they any ways pertinent to the morality of that part where he treateth of them. I have much ado to believe, what he speaketh confidently, that he is more beholden to Morpheus for learned and rational, as well as pleasing dreams, than to Mercury for smart and facetious conceptions; whom Saturn (it seemeth by his relation) hath looked asquint upon in his geniture. In his concluding prayer, wherein he summeth up all he wisheth, methinketh his arrow is not winged with that fire which I should have expected from him upon this occasion. For it is not the peace of conscience, nor the bridling up of one's affections, that expresseth the highest delightfulness and happiest state of a perfect Christian. It is love only that can give us heaven upon earth, as well as in heaven, and bringeth us thither too so that the Tuscan Virgil had reason to say, "In alte dolcezze Non si puo gioio, se non amando." And this love must be employed upon the noblest and highest object, not terminated in our friends. But of this transcendent and divine part of charity, that looketh directly and immediately upon God himself; and that is the intrinsical form, the utmost perfection, the scope and final period of true religion, this gentleman's intended theme, as I conceive, I have no occasion to speak any thing, since my author doth but transiently mention it; and that, too, in such a phrase as ordinary catechisms speak of to vulgar capacities. Thus, my lord, having run through the book, God knows how slightly, upon so great a sudden, which your lordship commanded me to give you an account of, there remaineth yet a weightier task upon me to perform, which is to excuse myself of presumption, for daring to consider any moles in that face which you had marked for a beauty. But who shall well consider my manner of proceeding in these remarks, will free me from that censure. I offer not at judging the prudence and wisdom of this discourse. These are fit inquiries for your lordship's court of highest appeal: in my inferior one, I meddle only with little knotty pieces of particular sciences (matinæ apis instar, operosa parvus carmina fingit.) In which it were peradventure a fault for your lordship to be too well versed; your employments are of a higher and nobler strain, and that concerns the welfare of millions of men: "Tu regere imperio populos (Sackville) memento, Hæ tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem.' Such little studies as these, belong only to those persons that are low in the rank they hold in the common.. wealth, low in their conceptions, and low in a languishing and rusting leisure, such a one as Virgil calleth ignobile otium, and such an one as I am now dulled withal. If Alexander or Cæsar should have commended a tract of land, as fit to fight a battle in for the empire of the world, or to build a city upon, to be the magazine and staple of all the adjacent countries, nobody could justly condemn that husbandman, who, according to his own narrow art and rules, should censure the plains of Arbella or Pharsalia, for being in some places sterile; or the meadows about Alexandria, for being sometimes subject to be overflown; or could tax ought he should say in that kind for a contradiction unto the other's commendations of those places which are built upon higher and larger principles. So, my lord, I am confident I shall not be reproached of unmannerliness for putting in a demurrer unto a few little particularities in that noble discourse, which your lordship gave a general applause unto, and by doing so I have given your lordship the best account I can of myself, as well as of your commands. You hereby see what my entertainments are, and how I play away my time. "Dorset dum magnus ad altum Fulminat Oxonium bello, victorque volentes May your counsels there be happy and successful ones, to bring about that peace, which if we be not quickly blessed withal, a general ruin threateneth the whole kingdom. From Winchester-house, the 22nd, (I think I may say the 23rd, for I am sure it is morning, and I think it is day,) of December, 1642. Your lordship's most humble and obedient Servant, KENELM DIGBY. MY LORD, THE POSTSCRIPT. LOOKING Over these loose papers to point them, I perceive I have forgotten what I promised in the eighth sheet, to touch in a word concerning grace. I do not conceive it to be a quality infused by God Almighty into a soul. Such kind of discoursing satisfieth me no more in divinity, than in philosophy. I take it to be the whole complex of such real motives, as a solid account may be given of them, that incline a man to virtue and piety, and are set on foot by God's particular grace and favour, to bring that work to pass. As for example: to a man plunged in sensuality, some great misfortune happeneth that mouldeth his heart to a tenderness, and inclineth him to much thoughtfulness. In this temper, he meeteth with a book or preacher that representeth lively to him the danger of his own condition; and giveth him hopes of greater contentment in other objects, after he shall have taken leave of his former beloved sins. This begetteth further conversation with prudent and pious men, and experienced physicians, in curing the soul's maladies, whereby he is at last perfectly converted, and settled in a course of solid virtue and piety. Now these accidents of his misfortune, the gentle 184 OBSERVATIONS UPON RELIGIO MEDICI. ness and softness of his nature, his falling upon a good book, his encountering with a pathetic preacher, the unpremeditated chance that brought him to hear his sermon, his meeting with other worthy men, and the whole concatenation of all the intervening accidents, to work this good effect in him, and that were ranged and disposed from all eternity, by God's particular goodness and providence for his salvation, and without which he had inevitably been damned; this chain of causes, ordered by God to produce this effect, I understand to be grace. |