NO FELICITY LIKE PEACE OF CONSCIENCE.
“A good conscience is the testimony of a good life, and the reward
of it.” This is it that fortifies the mind against fortune, when a
man has gotten the mastery of his passions; placed his treasure and
security within himself; learned to be content with his condition;
and that death is no evil in itself, but only the end of man. He that
has dedicated his mind to virtue, and to the good of human society,
whereof he is a member, has consummated all that is either profitable
or necessary for him to know or to do toward the establishment of his
peace. Every man has a judge and a witness within himself of all the
good and ill that he does, which inspires us with great thoughts, and
administers to us wholesome counsels. We have a veneration for all the
works of Nature, the heads of rivers, and the springs of medicinal
waters; the horrors of groves and of caves strike us with an impression
of religion and worship. To see a man fearless in dangers, untainted
with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at
all those things which are generally either coveted or feared; all men
must acknowledge that this can be nothing else but a beam of divinity
that influences a mortal body. And this is it that carries us to the
disquisition of things divine and human; what the state of the world
was before the distribution of the first matter into parts; what power
it was that drew order out of that confusion, and gave laws both to the
whole, and to every particle thereof; what that space is beyond the
world; and whence proceed the several operations of Nature.
Shall any man see the glory and order of the universe; so many
scattered parts and qualities wrought into one mass; such a medley of
things, which are yet distinguished: the world enlightened, and the
disorders of it so wonderfully regulated; and shall he not consider
the Author and Disposer of all this; and whither we ourselves shall
go, when our souls shall be delivered from the slavery of our flesh?
The whole creation we see conforms to the dictates of Providence, and
follows God both as a governor and as a guide. A great, a good, and
a right mind, is a kind of divinity lodged in flesh, and may be the
blessing of a slave as well as of a prince; it came from heaven, and to
heaven it must return; and it is a kind of heavenly felicity, which a
pure and virtuous mind enjoys, in some degree, even upon earth: whereas
temples of honor are but empty names, which, probably, owe their
beginning either to ambition or to violence.
I am strangely transported with the thoughts of eternity; nay, with
the belief of it; for I have a profound veneration for the opinions
of great men, especially when they promise things so much to my
satisfaction: for they do promise them, though they do not prove them.
In the question of the immortality of the soul, it goes very far with
me, a general consent to the opinion of a future reward and punishment;
which meditation raises me to the contempt of this life, in hopes of
a better. But still, though we know that we have a soul; yet what the
soul is, how, and from whence, we are utterly ignorant: this only we
understand, that all the good and ill we do is under the dominion of
the mind; that a clear conscience states us in an inviolable peace; and
that the greatest blessing in Nature is that which every honest man may
bestow upon himself. The body is but the clog and prisoner of the mind;
tossed up and down, and persecuted with punishments, violences, and
diseases; but the mind itself is sacred and eternal, and exempt from
the danger of all actual impression.
Provided that we look to our consciences, no matter for opinion: let
me deserve well, though I hear ill. The common people take stomach and
audacity for the marks of magnanimity and honor; and if a man be soft
and modest, they look upon him as an easy fop; but when they come once
to observe the dignity of his mind in the equality and firmness of his
actions; and that his external quiet is founded upon an internal peace,
the very same people who have him in esteem and admiration; for there
is no man but approves of virtue, though but few pursue it; we see
where it is, but we dare not venture to come at it: and the reason is,
we overvalue that which we must quit to obtain it.
A good conscience fears no witnesses, but a guilty conscience is
solicitous even of solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let
all the world know it; but if otherwise, what does it signify to have
nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he that
slights that witness! Wickedness, it is true, may escape the law, but
not the conscience; for a private conviction is the first and the
greatest punishment to offenders; so that sin plagues itself; and the
fear of vengeance pursues even those that escape the stroke of it.
It were ill for good men that iniquity may so easily evade the law,
the judge, and the execution, if Nature had not set up torments and
gibbets in the consciences of transgressors. He that is guilty lives
in perpetual terror; and while he expects to be punished, he punishes
himself; and whosoever deserves it expects it. What if he be not
detected? he is still in apprehension yet that he may be so. His sleeps
are painful, and never secure; and he cannot speak of another man’s
wickedness without thinking of his own, whereas a good conscience is a
continual feast.
Those are the only certain and profitable delights, which arise from
the consciousness of a well-acted life; no matter for noise abroad,
so long as we are quiet within: but if our passions be seditious,
that is enough to keep us waking without any other tumult. It is not
the posture of the body, or the composure of the bed, that will give
rest to an uneasy mind: there is an impatient sloth that may be roused
by action, and the vices of laziness must be cured by business. True
happiness is not to be found in excesses of wine, or of women, or in
the largest prodigalities of fortune; what she has given to me, she
may take away, but she shall not tear it from me; and, so long as it
does not grow to me, I can part with it without pain. He that would
perfectly know himself, let him set aside his money, his fortune, his
dignity, and examine himself naked, without being put to learn from
others the knowledge of himself.
It is dangerous for a man too suddenly, or too easily, to believe
himself. Wherefore let us examine, observe, and inspect our own
hearts, for we ourselves are our own greatest flatterers: we should
every night call ourselves to account, “What infirmity have I mastered
to-day? what passion opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue
acquired?” Our vices will abate of themselves, if they be brought every
day to the shrift. Oh the blessed sleep that follows such a diary! Oh
the tranquillity, liberty, and greatness of that mind that is a spy
upon itself, and a private censor of its own manners! It is my custom
(says our author) every night, so soon as the candle is out, to run
over all the words and actions of the past day; and I let nothing
escape me; for why should I fear the sight of my own errors, when I can
admonish and forgive myself? “I was a little too hot in such a dispute:
my opinion might have been as well spared, for it gave offence, and
did no good at all. The thing was true, but all truths are not to be
spoken at all times; I would I had held my tongue, for there is no
contending either with fools or our superiors. I have done ill, but it
shall be so no more.” If every man would but thus look into himself,
it would be the better for us all. What can be more reasonable than
this daily review of a life that we cannot warrant for a moment? Our
fate is set, and the first breath we draw is only the first motion
toward our last: one cause depends upon another; and the course of all
things, public and private, is but a long connection of providential
appointments. There is a great variety in our lives, but all tends to
the same issue. Nature may use her own bodies as she pleases; but a
good man has this consolation, that nothing perishes which he can call
his own. It is a great comfort that we are only condemned to the same
fate with the universe; the heavens themselves are mortal as well
as our bodies; Nature has made us passive, and to suffer is our lot.
While we are in flesh, every man has his chain and his clog, only it is
looser and lighter to one man than to another; and he is more at ease
that takes it up and carries it, than he that drags it. We are born, to
lose and to perish, to hope and to fear, to vex ourselves and others;
and there is no antidote against a common calamity but virtue; for “the
foundation of true joy is in the conscience.”