Sometimes I can be thus; and pity the poor and miserable prosperity of the godless; and laugh at their months of vanity, and sorrow at my own.

But then again (for why should I shame to confess it?) the world thrusts itself betwixt me and heaven; and, by his dark and indigested parts, eclipseth that light which shined to my soul. Now, a senseless dulness overtakes me, and besots me: my lust to devotion is little; my joy, none at all: God's face is hid, and I am troubled. Then I begin to compare myself with others, and think, "Are all men thus blockish and earthen? or, am I alone worse than the rest, and singular in my wretchedness?" Now I carry my carcase up and down carelessly; and, as dead bodies are rubbed without heat, I do in vain force upon myself delights, which others laugh at. I endeavour my wonted work, but without a heart. There is nothing is not tedious to me; no, not myself.

Thus I am, till I single myself out alone, to him that alone can revive me. I reason with myself, and confer with him: I chide myself, and entreat him: and, after some spiritual speeches interchanged, I renew my familiarity with him; and he the tokens of his love to me. Lo, then I live again; and applaud myself in this happiness; and wish it might ever continue; and think basely of the world, in comparison of it.

Thus I hold on, rising and falling; neither know, whether I should more praise God for thus much fruition of him, or blame myself for my inconstancy in good; more rejoice, that sometimes I am well, or grieve that I am not so always. I strive, and wish, rather than hope, for better.

This is our warfare: we may not look to triumph always: we must smart sometimes, and complain; and then again rejoice, that we can complain; and grieve, that we can rejoice no more, and that we can grieve no more. Our hope is, If we be patient, we shall once be constant.

EPISTLE II.

TO SIR EDMUND BACON.

Of the Benefit of Retiredness, and Secrecy.

SUSPECT, if you can, that, because now many cold winds blow betwixt us, my affection can be cooler to you. True love is like a strong stream, which, the further it is from the head, runs with more violence. The thoughts of those pleasures, I was wont to find in your presence, were never so delightful, as now, when I am barred from renewing them. I wish me with

you; yea, if I could or might wish to change, I should wish me yourself.

To live hidden, was never but safe and pleasant; but now, so much better, as the world is worse. It is a happiness, not to be a witness of the mischief of the times; which it is hard to see, and be guiltless. Your Philosophical Cell is a safe shelter from tumults, from vices, from discontentments. Besides that lively, honest, and manly pleasure, which arises from the gain of knowledge in the deep mysteries of nature; how easy is it, in that place, to live free from the common cares, from the infection of common evils! Whether the Spaniard gain or save by his peace, and how he keeps it; and whether it were safer for the States to lay down arms, and be at once still and free; whether the Emperor's truce with the Turk were honourable and seasonable; or whether Venice have won or lost by her late jars; are thoughts, that dare not look in at those doors. Who is envied, and who pitied, at Court; who buys hopes and kindness dearest; who lays secret mines to blow up another, that himself may succeed; can never trouble you: these cares dare not enter into that sanctuary of peace. Thence, you can see how all, that live public, are tossed in these waves; and pity them.

For, great places have seldom safe and easy entrances; and, which is worse, great charges can hardly be plausibly wielded, without some indirect policies. Alas! their privileges cannot countervail their toil. Weary days and restless nights, short lives and long cares, weak bodies and unquiet minds, attend lightly on greatness: either clients break their sleep in the morning; or the intention of their mind drives it off from the first watch either suits or complaints thrust themselves into their recreations; and packets of letters interrupt their meals: it is ever Term with them, without Vacation: their businesses admit of no night, no holiday.

Lo, your privacy frees you from all this, and whatever other glorious misery. There you may sleep, and eat, and honestly disport, and enjoy yourself, and command both yourself and others: and, while you are happy, you live out of the reach of envy; unless my praises send that guest thither: which I should justly condemn as the fault of my love. No man offers to undermine you; none, to disgrace you: you could not want these inconveniences, abroad.

Yea, let a man live in the open world, but as a looker on; he shall be sure not to want abundance of vexations. An ill mind holds it an easy torment, to live in continual sight of evil; if not rather a pleasure: but, to the well disposed, it is next to hell. Certainly, to live among toads and serpents, is a paradise to this. One jests pleasantly with his Maker; another makes himself sport with Scripture: one fills his mouth with oaths of

sound; another scoffs at the religious: one speaks villainy; another laughs at it; a third defends it: one makes himself a swine; another, a devil: who, that is not all earth, can endure this? Who cannot wish himself rather a desolate hermit, or a close prisoner?

Every evil we see, doth either vex, or infect us. Your retiredness avoids this; yet so, as it equally escapes all the evils of solitariness. You are full of friends; whose society, intermixed with your closeness, makes you to want little of public. The desert is too wild; the city too populous: the country is only fit for rest. I know, there want not some obscure corners, so haunted with dulness, that, as they yield no outward unquietness, so no inward contentment: yours is none of those; but such as strives rather, with the pleasure of it, to requite the solitariness. The court is for honour; the city, for gain; the country, for quietness: a blessing, that need not, in the judgment of the wisest, yield to the other two. Yea, how many have we known, that, having nothing but a cot of thatch to hide them from heaven, yet have pitied the careful pomp of the mighty! How much more may those, which have full hands and quiet hearts, pity them both!

I do not so much praise you in this, as wonder at you. I know many, upon whom the conscience of their wants forces a necessary obscurity; who, if they can steal a virtue out of necessity, it is well: but, I no where know so excellent parts shrouded in such willing secrecy. The world knows you, and wants you; and yet you are voluntarily hid. Love yourself still and make much of this shadow; until our common mother call you forth to her necessary service, and charge you to neglect yourself, to pleasure her: which once done; you know where to find peace. Whether others applaud you, I am sure you shall yourself: and I shall still magnify you; and, what I can, imitate you.

EPISTLE III.

TO MR. JOHN WHITING.

An Apologetical Discourse, of the Marriage of Ecclesiastical Persons.

I KNOW not, whether this quarrel be worthy of an answer, or rather of a silent scorn; or, if an answer, whether merry or serious. I do not willingly suffer my pen to wade into questions: yet, this argument seems shallow enough for an epistle. If I free not this truth, let me be punished with a divorce.

Some idle table-talk calls us to plead for our wives. Perhaps

some gallants grudge us one, who can be content to allow themselves more. If they thought wives curses, they would afford them us.

Our marriage is censured, I speak boldly, of none but them, which never knew to live chastely in marriage; who never knew that Canonist's old and true distinction of Virginity. What care we for their censure, where God approves ?

But some, perhaps, maintain it, out of judgment: bid them make much of that, which Paul tells them, is a doctrine of devils. Were it not for this opinion, the Church of Rome would want one evident brand of her antichristianism. Let their shavelings speak for themselves; upon whom their unlawful vow hath forced a wilful and impossible necessity. I leave them to scan the old rule of In turpi voto muta decretum; if they would not rather, Cautè si non castè. Even moderate papists will grant us free, because not bound by vow; no not so far as these old Germans, pro posse et nosse. Or, what care we, if they grant it not? while we hold us firm to that sure rule of Basil the great; "He, that forbids, what God enjoins, or enjoins what God forbids, let him be accursed." I pass not what I hear men or angels say, while I hear God say, Let him be the husband of one wife. That one word shall confirm me, against the barking of all impure mouths. He that made marriage, says it is honourable: what care we for the dishonour of those, that corrupt it? Yea, that which nature noteth with shame, God mentions with honour, Típios n kolтnd; Gregory, with the title of opus castum; Paphnutius, of Zwopooúvn, Chastity. But, if God should be judge of this controversy, it were soon at an end; who, in the time even of that legal strictness, allowed wedlock, to the Ministers of his Sanctuary. Let Cardinal Panormitan be heard speak. "Continency," saith he, "in clergymen, is neither of the substance of their Order, or appointed by any Law of God." And Gratian, out of Augustin, yet more: "Their marriage," saith he, "is neither forbidden

Caus. 35. q. 5. c. Tunc salvabitur. Mulier suam virginitatem benè servat, si ideo nubat, ut filios pariat ad justitiam. Ibid. Bartolomeus.

rum.

Profitentur continentiam corporum; in incontinentiam debacchantur animoDe Roman. Cler. Salvianus.

Qui vetat quod Deus præcepit, aut precipit quod Deus vetuit, maledictus habeatur ab omnibus qui amant Dominum. In Moralib. sum. cap. xiv.

d Heb. xiii. 4. The marriage bed is honourable.

• Non quia peccatum sit conjugibus commisceri: hoc enim opus castum non habet culpam in conjuge, &c. Greg. in Psal. Pœnit.

† Σωφροσύνην δὲ ἐκάλει καὶ τὴν τῆς νομίμου γυναικὸς συνάλευσιν. Socrat. Hist. Eccles.

& Continentia non est in clericis secularibus, de substantiá ordinis, nec de jure divino. Panor.

by Legal, nor Evangelical, nor Apostolic authority"." God never imposed this law of continence: who then? the Church': as if a good spouse would gainsay what her husband willeth. But, how well? Hear, O ye Papists, the judgment of your own Cardinal: and confess your mouths stopped. "But I believe," saith he, "it were for the good and safety of many souls, and would be a wholesome law; that those, which would, might marry for that, as experience teacheth us, a contrary effect follows upon that law of continency; since, at this day, they live not spiritually, neither are clean, but are defiled with unlawful copulation, to their great sin: whereas, with their own wife might be chastityk. Is this a Cardinal, think you; or a Huguenot? But, if this Red Hat be not worthy of respect, let a Pope himself speak out of Peter's Chair; Pius the Second, as learned as hath sat in that room this thousand years: "Marriage," saith he, "upon great reason, was taken from the clergy; but, npon greater reason, is to be restored'." What need we other judge?

m

How just this law is, you see: see now, how ancient: for, some doctrines have nothing to plead for them, but time. Age hath been an old refuge, for falsehood. Tertullian's rule is true: "That, which is first, is truest." What the ancient Jewish Prelates did, Moses is clear. What did the Apostles? Doth not Paul " tell us, that both the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas, had wives; and, which is more, carried them still along in their travels? For that childish elusion of ἀδελφὴν γυναῖκα ", who can abide, but to laugh at? Doth not Clemens of Alexandria, a Father not of more antiquity than credit, tell us, that Peter, Philip, and Paul himself, were married? and this last, though unlikest, how is it confirmed by Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Philadelphians! Yea, their own Cardinal, learned Cajetan ", doth both avouch and evince it.

Copula sacerdotalis, nec legali, nec evangelicá, nec apostolicâ authoritate prohibetur. 26. q. 2. c. Sors ex. Aug.

Only ex statuto Ecclesia. Durand. 4. Dist. 37. q. 1. Tom. in 2. 2. q. 88.

art. 11.

Sed credo pro bono et salute esse animarum, quod esset salubre statutum ; ut volentes possint contrahere: quia, experientia docente, contrarius prorsus effectus sequitur ex illá lege continentia; cùm, hodie, non vivant spiritualiter, nec sint mundi, sed maculantur illicito coitu, cum eorum gravissimo peccato: ubi, cum propriá uxore esset castitas. Panorm. de Cler. conjug. cap. Cùm olim.

1 Sacerdotibus, magná ratione, sublatas nuptias; majore, restituendas videri. In the Record of Platina himself, in vitâ Pii 2.

το Μὴ οὐκ ἔχομεν ἐξουσίαν ἀδελφὴν γυναῖκα περιάγειν, &c. 1 Cor. ix. 5. &c. " Rhemists read it, a woman, a sister.

Clemens, citatus etiam ab Euseb. 1. iii. c. 30. Petrum, cùm uxorem suam ad mortem duci cerneret, hortatum et consolatum his verbis: Mépveσo ŵ avтη Tov Κυρίου.

• In illud, ad Philip. σύζυγε γνήσιε.