unregarded, it follows, that accordingly Folly should meet with a
greater esteem than wisdom, because that wise author advises us to the
keeping close and concealing the first, and exposing or laying open the
other: as take him now in his own words, _Better is he that hideth his
folly than him that hideth his wisdom_. Beside, the sacred text does oft
ascribe innocence and sincerity to fools, while the wise man is apt to
be a haughty scorner of all such as he thinks or censures to have less
wit than himself: for so I understand that passage in the tenth chapter
of Ecclesiastes, _When he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom
faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool._ Now what
greater argument of candour or ingenuity can there be, than to demean
himself equal with all others, and not think their deserts any way
inferior to his own. Folly is no such scandalous attribute, but that
the wise Agur was not ashamed to confess it, in the thirtieth chapter
of Proverbs: _Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the
understanding of a man_, Nay, St. Paul himself, that great doctor of the
Gentiles, writing to his Corinthians, readily owns the name, saying, _If
any man speak as a fool, I am more_; as if to have been less so had
been a reproach and disgrace. But perhaps I may be censured for
misinterpreting this text by some modern annotators, who like crows
pecking at one another's eyes, find fault, and correct all that went
before them, pretend each their own glosses to contain the only true and
genuine explication; among whom my Erasmus (whom I cannot but mention
with respect) may challenge the second place, if not the precedency.
This citation (say they) is purely impertinent; the meaning of the
apostle is far different from what you dream of: he would not have these
words so understood, as if he desired to be thought a greater fool
than the rest, but only when he had before said, _Are they ministers of
Christ? so am I_: as if the equalling himself herein to others had been
too little, he adds, _I am more_, thinking a bare equality not enough,
unless he were even superior to those he compares himself with. This
he would have to be believed as true; yet lest it might be thought
offensive, as bordering too much on arrogance and conceit, he tempers
and alleviates it by the covert of Folly. _I speak_ (says he) _as a
fool_, knowing it to be the peculiar privilege of fools to speak the
truth, without giving offence. But what St. Paul's thoughts were when he
wrote this, I leave for them to determine. In my own judgment at least
I prefer the opinion of the good old tun-bellied divines, with whom
it's safer and more creditable to err, than to be in the right with
smattering, raw, novices.
[Illustration: 352]
[Illustration: 356]
Nor indeed should any one mind the late critics any more than the
senseless chattering of a daw: especially since one of the most eminent
of them (whose name I advisedly conceal, lest some of our wits should
be taunting him with the Greek proverb, magisterially and dogmatically
descanting upon his text [_are they the ministers of Christ?_ ]) I speak
as a fool. I am more makes a distinct chapter, and (which without good
store of logic he could never have done) adds a new section, and then
gives this paraphrase, which I shall verbatim recite, that you may have
his words materially, as well as formally his sense (for that's one
of their babbling distinctions). [_I speak as a fool_] that is, if the
equalling myself to those false apostles would have been construed as
the vaunt of a fool, I will willingly be accounted a greater fool, by
taking place of them, and openly pleading, that as to their ministry, I
not only come up even with them, but outstrip and go beyond them: though
this same commentator a little after, as it were forgetting what he had
just before delivered, tacks about and shifts to another interpretation.
But why do I insist upon any one particular example, when in general
it is the public charter of all divines, to mould and bend the sacred
oracles till they comply with their own fancy, spreading them (as Heaven
by its Creator) like a curtain, closing together, or drawing them back,
as they please? Thus indeed St. Paul himself minces and mangles some
citations he makes use of, and seems to wrest them to a different sense
from what they were first intended for, as is confessed by the great
linguist, St. Hierom.
Thus when that apostle saw at Athens the inscription of an altar, he
draws from it an argument for the proof of the christian religion; but
leaving out great part of the sentence, which perhaps if fully recited
might have prejudiced his cause, he mentions only the two last words
viz., _To the unknown God_; and this too not without alteration, for the
whole inscription runs thus: _To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa,
to all foreign and unknown Gods_.
[Illustration: 360]
'Tis an imitation of the same pattern, I will warrant you, that our
young divines, by leaving out four or five words in a place, and putting
a false construction on the rest, can make any passage serviceable to
their own purpose; though from the coherence of what went before, or
follows after, the genuine meaning appears to be either wide enough, or
perhaps quite contradictory to what they would thrust and impose upon
it. In which knack the divines are grown now so expert, that the lawyers
themselves begin to be jealous of an encroachment upon what was formerly
their sole privilege and practice. And indeed what can they despair of
proving, since the fore-mentioned commentator (I had almost blundered
out his name), but that I am restrained by fear of the same Greek
proverbial sarcasm) did upon a text of St. Luke put an interpretation,
no more agreeable to the meaning of the place, than one contrary quality
is to another? The passage is this, when Judas's treachery was preparing
to be executed, and accordingly it seemed requisite that all the
disciples should be provided to guard and secure their assaulted master,
our Saviour, that he might piously caution them against reliance for
his delivery on any worldly strength, asks them, whether in all their
embassy they lacked anything, when he had sent them out so unfurnished
for the performance of a long journey, that they had not so much as
shoes to defend their feet from the injuries of flints and thorns, or
a scrip to carry a meal's meat in; and when they had answered that they
lacked nothing, he adds, _But now he that hath a purse let him take
it, and likewise a scrip; and he that hath no sword let him sell his
garment, and buy one_. Now when the whole doctrine of our Saviour
inculcates nothing more frequently than meekness, patience, and a
contempt of this world, is it not plain what the meaning of the place
is? Namely, that he might now dismiss his ambassadors in a more naked,
defenceless condition, he does not only advise them to take no thought
for shoes or scrip, but even commands them to part with the very clothes
from their back, that so they might have the less incumbrance and
entanglement in the going through their office and function. He cautions
them, it is true, to. be furnished with a sword, yet not such a carnal
one as rogues and highwaymen make use of for murder and bloodshed,
but with the sword of the Spirit, which pierces through the heart, and
searches out the innermost retirements of the soul, lopping off all our
lust, and corrupt affections, and leaving nothing in possession of our
breast but piety, zeal, and devotion: this (I say) in my opinion is the
most natural interpretation.
[Illustration: 364]
But see how that divine misunderstands the place; by sword (says he)
is meant, defence against persecution; by scrip, or purse, a sufficient
quantity of provision; as if Christ had, by considering better of it,
changed his mind in reference to that mean equipage, which he had before
sent his disciples in, and therefore came now to a recantation of what
he had formerly instituted: or as if he had forgot what in time past he
had told them, _Blessed are you when men shall revile you, and persecute
you, and say all manner of evil against you for my sake. Render not evil
for evil, for blessed are the meek_, not the cruel: as if he had forgot
that he encouraged them by the examples of sparrows and lilies to take
no thought for the morrow; he gives them now another lesson, and charges
them, rather than go _without a sword, to sell their garment, and
buy one_; as if the going cold and naked were more excusable than
the marching unarmed. And as this author thinks all means which are
requisite for the prevention or retaliation of injuries to be implied
under the name of sword, so under that of scrip, he would have
everything to be comprehended, which either the necessity or conveniency
of life requires.
Thus does this provident commentator furnish out the disciples with
halberts, spears, and guns, for the enterprise of preaching Christ
crucified; he supplies them at the same time with pockets, bags, and
portmanteaus, that they might carry their cupboards as well as their
bellies always about them: he takes no notice how our Saviour afterwards
rebukes Peter for drawing that sword which he had just before so
strictly charged him to buy; nor that it is ever recorded that the
primitive Christians did by no ways withstand their heathen persecutors
otherwise than with tears and prayers, which they would have exchanged
more effectually for swords and bucklers, if they had thought this text
would have borne them out.
There is another, and he of no mean credit, whom for respect to his
person I shall forbear to name, who commenting upon that verse in the
prophet Habakkuk (_I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the
curtains of the land of Midian did tremble_), because tents were
sometimes made of skins, he pretended that the word tents did here
signify the skin of St. Bartholomew, who was flayed for a martyr.
I myself was lately at a divinity disputation (where I very often pay my
attendance), where one of the opponents demanded a reason why it should
be thought more proper to silence all heretics by sword and faggot,
rather than convert them by moderate and sober arguments? A certain
cynical old blade, who bore the character of a divine, legible in the
frowns and wrinkles of his face, not without a great deal of disdain
answered, that it was the express injunction of St. Paul himself, in
those directions to Titus (_A man that is an heretic, after the first
and second admonition, reject_), quoting it in Latin, where the word
_reject_ is _devita_, while all the auditory wondered at this citation,
and deemed it no way applicable to his purpose; he at last explained
himself, saying, that _devita_ signified _de vita tollendum hereticum_,
a heretic must be slain. Some smiled at his ignorance, but others
approved of it as an orthodox comment And however some disliked that
such violence should be done to so easy a text, our hair-splitting and
irrefragable doctor went on in triumph. To prove it yet (says he) more
undeniably, it is commanded in the old law [_Thou shalt not suffer a
witch to live_]: now then every _Maleficus_, or witch, is to be killed,
but an heretic is _Maleficus_, which in the Latin translation is put for
a witch, _ergo, &c_. All that were present wondered at the ingenuity of
the person, and very devoudy embraced his opinion, never dreaming that
the law was restrained only to magicians, sorcerers, and enchanters:
for otherwise, if the word _Maleficus_ signified what it most naturally
implies, every evil-doer, then drunkenness and whoredom were to meet
with the same capital punishment as witchcraft But why should I squander
away my time in a too tedious prosecution of this topic, which if drove
on to the utmost would afford talk to eternity? I aim herein at no more
than this, namely, that since those grave doctors take such a swinging
range and latitude, I, who am but a smattering novice in divinity, may
have the larger allowance for any slips or mistakes.
[Illustration: 370]
Now therefore I return to St. Paul, who uses these expressions [_Ye
suffer fools gladly_] applying it to himself; and again [_As a fool
receive me_], and [_That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but
as it were foolishly_]; and in another place [_We are fools for Christ's
sake_]. See how these commendations of Folly are equal to the author of
them, both great and sacred. The same holy person does yet enjoin and
command the being a fool, as a virtue of all others most requisite and
necessary: for, says he [_If any man seem to be wise in this world, let
him become a fool that he may be wise_]. Thus St. Luke records, how
our Saviour, after his resurrection, joining himself with two of his
disciples travelling to Emmaus, at his first salutation he calls them
fools, saying [_O fools, and slow of heart to believe_], Nor may this
seem strange in comparison to what is yet farther delivered by St. Paul,
who adventures to attribute something of Folly even to the all-wise God
himself [_The foolishness of God_ (says he) _is wiser than men_];
in which text St. Origen would not have the word foolishness any way
referred to men, or applicable to the same sense, wherein is to be
understood that other passage of St. Paul [_The preaching of the cross
to them that perish, foolishness_]. But why do I put myself to the
trouble of citing so many proofs, since this one may suffice for all,
namely, that in those mystical psalms wherein David represents the
type of Christ, it is there acknowledged by our Saviour, in way of
confession, that even he himself was guilty of Folly; _Thou_ (says he)
_O God knowest my foolishness?_ Nor is it without some reason that
fools for their plainness and sincerity of heart have always been
most acceptable to God Almighty. For as the princes of this world
have shrewdly suspected, and carried a jealous eye over such of their
subjects as were the most observant, and deepest politicians (for thus
Caesar was afraid of the plodding Cassius, and Brutus, thinking
himself secure enough from the careless drinking Anthony; Nero likewise
mistrusted Seneca, and Dionysius would have been willingly rid of
Plato), whereas they can all put greater confidence in such as are of
less subtlety and contrivance So our Saviour in like manner dislikes
and condemns the wise and crafty, as St. Paul does expressly declare
in these words, _God hath chosen the foolish things of the world_; and
again, _it pleased God by foolishness to save the world_; implying that
by wisdom it could never have been saved. Nay, God himself testifies
as much when he speaks by the mouth of his prophet, _I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nought the understanding of the
learned_. Again, our Saviour does solemnly return his Father thanks
for that he had _hidden the mysteries of salvation from the wise,
and revealed them to babes_, i.e., to fools; for the original word
_vnpriois_, being opposed to _oooois_ if one signify wise, the other
must foolish. To the same purpose did our blessed Lord frequently
condemn and upbraid the scribes, pharisees, and lawyers, while he
carries himself kind and obliging to the unlearned multitude: for what
otherwise can be the meaning of that tart denunciation, _Woe unto you
scribes and pharisees_, than woe unto you wise men, whereas he seems
chiefly delighted with children, women, and illiterate fishermen.
We may farther take notice, that among all the several kinds of brute
creatures he shews greatest liking to such as are farthest distant from
the subtlety of the fox. Thus in his progress to Jerusalem he chose to
ride sitting upon an ass, though, if he pleased, he might have mounted
the back of a lion with more of state, and as little of danger. The Holy
Spirit chose rather likewise to descend from heaven in the shape of a
simple gall-less dove, than that of an eagle, kite, or other more lofty
fowl.
Thus all along in the holy scriptures there are frequent metaphors and
similitudes of the most inoffensive creatures, such as stags, hinds,
lambs, and the like. Nay, those blessed souls that in the day of
judgment are to be placed at our Saviour's right hand are called sheep,
which are the most senseless and stupid of all cattle, as is evidenced
by Aristotle's Greek proverb, a sheepishness of temper, a dull,
blockish, sleepy, unmanly humour. Yet of such a flock Christ is not
ashamed to profess himself the shepherd. Nay, he would not only have all
his proselytes termed sheep, but even he himself would be called a lamb;
as when John the Baptist seeth Jesus coming unto him, he saith, _Behold
the Lamb of God_; which same title is very often given to our Saviour in
the apocalypse.
All this amounts to no less than that all mortal men are fools, even the
righteous and godly as well as sinners; nay, in some sense our blessed
Lord himself, who, although he was the _wisdom of the Father_, yet
to repair the infirmities of fallen man, he became in some measure a
partaker of human Folly, when he _took our nature upon him, and was
found in fashion as a man_; or when _God made him to be sin for us, who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him_. Nor
would he heal those breaches our sins had made by any other method
than by the _foolishness of the cross_, published by the ignorant and
unlearned apostles, to whom he frequently recommends the excellence
of Folly, cautioning them against the infectiousness of wisdom, by the
several examples he proposes them to imitate, such as children, lilies,
sparrows, mustard, and such like beings, which are either wholly
inanimate, or at least devoid of reason and ingenuity, guided by
no other conduct than that of instinct, without care, trouble, or
contrivance. To the same intent the disciples were warned by their lord
and master, that when they should be _brought unto the synagogues, and
unto magistrates and powers_, they shall _take no thought how, or what
thing they should answer, nor what they should say_: they were again
strictly forbid to _enquire into the times and seasons_, or to place
any confidence in their own abilities, but to depend wholly upon divine
assistance.
[Illustration: 378]
At the first peopling of paradise the Almighty had never laid so strict
a charge on our father Adam to refrain from _eating of the tree of
knowledge_ except he had thereby forewarned that the taste of knowledge
would be the bane of all happiness. St. Paul says expressly, that
_knowledge puffeth up, i.e._, it is fatal and poisonous. In pursuance
whereunto St. Bernard interprets that _exceeding high mountain_ whereon
the devil had erected his seat to have been the mountain of knowledge.
And perhaps this may be another argument which ought not to be omitted,
namely, that Folly is acceptable, at least excusable, with the gods,
inasmuch, as they easily pass by the heedless failures of fools, while
the miscarriages of such as are known to have more wit shall very hardly
obtain a pardon; nay, when a wise man comes to sue for an acquitment
from any guilt, he must shroud himself under the patronage and pretext
of Folly. For thus in the twelfth of Numbers Aaron entreats Moses to
stay the leprosy of his sister Miriam, saying, _alas, my Lord, I beseech
thee lay not the sin upon us wherein we have done foolishly_. Thus,
when David spared Saul's life, when he found him sleeping in a tent
of Hachilah, not willing to _stretch forth his hand against the Lord's
anointed, Saul excuses his former severity by confessing, _Behold, I
have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly_. David also himself in
much the same form begs the remission of his sin from God Almighty with
this prayer, _Lord, I pray thee take away the iniquity of thy servant,
for I have done very foolishly_; as if he could not have hoped otherwise
to have his pardon granted except he petitioned for it under the covert
and mitigation of Folly. The agreeable practice of our Saviour is
yet more convincing, who, when he hung upon the cross, prayed for his
enemies, saying, _Father, forgive them_, urging no other plea in their
behalf than that of their ignorance, _for they know not what they do_.
To the same effect St. Paul in his first epistle to Timothy acknowledges
he had been a blasphemer and a persecutor, _But (saith he) _I obtained
mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief_. Now what is the meaning
of the phrase [_I did it ignorantly_] but only this? My fault was
occasioned from a misinformed Folly, not from a deliberate malice. What
signifies [_I obtained mercy_] but only that I should not otherwise have
obtained it had not folly and ignorance been my vindication? To the same
purpose is that other passage in the mysterious Psalmist, which I forgot
to mention in its proper place, namely, _Oh remember not the sins and
offences of my youth!_ the word which we render offences, is in Latin
_ignorantias_, ignorances. Observe, the two things he alleges in his
excuse are, first, his rawness of age, to which Folly and want of
experience are constant attendants: and secondly, his ignorances,
expressed in the plural number for an enhancement and aggravation of his
foolishness.
But that I may not wear out this subject too far, to draw now towards a
conclusion, it is observable that the christian religion seems to have
some relation to Folly, and no alliance at all with wisdom. Of the truth
whereof, if you desire farther proof than my bare word you may please,
first, to consider, that children, women, old men, and fools, led as
it were by a secret impulse of nature, are always most constant in
repairing to church, and most zealous, devout and attentive in the
performance of the several parts of divine service; nay, the first
promulgators of the gospel, and the first converts to Christianity, were
men of plainness and simplicity, wholly unacquainted with secular policy
or learning.
Farther, there are none more silly, or nearer their wits' end, than
those who are too superstitiously religious: they are profusely lavish
in their charity; they invite fresh affronts by an easy forgiveness of
past injuries; they suffer themselves to be cheated and imposed upon by
laying claim to the innocence of the dove; they make it the interest of
no person to oblige them, because they will love, and _do good to their
enemies_, as much as to the most endearing friends; they banish all
pleasure, feeding upon the penance of watching, weeping, fasting, sorrow
and reproach; they value not their lives, but with St. Paul, _wish to be
dissolved_, and covet the fiery trial of martyrdom: in a word, they seem
altogether so destitute of common sense, that their soul seems already
separated from the dead and inactive body. And what else can we imagine
all this to be than downright madness? It is the less strange therefore
that at the feast of Pentecost the apostles should be thought drunk with
new wine; or that St. Paul was censured by Festus to have been beside
himself.
And since I have had the confidence to go thus far, I shall venture yet
a little forwarder, and be so bold as to say thus much more: all that
final happiness, which christians, through so many rubs and briars of
difficulties, contend for, is at last no better than a sort of folly
and madness. This, no question, will be thought extravagantly spoke; but
consider awhile, and deliberately state the case.
First, then, the christians so far agree with the Platonists as to
believe that the body is no better than a prison or dungeon for the
confinement of the soul. That therefore, while the soul is shackled
to the walls of flesh, her soaring wings are impeded, and all her
enlivening faculties clogged and fettered by the gross particles of
matter, so that she can neither freely range after, nor, when happily
overtook, can quietly contemplate her proper object of truth.
Farther, Plato defines philosophy to be the meditation of death, because
the one performs the same office with the other; namely, withdraws the
mind from all visible and corporeal objects; therefore while the soul
does patiently actuate the several organs and members of the body, so
long is a man accounted of a good and sound disposition; but when the
soul, weary of her confinement, struggles to break jail, and fly beyond
her cage of flesh and blood, then a man is censured at least for being
magotty and crack-brained; nay, if there be any defect in the external
organs it is then termed downright madness. And yet many times persons
thus affected shall have prophetic ecstacies of foretelling things to
come, shall in a rapture talk languages they never before learned, and
seem in all things actuated by somewhat divine and extraordinary; and
all this, no doubt, is only the effect of the soul's being more released
from its engagement to the body, whereby it can with less impediment
exert the energy of life and motion. From hence, no question, has sprung
an observation of like nature, confirmed now into a settled opinion,
that _some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging,
arrive to the height of prophetic spirits_.
[Illustration: 384]
If this disorder arise from an intemperance in religion, and too high a
strain of devotion, though it be of a somewhat differing sort, yet it is
so near akin to the former, that a great part of mankind apprehend it as
a mere madness; especially when persons of that superstitious humour
are so pragmatical and singular as to separate and live apart as it
were from all the world beside: so as they seem to have experienced
what Plato dreams to have happened between some, who, enclosed in a
dark cave, did only ruminate on the ideas and abstracted speculations
of entities; and one other of their company, who had got abroad into the
open light, and at his return tells them what a blind mistake they
had lain under; that he had seen the substance of what their dotage of
imagination reached only in shadow; that therefore he could not but pity
and condole their deluding dreams, while they on the other side no less
bewail his frenzy, and turn him out of their society for a lunatic and
madman.