and were the products of it. In sum, it is by that the church has consecrated to God both virgins and martyrs, and confessors, these five thousand years; and he that said it was not good for man to be alone, placed the celibate amongst the inferior states of perfection, whatsoever some affirm; seeing that of St. Paul is not general, and he confesses he had no command from the Lord. It was the best advice in a time of persecution, the present distress, and for an itinerant apostle; and truly it is what I so recommend to all of that function, that, for many regards I could wish them all as seraphims, who do neither marry nor are given in marriage. But I cannot consent that such a person as Mr. Boyle be so indifferent, decline a virtuous love, or imagine that the best ideas are represented only in romances, where love begins, proceeds, and expires in the pretty tale, but leaves us no worthy impressions of its effects. We have nobler examples; and the wives of philosophers, pious and studious persons, shall furnish our instances. For such was Pudentilla, that held the lamp to her husband's lucubrations; such a companion had the learned Budæus; and the late adventure of Madam Grotius, celebrated by her Hugo, who has not heard. of? We need not go abroad; the committee chambers, and the parliament lobby, are sad, but evident testimonies of the patience, and the address, the love, and the constancy of these gentle creatures. In fine, they bear us out of love, and they give us such; they divert us when we are well, and tend us when we are sick; they grieve over us when we die, and some, I have known, that would not be comforted and survive. But, Sir, Ludov. Vives has written a volume on this subject, and taken all his histories from the love of Christian women. Jacobus de Voragine gives us twelve motives to acknowledge the good we receive by them, and I could add a thousand more, were not that of Pliny instar omnium, who writing to his mother-in-law Hispulla, that brought his lady up, gives her this character: "Summum est acumen, summa frugalitas: amat me, quod castitatis indicium est. Accedit his studium literarum, quod ex mei charitate concepit. Meos libellos habet, lectitat, ediscit etiam. Qua illa solicitudine cum videor acturus; quanto, cum egi, gaudio afficitur;" and a little after, Versus quidem meos cantat etiam, formatque cithara, non artifice aliquo docente, sed amore, qui magister est optimus:" whence he well foresees," perpetuam nobis majoremque indies futuram esse concordiam :" discoursing in that which follows, of the nobleness and purity of her affection, with this elegant and civil acknowledgment, "certatim ergo tibi gratias agimus: ego, quod illam mihi: illa, quod me sibi dederis, quasi invicem deligeris." And what if Mr. Boyle himself did love such a lady, "gratâ aliqua compede adstrictus," would it hinder him from the seraphic, or the pursuit of his worthy inquiries? There is no danger, that he should be taught philosophy as Socrates was, who already commands his passions, and has divinity sufficient to render even Xantippe a saint; and whose arguments for the seraphic love would make all men to envy his condition, and suspect their own, if it could once be admitted that those who are given to be auxilia commoda should hinder them in the love of God, whereof marriage is a figure-for so the apostle makes the parallel, when he speaks of the spouse, Ephes. v.; and devotion is so generally conspicuous in the female sex, that they furnish the greater part of many litanies, and whom, if we may not pray to, we ought certainly to praise God for; not so much because they were virgins, as that they were the mothers and the daughters of the greatest saints, and lights of the Church, who propagated the seraphic love with their examples, and sealed it with their blood. But, dear Sir, mistake me not all this while, for I make not this recital as finding the least period in your most excellent discourse prejudicial to the conjugal state; or that I have the vanity to imagine my forces capable to render you a proselyte of Hymen's, who have already made the worthiest choice; much less to magnify my own condition, and lay little snares for those obvious replies, which return in compliments, and odious flatteries. I have never encountered any thing extraordinary, or dare lay claim to the least of the virtues I have celebrated: but if I have the conversation capable of exalting and improving our affections, even to the highest of objects, and to contribute very much to human felicity, I cannot pronounce the love of the sex to be at all misapplied, or to the prejudice of the most seraphical. And if to have the fruition and the knowledge of our friends in heaven, will be so considerable an augumentation of our felicity, how great is that of the married like to prove, since there is not on earth a friendship comparable to it? Or if paradise and the ark be the most adequate resemblances of those happy mansions, you may remember there were none but couples there, and that every creature was in love. But why do I torment your eyes with these impertinencies? which would never have end, did I not consider I am but writing a letter, and how much better you are wont to place your precious hours. But, Sir, I have now but a word to add, and it is to tell you, that, if after all this, we acknowledge your victory, find all our arguments too weak to contest with your seraphical object, pronounce you wise, and infinitely happy; yet, as if envying that any one else should be so, you have too long concealed the discourses which should have gained you disciples, and are yet not afraid to make apologies for employing that talent, which you cannot justify the wrapping up all this while in a napkin. We therefore, that are entangled in our mistakes, and acknowledge our imperfections, must needs declare against it, as the least effects of a seraphic lover, which were to render all men like himself. And since there is now no other remedy, make the best use of it we can, as St. Paul advises, "ut qui habent uxores, sint tanquam non habentes,” &c., and for the rest, serve and love God as well as we may, in the condition we are assigned; which if it may not approach to the perfection of seraphim, and that of Mr. Boyle, let it be as near as it can, and we shall not account ourselves amongst the most unhappy, for having made some virtuous addresses to that fair sex. Dearest Sir, permit me to tell you, that I extremely loved you before; but my heart is infinitely knit to you now: for what are we not to expect from so timely a consecration of your excellent abilities? The Primitia sanctified the whole harvest, and you have at once, by this incomparable piece, taken off the reproach which lay upon piety, and the inquiries into nature; that the one was too early for younger persons, and the other the ready way to atheism, than which, as nothing has been more impiously spoken, so, nor has anything been more fully refuted. But Sir, I have finished; pardon this great excess; it is love that con strains me, and the effects of your discourses, from which I have learned so many excellent things that they are not to be numbered and merited with less than I have said, and than I profess, which is to continue all my life long, Sir, Your most humble, obliged, and most affectionate servant, Jeremy Taylor to John Evelyn. HONOURED AND DEAR SIR, J. EVELYN. Yours, dated July 23rd, I received not till All Saint's day; it seems it was stopped by the intervening troubles in England: but it was lodged in a good hand, and came safely and unbroken to me. I must needs beg the favour of you that I may receive from you an account of your health and present conditions, and of your family; for I fear concerning all my friends, but especially for those few very choice ones I have, lest the present troubles may have done them any violence in their affairs or content. It is now long since that cloud passed; and though I suppose the sky is yet full of meteors and evil prognostics, yet you all have time to consider concerning your peace and your securities. That was not God's time to relieve his church, and I cannot understand from what quarter that wind blew, and whether it was for or against us. But God disposes all things wisely; and religion can receive no detriment or diminution but by our own fault. I long, Sir, to come to converse with you; for I promise to myself that I may receive from you an excellent account of your progression in religion, and that you are entered into the experimental and secret way of it, which is that state of excellency whither good persons use to arrive after a state of repentance and caution. My retirement in this solitary place hath been, I hope, of some advantage to me as to this state of religion, in which I am yet but a novice; but by the goodness of God I see fine things before me whither I am contending. It is a great but a good work and I beg of you to assist me with your prayers, and to obtain of God for me that I may arrive to that height of love and union with God, which is given to all those souls who are very dear to God. Sir, if it please God, I purpose to be in London in April next, where I hope for the comfort of conversing with you. In the mean time, be pleased to accept my thanks for your great kindness in taking care of me in that token you were pleased to leave with Mr. Martin.' I am sorry the evil circumstances of the times made it any way afflictive or inconvenient. I had rather you should not have been burdened than that I should have received kindness on hard conditions to you. Sir, I shall not trouble your studies now, for I suppose you are very busy there; but I shall desire the favour that I may know what you are now doing, for you cannot separate your affairs from being of concern to, Dear Sir, Your very affectionate friend, Portmore, Nov. 3, 1659. Jeremy Taylor to John Evelyn. HONOURED AND DEAR SIR, JER. TAYLOR. Portmore, Feb. 10, 1659-60. I received yours of Dec. 2, in very good time; but although it came to me before Christmas, yet it pleased God about that time to lay his gentle hand upon me; for I had been, in the worst of our winter weather, sent for to Dublin by our late Anabaptist commissioners, and found the evil of it so great, that in my going I began to be ill; but in my return, had my ill redoubled and fixed; but it hath pleased God to restore my health, I hope ad majorem Dei gloriam; and now that I can easily write, I return you my very hearty thanks for your very obliging letter, and particularly for the inclosed. Sir, the Apology you were pleased to send me, I read both privately, and heard read publicly 'Mr. Martin is the bookseller referred to in a previous letter, and the allusion is to an instalment of the pension still allowed to Taylor by Evelyn. This is the trouble into which he was brought "for using the sign of the cross in baptism" mentioned in his first letter from Portmore. Apology for the Royal Party. See Evelyn's "Miscellaneous Writings," 1825, 4to., p. 169. |