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Our Treatise concerning Tranquillity, is partly

The Analysis, or Resolution of this Treatise concerning Tranquillity.

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HEAVEN UPON EARTH:

OR,

OF TRUE PEACE OF MIND.

SECT. I.

Censure of Philosophers.

WHEN I had studiously read over the moral writings of some wise heathen, especially those of the Stoical profession, I must confess, I found a little envy and pity striving together within me: I envied nature in them, to see her so witty in devising such plausible refuges for doubting and troubled minds: I pitied them, to see that their careful disquisition of true rest led them, in the end, but to mere unquietness. Wherein, methought, they were as hounds swift of foot, but not exquisite in scent; which in a hasty pursuit, take a wrong way; spending their mouths and courses in vain. Their praise of guessing wittily they shall not lose their hopes, both they lost, and whosoever follows them.

If Seneca could have had grace to his wit, what wonders would he have done in this kind! what Divine might not have yielded him the chair, for Precepts of Tranquillity, without any disparagement? As he was, this he hath gained: never any heathen wrote more divinely; never any philosopher more probably.

Neither would I ever desire better master, if to this purpose, I needed no other mistress than nature. But this, in truth, is a task, which nature hath never, without presumption, undertaken; and never performed, without much imperfection: like to those vain and wandering empirics, which, in tables and pictures, make great ostentation of cures; never approving their skill to their credulous patients. And, if she could have truly effected it alone, I know not what employment in this life she should have left for grace to busy herself about, nor what privilege it should have been here below to be a Christian: since this, that we seek, is the noblest work of the soul; and in which alone, consists the only heaven of this world: this is the sum of all human desires; which when we have attained, then only we begin to live, and are sure we cannot thenceforth live miserably. No marvel then, if all the heathen have diligently sought after it; many, wrote of it; none, attained it. Not Athens must teach this lesson: but Jerusalem.

SECT. II.

What Tranquillity is, and wherein it consists.

YET Something grace scorneth not to learn of nature; as Moses may take good counsel of a Midianite.

Nature hath ever had more skill in the end, than in the way to it; and, whether she have discoursed of the good estate of the mind, which we call Tranquillity, or the best, which is happiness, hath more happily guessed at the general definition of them, than of the means to compass them.

She teacheth us therefore, without controulment, that the Tranquillity of the mind is, as of the sea and weather, when no wind stirreth, when the waves do not tumultuously rise and fall upon each other; but when the face, both of the heaven and waters, is still, fair, and equable: that it is such an even disposition of the herat, wherein the scales of the mind neither rise up towards the beam, through their own lightness, or the over-weening opinion of prosperity, nor are too much depressed with any load of sorrow; but, hanging equal and unmoved betwixt both, give a man liberty in all occurrences to enjoy himself.

Not that the most temperate mind can be so the master of his passions, as not sometimes to over-joy his grief, or overgrieve his joy, according to the contrary occasions of both: for not the evenest weights, but at their first putting into the balance, somewhat sway both parts thereof, not without some shew of inequality; which yet, after some little motion, settle themselves in a meet poise. It is enough, that, after some sudden agitation, it can return to itself; and rest itself, at last, in a resolved peace.

And this due composedness of mind we require unto our Tranquillity, not for some short fits of good mood, which soon after end in discontentment; but with the condition of perpetuity for there is no heart makes so rough weather, as not sometimes to admit of a calm; and, whether for that he knoweth no present cause of his trouble, or for that he knoweth that cause of trouble is countervailed with as great an occasion of private joy, or for that the multitude of evils hath bred carelessness, the man, that is most disordered, finds some respites of quietness. The balances, that are most ill matched, in their unsteady motions come to an equality, but not stay at it. The frantic man cannot avoid the imputation of madness, though he be sober for many moons, if he rage in one.

So then, the calm mind must be settled in a habitual rest: not then firm, when there is nothing to shake it; but then least shaken, when it is most assailed.

SECT. III.

Insufficiency of human precepts.-Seneca's rules of tranquillity abridged.-Rejected as insufficient.-Disposition

of the work.

WHENCE easily appears, how vainly it hath been sought, either in such a constant estate of outward things, as should give no distaste to the mind, while all earthly things vary with the weather, and have no stay but in uncertainty; or, in the natural temper of the soul, so ordered by human wisdom, as that it should not be affected with any casual events to either part since that cannot ever, by natural power, be held like to itself; but, one while, is cheerful, stirring, and ready to undertake; another while, drowsy, dull, comfortless, prone to rest, weary of itself, loathing his own purposes, his own resolutions.

In both which, since the wisest philosophers have grounded all the rules of their Tranquillity, it is plain that they saw it afar off, as they did heaven itself, with a desire and admiration, but knew not the way to it: whereupon, alas, how slight and impotent are the remedies they prescribe for unquietness! For what is it, that, for the inconstancy and laziness of the mind, still displeasing itself in what it doth; and, for that distemper thereof, which ariseth from the fearful, unthriving, and restless desires of it; we should ever be employing ourselves in some public affairs, choosing our business according to our inclination, and prosecuting what we have chosen? wherewith being at last cloyed, we should retire ourselves, and wear the rest of our time in private studies? that we should make due comparative trials of our own ability, nature of our businesses, disposition of our chosen friends? that, in respect of patrimony, we should be but carelessly affected; so drawing it in, as it may be least for show, most for use; removing all pomp, bridling our hopes, cutting off superfluities? for crosses, to consider, that custom will abate and mitigate them; that the best things are but chains and burdens to those that have them, to those that use them; that the worst things have some mixture of comfort, to those that groan under them? Or, leaving these lower rudiments that are given to weak and simple novices, to examine those golden rules of morality, which are commended to the most wise and able practitioners: what it is, to account himself as a tenant at will; to foreimagine the worst, in all casual matters; to avoid all idle and impertinent businesses, all pragmatical meddling with affairs of state: not so to fix ourselves upon any one estate, as to be impatient of a change; to call back the mind from outward things, and draw it home into itself; to laugh at and esteem lightly of others' misdemeanors; not to depend upon others'

opinions, but to stand on our own bottoms; to carry ourselves in an honest and simple truth, free from a curious hypocrisy, and affectation of seeming other than we are, and yet as free from a base kind of carelessness; to intermeddle retiredness with society, so as one may give sweetness to the other, and both to us, so slackening the mind that we may not loosen it, and so bending as we may not break it; to make the most of ourselves, cheering up our spirits with variety of recreations, with satiety of meals, and all other bodily indulgence, saving that drunkenness, methinks, can neither beseem a wise philosopher to prescribe, nor a virtuous man to practise? All these, in their kinds, please well, profit much, and are as sovereign for both these, as they are unable to effect that, for which they are propounded".

Nature teacheth thee all these should be done; she cannot teach thee to do them: and yet do all these and no more, let me never have rest, if thou have it. For, neither are here the greatest enemies of our peace so much as descried afar off; nor those, that are noted, are hereby so prevented, that, upon most diligent practice, we can promise ourselves any security: wherewith whoso instructed, dare confidently give challenge to all sinister events, is like to some skilful fencer, who stands upon his usual wards, and plays well; but, if there come a strange fetch of an unwonted blow, is put beside the rules of his art, and with much shame overtaken. And, for those, that are known, believe me, the mind of man is too weak to bear out itself hereby, against all onsets. There are light crosses, that will take an easy repulse; others yet stronger, that shake the house side, but break not in upon us; others vehement, which by force make way to the heart; where they find none, breaking open the door of the soul, that denies entrance; others violent, that lift the mind off the hinges, or rend the bars of it in pieces; others furious, that tear up the very foundations from the bottom, leaving no monument behind them, but ruin. The wisest and most resolute moralist, that ever was, looked pale when he should taste of his hemlock; and, by his timorousness, made sport to those, that envied his speculations. The best of the heathen emperors, that was honoured with the title of piety, justly magnified that courage of Christians, which made them insult over their tormentors; and, by their fearlessness of earthquakes and deaths, argued the truth of their religion. It must be, it can be, none but a divine power that can uphold the mind against the rage of many afflictions: and yet, the greatest crosses are not the

a Allowed yet by Seneca in his last chapter of Tranquillity,

b Socrates.-CATTERMOLE.

e Antoninus Pius, in an Epistle to the Asians concerning the persecuted

Christians.

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