a

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 thoufand, and at one blow afsassin the honour of a Nation. It is as compleat a piece of madness to miscal and rave against the times, or think to recal men to reason, by a fit of paffion. Democritus, that thought to laugh the times into goodness, seems to me as deeply hyponchondriack, 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 un,derstanding 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,

Tit. i. 12.

though though they destroy one another, are yet in the life of one another. Thus virtue (abolish vice) is an i-| dea; again, the community of fin common doth not disparage goodness; for nefs, 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 intire in the general inundation. I can therefore behold vice without a satyr content only, with an admonition, or instructive reprehenfion; for noble natures, and such as are capable of goodness, are railed into vice, that might as easily be admo-railler nished into virtue; and we should laughi be all fo far the orators of goodness, as to protect her from the power of vice, and maintain the cause of injured truth. No man can justly cenfure or condemn another, because indeed no man tru

ly

vice

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ly knows another. This I perceive in myself, for I am in the dark to all the world, and my nearest friends behold me but in a cloud, those that know me but fuperficially, think less of me than I do of myfelf; 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 thro' a derived ray, or a trajection of a sensible species, but beholds the fubstance 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; for we cenfure others but as they disagree from that humour which we fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend others but for that wherein they feem to quadrate and confent with us. So that in conclufion, all is but that we all condemn, felf

self-love. 'Tis the general com-
plaint of these times, and perhaps
of those past, that charity grows
cold; which I perceive most veri-
fied in those which most do mani-
feft the fires and flames of zeal; for
it is a virtue that best agrees with ?
coldest natures, and such as are com-
plexioned for humility: But how
shall we expect charity towards o-
thers, when we are uncharitable to
ourselves? Charity begins at home,
is the voice of the world, yet is e-
very man his greatest enemy, and
as it were, his own executioner.
Non occides, is the commandment 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 therefore the first
murderer, but Adam, who brought
in death; whereof he beheld the
practice and example in his own
fon Abel, and saw that verified in
the

Z

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the experience of another; which faith could not perfuade him of in the theory of himself.

SECT. V.

There is I think no man that apprehends his own miseries less than : myself, and no man that so nearly apprehends anothers. I could lofe an arm without a tear, and with few groans, methinks, be quartered into pieces; yet can I weep most serioufly 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 mifery, or endeavour to multiply in any man, a passion, whose single nature is already above his patience; this was the greatest affliction of Job, and those oblique expostulations of his friends a deeper injury than the *down right blows of the devil. It

impostors-Scep-4一

is

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