Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations - Various

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of all forepast, the same will consist in the charity which we exercised living; and in that piety, justice, and firm faith, for which it pleased the infinite mercy of God to accept of us, and receive us. Shall we therefore value honor and riches at nothing? and neglect them, as unnecessary and vain? Certainly no. For that infinite wisdom of God, which hath distinguished his angels by degrees; which hath given greater and less light and beauty to heavenly bodies; which hath made differences between beasts and birds; created the eagle and the fly, the cedar and the shrub; and among stones, given the fairest tincture to the ruby, and the quickest light to the diamond; hath also ordained kings, dukes, or leaders of the people, magistrates, judges, and other degrees among men. And as honor is left to posterity, for a mark and ensign of the virtue and understanding of their ancestors: so (seeing Siracides preferreth death before beggary: and that titles, without proportionable estates, fall under the miserable succor of other men's pity) I account it foolishness to condemn such a care: provided, that worldly goods be well gotten, and that we raise not our own buildings out of other men's ruins. For, as Plato doth first prefer the perfection of bodily health; secondly, the form and beauty; and thirdly, "Divitias nulla fraude quaesitas":[15] so Jeremiah cries, "Woe unto them that erect their houses by unrighteousness, and their chambers without equity": and Isaiah the same, "Woe to those that spoil and were not spoiled." And it was out of the true wisdom of Solomon, that he commandeth us, "not to drink the wine of violence; not to lie in wait for blood, and not to swallow them up alive, whose riches we covet: for such are the ways (saith he) of everyone that is greedy of gain."

      And if we could afford ourselves but so much leisure as to consider, that he which hath most in the world, hath, in respect of the world, nothing in it: and that he which hath the longest time lent him to live in it, hath yet no proportion at all therein, setting it either by that which is past, when we were not, or by that time which is to come, in which we shall abide forever: I say, if both, to wit, our proportion in the world, and our time in the world, differ not much from that which is nothing; it is not out of any excellency of understanding, that we so much prize the one, which hath (in effect) no being: and so much neglect the other, which hath no ending: coveting those mortal things of the world, as if our souls were therein immortal; and neglecting those things which are immortal, as if ourselves after the world were but mortal.

      But let every man value his own wisdom, as he pleaseth. Let the rich man think all fools, that cannot equal his abundance: the revenger esteem all negligent, that have not trodden down their opposites; the politician, all gross that cannot merchandise their faith: yet when we once come in sight of the port of death, to which all winds drive us, and when by letting fall that fatal anchor, which can never be weighed again, the navigation of this life takes end; then it is, I say, that our own cogitations (those sad and severe cogitations, formerly beaten from us by our health and felicity) return again, and pay us to the uttermost for all the pleasing passages of our lives past. It is then that we cry out to God for mercy; then when our selves can no longer exercise cruelty to others; and it is only then, that we are strucken through the soul with this terrible sentence, "That God will not be mocked." For if according to St. Peter, "The righteous scarcely be saved: and that God spared not his angels"; where shall those appear, who, having served their appetites all their lives, presume to think, that the severe commandments of the all-powerful God were given but in sport; and that the short breath, which we draw when death presseth us, if we can but fashion it to the sound of mercy (without any kind of satisfaction or amends) is sufficient? "O quam multi," saith a reverend father, "cum hac spe ad aeternos labores et bella descendunt!"[16] I confess that it is a great comfort to our friends, to have it said, that we ended well; for we all desire (as Balaam did) "to die the death of the righteous." But what shall we call a disesteeming, an opposing, or (indeed) a mocking of God: if those men do not oppose Him, disesteem Him, and mock Him, that think it enough for God, to ask Him forgiveness at leisure, with the remainder and last drawing of a malicious breath? For what do they otherwise, that die this kind of well-dying, but say unto God as followeth? "We beseech Thee, O God, that all the falsehoods, forswearings, and treacheries of our lives past, may be pleasing unto Thee; that Thou wilt for our sakes (that have had no leisure to do anything for Thine) change Thy nature (though impossible,) and forget to be a just God; that Thou wilt love injuries and oppressions, call ambition wisdom, and charity foolishness. For I shall prejudice my son (which I am resolved not to do) if I make restitution; and confess myself to have been unjust (which I am too proud to do) if I deliver the oppressed." Certainly, these wise worldlings have either found out a new God, or made one: and in all likelihood such a leaden one, as Louis the Eleventh wore in his cap; which when he had caused any that he feared, or hated, to be killed, he would take it from his head and kiss it: beseeching it to pardon him this one evil act more, and it should be the last; which (as at other times) he did, when by the practice of a cardinal and a falsified sacrament, he caused the Earl of Armagnac to be stabbed to death: mockeries indeed fit to be used towards a leaden, but not towards the ever-living God. But of this composition are all devout lovers of the world, that they fear all that is dureless[17] and ridiculous: they fear the plots and practises of their opposites,[18] and their very whisperings: they fear the opinions of men, which beat but upon shadows: they flatter and forsake the prosperous and unprosperous, be they friends or kings: yea they dive under water, like ducks, at every pebblestone, that is but thrown toward them by a powerful hand: and on the contrary, they show an obstinate and giant-like valor, against the terrible judgments of the all-powerful God, yea they show themselves gods against God, and slaves towards men; towards men whose bodies and consciences are alike rotten.

      Now for the rest: If we truly examine the difference of both conditions; to wit, of the rich and mighty, whom we call fortunate; and of the poor and oppressed, whom we account wretched we shall find the happiness of the one, and the miserable estate of the other, so tied by God to the very instant, and both so subject to interchange (witness the sudden downfall of the greatest princes, and the speedy uprising of the meanest persons) as the one hath nothing so certain, whereof to boast; nor the other so uncertain, whereof to bewail itself. For there is no man so assured of his honor, of his riches, health, or life; but that he may be deprived of either, or all, the very next hour or day to come. "Quid vesper vehat, incertum est," "What the evening will bring with it, it is uncertain." "And yet ye cannot tell (saith St. James) what shall be tomorrow. Today he is set up, and tomorrow he shall not be found; for he is turned into dust, and his purpose perisheth." And although the air which compasseth adversity be very obscure; yet therein we better discern God, than in that shining light which environeth worldly glory; through which, for the clearness thereof, there is no vanity which escapeth our sight. And let adversity seem what it will; to happy men ridiculous, who make themselves merry at other men's misfortunes; and to those under the cross, grievous: yet this is true, that for all that is past, to the very instant, the portions remaining are equal to either. For be it that we have lived many years, "and (according to Solomon) in them all we have rejoiced;" or be it that we have measured the same length of days and therein have evermore sorrowed: yet looking back from our present being, we find both the one and the other, to wit, the joy and the woe, sailed out of sight; and death, which doth pursue us and hold us in chase, from our infancy, hath gathered it. "Quicquid aetatis retro est, mors tenet:" "Whatsoever of our age is past, death holds it." So as whosoever he be, to whom Fortune hath been a servant, and the Time a friend; let him but take the account of his memory (for we have no other keeper of our pleasures past), and truly examine what it hath reserved either beauty and youth, or foregone delights; what it hath saved, that it might last, of his dearest affections, or of whatever else the amorous springtime gave his thoughts of contentment, then unvaluable; and he shall find that all the art which his elder years have, can draw no other vapor out of these dissolutions, than heavy, secret, and sad sighs. He shall find nothing remaining, but those sorrows, which grow up after our fast-springing youth; overtake it, when it is at a stand; and overtopped it utterly, when it begins to wither: in so much as looking back from the very instant time, and from our now being, the poor, diseased, and captive creature, hath as little sense of all his former miseries and pains, as he, that is most blessed in common opinions, hath of his fore-passed pleasure and delights. For whatsoever is cast behind us, is just nothing: and what is to come, deceitful hope hath it: "Omnia quae eventura sunt, in incerto jacent."[19] Only those few black swans, I must except: who having had the grace to value worldly vanities at no more than their own price; do, by retaining the comfortable memory of a well acted life, behold death without

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