SECT. 18
Think not Silence the wisdom of Fools, but, if rightly timed, the honour of Wise Men, who have not the Infirmity, but the Virtue of Taciturnity, and speak not out of the abundance, but the well weighted thoughts of their Hearts. Such silence may be Eloquence, and speak thy worth above the power of Words. Make such a one thy friend, in whom Princes may be happy, and great Councels successful. Let him have the Key of thy Heart, who hath the Lock of his own, which no Temptation can open; where thy Secrets may lastingly ly, like the lamp in Olybius his Urn,[364] alive, and light, but close and invisible.
SECT. 19
Let thy Oaths be sacred, and Promises be made upon the Altar of thy Heart. Call not Jove[365] to witness with a Stone in one Hand, and a Straw in another, and so make Chaff and Stubble of thy Vows. Worldly Spirits, whose interest is their belief, make Cobwebs of Obligations, and, if they can find ways to elude the Urn of the Prætor, will trust the Thunderbolt of Jupiter: And therefore if they should as deeply swear as Osman to Bethlem Gabor:[366] yet whether they would be bound by those chains, and not find ways to cut such Gordian Knots, we could have no just assurance. But Honest Mens Words are Stygian Oaths, and Promises inviolable. These are not the Men for whom the fetters of Law were first forged: they needed not the solemness of Oaths; by keeping their Faith they swear,[367] and evacuate such confirmations.
SECT. 20
Though the World be Histrionical, and most Men live Ironically, yet be thou what thou singly art, and personate only thy self. Swim smoothly in the stream of thy Nature, and live but one Man. To single Hearts doubling is discruciating: such tempers must sweat to dissemble, and prove but hypocritical Hypocrites. Simulation must be short: Men do not easily continue a counterfeiting Life, or dissemble unto Death. He who counterfeiteth, acts a part; and is as it were out of himself: which, if long, proves so irksome, that Men are glad to pull of their Vizards, and resume themselves again; no practice being able to naturalize such unnaturals, or make a Man rest content not to be himself. And therefore since Sincerity is thy Temper, let veracity be thy Virtue in Words, Manners, and Actions. To offer at iniquities, which have so little foundations in thee, were to be vitious up hill, and strain for thy condemnation. Persons vitiously inclined, want no Wheels to make them actively vitious, as having the Elater and Spring of their own Natures to facilitate their Iniquities. And therefore so many, who are sinistrous unto Good Actions, are Ambi-dexterous unto bad; and Vulcans in virtuous paths, Achilleses in vitious motions.
SECT. 21
Rest not in the high strain’d Paradoxes of old Philosophy supported by naked Reason, and the reward of mortal Felicity, but labour in the Ethicks of Faith, built upon Heavenly assistance, and the happiness of both beings. Understand the Rules, but swear not unto the doctrines of Zeno or Epicurus. Look beyond Antoninus, and terminate not thy morals in Seneca or Epictetus. Let not the twelve, but the two Tables be thy Law: Let Pythagoras be thy Remembrancer, not thy textuary and final Instructer; and learn the Vanity of the World rather from Solomon than Phocylides. Sleep not in the Dogma's of the Peripatus, Academy, or Porticus. Be a moralist of the Mount, an Epictetus in the Faith, and christianize thy Notions.
SECT. 22
In seventy or eighty years a Man may have a deep Gust of the World, Know what it is, what it can afford, and what ’tis to have been a Man. Such a latitude of years may hold a considerable corner in the general Map of Time; and a Man may have a curt Epitome of the whole course thereof in the days of his own life, may clearly see he hath but acted over his Fore-fathers; what it was to live in Ages past, and what living will be in all ages to come.