I take goodness in this sense, the affecting of the weal of men, which
is that the Grecians call _philanthropia_; and the word humanity, as
it is used, is a little too light to express it. Goodness I call the
habit, and goodness of nature the inclination. This, of all virtues
and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of
the Deity; and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing,
no better than a kind of vermin. Goodness answers to the theological
virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. The desire of power
in excess caused the angels to fall;[140] the desire of knowledge in
excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither
can angel or man come in danger by it. The inclination to goodness is
imprinted deeply in the nature of man, insomuch that if it issue not
towards men, it will take unto other living creatures; as it is seen
in the Turks, a cruel people, who nevertheless are kind to beasts, and
give alms to dogs and birds; insomuch, as Busbechius[141] reporteth,
a Christian boy in Constantinople had like to have been stoned for
gagging in a waggishness a long-billed fowl.[142] Errors, indeed, in
this virtue, of goodness or charity, may be committed. The Italians
have an ungracious proverb: “Tanto buon che val niente;” “So good, that
he is good for nothing;” and one of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas
Machiavel,[143] had the confidence to put in writing, almost in plain
terms, “That the Christian faith had given up good men in prey to those
that are tyrannical and unjust;”[144] which he spake, because, indeed,
there was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness
as the Christian religion doth; therefore, to avoid the scandal and the
danger both, it is good to take knowledge of the errors of a habit so
excellent. Seek the good of other men, but be not in bondage to their
faces or fancies; for that is but facility or softness, which taketh an
honest mind prisoner. Neither give thou Æsop’s cock a gem, who would
be better pleased and happier if he had had a barley-corn. The example
of God teacheth the lesson truly: “He sendeth his rain, and maketh his
sun to shine upon the just and the unjust;”[145] but he doth not rain
wealth, nor shine honor and virtues upon men equally; common benefits
are to be communicate with all, but peculiar benefits with choice. And
beware how, in making the portraiture, thou breakest the pattern; for
divinity maketh the love of ourselves the pattern, the love of our
neighbors but the portraiture: “Sell all thou hast, and give it to the
poor, and follow me;”[146] but sell not all thou hast, except thou
come and follow me; that is, except thou have a vocation wherein thou
mayest do as much good with little means as with great; for otherwise,
in feeding the streams thou driest the fountain. Neither is there only
a habit of goodness directed by right reason, but there is in some men,
even in nature, a disposition towards it; as, on the other side, there
is a natural malignity, for there be that in their nature do not affect
the good of others. The lighter sort of malignity turneth but to a
crossness, or frowardness, or aptness to oppose, or difficileness, or
the like; but the deeper sort to envy, and mere mischief. Such men in
other men’s calamities are, as it were, in season, and are ever on the
loading part; not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus’s sores,[147]
but like flies that are still buzzing upon any thing that is raw;
misanthropi, that make it their practice to bring men to the bough, and
yet have never a tree for the purpose in their gardens, as Timon[148]
had. Such dispositions are the very errors of human nature, and yet
they are the fittest timber to make great politics of; like to knee
timber,[149] that is good for ships that are ordained to be tossed, but
not for building houses that shall stand firm. The parts and signs of
goodness are many. If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it
shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island
cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them; if he
be compassionate towards the afflictions of others, it shows that his
heart is like the noble tree that is wounded itself when it gives the
balm;[150] if he easily pardons and remits offences, it shows that
his mind is planted above injuries, so that he cannot be shot; if he
be thankful for small benefits, it shows that he weighs men’s minds,
and not their trash; but, above all, if he have St. Paul’s perfection,
that he would wish to be an anathema[151] from Christ for the salvation
of his brethren, it shows much of a divine nature, and a kind of
conformity with Christ himself.