No More Learning

_Comit. suffragia_. --Suffrages in Parliament are numbered, not weighed;
nor can it be otherwise in those public councils where nothing is so
unequal as the equality; for there, how odd soever men's brains or
wisdoms are, their power is always even and the same.

_Stare a partibus_. --Some actions, be they never so beautiful and
generous, are often obscured by base and vile misconstructions, either
out of envy or ill-nature, that judgeth of others as of itself. Nay, the
times are so wholly grown to be either partial or malicious, that if he
be a friend all sits well about him, his very vices shall be virtues; if
an enemy, or of the contrary faction, nothing is good or tolerable in
him; insomuch that we care not to discredit and shame our judgments to
soothe our passions.

_Deus in creaturis_. --Man is read in his face; God in His creatures; not
as the philosopher, the creature of glory, reads him; but as the divine,
the servant of humility; yet even he must take care not to be too
curious. For to utter truth of God but as he thinks only, may be
dangerous, who is best known by our not knowing. Some things of Him, so
much as He hath revealed or commanded, it is not only lawful but
necessary for us to know; for therein our ignorance was the first cause
of our wickedness.

_Veritas proprium hominis_. --Truth is man's proper good, and the only
immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christian or
ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it; no statesman or patriot should.
For without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, or what
you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says he hates him worse than
hell-mouth that utters one thing with his tongue and keeps another in his
breast.
Which high expression was grounded on divine reason; for a lying
mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with the contagion it venteth.
Beside, nothing is lasting that is feigned; it will have another face
than it had, ere long. {41} As Euripides saith, "No lie ever grows old. "

_Nullum vitium sine patrocinio_. --It is strange there should be no vice
without its patronage, that when we have no other excuse we will say, we
love it, we cannot forsake it. As if that made it not more a fault. We
cannot, because we think we cannot, and we love it because we will defend
it. We will rather excuse it than be rid of it. That we cannot is
pretended; but that we will not is the true reason. How many have I
known that would not have their vices hid? nay, and, to be noted, live
like Antipodes to others in the same city? never see the sun rise or set
in so many years, but be as they were watching a corpse by torch-light;
would not sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity; they
would do it new, or contrary, for the infamy; they were ambitious of
living backward; and at last arrived at that, as they would love nothing
but the vices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform
these natures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may say
they desired to leave it, but do not trust them; and they may think they
desire it, but they may lie for all that; they are a little angry with
their follies now and then; marry, they come into grace with them again
quickly. They will confess they are offended with their manner of living
like enough; who is not? When they can put me in security that they are
more than offended, that they hate it, then I will hearken to them, and
perhaps believe them; but many now-a-days love and hate their ill
together.