first line of his story, fall upon a 
 verse; 1 and Cicero, the worst of poets, but 
 declaiming for a poet, falls in the very first 
 sentence upon a perfect hexameter. 2 I feel 
 pur Phy- not in me those sordid and unchristian desires 
 thTgeneSl ^ mv profession ; I do not secretly implore 
 cause of a nd wish for plagues, rejoice at famines, re- 
 volve cphemerides and almanacks in expecta- 
 tion of malignant aspects, fatal conjunctions, 
 and eclipses. I rejoice not at unwholesome 
 springs nor unseasonable winters : my prayer 
 goes with the husbandman's; I desire every- 
 thing in its proper season, that neither men 
 nor the times be out of temper. Let me be 
 sick myself, if sometimes the malady of my 
 patient be not a disease unto me. I desire 
 rather to cure his infirmities than my own 
 necessities. Where I do him no good, me- 
 thinks it is scarce honest gain, though I confess 
 'tis but the worthy salary of our well-intended 
 endeavours. I am not only ashamed but 
 
 1 Urbem Romam in principle reges habuere. A nnales, 1. i . 
 
 2 In qud me non inficior mediocriter esse. Cicero, pro 
 Archia Poeta. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 109 
 
 heartily sorry, that, besides death, there are 
 diseases incurable ; yet not for my own sake 
 or that they be beyond my art, but for the 
 general cause and sake of humanity, whose 
 common cause I apprehend as mine own. 
 And, to speak more generally, those three 
 noble professions which all civil common- 
 wealths do honour, are raised upon the fall of 
 Adam, and are not any way exempt from their 
 infirmities. There are not only diseases in- 
 curable in physick, but cases indissolvable in 
 laws, vices incorrigible in divinity. If general 
 councils may err, I do riot see why particular 
 courts should be infallible : their perfectest 
 rules are raised upon the erroneous reasons of 
 man, and the laws of one do but condemn the 
 rules of another; as Aristotle oft-times the 
 opinion of his predecessors, because, though 
 agreeable to reason, yet were not consonant 
 to his own rules and the logick of his proper 
 principles. Again (to speak nothing of the 
 sin against the Holy Ghost, whose cure not St. Matt. 
 only, but whose nature is unknown), I can X1U 3I * 
 cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than 
 divinity, pride, or avarice in others. I can 
 cure vices by physick when they remain incur- 
 able by divinity, and they shall obey my pills 
 when they contemn their precepts. I boast 
 nothing, but plainly say, we all labour against 
 our own cure ; for death is the cure of all \ 
 diseases. There is no catholicon or universal 
 remedy I know, but this, which though nau- 
 seous to queasy stomachs, yet to prepared 
 appetites is nectar, and a pleasant potion of 
 immortality. 
 
110 
 
 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 Our 
 
 Physician 
 thinketh no 
 man so bad 
 but there is 
 good in him. 
 
 and feareth 
 his own 
 corruption 
 more than 
 contagion 
 from others. 
 
 X. For my conversation, it is, like the sun's, 
 with all men, and with a friendly aspect to 
 good and bad. Methinks there is no man 
 bad ; and the worst best, that is, while they 
 are kept within the circle of those qualities 
 wherein they are good. There is no man's 
 mind of such discordant and jarring a temper, 
 to which a tunable disposition may not strike 
 a harmony. Magnce virtutes, nee minora vitia ; 
 it is the posy of the best natures, and may be 
 inverted on the worst. There are, in the 
 most depraved and venomous dispositions, 
 certain pieces that remain untouched, which 
 by an antiperistasis become more excellent, or 
 by the excellency of their antipathies are able 
 to preserve themselves from the contagion of 
 their enemy vices, and persist entire beyond 
 the general corruption. For it is also thus in 
 natures : the greatest balsams do lie enveloped 
 in the bodies of the most powerful corrosives. 
 I say, moreover, and I ground upon experience, 
 that poisons contain within themselves their 
 own antidote, and that which preserves them 
 from the venom of themselves ; without which 
 they were not deleterious to others only, but 
 to themselves also. But it is the corruption 
 that I fear within me ; not the contagion of 
 commerce without me. Tis that unruly regi- 
 ment within me that will destroy me ; 'tis I 
 that do infect myself; the man without a 
 navel l yet lives in me. I feel that original 
 canker corrode and devour me : and therefore, 
 Defenda me, Dios, de me ! ' Lord, deliver me from 
 
 1 Adam, whom I conceive to want a navel, because he 
 was not born of a woman. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 111 
 
 myself ! * is a part of my litany, and the first 
 voice of my retired imaginations. There is no 
 man alone, because every man is a microcosm, 
 and carries the whole world about him. 
 Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus, though it Qj^ R ?.>. De 
 be the apothegm of a wise man, is yet true in J 
 the mouth of a fool: for indeed, though in 
 a wilderness, a man is never alone ; not only 
 because he is with himself, and his own 
 thoughts, but because he is with the devil, 
 who ever consorts with our solitude, and is 
 that unruly rebel that musters up those 
 disordered motions which accompany our 
 sequestered imaginations. And to speak 
 more narrowly, there is no such thing as 
 solitude, nor anything that can be said to 
 be alone, and by itself, but'God, who is his 
 own circle, and can subsist by himself; all 
 others, besides their dissimilary and hetero- 
 geneous parts, which in a manner multiply 
 their natures, cannot subsist without the 
 concourse of God, and the society of that 
 hand which doth uphold their natures. In 
 brief, there can be nothing truly alone, and 
 by itself, which is not truly one, and such is 
 only God : all others do transcend an unity, 
 and so by consequence are many. 
 
 XI. Now for my life, it is a miracle of Man's life 
 
 .-,.. ! i i. . a constant 
 
 thirty years, which to relate, were not a miracle. 
 history, but a piece of poetry, and would 
 sound to common ears like a fable. For the 
 world, I count it not an inn, but an hospital ; 
 and a place not to live, but to die in. The 
 world that I regard is myself; it is the 
 microcosm of my own frame that I cast mine 
 
112 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 eyes on : for the other, I use it but like my 
 globe, and turn it round sometimes for my 
 recreation. Men that look upon my outside, 
 perusing only my condition and fortunes, do 
 err in my altitude ; for I am above Atlas his 
 shoulders. The earth is a point not only in 
 respect of the heavens above us, but of that 
 heavenly and celestial part within us. That 
 mass of flesh that circumscribes me limits not 
 my mind. That surface that tells the heavens 
 it hath an end cannot persuade me I have 
 any. I take my circle to be above three 
 hundred and sixty. Though the number of 
 the arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth 
 not my mind. Whilst I study to find how I 
 am a microcosm, or little world, I find myself 
 something more than the great. There is 
 surely a piece of divinity in us; something 
 that was before the elements, and owes no 
 homage unto the sun. Nature tells me I am 
 Gen. i. 27. the image of God, as well as Scripture. He 
 that understands not thus much hath not his 
 introduction or first lesson, and is yet to begin 
 the alphabet of man. Let me not injure your 
 felicity of others, if I say I am as happy as 
 any. Ruat ccelum^at voluntas tua, salveth all ; 
 so that, whatsoever happens, it is but what 
 our daily prayers desire. In brief, I am 
 content; and what should Providence add 
 more? Surely this is it we call happiness, 
 and this do I enjoy; with this I am happy in 
 a dream, and as content to enjoy a happiness 
 in a fancy, as others in a more apparent truth 
 and reality. There is surely a nearer appre- 
 hension of any thing that delights us, in 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 113 
 
 our dreams, than in our waked senses. With- Of dreams. 
 out this I were unhappy ; for my awaked 
 judgment discontents me, ever whispering 
 unto me that I am from my friend ; but my 
 friendly dreams in the night requite me, and 
 make me think I am within his arms. I thank 
 God for my happy dreams, as I do for my 
 good rest ; for there is a satisfaction in them 
 unto reasonable desires, and such as can be 
 content with a fit of happiness. And surely it 
 is not a melancholy conceit to think we are 
 all asleep in this world, and that the conceits 
 of this life are as mere dreams to those of the 
 next, as the phantasms of the night to the 
 conceits of the day. There is an equal delu- 
 sion in both ; and the one doth but seem to be 
 the emblem or picture of the other. We are 
 somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps ; 
 and the slumber of the body seems to be but 
 the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of 
 sense, but the liberty of reason; and our 
 waking conceptions do not match the fancies 
 of our sleeps. At my nativity, my ascendant 
 was the watery sign of Scorpius. I was born 
 in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I 
 have a piece of that leaden planet in me. 
 I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the 
 mirth and galliardise of company; yet in 
 one dream I can compose a whole comedy, 
 behold the action, apprehend the jests, and 
 laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. 
 Were my memory as faithful as my reason 
 is then fruitful, I would never study but in 
 my dreams, and this time also would I choose 
 for my devotions : but our grosser memories 
 H 
 
114 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 have then so little hold of our abstracted 
 understandings, that they forget the story, 
 and can only relate to our awaked souls a 
 confused and broken tale of that that hath 
 passed. Aristotle, who hath written a singular 
 tract Of Sleep, hath not, methinks, throughly 
 denned it ; nor yet Galen, though he seem to 
 have corrected it; for those noctambuloes and 
 night-walkers, though in their sleep, do yet 
 enjoy the action of their senses. We must 
 therefore say that there is something in us 
 that is not in the jurisdiction of Morpheus ; and 
 that those abstracted and ecstatick souls do 
 walk about in their own corps, as spirits with 
 the bodies they assume, wherein they seem to 
 hear, see, and feel, though indeed the organs 
 
 Vare destitute of sense, and their natures of 
 those faculties that should inform them. 
 Thus it is observed, that men sometimes, 
 upon the hour of their departure, do speak 
 and reason above themselves. For then the 
 soul beginning to be freed from the ligaments 
 of the body, begins to reason like herself, and 
 to discourse in a strain above mortality. 
 Of sleep. XII. We term sleep a death; and yet it is 
 
 waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits 
 that are the house of life. 'Tis v indeed a part 
 of life that best expresseth death ; for every 
 man truly lives, so long as he acts his nature, 
 or some way makes good the faculties of 
 himself. Themistocles therefore, that slew 
 his soldier in his sleep, was a merciful execu- 
 tioner : 'tis a kind of punishment the mildness 
 of no laws hath invented ; I wonder the fancy 
 of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it. It 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 115 
 
 is that death by which we may be literally 
 
 said to die daily ; a death which Adam died i Cor. xv. 3. 
 
 before his mortality ; a death whereby we live 
 
 a middle and moderating point between life 
 
 and death. In fine, so like death, I dare not 
 
 trust it without my prayers, and an half adieu 
 
 unto the world, and take my farewell in a 
 
 colloquy with God : 
 
 The night is come, like to the day ; 
 Depart not thou, great God, away. 
 Let not my sins, black as the night, 
 Eclipse the lustre of thy light. 
 Keep still in my horizon ; for to me 
 The sun makes not the day, but thee. 
 Thou whose nature cannot sleep, 
 On my temples sentry keep ; 
 Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes, 
 Whose eyes are open while mine close. 
 Let no dreams my head infest, 
 But such as Jacob's temples blest. 
 While I do rest, my soul advance : 
 Make my sleep a holy trance : 
 That I may, my rest 'being wrought, 
 Awake into some holy thought, 
 And with as active vigour run 
 My course, as doth the nimble sun. 
 Sleep is a death ; O make me try, 
 By sleeping, what it is to die ! 
 And as gently lay my head 
 On my grave, as now my bed. 
 Howe'er I rest, great God, let me 
 Awake again at last with thee. 
 And thus assured, behold I lie 
 Securely, or to wake or die. 
 These are my drowsy days ; in vain 
 I do now wake to sleep again : 
 O come that hour, when I shall never 
 Sleep again, but wake for ever ! 
 
116 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 This is the dormitive I take to bedward; I 
 need no other laudanum than this to make 
 me sleep ; after which I close mine eyes in 
 security, content to take my leave of the 
 sun, and sleep unto the resurrection, 
 justice. -f- XIII. The method I should use in distribu- 
 tive justice, I often observe in commutative, 
 and keep a geometrical proportion in both ; 
 whereby becoming equable to others, I become 
 unjust to myself, and supererogate in that 
 Avarice a common principle, Do unto otJiers as thou 
 vice? 10 rvouldst be done unto thyself. I was not born 
 unto riches, neither is it, I think, my star to 
 be wealthy ; or if it were, the freedom of my 
 mind and frankness of my disposition, were 
 able to contradict and cross my fates ; for to 
 me avarice seems not so much a vice, as a 
 deplorable piece of madness ; to conceive 
 ourselves urinals, or be persuaded that we 
 are dead, is not so ridiculous, nor so many 
 degrees beyond the power of hellebore, as 
 this. The opinions of theory, and positions 
 of men, are not so void of reason as their 
 practised conclusions. Some have held that 
 snow is black, that the earth moves, that 
 the soul is air, fire, water; but all this is 
 philosophy : and there is no delirium, if we 
 do but speculate the folly and indisputable 
 dotage of avarice ; to that subterraneous idol, 
 and god of the earth, I do confess I am an 
 atheist. I cannot persuade myself to honour 
 that the world adores ; whatsoever virtue its 
 prepared substance may have within my body, 
 it hath no influence nor operation without. I 
 would not entertain a base design, or an 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 117 
 
 action that should call me villain, for the 
 Indies ; and for this only do I love and honour 
 my own soul, and have me thinks two arms 
 too few to embrace myself. Aristotle is too Poor men 
 severe, that will not allow us to be truly [j a C 
 liberal without wealth, and the bountiful hand 
 of fortune ; if this be true, I must confess I 
 am charitable only in my liberal intentions, 
 and bountiful well-wishes. But if the ex- 
 ample of the mite be not only an act of St. Luke 
 wonder, but an example of the noblest charity, x * 
 surely poor men may also build hospitals, and eJenbmid 
 the rich alone have not erected cathedrals, hospitals and 
 I have a private method which others observe ca 
 not ; I take the opportunity of myself to 
 do good ; I borrow occasion of charity from 
 mine own necessities, and supply the wants of 
 others when I am in most need myself ;, for it 
 is an honest stratagem to take advantage of 
 ourselves, and so to husband the acts of virtue, 
 that, where they are defective in one circum- 
 stance, they may repay their want, and 
 multiply their goodness in another. I have 
 not Peru in my desires, but a competence, 
 and ability to perform those good works to 
 which the Almighty hath inclined my nature. 
 He is rich who hath enough to be charitable ; 
 and it is hard to be so poor that a noble mind 
 may not find a way to this piece of goodness. 
 He that givetk to the poor lendeth to the Lord ; Prov. xix. 17. 
 there is more rhetorick in that one sentence 
 than in a library of sermons; and indeed, if 
 those sentences were understood by the 
 reader with the same emphasis as they are 
 delivered by the author, we needed not those 
 
118 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 volumes of instructions, but might be honest 
 by an epitome. Upon this motive only I 
 cannot behold a beggar without relieving his 
 necessities with my purse, or his soul with 
 my prayers. These scenical and accidental 
 differences between us cannot make me forget 
 that common and untouched part of us both ; 
 there is under these centoes and miserable 
 outsides, these mutilate and semi-bodies, a 
 soul of the same alloy with our own, whose 
 genealogy is God as well as ours, and in as 
 fair a way to salvation as ourselves. Statists 
 that labour to contrive a commonwealth with- 
 out poverty take away the object of our 
 charity ; not understanding only the common- 
 St. Matt. wealth of a Christian, but forgetting the 
 
 prophecy of Christ. 
 
 God alone XIV. Now there is another part of charity, 
 own d sak r e his which is the basis and pillar of this, and that 
 and our is the love of God, for whom we love our 
 for God's' neighbour; for this I think charity, to love 
 God for himself, and our neighbour for God. 
 All that is truly amiable is God, or as it were 
 a divided piece of him that retains a reflex or 
 shadow of himself. Nor is it strange that 
 we should place affection on that which is 
 invisible ; all that we truly love is thus. What 
 we adore under affection of our senses deserves 
 not the honour of so pure a title. Thus we 
 adore virtue, though to the eyes of sense she 
 be invisible. Thus that part of our noble 
 friends that we love, is not that part that we 
 embrace, but that insensible part that our 
 arms cannot embrace. God being all good- 
 ness, can love nothing but himself; he loves 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI 119 
 
 us but for that part which is as it were him- 
 self, and the traduction of his Holy Spirit. 
 Let us call to assize the loves of our parents, 
 the affection of our wives and children, and 
 they are all dumb shows and dreams, without 
 reality, truth, or constancy. For first there is 
 a strong bond of affection between us and our 
 parents ; yet how easily dissolved ! We be- 
 take ourselves to a woman, forget our mother 
 in a wife, and the womb that bare us in that 
 that shall bear our image. This woman bless- 
 ing us with children, our affection leaves the 
 level it held before, and sinks from our bed 
 unto our issue and picture of posterity : where 
 affection holds no steady mansion ; they grow- 
 ing up in years, desire our ends ; or, applying 
 themselves to a woman, take a lawful way to 
 love another better than ourselves. Thus I 
 perceive a man may be buried alive, and be- 
 hold his grave in his own issue. 
 
 XV. I conclude therefore, and say, there is Our 
 no happiness under (or, as Copernicus will ^Seth 
 have it, above) the sun; nor any crambe in anddeciareth 
 that repeated verity and burthen of all the that there is 
 wisdom of Solomon ; All is vanity and vexation 
 of spirit ; there is no felicity in that the world 
 adores. Aristotle, whilst he labours to refute 
 the ideas of Plato, falls upon one himself; 
 for his summum bonum is a chimaera ; and there 
 is no such thing as his felicity. That wherein 
 God himself is happy, the holy angels are 
 happy, in whose defect the devils are unhappy, 
 that dare I call happiness : whatsoever con- 
 duceth unto this, may, with an easy metaphor, 
 deserve that name ; whatsoever else the world 
 
120 RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 terms happiness is, to me, a story out of Pliny, 
 an apparition or neat delusion, wherein there 
 is no more of happiness than the name. Bless 
 me in this life with but the peace of my 
 conscience, command of my affections, the 
 love of Thyself and my dearest friends, and 
 I shall be happy enough to pity Caesar ! These 
 are, O Lord, the humble desires of my most 
 reasonable ambition, and all I dare call happi- 
 ness on earth ; wherein I set no rule or limit 
 to thy hand or providence; dispose of me 
 according to the wisdom of thy pleasure. 
 Thy will be done, though in my own un- 
 doing. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
TO THE BIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 DAVID, EARL OF BUCHAN, 
 
 VISCOUNT AUOHTEBHOUSE, LORD CARDROSS AND GLEN- 
 DOVACHIE, ONE OF THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS 
 OP POLICE, AND LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE 
 COUNTIES OF STIRLING AND CLACKMAN- 
 NAN, IN NORTH BRITAIN 
 
 MY LORD, The honour you have done our family 
 obligeth us to make all just acknowledgments of it : 
 and there is no form of acknowledgment in our power, 
 more worthy of your lordship's acceptance, than this 
 dedication of the last work of our honoured and 
 learned father. Encouraged hereunto by the know- 
 ledge we have of your lordship's judicious relish of 
 universal learning, and sublime virtue, we beg the 
 favour of your acceptance of it, which will very 
 much oblige our family in general, and her in par- 
 ticular, who is, 
 
 My Lord, 
 Your lordship's most humble Servant, 
 
 ELIZABETH LITTELTON. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 IF any one, after he has read Religio Medici , 
 and the ensuing discourse, can make doubt 
 whether the same person was the author of 
 them both, he may be assured, by the testi- 
 mony of Mrs. Littelton, Sir Thomas Browne's 
 daughter, who lived with her father when it 
 was composed by him ; and who, at the time, 
 read it written by his own hand ; and also by 
 the testimony of others (of whom I am one) 
 who read the manuscript of the author, im- 
 mediately after his death, and who have since 
 read the same; from which it hath been 
 faithfully and exactly transcribed for the 
 press. The reason why it was not printed 
 sooner is, because it was unhappily lost, by 
 being mislaid among other manuscripts, for 
 which search was lately made in the presence 
 of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, of 
 which his Grace, by letter, informed Mrs. 
 Littelton, when he sent the manuscript to 
 her. There is nothing printed in the dis- 
 course, or in the short notes, but what is 
 found in the original manuscript of the author, 
 except only where an oversight had made 
 the addition or transposition of some words 
 necessary. 
 
 JOHN JEFFERY, 
 
 Archdeacon of Norwich. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 THE FIRST PART 
 
 TREAD softly and circumspectly in this Pursue 
 funambulatory track and narrow path of good- virtuously. 
 ness : pursue virtue virtuously : leaven not 
 good actions, nor render virtue disputable. 
 Stain not fair acts with foul intentions ; maim 
 not uprightness by halting concomitances, nor 
 circumstantially deprave substantial goodness. 
 
 Consider whereabout thou art in Cebes's 
 Table, or that old philosophical pinax of the 
 life of man : 1 whether thou art yet in the 
 road of uncertainties ; whether thou hast yet 
 entered the narrow gate, got up the hill and 
 asperous way, which leadeth unto the house 
 of sanity ; or taken that purifying potion from 
 the hand of sincere erudition, which may send 
 thee clear and pure away unto a virtuous and 
 happy life. 
 
 In this virtuous voyage of thy life hull not MILTON, 
 about like the ark, without the use of rudder, 
 mast, or sail, and bound for no port. Let 
 not disappointment cause despondency, nor 
 difficulty despair, Think not that you are 
 
 1 The Pinax, or tablet, of Cebes (a Theban philosopher), 
 in which the life of man is represented in a beautiful 
 allegory. 
 
128 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 sailing from Lima to Manilla, when you may 
 fasten up the rudder, and sleep before the 
 wind ; but expect rough seas, flaws, and con- 
 trary blasts : and 'tis well, if by many cross 
 tacks and veerings, you arrive at the port; 
 for we sleep in lions' skins in our progress 
 unto virtue, and we slide not but climb unto 
 it. 
 
 Sit not down in the popular forms and 
 common level of virtues. Offer not only 
 peace-offerings but holocausts unto God : 
 where all is due make no reserve, and cut not 
 a cummin-seed with the Almighty : to serve 
 him singly to serve ourselves, were too partial 
 a piece of piety, not like to place us in the 
 illustrious mansions of glory. 
 A triumph j j Rest not in an ovation l but a triumph 
 
 (not ovation) . 
 
 over thy over thy passions. Let anger walk hanging 
 passions. down the head ; let malice go manacled, and 
 envy fettered after thee. Behold within thee 
 the long train of thy trophies, not without 
 thee. Make the quarrelling Lapithytes sleep, 
 and Centaurs within lie quiet. Chain up 
 the unruly legion of thy breast. Lead thine 
 own captivity captive, and be Caesar within 
 thyself. 
 
 Adjourn not III. He that is chaste and continent not 
 
 thy chastity. to j m p a i r his strength, or honest for fear of 
 
 contagion, will hardly be heroically virtuous. 
 
 Adjourn not this virtue until that temper 
 
 when Cato could lend out his wife, and 
 
 impotent satyrs write satires upon lust; but 
 
 be chaste in thy flaming days, when Alexander 
 
 dared not trust his eyes upon the fair sisters 
 
 1 Ovation, a petty and minor kind of triumph. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 129 
 
 of Darius, and when so many think there is 
 no other way but Origen's. 1 
 
 IV. Show thy art in honesty, and lose not Be tern- 
 thy virtue by the bad managery of it. Be pe 
 temperate and sober; not to preserve your 
 body in an ability for wanton ends ; not to 
 avoid the infamy of common transgressors 
 that way, and thereby to hope to expiate or 
 palliate obscure and closer vices ; not to spare 
 your purse, nor simply to enjoy health ; but, 
 
 in one word, that thereby you may truly serve 
 God, which every sickness will tell you you to serve God 
 cannot well do without health. The sick be 
 man's sacrifice is but a lame oblation. Pious 
 treasures, laid up in healthful days, plead for 
 sick non-performances; without which we 
 must needs look back with anxiety upon the 
 lost opportunities of health; and may have 
 cause rather to envy than pity the ends of 
 penitent publick sufferers, who go with health- 
 ful prayers unto the last scene of their lives, 
 and in the integrity of their faculties return Eccl. xii. 7 . 
 their spirit unto God that gave it. 
 
 V. Be charitable before wealth make thee Charity. 
 covetous, and lose not the glory of the mite. St. Mark 
 If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with X1K 4I> etc ' 
 them ; and think it not enough to be liberal, 
 
 but munificent. Though a cup of cold water St. Matt. 
 from some hand may not be without its reward, x * 42- 
 yet stick not thou for wine and oil for the St. Luke 
 wounds of the distressed ; and treat the poor, x 34- 
 as our Saviour did the multitude, to the s t- J hn 
 reliques of some baskets. Diffuse thy bene- Diffuse thy 
 ficence early, and while thy treasures call thee 
 1 Who is said to have mutilated himself. 
 I 
 
130 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 master ; there may be an Atropos of thy for- 
 tunes before that of thy life, and thy wealth 
 cut off before that hour, when all men shall 
 be poor : for the justice of death looks equally 
 
 Odyss. upon the dead, and Charon expects no more 
 from Alexander than from Irus. 
 
 give largely, VI. Give not only unto seven, but also unto 
 eight, that is, unto more than many. Though 
 
 to give unto every one that asketh may seem 
 St - Luke j r **. ^f i 
 
 vi. 3 o. severe advice, yet give thou also before asking ; 
 
 that is, where want is silently clamorous, and 
 men's necessities not their tongues do loudly 
 call for thy mercies. For though sometimes 
 necessitousness be dumb, or misery speak not 
 out, yet true charity is sagacious, and will find 
 out hints for beneficence. Acquaint thyself 
 with the physiognomy of want, and let the 
 dead colours and first lines of necessity suffice 
 to tell thee there is an object for thy bounty. 
 Spare not where thou canst not easily be 
 prodigal, and fear not to be undone by mercy ; 
 
 Prov. xix. 17. for since he who hath pity on the poor lendeth 
 unto the Almighty rewarder, who observes no 
 ides but every day for his payments, charity 
 becomes pious usury, Christian liberality the 
 most thriving industry ; and what we adven- 
 ture in a cockboat may return in a carrack 
 
 Eccl. xi. i. unto us. He who thus casts his bread upon 
 the water shall surely find it again; for though 
 
 2 Kings ^ falleth to the bottom, it sinks but like the 
 
 vi. 5-7- axe of the prophet, to arise again unto him. 
 
 The covetous VII. If avarice be thy vice, yet make it not 
 ^hy punishment. Miserable men commiserate 
 not themselves, bowelless unto others, and 
 merciless unto their own bowels. Let the 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 131 
 
 fruition of things bless the possession of them, 
 and think it more satisfaction to live richly 
 than die rich. For since thy good works, not Rev. xiv. 13. 
 thy goods, will follow thee : since wealth is an 
 appurtenance of life, and no dead man is rich ; 
 to famish in plenty, and live poorly to die 
 rich, were a multiplying improvement in mad- 
 ness, and use upon use in folly. 
 
 VIII. Trust not to the omnipotency of gold, 
 
 J j_ 'i. rjJl , nj TOD XXXI. 
 
 and say not unto it, lliou art my confidence. J 24 . 27 . 
 Kiss not thy hand to that terrestrial sun, nor 
 bore thy ear unto its servitude. A slave unto EX. xxi. 6. 
 mammon makes no servant unto God. Covet- ^ 2 ^ att- 
 ousness cracks the sinews of faith ; numbs the live but unto 
 apprehension of anything above sense ; and, on 
 only affected with the certainty of things pre- 
 sent, makes a peradventure of things to come ; 
 lives but unto one world, nor hopes but fears 
 another; makes their own death sweet unto 
 others, bitter unto themselves ; brings formal 
 sadness, scenical mourning, and no wet eyes 
 at the grave. 
 
 IX. Persons lightly dipt, not grained in Be grained 
 generous honesty, are but pale in goodness, 
 
 and faint-hued in integrity. But be thou 
 what thou virtuously art, and let not the 
 ocean wash away thy tincture. Stand mag- 
 netically upon that axis, where prudent sim- 
 plicity hath fixt thee; and let no attraction 
 invert the poles of thy honesty. That vice 
 may be uneasy and even monstrous unto thee, 
 let iterated good acts and long-confirmed 
 habits make virtue almost natural, or a second 
 nature in thee. Since virtuous superstruc- 
 tions have commonly generous foundations, 
 
132 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 dive into thy inclinations, and early discover 
 what nature bids thee to be or tells thee thou 
 mayst be. They who thus timely descend 
 into themselves, and cultivate the good seeds 
 which nature hath set in them, prove not 
 shrubs but cedars in their generation. And 
 to be in the form of the best of the bad or the 
 worst of the good, 1 will be no satisfaction unto 
 them. 
 
 Plain virtue. X. Make not the consequence of virtue the 
 by^end"? ends thereof. Be not beneficent for a name 
 or cymbal of applause ; nor exact and just in 
 commerce for the advantages of trust and 
 credit, which attend the reputation of true 
 and punctual dealing: for these rewards, 
 though unsought for, plain virtue will bring 
 with her. To have other by-ends in good 
 actions sours laudable performances, which 
 must have deeper roots, motives, and instiga- 
 tions, to give them the stamp of virtues. 
 Law of thy XI. Let not the law of thy country be the 
 SXJJg, non ultra of thy honesty ; nor think that always 
 of thy good enough which the law will make good. 
 
 Narrow not the law of charity, equity, mercy. 
 Join gospel righteousness with legal right. 
 Be not a mere Gamaliel in the faith, but let 
 the sermon in the mount be thy Targum unto 
 the law of Sinai. 
 
 Morality not XII. Live by old ethicks and the classical 
 
 ambulatory. ru [ es o f honesty. Put no new names or notions 
 
 upon authentick virtues and vices. Think not 
 
 that morality is ambulatory ; that vices in one 
 
 age are not vices in another ; or that virtues, 
 
 which are under the everlasting seal of right 
 
 1 Optimi mctiorum, pessimi bonorum. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 133 
 
 reason, may be stamped by opinion. And 
 therefore, though vicious times invert the No new 
 opinions of things, and set up a new e thicks ethlcks - 
 against virtue, yet hold thou unto old morality ; 
 and rather than follow a multitude to do evil, Ex. xxiii. 2. 
 stand like Pompey's Pillar conspicuous by 
 thyself, and single in integrity. And since 
 the worst of times afford imitable examples of 
 virtue ; since no deluge of vice is like to be 
 so general but more than eight will escape ; 
 eye well those heroes who have held their 
 heads above water, who have touched pitch Ecclus. 
 and not been defiled, and in the common con- xm> x * 
 tagion have remained uncorrupted. 
 
 XIII. Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on Envy an 
 thy cheeks ; be content to be envied, but depravity. 
 envy not. Emulation may be plausible and 
 indignation allowable, but admit no treaty 
 
 with that passion which no circumstance can 
 make good. A displacency at the good of 
 others because they enjoy it, though not un- 
 worthy of it, is an absurd depravity, sticking 
 fast unto corrupted nature, and often too hard 
 for humility and charity, the great suppressors 
 of envy. This surely is a lion not to be 
 strangled but by Hercules himself, or the 
 highest stress of our minds, and an atom 
 of that power which subdueth all things unto Phil. Hi. 21. 
 itself. 
 
 XIV. Owe not thy humility unto humilia- Humility, 
 tion from adversity, but look humbly down 
 
 in that state when others look upwards upon 
 thee. Think not thy own shadow longer than 
 that of others, nor delight to take the altitude 
 of thyself. Be patient in the age of pride, 
 
184 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 Juy. Sat. 
 xiii. 185. 
 
 Forgiveness 
 to be total. 
 Eph. iv. 26. 
 
 when men live by short intervals of reason 
 under the dominion of humour and passion, 
 when it 's in the power of every one to trans- 
 form thee out of thyself, and run thee into 
 the short madness. If you cannot imitate Job, 
 yet come not short of Socrates, and those 
 patient pagans who tired the tongues of their 
 enemies, while they perceived they spit their 
 malice at brazen walls and statues. 
 
 XV. Let not the sun in Capricorn l go donm 
 upon thy wrath, but write thy wrongs in ashes. 
 Draw the curtain of night upon injuries, shut 
 them up in the tower of oblivion, 2 and let 
 them be as though they had not been. To 
 forgive our enemies, yet hope that God will 
 punish them, is not to forgive enough. To 
 forgive them ourselves, and not to pray God 
 to forgive them, is a partial piece of charity. 
 Forgive thine enemies totally, and without any 
 reserve that however God will revenge thee. 
 Charity the XVI. While thou so hotly disclaimest the 
 Devil, be not guilty of diabolism. Fall not 
 into one name with that unclean spirit, nor 
 act his nature whom thou so much abhorrest ; 
 that is, to accuse, calumniate, backbite, 
 whisper, detract, or sinistrously interpret 
 others ; degenerous depravities, and narrow- 
 minded vices, not only below St. Paul's noble 
 Christian but Aristotle's true gentleman. 
 Trust not with some that the Epistle of St. 
 
 1 Even when the days are shortest. 
 
 2 Alluding unto the tower of oblivion mentioned by 
 Procopius, which was the name of a tower of imprison- 
 ment among the Persians ; whoever was put therein was 
 as it were buried alive, and it was death for any but to 
 name him. 
 
 crowning 
 grace. 
 
 Vide ARIST, 
 Eth. iv. 7. 
 
ames 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 135 
 
 James is apocryphal, and so read with less 
 fear that stabbing truth, that in company St j, 
 with this vice thy religion is in vain. Moses i. 26. 
 broke the tables without breaking of the law ; Ex. xxxii. 19. 
 but where charity is broke, the law itself is 
 shattered, which cannot be whole without 
 love, which is the fulfilling of it. Look humbly R .?. m - 
 upon thy virtues ; and though thou art rich in 
 some, yet think thyself poor and naked with- 
 out that crowning grace, which thinketh no evil, T Cor. xiii. 
 which envieth not, which beareth, hopeth, believeth, 
 endureth all thi?igs. With these sure graces, 
 while busy tongues are crying out for a drop St. Luke 
 of cold water, mutes may be in happiness, xv 
 and sing the trisagion in heaven. Rev. iv. 8. 
 
 XVII. However thy understanding may Fasten the 
 waver in the theories of true and false, yet [JytSif 
 fasten the rudder of thy will, steer straight steer straight 
 unto good and fall not foul on evil. Imagina- UI1 
 tion is apt to rove, and conjecture to keep no 
 bounds. Some have run out so far, as to fancy 
 the stars might be but the light of the crystal- 
 line heaven shot through perforations on the 
 bodies of the orbs. Others more ingeniously 
 doubt whether there hath not been a vast 
 tract of land in the Atlantick Ocean, which 
 earthquakes and violent causes have long ago 
 devoured. Speculative misapprehensions may // 
 be innocuous, but immorality pernicious ; 
 theoretical mistakes and physical deviations 
 may condemn our judgments, not lead us into 
 judgment. But perversity of will, immoral 
 and sinful enormities walk with Adraste and 
 Nemesis at their backs, pursue us unto judg- 
 ment, and leave us viciously miserable. 
 

 136 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 XVIII. Bid early defiance unto those vices 
 thy rooted which are of thine inward family, and having 
 
 a root in thy temper plead a right and pro- 
 priety in thee. Raise timely batteries against 
 those strongholds built upon the rock of 
 nature, and make this a great part of the 
 militia of thy life. Delude not thyself into 
 iniquities from participation or community, 
 which abate the sense but not the obliquity 
 of them. To conceive sins less or less of sins, 
 because others also transgress, were morally to 
 commit that natural fallacy of man, to take 
 comfort from society, and think adversities 
 less because others also suffer them. The 
 politick nature of vice must be opposed by 
 policy ; and, therefore, wiser honesties project 
 and plot against it : wherein, notwithstanding, 
 we are not to rest in generals, or the trite 
 stratagems of art. That may succeed with 
 one, which may prove successless with another : 
 there is no community or commonweal of 
 virtue : every man must study his own 
 economy, and adapt such rules unto the 
 figure of himself. 
 
 XIX. Be substantially great in thyself. 
 and more than thou appearest unto others ; 
 and let the world be deceived in thee, as 
 they are in the lights of heaven. Hang early 
 plummets upon the heels of pride, and let 
 ambition have but an epicycle and narrow 
 circuit in thee. Measure not thyself by thy 
 morning shadow, but by the extent of thy 
 grave : and reckon thyself above the earth, by 
 the line thou must be contented with under it. 
 Spread not into boundless expansions either 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 137 
 
 of designs or desires. Think not that mankind 
 liveth but for a few ; and that the rest are 
 born but to serve those ambitions, which make 
 but flies of men and wildernesses of whole 
 nations. Swell not into vehement actions 
 which embroil and confound the earth ; but 
 be one of those violent ones which force the St. Matt. 
 kingdom of heaven. If thou must needs rule, XI< I2> 
 be Zeno's king, and enjoy that empire which 
 every man gives himself. He who is thus his thine own 
 own monarch contentedly sways the sceptre m( 
 of himself, not envying the glory of crowned 
 heads and elohims of the earth. Could the ^ 
 world unite in the practice of that despised 
 train of virtues, which the divine ethicks of our 
 Saviour hath so inculcated unto us, the furious 
 face of things must disappear ; Eden would be 
 yet to be found, and the angels might look 
 down, not with pity, but joy upon us. 
 
 XX. Though the quickness of thine ear Be deaf to 
 
 , , . .* v calumnia- 
 
 were able to reach the noise of the moon, tors; 
 which some think it maketh in its rapid revo- 
 lution ; though the number of thy ears should 
 equal Argus his eyes ; yet stop them all with 
 the wise man's wax, and be deaf unto the HOM. Odyss, 
 suggestions of tale-bearers, calumniators, pick- X1 
 thank or malevolent delators, who, while 
 quiet men sleep, sowing the tares of discord St- Matt. 
 and division, distract the tranquillity of charity x 
 and all friendly society. These are the St. James 
 tongues that set the world on fire, cankers of U1> 6< 
 reputation, and like that of Jonas his gourd, j onah iv> 
 wither a good name in a night. Evil spirits 6, 7. 
 may sit still, while these spirits walk about 
 and perform the business of hell. To speak 
 
138 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 more strictly, our corrupted hearts are the 
 factories of the devil, which may be at work 
 without his presence : for when that circum- 
 venting spirit hath drawn malice, envy, and 
 all unrighteousness unto well-rooted habits in 
 his disciples, iniquity then goes on upon its 
 own legs ; and if the gate of hell were shut 
 up for a time, vice would still be fertile and 
 produce the fruits of hell. Thus when God 
 forsakes us, Satan also leaves us : for such 
 offenders he looks upon as sure and sealed 
 up, and his temptations then needless unto 
 them. 
 
 not n Go^s e XXI. Annihilate not the mercies of God by 
 mercies by the oblivion of ingratitude ; for oblivion is a 
 ingratitude. k m d o f annihilation ; and for things to be as 
 though they had not been, is like unto never 
 being. Make not thy head a grave, but a 
 repository of God's mercies. Though thou 
 hadst the memory of Seneca or Simomdes, 
 and conscience the punctual memorist within 
 us, yet trust not to thy remembrance in 
 things which need phylacteries. Register 
 ^not only strange, but merciful occurrences. 
 Let Ephemerides, not Olympiads, 1 give thee 
 account of his mercies : let thy diaries stand 
 thick with dutiful mementoes and asterisks of 
 acknowledgment. And to be complete and 
 forget nothing, date not his mercy from thy 
 nativity ; look beyond the world, and before 
 the era of Adam. 
 
 Conscience XXII. Paint not the sepulchre of thyself, 
 will shorten and str i ve not to beautify thy corruption. Be 
 
 the 
 
 1 Particular diaries of each day, not abstracts compre- 
 hending several years. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 139 
 
 not an advocate for thy vices, nor call for 
 many hour-glasses to justify thy imperfections. 
 Think not that always good which thou 
 thinkest thou canst always make good, nor 
 that concealed which the sun doth not be- 
 hold : that which the sun doth not now see, 
 will be visible when the sun is out, and the 
 stars are fallen from heaven. Meanwhile 
 there is no darkness unto conscience ; which 
 can see without light, and in the deepest 
 obscurity give a clear draught of things, which 
 the cloud of dissimulation hath concealed 
 from all eyes. There is a natural standing 
 court within us, examining, acquitting, and 
 condemning at the tribunal of ourselves ; 
 wherein iniquities have their natural thetas 1 
 and no nocent is absolved by the verdict of 
 himself. And therefore, although our trans- 
 gressions shall be tried at the last bar, the 
 process need not be long : for the judge of all 
 knoweth all, and every man will nakedly 
 know himself; and when so few are like to 
 plead not guilty, the assize must soon have an 
 end. 
 
 XXIII. Comply with some humours, bear Flattery is 
 with others, but serve none. Civil com- a J u ^ ler - 
 placency consists with decent honesty; flattery 
 is a juggler, and no kin unto sincerity. But 
 while thou maintainest the plain path, and Fall not into 
 scornest to flatter others, fall not into self- tfon" adu 
 adulation, and become not thine own parasite. 
 Be deaf unto thyself, and be not betrayed at 
 home. Self-credulity, pride, and levity lead 
 
 1 6, a theta inscribed upon the judge's tessera was a 
 mark for death. 
 
140 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 unto self-idolatry. There is no Damocles 
 like unto self-opinion, nor any syren to our 
 own fawning conceptions. To magnify our 
 minor things, or hug ourselves in our appari- 
 tions ; to afford a credulous ear unto the 
 clawing suggestions of fancy ; to pass our days 
 in painted mistakes of ourselves ; and though 
 we behold our own blood, to think ourselves 
 the sons of Jupiter ; are blandishments of 
 self-love, worse than outward delusion. By 
 this imposture, wise men sometimes are mis- 
 taken in their elevation, and look above 
 themselves. And fools, which are antipodes 
 unto the wise, conceive themselves to be but 
 their periceci, and in the same parallel with 
 them. 
 
 dom d inion e of XXIV - Be not a Hercules furens abroad, and 
 thyS>if n< a poltroon within thyself. To chase our 
 enemies out of the field, and be led captive 
 by our vices ; to beat down our foes, and fall 
 down to our concupiscences ; are solecisms in 
 moral schools, and no laurel attends them. 
 To well manage our affections, and wild horses 
 of Plato, are the highest circenses : and the 
 noblest digladiation is in the theatre of our- 
 selves ; for therein our inward antagonists, 
 not only like common gladiators, w T ith ordin- 
 ary weapons and downright blows make at us, 
 but also, like retiary and laqueary combatants, 
 with nets, frauds, and entanglements fall 
 upon us. Weapons for such combats are not 
 to be forged at Lipara r 1 Vulcan's art doth 
 nothing in this internal militia: wherein not 
 
 1 The Liparrean Islands being volcanoes, were fabled to 
 contain the forges of the Cyclops. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 141 
 
 the armour of Achilles, but the armature of 
 St. Paul, gives the glorious day, and triumphs Eph. vi. u, 
 not leading up into capitols, but up into the etc ' 
 highest heavens. And, therefore, while so 
 many think it the only valour to command 
 and master others, study thou the dominion 
 of thyself, and quiet thine own commotions. 
 Let right reason be thy Lycurgus, and lift up 
 thy hand unto the law of it : move by the 
 intelligences of the superior faculties,, not by 
 the rapt of passion, nor merely by that of 
 temper and constitution. They who are 
 merely carried on by the wheel of such in- 
 clinations, without the hand and guidance of 
 sovereign reason, are but the automatous part 
 of mankind, rather lived than living, or at 
 least underliving themselves. 
 
 XXV. Let not fortune, which hath no name Fortune hath 
 in Scripture, have any in thy divinity. J 
 providence, not chance, have the honour of 
 thy acknowledgments, and be thy CEdipus in 
 contingencies. Mark well the paths and 
 winding ways thereof; but be not too wise in 
 the construction, or sudden in the application. 
 The hand of providence writes often by 
 abbreviatures, hieroglyphicks or short charac- 
 ters, which, like the laconism on the wall, are Dan. v. 
 not to be made out but by a hint or key from 
 that spirit which indited them. Leave future 
 occurrences to their uncertainties, think that 
 which is present thy own ; and, since 'tis 
 easier to foretell an eclipse than a foul day at 
 some distance, look for little regular below. 
 Attend with patience the uncertainty of 
 things, and what lieth yet unexerted in the 
 
142 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 chaos of futurity. The uncertainty and ignor- 
 ance of things to come, makes the world new 
 unto us by unexpected emergencies ; whereby 
 we pass not our days in the trite road of 
 affairs affording no novity ; for the novelizing 
 spirit of man lives by variety, and the new 
 faces of things. 
 
 Souh tent or XXVI - Though a contented mind enlargeth 
 r< the dimension of little things ; and unto some 
 'tis wealth enough not to be poor ; and others 
 are well content, if they be but rich enough 
 to be honest, and to give every man his due : 
 yet fall not into that obsolete affectation of 
 bravery, to throw away thy money, and to 
 reject all honours or honourable stations in 
 this courtly and splendid world. Old gene- 
 rosity is superannuated, and such contempt 
 of the world out of date. No man is now 
 like to refuse the favour of great ones, or be 
 content to say unto princes, Stand out of my 
 sun. And if any there be of such antiquated 
 resolutions, they are not like to be tempted 
 out of them by great ones; and 'tis fair if 
 they escape the name of hypochondriacks 
 from the genius of latter times, unto whom 
 contempt of the world is the most contempt- 
 ible opinion; and to be able, like Bias, to 
 carry all they have about them were to be the 
 eighth wise man. However, the old tetrick 
 philosophers looked always with indignation 
 upon such a face of things ; and observing the 
 unnatural current of riches, power, and honour 
 in the world, and withal the imperfection and 
 demerit of persons often advanced unto them, 
 were tempted unto angry opinions, that affairs 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 143 
 
 were ordered more by stars than reason, and 
 that things went on rather by lottery than 
 election. 
 
 XXVII. If thy vessel be but small in the 
 ocean of this world, if meanness of possessions 
 be thy allotment upon earth, forget not those 
 virtues which the great Disposer of all bids 
 thee to entertain from thy quality and con- 
 dition ; that is, submission, humility, content 
 of mind, and industry. Content may dwell Jj^Jf j JJf y 
 in all stations. To be low, but above con- stations. 
 tempt, may be high enough to be happy. 
 But many of low degree may be higher than 
 computed, and some cubits above the common 
 commensuration ; for in all states virtue gives 
 qualifications and allowances, which make out 
 defects. Rough diamonds are sometimes 
 mistaken for pebbles ; and meanness may be 
 rich in accomplishments, which riches in vain 
 desire. If our merits be above our stations, 
 if our intrinsical value be greater than what 
 we go for, or our value than our valuation, 
 and if we" stand higher in God's, than in the 
 censor's book; 1 it may make some equitable 
 balance in the inequalities of this world, and 
 there may be no such vast chasm or gulf 
 between disparities as common measures deter- 
 mine. The divine eye looks upon high and low 
 differently from that of man. They who seem 
 to stand upon Olympus, and high mounted 
 unto our eyes, may be but in the valleys, and 
 low ground unto His ; for he looks upon those 
 as highest who nearest approach his divinity, 
 
 1 The book in which the census, or account of every 
 man's estate was registered among the Romans. 
 
144 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 and upon those as lowest who are farthest 
 from it. 
 
 Dross in all XXVIII. When thou lookest upon the im- 
 te U mpers; perfections of others, allow one eye for what 
 totaUy'ba? is l auc ^ a ^^ e in tnem : an d the balance they have 
 from some excellency, which may render them 
 considerable. While we look with fear or 
 hatred upon the teeth of the viper, we may 
 behold his eye with love. In venomous 
 natures something may be amiable ; poisons 
 afford antipoisons : nothing is totally, or alto- 
 gether uselessly bad. Notable virtues are 
 sometimes dashed with notorious vices, and in 
 some vicious tempers have been found illustrious 
 acts of virtue; which makes such observable 
 worth in some actions of King Demetrius, 
 Antonius, and Ahab, as are not to be found in 
 the same kind in Aristides, Numa, or David. 
 Constancy, generosity, clemency, and liberality 
 have been highly conspicuous in some persons 
 not marked out in other concerns for example 
 or imitation. But since goodness is exemplary 
 in all, if others have not our virtues, let us not 
 be wanting in theirs ; nor, scorning them for 
 their vices whereof we are free, be condemned 
 by their virtues wherein we are deficient. 
 There is dross, alloy, and embasement in all 
 human tempers ; and he flieth without wings, 
 who thinks to find ophir or pure metal in any. 
 For perfection is not, like light, centred in any 
 one body ; but, like the dispersed seminalities 
 of vegetables at the creation, scattered through 
 the whole mass of the earth, no place pro- 
 ducing all, and almost all some. So that 'tis 
 well, if a perfect man can be made out of 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 145 
 
 many men, and, to the perfect eye of God, 
 even out of mankind. Time, which perfects 
 some things, imperfects also others. Could 
 we intimately apprehend the ideated man, and 
 as he stood in the intellect of God upon the 
 first exertion by creation, we might more 
 narrowly comprehend our present degenera- 
 tion, and how widely we are fallen from the 
 pure exemplar and idea of our nature : for 
 after this corruptive elongation from a 
 primitive and pure creation, we are almost lost 
 in degeneration ; and Adam hath not only 
 fallen from his Creator, but we ourselves from 
 Adam, our Tycho and primary generator. 
 
 XXIX. Quarrel not rashly with adversities 
 not yet understood ; and overlook not the 
 mercies often bound up in them : for we con- g.J a dver- 
 sider not sufficiently the good of evils, nor 
 fairly compute the mercies of providence in 
 things afflictive at first hand. The famous 
 Andreas Doria being invited to a feast by 
 Aloysio Fieschi, with design to kill him, just 
 the night before fell mercifully into a fit of the 
 gout, and so escaped that mischief. When 
 Cato intended to kill himself, from a blow PLUTARCH, 
 which he gave his servant, who would not 
 reach his sword unto him, his hand so swelled 
 that he had much ado to effect his design. 
 Hereby any one but a resolved stoick might 
 have taken a fair hint of consideration, and 
 that some merciful genius would have con- 
 trived his preservation. To be sagacious in 
 such intercurrences is not superstition, but 
 wary and pious discretion ; and to contemn 
 such hints were to be deaf unto the speaking 
 K 
 
146 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 Pass not the 
 sin. 1C< 
 
 hand of God, wherein Socrates and Cardan 
 would hardly have been mistaken. 
 
 XXX. Break not open the gate of destruc- 
 tion, and make no haste or bustle unto ruin. 
 Post not heedlessly on unto the non ultra of 
 folly, or precipice of perdition. Let vicious 
 ways have their tropicks and deflexions, and 
 swim in the waters of sin but , as in the 
 Asphaltick Lake, though smeared and denied, 
 not to sink to the bottom. If thou hast dipt 
 thy foot in the brink, yet venture not over 
 Rubicon. Run not into extremities from 
 whence there is no regression. In the vicious 
 ways of the world it mercifully falleth out that 
 we become not extempore wicked, but it 
 taketh some time and pains to undo ourselves. 
 We fall not from virtue, like Vulcan from 
 heaven, in a day. Bad dispositions require 
 some time to grow into bad habits ; bad habits 
 must undermine good, and often-repeated acts 
 make us habitually evil : so that by gradual 
 depravations, and while we are but staggeringly 
 evil, we are not left without parentheses of con- 
 siderations, thoughtful rebukes, and merciful 
 ny r recai ns interventions, to recall us unto ourselves. For 
 us. the wisdom of God hath methodized the 
 
 course of things unto the best advantage of 
 goodness, and thinking considerators overlook 
 not the tract thereof. 
 
 Men and XXXI. Since men and women have their 
 
 Confound proper virtues and vices ; and even twins of 
 not their different sexes have not only distinct coverings 
 
 distinctions. ..- JTP - T. -i 
 
 in the womb, but differing qualities and 
 virtuous habits after; transplace not their 
 proprieties, and confound not their distinctions. 
 
 HOMER, 
 Iliad i. $90. 
 
 Merciful 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 147 
 
 Let masculine and feminine acomplishments 
 shine in their proper orbs, and adorn their 
 respective subjects. However, unite not the 
 vices of both sexes in one ; be not monstrous 
 in iniquity, nor hermaphroditically vicious. 
 
 XXXII. If generous honesty, valour, and 
 
 plain dealing be the cognisance of thy family, merits of thy 
 or characteristick of thy country, hold fast such sJST"" 
 inclinations sucked in with thy first breath, own. 
 and which lay in the cradle with thee. Fall 
 not into transforming degenerations, which 
 under the old name create a new nation. Be 
 not an alien in thine own nation ; bring not 
 Orontes into Tiber : learn the virtues not Jpv. Sat. 
 the vices of thy foreign neighbours, and U1 
 make thy imitation by discretion not con- 
 tagion. Feel something of thyself in the 
 noble acts of thy ancestors, and find in thine 
 own genius that of thy predecessors. Rest 
 not under the expired merits of others, shine 
 by those of thy own. Flame not like the 
 central fire which enlighteneth no eyes, which 
 no man seeth, and most men think there's no 
 such thing to be seen. Add one ray unto the 
 common lustre ; add not only to the number 
 but the note of thy generation ; and prove not 
 a cloud but an asterisk in thy region. 
 
 XXXIII. Since thou hast an alarum in thy Dull not 
 breast, which tells thee thou hast a living ^ 
 spirit in thee above two thousand times in an 
 hour ; dull not away thy days in slothful 
 supinity and the tediousness of doing nothing. 
 
 To strenuous minds there is an inquietude in 
 over quietness, and no laboriousness in labour ; 
 and to tread a mile after the slow pace of a 
 
148 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 snail, or the heavy measures of the lazy of 
 Brazilia, were a most tiring penance, and 
 worse than a race of some furlongs at the 
 Olympicks. The rapid courses of the heavenly 
 bodies are rather imi table by our thoughts, 
 than our corporeal motions; yet the solemn 
 motions of our lives amount unto a greater 
 measure than is commonly apprehended. Some 
 few men have surrounded the globe of the 
 earth ; yet many in the set locomotions and 
 movements of their days have measured the 
 circuit of it, and twenty thousand miles have 
 been exceeded by them. Move circumspectly 
 not meticulously, and rather carefully solicitous 
 than anxiously solicitudinous. Think not there 
 Prov> is a lion in the way, nor walk with leaden 
 
 **" X 3- sandals in the paths of goodness ; but in all 
 virtuous motions let prudence determine thy 
 measures. Strive not to run, like Hercules, 
 a furlong in a breath : festination may prove 
 precipitation ; deliberating delay may be wise 
 cunctation, and slowness no slothfulness. 
 Busy not thy XXXIV. Since virtuous actions have their 
 fa the^en?** own trumpets, and, without any noise from 
 comium of thyself, will have their resound abroad ; busy 
 not thy best member in the encomium of thy- 
 self Praise is a debt we owe unto the virtues 
 of others, and due unto our own from all 
 whom malice hath not made mutes, or envy 
 struck dumb. Fall not, however, into the 
 common prevaricating way of self-commenda- 
 tion and boasting, by denoting the imper- 
 fections of others. He who discommendeth 
 others obliquely commendeth himself. He 
 who whispers their infirmities, proclaims his 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 149 
 
 own exemption from them ; and, consequently, 
 says, I am not as this publican, or hie niger, whom St. Luke 
 I talk of. Open ostentation and loud vain- ! "i* 
 glory is more tolerable than this obliquity, as iv. 85. 
 but containing some froth, no ink ; as but 
 consisting of a personal piece of folly, nor 
 complicated with uncharitableness. Super- 
 fluously we seek a precarious applause abroad ; 
 every good man hath his plaudite within him- 
 self; and though his tongue be silent, is not 
 without loud cymbals in his breast. Conscience 
 will become his panegyrist, and never forget 
 to crown and extol him unto himself. 
 
 XXXV. Bless not thyself only that thou Modesty ^ 
 wert born in Athens ; but, among thy multi- ^SStitude 
 plied acknowledgments, lift up one hand g f e s jj nkful 
 unto heaven, that thou wert born of honest for honest 
 parents ; that modesty, humility, patience, P arents - 
 and veracity, lay in the same egg, and came 
 into the world with thee. From such founda- 
 tions thou mayst be happy in a virtuous 
 precocity, and make an early and long walk in 
 goodness ; so mayst thou more naturally feel 
 the contrariety of vice unto nature, and resist 
 some by the antidote of thy temper. As 
 charity covers, so modesty preventeth a multi- 
 tude of sins ; withholding from noonday vices 
 and brazen-browed iniquities, from sinning on 
 the house-top, and painting our fellows with 
 the rays of the sun. Where this virtue 
 reigneth, though vice may show its head, 
 it cannot be in its glory. Where shame of 
 sin sets, look not for virtue to arise ; for when 
 modesty taketh wing, Astraea l goes soon after. 
 1 Astrsea, goddess of justice and consequently of all virtue. 
 
150 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 Soldiery: XXXVI. The heroical vein of mankind 
 
 * runs much in the soldiery, and courageous 
 
 vein. 
 
 part of the world ; and in that form we 
 oftenest find men above men. History is full 
 of the gallantry of that tribe ; and when we 
 read their notable acts, we easily find what a 
 difference there is between a life in Plutarch 
 and in Laertius. Where true fortitude dwells, 
 loyalty, bounty, friendship, and fidelity may 
 be found. A man may confide in persons 
 constituted for noble ends, who dare do and 
 suffer, and who have a hand to burn for their 
 country and their friend. Small and creeping 
 things are the product of petty souls. He is 
 like to be mistaken, who makes choice of a 
 covetous man for a friend, or relieth upon the 
 The true reed of narrow and poltroon friendship. Piti- 
 geSieman. ful things are only to be found in the cottages 
 of such breasts ; but bright thoughts, clear 
 deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty, and gener- 
 ous honesty are the gems of noble minds ; 
 wherein (to derogate from none) the true 
 heroic English gentleman hath no peer. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 151 
 
 THE SECOND PART 
 
 PUNISH not thyself with pleasure ; glut not thy 
 sense with palative delights ; nor revenge the pleasure; 
 contempt of temperance by the penalty of 
 satiety. Were there an age of delight or any 
 pleasure durable, who would not honour 
 Volupia ? but the race of delight is short, and 
 pleasures have mutuable faces. The pleasures 
 of one age are not pleasures in another, and 
 their lives fall short of our own. Even in our 
 sensual days, the strength of delight is in its 
 seldomness or rarity, and sting in its satiety : in its seldom- 
 mediocrity is its life, and immoderacy its ne 
 confusion. The luxurious emperors of old 
 inconsiderately satiated themselves with the 
 dainties of sea and land, till wearied through 
 all varieties, their refections became a study 
 unto them, and they were fain to feed by in- 
 vention : novices in true epicurism ! which, by 
 mediocrity, paucity, quick and healthful ap- 
 petite, makes delights smartly acceptable ; 
 whereby Epicurus himself found Jupiter's 
 brain 1 in a piece of Cytheridian cheese, and 
 the tongues of nightingales in a dish of onions. 
 Hereby healthful and temperate poverty hath 
 the start of nauseating luxury ; unto whose 
 clear and naked appetite every meal is a feast, 
 and in one single dish the first course of 
 1 Ciere&rwn. Jovis, for a delicious bit. 
 
152 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 SUETON. 
 Neron, 48. 
 
 Metellus ; 1 who are cheaply hungry, and 
 never lose their hunger, or advantage of a 
 craving appetite, because obvious food con- 
 tents it ; while Nero, half famished, could not 
 feed upon a piece of bread, and, lingering 
 after his snowed water, hardly got down an 
 ordinary cup of calda.^ By such circumscrip- 
 tions of pleasure the contemned philosophers 
 reserved unto themselves the secret of delight, 
 which the helluos of those days lost in their 
 exorbitances. In vain we study delight ; it is 
 at the command of every sober mind, and in 
 every sense born with us : but nature, who 
 teacheth us the rule of pleasure, instructeth 
 also in the bounds thereof, and where its line 
 expireth. And, therefore, temperate minds, 
 not pressing their pleasures until the sting 
 appeareth, enjoy their contentations content- 
 edly, and without regret, and so escape the 
 folly of excess, to be pleased unto displacency. 
 II. Bring candid eyes unto the perusal of 
 iapsefnotto m en's works, and let not Zoilism or detraction 
 be too strictly blast well-intended labours. He that en- 
 dureth no faults in men's writings must only 
 read his own, wherein, for the most part, all 
 appeareth white. Quotation mistakes, inad- 
 vertency, expedition, and human lapses, may 
 make not only moles but warts in learned 
 authors; who, notwithstanding, being judged 
 by the capital matter, admit not of disparage- 
 ment. I should unwillingly affirm that Cicero 
 was but slightly versed in Homer, because in 
 
 1 His riotous pontifical supper, the great variety where- 
 at is to be seen in Macrobius (Saturnal Hi. 13). 
 
 2 Caldce gelidceque minister. 
 
 Zoilism. 
 Human 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 153 
 
 his work, De Gloria, he ascribed those verses 
 unto Ajax, which were delivered by Hector. 
 What if Plautus, in the acount of Hercules, 
 mistaketh nativity for conception ? Who 
 would have mean thoughts of Apollinaris 
 Sidonius, who seems to mistake the river 
 Tigris for Euphrates; and, though a good 
 historian and learned bishop of Auvergne had 
 the misfortune to be out in the story of David, 
 making mention of him when the ark was sent 
 back by the Philistines upon a cart ; which * Sam. vi. 
 was before his time ? Though I have no great 
 opinion of Machiavel's learning, yet I shall 
 not presently say that he was but a novice in 
 Roman history, because he was mistaken in 
 placing Commodus after the Emperor Severus. 
 Capital truths are to be narrowly eyed; col- 
 lateral lapses and circumstantial deliveries not 
 to be too strictly sifted. And if the substan- 
 tial subject be well forged out, we need not 
 examine the sparks which irregularly fly from 
 it. 
 
 III. Let well-weighed considerations. not Avo jddog- 
 
 i-rr i i i i matism : let 
 
 stiti and peremptory assumptions, guide thy well-weighed 
 discourses, pen, and actions. To beffin or c . nsider . a - 
 
 i LI OT . & /> i i tions guide. 
 
 continue our works like Insmegistus of old, 
 Verum eerie verum atque verissimum est, 1 would 
 sound arrogantly unto present ears in this 
 strict inquiring age ; wherein, for the most 
 part, probably and perhaps will hardly serve to 
 mollify the spirit of captious contradictors. If 
 Cardan saith that a parrot is a beautiful bird, 
 Scaliger will set his wits to work to prove it 
 a deformed animal. The compage of all 
 1 In Tabula Smaragdina. 
 
154 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 Natural 
 parts and 
 good judg- 
 ments rule 
 the world. 
 
 physical truths is not so closely jointed, but 
 opposition may find intrusion ; nor always so 
 closely maintained, as not to suffer attrition. 
 Many positions seem quodlibetically consti- 
 tuted, and, like a Delphian blade, will cut on 
 both sides. Some truths seem almost false- 
 hoods, and some falsehoods almost truths ; 
 wherein falsehood and truth seem almost 
 sequilibriously stated, and but a few grains of 
 distinction to bear down the balance. Some 
 have digged deep, yet glanced by the royal 
 vein ; and a man may come unto the pericar- 
 dium, but not the heart of truth. Besides, 
 many things are known, as some are seen, that 
 is by parallaxis, or at some distance from their 
 true and proper beings, the superficial regard 
 of things having a different aspect from their 
 true and central natures. And this moves 
 sober pens unto suspensory and timorous as- 
 sertions, nor presently to obtrude them as 
 Sibyl's leaves, which after-considerations may 
 find to be but folious appearances, and not the 
 central and vital interiors of truth. 
 
 IV. Value the judicious, and let not mere 
 acquests in minor parts of learning gain thy 
 pre-existimation. 'Tis an unjust way of com- 
 pute, to magnify a weak head for some Latin 
 abilities ; and to undervalue a solid judgment, 
 because he knows not the genealogy of Hector. 
 When that notable king of France 1 would 
 have his son to know but one sentence in 
 Latin ; had it been a good one, perhaps it had 
 been enough. Natural parts and good judg- 
 
 1 Louis the Eleventh. Qui nescit dissimulare nescit 
 regnare. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 155 
 
 merits rule the world. States are not governed 
 by ergotisms. Many have ruled well, who 
 could not, perhaps, define a commonwealth ; 
 and they who understand not the globe of the 
 earth, command a great part of it. Where 
 natural logick prevails not, artificial too often 
 faileth. Where nature fills the sails, the 
 vessel goes smoothly on ; and when judgment 
 is the pilot, the insurance need not be high. 
 When industry builds upon nature, we may 
 expect pyramids : where that foundation is 
 wanting, the structure must be low. They do 
 most, by books, who could do much without 
 them ; and he that chiefly owes himself unto 
 himself, is the substantial man. 
 
 V. Let thy studies be free as thy thoughts Swell not 
 and contemplations : but fly not only upon oflJanling 
 the win^s of imagination ; join sense unto b y fruitless 
 
 & T J i .. , repetitions. 
 
 reason, and experiment unto speculation, and 
 so give life unto embryon truths, and verities 
 yet in their chaos. There is nothing more 
 acceptable unto the ingenious world, than this 
 noble eluctation of truth ; wherein, against 
 the tenacity of prejudice and prescription, 
 this century now prevaileth. What libraries 
 of new volumes after-times will behold, and 
 in what a new world of knowledge the eyes 
 of our posterity may be happy, a few ages 
 may joyfully declare ; and is but a cold 
 thought unto those who cannot hope to be- 
 hold this exantlation of truth, or that obscured 
 virgin half out of the pit : which might make 
 some content with a commutation of the time 
 of their lives, and to commend the fancy of 
 the Pythagorean metempsychosis ; whereby 
 
156 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 OVID, Met. 
 xv. 160. 
 
 Despair not 
 of better 
 things 
 whereof 
 there is yet 
 
 they might hope to enjoy this happiness in 
 their third or fourth selves, and behold that 
 in Pythagoras, which they now but foresee in 
 Euphorbus. The world, which took but six 
 day to make, is like to take six thousand to 
 make out : meanwhile, old truths voted down 
 begin to resume their places, and new ones 
 arise upon us ; wherein there is 110 comfort in 
 the happiness of Tully's Elysium, 1 or any 
 satisfaction from the ghosts of the ancients, 
 who knew so little of what is now well known. 
 Men disparage not antiquity, who prudently 
 exalt new enquiries; and make not them the 
 judges of truth, who were but fellow enquirers 
 of it. Who can but magnify the endeavours 
 of Aristotle, and the noble start which learn- 
 ing had under him ; or less than pity the 
 slender progression made upon such advan- 
 tages, while many centuries were lost in re- 
 petitions and transcriptions, sealing up the 
 book of knowledge ? And, therefore, rather 
 than to swell the leaves of learning by fruit- 
 less repetitions, to sing the same song in all 
 ages, nor adventure at essays beyond the 
 attempt of others, many would be content 
 that some would write like Helmont or Para- 
 celsus ; and be willing to endure the mon- 
 strosity of some opinions, for divers singular 
 notions requiting such aberrations. 
 
 VI. Despise not the obliquities of younger 
 ways, nor despair of better things whereof 
 there is yet no prospect. Who would imagine 
 that Diogenes, who in his younger days was a 
 
 1 "Who comforted himself that he should there converse 
 with the old philosophers. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 157 
 
 falsifier of money, should in the aftercourse of 
 his life be so great a contemner of metal? 
 Some negroes who believe the resurrection, 
 think that they shall rise white. 1 Even in 
 this life, regeneration may imitate resurrec- 
 tion ; our black and vitious tinctures may 
 wear off, and goodness clothe us with candour. 
 Good admonitions knock not always in vain. 
 There will be signal examples of God's mercy, St. Luke 
 and the angels must not want their charitable xv ' I0< 
 rejoices for the conversion of lost sinners. 
 Figures of most angles do nearest approach 
 unto circles, which have no angles at all. 
 Some may be near unto goodness, who are 
 conceived far from it ; and many things 
 happen, not likely to ensue from any promises 
 of antecedencies. Culpable beginnings have 
 found commendable conclusions, and infamous 
 courses pious retractations. Detestable sinners 
 have proved exemplary converts on earth, 
 and may be glorious in the apartment of Mary 
 Magdalen in heaven. Men are not the same 
 through all divisions of their ages : time, ex- 
 perience, self-reflections, and God's mercies, 
 make in some well-tempered minds a kind of 
 translation before death, and men to differ 
 from themselves as well as from other persons. 
 Hereof the old world afforded many examples, 
 to the infamy of latter ages, wherein men too 
 often live by the rule of their inclinations ; 
 so that, without any astral prediction, the first 
 day gives the last. Men are commonly as they 
 were : or rather, as bad dispositions run into 
 
 1 Mandelslo's Travels. 
 
158 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 Gen. xviii. 
 27-33- 
 
 Speckled 
 face of 
 honesty in 
 the world. 
 
 worser habits, the evening doth not crown, 
 but sourly conclude the day. 
 
 VII. If the Almighty will not spare us 
 according to his merciful capitulation at 
 Sodom ; if his goodness please not to pass 
 over a great deal of bad for a small pittance 
 of good, or to look upon us in the lump ; 
 there is slender hope for mercy, or sound 
 presumption of fulfilling half his will, either 
 in persons or nations : they who excel in 
 some virtues being so often defective in 
 others ; few men driving at the extent and 
 amplitude of goodness, but computing them- 
 selves by their best parts, and others by their 
 worst, are content to rest in those virtues 
 which others commonly want. Which makes 
 this speckled face of honesty in the world ; 
 and which was the imperfection of the old 
 philosophers and great pretenders unto virtue, 
 who, well declining the gaping vices of in- 
 temperance, incontinency, violence, and op- 
 pression, were yet blindly peccant in iniqui- 
 ties of closer faces, were envious, malicious, 
 contemners, scoffers, censurers, and stuffed 
 with vizard vices, no less depraving the 
 ethereal particle and diviner portion of man, 
 For envy, malice, hatred, are the qualities of 
 Satan, close and dark like himself; and where 
 such brands smoke, the soul cannot be white. 
 Vice may be had at all prices ; expensive and 
 costly iniquities, which make the noise, cannot 
 be every man's sins : but the soul may be 
 foully inquinated at a very low rate ; and a 
 man may be cheaply vitious, to the perdition 
 of himself. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 159 
 
 VIII. Opinion rides upon the neck of Weigh not 
 
 , thyself in 
 
 reason ; and men are happy, wise, or learned, the scales of 
 according as that empress shall set them down 
 in the register of reputation. However, 
 weigh not thyself in the scales of thy own 
 opinion, but let the judgment of the judicious 
 be the standard of thy merit. Self-estimation 
 is a flatterer too readily entitling us unto 
 knowledge and abilities, which others solicit- 
 ously labour after, and doubtfully think they 
 attain. Surely such confident tempers do pass 
 their days in best tranquillity, who, resting in 
 the opinion of their own abilities, are happily 
 gulled by such contentation ; wherein pride, 
 self-conceit, confidence, and opiniatrity, will 
 hardly suffer any to complain of imperfection. 
 To think themselves in the right, or all that Self-conceit 
 right, or only that, which they do or think, hi^hSent 
 is a fallacy of high content ; though others 
 laugh in their sleeves, and look upon them 
 as in a deluded state of judgment: wherein, 
 notwithstanding, 'twere but a civil piece of 
 complacency to suffer them to sleep who 
 would not wake, to let them rest in their 
 securities, nor by dissent or opposition to 
 stagger their contentments. 
 
 IX. Since the brow speaks often true, since Physio- 
 eyes and noses have tongues, and the counten- 
 ance proclaims the heart and inclinations ; 
 
 let observation so far instruct thee in physio- 
 gnomical lines, as to be some rule for thy 
 distinction, and guide for thy affection unto 
 such as look most like men. Mankind, 
 methinks, is comprehended in a few faces, if 
 we exclude all visages which in any way 
 
160 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 Schemes of participate of symmetries and schemes of look 
 look. J . , . T T, , , 
 
 common unto other animals. For as though 
 
 man were the extract of the world, in whom 
 all were in coagulato, which in their forms 
 were in soluto and at extension ; we often 
 observe that men do most act those creatures, 
 whose constitution, parts, and complexion, do 
 most predominate in their mixtures. This is 
 a corner stone in physiognomy, and holds 
 some truth not only in particular persons but 
 also in whole nations. There are, therefore, 
 provincial faces, national lips and noses, which 
 testify not only the natures of those countries, 
 but of those which have them elsewhere. 
 Thus we may make England the whole earth, 
 dividing it not only into Europe, Asia, 
 Africa, but the particular regions thereof; 
 and may in some latitude affirm, that there 
 are Egyptians, Scythians, Indians among us, 
 who, though born in England, yet carry the 
 faces and air of those countries, and are 
 also agreeable and correspondent unto their 
 natures. Faces look uniformly unto our eyes : 
 how they appear unto some animals of a more 
 piercing or differing sight, who are able to 
 discover the inequalities, rubs, and hairiness 
 of the skin, is not without good doubt : and, 
 therefore, in reference unto man, Cupid is 
 said to be blind. Affection should not be too 
 sharp-eyed, and love is not to be made by 
 magnifying glasses. If things were seen as 
 they truly are, the beauty of bodies would be 
 much abridged. And, therefore, the Wise 
 Contriver hath drawn the pictures and out- 
 sides of things softly and amiably unto the 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 161 
 
 natural edge of our eyes, not leaving them 
 able to discover those uncomely asperities, 
 which make oyster-shells in good faces, and 
 hedgehogs even in Venus's moles. 
 
 X. Court not felicity too far, and weary not Court not 
 the favourable hand of fortune. Glorious fer. dty to 
 actions have their times, extent, and non 
 ultras. To put no end unto attempts were to 
 make prescription of successes, and to bespeak 
 unhappiness at the last : for the line of our 
 lives is drawn with white and black vicissi- 
 tudes, wherein the extremes hold seldom one 
 complexion. That Pompey should obtain the 
 surname of Great at twenty-five years, that 
 men in their young and active days should be 
 fortunate and perform notable things, is no 
 observation of deep wonder ; they having the 
 strength of their fates before them, n.or yet 
 acted their parts in the world for which they 
 were brought into it ; whereas men of years, 
 matured for counsels and designs, seem to be 
 beyond the vigour of their active fortunes, 
 and high exploits of life, providentially or- 
 dained unto ages best agreeable unto them. 
 And, therefore, many brave men finding their 
 fortune grow faint, and feeling its declination, 
 have timely withdrawn themselves from great 
 attempts, and so escaped the ends of mighty 
 men, disproportionate to their beginnings. 
 But magnanimous thoughts have so dimmed 
 the eyes of many, that, forgetting the very vide 
 essence of fortune, and the vicissitude ofS EROD ' 
 good and evil, they apprehend no bottom in 
 felicity; and so have been still tempted on 
 unto mighty actions, reserved for their de- 
 
162 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 structions. For fortune lays the plot of our 
 adversities in the foundation of our felicities, 
 it sharpens blessing us in the first quadrate, to blast us 
 ion - more sharply in the last. And since in the 
 highest felicities their lieth a capacity of the 
 lowest miseries,, she hath this advantage from 
 our happiness to make us truly miserable : for 
 to become acutely miserable we are to be first 
 happy. Affliction smarts most in the most 
 happy state, as having somewhat in it of 
 Belisarius at beggar's bush, or Bajazet in the 
 grate. And this the fallen angels severely 
 understand; who have acted their first part 
 in heaven, are made sharply miserable by 
 transition, and more afflictively feel the con- 
 trary state of hell. 
 
 Ponder the XL Carry no careless eye upon the unex- 
 iwidence. P ec ted scenes of things ; but ponder the acts 
 of Providence in the public ends of great 
 and notable men, set out unto the view of all 
 for no common memorandums. The tragical 
 exits and unexpected periods of some eminent 
 persons, cannot but amuse considerate obser- 
 vators; wherein, notwithstanding, most men 
 seem to see by extramission, without reception 
 or self-reflection, and conceive themselves un- 
 concerned by the fallacy of their own exemp- 
 tion : whereas, the mercy of God hath singled 
 out but few to be the signals of his justice, 
 leaving the generality of mankind to the 
 pedagogy of example. But the inadvertency 
 of our natures not well apprehending this 
 favourable method and merciful decimation, 
 and that He showeth in some what others 
 also deserve ; they entertain no sense of his 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 163 
 
 hand beyond the stroke of themselves Where- 
 upon the whole becomes necessarily punished, 
 and the contracted hand of God extended 
 unto universal judgments : from whence, never- 
 theless, the stupidity of our tempers receives 
 but faint impressions, and in the most tragical 
 state of times holds but starts of good motions. 
 So that to continue us in goodness there must 
 be iterated returns of misery, and a circulation 
 in afflictions is necessary. And since we can- 
 not be wise by warnings; since plagues are 
 insignificant, except we be personally plagued ; 
 since also we cannot be punished unto amend- 
 ment by proxy or commutation, nor by vicinity, 
 but contaction ; there is an unhappy necessity 
 that we must smart in our own skins, and the 
 provoked arm of the Almighty must fall upon 
 ourselves. The capital sufferings of others are judgments 
 rather our monitions than acquitments. There nitions 0ur 
 is but One who died salvifically for us, and 
 able to say unto death, Hitherto shall thou go Job xxxviii. 
 and no farther; only one enlivening death, 11 ' 
 which makes gardens of graves, and that which 
 was sowed in corruption to arise and nourish i Cor. xv. 43. 
 in glory; when death itself shall die, and 
 living shall have no period ; when the damned 
 shall mourn at the funeral of death ; when life Rom. vi. 23. 
 not death shall be the wages of sin ; when the 
 second death shall prove a miserable life, and 
 destruction shall be courted. 
 
 XII. Although their thoughts may seem too Good- 
 severe, who think that few ill-natured men so natured 
 
 y o persons best 
 
 to heaven ; yet it may be acknowledged that founded for 
 good-natured persons are best founded for that eaven - 
 place ; who enter the world with good dis- 
 
164 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 positions and natural graces, more ready to be 
 advanced by impressions from above, and 
 christianized unto pieties ; who carry above 
 them plain and downright dealing minds, 
 humility, mercy, charity, and virtues accept- 
 able unto God and man. But whatever 
 success they may have as to heaven, they 
 5. are the acceptable men on earth, and happy 
 is he who hath his quiver full of them for his 
 friends. These are not the dens wherein 
 falsehood lurks, and hypocrisy hides its head ; 
 wherein frowardness makes its nest ; or where 
 malice, hard-heartedness, and oppression love 
 to dwell ; not those by whom the poor get 
 little, and the rich sometime lose all ; men 
 not of retracted looks, but who carry their 
 hearts in their faces, and need not to be 
 looked upon with perspectives; not sordidly 
 or mischievously ingrateful ; who cannot learn 
 to ride upon the neck of the afflicted, nor load 
 the heavy-laden, but who keep the Temple of 
 Janus shut by peaceable and quiet tempers ; 
 who make not only the best friends, but the 
 best enemies, as easier to forgive than offend, 
 and ready to pass by the second offence before 
 they avenge the first; who make natural 
 Royalists, obedient subjects, kind and merciful 
 Princes, verified in our own, one of the best- 
 natured Kings of this throne. 1 Of the old 
 Roman Emperors the best were the best- 
 natured ; though they made but a small 
 number, and might be writ in a ring. Many 
 of the rest were as bad men as princes; 
 humorists rather than of good humours ; and 
 1 Charles n. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 165 
 
 of good natural parts rather than of good 
 natures, which did but arm their bad inclina- 
 tions, and make them wittily wicked. 
 
 XIII. With what shift and pains we come 
 into the world, we remember not: but 'tis 
 commonly found no easy matter to get out 
 of it. Many have studied to exasperate the 
 ways of death, but fewer hours have been 
 spent to soften that necessity. That the 
 smoothest way unto the grave is made by 
 bleeding, as common opinion presumeth, 
 beside the sick and fainting languors, which 
 accompany that effusion, the experiment in 
 Lucan and Seneca will make us doubt ; under TACIT. 
 which the noble stoick so deeply laboured, j^ 1 ^' * V 
 that to conceal his affliction, he was fain to 
 retire from the sight of his wife, and not 
 ashamed to implore the merciful hand of his 
 physician to shorten his misery therein. Ovid, Pv. ID > Tri 
 the old heroes, and the stoicks, who were so u 
 afraid of drowning, as dreading thereby the 
 extinction of their soul, which they conceived 
 to be a fire, stood probably in fear of an easier 
 way of death; wherein the water, entering 
 the possessions of air, makes a temperate 
 suffocation, and kills as it were without a 
 fever. Surely many who have had the spirit 
 to destroy themselves, have not been ingenious 
 in the contrivance thereof. 'Twas a dull way 
 practised by Themistocles, to overwhelm him- PLUT. 
 self with bull's blood, who, being an Athenian, cap< 3T> 
 might have held an easier theory of death 
 from the state potion of his country ; from 
 which Socrates in Plato seemed not to suffer 
 much more than from the fit of an ague. Cato 
 
166 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 is much to be pitied, who mangled himself 
 with poyniards ; and Hannibal seems more 
 subtle, who carried his delivery, not in the 
 point but the pummel of his sword. 1 
 
 The ^Egyptians were mercifully contrivers, 
 who destroyed their malefactors by asps, 
 charming their senses into an invincible sleep, 
 and killing as it were with Hermes' s rod. 
 The Turkish Emperor, 2 odious for other cruelty, 
 was herein a remarkable master of mercy, 
 killing his favourite in his sleep, and sending 
 him from the shade into the house of dark- 
 ness. He who had been thus destroyed would 
 hardly have bled at the presence of his 
 destroyer: when men are already dead by 
 metaphor, and pass but from one sleep unto 
 another, wanting herein the eminent part of 
 severity, to feel themselves to die ; and escap- 
 ing the sharpest attendant of death, the lively 
 TO learn to apprehension thereof. But to learn to die, is 
 die, better better than to study the ways of dying. Death 
 
 than to study . , J. J , ft - 
 
 the ways of will find some ways to untie or cut the most 
 Gordian knots of life, and make men's miseries 
 as mortal as themselves ; whereas evil spirits, 
 as undying substances, are unseparable from 
 their calamities; and, therefore, they ever- 
 lastingly struggle under their angustias, and 
 bound up with immortality can never get out 
 of themselves. 
 
 1 Wherein he is said to have carried something whereby, 
 upon a struggle or despair, he might deliver himself from 
 all misfortunes. Juvenal says, it was carried in a ring 
 (Sat. x. 165). 
 
 2 Solyman. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 167 
 
 THE THIRD PART 
 
 'Tis hard to find a whole age to imitate, or NO one age 
 what century to propose for example. Some exem P lar y- 
 have been far more approvable than others; 
 but virtue and vice, panegyrics and satires, 
 scatteringly to be found in all. History sets 
 down not only things laudable, but abomin- 
 able : things which should never have been, 
 or never have been known ; so that noble 
 patterns must be fetched here and there from 
 single persons, rather than whole nations ; and 
 from all nations, rather than any one. The 
 world was early bad, and the first sin the most The world 
 deplorable of any. The younger world afforded early bad> 
 the oldest men, and perhaps the best and the 
 worst, when length of days made virtuous 
 habits heroical and immovable, vitious, in- 
 veterate, and irreclaimable. And since 'tis 
 said that the imaginations of their hearts were Gen. vi. 5. 
 evil, only evil, and continually evil ; it may be 
 feared that their sins held pace with their 
 lives; and their longevity swelling their im- 
 pieties, the longanimity of God would no 
 longer endure such vivacious abominations. 
 Their impieties were surely of a deep dye, 
 which required the whole element of water 
 to wash them away, and overwhelmed their 
 memories with themselves; and so shut up 
 the first windows of time, leaving no histories 
 
168 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 of those longevous generations, when men 
 might have been properly historians, when 
 Adam might have read long lectures unto 
 Methuselah, and Methuselah unto Noah. For 
 had we been happy in just historical accounts 
 of that unparalleled world, we might have 
 been acquainted with wonders; and have 
 understood not a little of the acts and under- 
 takings of Moses his mighty men, and men of 
 renown of old; which might have enlarged 
 our thoughts, and made the world older unto 
 us. For the unknown part of time shortens 
 the estimation, if not the compute of it. 
 What hath escaped our knowledge, falls not 
 under our consideration ; and what is and will 
 be latent, is little better than non-existent. 
 He honours 1 1. Some things are dictated for our in- 
 
 God who . . i r> 
 
 imitates him. struction, some acted tor our imitation ; 
 wherein 'tis best to ascend unto the highest 
 conformity, and to the honour of the exemplar. 
 He honours God, who imitates him ; for what 
 we virtuously imitate we approve and admire : 
 and since we delight not to imitate inferiors, 
 we aggrandize and magnify those we imitate ; 
 since also we are most apt to imitate those we 
 love, we testify our affection in our imitation 
 of the inimitable. To affect to be like, may 
 be no imitation : to act, and not to be what 
 we pretend to imitate, is but a mimical con- 
 formation, and carrieth no virtue in it. Lucifer 
 imitated not God, when he said he would be 
 like the highest : and he imitated not Jupiter, 
 who counterfeited thunder. Where imitation 
 can go 110 farther, let admiration step on, 
 whereof there is no end in the wisest form of 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 169 
 
 men. Even angels and spirits have enough 
 to admire in their sublimer natures ; admira- 
 tion being the act of the creature, and not of 
 God, who doth not admire himself. Created 
 natures allow of swelling hyperboles : nothing 
 can be said hyperbolically of God, nor will his 
 attributes admit of expressions above their 
 own exuperances. Trismegistus his circle, 
 whose centre is everywhere, and circum- 
 ference nowhere, was no hyperbole. Words 
 cannot exceed where they cannot express 
 enough. Even the most winged thoughts 
 fall at the setting out, and reach not the 
 portal of divinity. 
 
 III. In bivious theorems, and Janus-faced Embrace not 
 doctrines, let virtuous considerations state the Sdepf" 1 
 determination. Look upon opinions as thou P inions - 
 dost upon the moon, and choose not the dark 
 hemisphere for thy contemplation. Embrace 
 not the opacous and blind side of opinions, 
 but that which looks most luciferously or 
 influentially unto goodness. 'Tis better to 
 think that there are Guardian Spirits, than 
 that there are no spirits to guard us ; that 
 vicious persons are slaves, than that there 
 is any servitude in virtue ; that times past 
 have been better than times present, than that 
 times were always bad ; and that to be men 
 it sufficeth to be no better than men in all 
 ages, and so promiscuously to swim down the 
 turbid stream, and make up the grand con- 
 fusion. Sow not thy understanding with 
 opinions, which make nothing of iniquities, 
 and fallaciously extenuate transgressions. 
 Look upon vices and vicious objects with 
 
170 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 
 be 
 
 goodness. 
 
 St. Luke 
 
 viii. 2, 30. 
 
 hyperbolical eyes; and rather enlarge their 
 dimensions, that their unseen deformities 
 may not escape thy sense, and their poisonous 
 parts and stings may appear massy and mon- 
 strous unto thee: for the undiscerned particles 
 and atoms of evil deceive us, and we are un- 
 done by the invisibles of seeming goodness. 
 We are only deceived in what is not discerned, 
 and to err is but to be blind or dim-sighted as 
 to some perceptions. 
 
 ^' ^ ^ e non est in a right line, 1 and 
 virtuous by epitome, be firm unto such prin- 
 c ipl es f goodness, as carry in them volumes 
 of instruction and may abridge thy labour. 
 And since instructions are many, hold close 
 unto those whereon the rest depend : so may 
 we have all in a few, and the Law and the 
 Prophets in a rule, the Sacred Writ in steno- 
 graphy, and the Scripture in a nutshell. To 
 pursue the osseous and solid part of goodness, 
 which gives stability and rectitude to all the 
 rest ; to settle on fundamental virtues, and 
 bid early defiance unto mother-vices, which 
 carry in their bowels the seminals of other 
 iniquities; makes a short cut in goodness, 
 and strikes not off an head, but the whole 
 neck of Hydra. For we are carried into the 
 dark lake, like the ^Egyptian river into the 
 sea, by seven principal ostiaries. The mother- 
 sins of that number are the deadly engines of 
 evil spirits that undo us, and even evil spirits 
 themselves ; and he who is under the chains 
 thereof is not without a possession. Mary 
 Majrdalene had more than seven devils, if 
 1 Linea recta brevissima. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 171 
 
 these with their imps were in her; and he 
 who is thus possessed, may literally be named 
 Legion. Where such plants grow and prosper, 
 look for no champain or region void of thorns ; 
 but productions like the tree of Goa, 1 and 
 forests of abomination. 
 
 V. Guide not the hand of God, nor order Guide not 
 the finger of the Almighty unto thy will and of God! 
 pleasure ; but sit quiet in the soft showers of 
 Providence, and favourable distributions in 
 this world, either to thyself or others. And 
 since not only judgments have their errands, 
 but mercies their commissions ; snatch not at 
 every favour, nor think thyself passed by if 
 they fall upon thy neighbour. Rake not up 
 envious displacences at things successful unto 
 others, which the wise Disposer of all thinks 
 not fit for thyself. Reconcile the events of 
 things unto both beings, that is, of this world 
 and the next ; so will there not seem so many 
 riddles in Providence, nor various inequalities 
 in the dispensation of things below. If thou 
 dost not anoint thy face, yet put not on sack- 
 cloth at the felicities of others. Repining at Repine not 
 the good, draws on rejoicing at the evils of 
 others : and so falls into that inhuman vice, 2 
 for which so few languages have a name. The 
 blessed spirits above rejoice at our happiness 
 below : but to be glad at the evils of one 
 another, is beyond the malignity of hell ; and 
 falls not on evil spirits, who, though they 
 
 1 Arbor Goa de Ruyz, or Ficus Indica, whose branches 
 send down shoots which root in the ground, from whence 
 there successively rise others, till one tree becomes a 
 wood. 
 
172 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 rejoice at our unhappiness, take no pleasure 
 at the afflictions of their own society or of 
 their fellow natures. Degenerous heads ! 
 who must be fain to learn from such ex- 
 amples, and to be taught from the school 
 of hell. 
 Grain not yj Q ram no t thy vicious stains : nor 
 
 vicious stains . J 
 
 which deepen those swart tinctures, which temper, 
 
 wSheTmight infirmity, or ill-habits have set upon thee ; 
 expunge. and fix not, by iterated depravations, what 
 time might efface, or virtuous washes expunge. 
 He, who thus still advanceth in iniquity, 
 deepeneth his deformed hue ; turns a shadow 
 into night, and makes himself a negro in the 
 black jaundice ; and so becomes one of those 
 lost ones, the disproportionate pores of whose 
 brains afford no entrance unto good motions, 
 but reflect and frustrate all counsels, deaf unto 
 the thunder of the laws, and rocks unto the 
 cries of charitable commiserators. He who 
 hath had the patience of Diogenes, to make 
 orations unto statues, may more sensibly 
 apprehend how all words fall to the ground, 
 spent upon such a surd and earless genera- 
 tion of men, stupid unto all instruction, and 
 rather requiring an exorcist than an orator 
 for their conversion ! 
 
 VII. Burden not the back of Aries, Leo, 
 or Taurus, with thy faults ; nor make 
 Saturn, Mars, or Venus guilty of thy follies. 
 Think not to fasten thy imperfections on 
 the stars, and so despairingly conceive 
 thyself under a fatality of being evil. 
 Calculate thyself within ; seek not thyself 
 in the moon, but in thine own orb or 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 173 
 
 micro cosmical circumference. Let celestial 
 aspects admonish and advertise, not con- 
 clude and determine thy ways. For since 
 good and bad stars moralise not our actions, 
 and neither excuse or commend, acquit or 
 condemn our good or bad deeds at the 
 present or last bar; since some are astro- 
 logically well disposed who are morally 
 highly vicious; not celestial figures, but 
 virtuous schemes, must denominate and state 
 our actions. If we rightly understood the 
 names whereby God calleth the stars ; if we PS. cxlvii. 4. 
 knew his name for the Dog-Star, or by what 
 appellation Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn obey 
 his will ; it might be a welcome accession 
 unto astrology, which speaks great things, and 
 is fain to make use of appellations from Greek 
 and barbarick systems. Whatever influences, 
 impulsions, or inclinations there be from the 
 lights above, it were a piece of wisdom to 
 make one of those wise men who overrule 
 their stars, 1 and with their own militia con- 
 tend with the host of heaven. Unto which 
 attempt there want not auxiliaries from the 
 whole strength of morality, supplies from 
 Christian ethicks, influences also and illumina- 
 tions from above, more powerful than the 
 lights of heaven. 
 
 VIII. Confound not the distinctions of thy Let every 
 life which nature hath divided ; that is, youth, Hfe'be happy 
 adolescence, manhood, and old age : nor in ? its proper 
 these divided periods, wherein thou art in a 
 manner four, conceive thyself but one. Let 
 every division be happy in its proper virtues, 
 1 Sapiens dominabitur astris. 
 
174 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 nor one vice run through all. Let each 
 distinction have its salutary transition, and 
 critically deliver thee from the imperfections 
 of the former ; so ordering the whole, that 
 prudence and virtue may have the largest 
 section. Do as a child but when thou art a 
 child, and ride not on a reed at twenty. He 
 who hath not taken leave of the follies of his 
 youth, and in his maturer state scarce got out 
 of that division, disproportionately divideth 
 his days, crowds up the latter part of his life, 
 and leaves too narrow a corner for the age of 
 wisdom ; and so hath room to be a man scarce 
 longer than he hath been a youth. Rather 
 than to make this confusion, anticipate the 
 virtues of age, and live long without the 
 infirmities of it. So mayst thou count up 
 thy days as some do Adam's; 1 that is, by 
 anticipation; so mayst thou be coetaneous 
 unto thy elders, and a father unto thy con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 IX. While others are curious in the choice 
 of good air, and chiefly solicitous for healthful 
 habitations, study thou conversation, and be 
 critical in thy consortion. The aspects, con- 
 junctions, and configurations of the stars, 
 which mutually diversify, intend, or qualify 
 their influences, are but the varieties of their 
 nearer or farther conversation with one 
 another, and like the consortion of men, 
 whereby they become better or worse, and 
 even exchange their natures. Since men live 
 by examples, and will be imitating something, 
 
 1 Adam, thought to be created in the stete of man, 
 about thirty years old. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 175 
 
 order thy imitation to thy improvement, not JUSTIN. 
 thy ruin. Look not for roses in Attalus's 1 ** lst ' XXXV1 - 
 garden,, or wholesome flowers in a venomous 
 plantation. And since there is scarce any 
 one bad, but some others are the worse for 
 him ; tempt not contagion by proximity, and 
 hazard not thyself in the shadow of cor- 
 ruption. He who hath not early suffered this 
 shipwreck, and in his younger days escaped 
 this Charybdis, may make a happy voyage, 
 and not come in with black sails into the port. 
 Self-conversation, or to be alone, is better 
 than such consortion. Some school-men tell 
 us, that he is properly alone, with whom in 
 the same place there is no other of the same 
 species. Nabuchodonozor was alone, though Dan. iv. 
 among the beasts of the field; and a wise 
 man may be tolerably said to be alone, though 
 with a rabble of people little better than 
 beasts about him. Unthinking heads, who 
 have not learned to be alone, are in a prison 
 to themselves, if they be not also with 
 others : whereas, on the contrary, they whose 
 thoughts are in a fair, and hurry within, are 
 sometimes fain to retire into company, to be 
 out of the crowd of themselves. He who 
 must needs have company, must needs have 
 sometimes bad company. Be able to be alone. Be able to 
 Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the be alone> 
 society of thyself; nor be only content, but 
 delight to be alone and single with Omni- 
 presency. He who is thus prepared, the day 
 is not uneasy nor the night black unto him. 
 
 1 Attalus made a garden which contained only, venomous 
 plants. 
 
176 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 The whole 
 world a 
 phylactery 
 wisdom of 
 God in 
 everything 
 we see. 
 
 Darkness may bound his eyes, not his im- 
 agination. In his bed he may lie, like Pompey 
 and his sons, 1 in all quarters of the earth ; 
 may speculate the universe, and enjoy the 
 whole world in the hermitage of himself. 
 Thus the old ascetick Christians found a 
 paradise in a desert, and with little converse 
 on earth held a conversation in heaven ; thus 
 they astronomized in caves, and, though they 
 beheld not the stars, had the glory of heaven 
 before them. 
 
 X. Let the characters of good things stand 
 indelibly in thy mind, and thy thoughts be 
 active on them. Trust not too much unto 
 suggestions from reminiscential amulets, or 
 artificial memorandums. Let the mortifying 
 Janus of Covarrubias 2 be in thy daily thoughts, 
 not only on thy hand and signets. Rely not 
 alone upon silent and dumb remembrances. 
 Behold not death's heads till thou dost not 
 see them, nor look upon mortifying objects 
 till thou overlookest them. Forget not how 
 assuefaction unto anything minorates the 
 passion from it; how constant objects lose 
 their hints, and steal an inadvertisement 
 upon us. There is no excuse to forget what 
 everything prompts unto us. To thoughtful 
 observators, the whole world is a phylactery ; 
 
 1 Pompeios Juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsiim 
 Terra tegit Libyes. 
 
 2 Don Sebastian de Covarrubias writ three centuries of 
 moral emblems in Spanish. In the 88th of the second 
 century he sets down two faces averse, and conjoined 
 Janus-like ; the one, a gallant beautiful face, the other, 
 a death's-head face, with this motto out of Ovid's Meta- 
 morphoses : 
 
 Quidfwrim, quid simque, vide. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 177 
 
 and everything we see an item of the wisdom, 
 power, or goodness of God. Happy are they 
 who verify their amulets, and make their 
 phylacteries speak in their lives and actions. 
 To run on in despite of the revulsions and 
 pull-backs of such remoras aggravates our 
 transgressions. When death's heads on our 
 hands have no influence upon our heads, and 
 fleshless cadavers abate not the exorbitances 
 of the flesh; when crucifixes upon men's 
 hearts suppress not their bad commotions, 
 and His image who was murdered for us 
 withholds not from blood and murder; phy- 
 lacteries prove but formalities, and their 
 despised hints sharpen our condemnations. 
 
 XI. Look not for whales in the Euxine Think not to 
 Sea, or expect great matters where they are ontarthT" 
 not to be found. Seek not for profundity tru , e beati - , 
 
 in r ..i.. . .1 n J tudegroweth 
 
 in shallowness, or fertility in a wilderness, not here. 
 Place not the expectation of great happiness 
 here below, or think to find heaven on earth ; 
 wherein we must be content with embryon 
 felicities, and fruitions of doubtful faces : for 
 the circle of our felicities makes but short 
 arches. In every clime we are in a periscian 
 state ; and with our light, our shadow and 
 darkness walk about us. Our contentments 
 stand upon the tops of pyramids ready to fall 
 off, and the insecurity of their enjoyments 
 abrupteth our tranquillities. What we magnify 
 is magnificent ; but, like to the Colossus, noble 
 without, stuft with rubbage and coarse metal 
 within. Even the sun, whose glorious outside 
 we behold, may have dark and smoky entrails. 
 In vain we admire the lustre of anything 
 M 
 
178 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 seen : that which is truly glorious is invisible. 
 Paradise was but a part of the earth, lost not 
 only to our fruition but our knowledge. And 
 if, according to old dictates, no man can be 
 said to be happy before death, the happiness 
 of this life goes for nothing before it be over, 
 and while we think ourselves happy we do 
 but usurp that name. Certainly, true beati- 
 tude groweth not on earth, nor hath this 
 world in it the expectations we have of it. 
 He swims in oil, and can hardly avoid sinking, 
 who hath such light foundations to support 
 him : 'tis, therefore, happy that we have two 
 worlds to hold on. To enjoy true happiness, 
 we must travel into a very far country, and 
 even out of ourselves ; for the pearl we seek 
 for is not to be found in the Indian but in the 
 Empyrean Ocean. 
 
 XII. Answer not the spur of fury, and be 
 not prodigal or prodigious in revenge. Make 
 not one in the Historia Horribilis ; 1 flay not 
 thy servant for a broken glass, nor pound him 
 in a mortar who offendeth thee ; supererogate 
 not in the worst sense, and overdo not the 
 necessities of evil : humour not the injustice 
 of revenge. Be not stoically mistaken in the 
 equality of sins, nor commutatively iniquitous 
 in the valuation of transgressions ; but weigh 
 them in the scales of heaven, and by the 
 weights of righteous reason. Think that 
 revenge too high, which is but level with the 
 offence. Let thy arrows of revenge fly short ; 
 or be aimed like those of Jonathan, to fall 
 beside the mark. Too many there be to 
 1 A book so entituled wherein are sundry horrid accounts. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 179 
 
 whom a dead enemy smells well, and who 
 find musk and amber in revenge. The ferity 
 of such minds holds no rule in retaliations, 
 requiring too often a head for a tooth, and the 
 supreme revenge for trespasses which a night's 
 rest should obliterate. But patient meekness 
 takes injuries like pills, not chewing but 
 swallowing them down, laconically suffering, 
 and silently passing them over ; while angered Juy. Sat. 
 pride makes a noise, like Homerican Mars, at Xl 
 every scratch of offences. Since women do feminine 
 most delight in revenge, it may seem but manhood - 
 feminine manhood to be vindicative. If thou 
 must needs have thy revenge of thine enemy, 
 with a soft tongue break his bones, heap coals Prov. xxv. 
 of fire on his head, forgive him and enjoy it. I5 ' "' 22 ' 
 To forgive our enemies is a charming way of 
 revenge, and a short Caesarian conquest over- 
 coming without a blow ; laying our enemies at 
 our feet, under sorrow, shame, and repentance; 
 leaving our foes our friends, and solicitously 
 inclined to grateful retaliations. Thus to 
 return upon our adversaries, is a healing way 
 of revenge ; and to do good for evil a soft and 
 melting ultion, a method taught from heaven, 
 to keep all smooth on earth. Common forcible 
 ways make not an end of evil, but leave 
 hatred and malice behind them. An enemy 
 thus reconciled is little to be trusted, as 
 wanting the foundation of love and charity, 
 and but for a time restrained by disadvantage 
 or inability. If thou hast not mercy for others, if no mercy 
 yet be not cruel unto thyself. To ruminate 
 upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, 
 and be too acute in their apprehensions, is to 
 
180 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 add unto our tortures, to feather the arrows 
 of our enemies, to lash ourselves with the 
 scorpions of our foes, and to resolve to sleep 
 no more; for injuries long dreamt on, take 
 away at last all rest ; and he sleeps but like 
 Regulus, who busieth his head about them. 
 prophecies XIIL Amuse not thyself about the riddles 
 when they of future things. Study prophecies when 
 histories 6 tne y are become histories, and past hovering 
 in their causes. Eye well things past and 
 present, and let conjectural sagacity suffice 
 for things to come. There is a sober latitude 
 for prescience in contingences of discoverable 
 tempers, whereby discerning heads see some- 
 times beyond their eyes, and wise men become 
 prophetical. Leave cloudy predictions to 
 their periods, and let appointed seasons have 
 the lot of their accomplishments. 'Tis too 
 early to study such prophecies before they 
 have been long made, before some train of 
 their causes have already taken fire, laying 
 open in part what lay obscure and before 
 buried unto us. For the voice of prophecies 
 is like that of whispering-places : they who 
 are near, or at a little distance, hear nothing ; 
 those at the farthest extremity will under- 
 stand all. But a retrograde cognition of 
 times past, and things which have already 
 been, is more satisfactory than a suspended 
 knowledge of what is yet unexistent. And 
 the greatest part of time being already wrapt 
 up in things behind us ; it 's now somewhat 
 late to bait after things before us ; for futurity 
 still shortens, and time present sucks in time 
 to come. What is prophetical in one age 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 181 
 
 proves historical in another, and so must hold 
 
 on unto the last of time ; when there will be 
 
 no room for prediction, when Janus shall lose 
 
 one face, and the long beard of time shall 2 Sam. x. 4. 
 
 look like those of David's servants, shorn away 
 
 upon one side ; and when, if the expected 
 
 Elias should appear, he might say much of 
 
 what is past, not much of what 's to come. 
 
 XIV. Live unto the dignity of thy nature, 
 and leave it not disputable at last, whether of t hy 
 thou hast been a man ; or, since thou art a nature - 
 composition of man and beast, how thou hast 
 predominantly passed thy days, to state the 
 denomination. Unman not, therefore, thyself 
 by a bestial transformation, nor realize old 
 fables. Expose not thyself by four-footed 
 manners unto monstrous draughts, and cari- 
 catura representations. Think not after the 
 old Pythagorean conceit, what beast thou 
 mayst be after death. Be not under any 
 brutal metempsychosis, while thou livest and 
 walkest about erectly under the scheme of 
 man. In thine own circumference, as in that 
 of the earth, let the rational horizon be larger 
 than the sensible, and the circle of reason 
 than of sense : let the divine part be upward, 
 and the region of beast below ; otherwise, 'tis 
 but to live invertedly, and with thy head 
 unto the heels of thy antipodes. Desert not 
 thy title to a divine particle and union with 
 invisibles. Let true knowledge and virtue 
 tell the lower world thou art a part of the 
 higher. Let thy thoughts be of things which 
 have not entered into the hearts of beasts: 
 think of things long past, and long to come : 
 
182 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 acquaint thyself with the choragium of the 
 stars, and consider the vast expansion beyond 
 them. Let intellectual tubes give thee a 
 glance of things which visive organs reach 
 not. Have a glimpse of incomprehensibles ; 
 and thoughts of things, which thoughts but 
 tenderly touch. Lodge immaterials in thy 
 head ; ascend unto invisibles ; fill thy spirit 
 with spirituals, with the mysteries of faith, 
 the magnalities of religion, and thy life with 
 the honour of God ; without which, though 
 giants in wealth and dignity, we are but 
 dwarfs and pygmies in humanity, and may 
 hold a pitiful rank in that triple division of 
 mankind into heroes, men, and beasts. For 
 though human souls are said to be equal, yet 
 is there no small inequality in their opera- 
 tions; some maintain the allowable station of 
 men ; many are far below it ; and some have 
 been so divine, as to approach the apogeum of 
 their natures, and to be in the confinium of 
 spirits. 
 
 XV. Behold thyself by inward opticks and 
 the crystalline of thy soul. Strange it is, that 
 in the most perfect sense there should be so 
 many fallacies, that we are fain to make a 
 doctrine, and often to see by art. But the 
 greatest imperfection is in our inward sight, 
 that is, to be ghosts unto our own eyes ; and 
 while we are so sharp-sighted as to look 
 through others, to be invisible unto ourselves ; 
 for the inward eyes are more fallacious than 
 scoff n ^ ie ou t war d. The vices we scoff at in others, 
 others, laugh laugh at us within ourselves. Avarice, pride, 
 falsehood lie undiscerned and blindly in us, 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 183 
 
 even to the age of blindness ; and, therefore, 
 to see ourselves interiorly, we are fain to 
 borrow other men's eyes ; wherein true friends 
 are good informers, and censurers no bad 
 friends. Conscience only, that can see with- 
 out light, sits in the areopagy and dark 
 tribunal of our hearts, surveying our thoughts 
 and condemning their obliquities. Happy is 
 that state of vision that can see without light, 
 though all should look as before the creation, 
 when there was not an eye to see, or light 
 to actuate a vision : wherein, notwithstanding, 
 obscurity is only imaginable respectively unto 
 eyes ; for unto God there was none : eternal 
 light was ever; created light was for the 
 creation, not himself; and, as he saw before 
 the sun, may still also see without it. In the 
 city of the new Jerusalem there is neither sun Rev. xxi. 23. 
 nor moon ; where glorified eyes must see by 
 the archetypal sun, or the light of God, able 
 to illuminate intellectual eyes, and make 
 unknown visions. Intuitive perceptions in 
 spiritual beings may, perhaps, hold some 
 analogy unto vision : but yet how they see us, 
 or one another, what eye, what light, or what 
 perception is required unto their intuition, is 
 yet dark unto our apprehension; and even 
 how they see God, or how unto our glorified 
 eyes the beatifical vision will be celebrated, 
 another world must tell us, when perceptions 
 will be new, and we may hope to behold 
 invisibles. 
 
 XVI. When all looks fair about, and thou Forget not 
 seest not a cloud so big as a hand to threaten JhLgs, e but 
 thee, forget not the wheel of things : think of beat not tfa y 
 
184 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 sullen vicissitudes, but beat not thy brains to 
 foreknow them. Be armed against such 
 obscurities, rather by submission than fore- 
 knowledge. The knowledge of future evils 
 mortifies present felicities, and there is more 
 content in the uncertainty or ignorance of 
 them. This favour our Saviour vouchsafed 
 unto Peter, when he foretold not his death in 
 plain terms, and so by an ambiguous and cloudy 
 delivery damped not the spirit of his disciples. 
 But in the assured foreknowledge of the 
 deluge, Noah lived many years under the 
 affliction of a flood ; and Jerusalem was taken 
 unto Jeremy, before it was besieged. And, 
 therefore, the wisdom of astrologers, who 
 speak of future things, hath wisely softened 
 the severity of their doctrines; and even in 
 their sad predictions, while they tell us of 
 inclination not coaction from the stars, they 
 kill us not with Stygian oaths and merciless 
 necessity, but leave us hopes of evasion. 
 
 XVII. If thou hast the brow to endure the 
 name of traitor, perjured, or oppressor, yet 
 cover thy face when ingratitude is thrown at 
 thee. If that degenerous vice possess thee, 
 hide thyself in the shadow of thy shame, and 
 pollute not noble society. Grateful ingenuities 
 are content to be obliged within some compass 
 of retribution ; and being depressed by the 
 weight of iterated favours, may so labour 
 under their inabilities of requital, as to abate 
 the content from kindnesses ; but narrow self- 
 ended souls make prescription of good offices, 
 and obliged by often favours think others still 
 due unto them ; whereas, if they but once 
 
r 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 185 
 
 fail, they prove so perversely ungrateful, as to 
 make nothing of former courtesies, and to 
 bury all that's past. Such tempers pervert 
 the generous course of things; for they dis- 
 courage the inclinations of noble minds, and 
 make beneficency cool unto acts of obligation, 
 whereby the grateful world should subsist, and 
 have their consolation. Common gratitude 
 must be kept alive by the additionally fuel of 
 new courtesies : but generous gratitudes, 
 though but once well obliged, without quicken- 
 ing repetitions or expectation of new favours, 
 have thankful minds for ever ; for they write 
 not their obligations in sandy but marble 
 memories, which wear not out but with them- 
 selves. 
 
 XVIII. Think not silence the wisdom of virtue of 
 fools ; but, if rightly timed, the honour of wise taciturnifc y- 
 men, who have not the infirmity, but the 
 virtue of taciturnity; and speak not out of 
 
 the abundance, bnt the well-weighed thoughts St. Matt. 
 of their hearts. Such silence may be elo- xiL 34- 
 quence, and speak thy worth above the power 
 of words. Make such a one thy friend, in 
 whom princes may be happy, and great 
 counsels successful. Let him have the key of 
 thy heart, who hath the lock of his own, 
 which no temptation can open ; where thy 
 secrets may lastingly lie, like the lamp in 
 Olybius his urn, 1 alive, and light, but close and 
 invisible. 
 
 XIX. Let thy oaths be sacred, and promises Oaths. 
 be made upon the altar of thy heart. Call 
 
 1 Which after many hundred years was found burning 
 under ground, and went out as soon as the air came to it. 
 
186 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 not Jove to witness with a stone in one hand, 
 and a straw in another; and so make chaff 
 and stubble of thy vows. Worldly spirits, 
 whose interest is their belief, make cobwebs 
 of obligations ; and, if they can find ways to 
 elude the urn of the Praetor, 1 will trust the 
 thunderbolt of Jupiter : and,, therefore, if they 
 should as deeply swear as Osman to Bethlem 
 KNOLLES' Gabor ; yet whether they would be bound by 
 
 Hist, of the ,11. f, J , r 
 
 Turks, those chains, and not find ways to cut such 
 Gordian knots, we could have no just assur- 
 Honest ance. But honest men's words are Stygian 
 
 men s we 
 
 St - ian rds oa * ns ^ an d promises inviolable. These are not 
 oaths. the men for whom the fetters of law were 
 
 first forged ; they needed not the solemnness 
 of oaths ; by keeping their faith they swear, 
 and evacuate such confirmations. 
 
 perso " ate XX. Though the world be histrionical, and 
 most men live ironically, yet be thou what 
 thou singly art, and personate only thyself. 
 Swim smoothly in the stream of thy nature, 
 and live but one man. To single hearts 
 doubling is discruciating : such tempers must 
 sweat to dissemble, and prove but hypocritical 
 hypocrites. Simulation must be short; men 
 do not easily continue a counterfeiting life, 
 or dissemble unto death. He who counter- 
 feiteth, acts a part ; and is, as it were, out of 
 himself: which, if long, proves so irksome, 
 that men are glad to pull off their vizards, and 
 resume themselves again; no practice being 
 able to naturalize such unnaturals, or make a 
 man rest content not to be himself. And, 
 
 1 The vessel into which the ticket of condemnation or 
 acquittal was cast. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 187 
 
 therefore, since sincerity is thy temper, let 
 veracity be thy virtue, in words, manners, and Let veracity 
 actions. To offer at iniquities, which have so b wwdj*"" 
 little foundations in thee, were to be vitious manners, 
 up-hill, and strain for thy condemnation. an 
 Persons vitiously inclined, want no wheels to 
 make them actively vitious; as having the 
 elater and spring of their own natures to 
 facilitate their iniquities. And, therefore, so 
 many, who are sinistrous unto good actions, 
 are ambidexterous unto bad ; and Vulcans in 
 virtuous paths, Achilleses in vitious motions. 
 
 XXI. Rest not in the high-strained para- Labour in 
 doxes of old philosophy, supported by naked Sfalth^'not 
 reason, and the reward of mortal felicity ; but in old high- 
 labour in the ethicks of faith, built upon paradoxes. 
 heavenly assistance, and the happiness of both 
 beings. Understand the rules, but swear not 
 
 unto the doctrines of Zeno or Epicurus. Look 
 beyond Antoninus, and terminate not thy 
 morals in Seneca or Epictetus. Let not the 
 twelve but the two tables be thy law : let 
 Pythagoras be thy remembrancer, not thy 
 textuary and final instructor : and learn the 
 vanity of the world, rather from Solomon than 
 Phocylides. Sleep not in the dogmas of the 
 Peripatus, Academy, or Porticus* Be a 
 moralist of the mount, an Epictetus in the 
 faith, and christianize thy notions. 
 
 XXII. In seventy or eighty years, a man in seventy 
 may have a deep gust of the world ; know earf, h one 
 what it is, what it can afford, and what 'tis may have a 
 to have been a man. Such a latitude of of 
 years may hold a considerable corner in the c . ourse of 
 
 i / . T i time. 
 
 general map or time ; and a man may have a 
 
188 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 curt epitome of the whole course thereof in 
 the days of his own life ; may clearly see he 
 hath but acted over his forefathers ; what it 
 was to live in ages past, and what living will 
 be in all ages to come. 
 
 He is like to be the best judge of time, 
 who hath lived to see about the sixtieth part 
 thereof. Persons of short times may know 
 what 'tis to live, but not the life of man, who, 
 having little behind them, are but Januses of 
 one face, and know not singularities enough 
 to raise axioms of this world; but such a 
 compass of years will show new examples of 
 old things, parallelisms of occurrences through 
 the whole course of time, and nothing be 
 monstrous unto him ; who may in that time 
 understand not only the varieties of men, but 
 the variation of himself, and how many men 
 he hath been in that extent of time. 
 
 He may have a close apprehension what 
 is to be forgotten, while he hath lived to find 
 none who could remember his father, or scarce 
 the friends of his youth ; and may sensibly see 
 with what a face in no long time oblivion will 
 look upon himself. His progeny may never 
 be his posterity ; he may go out of the world 
 less related than he came into it; and con- 
 sidering the frequent mortality in friends and 
 relations, in such a term of time, he may pass 
 away divers years in sorrow and black habits, 
 and leave none to mourn for himself; orbity 
 may be his inheritance, and riches his re- 
 pentance. 
 
 In such a thread of time, and long observa- 
 tion of men, he may acquire a physiognomical 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 189 
 
 intuitive knowledge ; judge the interiors by 
 the outside, and raise conjectures at first sight ; 
 and knowing what men have been, what they 
 are, what children probably will be, may in 
 the present age behold a good part and the 
 temper of the next; and since so many live 
 by the rules of constitution, and so few over- 
 come their temperamental inclinations, make 
 no improbable predictions. 
 
 Such a portion of time will afford a} large 
 prospect backward and authentick reflections 
 how far he hath performed the great intention 
 of his being, in the honour of his Maker: 
 whether he hath made good the principles of 
 his nature, and what he was made to be ; what 
 characteristick and special mark he hath left, 
 to be observable in his generation; whether 
 he hath lived to purpose or in vain ; and what 
 he hath added, acted, or performed, that might 
 considerably speak him a man. 
 
 In such an age, delights will be undelight- 
 ful, and pleasures grow stale unto him ; anti- 
 quated theorems will revive, and Solomon's 
 maxims be demonstrations unto him ; hopes or 
 presumptions be over, and despair grow up of 
 any satisfaction below. And having been 
 long tossed in the ocean of this world, he will 
 by that time feel the in-draught of another, 
 unto which this seems but preparatory, and 
 without it of no high value. He will experi- 
 mentally find the emptiness of all things, and 
 the nothing of what is past ; and wisely 
 
 f rounding upon true Christian expectations, 
 nding so much past, will wholly fix upon 
 what is to come. He will long for perpetuity, 
 
190 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 Elysium of 
 a virtuously 
 composed 
 mind* 
 
 Forget not 
 the capital 
 end of once 
 living. 
 
 and live as though he made haste to be happy. 
 The last may prove the prime part of his life, 
 and those his best days which he lived nearest 
 heaven. 
 
 XXIII. Live happy in the Elysium of a 
 virtuously composed mind, and let intellectual 
 contents exceed the delights wherein mere 
 pleasurists place their paradise. Bear not too 
 slack reins upon pleasure, nor let complexion 
 or contagion betray thee unto the exorbitancy 
 of delight. Make pleasure thy recreation or 
 intermissive relaxation, not thy Diana, life, 
 and profession. Voluptuousness is as insati- 
 able as covetousness. Tranquillity is better 
 than jollity, and to appease pain than to invent 
 pleasure. Our hard entrance into the world, 
 our miserable going out of it, our sicknesses, 
 disturbances, and sad rencounters in it, do 
 clamorously tell us we come not into the world 
 to run a race of delight, but to perform the 
 sober acts and serious purposes of man ; which 
 to omit were foully to miscarry in the advan- 
 tage of humanity, to play away an uniterable 
 life, and to have lived in vain. Forget not 
 the capital end, and frustrate not the oppor- 
 tunity of once living. Dream not of any kind 
 of metempsychosis or transanimation, but into 
 thine own body, and that after a long time ; 
 and then also unto wail or bliss, according to 
 thy first and fundamental life. Upon a curricle 
 in this world depends a long course of the 
 next, and upon a narrow scene here an endless 
 expansion hereafter. In vain some think to 
 have an end of their beings with their lives. 
 Things cannot get out of their natures, or be 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 191 
 
 or not be in despite of their constitutions. 
 Rational existences in heaven perish not at 
 all, and but partially on earth : that which is 
 thus once, will in some way be always : the 
 first living human soul is still alive, and all 
 Adam hath found no period. 
 
 XXIV. Since the stars of heaven do differ i Cor. xy. 41. 
 in glory ; since it hath pleased the Almighty SrSSTSSd 
 hand to honour the north pole with liffhts ^ai be , . 
 
 righted in 
 
 above the south ; since there are some stars the world 
 so bright that they can hardly be looked on, to come> 
 some so dim that they can scarce be seen, 
 and vast numbers not to be seen at all, even 
 by artificial eyes ; read thou the earth in 
 heaven, and things below from above. Look 
 contentedly upon the scattered difference of 
 things, and expect not equality in lustre, 
 dignity, or perfection, in regions or persons 
 below; where numerous numbers must be 
 content to stand like lacteous or nebulous 
 stars, little taken notice of, or dim in their 
 generations. All which may be contentedly 
 allowable in the affairs and ends of this world, 
 and in suspension unto what will be in the 
 order of things hereafter, and the new system 
 of mankind which will be in the world to 
 come ; when the last may be the first, and the first St. Matt. 
 the last ; when Lazarus may sit above Caesar, xml 43.' 
 and the just obscure on earth shall shine like 
 the sun in heaven; when personations shall 
 cease, and histrionism of happiness be over; 
 when reality shall rule, and all shall be as 
 they shall be for ever. 
 
 XXV. When the stoick said that life * would 
 1 Vitam nemo acciperet, si daretur scientilus. Seneca. 
 
192 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 this life, 
 that it is 
 exordial to 
 a better. 
 
 De Settee. 
 xxiii. 
 
 Job iii. i. 
 
 of not be accepted, if it were offered unto such 
 as knew it, he spoke too meanly of that state 
 of being which placeth us in the form of men. 
 It more depreciates the value of this life, that 
 men would not live it over again ; for although 
 they would still live on, yet few or none can 
 endure to think of being twice the same men 
 upon earth, and some had rather never have 
 lived than to tread over their days once more. 
 Cicero in a prosperous state had not the 
 patience to think of beginning in a cradle again. 
 Job would not only curse the day of his nati- 
 vity, but also of his renascency, if he were to act 
 over his disasters and the miseries of the dung- 
 hill. But the greatest underweening of this 
 life is to undervalue that, unto which this is 
 but exordial or a passage leading unto it. The 
 great advantage of this mean life is thereby 
 to stand in a capacity of a better; for the 
 colonies of heaven must be drawn from earth, 
 and the sons of the first Adam are only heirs 
 unto the second. Thus Adam came into this 
 world with the power also of another; not 
 only to replenish the earth, but the everlasting 
 mansions of heaven. Where we were when 
 the foundations of the earth were laid, when 
 Job xxxviii. the morning stars sang together, and all the sons 
 4) 1 ' of God shouted for joy, He must answer who 
 
 asked it; who understands entities of pre- 
 ordination, and beings yet unbeing ; who hath 
 in his intellect the ideal existences of things, 
 and entities before their extances. Though 
 it looks but like an imaginary kind of exist- 
 ency, to be before we are ; yet since we are 
 under the decree or prescience of a sure and 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 193 
 
 omnipotent power, it may be somewhat more 
 than a nonentity, to be in that mind, unto 
 which all things are present. 
 
 XXVI. If the end of the world shall have That the 
 the same foregoing signs, as the period of 
 empires, states, and dominions in it, that is, f^ n 
 corruption of manners, inhuman degenerations, of n <aod! 
 and deluge of iniquities : it may be doubted, 
 whether that final time be so far off, of whose 
 day and hour there can be no prescience. But 
 while all men doubt, and none can determine 
 how long the world shall last, some may 
 wonder that it hath spun out so long and unto 
 our days. For if the Almighty had not deter- 
 mined a fixed duration unto it, according to 
 his mighty and merciful designments in it ; if 
 he had not said unto it, as he did unto a part 
 of it, Hitherto shalt ihou go and no farther ; if job 
 we consider the incessant and cutting provoca- 
 tions from the earth ; it is not without amaze- 
 ment, how his patience hath permitted so long 
 a continuance unto it; how he, who cursed 
 the earth in the first days of the first man, and 
 drowned it in the tenth generation after, should 
 thus lastingly contend with flesh, and yet 
 defer the last flames. For since he is sharply 
 provoked every moment, yet punisheth to 
 pardon, and forgives to forgive again ; what 
 patience could be content to act over such 
 vicissitudes, or accept of repentances which 
 must have after-penitences, his goodness can 
 only tell us. And surely if the patience of 
 heaven were not proportionable unto the pro- 
 vocations from earth, there needed an inter- 
 cessor not only for the sins, but the duration 
 N 
 
 XXXV111. IT. 
 
194 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 of this world, and to lead it up unto the pre- 
 Ps. cii. 25, 26. sent computation. Without such a merciful 
 longanimity, the heavens would never be so 
 aged as to grow old like a garment. It were 
 in vain to infer from the doctrine of the sphere, 
 that the time might come, when Capella, a 
 noble northern star, would have its motion 
 in the equator; that the northern zodiacal 
 signs would at length be the southern, the 
 southern the northern, and Capricorn become 
 our Cancer. However, therefore, the wisdom 
 of the Creator hath ordered the duration of 
 the world, yet since the end thereof brings the 
 accomplishment of our happiness, since some 
 would be content that it should have no end, 
 since evil men and spirits do fear it may be too 
 Rev. vi. 9, 10. short, since good men hope it may not be too 
 long ; the prayer of the saints under the altar 
 will be the supplication of the righteous 
 world : that his mercy would abridge their 
 languishing expectation, and hasten the ac- 
 complishment of their happy state to come. 
 isa. ivii. i. XXVII. Though good men are often taken 
 away from the evil to come ; though some in 
 
 men 
 
 for the ev ji Jays have been glad that they were old, 
 bettering. nor long to behold the iniquities of a wicked 
 world, or judgments threatened by them; yet 
 is it no small satisfaction unto honest minds, 
 to leave the world in virtuous well-tempered 
 times, under a prospect of good to come, and 
 continuation of worthy ways acceptable unto 
 God and man. Men who die in deplorable 
 days, which they regretfully behold, have not 
 their eyes closed with the like content ; while 
 they cannot avoid the thoughts of proceeding 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 195 
 
 or growing enormities displeasing unto that 
 Spirit unto whom they are then going, whose 
 honour they desire in all times and throughout 
 all generations. If Lucifer could be freed 
 from his dismal place, he would little care 
 though the rest were left behind. Too many 
 there may be of Nero's mind, who, if their own 
 turn were served, would not regard what 
 became of others ; and when they die them- 
 selves, care not if all perish. But good men's 
 wishes extend beyond their lives, for the 
 happiness of times to come, and never to be 
 known unto them. And, therefore, while so 
 many question prayers for the dead, they 
 charitably pray for those who are not yet 
 alive ; they are not so enviously ambitious to 
 go to heaven by themselves ; they cannot but 
 humbly wish, that the little flock might be st. Luke 
 greater, the narrow gate wider, and that, as j- ffi^ 
 many are called, so not a few might be xxii. i 4 . 
 chosen. 
 
 XXVIII. That a greater number of angels 
 remained in heaven, than fell from it, the 
 schoolmen will tell us; that the number of 
 blessed souls will not come short of that vast 
 number of fallen spirits, we have the favourable 
 calculation of others. What age or century 
 hath sent most souls unto heaven, he can tell 
 who vouchsafeth that honour unto them. 
 Though the number of the blessed must be The world 
 complete before the world can pass away ; yet 
 since the world itself seems in the wane, and 
 we have no such comfortable prognosticks of 
 latter times ; since a greater part of time is 
 spun than is to come, and the blessed roll 
 
196 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 already much replenished ; happy are those 
 pieties, which solicitously look about, and 
 hasten to make one of that already much 
 filled and abbreviated list to come. 
 
 The world a XXIX. Think not thy time short in this 
 
 FnTternity! world, since the world itself is not long. The 
 created world is but a small parenthesis in 
 eternity, and a short interposition, for a time, 
 between such a state of duration as was before 
 it and may be after it. And if we should 
 allow of the old tradition, that the world 
 should last six thousand years, it could scarce 
 have the name of old, since the first man lived 
 near a sixth part thereof, and seven Methu- 
 
 Gen. Y. 5, 27. selahs would exceed its whole duration. 
 However, to palliate the shortness of our 
 lives, and somewhat to compensate our brief 
 term in this world, it 's good to know as much 
 as we can of it ; and also, so far as possibly in 
 us lieth, to hold such a theory of times past, 
 as though we had seen the same. He who 
 
 Parallelisms hath thus considered the world, as also how 
 tnereil1 things long past have been answered 
 by things present; how matters in one age 
 have been acted over in another; and how 
 
 Eccl. i. 9, 10. there is nothing new under the sun ; may conceive 
 himself in some manner to have lived from 
 the beginning, and be as old as the world ; 
 and if he should still live on, 'twould be but 
 the same thing. 
 
 XXX. Lastly; if length of days be thy 
 portion, make it not thy expectation. Reckon 
 not upon long life : think every day the last, 
 and live always beyond thy account. He that 
 so often surviveth his expectation lives many 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALS 197 
 
 lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness 
 of his days. Time past is gone like a shadow ; 
 make time to come present. Approximate 
 thy latter times by present apprehensions of 
 them : be like a neighbour unto the grave, 
 and think there is but little to come. And 
 since there is something of us that will still Join both 
 live on, join both lives together, and live in gSher"and 
 one but for the other. He who thus ordereth Jive in'one 
 
 .1 i> ,1 t'f 11 if but for the 
 
 the purposes or this lite, will never be far other. 
 from the next, and is in some manner already 
 in it, by a happy conformity, and close appre- 
 hension of it. And if (as we have elsewhere 
 declared) any have been so happy, as personally 
 to understand Christian annihilation, ecstasy, 
 exolution, transformation, the kiss of the 
 spouse, and ingression into the divine shadow, 
 according to mystical theology, they have 
 already had an handsome anticipation of 
 heaven ; the world is in a manner over, and 
 the earth is ashes unto them. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 UPON OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF 
 HIS INTIMATE FRIEND 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 GIVE me leave to wonder that news of this 
 nature should have such heavy wings that you 
 should hear so little concerning your dearest 
 friend, and that I must make that unwilling 
 repetition to tell you, ad portam rigidos calces 
 extendit, that he is dead and buried, and by 
 this time no puny among the mighty nations 
 of the dead ; for though he left this world not 
 very many days past, yet every hour you know 
 largely addeth unto that dark society; and 
 considering the incessant mortality of man- 
 kind, you cannot conceive there dieth in the 
 whole earth so few as a thousand an hour. 
 
 Although at this distance you had no early 
 account or particular of his death, yet your 
 affection may cease to wonder that you had 
 not some secret sense or intimation thereof 
 by dreams, thoughtful whisperings, mer- 
 curisms, airy nuncios or sympathetical in- 
 sinuations, which many seem to have had at 
 the death of their dearest friends : for since 
 we find in that famous story, that spirits 
 themselves were fain to tell their fellows at 
 a distance that the great Antonio was dead, 
 we have a sufficient excuse for our ignorance 
 in such particulars, and must rest content 
 with the common road, and Appian way of 
 knowledge by information. Though the 
 
202 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 uncertainty of the end of this world hath 
 confounded all human predictions; yet they 
 who shall live to see the sun and moon 
 darkened and the stars to fall from heaven, 
 will hardly be deceived in the advent of 
 the last day; and therefore strange it is, 
 that the common fallacy of consumptive 
 persons who feel not themselves dying, and 
 therefore still hope to live, should also reach 
 their friends in perfect health and judgment; 
 that you should be so little acquainted with 
 Plautus's sick complexion, or that almost an 
 Hippocratical face should not alarum you to 
 higher fears, or rather despair, of his continua- 
 tion in such an emaciated state, wherein 
 medical predictions fail not, as sometimes in 
 acute diseases, and wherein 'tis as dangerous 
 to be sentenced by a physician as a judge. 
 
 Upon my first visit I was bold to tell them 
 who had not let fall all hopes of his recovery, 
 that in my sad opinion he was not like to be- 
 hold a grasshopper, much less to pluck another 
 fig ; and in no long time after seemed to dis- 
 cover that odd mortal symptom in him not 
 mentioned by Hippocrates, that is, to lose his 
 own face, and look like some of his near 
 relations; for he maintained not his proper 
 countenance, but looked like his uncle, the 
 lines of whose face lay deep and invisible in 
 his healthful visage before : for as from our 
 beginning we run through variety of looks, 
 before we come to consistent and settled faces; 
 so before our end, by sick and languishing 
 alterations, we put on new visages : and in 
 our retreat to earth, may fall upon such looks 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 203 
 
 which from community of seminal originals 
 were before latent in us. 
 
 He was fruitlessly put in hope of advantage 
 by change of air, and imbibing the pure aerial 
 nitre of these parts ; and therefore, being so 
 far spent, he quickly found Sardinia in Tivoli, 1 
 and the most healthful air of little effect, 
 where death had set her broad arrow ; 2 for he 
 lived not unto the middle of May, and con- 
 firmed the observation of Hippocrates of that HIPPOC. 
 mortal time of the year when the leaves of the E * idem ' 
 fig-tree resemble a daw's claw. He is happily 
 seated who lives in places whose air, earth, 
 and water promote not the infirmities of his 
 weaker parts, or is early removed into regions 
 that correct them. He that is tabidly inclined, 
 were unwise to pass his days in Portugal : 
 cholical persons will find little comfort in 
 Austria or Vienna : he that is weak-legged 
 must not be in love with Rome, nor an infirm 
 head with Venice or Paris. Death hath not 
 only particular stars in heaven, but malevolent 
 places on earth, which single out our infirmi- 
 ties, and strike at our weaker parts ; in which 
 concern passager and migrant birds have the 
 great advantages; who are naturally consti- 
 tuted for distant habitations, whom no seas nor 
 places limit, but in their appointed seasons 
 will visit us from Greenland and Mount Atlas, BELLONIUS 
 and as some think, even from the Antipodes. de Avibus - 
 
 Though we could not have his life, yet we 
 missed not our desires in his soft departure, 
 
 1 Cum mors venerit, in medio Tibure Sardinia est. 
 
 2 In the king's forests they set the figure of a broad 
 arrow upon trees that are to be cut down. 
 
204 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 which was scarce an expiration ; and his end 
 not unlike his beginning, when the salient 
 point scarce affords a sensible motion, and his 
 departure so like unto sleep, that he scarce 
 needed the civil ceremony of closing his eyes ; 
 contrary unto the common way, wherein death 
 draws up, sleep lets fall the eyelids. With 
 what strift and pains we came into the world 
 we know not; but 'tis commonly no easy 
 matter to get out of it : yet if it could be 
 made out, that such who have easy nativities 
 have commonly hard deaths, and contrarily; 
 his departure was so easy, that we might 
 justly suspect his birth was of another nature, 
 and that some Juno sat cross-legged at his 
 nativity. 
 
 Besides his soft death, the incurable state 
 of his disease might somewhat extenuate your 
 sorrow, who know that monsters but seldom 
 happen, 1 miracles more rarely, in physick. 2 
 Angelus Victorius gives a serious account of a 
 consumptive, hectical, phthisical woman, who 
 was suddenly cured by the intercession of 
 Ignatius. We read not of any in Scripture 
 who in this case applied unto our Saviour, 
 though some may be contained in that large 
 St. Matt. expression, that He went about Galilee healing 
 iv - 2 3- all manner of sickness and all manner of diseases. 
 
 Amulets, spells, sigils, and incantations, prac- 
 tised in other diseases, are seldom pretended 
 in this ; and we find no sigil in the Archidoxis 
 of Paracelsus to cure an extreme consumption 
 
 1 Monstra contingunt in Medicina. Hippoc. 
 
 2 Strange and rare escapes there happen sometimes in 
 physic. Angeli Victorii Consititationes. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 205 
 
 or marasmus, which, if other diseases fail, will 
 put a period unto long livers, and at last 
 makes dust of all. And therefore the stoicks 
 could not but think that the fiery principle 
 would wear out all the rest, and at last make 
 an end of the world, which notwithstanding 
 without such a lingering period the Creator 
 may effect at his pleasure : and to make an 
 end of all things on earth, and our planetical 
 system of the world, he need but put out the 
 sun. 
 
 I was not so curious to entitle the stars 
 unto any concern of his death, yet could not 
 but take notice that he died when the moon 
 was in motion from the meridian; at which 
 time an old Italian long ago would persuade 
 me that the greatest part of men died : but 
 herein I confess I could never satisfy my 
 curiosity ; although from the time of tides in 
 places upon or near the sea, there may be 
 considerable deductions ; and Pliny l hath an 
 odd and remarkable passage concerning the 
 death of men and animals upon the recess or 
 ebb of the sea. However, certain it is, he 
 died in the dead and deep part of the night, 
 when Nox might be most apprehensibly said 
 to be the daughter of Chaos, the mother of 
 Sleep and Death, according to old genealogy ; 
 and so went out of this world about that hour 
 when our blessed Saviour entered it, and about 
 what time many conceive He will return again 
 unto it. Cardan hath a peculiar and no hard 
 
 1 Aristoteles nullum animal nisi cestu recedente expirare 
 affirmat: observatum id multum, in Gallico Oceano et 
 duntaxat in Homine compertum, lib. ii. cap. 101. 
 
206 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 observation from a man's hand to know 
 whether he was born in the day or night, 
 which I confess holdeth in my own; and 
 Scaliger to that purpose hath another from 
 the tip of the ear. 1 Most men are begotten 
 in the night, animals in the day ; but whether 
 more persons have been born in the night or 
 the day, were a curiosity undecidable, though 
 more have perished by violent deaths in the 
 day; yet in natural dissolutions both times 
 may hold an indifferency, at least but contin- 
 gent inequality. The whole course of time 
 runs out in the nativity and death of things ; 
 which, whether they happen by succession or 
 coincidence, are best computed by the natural 
 not artificial day. 
 
 That Charles the Fifth was crowned upon 
 the day of his nativity, it being in his own 
 power so to order it, makes no singular ani- 
 madversion ; but that he should also take King 
 Francis prisoner upon that day, was an unex- 
 pected coincidence, which made the same 
 remarkable. Antipater, who had an anniver- 
 sary fever every year upon his birthday, 
 needed no astrological revolution to know 
 what day he should die on. When the fixed 
 stars have made a revolution unto the points 
 from whence they first set out, some of the 
 ancients thought the world would have an 
 end ; which was a kind of dying upon the day 
 of his nativity. Now the disease prevailing 
 
 1 Auris pars pendula Ldbus dicitur, non omnibus ea 
 pars cst auribus ; non enim Us qui noctu nati sunt, sed 
 qui interdiu, maxima ex parte. Com. in Aristot. dc 
 Animal, lib. i. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 207 
 
 and swiftly advancing about the time of his 
 nativity, some were of opinion that he would 
 leave the world on the day he entered into it : 
 but this being a lingering disease, and creeping 
 softly on, nothing critical was found or ex- 
 pected, and he died not before fifteen days 
 after. Nothing is more common with infants 
 than to die on the day of their nativity, to 
 behold the worldly hours, and but the fractions 
 thereof; and even to perish before their 
 nativity in the hidden world of the womb, and 
 before their good angel is conceived to under- 
 take them. But in persons who outlive many 
 years, and when there are no less than three 
 hundred and sixty-five days to determine their 
 lives in every year ; that the first day should 
 make the last, that the tail of the snake should 
 return into its mouth precisely at that time, 
 and they should wind up upon the day of their 
 nativity, 1 is indeed a remarkable coincidence, 
 which, though astrology hath taken witty 
 pains to salve, yet hath it been very wary in 
 making predictions of it. 
 
 In this consumptive condition and remark- 
 able extenuation, he came to be almost half 
 himself, and left a great part behind him, 
 which he carried not to the grave. And 
 though that story of Duke John Ernestus 
 Mansfield be not so easily swallowed, that 
 his death his heart was found not to be so big 
 as a nut ; yet if the bones of a good skeleton 
 weigh little more than twenty pounds, his in- 
 wards and flesh remaining could make no 
 bouffage, but a light bit for the grave. I 
 1 According to the Egyptian hieroglyphick. 
 
208 
 
 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 In the poet 
 Dante, his 
 description. 
 
 De ntorbio 
 Pucroruwt. 
 
 The deity 
 of death 
 or fate. 
 
 ULMUS de 
 usu barbce 
 humante. 
 
 never more lively beheld the starved characters 
 of Dante in any living face ; an aruspex might 
 have read a lecture upon him without extent- 
 eration, his flesh being so consumed, that he 
 might, in a manner, have discerned his bowels 
 without opening of him : so that to be carried, 
 sexia cervice, to the grave, was but a civil un- 
 necessity ; and the complements of the coffin 
 might outweigh the subject of it. 
 
 Omnibonus Ferrarius in mortal dysenteries 
 of children looks for a spot behind the ear : 
 in consumptive diseases some eye the com- 
 plexion of moles; Cardan eagerly views the 
 nails, some the lines of the hand, the thenar 
 or muscle of the thumb ; some are so curious 
 as to observe the depth of the throat-pit, how 
 the proportion varieth of the small of the legs 
 unto the calf, or the compass of the neck unto 
 the circumference of the head : but all these, 
 with many more, were so drowned in a mortal 
 visage, and last face of Hippocrates, that a 
 weak physiognomist might say at first eye, 
 this was a face of earth, and that Morta had 
 set her hard seal upon his temples, easily 
 perceiving what caricatura 1 draughts death 
 makes upon pined faces, and unto what an 
 unknown degree a man may live backward. 
 
 Though the beard be only made a distinc- 
 tion of sex, and sign of masculine heat by 
 Ulmus, yet the precocity and early growth 
 thereof in him, was not to be liked in refer- 
 ence unto long life. Lewis, that virtuous but 
 
 1 When men's faces are drawn with resemblance to 
 some other animals, the Italians call it to be drawn in 
 caricatura. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 209 
 
 unfortunate king of Hungary, who lost his 
 
 life at the battle of Mohacz, was said to be 
 
 born without a skin, to have bearded at fifteen, 
 
 and to have shown some grey hairs about 
 
 twenty ; from whence the diviners conjectured 
 
 that he would be spoiled of his kingdom, and 
 
 have but a short life : but hairs make fallible 
 
 predictions, and many temples early grey 
 
 have outlived the psalmist's period. 1 Hairs 
 
 which have most amused me have not been 
 
 on the face or head, but on the back, and not 
 
 in men but children, as I long ago observed 
 
 in that endemial distemper of little children 
 
 in Languedoc, called the morgellons, wherein See PICOTUS 
 
 they critically break out with harsh hairs on 
 
 their backs, which takes off the unquiet 
 
 symptoms of the disease, and delivers them 
 
 from coughs and convulsions. 
 
 The Egyptian mummies that I have seen, 
 have had their mouths open, and somewhat 
 gaping, which affordeth a good opportunity to 
 view and observe their teeth, wherein 'tis not 
 easy to find any wanting or decayed ; and 
 therefore in Egypt, where one man practised 
 but one operation, or the diseases but of 
 single parts, it must needs be a barren pro- 
 fession to confine unto that of drawing of 
 teeth, and little better than to have been 
 tooth-drawer unto King Pyrrhus, who had but 
 two in his head. 2 How the Banyans of India 
 maintain the integrity of those parts, I find 
 not particularly observed ; who notwithstand- 
 
 1 The life of a man is threescore and ten. 
 
 2 His upper and lower jaw being solid, and without 
 distinct rows of teeth. 
 
210 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 ing have an advantage of their preservation 
 by abstaining from all flesh, and employing 
 their teeth in such food unto which they may 
 seem at first framed, from their figure and 
 conformation : but sharp and corroding rheums 
 had so early mouldered those rocks and 
 hardest part of his fabrick, that a man might 
 well conceive that his years were never like 
 to double or twice tell over his teeth. 1 Cor- 
 ruption had dealt more severely with them 
 than sepulchral fires and smart flames with 
 those of burnt bodies of old ; for in the burnt 
 fragments of urns which I have inquired into, 
 although I seem to find few incisors or 
 shearers, yet the dog teeth and grinders do 
 notably resist those fires. 
 
 In the years of his childhood he had 
 languished under the disease of his country, 
 the rickets; after which, notwithstanding, 
 many have become strong and active men ; 
 but whether any have attained unto very 
 great years, the disease is scarce so old as to 
 afford good observation. Whether the children 
 of the English plantations be subject unto the 
 same infirmity, may be worth the observing. 
 Whether lameness and halting do still increase 
 among the inhabitants of Rovigno in Istria, 
 I know not; yet scarce twenty years ago 
 Monsieur du Loyr observed that a third part 
 of that people halted : but too certain it is, 
 that the rickets encreaseth among us; the 
 small-pox grows more pernicious than the 
 great : the king's purse knows that the king's 
 
 1 Twice tell over his teeth, never live to threescore 
 years. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 211 
 
 evil grows more common. Quartan agues are 
 become no strangers in Ireland : more common 
 and mortal in England: and though the 
 ancients gave that disease 1 very good words, 
 yet now that bell makes no strange sound 
 which rings out for the effects thereof. 
 
 Some think there were few consumptions 
 in the old world, when men lived much upon 
 milk; and that the ancient inhabitants of 
 this island were less troubled with coughs 
 when they went naked and slept in caves and 
 woods, than men now in chambers and feather 
 beds. Plato will tell us, that there was no 
 such disease as a catarrh in Homer's time, 
 and that it was but new in Greece in his age. 
 Polydore Virgil delivereth that pleurisies were 
 rare in England, who lived but in the days of 
 Henry the Eighth. Some will allow no 
 diseases to be new, others think that many 
 old ones are ceased : and that such which are 
 esteemed new, will have but their time : 
 however, the mercy of God hath scattered 
 the great heap of diseases, and not loaded 
 any one country with all : some may be new 
 in one country which have been old in 
 another. New discoveries of the earth dis- 
 cover new diseases : for besides the common 
 swarm, there are endemial and local infirmities 
 proper unto certain regions, which in the 
 whole earth make no small number : and if 
 Asia, Africa, and America should bring in 
 their list, Pandora's box would swell, a*d 
 there must be a strange pathology. 
 
 Kol p^io-ros, securissima ct faciUima. 
 Hippoc. Pro Fcbre quartana raro sonat campana. 
 
212 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 Most men expected to find a consumed 
 kell, empty and bladder-like guts, livid and 
 marbled lungs, and a withered pericardium in 
 this exsuccous corpse : but some seemed too 
 much to wonder that two lobes of his lungs 
 adhered unto his side ; for the like I have 
 often found in bodies of no suspected con- 
 sumptions or difficulty of respiration. And 
 the same more often happeneth in men than 
 other animals ; and some think in women 
 than in men : but the most remarkable I have 
 met with was in a man, after a cough of 
 almost fifty years, in whom all the lobes 
 So A. F. adhered unto the pleura, and each lobe unto 
 another ; who having also been much troubled 
 with the gout, brake the rule of Cardan, 1 and 
 died of the stone in the bladder. Aristotle 
 makes a query, why some animals cough, as 
 man ; some not, as oxen. If coughing be 
 taken as it consisteth of a natural and volun- 
 tary motion, including expectoration and 
 spitting out, it may be as proper unto man as 
 bleeding at the nose ; otherwise we find that 
 Vegetius and rural writers have not left so 
 many medicines in vain against the coughs of 
 cattle ; and men who perish by coughs die 
 the death of sheep, cats, and lions : and 
 though birds have no midriff, yet we meet 
 with divers remedies in Arrianus against the 
 coughs of hawks. And though it might be 
 thought that all animals who have lungs do 
 cough ; yet in cetaceous fishes, who have large 
 
 1 Cardan in his Encomium Podayrce, reckoneth this 
 among the Dona Podagrce, that they are delivered thereby 
 from the ph thy sis and stone in the bladder. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 213 
 
 and strong lungs, the same is not observed ; 
 nor yet in oviparous quadrupeds : and in the 
 greatest thereof, the crocodile, although we 
 read much of their tears, we find nothing of 
 that motion. 
 
 From the thoughts of sleep, when the soul 
 was conceived nearest unto divinity, the 
 ancients erected an art of divination, wherein 
 while they too widely expatiated in loose and 
 inconsequent conjectures, Hippocrates wisely Dein- 
 considered dreams as they presaged alterations so ' 
 in the body, and so afforded hints toward the 
 preservation of health, and prevention of 
 diseases ; and therein was so serious as to 
 advise alteration of diet, exercise, sweating, 
 bathing, and vomiting; and also so religious 
 as to order prayers and supplications unto 
 respective deities; in good dreams unto Sol, 
 Jupiter crelestis, Jupiter opulentus, Minerva, 
 Mercurius, and Apollo ; in bad unto Tellus 
 and the Heroes. 
 
 And therefore I could not but take notice 
 how his female friends were irrationally curious 
 so strictly to examine his dreams, and in this 
 low state to hope for the phantasms of health. 
 He was now past the healthful dreams of the 
 sun, moon, and stars in their clarity and proper 
 courses. 'Twas too late to dream of flying, of 
 limpid fountains, smooth waters, white vest- 
 ments, and fruitful green trees, which are the 
 visions of healthful sleeps, and at good dis- 
 tance from the grave. 
 
 And they were also too deeply dejected 
 that he should dream of his dead friends, 
 inconsequently divining that he would not 
 
214 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 be long from them ; for strange it was not 
 that he should sometimes dream of the dead, 
 whose thoughts run always upon death ; 
 beside, to dream of the dead, so they appear 
 not in dark habits, and take nothing away 
 from us, in Hippocrates his sense was of good 
 signification ; for we live by the dead, and 
 everything is or must be so before it becomes 
 our nourishment. And Cardan, who dreamed 
 that he discoursed with his dead father in the 
 moon, made thereof no mortal interpretation ; 
 and even to dream that we are dead, was no 
 condemnable phantasm in old oneirocriticism, 
 as having a signification of liberty, vacuity 
 from cares, exemption and freedom from 
 troubles unknown unto the dead. 
 
 Some dreams I confess may admit of easy 
 and feminine exposition : he who dreamed 
 that he could not see his right shoulder, might 
 easily fear to lose the sight of his right eye ; 
 he that before a journey dreamed that his feet 
 were cut off, had a plain warning not to under- 
 take his intended journey. But why to dream 
 of lettuce should presage some ensuing disease, 
 why to eat figs should signify foolish talk, why 
 to eat eggs great trouble, and to dream of 
 blindness should be so highly commended, 
 according to the oneirocritical verses of 
 Astrampsychus and Nicephorus, I shall leave 
 unto your divination. 
 
 He was willing to quit the world alone and 
 altogether, leaving no earnest behind him for 
 corruption or after-grave, having small content 
 in that common satisfaction to survive or live 
 in another, but amply satisfied that his disease 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 215 
 
 should die with himself, nor revive in a pos- 
 terity to puzzle physick, and make sad me- 
 mentoes of their parent hereditary. Leprosy 
 awakes not sometimes before forty, the gout 
 and stone often later; but consumptive and 
 tabid roots sprout more early, 1 and at the 
 fairest make seventeen years of our life 
 doubtful before that age. They that enter 
 the world with original diseases as well as sin, 
 have not only common mortality but sick 
 traductions to destroy them, make commonly 
 short courses, and live not at length but in 
 figures; so that a sound Caesarean nativity 2 
 may out-last a natural birth, and a knife may 
 sometimes make way for a more lasting fruit 
 than a midwife ; which makes so few infants 
 now able to endure the old test of the river, 3 
 and many to have feeble children who could 
 scarce have been married at Sparta, and those 
 provident states who studied strong and health- 
 ful generations ; which happen but contin- 
 gently in mere pecuniary matches or marriages 
 made by the candle, wherein notwithstanding 
 there is little redress to be hoped from an 
 astrologer or a lawyer, and a good discerning 
 physician were like to prove the most success- 
 ful counsellor. 
 
 Julius Scaliger, who in a sleepless fit of the 
 gout could make two hundred verses in a 
 night, would have but five plain words upon 
 
 1 Tabes maxima contingunt ab anno decimo octavo ad 
 trigesimum quintum. Hippoc. 
 
 2 A sound child cut out of the body of the mother. 
 
 3 Natos ad flwmina primu/m deserimus scevoque gelu 
 duramus et undis. 
 
216 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 his tomb. 1 And this serious person, though 
 no minor wit, left the poetry of his epitaph 
 unto others : either unwilling to commend 
 himself or to be judged by a distich, and per- 
 haps considering how unhappy great poets 
 have been in versifying their own epitaphs : 
 wherein Petrarca, Dante, and Ariosto, have 
 so unhappily failed, that if their tombs should 
 out-last their works, posterity would find so 
 little of Apollo on them, as to mistake them 
 for Ciceronian poets. 
 
 In this deliberate and creeping progress 
 unto the grave, he was somewhat too young 
 and of too noble a mind, to fall upon that 
 stupid symptom observable in divers persons 
 near their journey's end, and which may be 
 reckoned among the mortal symptoms of their 
 last disease ; that is, to become more narrow- 
 minded, miserable, and tenacious, unready to 
 part with anything, when they are ready to 
 part with all, and afraid to want when they 
 have no time to spend; meanwhile physicians, 
 who know that many are mad but in a single 
 depraved imagination, and one prevalent 
 decipiency; and that beside and out of such 
 single deliriums a man may meet with sober 
 actions and good sense in bedlam ; cannot but 
 smile to see the heirs and concerned relations 
 gratulating themselves in the sober departure 
 of their friends ; and though they behold such 
 mad covetous passages, content to think they 
 die in good understanding, and in their sober 
 senses. 
 
 1 Julii Casaris Scaligeri, quod fuit. Joseph Scctiiger 
 in vita patris. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 217 
 
 Avarice, which is not only infidelity but 
 idolatry, either from covetous progeny or 
 questuary education, had no root in his 
 breast, who made good works the expression 
 of his faith, and was big with desires unto 
 publick and lasting charities ; and surely where 
 good wishes and charitable intentions exceed 
 abilities, theorical beneficency may be more 
 than a dream. They build not castles in the 
 air who would build churches on earth : and 
 though they leave no such structures here, 
 may lay good foundations in heaven. In brief, 
 his life and death were such, that I could not 
 blame them who wished the like, and almost 
 to have been himself; almost, I say ; for 
 though we may wish the prosperous appurten- 
 ances of others, or to be another in his happy 
 accidents, yet so intrinsical is every man unto 
 himself, that some doubt may be made, 
 whether any would exchange his being, or 
 substantially become another man. 
 
 He had wisely seen the world at home and 
 abroad, and thereby observed under what 
 variety men are deluded in the pursuit of 
 that which is not here to be found. And 
 although he had no opinion of reputed 
 felicities below, and apprehended men widely 
 out in the estimate of such happiness ; yet his 
 sober contempt of the world wrought no 
 Democritism or cynicism, no laughing or 
 snarling at it, as well understanding there 
 are not felicities in this world to satisfy a 
 serious mind ; and therefore, to soften the 
 stream of our lives, we are fain to take in the 
 reputed contentations of this world, to unite 
 
218 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 with the crowd in their beatitudes, and to 
 make ourselves happy by consortion, opinion, 
 or co-existimation : for strictly to separate 
 from received and customary felicities, and to 
 confine unto the rigour of realities, were to 
 contract the consolation of our beings unto 
 too uncomfortable circumscriptions. 
 
 Not to fear death, nor desire it, 1 was short 
 of his resolution : to be dissolved, and be with 
 Christ, was his dying ditty. He conceived his 
 thread long, in no long course of years, and 
 when he had scarce outlived the second 
 life of Lazarus ; 2 esteeming it enough to 
 approach the years of his Saviour, who so 
 ordered His own human state, as not to be 
 old upon earth. 
 
 But to be content with death may be better 
 than to desire it ; a miserable life may make 
 us wish for death, but a virtuous one to rest 
 in it ; which is the advantage of those resolved 
 Christians, who looking on death not only as 
 the sting, but the period and end of sin, the 
 horizon and isthmus between this life and a 
 better, and the death of this world but as a 
 nativity of another, do contentedly submit 
 unto the common necessity, and envy not 
 Enoch or Elias. 
 
 Not to be content with life is the unsatis- 
 factory state of those which destroy them- 
 selves ; 3 who being afraid to live, run blindly 
 
 1 Summum nee metuas diem nee optes. 
 
 2 "Who upon some accounts, and traditions, is said to 
 have lived thirty years after he was raised by our 
 Saviour. Baronius. 
 
 3 In the speech of Vulteius in Lucan, animating his 
 soldiers in a great struggle to kill one another. Deccmite 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 219 
 
 upon their own death, which no man fears by 
 experience : and the Stoicks had a notable 
 doctrine to take away the fear thereof; that 
 is, in such extremities, to desire that which is 
 not to be avoided, and wish what might be 
 feared ; and so made evils voluntary, and to 
 suit with their own desires, which took off the 
 terror of them. 
 
 But the ancient martyrs were not encouraged 
 by such fallacies; who, though they feared 
 not death, were afraid to be their own 
 executioners; and therefore thought it more 
 wisdom to crucify their lusts than their bodies, 
 to circumcise than stab their hearts, and to 
 mortify than kill themselves. 
 
 His willingness to leave this world about 
 that age, when most men think they may best 
 enjoy it, though paradoxical unto worldly ears, 
 was not strange unto mine, who have so often 
 observed, that many, though old, oft stick fast 
 unto the world, and seem to be drawn like 
 Cacus's oxen, backward, with great struggling 
 and reluctancy unto the grave. The long 
 habit of living makes mere men more hardly to 
 part with life, and all to be nothing, but what 
 is to come. To live at the rate of the old 
 world, when some could scarce remember 
 themselves young, may afford no better 
 digested death than a more moderate period. 
 Many would have thought it an happiness to 
 have had their lot of life in some notable con- 
 junctures of ages past; but the uncertainty of 
 
 Lethum et metus omnis abest, cupias quodcunque ncccsse 
 est. All fear is over, do but resolve to die, and make your 
 desires meet necessity. 
 
220 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 future times hath tempted few to make a part 
 in ages to come. And surely he that hath 
 taken the true altitude of things, and rightly 
 calculated the degenerate state of this age, is 
 not like to envy those that shall live in the 
 next, much less three or four hundred years 
 hence, when no man can comfortably imagine 
 what face this world will carry : and therefore 
 since every age makes a step unto the end of 
 all things, and the scripture affords so hard a 
 character of the last times ; quiet minds will 
 be content with their generations, and rather 
 bless ages past than be ambitious of those to 
 come. 
 
 Though age had set no seal upon his face, 
 yet a dim eye might clearly discover fifty in 
 his actions ; and therefore, since wisdom is 
 the grey hair, and an unspotted life old age ; 
 although his years come short, he might have 
 been said to have held up with longer livers, 
 Wisd. iv. and to have been Solomon's old man. And 
 surely if we deduct all these days of our life 
 which we might wish unlived, and which abate 
 the comfort of those we now live ; if we 
 reckon up only those days which God hath 
 accepted of our lives, a life of good years will 
 hardly be a span long : the son in this sense 
 may out-live the father, and none be 
 climacterically old. He that early arriveth 
 unto the parts and prudence of age, is happily 
 old without the uncomfortable attendants of 
 it ; and 'tis superfluous to live unto grey hairs, 
 when in a precocious temper we anticipate the 
 virtues of them. In brief, he cannot be 
 accounted young who out-liveth the old man. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 221 
 
 He that hath early arrived unto the measure 
 of a perfect stature in Christ, hath already 
 fulfilled the prime and longest intention of his 
 being : and one day lived after the perfect 
 rule of piety, is to be preferred before sinning 
 immortality. 
 
 Although he attained not unto the years of 
 his predecessors, yet he wanted not those 
 preserving virtues which confirm the thread of 
 weaker constitutions. Cautelous chastity and 
 crafty sobriety were far from him ; those jewels 
 were paragon, without flaw, hair, ice, or cloud 
 in him : which affords me an hint to proceed 
 in these good wishes, and few mementoes unto 
 you. 
 
 Tread softly and circumspectedly in this 
 funambulous track and narrow path of good- 
 ness : pursue virtue virtuously : be sober and 
 temperate not to preserve your body in a 
 sufficiency to wanton ends ; not to spare your 
 purse ; not to be free from the infamy of 
 common transgressors that way, and thereby 
 to balance or palliate obscure and closer vices ; 
 nor simply to enjoy health (by all which you 
 may leaven good actions, and render virtues 
 disputable); but in one word, that you may 
 truly serve God, which every sickness will tell 
 you, you cannot well do without health. The 
 sick man's sacrifice is but a lame oblation. 
 Pious treasures, laid up in healthful days, 
 excuse the defects of sick non-performances ; 
 without which we must needs look back with 
 anxiety upon the lost opportunities of health ; 
 and may have cause rather to envy than pity 
 the ends of penitent malefactors, who go with 
 
222 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 clear parts unto the last act of their lives,, and 
 in the integrity of their faculties return their 
 spirit unto God that gave it. 
 
 Consider whereabout thou art in Cebes his 
 Table, or that old philosophical pinax of the 
 life of man : whether thou art still in the road 
 of uncertainties; whether thou hast yet 
 entered the narrow gate, got up the hill, and 
 asperous way, which leadeth unto the house 
 of sanity ; or taken that purifying potion from 
 the hand of sincere erudition, which may send 
 thee clear and pure away unto a virtuous and 
 happy life. 
 
 In this virtuous voyage let not disapoint- 
 ment cause despondency., nor difficulty despair. 
 Think not that you are sailing from Lima to 
 Manilla/ wherein thou may'st tie up the 
 rudder, and sleep before the wind ; but expect 
 rough seas, flaws, and contrary blasts : and 'tis 
 well, if by many cross tacks and veerings, thou 
 arrivest at thy port. 
 
 Sit not down in the popularseats and common 
 level of virtues, but endeavour to make them 
 heroical. Offer not only peace-offerings but 
 holocausts unto God. To serve Him singly to 
 serve ourselves, were too partial a piece of 
 piety, nor likely to place us in the highest 
 mansions of glory. 
 
 He that is chaste and continent not to 
 impair his strength, or terrified by contagion 
 will hardly be heroically virtuous. Adjourn 
 not that virtue until those years when Cato 
 could lend out his wife, and impotent satyrs 
 
 1 Through the Pacifick Sea, with a constant gale from the 
 East. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 223 
 
 write satires against lust; but be chaste in 
 thy flaming days, when Alexander dared not 
 trust his eyes upon the fair daughters of 
 Darius,, and when so many think there is no 
 other way but Origen's. 1 
 
 Be charitable before wealth makes thee 
 covetous, and lose not the glory of the mite. 
 If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with 
 them ; and think it not enough to be liberal, 
 but munificent. Though a cup of cold water 
 from some hand may not be without its reward, 
 yet stick not thou for wine and oil for the 
 wounds of the distressed ; and treat the poor, 
 as our Saviour did the multitude, to the reliques 
 of some baskets. 
 
 Trust not to the omnipotency of gold, or 
 say unto it, Thou art my confidence. Kiss not 
 thy hand when thou beholdest that terrestial 
 sun, nor bore thy ear unto its servitude. A 
 slave unto mammon makes no servant unto 
 God. Covetousness cracks the sinews of faith ; 
 numbs the apprehension of anything above 
 sense ; and, only affected with the certainty of 
 things present, makes a peradventure of things 
 to come ; lives but unto one world, nor hopes 
 but fears another ; makes our own death sweet 
 unto others, bitter unto ourselves ; gives a dry 
 funeral scenical mourning, and no wet eyes at 
 the grave. 
 
 If avarice be thy vice, yet make it not thy 
 punishment. Miserable men commiserate 
 not themselves, bowelless unto themselves, 
 and merciless unto their own bowels. Let 
 the fruition of things bless the possession of 
 1 Who is said to have emasculated himself. 
 
224 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 them, and take no satisfaction in dying but 
 living rich. For since thy good works, not 
 thy goods, will follow thee : since riches are 
 an appurtenance of life, and no dead man is 
 rich ; to famish in plenty, and live poorly to 
 die rich, were a multiplying improvement in 
 madness, and use upon use in folly. 
 
 Persons lightly dipt, not grained in generous 
 honesty, are but pale in goodness, and faint- 
 hued in sincerity. But be thou what thou 
 virtuously art, and let not the ocean wash 
 away thy tincture. Stand magnetically upon 
 that axis, where prudent simplicity hath fixt 
 thee ; and let no temptation invert the poles 
 of thy honesty : and, that vice may be uneasy 
 and even monstrous unto thee, let iterated 
 good acts and long confirmed habits make 
 virtue natural, or a second nature in thee. 
 And since few or none prove eminently 
 virtuous, but from some advantageous founda- 
 tions in their temper and natural inclinations, 
 study thyself betimes, and early find what 
 nature bids thee to be, or tells thee what thou 
 mayest be. They who thus timely descend 
 into themselves, cultivating the good seeds 
 which nature hath set in them, and improving 
 their prevalent inclinations to perfection, 
 become not shrubs but cedars in their genera- 
 tion ; and to be in the form of the best of the 
 bad or the worst of the good, will be no satis- 
 faction unto them. 
 
 Let not the law of thy country be the non 
 ultra of thy honesty; nor think that always 
 good enough which the law will make good. 
 Narrow not the law of charity, equity, mercy ; 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 225 
 
 ^ 
 
 join gospel righteousness with legal right ; be 
 not a mere Gamaliel in the faith, but let the 
 sermon in the mount be thy Targum unto the 
 law of Sinai. 
 
 Make not the consequences of virtue the 
 ends thereof. Be not beneficent for a name or 
 cymbal of applause ; nor exact and punctual 
 in commerce for the advantages of trust and 
 credit, which attend the reputation of just and 
 true dealing : for such rewards, though un- 
 sought for, plain virtue will bring with her, 
 whom all men honour, though they pursue 
 not. To have other by-ends in good actions 
 sours laudable performances, which must have 
 deeper roots, motions and instigations, to give 
 them the stamp of virtues. 
 
 Though human infirmity may betray thy 
 heedless days into the popular ways of ex- 
 travagancy, yet let not thine own depravity, 
 or the torrent of vitious times, carry thee into 
 desperate enormities in opinions, manners or 
 actions. If thou hast dipped thy foot in the 
 river, yet venture not over Rubicon : run not 
 into extremities from whence there is no re- 
 gression, nor be ever so closely shut up within 
 the holds of vice and iniquity, as not to find 
 some escape by a postern of resipiscency. 
 
 Owe not thy humility unto humiliation by 
 adversity, but look humbly down in that state 
 when others look upward upon thee. Be 
 patient in the age of pride and days of will 
 and impatiency, when men live but by in- 
 tervals of reason under the sovereignty of 
 humour and passion, when 'tis in the power 
 of every one to transform thee out of thyself, 
 p 
 
226 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 and put thee into the short madness. If you 
 cannot imitate Job, yet come not short of 
 Socrates, 1 and those patient pagans who tired 
 the tongues of their enemies, while they per- 
 ceived they spit their malice at brazen walls 
 and statues. 
 
 Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy 
 cheeks ; be content to be envied, but envy 
 not. Emulation may be plausible, and indig- 
 nation allowable, but admit no treaty with 
 that passion which no circumstance can make 
 good. A displacency at the good of others 
 because they enjoy it, although we do not 
 want it, is an absurd depravity, sticking fast 
 unto human nature from its primitive corrup- 
 tion ; which he that can well subdue, were a 
 Christian of the first magnitude, and for aught 
 I know, may have one foot already in heaven. 
 
 While thou so hotly disclaimest the devil, 
 be not guilty of diabolism. Fall not into one 
 name with that unclean spirit, nor act his 
 nature whom thou so much abhorrest; that 
 is, to accuse, calumniate, backbite, whisper, 
 detract, or sinistrously interpret others : cle- 
 generous depravities, and narrow-minded vices 
 not only below St. Paul's noble Christian but 
 Aristotle's true gentleman. 2 Trust not with 
 some that the Epistle of St. James is apocryphal, 
 and so read with less fear that stabbing truth, 
 that in company with this vice, thy religion is 
 in vain. Moses broke the tables without 
 breaking of the law ; but where charity is 
 broke, the law itself is shattered, which cannot 
 
 1 Ira furor brevis est. 
 
 2 See Arist. Ethics, chapter of Magnanimity. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 227 
 
 be whole without love, that is the fulfilling of 
 it. Look humbly upon thy virtues ; and 
 though thou art rich in some, yet think thy- 
 self poor ' and naked without that crowning 
 grace, which thinketh no evil, which envieth not, 
 which beareth, believeth, hopeth, endureth all 
 things. With these sure graces, while busy 
 tongues are crying out for a drop of cold 
 water, mutes may be in happiness, and sing 
 the trisagmm l in Heaven. 
 
 Let not the sun in Capricorn 2 go down upon 
 thy wrath, but write thy wrongs in water. 
 Draw the curtain of night upon injuries, shut 
 them up in the tower of oblivion, 3 and let 
 them be as though they had not been. For- 
 give thine enemies totally, and without any 
 reserve of hope that however God will revenge 
 thee. 
 
 Be substantially great in thyself, and more 
 than thou appearest unto others ; and let the 
 world be deceived in thee, as they are in the 
 lights of heaven. Hang early plummets upon 
 the heels of pride, and let ambition have but 
 an epicycle or narrow circuit in thee. Measure 
 not thyself by thy morning shadow, but by 
 the extent of thy grave.; and reckon thyself 
 above the earth by the line thou must be 
 contented with under it. Spread not into 
 boundless expansions either of designs or 
 
 1 Holy, holy, holy. 
 
 2 Even when the days are shortest. 
 
 3 Alluding to the Tower of Oblivion mentioned by 
 Procopius, which was the name of a tower of imprison- 
 ment among the Persians ; whosoever was put therein, 
 he was as it were buried alive, and it was death for any 
 but to name it. 
 
228 A LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 desires. Think not that mankind liveth but 
 for a few ; and that the rest are born but to 
 serve the ambition of those who make but 
 flies of men and wildernesses of whole nations. 
 Swell not into actions which imbroil and con- 
 found the earth ; but be one of those violent 
 Matt. xi. 12. ones which force the kingdom of heaven. If 
 thou must needs reign, be Zeno's king, and 
 enjoy that empire which every man gives 
 himself. Certainly the iterated injunctions of 
 Christ unto humility, meekness, patience, and 
 that despised train of virtues, cannot but make 
 pathetical impressions upon those who have 
 well considered the affairs of all ages, wherein 
 pride, ambition, and vain -glory have led up 
 the worst of actions, and whereunto confusion, 
 tragedies, and acts denying all religion, do 
 owe their originals. 
 
 Rest not in an ovation 1 but a triumph over 
 thy passions; chain up the unruly legion of 
 thy breast ; behold thy trophies within thee, 
 not without thee. Lead thine own captivity 
 captive, and be Caesar unto thyself. 
 
 Give no quarter unto those vices which are 
 of thine inward family, and having a root in 
 thy temper plead a right and propriety in 
 thee. Examine well thy complexional in- 
 clinations. Raise early batteries against those 
 strongholds built upon the rock of nature, and 
 make this a great part of the militia of 
 thy life. The politic nature of vice must 
 be opposed by policy; and therefore wiser 
 honesties project and plot against sin : where- 
 in notwithstanding we are not to rest in 
 1 Ovation, a petty and minor kind of triumph. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND 229 
 
 generals, or the trite stratagems of art. That 
 may succeed with one temper which may 
 prove successless with another: there is no 
 community or commonwealth of virtue : every 
 man must study his own economy, and erect 
 these rules unto the figure of himself. 
 
 Lastly, if length of days be thy portion, 
 make it not thy expectation. Reckon not upon 
 long life, but live always beyond thy account. 
 He that so often surviveth his expectation, 
 lives many lives, and will hardly complain of 
 the shortness of his days. Time past is gone 
 like a shadow ; make times to come present. 
 Conceive that near which may be far off; 
 approximate thy last times by present ap- 
 prehensions of them: live like a neighbour 
 unto death, and think there is but little to 
 come. And since there is something in us 
 that must still live on, join both lives to- 
 gether; unite them in thy thoughts and 
 actions, and live in one but for the other. He 
 who thus ordereth the purposes of this life, 
 will never be far from the next; and is in 
 some manner already in it, by an happy con- 
 formity, and close apprehension of it. 
 
ON DREAMS 
 
ON DREAMS 
 
 [MS. SLOANE, 174, fol. 112, 120.] 
 
 HALF our days we pass in the shadow of the 
 earth ; and the brother of death exacteth a 
 third part of our lives. A good part of 
 our sleep is peered out with visions and 
 fantastical objects, wherein we are confessedly 
 deceived. The day supplieth us with truths ; 
 the night with fictions and falsehoods, which 
 uncomfortably divide the natural account of 
 our beings. And, therefore, having passed 
 the day in sober labours and rational enquiries 
 of truth, we are fain to betake ourselves unto 
 such a state of being, wherein the soberest 
 heads have acted all the monstrosities of 
 melancholy, and which unto open eyes are no 
 better than folly and madness. 
 
 Happy are they that go to bed with grand 
 music, like Pythagoras, or have ways to com- 
 pose the fantastical spirit, whose unruly 
 wanderings take off inward sleep, filling our 
 heads with St. Anthony's visions, and the 
 dreams of Lipara in the sober chambers of 
 rest. 
 
 Virtuous thoughts of the day lay up good 
 treasures for the night ; whereby the impres- 
 sions of imaginary forms arise ' into sober 
 
234 ON DREAMS 
 
 similitudes, acceptable unto our slumbering 
 selves and preparatory unto divine impressions. 
 Hereby Solomon's sleep was happy. Thus 
 prepared, Jacob might well dream of angels 
 upon a pillow of stone. And the best sleep 
 of Adam might be the best of any after. 
 
 That there should be divine dreams seems 
 unreasonably doubted by Aristotle. That 
 there are demoniacal dreams we have little 
 reason to doubt. Why may there not be 
 angelical ? If there be guardian spirits, they 
 may not be inactively about us in sleep ; but 
 may sometimes order our dreams : and many 
 strange hints, instigations, or discourses, which 
 are so amazing unto us, may arise from such 
 foundations. 
 
 But the phantasms of sleep do commonly 
 walk in the great road of natural and animal 
 dreams, wherein the thoughts or actions of 
 the day are acted over and echoed in the 
 night. Who can therefore wonder that 
 Chrysostom should dream of St. Paul, who 
 daily read his epistles ; or that Cardan, whose 
 head was so taken up about the stars, should 
 dream that his soul was in the moon ! Pious 
 persons, whose thoughts are daily busied 
 about heaven, and the blessed state thereof, 
 can hardly escape the nightly phantasms of it, 
 which though sometimes taken for illumina- 
 tions, or divine dreams, yet rightly perpended 
 may prove but animal visions, and natural 
 night-scenes of their awaking contemplations. 
 
 Many dreams are made out by sagacious 
 exposition, and from the signature of their 
 subjects; carrying their interpretation in 
 
ON DREAMS 235 
 
 their fundamental sense and mystery of 
 similitude, whereby, he that understands 
 upon what natural fundamental every notion 
 dependeth, may, by symbolical adaptation, 
 hold a ready way to read the characters of 
 Morpheus. In dreams of such a nature, 
 Artemidorus, Achmet, and Astrampsychus, 
 from Greek, Egyptian, and Arabian oneiro- 
 criticism, may hint some interpretation : who, 
 while we read of a ladder in Jacob's dream, 
 will tell us that ladders and scalary ascents 
 signify preferment ; and while we consider 
 the dream of Pharaoh, do teach us that rivers 
 overflowing speak plenty, lean oxen, famine 
 and scarity ; and therefore it was but reason- 
 able in Pharaoh to demand the interpretation 
 from his magicians, who, being Egyptians, 
 should have been well versed in symbols 
 and the hieroglyphical notions of things. 
 The greatest tyrant in such divinations was 
 Nabuchodonosor, while, besides the interpre- 
 tation, he demanded the dream itself; which 
 being probably determined by divine immission, 
 might escape the common road of phantasms, 
 that might have been traced by Satan. 
 
 When Alexander, going to besiege Tyre, 
 dreamt of a Satyr, it was no hard exposition 
 for a Grecian to say, 'Tyre will be thine.' 
 He that dreamed that he saw his father 
 washed by Jupiter and anointed by the sun, 
 had cause to fear that he might be crucified, 
 whereby his body would be washed by the 
 rain, and drop by the heat of the sun. The 
 dream of Vespasian was of harder exposition ; 
 as also that of the emperor Mauritius, con- 
 
236 ON DREAMS 
 
 cerning his successor Phocas. And a man 
 might have been hard put to it, to interpret 
 the language of ^Esculapius, when to a con- 
 sumptive person he held forth his fingers; 
 implying thereby that his cure lay in dates, 
 from the homonymy of the Greek, which 
 signifies dates and fingers. 
 
 We owe unto dreams that Galen was a phy- 
 sician, Dion an historian, and that the world 
 hath seen some notable pieces of Cardan ; yet, 
 he that should order his affairs by dreams, or 
 make the night a rule unto the day, might be 
 ridiculously deluded ; wherein Cicero is much 
 to be pitied, who having excellently discoursed 
 of the vanity of dreams, was yet undone by 
 the flattery of his own, which urged him to 
 apply himself unto Augustus. 
 
 However dreams may be fallacious con- 
 cerning outward events, yet may they be 
 truly significant at home ; and whereby we 
 may more sensibly understand ourselves. Men 
 act in sleep with some conformity unto their 
 awaked senses; and consolations or dis- 
 couragements may be drawn from dreams 
 which intimately tell us ourselves. Luther 
 was not like to fear a spirit in the night, 
 when such an apparition would not terrify 
 him in the day. Alexander would hardly 
 have run away in the sharpest combats of 
 sleep, nor Demosthenes have stood stoutly to 
 it, who was scarce able to do it in his prepared 
 senses. Persons of radical integrity will not 
 easily be perverted in their dreams, nor noble 
 minds do pitiful things in sleep. Crassus 
 would have hardly been bountiful in a dream, 
 
ON DREAMS 237 
 
 whose fist was so close awake. But a man 
 might have lived all his life upon the sleeping 
 hand of Antonius. 
 
 There is an art to make dreams, as well as 
 their interpretation; and physicians will tell 
 us that some food makes turbulent, some 
 gives quiet, dreams. Cato, who doated upon 
 cabbage, might find the crude effects thereof 
 in his sleep ; wherein the ^Egyptians might 
 find some advantage by their superstitious 
 abstinence from onions. Pythagoras might 
 have calmer sleeps, if he totally abstained 
 from beans. Even Daniel, the great inter- 
 preter of dreams, in his leguminous diet, seems 
 to have chosen no advantageous food for quiet 
 sleeps, according to Grecian physick. 
 
 To add unto the delusion of dreams, the 
 fantastical objects seem greater than they 
 are ; and being beheld in the vaporous state 
 of sleep, enlarge their diameters unto us; 
 whereby it may prove more easy to dream 
 of giants than pigmies. Democritus might 
 seldom dream of atoms, who so often thought 
 of them. He almost might dream himself a 
 bubble extending unto the eighth sphere. A 
 little water makes a sea ; a small puff of wind 
 a tempest. A grain of sulphur kindled in the 
 blood may make a flame like ^Etna; and a 
 small spark in the bowels of Olympus a 
 lightning over all the chamber. 
 
 But, beside these innocent delusions, there 
 is a sinful state of dreams. Death alone, not 
 sleep, is able to put an end unto sin; and 
 there may be a night-book of our iniquities ; 
 for besides the trangressions of the day, 
 
238 ON DREAMS 
 
 casuists will tell us of mortal sins in dreams, 
 arising from evil precogitations ; meanwhile 
 human law regards not noctambulous ; and if 
 a night-walker should break his neck, or kill 
 a man, takes no notice of it. 
 
 Dionysius was absurdly tyrannical to kill a 
 man for dreaming that he had killed him ; 
 and really to take away his life, who had but 
 fantastically taken away his. Lamia was 
 ridiculously unjust to sue a young man fora 
 reward, who had confessed that pleasure from 
 her in a dream which she had denied unto 
 his awaking senses : conceiving that she had 
 merited somewhat from his fantastical fruition 
 and shadow of herself. If there be such 
 debts, we owe deeply unto sympathies; but 
 the common spirit of the world must be ready 
 in such arrearages. 
 
 If some have swooned, they may have also 
 died in dreams, since death is but a confirmed 
 swooning. Whether Plato died in a dream, 
 as some deliver, he must rise again to inform 
 us. That some have never dreamed, is as 
 improbable as that some have never laughed. 
 That children dream not the first half-year ; 
 that men dream not in some countries, with 
 many more, are unto me sick men's dreams ; 
 dreams out of the ivory gate, and visions 
 before midnight. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 URN BURIAL; OR A DISCOURSE ON 
 
 THE SEPULCHRAL URNS LATELY 
 
 FOUND IN NORFOLK 
 

 
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY 
 
 TO MY WORTHY AND HONOURED FRIEND, 
 
 THOMAS LE GROS, OF CROSTWICK, 
 ESQUIRE. 
 
 WHEN the funeral pyre was out, and the last 
 valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of 
 their interred friends, little expecting the 
 curiosity of future ages should comment upon 
 their ashes ; and, having no old experience of 
 the duration of their reliques, held no opinion 
 of such after-considerations. 
 
 But who knows the fate of his bones, or 
 how often he is to be buried ? Who hath the 
 oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be 
 scattered ? The reliques of many lie like the 
 ruins of Pompey's, 1 in all parts of the earth ; 
 and when they arrive at your hands these may 
 seem to have wandered far, who, in a direct 
 and meridian travel, 2 have but few miles of 
 known earth between yourself and the pole. 
 
 That the bones of Theseus should be seen 
 again in Athens 3 was not beyond conjecture 
 and hopeful expectation : but that these 
 should arise so opportunely to serve yourself 
 
 1 Pompeios juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsum terrd 
 tegit Libyos. 
 
 2 Little directly but sea, between your house and 
 Greenland. 
 
 3 Brought back by Ciraon. Plutarch. 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY 
 
 was an hit of fate, and honour beyond pre- 
 diction. 
 
 We cannot but wish these urns might have 
 the effect of theatrical vessels and great 
 Hippodrome urns 1 in Rome, to resound the 
 acclamations and honour due unto you. But 
 these are sad and sepulchral pitchers, which 
 have no joyful voices ; silently expressing old 
 mortality, the ruins of forgotten times, and 
 can only speak with life, how long in this 
 corruptible frame some parts may be uncor- 
 rupted ; yet able to outlast bones long unborn, 
 and the noblest pile among us. 2 
 
 We present not these as any strange sight 
 or spectacle unknown to your eyes, who have 
 beheld the best of urns and noblest variety of 
 ashes ; who are yourself no slender master of 
 antiquities, and can daily command the view 
 of so many imperial faces '; which raiseth your 
 thoughts unto old things and consideration of 
 times before you, when even living men were 
 antiquities ; when the living might exceed 
 the dead, and to depart this world could not 
 be properly said to go unto the greater 
 number ; 3 and so runs up your thoughts upon 
 the Ancient of Days, the antiquary's truest 
 object, unto whom the eldest parcels are 
 young, and earth itself an infant, and without 
 ^Egyptian 4 account makes but small noise in 
 thousands. 
 
 1 The great urns in the Hippodrome at Rome, conceived 
 to resound the voices of people at their shows. 
 
 2 Worthily possessed by that true gentleman, Sir 
 Horatio Townshend, my honoured friend. 
 
 3 Abiit adphircs. 
 
 4 Which makes the world so many years old. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 243 
 
 We were hinted by the occasion, not catched 
 the opportunity to write of old things, or 
 intrude upon the antiquary. We are coldly 
 drawn unto discourses of antiquities, who 
 have scarce time before us to comprehend 
 new things, or make out learned novelties. 
 But seeing they arose, as they lay, almost in 
 silence among us, at least in short account 
 suddenly passed over, we were very unwilling 
 they should die again, and be buried twice 
 among us. 
 
 Beside, to preserve the living, and make the 
 dead to live, to keep men out of their urns, 
 and discourse of human fragments in them, is 
 not impertinent unto our profession; whose 
 study is life and death, who daily behold 
 examples of mortality, and of all men least 
 need artificial mementoes, or coffins by our 
 bedside, to mind us of our graves. 
 
 "Tis time to observe occurrences, and let 
 nothing remarkable escape us : the supinity 
 of elder days hath left so much in silence, or 
 time hath so martyred the records, that the 
 most industrious heads x do find no easy work 
 to erect a new Britannia. 
 
 'Tis opportune to look back upon old times, 
 and contemplate our forefathers. Great ex- 
 amples grow thin, and are to be fetched from 
 the passed world. " Simplicity flies away, and 
 iniquity comes at long strides upon us. We 
 have enough to do to make up ourselves from 
 present and passed times, and the whole stage 
 
 1 Wherein Mr. Dugdale hath excellently well endea- 
 voured, and is worthy to be countenanced by ingenuous 
 and noble persons. 
 
244 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY 
 
 of things scarce serveth for our instruction. 
 A complete piece of virtue must be made up 
 from the centos of all ages, as all the beauties 
 of Greece could make but one handsome 
 Venus. 
 
 When the bones of King Arthur were 
 digged up, 1 the old race might think they 
 beheld therein some originals of themselves ; 
 unto these of our urns none here can pretend 
 relation, and can only behold the reliques of 
 those persons who, in their life giving the 
 laws unto their predecessors, after long 
 obscurity, now lie at their mercies. But, re- 
 membering the early civility they brought 
 upon these countries, and forgetting long- 
 passed mischiefs, we mercifully preserve their 
 bones, and piss not upon their ashes. 
 
 In the offer of these antiquities we drive 
 not at ancient families, so long outlasted by 
 them. We are far from erecting your worth 
 upon the pillars of your forefathers, whose 
 merits you illustrate. We honour your old 
 virtues, conformable unto times before you, 
 which are the noblest armoury. And, having 
 long experience of your friendly conversation, 
 void of empty formality, full of freedom, con- 
 stant and generous honesty, I look upon you 
 as a gem of the old rock, 2 and must profess 
 myself, even to urn and ashes, 
 
 Your ever faithful Friend and Servant, 
 
 THOMAS BROWNE. 
 NORWICH, May 1st. 
 
 1 In the time of Henry the Second. Camden. 
 
 2 Adamas de rupe veteri prcestantissimus. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN the deep discovery of the subterranean 
 world, a shallow part would satisfy some 
 enquirers ; who, if two or three yards were 
 open about the surface, would not care to 
 rack the bowels of Potosi, 1 and regions 
 towards the centre. Nature hath furnished 
 one part of the earth, and man another. The 
 treasures of time lie high, in urns, coins, and 
 monuments, scarce below the roots of some 
 vegetables. Time hath endless rarities, and 
 shows of all varieties; which reveals old 
 things in heaven, makes new discoveries in 
 earth, and even earth itself a discovery. 
 That great antiquity America lay buried for 
 thousands of years, and a large part of the 
 earth is still in the urn unto us. 
 
 Though if Adam were made out of an ex- 
 tract of the earth, all parts might challenge a 
 restitution, yet few have returned their bones 
 far lower than they might receive them ; not 
 affecting the graves of giants, under hilly and 
 heavy coverings, but, content with less than 
 their own depth, have wished their bones 
 might lie soft, and the earth be light upon 
 
 1 The rich mountain of Peru. 
 
246 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 them. Even such as hope to rise again would 
 not be content with central interment, or so 
 desperately to place their reliques as to lie 
 beyond discovery ; and in no way to be seen 
 again; which happy contrivance hath made 
 communication with our forefathers, and left 
 unto our view some parts which they never 
 beheld themselves. 
 
 Though earth hath engrossed the name, yet 
 water hath proved the smartest grave ; which 
 in forty days swallowed almost mankind, and 
 the living creation ; fishes not wholly escaping, 
 except the salt ocean were handsomely con- 
 tempered by a mixture of the fresh element. 
 
 Many have taken voluminous pains to 
 determine the state of the soul upon disunion; 
 but men have been most fantastical in the 
 singular contrivances of their corporal dis- 
 solution : whilst the soberest nations have 
 rested in two ways, of simple inhumation, and 
 burning. 
 
 That carnal interment or burying was of the 
 elder date, the old examples of Abraham and 
 the patriarchs are sufficient to illustrate ; and 
 were without competition, if it could be made 
 out that Adam was buried near Damascus, 
 or Mount Calvary, according to some tradition. 
 God himself, that buried but one, was pleased 
 to make choice of this way, as is collectible 
 from Scripture expression, and the hot contest 
 between Satan and the archangel about dis- 
 covering the body of Moses. But the practice 
 of burning was also of great antiquity, and of 
 no slender extent. For (not to derive the 
 same from Hercules) noble descriptions there 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 247 
 
 are hereof in the Grecian funerals of Homer, 
 in the formal obsequies of Patroclus and 
 Achilles ; and somewhat elder in the Theban 
 war, and solemn combustion of Menceceus, and 
 Archemorus, contemporary unto Jair the 
 eighth judge of Israel. Confirmable also 
 among the Trojans, from the funeral pyre of 
 Hector, burnt before the gates of Troy : and 
 the burning of Penthesilea the Amazonian 
 queen : and long continuance of that practice Q. CALABER. 
 in the inward countries of Asia ; while, as low llbt K 
 as the reign of Julian, we find that the king 
 of Chionia 1 burnt the body of his son, and 
 interred the ashes in a silver urn. 
 
 The same practice extended also far west; 2 
 and, besides Herulians, Getes, and Thracians, 
 was in use with most of the Celtae, Sarmatians, 
 Germans, Gauls, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians ; 
 not to omit some use thereof among Cartha- 
 ginians and Americans. Of greater antiquity 
 among the Romans than most opinion, or 
 Pliny seems to allow : for (beside the old table 
 laws of burning or burying within the city, 3 of 
 making the funeral fire with planed wood, or 
 quenching the fire with wine), Manlius the 
 consul burnt the body of his son : Numa, by 
 special clause of his will, was not burnt but 
 
 1 Gumbrates, king of Chionia, a country near Persia. 
 Ammianus Marcellinus. 
 
 2 Arnold. Montan. not. in Cces. Commentar. L. 
 Gyraldus. Kirckmannus. 
 
 3 12 Tdbul. part i. De Jure Sacro. ffominem mortuum 
 in urbe ne sepelito, neve urito, torn. 2. Rogum ascid ne 
 polito, torn. 4. Item Vigeneri Annotat. in Livium, et 
 Alex, ab Alex, cum Tiraquello. Roscinus cum Demp- 
 stero. 
 
248 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 buried; and Remus was solemnly burned, 
 according to the description of Ovid. 1 
 
 Cornelius Sylla was not the first whose body 
 was burned in Rome, but of the Cornelian 
 family, which, being indifferently, not fre- 
 quently, used before, from that time spread, 
 and became the prevalent practice ; not totally 
 pursued in the highest run of cremation ; for 
 when even crows were funerally burnt, Poppaea 
 the wife of Nero found a peculiar grave in- 
 terment. 
 
 Now, as all customs were founded jipon 
 some bottom of reason, so there wanted not 
 grounds for this ; according to several appre- 
 hensions of the most rational dissolution. 
 Some being of the opinion of Thales, that 
 water was the original of all things, thought 
 it most equal to submit unto the principle of 
 putrefaction, and conclude in a moist relent- 
 ment. Others conceived it most natural to 
 end in fire, as due unto the master principle 
 in the composition, according to the doctrine 
 of Heraclitus ; and therefore heaped up large 
 piles, more actively to waft them toward that 
 element, whereby they also declined a visible 
 degeneration into worms, and left a lasting 
 parcel of their composition. 
 
 Some apprehended a purifying virtue in fire, 
 refining the grosser commixture, and firing 
 out the aethereal particles so deeply immersed 
 in it. And such as by tradition or rational 
 conjecture held any hint of the final pyre of 
 all things, or that this element at last must be 
 
 1 Ultimo prolata subdita flamma rogo. De Fast. lib. iv. 
 cum Car. Neapol. Anaptyxi. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 249 
 
 too hard for all the rest, might conceive most 
 naturally of the fiery dissolution. Others, 
 pretending no natural grounds, politickly 
 declined the malice of enemies upon their 
 buried bodies. Which consideration led Sylla 
 unto this practice ; who, having thus served the 
 body of Marius, could not but fear a retaliation 
 upon his own ; entertained after in the civil 
 wars, and revengeful contentions of Rome. 
 
 But as many nations embraced, and many 
 left it indifferent, so others, too much affected, 
 or strictly declined this practice. The Indian 
 Brachmans seemed too great friends unto fire, 
 who burnt themselves alive, and thought it the 
 noblest way to end their days in fire ; accord- 
 ing to the expression of the Indian burning 
 himself at Athens, 1 in his last words upon the 
 pyre unto the amazed spectators, Thus I make 
 myself immortal. 
 
 But the Chaldeans, the great idolaters of 
 fire, abhorred the burning of their carcases, as 
 a pollution of that deity. The Persian magi 
 declined it upon the like scruple, and being 
 only solicitous about their bones, exposed 
 their flesh to the prey of birds and dogs. And 
 the Persees now in India, which expose their 
 bodies unto vultures, and endure not so much 
 as feretra or biers of wood, the proper fuel 
 of fire, are Ted on with such niceties. But 
 whether the ancient Germans, who burned 
 their dead, held any such fear to pollute their 
 deity of Herthus, or the earth, we have no 
 authentick conjecture. 
 
 1 And therefore the inscription of his tomb was made 
 accordingly. Nic. Damasc. 
 
250 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 The Egyptians were afraid of fire, not as 
 a deity, but a devouring element, mercilessly 
 consuming their bodies, and leaving too little 
 of them ; and therefore by precious embal- 
 ments, depositure in dry earths, or handsome 
 inclosure in glasses, contrived the notablest 
 ways of integral conservation. And from such 
 Egyptian scruples, imbibed by Pythagoras, it 
 may be conjectured that Numa and the Pytha- 
 gorical sect first waved the fiery solution. 
 <i::::::; The Scythians, who swore by wind and 
 sword, that is, by life and death, were so far 
 from burning their bodies, that they declined 
 all interment, and made their graves in the 
 air: and the Ichthyophagi, or fish-eating 
 nations about ^Egypt, affected the sea for their 
 grave ; thereby declining visible corruption, 
 and restoring the debt of their bodies. 
 Whereas the old heroes, in Homer, dreaded K 
 nothing more than water or drowning; 
 probably upon the old opinion of the fiery 
 substance of the soul, only extinguishable by 
 that element; and therefore the poet em- 
 phatically implieth the total destruction in 
 this kind of death, which happened to Ajax 
 Oileus. 1 
 
 The old Balearians had a peculiar mode, 
 for they used great urns and much wood, but 
 no fire in their burials, while they bruised the 
 flesh and bones of the dead, crowded them 
 into urns, and laid heaps of wood upon them. 
 And the Chinois without cremation or urnal 
 in Navigat. interment of their bodies, make use of trees 
 and much burning, while they plant a pine- 
 1 Which Magius reads ea7r<!>XuXe. 
 
 DlODORUS 
 SlCULUS. 
 
 RAMUSIUS 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 251 
 
 tree by their grave, and burn great numbers 
 of printed draughts of slaves and horses over 
 it,C~cJvilly \Tcpntent with their companies in 
 effigy, which barbarous nations exact unto 
 reality. 
 
 Christians abhorred this way of obsequies, 
 and though they sticked not to give their 
 bodies to be burnt in their lives, detested that 
 mode after death ; affecting rather a depositure 
 than absumption, and properly submitting unto 
 the sentence of God, to return, not unto ashes, 
 but unto dust again, conformable unto the 
 practice of the patriarchs, the interment of 
 our Saviour, of Peter, Paul, and the ancient 
 martyrs. And so far at last declining pro- 
 miscuous interment with Pagans, that some 
 have suffered ecclesiastical censures, for mak- Martinis 
 ing no scruple thereof. CypHan. P ' 
 
 The Musselman believers will never admit 
 this fiery resolution. For they hold a present 
 trial from their Black and white angels in the 
 grave ; which they must have made so hollow, 
 that they may rise upon their knees. 
 
 The Jewish nation, though they entertained 
 the old way of inhumation, yet sometimes 
 admitted this practice (for the men of Jabesh 
 Jburnt the body of Saul) ; and by no\ prohibited 
 practice, to avoid contagion or pollution, in 
 time of pestilence, burnt the bodies of their 
 friends. And when they burnt not their dead Amos vi. 10. 
 bodies, yet sometimes used great burnings 
 near and about them, as is deducible from the 
 expressions concerning Jehoram, Zedechias, 
 and the sumptuous pyre of Asa. And they were 
 so little averse from Pagan burning, that the 
 
252 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 SUETON. in Jews lamenting the death of Caesar their 
 c^ w/ friend, and revenger on Pompey, frequented 
 the place where his body was burnt for many 
 nights together. And as they raised noble 
 monuments and mausoleums for their own 
 nation, 1 so they were not scrupulous in erect- 
 ing some for others, according to the practice 
 of Daniel, who left that lasting sepulchral pile 
 in Ecbatana, for the Median and Persian 
 kings. 2 
 
 But even in times of subjection and hottest 
 use, they conformed not unto the Roman 
 practice of burning ; whereby the prophecy 
 was secured concerning the body of Christ, 
 that it should not see corruption, or a bone 
 should not be broken (which we believe,, was also 
 providentially prevented, from the soldier's 
 spear and nails that passed by the little bones 
 both in his hands and feet ; not of ordinary 
 contrivance, that it should not corrupt on the 
 cross, according to the law of Roman cruci- 
 fixion) ; or an hair of his head perish, though 
 observable in Jewish customs, to cut the hair 
 of malefactors. 
 
 Nor in the long cohabitation with the 
 ^Egyptians, crept they into a custom of their 
 exact embalming, wherein deeply slashing the 
 muscles, and taking out the brains and entrails, 
 they had broken the subject of so entire a 
 resurrection, nor fully answered the types of 
 Enoch, Elijah, or Jonah, which yet to prevent 
 
 1 As that magnificent sepulchral monument erected by 
 Simon, 1 Mace. xiii. 27, etc. 
 
 2 Ka.Ta<TKfi>a<Tfj.a 0au/ia<rt'o>s ireTronjfdvov, whereof a 
 Jewish priest had always the custody, unto Josephus 
 his days. Jos. Antiq. lib. x. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 253 
 
 or restore, was of equal facility unto that 
 rising power, able to break the fasciations and 
 bands of death, to get clear out of the cere- 
 cloth, and an hundred pounds of ointment, 
 and out of the sepulchre before the stone was 
 rolled from it. 
 
 But though they embraced not this practice 
 of burning, yet entertained they many cere- 
 monies agreeable unto Greek and Roman 
 obsequies. And he that observeth their 
 funeral feasts, their lamentations at the grave, 
 their music and weeping mourners ; how they. 
 closed the eyes of their friends, how they 
 washed, anointed, and kissed the dead ; may 
 easily conclude these were not mere Pagan 
 civilities. But whether that mournful burthen, 
 and treble calling- out after Absalom, had any 2 Sam. 
 reference unto the last conclamation, and XVU1 - 33- 
 triple valediction, used by other nations, we 
 hold but a wavering conjecture. 
 
 Civilians make sepulture but of the law of 
 nations, others do naturally found it and dis- 
 cover it also in animals. They that are so 
 thick-skinned as still to credit the story of 
 the Phoenix, may say something for animal 
 burning. More serious conjectures find 
 some examples of sepulture in elephants, 
 cranes, the sepulchral cells of pismires, and 
 practice of bees, which civil society carrieth 
 out their dead, and hath exequies, if not 
 interments. 
 
254 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE solemnities, ceremonies, rites of their 
 cremation or interment, so solemnly delivered 
 by authors, we shall not disparage our reader 
 to repeat. Only the last and lasting part in 
 their urns, collected bones and ashes, 5v^ can- 
 not wholly omit or decline, that subject, which 
 occasion lately presented, in some discovered 
 among us. 
 
 In a field of Old Walsingham, not many 
 months past, were digged up between forty 
 and fifty urns, deposited in a dry and sandy 
 soil, not a yard deep, nor far from one another. 
 Not all strictly of one figure, but most 
 answering these described: some containing 
 two pounds of bones, distinguishable in skulls, 
 ribs, jaws, thigh-bones, and teeth, with fresh 
 impressions of their combustion ; besides the 
 extraneous substances, like pieces of small 
 boxes, combs handsomely wrought, handles of 
 small brass instruments, brazen nippers, and 
 in one some kind of opal. 1 
 
 Near the same plot of ground, for about 
 six yards compass, were digged up coals and 
 incinerated substances, which begat con- 
 jecture that this was the ustrina or place of 
 burning their bodies, or some sacrificing place 
 
 1 In one sent me by my worthy friend, Dr. Thomas 
 Witherly of "Walsingham. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 255 
 
 unto the manes, which was properly below the 
 surface of the ground, as the arde and altars 
 unto the gods and heroes above it. 
 
 That these were the urns of Romans, from 
 the common custom and place where they 
 were found, is no obscure conjecture, not far 
 from a Roman garrison, and but five miles 
 from Brancaster, set down by ancient record 
 under the name of Branodunum. And where 
 the adjoining town, containing seven parishes, 
 in no very different sound, but Saxon termina- 
 tion, still retains the name of Burnham, which 
 being an early station, it is not improbable 
 the neighbour parts were filled with habita- 
 tions, either of Romans themselves, or Britons 
 Romanized, which observed the Roman 
 customs. 
 
 Nor JsJt-improbable, that the Romans early 
 possessed this country. For though we meet 
 not with such strict particulars of these parts 
 before the new institution of Constantine, and 
 military charge of the Count of the Saxon 
 shore, and that about the Saxon invasions the 
 Dalmatian horsemen were in the garrison 
 of Brancaster ; yet^ in the time of Claudius, 
 Vespasian, and Severus, we find no less than 
 three legions dispersed through the province 
 of Britain. And as high as the reign of 
 Claudius a great overthrow was given unto 
 the Iceni, by the Roman lieutenant Ostorius. 
 Not long after, the country was so molested, 
 that, in hope of a better state, Prasutagus 
 bequeathed his kingdom unto Nero and his 
 daughters; and Boadicea, his queen, fought 
 the last decisive battle with Paulinus. After 
 
.256 HYDR1OTAPHIA 
 
 which time, and the conquest of Agricoia, the 
 x lieutenant of Vespasian ; probable it is, they 
 wholly possessed this country ; ordering it 
 into garrisons or habitations best suitable 
 with their securities. And so some Roman 
 habitations not improbable in these parts, as 
 high as the time of Vespasian, where the 
 Saxons after seated, in whose thin-filled maps 
 we yet find the name of Walsingham. Now 
 if the Iceni were but Gammadims, Anconians, 
 or men that lived in an angle, wedge, or elbow 
 of Britain, according to the original etymology, 
 this countiy will challenge the emphatical 
 appellation, as most properly making tHe 
 elbow or iken of Icenia. 
 
 That Britain was notably populous is un- 
 deniable, from that expression of Caesar. 1 
 That the Romans themselves were early in 
 no small numbers, seventy thousand, with 
 their associates, slain by Boadicea, affords a 
 sure account. And though many Roman 
 habitations are now unknown, yet some, by 
 old works, rampiers, coins, and urns, do 
 testify their possessions. Some urns have 
 been found at Castor, some also about South- 
 creak, and, not many years past, no less than 
 ten in a field at Buxton, 2 not near any recorded 
 garrison. Nor is it strange to find Roman 
 coins of copper and silver among us; of 
 Vespasian, Trajan, Adrian, Commodus, Anto- 
 
 1 Hominum infinita multitiido est, creberrimaquc ; 
 cedificia fere GaMicis consimilia. Cses. de Bdlo Gkd. 
 lib. v. 
 
 2 In the ground of my worthy friend Eobert Jegon, 
 Esq. ; wherein some things contained were preserved by 
 the most worthy Sir William Paston, Bart. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 257 
 
 ninus, Severus, etc. ; but the greatest number 
 of Dioclesian, Constantine, Constans, Valens, 
 with many of Victorinus Posthumius, Tetricus, 
 and the thirty tyrants in the reign of Gallienus ; 
 and some as high as Adrianus have been found 
 about Thetford, or Sitomagus, mentioned in 
 the Itinerary of Antoninus, as the way from 
 Venta or Castor unto London. 1 But the 
 most frequent discovery is made at the two 
 Castors by Norwich and Yarmouth, 2 at Burgh- 
 castle, and Brancaster. 3 
 
 Besides the Norman, Saxon, and Danish 
 pieces of Cuthred, Canutus, William, Matilda, 4 
 and others, some British coins of gold have 
 been dispersedly found, and no small number 
 of silver pieces near Norwich, 5 with a rude 
 head upon the obverse, and an ill-formed 
 horse on the reverse, with inscriptions Ic. 
 Duro. T. ; whether implying Iceni, Durotriges, 
 Tascia, or Trinobantes/we leave to higher con- 
 jecture. Vulgar chronology will have Norwich 
 Castle as old as Julius Caesar, but his distance 
 from these parts, and its got hick form of struc- 
 
 1 From Castor to Thetf ord the Romans accounted thirty- 
 two miles, and from thence observed not our common road 
 to London, but passed by Combretonium ad Ansam, 
 Canonium, Ccesaromagus, etc,, by Bretenham, Cogges- 
 hall, Chelmsford, Brentwood, etc. 
 
 2 Most at Castor by Yarmouth, found in a place called 
 East-bloudy-burgh Furlong, belonging to Mr. Thomas 
 Wood, a person of civility, industry, and knowledge in 
 this way, who hath made observation of remarkable things 
 about him, and from whom we have received divers silver 
 and copper coins. 
 
 3 Belonging to that noble gentleman, and true example 
 of worth, Sir Ralph Hare, Bart., my honoured friend. 
 
 4 A piece of Maud, the empress, said to be found in 
 Buckenham Castle, with this inscription, Elle n'a elle. 
 
 5 At Thorpe. 
 
 R 
 
258 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 ture>_#bridgeth such^ntiquity. The British 
 coins afford conjecture of early habitation in 
 these parts, though the city of Norwich arose 
 from the ruins of Venta ; and though, per- 
 haps, not without some habitation before, was 
 enlarged, builded, and nominated by the 
 Saxons. In what bulk or populosity it stood 
 in the old East- Angle monarchy, tradition and 
 history are silent. Considerable it was in the 
 Brampton Danish eruptions, when Sueno burnt Thetford 
 journal- and Norwich, and Ulfketel, the governor 
 lensis. thereof, was able to make some resistance, 
 and after endeavoured to burn the Danish 
 navy. 
 
 How the Romans left so many coins in 
 countries of their conquests seems of hard 
 resolution; except we consider how they 
 buried them under ground when, upon bar- 
 barous invasions, they were fain to desert 
 their habitations in most part of their empire, 
 and the strictness of their laws forbidding to 
 trans ^ er them to any other uses : wherein the 
 Spartans were singular, who, to make their 
 copper money useless, contempered it with 
 vinegar. That the Britons left any, some 
 wonder, since their money was iron and iron 
 rings before Caesar ; and those of after-stamp 
 by permission, and but small in bulk and 
 bigness. That so few of the Saxons remain, 
 because, overcome by succeeding conquerors 
 upon the place, their coins, by degrees, passed 
 into othei stamps and the marks of after- 
 ages. 
 
 Than the time of these urns deposited, or 
 precise antiquity of these reliques, nothing of 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 259 
 
 more uncertainty ; for since the lieutenant of 
 Claudius seems to have made the first progress 
 into these parts, since Boadicea was over- 
 thrown by the forces of Nero, and Agricola 
 put a full end to these conquests, it is not 
 probable the country was fully garrisoned or 
 planted before ; and, therefore, however, these 
 urns might be of later date, not likely of 
 higher antiquity. 
 
 And the succeeding emperors desisted not 
 from their conquests in these and other parts, 
 as testified by history and medal-inscription 
 yet extant : the province of Britain, in so 
 divided a distance from Rome, beholding the 
 faces of many imperial persons, and in large 
 account; no fewer than Caesar, Claudius, 
 Britannicus, Vespasian, Titus, Adrian, Severus, 
 Commodus, Geta, and Caracalla. 
 
 A great obscurity herein, because no medal 
 or emperor's coin enclosed, which might de- 
 note the date of their interments ; observable 
 in many urns, and found in those of Spital- 
 fields, by London, which contained the coins STOWE'S 
 of Claudius, Vespasian, Commodus, Antoninus, 
 attended with lacrymatories, lamps, bottles of 
 liquor, and other appurtenances of affectionate 
 superstition, which in these rural interments 
 were wanting. 
 
 Some uncertainty there is from the period 
 or term of burning, or the cessation of that 
 practice. Macrobius affirmeth it was disused 
 in his days ; but most agree, though without 
 authentick record, that it ceased with the 
 Antonini, most safely to be understood after 
 the reign of those emperors which assumed 
 
260 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 the name of Antoninus, extending unto Helio- 
 gabalus. Not strictly after Marcus ; for about 
 fifty years later, "we find the magnificent 
 burning and consecration of Severus ; and, if 
 we so fix this period or cessation, these urns 
 will challenge above thirteen hundred years. 
 
 But whether this practice was only then 
 left by emperors and great persons, or gener- 
 ally about Rome, and not in other provinces, 
 we hold no authentick account ; for after 
 Tertullian, in the days of Minucius, it was 
 obviously objected upon Christians, that they 
 condemned the practice of burning. 1 And 
 SIDON. we find a passage in Sidonius, which asserteth 
 AKIS^ LIN tna ^ practice i* 1 France unto a lower account. 
 And, perhaps, not fully disused till Christianity 
 fully established, which gave the final ex- 
 tinction to these sepulchral bonfires. 
 
 Whether they were the bones of men, or ' 
 women, or children, no authentick decision 
 from ancient custom in distinct places of 
 burial. Although not improbably conjectured 
 that the double sepulture, or burying-place of 
 Gen. xxiii. 4 . Abraham, had in it such intention. But from 
 exility of bones, thinness of skulls, smallness 
 of teeth, ribs, and thigh-bones, 'tis not im- 
 probable that many thereof were persons of 
 minor age, or women. Confirmable also from 
 things contained in them. In most were 
 found substances resembling combs, plates 
 like boxes, fastened with iron pins, and hand- 
 somely overwrought like the necks or bridges 
 of musical instruments; long brass plates over- 
 
 1 Execrantur rogos, et dominant ignium sepulturam. 
 Min. in Oct. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 261 
 
 wrought like the handles of neat implements ; 
 brazen nippers, to pull away hair ; and in one 
 a kind of opal, yet maintaining a bluish colour. 
 Now that they accustomed to burn or bury 
 with them, things wherein they excelled, 
 delighted, or which were dear unto them, 
 either as farewells unto all pleasure, or vain 
 apprehension that they might use them in 
 the other world, is testified by all antiquity, 
 observable from the gem or beryl ring upon 
 the finger of Cynthia, the mistress of Proper- 
 tius, when after her funeral pyre her ghost 
 appeared unto him ; and notably illustrated 
 from the contents of that Roman urn preserved 
 by Cardinal Farnese, wherein, besides great VIGENERI 
 number of gems with heads of gods and ' "* 
 goddesses, were found an ape of agath, a 
 grasshopper, an elephant of amber, a crystal 
 ball, three glasses, two spoons, and six nuts 
 of crystal; and beyond the content of urns, 
 in the monument of Childerick the first, and CHIFFLET. 
 fourth king from Pharamond, casually dis- 
 covered three years past at Tournay, restoring 
 unto the world much gold richly adorning his 
 sword, two hundred rubies, many hundred 
 imperial coins, three hundred golden bees, 
 the bones and horse-shoes of his horse in- 
 terred with him, according to the barbarous 
 magnificence of those days in their sepulchral 
 obsequies. Although, if we steer by the con- 
 jecture of many and septuagint expression, 
 some trace thereof may be found even with 
 the ancient Hebrews, not only from the 
 sepulchral treasure of David, but the circum- 
 cision knives which Joshua also buried. 
 
262 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 Some men, considering the contents of 
 these urns, lasting pieces and toys included 
 in them, and the custom of burning with 
 many other nations, might somewhat doubt 
 whether all urns found among < us were 
 properly Roman reliques, or some not belong- 
 ing unto our British, Saxon, or Danish fore- 
 fathers. 
 
 In the form of burial among the ancient 
 Britons, the large discourses of Caesar, Tacitus, 
 and Strabo are silent. For the discovery 
 whereof, with other particulars, ^ve much 
 deplore the loss of that letter which Cicero 
 expected or received from his brother Quintus, 
 as a resolution of British customs ; or the 
 account which might have been made by 
 Scribonius Largus, the physician, accompany- 
 ing the Emperor Claudius, who might have 
 also discovered that frugal bit of the old 
 Britons, 1 which in the bigness of a bean could 
 satisfy their thirst and nunger. 
 
 But that the Druids and ruling priests used 
 to burn and bury, is expressed by Pomponius ; 
 that Bellinus, the brother of Brennus, and 
 king of the Britons, was burnt, is acknow- 
 ledged by Polydorus, as also by Amandus 
 Zierexensis in Historia, and Pineda in his 
 Universa Historia (Spanish). That they held 
 that practice in Gallia, Caesar expressly de- 
 livereth. Whether the Britons (probably 
 descended from them, of like religion, lan- 
 guage, and manners) did not sometimes make 
 use of burning, or whether at least such as 
 were after civilized unto the Roman life and 
 1 Dionis excerpta per Xiphilin. in Severo. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 263 
 
 manners, conformed not unto this practice, 
 ^#f> have no historical assertion or denial. 
 But since, from the account of Tacitus, the 
 Romans early wrought so much civility upon 
 the British stock, that they brought them to 
 build temples, to wear the gown, and study 
 the Roman laws and language, that they con- 
 formed also unto their religious rites and 
 customs in burials, seems no improbable con- 
 jecture. 
 
 That burning the dead was used in Sarmatia 
 is affirmed by Gaguinus; that the Sueons 
 and Gothlanders used to burn their princes 
 and great persons, is delivered by Saxo and 
 Olaus ; that this was the old German practice, 
 is also asserted by Tacitus. And though we 
 are bare in historical particulars of such 
 obsequies in this island, or that the Saxons, 
 Jutes, and Angles burnt their dead, yet came 
 they from parts where 'twas of ancient 
 practice ; the Germans using it, from whom 
 they were descended. And even in Jut- 
 land and Sleswick in Anglia Cymbrica, urns 
 with bones were found not many years before 
 fus.' 
 
 But the Danish and northern nations have 
 raised an era or point of compute from their 
 custom of burning their dead : some deriving Roisoid, 
 it from Unguinus, some from Frotho the great, 
 who ordained by law, that princes and chief 
 commanders should be committed unto the 
 fire, though the common sort had the common 
 grave interment. So Starkatterus, that old 
 hero, was burnt, and Ringo royally burnt the 
 body of Harold, the king slain by him. 
 
264 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 What time this custom generally expired in 
 that nation, we discern no assured period ; 
 whether it ceased before Christianity, or 
 upon their conversion,, by Ausgurius the Gaul, 
 in the time of Ludovicus Pius the son of 
 Charles the Great, according to good com- 
 putes ; or whether it might not be used by 
 some persons, while for an hundred and eighty 
 years Paganism and Christianity were pro- 
 miscuously embraced among them, there is 
 no assured conclusion. About which times 
 the Danes were busy in England, and 
 particularly infested this county ; where many 
 castles and strongholds were built by them, 
 or against them, and great number of names 
 and families still derived from them. But 
 since this custom was probably disused before 
 their invasion or conquest, and the Romans 
 confessedly practised the same since their 
 possession of this island, the most assured 
 account will fall upon the Romans, or Britons 
 Romanized. 
 
 However, certain it is, that urns, conceived 
 of no Roman original, are often digged up 
 both in Norway and Denmark, handsomely 
 described, and graphically represented by the 
 learned physician Wormius. 1 And in some 
 parts of Denmark in no ordinary number, as 
 stands delivered by authors exactly describing 
 those countries. 2 And they contained not 
 only bones, but many other substances in 
 them, as knives, pieces of iron, brass, and 
 
 1 Olai "Wormii Monumenta et Antiquitat. Dan. 
 
 2 Adolphus Cyprius in Annal. Sleswick. urnis adeo 
 aliwndabat coUis, etc. 
 
If , . . 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA 265 
 
 wood, and one of Norway a brass gilded Jew's- 
 harp. 
 
 Nor were they confused or Careless in dis- 
 posing the noblest sort, while they placed 
 large stones in circle about the urns or bodies 
 which they interred: somewhat answerable 
 unto the monument of Rollrich stones in 
 England, or sepulchral monument probably in Oxford- 
 erected by Rollo, who after conquered CAMDEN. 
 Normandy; where 'tis not improbable some- 
 what might be discovered. Meanwhile to 
 what nation or person belonged that large 
 urn found at Ashbury, containing mighty J? Cheshire, 
 
 *', . fo J TWINUS, 
 
 Jaiones, and a buckler; what those large urns&reius 
 found at Little Massingham ; or why the ^^folk 
 Anglesea urns are placed with their mouths ROLLINGS-' 
 downward, remains yet undiscovered. 
 
266 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PLAISTERED and whited sepulchres were 
 anciently affected in cadaverous and corrupted 
 
 S. Matt. burials; and the rigid Jews were wont to 
 sm ' 29 ' garnish the sepulchres of the righteous. 
 
 EURIPIDES. Ulysses, in Hecuba, cared not how meanly he 
 lived, so he might find a noble tomb after death. 
 Great princes affected great monuments ; and 
 the fair and larger urns contained no vulgar 
 ashes, which makes that disparity in those 
 which time discovereth among iuD The 
 present urns were not of one capacity, the 
 largest containing above a gallon, some not 
 much above half that measure ; nor all of one 
 figure, wherein there is no strict conformity 
 in the same or different countries ; observable 
 from those represented by Casalius, Bosio, and 
 others, though all found in Italy ; while many 
 have handles, ears, and long necks, but most 
 " imitate a circular figure, in a spherical and 
 round composure ; whether from any mystery, 
 best duration or capacity, were but a con- 
 jecture. But the common form with neoks 
 was a proper figure, making our last bed like 
 our first; nor much unlike the urns of our 
 
 PS. ixiii. nativity while we lay in the nefherpart of the 
 earth, and inward vault of our microcosm. 
 Many urns are red, these but of a black colour 
 somewhat smooth, and dully sounding, which 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 267 
 
 begat some doubt, whether they were burnt, 
 or only baked in oven or sun, according to the 
 ancient way, in many bricks, tiles, pots, and 
 testaceous works ; but as the word testa is 
 properly to be taken, when occurring without 
 addition, and chiefly intended by Pliny, when 
 he commendeth bricks and tiles of two years 
 old, and to make them in the spring. Nor 
 only these concealed pieces, but the open 
 magnificence of antiquity, ran much in the 
 artifice of clay. Hereof the house of Mausolus 
 was built, thus old Jupiter stood in the Capitol, 
 and the statua of Hercules, made in the reign 
 of Tarquinius Priscus, was extant in Pliny's 
 days. And such as declined burning or funeral 
 urns, affected coffins of clay, according to the 
 mode of Pythagoras, a way preferred by Varro. 
 But the spirits of great ones was above these 
 circumscriptions, affecting copper, silver, gold, 
 and porphyry urns, wherein Severus lay, after 
 a serious view and sentence on that which 
 should contain him. 1 Some of these urns 
 were thought to have been silvered over, 
 from sparklings in several pots, with small 
 tinsel parcels; uncertain whether from the 
 earth, or the first mixture in them. 
 
 Among these urnsCw could obtain no good 
 account of their coverings ; only one seemed 
 arched over with some kind of brick-work. 
 Of those found at Buxton, some were covered,/ 
 with flints, some, in other parts, with tiles ; 
 those at Yarmouth Castor were closed with 
 Roman bricks, and some have proper earthen 
 
 rbv dvdpuirov, 8v 
 Dion. 
 
268 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 covers adapted and fitted to them. But in 
 the Homerical urn of Patroclus, whatever was 
 the solid tegument, we find the immediate 
 covering to be a purple piece of silk : and such 
 as had no covers might have the earth closely 
 pressed into them, after which dispo^sure were 
 probably some of these, wherein we found the 
 bones and ashes half mortared unto the sand 
 and sides of the urn, and some long roots of 
 quich, or dog's-grass, wreathed about the 
 bones. 
 
 No lamps, included liquors, lacrymatories, 
 or tear bottles, attended these rural urns, 
 either as sacred unto the manes, or passionate 
 expressions of their surviving friends. While 
 with rich flames, and hired tears, they solemn- 
 ized their obsequies, and in the most lamented 
 monuments made one part of their inscriptions. 
 Cum Some find sepulchral vessels containing liquors. 
 
 lacrymis i i , i , i L j . ii 
 
 posuSre. which time hath mcrassated into jellies. For, 
 besides these lacrymatories, notable lamps, 
 with vessels of oils, and aromatical liquors, 
 attended noble ossuaries ; and some yet retain- 
 
 LAZIUS. ing a vinosity and spirit in them, which, if any 
 have tasted, they have far exceeded the palates 
 of antiquity. Liquors not to be computed by 
 years of annual magistrates, but by great con- 
 junctions and the fatal periods of kingdoms. 1 
 The draughts of consulary date were but crude 
 unto these, and Opimian wine 2 but in the 
 must unto them. 
 
 In sundry graves and sepulchres we meet 
 with rings, coins, and chalices. Ancient 
 
 1 About five hundred years. Plato. 
 
 2 Vinwm, Opiminianum annorum centum. Petron. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 269 
 
 frugality was so severe, that they allowed no 
 gold to attend the corpse, but only that which 
 jsgrved to fasten their teeth. 1 Whether the 
 Opaline stone in this urn were burnt upon the 
 finger of the dead, or cast into the fire by 
 some affectionate friend, it will consist with 
 either custom. But other incinerable sub- 
 stances were found so fresh, that they could 
 feel no singe from fire. These, upon view, 
 were judged to be wood ; but, sinking in 
 water, and tried by the fire, we found them 
 to be bone or ivory. In their hardness and 
 yellow colour they most resembled box, which, 
 in old expressions, found the epithet of 
 eternal, 2 and perhaps in such conservatories 
 might have passed uncorrupted. 
 
 That bay leaves were found green in the 
 tomb of S. Humbert, after an hundred and SURIUS. 
 fifty years, was looked upon as miraculous. 
 Remarkable it was unto old spectators, that 
 the cypress of the temple of Diana lasted so 
 many hundred years. The wood of the ark, 
 and olive-rod of Aaron, were older at the 
 captivity ; but the cypress of the ark of Noah 
 was the greatest vegetable antiquity, if 
 Josephus were not deceived by some fragments 
 of it in his days : to omit the moor logs and 
 fir-trees found underground in many parts of 
 England ; the undated ruins of winds, floods, 
 or earthquakes, and which in Flanders still 
 
 1 12 Tabul. 1. xi. De Jure Sacro. Neve aurum adito 
 ast quoi auro denies vincti escunt im cum ilo senelire 
 urereve, se fraude esto. 
 
 2 Plin. 1. xvi. Inter 6\a affairi) numerat Theo- 
 phrastus. 
 
270 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 show from what quarter they fell, as generally 
 lying in a north-east position. 
 GOROP. But though we found not these pieces to 
 
 BECANUS in -, -. -, . / , i . 
 
 NUoscopio. be wood, according to first apprehension, yet 
 we missed not altogether of some woody 
 substance ; for the bones were not so clearly 
 picked but some coals were found amongst 
 them ; a way to make wood perpetual, and a 
 fit associate for metal, whereon was laid the 
 foundation of the great Ephesian temple, and 
 which were made the lasting tests of old 
 boundaries and landmarks. Whilst we look 
 on these, we admire not observations of coals 
 found fresh after four hundred years. 1 In a 
 
 At Elmham. long-deserted habitation even egg-shells have 
 been found fresh, not tending to corruption. 
 
 In the monument of King Childerick the 
 iron reliques were found all rusty and crumb- 
 ling into pieces ; but our little iron pins, which 
 fastened the ivory works, held well together, 
 and lost not their magnetical quality, though 
 wanting a tenacious moisture for the firmer 
 union of parts ; although it be hardly drawn 
 into fusion, yet that metal soon submitteth 
 unto rust and dissolution. In the brazen 
 pieces we admired not the duration, but the 
 freedom from rust, and ill savour, upon the 
 hardest attrition ; but now exposed unto the 
 piercing atoms of air, in the space of a few 
 months, they begin to spot and betray their 
 green entrails. We conceive not these urns 
 to have descended thus naked as they appear, 
 or to have entered their graves without the old 
 habit of flowers. The urn of Philopcemen 
 Of Beringuccio nella pyrotechnia. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 271 
 
 was so laden with flowers and ribbons, that it 
 afforded no sight of itself. The rigid Lycurgus 
 allowed olive and myrtle. The Athenians 
 might fairly except against the practice of 
 Democritus, to be buried up in honey, as fear- 
 ing to embezzle a great commodity of their 
 country, and the best of that kind in Europe. 
 But Plato seemed too frugally politick, who 
 allowed no larger monument than would con- 
 tain four heroick verses, and designed the most 
 barren ground for sepulture : though we can- 
 not commend the goodness of that sepulchral 
 ground which was set at no higher rate than 
 the mean salary of Judas. Though the earth 
 had confounded the ashes of these ossuaries, 
 yet the bones were so smartly burnt, that some 
 thin plates of brass were found half melted 
 among them. Whereby w^ apprehend they 
 were not of the meanest carcases, perfunctorily 
 fired, as sometimes in military, and commonly 
 in pestilence, burnings ; or after the manner 
 of abject corpses, huddled forth and carelessly 
 burnt, without the Esquiline Port at Rome; 
 which was an affront continued upon Tiberius, 
 while they but half burnt his body, 1 and in 
 the amphitheatre, according to the custom in 
 notable malefactors; whereas Nero seemed 
 not so much to fear his death as that his head 
 should be cut off and his body not burnt 
 entire. 
 
 Some, finding many fragments of skulls in 
 these urns, suspected a mixture of bones ; in 
 none ' we "> searched was there cause of such 
 
 1 Sueton. in vita Tib. Et in amphitheatre semiustu- 
 landum, not. Casaub. 
 
272 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 conjecture, though sometimes they declined 
 SUETON. not that practice. The ashes of Domitian 
 ZMttM. were mingled with those of Julia ; of Achilles 
 with those of Patroclus. All urns contained 
 not single ashes; without confused burnings 
 they affectionately compounded their bones ; 
 passionately endeavouring to continue their 
 living unions. And when distance of death 
 denied such conjunctions, unsatisfied affect 
 tions conceived some satisfaction to be neigh- 
 bours in the grave, to lie urn by urn, and 
 touch but in their manes. And many were 
 so curious to continue their living relations, 
 that they contrived large and family urns, 
 wherein the ashes of their nearest friends 
 and kindred might successively be received, 1 
 at least some parcels thereof, while their 
 collateral memorials lay in minor vessels 
 about them. 
 
 Antiquity held too light thoughts from 
 objects of mortality, while some drew provoca- 
 tives of mirth from anatomies, 2 and jugglers 
 showed tricks with skeletons. When fiddlers 
 made not so pleasant mirth as fencers, and 
 men could sit with quiet stomachs, while 
 hanging was played before them. 3 Old con- 
 siderations made few mementoes by skulls 
 and bones upon their monuments. In the 
 
 1 See the most learned and worthy Mr. M. Casaubon 
 f~ upon Antoninus. 
 
 2 Sic erimus cuncti, etc. Ergo dum vivimus vivamus. 
 
 3 'Ayuvov Tral^eiv. A barbarous pastime at feasts, 
 when men stood upon a rolling globe, with their necks 
 in a rope and a knife in their hands, ready to cut it 
 when the stone was rolled away ; wherein if they failed, 
 they lost their lives, to the laughter of their spectators. 
 Athenaeus. 
 
HYDRIOTAPH1A 273 
 
 ^Egyptian obelisks and hieroglyphical figures 
 it is not easy to meet with bones. The sepul- 
 chral lamps speak nothing less than sepulture, 
 and in their literal draughts prove often 
 obscene and antick pieces. Where we find 
 D.M. it is obvious to meet with sacrificing^". 
 pateras and vessels of libation upon old m 
 sepulchral monuments. In the Jewish hypo- BOSIO. 
 gaeum and subterranean cell at Rome,, was 
 little observable beside the variety of lamps 
 and frequent draughts of the holy candle- 
 stick. In authentick draughts of Anthony and 
 Jerome we meet with thigh-bones and death's- 
 heads ; but the cemeterial cells of ancient 
 Christians and martyrs were filled with 
 draughts of Scripture stories; not declining 
 the flourishes of cypress, palms, and olive, and 
 the mystical figures of peacocks, doves, and 
 cocks ; but iterately affecting the portraits of 
 Enoch, Lazarus, Jonas, and the vision of 
 Ezekiel, as hopeful draughts, and hinting 
 imagery of the resurrection, which is the life 
 of the grave, and sweetens our habitations in 
 the land of moles and pismires. 
 
 Gentile inscriptions precisely delivered the 
 extent of men's lives, seldom the manner of 
 their deaths, which history itself so often 
 leaves obscure in the records of memorable 
 persons. There is scarce any philosopher but 
 dies twice or thrice in Laertius; nor almost 
 any life without two or three deaths in 
 Plutarch ; which makes the tragical ends of 
 noble persons more favourably resented by 
 compassionate readers who find some relief in 
 the election of such differences. 
 
274 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 PAUSAN. in 
 Atticis. 
 
 Tra.ja.nus. 
 DION. 
 
 The certainty of death is attended with 
 uncertainties, in time, manner, places. The 
 variety of monuments hath often obscured 
 true graves ; and cenotaphs confounded sepul- 
 chres. For beside their real tombs, many 
 have found honorary and empty sepulchres. 
 The variety of Homer's monuments made him 
 of various countries. Euripides had his tomb 
 in Africa, but his sepulture in Macedonia. 
 And Severus 1 found his real sepulchre in 
 Rome, but his empty grave in Gallia. 
 
 He that lay in a golden urn eminently 
 above the earth, was not like to find the quiet 
 of his bones. Many of these urns were broke 
 by a vulgar discoverer in hope of enclosed 
 treasure. The ashes of Marcellus 2 were lost 
 above ground, upon the like account. Where 
 profit hath prompted, no age hath wanted 
 such miners. For which the most barbarous 
 expilators found the most civil rhetorick. Gold 
 once out of the earth is no more due unto it ? 
 what was unreasonably committed to me 
 ground, is reasonably resumed from it ; let 
 monuments and rich fabricks, not riches, adorn 
 men's ashes. The commerce of the living is 
 not to be transferred unto the dead ; it is not 
 injustice to take that which none complains 
 to lose, and no man is wronged where no man 
 is possessor. 
 
 What virtue yet sleeps in this terra damnata 
 and aged cinders, were petty magick to experi- 
 
 1 Lamprid. in vit. Alexand. Severi. 
 
 2 Plut. in vit. Marcclli. The commission of the 
 Gothish King Theodoric for finding out sepulchral 
 treasure. Cassiodor. Variarum, i. 4. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 275 
 
 ment. These crumbling reliques and long 
 fired particles superannuate such expecta- 
 tions ; bones, hairs, nails, and teeth of the 
 dead, were the treasures of old sorcerers. In 
 vain we revive such practices ; present super- 
 stition too visibly perpetuates the folly of our 
 forefathers, wherein unto old observation 1 
 this island was so complete, that it might 
 have instructed Persia. 
 
 Plato's historian of the other world lies 
 twelve days incorrupted, while his soul was 
 viewing the large stations of the dead. How 
 to keep the corpse seven days from corrup- 
 tion by anointing and washing, without ex- 
 enteration, were an hazardable piece of art, 
 in our choicest practice. How they made 
 distinct separation of bones and ashes from 
 fiery admixture, hath found no historical 
 solution ; though they seemed to make a 
 distinct collection, and overlooked not Pyrrhus 
 his toe which could not be burnt. Some 
 provision they might make by fictile vessels, 
 coverings, tiles, or flat stones, upon and about 
 the body (and in the same field, not far from 
 these urns, many stones were found under 
 ground), as also by careful separation of ex- 
 traneous matter, composing and raking up 
 the burnt bones with forks, observable in that 
 notable lamp of [Joan.] Galvanus. 2 Martianus, 
 who had the sight of the vas ustrinum 3 or vessel 
 
 1 Britannia hodie cam attonite celebrat tantis ceremomis 
 ut dedisse Per sis videri possit. Plin. 1. 29. 
 
 2 To be seen in Licet, de reconditis veterum lucernis 
 [p. 599, fol. 1653]. 
 
 3 Typograph. Roma, ex Martiano. Erat et vas ustrinum 
 
276 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 wherein they burnt the dead, found in the 
 Esquiline field at Rome, might have afforded 
 clearer solution. But their insatisfaction 
 herein begat that remarkable invention in the 
 funeral pyres of some princes, by incombust- 
 ible sheets made with a texture of asbestos, 
 incremable flax, or salamander's wool, which 
 preserved their bones and ashes incommixed. 
 How the bulk of a man should sink into so 
 few pounds of bones and ashes, may seem 
 strange unto any who considers not its con- 
 stitution, and how slender a mass will remain 
 upon an open and urging fire of the carnal 
 composition. Even bones themselves, re- 
 duced into ashes, do abate a notable propor- 
 tion; and consisting much of a volatile salt, 
 when that is fired out, make a light kind of 
 cinders. Although their bulk be dispropor- 
 tionate to their weight, when the heavy 
 principle of salt is fired out, and the earth 
 almost only remaineth ; observable in sallow, 
 which makes more ashes than oak, and dis- 
 covers the common fraud of selling ashes by 
 measure, and not by ponderation. 
 
 Some bones make best skeletons, 1 some 
 - bodies quick and speediest ashes. Who would 
 expect a quick flame from hydropical Hera- 
 clitus ? The poisoned soldier when his belly 
 in vita brake, put out two pyres in Plutarch. But 
 Grace. m fa e plague of Athens, one private pyre 
 THUCY- served two or three intruders ; and the Sara- 
 cens burnt in large heaps, by the king of 
 
 appellatum, quod in eo cadavera comburerentur. Cap. de 
 Campo Esquilino. 
 
 1 Old bones according to Lyserus. Those of young 
 persons not tall nor fat, according to Columbus. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 277 
 
 Castile, showed how little fuel sufficeth. 
 Though the funeral pyre of Patroclus took LAURENT. 
 up an hundred foot, 1 a piece of an old boat 
 burnt Pompey; and if the burthen of Isaac 
 were sufficient for an holocaust, a man may 
 carry his own pyre. 
 
 From animals are drawn good burning 
 lights, and good medicines against burning. 
 Though the seminal humour seems of a con- Alb. Ovor. 
 trary nature to fire, yet the body completed 
 proves a combustible lump, wherein fire finds 
 flame even from bones, and some fuel almost 
 from all parts ; though the metropolis of 
 humidity 2 seems least disposed unto it, which 
 might render the skulls of these urns less 
 burned than other bones. But all flies or 
 sinks before fire almost in all bodies: when 
 the common ligament is dissolved, the attenu- 
 able parts ascend, the rest subside in coal, 
 calx, or ashes. 
 
 To burn the bones of the king of Edom for 
 lime seems no irrational ferity ; but to drink Amos ii. i. 
 qf the ashes of dead relations, 3 a passionate 
 prodigality. He that hath the ashes of his 
 friend, hath an everlasting treasure; where 
 fire taketh leave, corruption slowly enters. 
 In bones well burnt, fire makes a wall against 
 itself; experimented in cupels, and tests of 
 metals, which consist of such ingredients. 
 What the sun compoundeth, fire analyseth, not 
 transmuteth. That devouring agent leaves 
 almost always a morsel for the earth, whereof 
 
 2 The brain. Hippocrates. 
 
 3 As Artemisia of her husband Mausolus. 
 
278 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 all things are but a colony; and which, if 
 time permits, the mother element will have 
 in their primitive mass again. 
 
 He that looks for urns and old sepulchral 
 reliques, must not seek them in the ruins of 
 temples, where no religion anciently placed 
 them. These were found in a field, according 
 to ancient custom, in noble or private burial ; 
 the old practice of the Canaanites, the family 
 of Abraham, and the burying-place of Joshua, 
 in the borders of his .possessions; and also 
 agreeable unto Roman practice to bury by 
 highways, whereby their monuments were 
 under eye ; memorials of themselves, and 
 mementoes of mortality unto living passengers; 
 whom the epitaphs of great ones were fain tov 
 beg to stay and look upon them, a language 
 Siste -viator, though sometimes used, not so proper in 
 church inscriptions. The sensible rhetorick of 
 the dead, to exemplarity of good life, first 
 admitted the bones of pious men and martyrs 
 within church walls, which in succeeding ages 
 crept into promiscuous practice : while Con- 
 stantine was peculiarly favoured to be ad- 
 mitted into the church porch, and the first 
 thus buried in England, was in the days of 
 Cuthred. 
 
 Christians dispute how their bodies should 
 lie in the grave. 1 In urnal interment they 
 clearly escaped this controversy. Though we 
 decline the religious consideration, yet in 
 cemeterial and narrower burying-places, to 
 avoid confusion and cross-position, a certain 
 posture were to be admitted : which even 
 1 Kirchmannus, de Ftvneribus. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 279 
 
 Pagan civility observed. The Persians lay 
 north and south; the Megarians and Phoeni- 
 cians placed their heads to the east; the 
 Athenians, some think, towards the west, 
 which Christians still retain. And Beda will 
 have it to be the posture of our Saviour. 
 That he was crucified with his face toward 
 the west, 'we} will not contend with tradition 
 and probable account ; but we applaud not 
 the hand of the painter, in exalting his cross 
 so high above those on either side : since 
 hereof we find no authentick account in history, 
 and even the crosses found by Helena, pre- 
 tend no such distinction from longitude or 
 dimension. 
 
 To be knaved out of our graves, to have our 
 skulls made drinking-bowls, and our bones 
 turned into pipes, to delight and sport our 
 enemies, are tragical abominations escaped in 
 burning burials. 
 
 Urnal interments and burnt reliques lie not 
 in fear of worms, or to be an heritage for 
 serpents. In carnal sepulture, corruptions 
 seem peculiar unto parts ; and some speak of 
 snakes out of the spinal marrow. But while 
 we suppose common worms in graves, 'tis not 
 easy to find any there; few in churchyards 
 above a foot deep, fewer or none in churches 
 though in fresh-decayed bodies. Teeth, bones, 
 and hair give the most lasting defiance to 
 corruption. In an hydropical body, ten years 
 buried in the churchyard, we met with a fat 
 concretion, where the nitre of the earth, and 
 the salt and lixivious liquor of the body, had 
 coagulated large lumps of fat into the con- 
 
280 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 sistence of the hardest Castile soap, whereof 
 part remaineth with Us? After a "battle with 
 the Persians, the Roman corpses decayed in 
 a few days, while the Persian bodies remained 
 dry and uncorrupted. Bodies in the same 
 ground do not uniformly dissolve, nor bones 
 equally moulder ; whereof in the opprobrious 
 disease, 'we expect no long duration. The 
 body of the Marquess of Dorset seemed sound 
 and handsomely cere-clothed, that after 
 seventy-eight years was found uncorrupted. 1 
 Common tombs preserve not beyond powder : 
 a firmer consistence and compage of parts 
 might be expected from arefaction, deep 
 ^burial, or charcoal. The greatest antiquities 
 of mortal bodies may remain in putrefied 
 bones, whereof, though we take not in the 
 pillar of Lot's wife, or metamorphosis of 
 Ortelius, 2 some may be older than pyramids, 
 in the putrefied reliques of the general in- 
 undation. When Alexander opened the tomb 
 of Cyrus, the remaining bones discovered his 
 proportion, whereof urnal fragments afford 
 but a bad conjecture, and have this disadvant- 
 age of grave interments, that they leave us 
 ignorant of most personal discoveries. For 
 since bones afford not only rectitude and 
 stability but figure unto the body, it is no 
 impossible physiognomy to conjecture at fleshy 
 
 1 Of Thomas, Marquess of Dorset, whose body being 
 buried 1530, was, 1608, upon the cutting open of the cere- 
 cloth, found perfect and nothing corrupted, the flesh not 
 hardened, but in colour, proportion, and softness like an 
 ordinary corpse newly to be interred. Burton's Descript. 
 of Leicestershire. 
 
 2 In his map of Russia. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 281 
 
 appendencies, and 'after what shape the muscles 
 and carnous parts might hang in their full 
 consistencies. A full-spread cariola J shows a 
 well-shaped horse behind; handsome formed 
 skulls give some analogy to fleshy resemblance. 
 A critical view of bones makes a good distinc- 
 tion of sexes. Even colour is not beyond 
 conjecture, since it is hard to be deceived in 
 the distinction of Negroes' skulls. 2 Dante's 3 
 characters are to be found in skulls as well as 
 faces. Hercules is not only known by his 
 foot. Other parts make out their compro- 
 portions and inferences upon whole or parts. 
 And since the dimensions of the head measure 
 the whole body, and the figure thereof gives 
 conjecture of the principal faculties, physio- 
 gnomy outlives ourselves, and ends not in our 
 graves. 
 
 Severe contemplators, observing these last- 
 ing reliques, may think them good monuments 
 of persons past, little advantage to future 
 beings ; and, considering that power which 
 subdue th all things unto itself, that can resume 
 the scattered atoms, or identify out of any- 
 
 1 That part in the skeleton of a horse, which is made by 
 the haunch-bones. 
 
 2 For their extraordinary thickness. 
 
 3 The poet Dante, in his view of Purgatory, found 
 gluttons so meagre, and extenuated, that he conceited 
 them to have been in the siege of Jerusalem, and that it 
 was easy to have discovered Homo or Omo in their faces : 
 M being made by the two lines of their cheeks, arching 
 over the eyebrows to the nose, and their sunk eyes making 
 O O, which makes up Omo. 
 
 'Parean Vocchiaje anclla senza gemme. 
 Chi nel viso degli uomini legge OMO, 
 Bene avria quivi conosciuto I'emme.' 
 
 Pure/at, xxiii. 31. 
 
282 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 thing, conceive it superfluous to expect a 
 resurrection out of reliques : but the soul 
 subsisting, other matter, clothed with due 
 accidents, may salve the individuality. Yet 
 the saints, we observe, arose from graves and 
 monuments about the Holy City. Some think 
 the ancient patriarchs so earnestly desired to 
 lay their bones in Canaan, as hoping to make 
 a part of that resurrection ; and, though thirty 
 miles from Mount Calvary, at least to lie in 
 that region which should produce the first- 
 fruits of the dead. And if, according to 
 learned conjecture, the bodies of men shall 
 rise where their greatest reliques remain, 
 many are not like to err in the topography 
 of their resurrection, though their bones or 
 bodies be after translated by angels into the 
 Tirin. field of Ezekiel's vision, or as some will order 
 ze ' it, into the valley of judgment, or Jehosaphat. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 283 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CHRISTIANS have handsomely glossed the 
 deformity of death by careful consideration 
 of the body, and civil rites which take off 
 brutal terminations : and though they con- 
 ceived all reparable by a resurrection, cast not 
 off all care of interment. And since the 
 ashes of sacrifices burnt upon the altar of God 
 were carefully carried out by the priests, 
 and deposed in a clean field ; since they 
 acknowledged their bodies to be the lodging 
 of Christ,, and temples of the Holy Ghost, they 
 devolved not all upon the sufficiency of soul- 
 existence ; and therefore with long services 
 and full solemnities, concluded their last 
 exequies, wherein to all distinctions the 
 Greek devotion seems most pathetically cere- 
 monious. 1 
 
 Christian invention hath chiefly driven at 
 rites, which speak hopes of another life, and 
 hints of a resurrection. And if the ancient 
 Gentiles held not the immortality of their 
 better part, and some subsistence after death, 
 in several rites, customs, actions, and expres- 
 sions, they contradicted their own opinions : 
 wherein Democritus went high, even to the 
 thought of a resurrection, as scoffingly recorded 
 by Pliny. 2 What can be more express than 
 
 1 Rituale Grcecum, opera J. Goar, in officio exequiarum. 
 
 2 Similis .... reviviscendi promissa Democrito 
 
284 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 the expression of Phocylides ? x Or who would 
 expect from Lucretius 2 a sentence of Eccle- 
 siastes? Before Plato could speak, the soul 
 had wings in Homer, which fell not, but flew 
 out of the body into the mansions of the dead ; 
 who also observed that handsome distinction 
 of Demas and Soma, for the body conjoined 
 to the soul, and body separated from it. 
 Luciaii spoke much truth in jest, when he 
 said that part of Hercules which proceeded 
 from Alcmena perished, that from Jupiter 
 PLATO in remained immortal. Thus Socrates was con- 
 tent that his friends should bury his body, 
 so they would not think they buried Socrates ; 
 and, regarding only his immortal part, was 
 indifferent to be burnt or buried. From such 
 considerations, Diogenes might contemn sepul- 
 ture, and, being satisfied that the soul could 
 not perish, grow careless of corporal interment. 
 The Stoicks, who thought the souls of wise 
 men had their habitation about the moon, 
 might make slight account of subterraneous 
 deposition; whereas the Pythagoreans and 
 transcorporating philosophers, who were to be 
 often buried, held great care of "their inter- 
 ment. And the Platonicks rejected not a due 
 care of the grave, though they putjJiir_.ashes 
 to unreasonable expectations, in their tedious 
 term of return and long set revolution. 
 
 Men have lost their reason in nothing so 
 
 vanitas, qui non revixit ipse. Quce (malum) ista 
 dementia est, iterari vitam morte ? Plin. 1. vii. c. 58. 
 
 dTTOixo/J&w, et deinceps. 
 
 2 Cedit> enim retro de terra quod fuit ante in terrain, 
 etc. Lucret. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 285 
 
 much as their religion, wherein stones and 
 clouts make martyrs ; and, since the religion 
 of one seems madness unto another, to afford 
 an account oi rational of old rite requires no 
 rigid reader. That they kindled the pyre 
 aversely, or turning their face from it, was an 
 handsome symbol of unwilling ministration. 
 That they washed their bones with wine and 
 milk ; that the mother wrapped them in linen, 
 and dried them in her bosom, the first foster- 
 ing part and place of their nourishment ; that 
 they opened their eyes towards heaven before 
 they kindled the fire, as the place of their 
 hopes or original, were no improper cere- 
 monies. Their last valediction, 1 thrice uttered 
 by the attendants, was also very solemn, and 
 somewhat answered by Christians, who thought 
 it too little, if they threw not the earth thrice 
 upon the interred body. That, in strewing 
 their tombs, the Romans affected the rose; 
 the Greeks amaranthus and myrtle : that the 
 funeral pyre consisted of sweet fuel, cypress, 
 fir, larix, yew, and trees perpetually verdant, 
 lay silent expressions of their surviving hopes. 
 Wherein Christians, which deck their coffins 
 with bays, have found a more elegant emblem ; 
 for that tree, seeming dead, will restore itself 
 from the root, and its dry and exsuccous leaves 
 resume their verdure again ; which, if we 
 mistake not, we have also observed in furze. 
 Whether the planting of yew in churchyards 
 hold not its original from ancient funeral rites, 
 or as an emblem of resurrection from its 
 
 1 Vale, vale, vale, nos te ordine quo natura permittet 
 sequamur. 
 
286 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 perpetual verdure, may also admit conjec- 
 ture. 
 
 They made use of musick to excite or quiet 
 the affections of their friends, according to 
 different harmonies. But the secret and 
 symbolical hint was the harmonical nature of 
 the soul; which, delivered from the body, 
 went again to enjoy the primitive harmony 
 of heaven, from whence it first descended; 
 which, according to its progress traced by 
 antiquity, came down by Cancer, and ascended 
 by Capricornus. 
 
 They burnt not children before their teeth 
 appeared, as apprehending their -bodies too 
 tender a morsel for fire, and that their gristly 
 bones would scarce leave separable reliques 
 after the pyral combustion. That they kindled 
 not fire in their houses for some days after 
 was a strict memorial of the late afflicting fire. 
 And mourning without hope, they had an 
 happy fraud against excessive lamentations, 
 by a common opinion that deep sorrows dis- 
 turbed their ghosts. 1 
 
 That they buried their dead on their backs, 
 
 or in a supine position, seems agreeable unto 
 
 profound sleep, and common posture of dying; 
 
 contrary to the most natural way of birth ; nor 
 
 unlike our pendulous posture, in the doubtful 
 
 state of the womb. Diogenes was singular, 
 
 who preferred a prone situation in the grave ; 
 
 Russians anc ^ som e Christians like neither, who decline 
 
 etc - the figure of rest, and make choice of an erect 
 
 posture. 
 
 That they carried them out of the world with 
 1 Tu manes ne Icede riieos. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 287 
 
 their feet forward, was not inconsonant unto 
 reason ; as contrary unto the native posture of 
 man, and his production first into it ; and also 
 agreeable unto their opinions, while they bid 
 adieu unto the world, not to look again upon 
 it ; whereas Mahometans, who think to return 
 to a delightful life again, are carried forth 
 with their heads forward, and looking toward 
 their houses. 
 
 They closed their eyes, as parts which first 
 die, or first discover the sad effects of death. 
 But their iterated clamations to excitate their 
 dying or dead friends, or revoke them unto 
 life again, was a vanity of affection; as not 
 presumably ignorant of the critical tests of 
 death, by apposition of feathers, glasses, and 
 reflection of figures, which dead eyes represent 
 not : which, however not strictly verifiable in 
 fresh and warm cadavers, could hardly elude 
 the test, in corpses of four or five days. 1 
 
 That they sucked in the last breath of their 
 expiring friends, was surely a practice of no 
 medical institution, but a loose opinion that 
 the soul passed out that way, and a fondness 
 of affection, from some Pythagorical founda- 
 tion, 2 that the spirit of one body passed into 
 another, which they wished might be their 
 own. 
 
 That they poured oil upon the pyre, was 
 a tolerable practice, while the intention 
 rested in facilitating the accension. But to 
 place good omens in the quick and speedy 
 burning, to sacrifice unto the winds for a 
 
 1 At least by some difference from living eyes. 
 
 2 Francesco Perucci, Pompe funcbri. 
 
288 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 dispatch in this office, was a low form of 
 superstition. 
 
 The archimime, or jester, attending the 
 funeral train, and imitating the speeches, 
 gesture, and manners of the deceased, was 
 too light for such solemnities, contradicting 
 their funeral orations and doleful rites of the 
 grave. 
 
 That they buried a piece of money with 
 them as a fee of the Elysian ferryman, was 
 a practice full of folly. But the ancient 
 custom of placing coins in considerable urns, 
 and the present practice of burying medals 
 in the noble foundations of Europe, are laud- 
 able ways of historical discoveries, in actions, 
 persons, chronologies ; and posterity will 
 applaud them. 
 
 We examine not the old laws of sepulture, 
 exempting certain persons from burial or 
 burning. But hereby we apprehend that 
 these were not the bones of persons planet- 
 struck or burnt with fire from heaven ; no 
 reliques of traitors to their countiy, self- 
 killers, or sacrilegious malefactors ; persons 
 in old apprehension unworthy of the earth ; 
 condemned unto the Tartarus of hell, and 
 bottomless pit of Pluto, from whence there 
 was no redemption. 
 
 Nor were only many customs questionable 
 in order to their obsequies, but also sundry 
 practices, fictions, and conceptions, discordant 
 or obscure, of their state and future beings. 
 Whether unto eight or ten bodies of men to 
 add one of a woman, as being more inflam- 
 mable, and unctuously constituted for the better 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 289 
 
 pyral combustion, were any rational practice ; 
 or whether the complaint of Periander's wife 
 be tolerable, that wanting her funeral burn- 
 ing, she suffered intolerable cold in hell, 
 according to the constitution of the infernal 
 house of Pluto, wherein cold makes a great 
 part of their tortures ; it cannot pass without 
 some question. 
 
 Why the female ghosts appear unto Ulysses, 
 before the heroes and masculine spirits, why 
 the psyche or soul of Tiresias is of the mascu- 
 line gender, 1 who, being blind on earth, sees 
 more than all the rest in hell ; why the 
 funeral suppers consisted of eggs, beans, 
 smallage, and lettuce, since the dead are 
 made to eat asphodels about the Elysian in LUCIAN. 
 meadows, why, since there is no sacrifice 
 acceptable, nor any propitiation for the cove- 
 nant of the grave, men set up the deity 
 of Morta, and fruitlessly adored divinities 
 without ears, it cannot escape some doubt. 
 
 The dead seem all alive in the humane 
 Hades of Homer, yet cannot they speak, 
 prophesy, or know the living except they 
 drink blood, wherein is the life of man. And 
 therefore the souls of Penelope's paramours, 
 conducted by Mercury, chirped like bats, and 
 those which followed Hercules made a noise 
 but like a flock of birds. 
 
 The departed spirits know things past and 
 to come ; yet are ignorant of things present. /" 
 Agamemnon foretells what should happen 
 unto Ulysses ; yet ignorantly enquires what 
 is become of his own son. The ghosts are <* 
 
 1 In Homer : ^fvxjh GijjScuou Teipeo'iao aKr/irrpov ^x wi/ - 
 
 V 
 
 \ 
 
290 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 afraid of swords in Homer ; yet Sibylla tells 
 jEneas in Virgil, the thin habit of spirits was 
 beyond the force of weapons. The spirits put 
 off their malice with their bodies, and Caesar 
 and Pompey accord in Latin hell ; yet Ajax, 
 in Homer, endures not a conference with 
 Ulysses : and Deiphobus appears all mangled 
 in Virgil's ghosts, yet we meet with perfect 
 shadows among the wounded ghosts of 
 Homer. 
 
 Since Charon in Lucian applauds his condi- 
 tion among the dead, whether it be hand- 
 somely said of Achilles, that living contemner 
 of death, that he had rather be a ploughman's 
 servant, than emperor of the dead ? How is 
 Hercules his soul in hell, and yet in heaven ; 
 and Julius his soul in a star, yet seen by 
 / TEneas in hell ? except the ghosts were but 
 images and shadows of the soul, received in 
 higher mansions, according to the ancient 
 division of body, soul, and image, or simula- 
 chrum of them both. The particulars of future 
 beings must needs be dark unto ancient 
 theories, which Christian philosophy yet 
 determines but in a cloud of opinions. A 
 dialogue between two infants in the womb 
 concerning the state of this world, might 
 handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the 
 next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in 
 Plato's den, and are but embryon philo- 
 sophers. 
 
 Pythagoras escapes in the fabulous hell of 
 
 Dei infemo, Dante, among that swarm of philosophers, 
 
 wherein, whilst we meet with Plato and 
 
 Socrates, Cato is to be found in no lower 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 291 
 
 place than purgatory. Among all the set, 
 Epicurus is most considerable, whom men 
 make honest without an Elysium, who con- 
 temned life without encouragement of im- 
 mortality, and making nothing after death, 
 yet made nothing of the king of terrors. 
 
 Were the happiness of the next world as 
 closely apprehended as the felicities of this, 
 it were a martyrdom to live ; and unto such 
 as consider none hereafter, it must be more 
 than death to die, which makes us amazed at 
 those audacities that durst be nothing and 
 return into their chaos again. Certainly such 
 spirits as could contemn death, when they 
 expected no better being after, would have 
 scorned to live, had they known any. And 
 therefore we applaud not the judgment of 
 Machiavel, , that Christianity makes men 
 cowards, or that with the confidence of but 
 half-dying, the despised virtues of patience 
 and humility have abased the spirits of men, 
 which Pagan principles exalted; but rather 
 regulated the wildness of audacities, in the 
 attempts, grounds, and eternal sequels of 
 death ; wherein men of the boldest spirits are 
 often prodigiously temerarious.^ Nor can we 
 extenuate the valour of ancient martyrs, who 
 contemned death in the uncomfortable scene 
 of their lives, and in their decrepit martyr- 
 doms did probably lose not many months of 
 their days, or parted with life when it was 
 scarce worth the living. For (beside that 
 long time past holds no consideration unto a 
 slender time to come) they had no small 
 disadvantage from the constitution of old age, 
 
292 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 which naturally makes men fearful, and com- 
 plexionally superannuated from the Jjold and 
 courageous tHougHts"" of youth and fervent 
 years. But the contempt of death from 
 corporal animosity, promoteth not our felicity. 
 They may sit in the orchestra, and noblest 
 seats of heaven, who have held up shaking 
 hands in the fire, and humanly contended for 
 glory. 
 
 Meanwhile Epicurus lies deep in Dante's 
 hell, wherein we meet with tombs enclosing 
 souls which denied their immortalities. But 
 whether the virtuous heathen, who lived 
 better than he spake, or erring in the princi- 
 ples of himself, yet lived above philosophers 
 of more specious maxims, lie so deep as he 
 is placed, at least so low as not to rise against 
 Christians, who believing or knowing that 
 truth, have lastingly denied it in their prac- 
 tice and conversation were a query too sad 
 to insist on. 
 
 But all or most apprehensions rested in 
 opinions of some future being, which, ignor- 
 antly or coldly bettered, begat those per- 
 verted conceptions, ceremonies, sayings, which 
 Christians pity or laugh at. Happy are they 
 which live not in that disadvantage of time, 
 when men could say little for futurity, but 
 from reason : whereby the noblest mindsTfeTl 
 often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholick 
 dissolutions. With these hopes, Socrates 
 warmed his doubtful spirits against that cold 
 potion; and Cato, before he durst give the 
 fatal stroke, spent part of the night in reading 
 the Immortality of Plato, thereby confirming 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 293 
 
 his wavering hand unto the animosity of that 
 attempt. 
 
 It is the heaviest stone that melancholy 
 can throw at a man, to tell him he is at the 
 end of his nature ; or that there is no further 
 state to come, unto which this seems progres- 
 sional, and otherwise made in vain. Without 
 this accomplishment, the natural expectation 
 and desire of such a state were but a fallacy 
 in nature ; unsatisfied considerators would 
 quarrel the justice of their constitutions, and 
 rest content that Adam had fallen lower; 
 whereby, by knowing no other original, and 
 deeper ignorance of themselves, they might 
 have enjoyed the happiness of inferior crea- 
 tures, who in tranquillity possess their con- 
 stitutions, as having not the apprehension to 
 deplore their own natures, and, being framed 
 below the circumference of these hopes, or 
 cognition of better being, the wisdom of God 
 hath necessitated their contentment : but the 
 superior ingredient and obscured part of our 
 selves, whereunto all present felicities afford 
 no resting contentment, will be able at last to 
 tell us, we are more than our present selves, 
 and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of 
 their own accomplishments. 
 
294 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Now, since these dead bones have already out- 
 lasted the living ones of Methuselah, and in 
 a yard underground, and thin walls of clay, 
 out-worn all the strong and specious build- 
 ings above it; and quietly rested under the 
 drums and tramplings of three conquests : 
 what prince can promise such diuturnity unto 
 his reliques, or might not gladly say, 
 
 TIBULI.US. S* c e 9 componi versus in ossa velim? 
 
 Time, which antiquates antiquities, and hath 
 an art to make dust of all things, hath yet 
 spared these minor monuments. 
 
 In vain we hope to be known by open and 
 visible conservatories, when to be unknown 
 was the means of their continuation, and 
 obscurity their protection. If they died by 
 violent hands, and were thrust into their urns, 
 these bones became considerable, and some 
 old philosophers would honour them, 1 whose 
 souls they conceived most pure, which were 
 thus snatched from their bodies, and to retain 
 a stronger propensipn unto them; whereas 
 they weariedly left a languishing corpsV and 
 with faint desires of re-union. If they fell by 
 
 1 Oracula Chaldaica cum scholiis Psetti et Pkethonis. 
 BIT; \iirovTWv aCjfJLa tyvxal /ca^a/awrarat. Vi corjms 
 relinquentium animcK purissimce. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 205 
 
 long and aged decay, yet wrapt up in the 
 bundle of time, they fell into indistinction, 
 and make but one blot with infants, [if we 
 begin to die when we live, and long life oe but 
 a prolongation of death, our life is a sad com- 
 position ; we live with death, and die not in a 
 r> moment? "* How many pulses made up the 
 life of Methuselah, were work for Archimedes : 
 common counters sum up thq life of Moses his 
 man. Our days become considerable, like in the Psalm 
 petty sums, by minute accumulations ; where of Moses> 
 numerous fractions make up but small round 
 numbers ; and our days of a span long, make 
 not one little finger. 1 
 
 If the nearness of our last necessity brought 
 a nearer conformity unto it, there were a 
 happiness in hoary hairs, and no calamity in 
 half-senses. But the long habit of living 
 indisposeth us for dying ; when avarice makes 
 us the sport of death, when even David grew 
 politickly cruel, and Solomon could hardly be 
 said to be the wisest of men. But many are 
 too early old, and before the date of age. 
 Adversity stretcheth^our) days, misery makes 
 Alcmena's nights, 2 andTtime hath no wings 
 unto it. But the most tedious being is that 
 which can unwish itself^ content to be nothing, 
 or never to have been, which was beyond the 
 malcontent of Job, who curbed not the day of 
 his life, but his nativity ; content to have so 
 far been, as to have a title to future being, 
 
 1 According to the ancient arithmetick of the hand, 
 wherein the little 'finger of the right hand contracted, 
 signified an hundred. Pierius in Hieroglyph. 
 
 2 One night as long as three. 
 
296 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 although he had lived here but in an hidden 
 state of life, and as it were an abortion. 
 
 What song the Sirens sang, or what name 
 Achilles assumed when he hid himself among 
 women, though puzzling questions, 1 are not 
 beyond all conjecture. What time the persons 
 of these ossuaries entered the famous nations 
 of the dead, 2 and slept with princes and 
 counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But 
 who were the proprietaries of these bones, or 
 what bodies these ashes made up, were a 
 question above antiquarism ; not to be resolved 
 by man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, except 
 we consult the provincial guardians, or tutelary 
 observators. Had they made as good provision 
 for their names, as they have done for their 
 reliques, they had not so grossly erred in the 
 art of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, 
 and be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in 
 duration. Vain ashes, which, in the oblivion 
 of names, persons, times, and sexes, have found 
 unto themselves a fruitless continuation, and 
 only arise unto late posterity, as emblems of 
 mortal vanities, antidotes against pride, vain- 
 glory and madding vices. Pagan vain-glories 
 which thought the world might last for ever, 
 had encouragement for ambition ; and, finding 
 no atropos unto the immortality of their names, 
 were never dampt with the necessity of 
 oblivion. Even old ambitions had the advan- 
 tage of ours, in the attempts of their vain- 
 glories, who acting early, and before the 
 
 1 The puzzling questions of Tiberius unto grammarians. 
 Marcel. Donatus in Suet. 
 
 2 KXurd Zdvea vtKp&v. Horn. Job. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 297 
 
 probable meridian of time, have by this time 
 found great accomplishment of their designs, 
 whereby the ancient heroes have already out- 
 lasted their monuments, and mechanical 
 preservations. But in this latter scene of 
 time, we cannot expect such mummies unto our 
 memories, when ambition mayfear the prophecy 
 of Elias, 1 and Charles the Fifth can never hope 
 to live within two Methuselahs of Hector. 2 
 
 And therefore, restless inquietude for the 
 diuturnity of our memories unto present con- 
 siderations seems a vanity almost out of date, 
 and superannuated piece of folly. We cannot 
 hope to live so long in our names, as some 
 have done in their persons. One face of 
 Janus holds no proportion unto the other. 
 'Tis too late to be ambitious. The great 
 mutations of the world are acted, or time may 
 be too short for our designs. To extend our 
 memories by monuments, whose death we 
 daily pray for, and whose duration we cannot 
 hope, without injury to our expectations in the 
 advent of the last day, were a contradiction 
 to our beliefs. We whose generations are 
 ordained in this setting part of time, are 
 providentially taken off from such imagina- 
 tions; and, being necessitated to eye the 
 remaining particle of futurity, are naturally 
 constituted unto thoughts of the next world, 
 and cannot excusably decline the consideration 
 of that duration, which maketh pyramids 
 pillars of snow, and all that 's past a moment. 
 
 1 That the world may last but six thousand years. 
 ' 2 Hector's fame lasting above two lives of Methuselah, 
 before that famous prince was extant. 
 
200 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 Circles and right lines limit and close all 
 bodies, and the mortal right-lined circle 1 must 
 conclude and shut up all. There is no anti- 
 dote against the opium of time, which tempor- 
 ally considereth all things: our fathers find 
 their graves in our short memories, and sadly 
 tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. 
 Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty 'years.* 
 Generations pass while some trees stand, and 
 old families last not three oak.> To be read 
 by bare inscriptions like many in Grater, 3 to 
 hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets or 
 first letters of our names, to be studied by 
 antiquaries, whow^ were, and have new names 
 given us, like many of the mummies, 4 are cold 
 consolations unto the students of perpetuity, 
 even by everlasting languages. 
 
 To be content that times to come should 
 only know there was such a man, not caring 
 whether they knew more of him, was a frigid 
 ambition in Cardan; 5 disparaging his horo- 
 scopal inclination and judgment of himself. 
 Who cares to subsist tike Hippocrates's 
 patients, or Achilles's horses in Homer, 
 under naked nomination?. \rithout deserts 
 and noble acts, which are the balsam of our 
 memories, the entelechia and soul of our sub- 
 sistences? To be nameless in worthy deeds, 
 
 being taken up, and other bodies hid 
 
HYDRIOTAPH1A 299 
 
 exceeds an infamous history. The Canaan- 
 itish woman lives more happily without a 
 name, than Herodias with one. And who had 
 not rather have been the good thief, than 
 Pilate ? 
 
 But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth , 
 her poppy, and deals with the memory of 
 men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. 
 Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids ? 
 Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of 
 Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time 
 hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, 
 confounded that of himself. In vain we com- 
 pute our felicities by the advantage of our 
 good names, since bad -hath equal durations, 
 and Thersites is like to live as long as Aga- 
 ^memnon. Who knows whether the best of 
 men be known, or whether there be not more 
 remarkable persons forgot, than any that 
 stand remembered in the known account of 
 time ? Without the favour of the everlasting 
 register, the first man had been as unknown 
 as the last, and Methuselah's long life had 
 been his only chronicle. 
 
 1 Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater 
 part must be content to be as though they 
 had not been, to be found in the register of - 
 God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven 
 names make up the first story before the flood, 
 and the recorded names ever since contain 
 not one living century. The number of the 
 dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The 
 night of time far surpasseth the day, and who 
 knows when was the equinox ? Every hour adds 
 unto that current arithmetick, which scarce 
 
300 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 stands one moment. And since death must 
 EURIPIDES. b e the Luc'ma of life, and even Pagans could 
 doubt, whether thus to live were to die ; since 
 our longest sun sets at right descensions, and 
 makes but winter arches, and therefore it 
 cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, 
 and have our light in ashes ; 1 since the brother 
 of death daily haunts us with dying memen- 
 toes, and time, that grows old in itself, bids 
 us hope no long duration ; diuturnity is a 
 dream and folly of expectation. 
 
 Darkness and light divide the course of 
 time, and oblivion shares with memory a great 
 part even of our living beings; we slightly 
 remember our felicities, and the smartest 
 strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon 
 us. Sense endureth no extremities, and 
 sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep 
 into stones are fables. Afflictions induce 
 callosities ; miseries are slippery, or fall like 
 snow upon us, which notwithstanding is no 
 unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils 
 to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a 
 merciful provision in nature, whereby we 
 digest the mixture of our few and evil days, 
 and, our delivered senses not relapsing into 
 cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not 
 kept raw by the edge of repetitions. A great 
 part of antiquity contented their hopes of sub- 
 sistency with a transmigration of their souls, 
 a good way to continue their memories, while 
 having the advantage of plural successions, 
 they could not but act something remarkable 
 
 1 According to the custom of the Jews, who place a 
 lighted wax-candle in a pot of ashes by the corpse. Leo. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 301 
 
 in such variety of beings, and enjoying the 
 fame of their passed selves, make accumula- 
 tion of glory unto their last durations. Others, 
 rather than be lost in the uncomfortable night 
 of nothing, were content to recede into the 
 common being, and make one particle of the 
 publick soul of all things, which was no more 
 than to return into their unknown and divine 
 original again. ^Egyptian ingenuity was more 
 unsatisfied, contriving their bodies in sweet 
 consistencies, to attend the return of their souls. 
 But all was vanity, 1 feeding the wind, and folly. 
 The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or 
 time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. 
 Mummy is become merchandize, Mizraim cures 
 wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams. 
 
 Jjn vain do individuals hope for immortality, 
 or any patent from oblivion^ in preservations 
 below the moon ; men have been deceived 
 even in their flatteries, above the sun, and 
 studied conceits to perpetuate their names in 
 heaven. The various cosmography of that 
 part hath already varied the names of con- 
 trived constellations ; Nimrod is lost in Orion, 
 and Osyris in the Dog-star. While we look 
 for incorruption in the heavens, we find they 
 are but like the earth ; durable in their main 
 bodies, alterable in their parts; whereof, 
 beside comets and new stars, perspectives 
 begin to tell tales, and the spots that wander 
 about the sun, with Phaeton's favour would 
 make clear conviction. 
 
 There is nothing strictly immortal, but 
 
 1 Omnia vanitas et pastio venti, i>ofj.Tj avtfj-ov Ka.1 
 /36(7/c?7<rts, ut olim Aquila ct Symmachus. v. Drus. Eccles. 
 
302 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 immortality. Whatever hath no beginning, 
 may be confident of no end ; which is the 
 peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot 
 destroy itself; and the highest strain of 
 omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted 
 as not to suffer even from the power of itself : 
 all others have a dependent being and within 
 the reach of destruction. But the sufficiency 
 of Christian immortality frustrates all earthly 
 glory, and the quality of either state after 
 death, makes a folly of posthumous memory. 
 God, who can only destroy our souls, and hath 
 assured our resurrection, either of our bodies 
 or names, hath directly promised no duration. 
 Wherein there is so much of chance, that the 
 boldest expectants have found unhappy frus- 
 - J tration ; and to hold long subsistence, seems 
 but a scape in oblivion. But man is a noble 1 
 animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the ' 
 grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with 
 equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of 
 bravery in the infamy of his nature. 
 
 Life is a pure flame, and we live by an 
 invisible sun within us. A small fire sufficeth 
 for life, great flames seemed too little after 
 death, while men vainly affected precious pyres, 
 and to burn like Sardanapalus ; but the 
 wisdom of funeral laws found the folly of 
 prodigal blazes, and reduced undoing fires 
 unto the rule of sober obsequies, wherein few 
 could be so mean as not to provide wood, pitch, 
 a mourner, and an urn. 1 
 
 1 According to the epitaph of Rufus and Beronica, in 
 Grutems : 
 
 nee ex 
 Eorum lonis plus inventum est, quam 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 303 
 
 Five languages secured not the epitaph of 
 Gordianus. 1 The man of God lives longer 
 without a tomb than any by one, invisibly 
 interred by angels, and adjudged to obscurity, 
 though not without some marks directing 
 human discovery. Enoch and Elias, without 
 either tomb or burial, in an anomalous 
 state of being, are the great examples of 
 perpetuity, in their long and living memory, 
 in strict account being still on this side death, 
 and having a late part yet to act upon this 
 stage of earth. If in the decretory term 
 of the world we shall not die but be changed, 
 according to received translation, the last day 
 will make but few graves ; at least quick 
 resurrections will anticipate lasting sepultures. 
 Some graves will be opened before they be 
 quite closed, and Lazarus be no wonder. 
 When many that feared to die shall groan 
 that they can die but once, the dismal state is 
 the second and living death, when life puts 
 despair on the damned ; when men shall wish 
 the coverings of mountains, not of monuments, 
 and annihilation shall be courted. 
 
 While some have studied monuments, 
 others have studiously declined them, and 
 some have been so vainly boisterous, that they 
 durst not acknowledge their graves ; wherein 
 Alaricus 2 seems most subtle, who had a river 
 turned to hide his bones at the bottom. Even 
 
 Quod sufficeret ad emendam pyram, 
 Etpiccm quibus corpora cremarentur, 
 Et prafica conducta, ct olla cmpta. 
 
 1 In Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Egyptian, Arabic; defaced 
 by Licinius the emperor. 
 
 2 Jornandes, De Getarmu. 
 
304 HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 Sylla, that thought himself safe in his urn, 
 could not prevent revenging tongues,, and 
 stones thrown at his monument. JTiappy are 
 they whom privacy makes innocent, who deal 
 so with men in this world, that they are not 
 afraid to meet them in the next, who, when 
 they die, make no commotion among the dead, 
 isa. xiv. 16, and are not touched with that poetical taunt 
 of Isaiah. 
 
 Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the 
 irregularities of vain-glory, and wild enormities 
 of ancient magnanimity. But the most 
 magnanimous resolution rests in the Chris- 
 tian religion, which trampleth upon pride, 
 and sits on the neck of ambition, humbly 
 pursuing that infallible perpetuity, into which 
 all others must diminish their diameters, 
 and be poorly seen in angles of contingency. 1 
 
 Pious spirits who passed their days in 
 raptures of futurity, made little more of this 
 world, than the world that was before it, 
 while they lay obscure in the chaos of pre- 
 ordination, and night of their forebeings. 
 And if any have been so happy as truly to 
 understand Christian annihilation, ecstasis, 
 exolution, liquefaction, transformation, the 
 kiss of the spouse, gustation of God, and 
 ingression into the divine shadow, they have 
 already had an handsome anticipation of 
 heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, 
 and the earth in ashes unto them. 
 
 To subsist in lasting monuments, to live in 
 their productions, to exist in their names and 
 predicament of chimaeras, was large satisfaction 
 1 Angulus contingentice, the least of angles. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 305 
 
 unto old expectations, and made one part of 
 their Elysiums. But all this is nothing in the 
 metaphysicks of true belief. To live indeed, is 
 to be again ourselves, which being not only an 
 hope, but an evidence in noble believers, 'tis 
 all one to lie in St. Innocent's 1 churchyard, as 
 in the sands of JEgypt. Ready to be anything, 
 in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content 
 with six foot as the moles of Adrianus. 2 
 
 tabesne cadavera solvat, 
 An rogus, hand refert. LUCAN. 
 
 1 In Paris, where bodies soon consume. 
 
 2 A stately mausoleum or sepulchral pile, built by 
 Adrianus in Rome, where now standeth the castle of St. 
 Angelo. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press 
 
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