The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

12 ESSAYS CIVIL AND MORAL.
ture, is weak. Yet in religious meditations, there
is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. III. OF UNITY IN RELIGION.You shall read in some of the friars' books of RELIGION being the chief band of human society,
mortification, that a man should think with him- it is a happy thing when itself is well contained
self, what the pain is, if he have but his finger's within the true band of unity. The quarrels and
end pressed or tortured; and thereby imagine divisions about religion were evils unknown to
what the pains of death are, when the whole body the heathen. The reason was, because the reliis corrupted and dissolved; when many times gion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and
dleath passeth with less pain than the torture of a ceremonies, than in any constant belief: cfor you
limb: for the most vital parts are not the quickest may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, w-hen
of sense. And by him that spake only as a phi- the chief doctors and fathers of their church were
losopher, and natural man, it was well said, the poets. But the true God hath this attrilblte,
" Pompa mortis magis terret, quaam mors ipsa." that he is a jealous God; and therefore his worGroans, and convulsions, and a dliscoloured face, ship and religion will endure no mixture nor partand friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, ner. We shall therefore speak a few words conand the like, show death terrible. It is worthy cerning the unity of the church; what are the firuits
the observing, that there is no p~assion in the thereof; what the bounds; and what the merns.
mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters The fruits of unity (next unto the well pleasing
the fear of death; and therefore death is no such of God, which is all in all) are two; the one toterrible enemy when a man hath so many attend- wards those that are without the church, the other
ants about him that can win the combat of him. towards those that are within. For the forner,
Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; it is certain, that heresies and schisms are of all
honour aspireth to it; griefflieth to it; fear pre-oc- others the greatest scandals; yea, more than cor.
cupateth it: nay, we read, after Otho the empe- ruption of manners: for as in the natural body a
ror had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest wound or solution of continuity is worse than a
of affections) provoked many to die out of mere corrupt humour, so in the spiritual: so that nocompassion to their sovereign, and as the truest thing doth so much keep men out of the church,
sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and drive men out of the church, as breach of
and satiety: "4 Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; unity; and, therefore, whensoever it cometh to
mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam that pass that one saith, " eeoe in deserto," anfastidiosus potest." A man would die, though he other saith, "1 ecce in penetralibus;" that is, when
were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a some men seek Christ in the conventicles of heriweariness to do the same thing so oft and over and tics, and others in an outward face of a church,
over. It is no less worthy to observe, how little al- that voice had need continually to sound in men's
teration in good spirits the approach of death make: ears, " nolite exire,"-"1 go not out." The doctor
for they appear to be the same men till the last of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation
instant. Augustus Cesar died in a compliment: drew him to have a special care of those without)
" Livia, conjugii nostra memor, vive et vale." saith, "; If a heathen come in, and hear you speak
Tiberius in dissimulation, as Tacitus saith of him, with several tongues, will he not say that you are'cJam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, mad 1" and, certainly, it is little better: when
deserebant:" Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon atheists and profane persons do hear of so many
the stool, " Ut puto Deus fio:" Galba with a sen- discordant and contrary opinions in religion, it
tence, "Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani," holding doth avert them from the church, and maketh
forth his neck: Septimus Severus in despatch, them, " to sit down in the chair of the scorners."
" Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum," and the It is but a light thing to be vouched in so serious
like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much a matter, but yet it expresseth well the deformity.
cost upon death, and by their great preparations There is a master of scoffing that in his catalogue
made it appear more fearful. Better, saith he, of books of a feigned library, sets down this title
"' qui finem vitae extremum inter munera ponat of a book, " The Morris-Dance of Heretics;" for,
naturac." It is as natural to die as to be born; indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse posture,
and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as pain- or cringe, by themselves, which cannot but move
ful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pur- derision in worldlings and depraved politics, who
suit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; are apt to contemn holy things.
who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and As for the fruit towards those that are within,
therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat it is peace, which containeth infinite blessings;
that is good, doth avert the dolours of death; but, it establisheth faith; it kindleth charity; the outabove all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, ward peace of the church distilleth into peace of
" Nunc dimittis" when a man hath obtained wor- conscience, and it turneth the labours of writing
thy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, and reading of controversies into treatises of morthat it openeth the good fame, and extinguisheth tification and devotion.
envy: " Extinctus amabitur idem." * See Note X at the end of the Essays.