CHAP. II.
IN this point I must wage warre with the nice and effeminate troope of Epicures, that talke of Philosophie onely at their banquet, with whom vertue is the vassal and hand-maid of vicious pleasure•• them shee obeyeth, them shee serueth, them shee beholdeth preferred a∣boue her selfe. There is no pleasure (saith he) without vertue. But why is volup∣tuousnesse aduanced before vertue? Thinkest thou we dispute of the order be∣tweene them, no, the question is of the whole matter, and the power thereof, it is not vertue if it dance attendance after delight. The chiefest place is hers, she it is that must leade, command, and haue the chiefest place: thou biddest her aske the watch-word. What skilleth it thee, saith the Epicure? I also main∣taine, that a blessed life cannot bee without vertue. I condemne and con∣temne the pleasure it selfe which I follow, and to which I haue made my selfe a bondslaue, if vertue be remoued from it. The onely question is in this, whe∣ther vertue be the cause of the chiefest good, or the chiefest good it selfe. Admit that this be the only thing in question, thinkest thou that there is but the onely change of place and order onely betweene them, that breedeth the difference? This is a very confusion, this is a manifest blindnesse, to preferre the last before the first. I am not displeased because vertue is placed after pleasure, but because it is any wayes or at all compared, or paralelled with pleasures. Vertue is the despiser and enemie of delight, and estrangeth her selfe farre from her, more fa∣miliar with labour and sorrow, more fitly to be inserted into manly incommo∣dities, then into this effeminate felicitie.