CHRISTIAN MORALS. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE DAVID, EARL OF BUCHAN, VISCOUNT AUCHTERHOUSE, LORD CARDROSS AND GLENDOVACHIE, ONE OF THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF POLICE, AND LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTIES OF STIRLING AND CLACKMANNAN, 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 knowledge 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 particular, who is, My Lord, Your lordship's most humble Servant, ELIZABETH LITTLETON. THE PREFACE. Ir 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 testimony of Mrs. Littleton, 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, immediately 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. Littleton, when he sent the manuscript to her. There is nothing printed in the discourse, 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. PART THE FIRST. READ softly and circumspectedly in this funambulatory track and narrow path of goodness: 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: 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 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 sailing from Lima to Manilla, when you may fasten 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, 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. SECT. II.-Rest not in an ovation * but a triumph over thy passions. Let anger walk hanging 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 Cæsar within thyself. SECT. III. He that is chaste and continent not to impair 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 of Darius, and when so many think there is no other way but Origen's.† SECT. IV. Show thy art in honesty, and lose not thy virtue by the bad managery of it. Be 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 cannot well do without health. The sick 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 public sufferers, who go with healthful prayers unto the last scene of their lives, and in the integrity of their faculties return their spirit unto God that gave it. SECT. V.-Be charitable before wealth make 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. Diffuse thy beneficence early, and while thy treasures call thee master; there may be an atropos of thy fortunes 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 upon the dead, and Charon expects no more from Alexander than from Irus. SECT. VI.-Give not only unto seven, but also unto eight, that is, unto more than many.* Though to give unto every * Ecclesiasticus. |