shall re-establish reason in its force and in its Empire which renders truths apparent which makes duty and vertue loved which reimplants courage makes a coherence between the light and our hopes and which appears on our Horizon but to tell us that the Sun comes to us assuredly and that we are of the number of the Predestinated who shall see him Far be it from you to abate by secret persecutions Non contristabit justum quidquid ei acciderit or by the ordinary accidents of fortune to be troubled or disturbed trouble not your selves either at your sins or unforeseen relapses When you happen to fall into any fault do not amuse your selves to cry and complain as a Child fallen into the mire Withdraw your self gently and help your self in stretching your hand to mercy who offers you his Weep but hope hate your malice and infirmity which have rendred you a sinner hut adore the Wisdom of God who can draw his glory out of that shameful and reproachful estate that you are in Learn that the most Divine action of his power and love is to change into good the evil that you have done Whilst that you blush to see your self contemplate with admiration the designs of Love and Grace that his Providence considers of occasioned by your fault Fear his justice and flee it but never avoid it but by running to his goodness Be ye touched with compunction without being dejected be you resolved to govern your self better for time to come without being impatient or despairing from what is past Although true contrition bursts the heart it has yet somwhat of sweetness that bears it up and which makes it known and distinguisheth it from a false repentance The two marks most certain that we are in that condition God would have have us are Tranquility and Humility Assure your self that every affair where there is too much earnestness although it be the most Holy is done without intention to please God All inspiration that causes disorder in you comes not from the Holy Spirit All grief for sin which carries you to despair comes infallibly from the Devil All mortification that renders you disobedient and proud is the Council of your enemy All humility which makes you fear that there is no pardon for you and that God despiseth your tears is false and deceitful it leads you to impenitence and the death of the proud and reprobates Treat your selves the most meanly and with the most severity you can Humble your self and confess that Holiness is above your courage and that you are one of the most slack and ungrateful of men but have not the humility of the damned and say not that Salvation is above your might Pray to God to give what he commands from you and then offer your self to Him and pray Him to command all that he please ARTICLE II. MAXIMS For the Conduct of the Wit FIRST MAXIM Buy the Truth and sell it not also Wisdom and Instruction and Understanding Prov. 23. PARAPHRASE ENdeavour to purchase but take good heed you sell not that which is more worth than all the gold and silver in the World Buy truth but don't rid your self of Wisdom part not these two vertues possess both the one and the other Let Truth be in your words and Wisdom in your thoughts when that you judge of things know them and deceive not your self When that you speak lye not and deceive those that hear you Think wisely and speak sincerely In one word aspire to the highest and happiest estate that the Wit of man may be raised unto Have the courage to believe nothing nor to say any thing that is untrue Be wise and be sincere Veritatem eme noli vendere sapientiam REFLECTION IT is a precious Grace the grace of being sincere and not to yield to the violences of injustice nor to its flatteries when it would engage us to tell a lye and betray our Consciences Many have bought this Grace by their own blood and have given for it what hath been most dear to them in the World And if you have it not as yet spare nothing to purchase it at any rate That which you shall give is infinitely less worth then it Fear not to dye but fear to live with the reputation of a man without Word and who loves the Truth less thâ—n a mortal life and a miserable fortune Eme veritatem Grave that Maxime in your heart that a wise Prince writ with his finger on the lips of his Son Rather dye then lye Hate a lye more then death and although in Company men call it Verbum mendax justus detestabitur the most innocenâ— sin and in the Palace thâ— most necessary yet do you call it the most shameful to nature the most intollerable to a man of honour and Conscience Since that you bear in your Soul the Image of the Truth of God Non decet principem verbum mentiens Prov. 17. Take that for you that Solomon said to the Kings that whatsoever ornament you can give to a lye it is very indecent in your mouths Conscendam ero similis Altissimo It becomes none but the proud Angel who chose it for his character and who began by it when he would render himself the horrour of nature and transform himself into a Devil The first proposition he made to the Angels in Paradice was a lye Nequaquam morte morieris eritis sicut Dii Gen. 3. The first word he spake on earth was another lye that he made to the Man The first thought he had at his entrance into Hell and the first design he took there to revenge himself on God was to lye eternally And the first promise that he made himself to comfort him in his pains that all Men should lie also and that he would find a means to spread his sin and his own corruption as far as the sin of the first Man An enterprize alas wherein he has been too lucky and wherein he succeeds this day six thousand years Who is the Man that lies not Children do in the Cradle The Philosophers and holy Men in the Schools of Wisdom and even on the Throne of Truth Men do it in every condition and every age Among all those who have sinned in Adam and who have been able to speak there is not one who has not lied and who hath not born on his tongue this Image of the Devil Leave it not upon yours Tear away all the remains of this unhappy inclination Remove à te os pravum detrahentia labra sint procul à te Prov. 4. Viam pravam os bilingue detestor Pro. 8. detest this fatal sin Politicians make it their study many make it their pastime and others their trade Make you of it what all great Men have the abomination of your heart look upon it as the unworthiest crime and the most infamous accident which can happen to a noble Soul
neither learned Men nor Artists but when they shall not find it True Philosophy is not to enquire and in questions where one must of necessity say I know nothing on 't those who say it soonest and who do not study twenty years to say it are the most wife and most happy IV. MAXIM Thou shalt not trust to thy own Prudence PARAPHRASE WHen you seek the truth believe not your own sentiments nor do not rely on your particular thoughts Fear what comes from you and which is new and take heed of making thereof rules of Philosophy and Maxims of Conduct Draw from your Prudence what Light you are able but try it by Lights more shining and sure then yours When it shall enlighten you have other Torches to enlighten that first and never go in the dark and near to praecipices with it alone REFLECTION NE innitaris prudentiae tuae A Lyar doth not always lye but it is always imprudence to trust to his word Although our reasoning somtimes doth not deceive us we never fail to be blame worthy when we hearken to it and that we take for certain truths What we know not but from it alone This particular reasoning is not in man but to betray him and to lead him to his ruine 'T is it that produces ignorances errors impieties false Religions false Philosophers and that forms these by paths and deceitful ways where we see many people to wander Some enter into these ways by simplicity but most by pride They believe that Wisdom Justice would that they went on that side because their own reasoning leads them there But they follow a strange guide Beasts are lead by their passion Fools by their arguing and wise Men by reason None will profit by the misfortunes of others Although each Philosopher during the disputes cry with all the endeavours of his voice to warn his friends that their reasoning deceives them each will believe that his will not deceive him and each hears it as his Master there is no authority that overweighs their own nay even of the Gospel nor experience The Proud respect nothing but this unhappy prudence and it happens more then once in an age that a little Philosopher undertakes to examine Religion or to reform the Elements and overturn the World because 't is the dictate of his reasoning so to do A wise Man in reasoning with himself according to humane thoughts has never learnt any thing certain but that his arguing was blind and that he never drew any other profit thence then to say to himself Ne innitaris prudentiae tuae V. MAXIME Wisedom standeth in the top of the high places by the way in the places of the paths She crieth at the gates at the entry of the City Unto you O men I call and my voice is to the sons of men Proverb 8. PARAPHRASE WIsdom speaks upon the Mountains and in the high ways at the gates of Cities in the midst of the streets and in all places where it finds most people There it infuseth it self on the tongues of the people and it makes use of their voices to the end it might make it's self heard afar off and to speak more strongly Supra viam in mediis semitis It is there that the curious who would learn it's Doctrine and who aspire to be the Oracles of their Nation and Masters of Science in particular Universities ought to go O viri ad vos clamito O Philosophers 't is to you that I direct my words if you will be truly wise come and hearken to me when I teach truth in the assembly of men REFLECTION WHat one calls here the People is not a heap of little folk but a mixture of all men who speak naturally without study and without artifice and without a Conduct of any acquired Science and of any reflection The voice of this People and the voice of Wisdom in fused or to say better the voice of the instinct which is impeccable and which hath always been the true Master of Philosophers whereon consider the 3. following words 1. That our business during this life when God has given us the Wit is to study and to apply our selves to know the most hidden marvels of nature 2. That the business of the Creator from the day of our birth is to teach us himself and to engrave on the chiefest part of our Soul the first principles the chief and fundamental Truths of this natural Philosophy 3. That the business of the instinct is to make those so remote Truths to approach to our senses that we may be the better able to know them To put them on the tongue of people and to tell them to us by the general voice of all Nations What Nations say and what they have said by common consent in all ages they have said it being driven by this instinct and who makes it say nothing but what he finds written by the Spirit of God in the spirit of all Men. In one word it is the voice of the Holy Ghost in Christian Theology and the voice of the Conscience in the moral the voice of the instinct and of the people in the Physick 'T is it which pronounceth the decisions and decrees incontestible The people are ignorant and blind but well led It understands not what it says but it speaks Truth and our glory in studying or in teaching is not to correct it or to speak otherwise then it but to explain its words and to understand them better than it understands them it self It is on this public and universal voice that the wise Philosophers ought to support their Science Before arguing on any visible thing in the world they ought to interrogate this great Ignorant called The people and to hearken how they talk in the streets that they might know how they ought to speak in the Schools to the end that upon that Answer as on a Divine principle they might establish their propositions and the works of their particular Doctrine Follow this Council and stop at this Maxim whatsoever the bait may be that invites you to take others do not quit it If to be Author of a new invention instead of building on the Earth you would build in the Air you shall build nothing but follies and ruins If for the better setting of new thoughts in order that come to you and to form a wondrous Philosophy you think it necessary to give the people the lye and to say The fire has no heat nor the snow whiteness nor other quality That the Earth is not immovable That a Beast is no living Creature That the Soul of man is not immortal if you would that these should be the principles contained in the great Volumes of your marvellous Philosophy all your wonders shall be but dreams of impieties and ignorance VI. MAXIM There is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death Prov. 16.25 PARAPHRASE MIstrust your self
OVer whelm not your self by labour nor loose your health to heap up riches Fear and Prudence which makes you to foresee future needs are a true folly if they interest themselves in preserving the Innocence and Tranquility of your soul aswell as the making your revenue increase REFLECTION YOu give your selves disquiet this day and you labour hard to be rich to rest your selves some years hence Do better then that Take you rest to day and put off giving your self grief and disturbance till that day Rid your self of the ambition of acquiring much wealth and know by the experience of others that 't is to acquire much trouble To have too much silver in ones Coffers and too much nourishment in the stomack are two commodities equally dangerous Rest and pleasure increase not with wealth when Goods are arrived to a sufficiency or to a middle condition you have attained to the utmost limits of pleasure You may be more rich but never more content nor more at ease When you shall be a great Lord and that you shall see your self in the middest of a multitude of Officers All the advantage above Persons of a middle degree shall be That you shall have more trouble and importunity about you more unprofitablenesses in your moveables more vanities and follies in your cloaths more company at your Table more noise in your House and more trouble in your mind With all the millions you can possess you can't buy a second Body and whilst you have but one you shall have no need of two Houses nor three Tables and yet less need of forty hands to serve you All this multitude of pains and unrest shall be for other Persons that you shall nourish and certainly one may say that those who labour most to enrich themselves are the very Persons who least enjoy the pleasure of their own labours IV. ARTICLE MAXIMS For the Conduct of a Wise Man towards his Friends FIRST MAXIM A faithfull Friend is a strong defence and he that hath found such an one hath sound a Treasure Eccles 6. PARAPHRASE A Faithfull Friend is a fortress that defends and a Treasure that enriches He that possesseth it is happy and his happiness is secure REFLECTION KEep this Treasure carefully and if there remains in your Soul any remembrance of its Heavenly extraction and any stroaks of its resemblance with God never live without friendship It sufficeth even to live To know that there is in us a necessity to love For as our Souls are created after the Image of the Creator they must of necessity have a goodness which drives them as it were to go out of themselves and that all their substance should be no other thing then a Divine and an immaterial flame which raiseth it self towards Heaven and who in aspiring to God seeks another heart then its own as a Companion and an help to be assisted in its elevations and to arrive more easily at its soveraign happiness Each spirit is but the one half of another Not that these are divided in the making and two made of one But they are formed with a proportion and a sympathy which inspires them with desire and gives them power to joyn themselves and to act so by their intimate communications that they become as one But before all may be accomplished there are formed in the Soul of Man much anguish and doleful melancholly and several sorts of distempers and miseries because it is the Image of God the eternal felicity of which consists in this that neither of those persons is ever alone One part of a wise Mans skill is to know that the most of the miseries of our mind come from inward solitude and that their remedy is a true friendship Amicus fidelis medicamentum vitae II. MAXIM Well is him that hath found Prudence or a Friend and he that speaketh in the ears of him that will hear Love thy friend and be faithfull to him Eccl. 25.27 PARAPHRASE TO find a good Friend and ears capable either to hearken to profitable truths or to retain secrets of consequence is an happy rencounter Love your like and content your Soul in joyning your self with him by a perfect confidence without having any thing upon the heart which may not be common to him REFLECTION THat which our Souls would trust and that which they would draw out of themselves to transport it into other Souls are three things Their Knowledge their Secret and their Person When they communicate their Science viz. Their Knowledge that they have acquired by study or the News that they have learn'd by same or the Light that they come by from public affairs and other occasions In one word When they communicate their indifferent thoughts with pleasure 't is familiarity When they pass further and that they communicate their secret thoughts 't is friendship When they go even to the utmost pitch and that they aspire to the communicating themselves and to transport their heart into another heart and as far as is possible to nature and grace of two spirits to make but one 'T is properly and precisely what we call Love Good will follows Love and that follows Friendship We will the welfare of the object assoon as we love it Our own wellfare is common to him What belongs to a Man belongs to his Friend To gain a faithfull and a sincere Friend is to acquire in a moment all that which he possesseth and that he hath been many years in getting Beatus qui invenit verum amicum III. MAXIM Nothing countervails a faithful Friend and his excellency is invaluable Eccl 6. PARAPHRASE THere is nothing more precious in the World than a good Friend In the ballance of the wise it weighs heavier than all the gold and silver in the World REFLECTION MEn speak this day excellently of friendship but 't is a subject whereon men seem very ill to proportion the good they do to what they say Our age is the most eloquent that has been thereupon and the happiest in words and thoughts Never has there been so many Admirers of this fair vertue nor never so many Panegyricks and pieces composed in honour of it In Books in all Societies in the Court and amongst the People men speak not but of friendship One sees nothing else on the countenances and lips it is every where but in mens hearts Friendship pleafeth us but interest is our Master and there is no loss with which we are less touched or less afflicted then that of a good Friend V. MAXIM A faithfull Friend is the medicine of Life and they that fear the Lord shall find it Eccl. 6. PARAPHRASE OUr Bodies have distempers which shorten our mortal Life Our Soul has those which render its immortality unhappy The remedy of the one and the other is a good Friend but you must fear God to find it Have many Friends but have no more then one confident Be much with all the World but be single with one
THE COUNCILS OF WISDOM OR A Collection of the Maxims of SOLOMON Most necessary for a Man wisely to behave himself With Reflections on those Maxims Rendred into English by T. D. AMSTERDAM Printed for Stephen Swart at the Bible and Crown near the Exchange 1683. THE COUNCILS of WISDOM To the Right Worshipful the Mayor the Worshipful the Justices with the capital and inferiour Burgesses of the Burrough of Taunton Saint Mary Magdalen and St. Iames's in the County of Somerset Gentlemen WEre I accountable to any how I pass my time here 't were certainly to you who know that I was not one of the idlest at home wherefore partly to satisfy you the following Manual I took the pains to translate out of French the contents of which as they are universally necessary are design'd for all but dedicated to your selves as persons so much more in need of it as you are publique Persons and called to shew your abilities or defects more than your Neighbours And if any member of our Body politic thinks himself scandalized and that he 's too wise to take the Councils of Solomon in good part he is one that least deserves them I wish to all the same satisfaction in the perusal as I had which encouraged me to translate it and should be glad of any opportunity agreeable to the following Maxims to 〈◊〉 you that I am Your humble Servant THO. DARE Amsterdam Febr. 14. 1683. S. N. THE PREFACE IT is long since Thotimus that you did me the favour to pitty me and to feel for me the Pains of my Solitude I have often taken the liberty to answer you that it is to me no great misfortune to be unknown permit me to testify to you this day that I should be to blame to tire my self and that I have here company that is well worth all other that I should be able to see I can at least assure you that during our conversations the sad spectacles and affrightful silence of the desert where fortune yet keeps me doth not hinder that the hours do not pass there very swiftly and that time were one of the things which are wanting It is easy for you to judge that I speak of Solomon You know that formerly I did comfort my self in Books you are about to see in the writing that I send you that I imploy my self now to explain them and to endeavour by my reflections to make the wise men of the World see Truths unknown to their Philosophy I thought of it immediately at the entry into this Solitude where I am All melancholic as it is or as it appears to your eyes I know nothing more commodious for a man who would busy his thoughts or meditate on the writings of this learned Prince I say it because I believe that I read lately that Wisdom who dictated these Proverbs when it was solitary explains them not but to persons who are so also and who go to ask it as he did in places where one hears no news of the Creature nor any noise capable of troubling the attention and the pleasure of those that hearken Solomon loved to be alone as much as the Princes of his Court to be near him and to hear him speak The time to which his desires aspired was When after the labours of the day weary of the affairs of the honours and the noises of the World he could retire himself from the sight of company and when he went to entertain himself with God in a Country-house called Hetta near enough to the City It pleased him more then any of the Royal Houses because that besides the magnificences and the riches added by the hands of men there were great Woods with Rocks and Streams and other workmanship of nature proper to raise his spirit to Heaven and to make him remember eternity It was in this stately desert at the sight of the beauties of God that his contemplations disclosed to him That he conceived such great contempts of the beauty of mortal things and that after the other complaints that he made against the treacheries of their promises and their flatteries he sung this famous Song that the Caves and the Waters of his palace first heard but its eccho's have been since heard throughout and shall be made to resound even to the end of ages Vanitas vanitatum cuncta vanitas The moral and politic sentences of which his Book of the Proverbs is filled and those which the Son of Syrach has brought together and kept by his care were born in the same solitude where silence and tranquillity help'd them into the World And it is without doubt That to these devout walks that the universe is obliged for the knowledge of the truths which are gone out of the Pen of this learned Prince which have enlightned all Nations I have chosen amongst these sentences those of which I believed I could be able to help my self in working at my design which is to draw from their Texts subjects of meditation proper for persons who would live amongst the Laws of Conscience and Prudence and conduct themselves wisely in the various occasions of a civil life It is but a little peece as it appears If I had had a little more leasure and a little more light perhaps it should have been bigger But to say with an Ancient if I had more of one and the other in stead of enlarging I should endeavour to shorten it and I should remember what one of the best Writing-Masters of our time told me That to excell in the Art of writing well it is necessary to be able to blot well out This thought is not only his I observe it is common to the Masters of every Art and Science and that it keeps even the first rank among their Maxims When they are willing that what they do should be their Master-piece all their industry is imployed to make it pass well into the Spirit and to leave there but little matter Force and delicacy are the perfections of all works that of a Book is soveraign when it can be read in few hours and that it can not be read nor meditated enough in many years Much Truth few Words was heretofore the device of a great Divine very great in that but infinitely less than God who encloseth infinite truths in one word alone and who saith all that can be said to eternity when he pronounceth his word The Book is divided into two Parts The First divided into 4 ARticles contains Maxims necessary for a Man to demean himself well First of all are the Maxims necessary for the Conduct of the Conscience Secondly Maxims necessary for the Conduct of the Wit Thirdly for the Conduct of the Heart and Passions Fourthly for governing the Tongue The second Part contains necessary Maxims for a Mans wise Conduct in regard to his family and other persons The Wife Children Servants Friends and Enemies are the Articles which divide it ARTICLE I. MAXIMS For the
prevent petitions and to give before they speak to him The Glory of God is to expect that you pray to him and he is so much the more liberal as he lets you pray and weep long before he grants His kindness doth in some sort cease to be such when they come too soon His favour is not perfectly favour nor perseverant but when it happens after desires which have a long time continued Take good heed of yielding to his first refusal and your retiring as soon either by despight despair or cowardise This has been the misery of those who have obtain'd nothing The true secret to succeed well is to be importunate Our importunity pleaseth him asmuch as it is unpleasant to men That is the mark when we ask spiritual favours that we desire ardently and when we ask temporal favours it is a sign we would obtain them from him alone and that we renounce all other hopes Both the one and the other testimony can do all on his Mercy and on his Justice He sees in our continual and importunate Prayers the proofs of a filial confidence which opens his heart and infinitly pleaseth him VII MAXIM Trust in the Lord with all thine heart In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths Prov. 3. PARAPHRASE EStablish your hope in God trust your affairs to his care and goodness look on him in all your actions and keep your hearts always leaning on him It is the best and most excellent Maxim that you can take and the first that you ought to have to conduct you well and to make you do wisely and happily what you have to do Whilst that your eyes shall contemplate him with confidence and love he shall hold you by the hand and you shall march without fear REFLECTION WE see many miserable ones in the World because we see there very few who are willing to confide in God There is nothing that has been oftner promised us then that God will help those whose hope is only in him and there is nothing that we are less willing to try We stay our selves somtimes on him but as Saint Peter on the Water doubting whether he will have power or will to bear us up We love rather to trust to the favour of the Creatures and to seek our rest in relying on them and their word But as said Isaiah It is to trust to feeble reeds and cruel who by their hidden points pierce the hand of him who leans on them The Crearures are deceitful they have no strength to support us but they have wherewith to betray and destroy us Their access and manner of receiving one is magnific giving us great hopes But their first present are Promises the second Excuses the third Slanders the fourth Treacheries There 't is that ordinarily the friendship of the World ends and nothing makes us plush nor lament more then having believed hoped and loved because we are thereby always deceived and that it is from perfidious hopes and blind friendship that affronts repentings and despairs come These three things To Believe to Hope â—nd to Love which are three Theological vertues and three sovereign perfections when they regard God are three frailties and the three most shameful vices of the spirit of a Man when they regard the â—eatures When that we put our confiâ—nce in the Word of God and we tremble not in our selves there is nothing without that can shake us We walk securely amidst the dangers and disorders of the World and we are on the waves as on the most immovable Rocks God is under who doth strengthen the whole and bear us up But assoon as distrust makes us tremble the rest shakes as soon and we see nothing a round us but bottomless pits who open themselves and who shew us Death and Hell Saint Peter accused the Tempest in the danger where he was our Lord accuses not but his Fear When we begin to perish we betake our selves to the Tempest to fortune or to the malice of men and we ask God wherefore he has not appeased the Winds nor averted the misfortunes God who sees the Truth betakes himself to nothing but to our little Faith He asks us wherefore we have doubled his word and his love and wherefore we have trembled Modica fidei quare dubitasti VIII MAXIME Be thou mercifull and so thou shalt be as the Son of the most High Eccl. 4. PARAPHRASE IF you aime at Salvation and the happiness of being of the number of the Predestinate and of the Children of God bear the mark of the Elect and chuse for your particular vertue to be charitable toward those that suffer REFLECTION THere is herein as well true Devotion as true Nobilily and true Courage These three eminent qualities have but one mark to make them known Their common Character Non desis Plorantihus in consolatioui Et cum moerentibus embula Eccl. 7. is to have Magnanimous good will a sincere and a distinterested inclination to please others and to comfort them in their pains If this be not the Character of your soule and if this vertue displease you you are not a man of honour nor a man of quality nor a man of devotion and of Conscience nay not a Christian People call you what they please God who sees all will call you an Infidel and a Reprobate The law of Christianity touching mercy and Charity regards you so much the more by how much the more power you have and by how much the higher rank you are in Do not onely know the Priviledges of your Nobility or of your charge know also your dutyes and remember that God has not elevated you above other men either in a Citty or in a Country but as he hath elevated the Sun above Mankind to be their universal Benefactor Your grando and your power in that Country is no other thing but an obligation to protect the innocent and support the weak so many miserable ones as you see there they are so many persons unto whom you owe your succours and good offices Your cares and your time are not your own what you have and what you are belongs to them Your life its self is a present which God hath made them it 's not to be employ'd but to serve them Help those that injustice and jealously persecutes whose cries and complaints you hear Have the courage to deliver them from the oppression of the proud Libera eum qui injuriam patitur de manu superbi Eccl. 4. make your Arm strong to take them out of their hands Prefer no other business before that and be not at rest but when good people shall be so in those places where you live and have authority Give audience to the poor without vexation without impatience and without slander Permit them at least to speak to you and add not to their afflictions the sadness of being refused and seeing that one is even angry at the knowledge of