must have deeper roots, motives, and instigations, to give them the stamp of virtues. XI. 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. 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. XII. Live by old ethicks and the classical rules of 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 reason, may be stamped by opinion. And therefore though vicious times invert the opinions of things, and set up new ethicks against virtue, yet hold thou unto old morality; and rather than follow a multitude to do evil, 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 and not been defiled, and in the common contagion have remained uncorrupted. XIII. Let age not envy draw wrinkles on thy cheeks, be content to be envied, but 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 unworthy 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 itself. XIV. Owe not thy humility unto humiliation 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, 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 transform thee out of thyself, and run thee into the short madness. If you cannot imitate Job, yet Y 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* go down upon thy wrath, but write thy wrongs in ashes. Draw the curtain of night upon injuries, shut them up in the tower of oblivion,† 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. 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 nar * Even when the days are shortest. † Alluding unto the tower of oblivion mentioned by Procopius, which was the name of a tower of imprisonment among the Persians: whoever was put therein was as it were buried alive, and it was death for any but to name him. row-minded vices! not only below St. Paul's noble Christian but Aristotle's true gentleman.* 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 be whole without love, which is the fulfilling of it. Look humbly upon thy virtues; and though thou art rich in some, yet think thyself poor and naked without that crowning grace, which thinketh no evil, which envieth not, which beareth, hopeth, believeth, 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 Trisagiont in heaven. XVII. However thy understanding may waver in the theories of true and false, yet fasten the rudder of thy will, steer straight unto good and fall not foul on evil. Imagination 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 * See Aristotle's Ethics, chapter of Magnanimity. of the crystalline 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; theorical 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 judgment, and leave us viciously miserable. XVIII. Bid early defiance unto those vices which are of thine inward family, and having a root in thy temper plead a right and propriety in thee. Raise timely batteries against those strong holds 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 |