accomplish God's will; and looketh at the effects it worketh upon our souls, but in a narrow compass; like one in the vulgar throng, that considereth God as a judge, and as a rewarder or a punisher. Whereas perfect charity is that vehement love of God for his own sake, for his goodness, for his beauty, for his excellency, that carrieth all the motions of our soul directly and violently to him; and maketh a man disdain, or rather hate all obstacles that may retard his journey to him. And that face of it that looketh toward mankind with whom we live, and warmeth us to do others good, is but like the overflowing of the main stream, that swelling above its banks runneth over in a multitude of little channels. ་ I am not satisfied, that in the likeness which he putteth between God and man, he maketh the difference between them, to be but such as between two creatures that resemble one another. For between these, there is some proportion; but between the others, none at all. In the examining of which discourse, wherein the author observeth, that no two faces are ever seen to be perfectly alike, nay, no two pictures of the same face were ever exactly made so; I could take occasion to insert a subtile and delightful demonstration of Master White's, wherein he sheweth, how it is impossible that two bodies (for example, two bowls) should ever be made exactly like one another; nay, not rigorously equal in any one accident, as namely, in weight, but that still there will be some little difference and inequality between them; (the reason of which observation our author meddleth not with ;)-were it not that I have been so long already, as digressions were now very unseasonable. Shall I commend or censure our author for believing so well of his acquired knowledge, as to be dejected at the thought of not being able to leave it a legacy among his friends? Or shall I examine whether it be not a high injury to wise and gallant princes, who out of the generousness and nobleness of their nature, do patronize arts and learned men, to impute their so doing to vanity of desiring praise, or to fear of reproach. But let these pass: I will not engage any that may befriend him, in a quarrel against him. But I may safely produce Epictetus to contradict him, when he letteth his kindness engulf him in deep afflictions for a friend: for he will not allow his wise man to have an inward relenting, a troubled feeling, or compassion of another's misfortunes. That disordereth the one, without any good to the other. Let him afford all the assistances and relievings in his power, but without intermingling himself in the other's woe; as angels, that do us good, but have no passion for us. But this gentleman's kindness goeth yet further 5 he compareth his love of a friend to his love of God; the union of friends' souls by affection, to the union of the three persons in the Trinity, and to the hypostatical union of two natures in one Christ, by the Word's incarnation. Most certainly he expresseth himself to be a right good-natured man. But if St. Augustine retracted so severely his pathetical expressions for the death of his friend, saying, they savoured more of the rhetorical declamations of a young orator, than of the grave confession of a devout christian, (or somewhat to that purpose,) what censure upon himself may we expect of our physician, if ever he make any retractation of this discourse concerning his religion. It is no small misfortune to him, that after so much time spent, and so many places visited in a curious search, by travelling after the acquisition of so many languages; after the wading so deep in sciences, as appeareth by the ample inventory and particular he maketh of himself: the result of all this should be to profess ingenuously he had studied enough, only to become a sceptick; and that having run through all sorts of learning, he could find rest and satisfaction in none.8 This, I confess, is the unlucky fate of those that light upon wrong principles. But Master White teacheth us, how the theorems and demonstrations of physicks may be linked and chained together, as strongly, and as continuedly, as they are in the mathematicks, if men would but apply themselves to a right method of study. And I do not find that Solomon complained of ignorance in the height of knowledge; (as this gentleman saith;) but only, that after he hath rather acknowledged himself ignorant of nothing, but that he understood the natures of all plants, from the cedar to the hyssop, and was acquainted with all the ways and paths of wisdom and VOL. II. L knowledge, he exclaimeth, that all this is but toil and vexation of spirit; and therefore adviseth men to change human studies into divine contemplations and affections. 8 I cannot agree to his resolution of shutting his books, and giving over the search of knowledge, and resigning himself up to ignorance, upon the reason that moveth him; as though it were extreme vanity to waste our days in the pursuit of that, which by attending but a little longer, (till death hath closed the eyes of our body, to open those of our soul,) we shall gain with ease, we shall enjoy by infusion, and as an accessory of our glorification. It is true, as soon as death hath played the midwife to our second birth, our soul shall then see all truths more freely, than our corporal eyes at our first birth see all bodies and colours, by the natural power of it, as I have touched already, and not only upon the grounds our author giveth. Yet far be it from us, to think that time lost, which in the mean season we shall laboriously employ, to warm ourselves with blowing a few little sparks of that glorious fire, which we shall afterwards in one instant leap into the middle of, without danger of scorching. And that for two important reasons; (besides several others, too long to mention here;) the one, for the great advantage we have by learning in this life; the other, for the huge contentment that the acquisition of it here (which implyeth a strong affection to it) will be unto us in the next life. The want of knowledge in our first mother (which exposed her to be easily deceived by the serpent's cunning) was the root of all our ensuing misery and woe. It is as true (which we are taught by irrefragable authority) that omnis peccans ignorat: and the well-head of all the calamities and mischiefs in all the world consisteth of the troubled and bitter waters of ignorance, folly, and rashness; to cure which, the only remedy and antidote is the salt of true learning, the bitter wood of study, painful meditation, and orderly consideration. I do not mean such study, as armeth wrangling champions for clamorous schools, where the ability of subtile disputing to and fro, is more prized than the retrieving of truth: but such as filleth the mind with solid and useful notions, and doth not endanger the swelling it up with windy vanities. Besides, the sweetest companion and entertainment of a well-tempered mind is to converse familiarly with the naked and bewitching beauties of those mistresses, those verities and sciences, which, by fair courting of them, they gain and enjoy; and every day bring new fresh ones to their seraglio, where the ancientest never grow old or stale. Is there any thing so pleasing or so profitable as this? -Nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere But now, if we consider the advantage we shall have in the other life by our affection to sciences, and conversation with them in this, it is wonderful great. Indeed that affection is so necessary, as without it we shall enjoy little contentment in all the knowledge we shall then be replenished with: for every one's pleasure in the possession of a good is to be measured by his precedent desire of that good, and by the equality of the taste and relish of him that feedeth upon it. We should therefore prepare and make our taste before-hand by assuefaction unto, and by often relishing what we shall then be nourished with. That Englishman that can drink nothing but beer or ale, would be ill bestead, were he to go into Spain or Italy, where nothing but wine groweth: whereas a well experienced goinfre, that can criticise upon the several tastes of liquors, would think his palate in Paradise, among those delicious nectars, (to use Aretine's phrase upon his eating of a lamprey.) Who was ever delighted with tobacco the first time he took it? and who could willingly be without it, after he was awhile habituated to the use of it? How many examples are there daily of young men that marrying upon their father's command, not through precedent affections of their own, have little comfort in worthy and handsome wives, that others would passionately affect. Archimedes lost his life, for being so ravished with the delight of a mathematical demonstration, that he could not of a sudden recall his ecstasied spirits to attend the rude soldier's summons: but instead of him, whose mind had been always fed with such subtile diet, how many plain country-gentlemen doth your Lordship and I know, that rate the knowledge of their hus bandry at a much higher pitch; and are extremely delighted by conversing with that; whereas the other would be most tedious and importune to them? We may then safely conclude, that if we will joy in the knowledge we shall have after death, we must in our life-time raise within ourselves earnest affections to it, and desires of it, which cannot be barren ones; but will press upon us to gain some knowledge by way of advance here; and the more we attain unto, the more we shall be in love with what remaineth behind. To this reason then adding the other, how knowledge is the surest prop and guide of our present life; and how it perfecteth a man in that which constituteth him a man, his reason; and how it enableth him to tread boldly, steadily, constantly, and knowingly, in all his ways: and I am confident, all men that shall hear the case thus debated, will join with me in making it a suit to our physician, that he will keep his books open, and continue that progress he hath so happily begun. But I believe your Lordship will scarcely join with him in his wish, that we might procreate and beget children without the help of women, or without any conjunction or commerce with that sweet and bewitching sex.9 Plato taxeth his fellow philosopher (though otherwise a learned and brave man) for not sacrificing to the Graces, those gentle female goddesses. What thinketh your Lordship of our physician's bitter censure of that action, which Mahomet maketh the essence of his paradise? Indeed, besides those his unkindnesses, or rather frowardnesses, at that tender-hearted sex, (which must needs take it ill at his hands,) methinketh he setteth marriage at too low a rate, which is assuredly the highest and divinest link of humane society. And where he speaketh of Cupid, and of beauty, it is in such a praise, as putteth me in mind of the learned Greek reader in Cambridge, his courting of his mistress out of Stephens his Thesaurus. My next observation upon his discourse draweth me to a logical consideration of the nature of an exact syllogism: which kind of reflection, though it use to open the door in the course of learning and study; yet it will near shut it in my discourse, which my following the thread that my author spinneth, assigneth to this place. If he had well and thoroughly |