II. OF DEATH'. Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark : and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed, or tortured, and thereby imagine what the pains of death are when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was well said, Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa." Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death and therefore death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupateth it, nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) provoked many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. 66 2 ❝ priser Dieu, et quand et quand de craindre les hommes: » il n'est pas possible d'en representer plus richement l'horreur, la vilité et le desreglement car que peult on imaginer plus vilain que d'estre couard à l'endroict des hommes, et brave à l'endroict de Dieu ? » A great part of this Essay is composed of the thoughts of Seneca, most of which are to be found in his Letters to Lucilius, 4, 24 and 82; but the finest passage in it, the first sentence, is, we believe, Bacon's own. Montaigne's Essay on Death (Book I, chap. XIX), is one of the finest pieces of the great and almost only French Essayist. It is well worthy of an attentive perusal. Preoccupate (old) for preoccupy. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety: "Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest." A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over. It is no less worthy to observe, how little alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make; for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment: "Livia, conjugii nostri memor vive, et vale." Tiberius in dissimulation, as Tacitus saith of him, "Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant:" Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon the stool," Ut puto Deus fio:" Galba with a sentence, Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani," holding forth his neck: Septimius Severus in despatch, "Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum," and the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better, saith he1, qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponit naturæ." It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good doth avert the dolours of death: but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, "Nunc dimittis," when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy: "Exstinctus amabitur idem." III. OF UNITY IN RELIGION. 4. Religion being the chief band of human society, it is a 1 Juvenal, sat. x. The passage runs thus : Fortem posce animum, mortis terrore carentem, Dolour (obsolete) for pain, agony. This allusion is to Simeon of Jerusalem, to whom it had been revealed by the Holy Ghost that "he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ." And when he saw the infant Jesus in happy thing when itself is well contained within the true band of unity. The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was, because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief: for you may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors and fathers of their church were the poets. But the true God hath this attribute, that he is a jealous God; and therefore his worship and religion will endure no mixture nor partner. We shall therefore speak a few words concerning the unity of the church; what are the fruits thereof; what the bounds; and what the means? 2. The fruits of unity (next unto the well pleasing of God, which is all in all) are two; the one towards those that are without the church, the other towards those that are within. For the former, it is certain, that heresies and schisms are of all others the greatest scandals; yea, more than corruption of manners. For as in the natural body a wound or solution of continuity is worse than a corrupt humour, so in the spiritual. So that nothing doth so much keep men out of the church, and drive men out of the church, as breach of unity; and, therefore, whensoever it cometh to pass that one saith, ecce in deserto," another saith, ecce in penetralibus;" that is, when some men seek Christ in the conventicles of heretics, and others in an outward face of a church, that voice had need continually to sound in men's ears, " nolite exire,” go not out." The doctor of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation drew him to have a special care of those without) saith, "If an heathen come in, and hear you speak with the temple, he took up the child in his arms and blessed God and said "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word*." This proposition appears to be very doubtful not to say untrue. Corruption of manners unless in so very corrupt an age that it passes unnoticed, must certainly be a greater scandal than heresies or schisms; the latter may be error proceeding from good faith; nay all great truths have been treated as heresies, the Jewish religion by the idolaters, the Christian religion by the Jews and pagans. Corruption of manners, on the contrary, admits of no difference of opinion; and -being contrary to morals, deserves in every shape and form the reprobation of all men in all countries and in all times, St. Luke. II, 29. " several tongues, will he not say that you are mad1?" And, certainly, it is little better, when atheists and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in religion, it doth avert them from the church, and maketh them “ to sit down in the chair of the scorners.' It is but a light thing to be vouched in so serious a matter, but yet it expresseth well the deformity. There is a master of scoffing, that, in his catalogue of books of a feigned library, sets down this title of a book, "The Morris dance of Heretics." For, indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse posture, or cringe, by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldlings and depraved politics, who are apt to contemn holy things. 3. As for the fruit towards those that are within, it is peace; which containeth infinite blessings: it establisheth faith; it kindleth charity; the outward peace of the church distilleth into peace of conscience, and it turneth the labours of writing and reading controversies into treatises of mortification and devotion. 4. Concerning the bounds of unity; the true placing of them importeth exceedingly. There appear to be two extremes. For to certain zealots all speech of pacification is odious. "Is it peace, Jehu?" What hast thou to do with peace? turn thee behind me." Peace is not the matter, but following and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans and lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways, and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements; as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man. Both these extremes are to be avoided; which will be done, if the league of Christians, penned by our Saviour himself, were in the two cross clauses thereof, soundly and plainly expounded: "He that is not with us is against us;" and again, “He that is not against us is with us :" that is, if the points fundamental, and of substance in religion, were truly discerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention. This is a thing may seem to many a matter trivial, and done already; but if it were done less partially, it would be embraced more generally. 'I Corinthians, xiv, 23. 5. Of this I may give only this advice, according to my small model. Men ought to take heed of rending God's church by two kinds of controversies. The one is, when the matter of the point controverted is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled only by contradiction; for, as it is noted by one of the fathers, Christ's coat indeed had no seam, but the church's vesture was of divers colours; whereupon he saith, "in veste varietas sit, scissura non sit," they be two things, unity and uniformity. The other is, when the matter of the point controverted is great, but it is driven to an over great subtility and obscurity, so that it becometh a thing rather ingenious than substantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within himself, that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet they themselves would never agree: and if it come so to pass in that distance of judgment, which is between man and man, shall we not think that God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in some of their contradictions, intend the same thing, and accepteth of both? The nature of such controversies is excellently expressed by St. Paul, in the warning and precept that he giveth concerning the same, "devita profanas vocum novitates et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiæ." Men create oppositions which are not, and put them into new terms so fixed, as whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect governeth the meaning. There be also two false peaces, or unities: the one, when the peace is grounded but upon an implicit ignorance; for all colours will agree in the dark: the other, when it is pieced upon a direct admission of contraries in fundamental points. For truth and falsehood, in such things, are like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image'; they may cleave, but they will not incorporate. 6. Concerning the means of procuring unity, men must beware, that, in the procuring or muniting of religious unity, 2 The image seen by King Nebuchadnezzar in the dream which the prophet Daniel interpreted. The head was of fine gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, the legs of iron, the feet part of iron and part of clay (Daniel, u, 31). 2 Munite (unused) for strengthen. |