It was a very proper answer to him who asked, why any man should be
delighted with beauty? that it was a question that none but a blind man
could ask; since any beautiful object doth so much attract the sight of
all men, that it is in no man’s power not to be pleased with it. Nor can
any aversion or malignity towards the object irreconcile the eyes from
looking upon it; as a man who hath an envenomed and mortal hatred
against another who hath a most graceful and beautiful person, cannot
hinder his eye from being delighted to behold that person, though that
delight is far from going to the heart, as no man’s malice towards an
excellent musician can keep his ear from being pleased with his music.
No man can ask how or why men come to be delighted with peace but he who
is without natural bowels,--who is deprived of all those affections
which can only make life pleasant to him. Peace is that harmony in the
state that health is in the body. No honour, no profit, no plenty can
make him happy who is sick with a fever in his blood, and with
defluctions and aches in his joints and bones; but health restored gives
a relish to the other blessings, and is very merry without them: no
kingdom can flourish or be at ease in which there is no peace,--which
only makes men dwell at home and enjoy the labour of their own hands,
and improve all the advantages which the air, and the climate, and the
soil administer to them; and all which yield no comfort where there is
no peace. God himself reckons health the greatest blessing he can bestow
upon mankind and peace the greatest comfort and ornament he can confer
upon states, which are a multitude of men gathered together. They who
delight most in war are so much ashamed of it, that they pretend to
desire nothing but peace,--that their heart is set upon nothing else.
When Cæsar was engaging all the world in war, he wrote to Tully, “There
was nothing worthier of an honest man than to have contention with
nobody.” It was the highest aggravation that the prophet could find out
in the description of the greatest wickedness, that “the way of peace
they knew not;” and the greatest punishment of all their crookedness and
perverseness was, that “they should not know peace.” A greater curse
cannot befall the most wicked nation than to be deprived of peace. There
is nothing of real and substantial comfort in this world but what is the
product of peace; and whatsoever we may lawfully and innocently take
delight in is the fruit and effect of peace. The solemn service of God,
and performing our duty to Him in the exercise of regular devotion,
which is the greatest business of our life, and in which we ought to
take most delight, is the issue of peace. War breaks all that order,
interrupts all that devotion, and even extinguisheth all that zeal which
peace had kindled in us; lays waste the dwelling place of God as well as
of man; and introduces and propagates opinions and practice as much
against Heaven as against earth, and erects a deity that delights in
nothing but cruelty and blood. Are we pleased with the enlarged commerce
and society of large and opulent cities, or with the retired pleasures
of the country? do we love stately palaces and noble houses, or take
delight in pleasant groves and woods, or fruitful gardens, which teach
and instruct nature to produce and bring forth more fruits, and flowers,
and plants, than her own store can supply her with? all this we owe to
peace; and the dissolution of this peace disfigures all this beauty,
and, in a short time, covers and buries all this order and delight in
ruin and rubbish. Finally, have we any content, satisfaction, and joy in
the conversation of each other, in the knowledge and understanding of
those arts and sciences which more adorn mankind than all those
buildings and plantations do the fields and grounds on which they stand?
even this is the blessed effect and legacy of peace; and war lays our
natures and manners as waste as our gardens and our habitations; and we
can as easily preserve the beauty of the one as the integrity of the
other under the cursed jurisdiction of drums and trumpets.
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