Chapter 19

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Is this necessary except in this life? For in the other we shall have no debts. For what are debts, but sins? See, ye are on the point of being baptized, then all your sins will be blotted out, none whatever will remain. Whatever evil ye have ever done, in deed, or word, or desire, or thought, all will be blotted out. And yet if in the life which is after baptism there were security from sin, we should not learn such a prayer as this, "Forgive us our debts." Only let us by all means do what comes next, "As we forgive our debtors." Do ye then, who are about to enter in to receive a plenary and entire remission of your debts, do ye above all things see that ye have nothing in your hearts against any other, so as to come forth from baptism secure, as it were, free and discharged of all debts, and then begin to purpose to avenge yourselves on your enemies, who in time past have done you wrong. Forgive, as ye are forgiven. God can do no one wrong, and yet he forgiveth who oweth nothing. How then ought he to forgive who is himself forgiven, when he forgiveth all who oweth nothing that can be forgiven him?

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Will this again be necessary in the life to come? "Lead us not into temptation," will not be said except where there can be temptation. We read in the book of holy Job, "Is not the life of man upon earth a temptation?" What, then, do we pray for? Hear what. The Apostle James saith, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God." He spoke of those evil temptations whereby men are deceived, and brought under the yoke of the devil. This is the kind of temptation he spoke of. For there is another sort of temptation which is called a proving; of this kind of temptation it is written, "The Lord your God tempteth [proveth] you to know whether ye love him." What means "to know"? "To make you know," for he knoweth already. With that kind of temptation whereby we are deceived and seduced, God tempteth no man. But undoubtedly in his deep and hidden judgment he abandons some. And when he hath abandoned them, the tempter finds his opportunity. For he finds in him no resistance against his power, but forthwith presents himself to him as his possessor, if God abandon him. Therefore, that he may not abandon us, do we say, "Lead us not into temptation." "For every one is tempted," says the same Apostle James, "when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." What, then, has he hereby taught us? To fight against our lusts. For ye are about to put away your sins in holy baptism; but lusts will still remain, wherewith ye must fight after that ye are regenerate. For a conflict with your own selves still remains. Let no enemy from without be feared; conquer thine own self, and the whole world is conquered. What can any tempter from without, whether the devil or the devil's minister, do against thee? Whosoever sets the hope of gain before thee to seduce thee, let him only find no covetousness in thee; and what can he who would tempt thee by gain effect? Whereas, if covetousness be found in thee, thou takest fire at the sight of gain, and art taken by the bait of this corrupt food. But if we find no covetousness in thee, the trap remains spread in vain. Or should the tempter set before thee some woman of surpassing beauty; if chastity be within, iniquity from without is overcome. Therefore, that he may not take thee with the bait of a strange woman's beauty, fight with thine own lust within; thou hast no sensible perception of thine enemy, but of thine own concupiscence thou hast. Thou dost not see the devil, but the object that engageth thee thou dost see. Get the mastery then over that of which thou art sensible within. Fight valiantly, for he who hath regenerated thee is thy judge; he hath arranged the lists, he is making ready the crown. But because thou wilt without doubt be conquered, if thou have not him to aid thee, if he abandon thee, therefore dost thou say in the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." The judge's wrath hath given over some to their own lusts; and the Apostle says, "God gave them over to the lusts of their hearts." How did he give them up? Not by forcing, but by forsaking them.

"Deliver us from evil," may belong to the same sentence. Therefore, that thou mayst understand it to be all one sentence, it runs thus, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Therefore, he added "but," to show that all this belongs to one sentence, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." How is this? I will propose them singly. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." By delivering us from evil, he leadeth us not into temptation; by not leading us into temptation, he delivereth us from evil.

And, truly, it is a great temptation, dearly beloved, it is a great temptation in this life, when that in us is the subject of temptation whereby we attain pardon if, in any of our temptations, we have fallen. It is a frightful temptation when that is taken from us whereby we may be healed from the wounds of other temptations. I know that ye have not yet understood me. Give me your attention, that ye may understand. Suppose, avarice tempts a man, and he is conquered in any single temptation (for sometimes even a good wrestler and fighter may get roughly handled): avarice, then, has got the better of a man, good wrestler though he be, and he has done some avaricious act. Or there has been a passing lust; it has not brought the man to fornication, nor reached unto adultery--for when this does take place, the man must at all events be kept back from the criminal act. But he "hath seen a woman to lust after her"; he has let his thoughts dwell on her with more pleasure than was right; he has admitted the attack; excellent combatant though he be, he has been wounded, but he has not consented to it; he has beaten back the motion of his lust, has chastised it with the bitterness of grief, he has beaten it back; and has prevailed. Still, in the very fact that he had slipped, has he ground for saying, "Forgive us our debts." And so of all other temptations, it is a hard matter that in them all there should not be occasion for saying, "Forgive us our debts." What, then, is that frightful temptation which I have mentioned, that grievous, that tremendous temptation, which must be avoided with all our strength, with all our resolution; what is it? When we go about to avenge ourselves. Anger is kindled, and the man bums to be avenged. O frightful temptation! Thou art losing that, whereby thou hadst to attain pardon for other faults. If thou hadst committed any sin as to other senses, and other lusts, hence mightest thou have had thy cure, in that thou mightest say, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." But whoso instigateth thee to take vengeance will lose for thee the power thou hadst to say, "As we also forgive our debtors." When that power is lost, all sins will be retained; nothing at all is remitted.

Our Lord and Master, and Savior, knowing this dangerous temptation in this life, when he taught us six or seven petitions in this prayer, took none of them for himself to treat of, and to commend to us with greater earnestness, than this one. Have we not said, "Our Father, which art in heaven," and the rest which follows? Why after the conclusion of the prayer, did he not enlarge upon it to us, either as to what he had laid down in the beginning, or concluded with at the end, or placed in the middle? For why said he not, if the name of God be not hallowed in you, or if ye have no part in the kingdom of God, or if the will of God be not done in you, as in heaven, or if God guard you not, that ye enter not into temptation; why none of all these? but what saith he? "Verily I say unto you, that if ye forgive men their trespasses," in reference to that petition, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." Having passed over all the other petitions which he taught us, this he taught us with an especial force. There was no need of insisting so much upon those sins in which if a man offend, he may know the means whereby he may be cured; need of it there was with regard to that sin in which, if thou sin, there is no means whereby the rest can be cured. For this thou oughtest to be ever saying, "Forgive us our debts." What debts? There is no lack of them, for we are but men; I have talked somewhat more than I ought, have said something I ought not, have laughed more than I ought, have eaten more than I ought, have listened with pleasure to what I ought not, have drunk more than I ought, have seen with pleasure what I ought not, have thought with pleasure on what I ought not; "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." This if thou hast lost, thou art lost thyself.

Take heed, my brethren, my sons, sons of God, take heed, I beseech you, in that I am saying to you. Fight to the uttermost of your powers with your own hearts. And if ye shall see your anger making a stand against you, pray to God against it, that God may make thee conqueror of thyself, that God may make thee conqueror, I say, not of thine enemy without, but of thine own soul within. For he will give thee his present help, and will do it. He would rather that we ask this of him, than rain. For ye see, beloved, how many petitions the Lord Christ hath taught us; and there is scarce found among them one which speaks of daily bread, that all our thoughts may be molded after the life to come. For what can we fear that he will not give us, who hath promised and said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you; for your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things before ye ask him." "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." For many have been tried even with hunger, and have been found gold, and have not been forsaken by God. They would have perished with hunger, if the daily inward bread were to leave their heart. After this let us chiefly hunger. For, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." But he can in mercy look upon our infirmity, and see us, as it is said, "Remember that we are dust." He who from the dust made and quickened man, for that his work of clay's sake, gave his only son to death. Who can explain, who can worthily so much as conceive, how much he loveth us?

FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)

Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans, is called by one of his contemporaries, "the eloquentest man in England." Perhaps those who read his legal arguments before the Star Chamber may not see this eloquence so fully exemplified in them as in his incomparable essays; but wherever he speaks, it is Francis Bacon speaking. It is doubtful if any other man ever lived who has even approached him in the power of controlling his own and subsequent times by purely intellectual means. Until his time, Aristotle had no rival in the domain of pure intellect Since he lived, the higher mind of the world has owned his mastery and has shown the results of the inspiration of his intellectual daring in following, regardless of consequences, the "inductive method," the determination to make truth fruitful through experiment, which has resulted in the scientific accomplishments of the modern world. Lucretius writes of the pleasure of knowing truth as like that a man on shore in a storm has in seeing the struggles of those who are about to be shipwrecked:--

"'Tis sweet when the seas are roughened by violent winds to view on land the toils of others; not that there is pleasure in seeing others in distress, but because man is glad to know himself secure. It is pleasant, too, to look with no share of peril on the mighty contests of war; but nothing is sweeter than to reach those calm, undisturbed temples, raised by the wisdom of philosophers, whence thou mayst look down on poor, mistaken mortals, wandering up and down in life's devious ways."--(Lucretius ii 1, translated by Ramage.)

"Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, E terra magnum altcrius spectare laborem; Non quia vexari quenquam est jucunda voluptas, Sed quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est," etc.

Perhaps the spirit of the ancient learning was never so well expressed elsewhere as in these lines. In what may be called a plea for the possibilities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Bacon answered it.

"Is there any such happiness for a man's mind to be raised above the confusion of things where he may have the prospect of the order of nature and error of man? But is this view of delight only and not of discovery--of contentment, and not of benefit? Shall he not as well discern the riches of Nature's warehouse as the beauties of her shop? Is truth ever barren? Shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects and to endow the life of man with infinite commodities?"

Among the "infinite commodities" already developed from the thought flowing into and out of the mind which framed these sublime sentences are the steam engine, the electric motor, the discoveries of the microscope in the treatment of disease, the wonders of chemistry, working out practical results to alleviate human misery, and to increase steadily from year to year, and from century to century, the sum of human comfort. Looking forward to this, Bacon worked for it until his whole life became a manifestation of his master-thought. It may be said with literal truth that he died of it, for the cold which brought him his death resulted from his rashness in leaving his carriage, when sick, to experiment on the arrest of putrefaction by freezing. The idea came to him. It was winter and the ground was covered with snow. He was feeble, but he left his carriage to stuff snow into the carcass of a chicken he had procured for the experiment. The experiment succeeded, and centuries later, as a result of it, England is fed with the meat of America and Australia, But Bacon died after it, leaving behind him ideas which stamp him as the greatest and brightest, whether or not he was also "the meanest of mankind." On this latter point, he may speak for himself, as he does thus in the volume 'State Trials' from which his speech on Dueling, before the Star Chamber, here used, is extracted:--

(Howell's, Vol. ii.): "Upon advised consideration of the charge, descending into my own conscience and calling my memory to account, as far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defense and put myself upon the grace and mercy of your lordships. ... To the nineteenth article, _vis._, 'That in the cause between Reynell and Peacock, he received from Reynell two hundred pounds and a diamond ring worth four or five hundred pounds,' I confess and declare that on my first coming to the Seal when I was at Whitehall, my servant Hunt delivered me two hundred pounds from Sir George Reynell, my near ally, to be bestowed upon furniture of my house, adding further that he had received divers former favors from me. And this was, as I verily think, before any suit was begun. The ring was received certainly _pendente_ _lite_, and though it was at New Year's tide it was too great a value for a New Year's gift, though, I take it, nothing near the value mentioned in the article."

That while Lord Chancellor of England he took gifts intended to corrupt justice, he confessed to his shame, but he does not seem to have been wholly able to decide whether in doing so he broke faith with those who wished to corrupt him, or with the kingdom and constitution of England he represented, against their desire to purchase justice. He seems to have believed that though his conduct was corrupt, his decisions were honest. He says, indeed, that in spite of his bribe-taking, "he never had bribe or reward in his eye or thought when he pronounced any sentence or order."

This cannot be admitted in excuse even for Bacon, but his moral weakness, if it obscure for the time the splendor of his intellect, died with him, while his genius, marvelously radiant above that of any other of the last ten centuries, still illuminates the path of every pioneer of progress.

His address to the Star Chamber on Dueling was delivered in the proceedings against Mr. William Priest for writing and sending a challenge, and Mr. Richard Wright for carrying it, January 26th, 1615, Bacon being then the King's attorney-general. The text is from T. B. Howell's 'State Trials,' London 1816.

SPEECH AGAINST DUELING

My Lords, I thought it fit for my place, and for these times, to bring to hearing before your lordships some cause touching private duels, to see if this court can do any good to tame and reclaim that evil, which seems unbridled. And I could have wished that I had met with some greater persons, as a subject for your censure; both because it had been more worthy of this presence, and also the better to have shown the resolution I myself have to proceed without respect of persons in this business. But finding this cause on foot in my predecessor's time, I thought to lose no time in a mischief that groweth every day; and besides, it passes not amiss sometimes in government, that the greater sort be admonished by an example made in the meaner, and the dog to be eaten before the lion. Nay, I should think, my lords, that men of birth and quality will leave the practice, when it begins to be vilified, and come so low as to barber-surgeons and butchers, and such base mechanical persons. And for the greatness of this presence, in which I take much comfort, both as I consider it in itself, and much more in respect it is by his Majesty's direction, I will supply the meanness of the particular cause, by handling of the general point; to the end that by the occasion of this present cause, both my purpose of prosecution against duels and the opinion of the court, without which I am nothing, for the censure of them may appear, and thereby offenders in that kind may read their own case, and know what they are to expect; which may serve for a warning until example may be made in some greater person, which I doubt the times will but too soon afford.

Therefore, before I come to the particular, whereof your lordships are now to judge, I think the time best spent to speak somewhat (1) of the nature and greatness of this mischief; (2) of the causes and remedies; (3) of the justice of the law of England, which some stick not to think defective in this matter; (4) of the capacity of this court, where certainly the remedy of this mischief is best to be found; (5) touching mine own purpose and resolution, wherein I shall humbly crave your lordships' aid and assistance.

For the mischief itself, it may please your lordships to take into your consideration that, when revenge is once extorted out of the magistrate's hands, contrary to God's ordinance, _mihi_ _vindicta_, _ego_ _retribuam_, and every man shall bear the sword, not to defend, but to assail, and private men begin once to presume to give law to themselves and to right their own wrongs, no man can foresee the danger and inconveniences that may arise and multiply thereupon. It may cause sudden storms in court, to the disturbance of his Majesty and unsafety of his person. It may grow from quarrels to bandying, and from bandying to trooping, and so to tumult and commotion; from particular persons to dissension of families and alliances; yea, to national quarrels, according to the infinite variety of accidents, which fall not under foresight. So that the State by this means shall be like to a distempered and imperfect body, continually subject to inflammations and convulsions. Besides, certainly both in divinity and in policy, offenses of presumption are the greatest. Other offenses yield and consent to the law that it is good, not daring to make defense, or to justify themselves; but this offense expressly gives the law an affront, as if there were two laws, one a kind of gown law and the other a law of reputation, as they term it. So that Paul's and Westminster, the pulpit and the courts of justice, must give place to the law, as the King speaketh in his proclamation, of ordinary tables, and such reverend assemblies; the Yearbooks, and statute books must give place to some French and Italian pamphlets, which handle the doctrines of duels, which, if they be in the right, _transeamus_ _ad_ _illa_, let us receive them, and not keep the people in conflict and distraction between two laws. Again, my lords, it is a miserable effect, when young men full of towardness and hope, such as the poets call "_Aurorae_ _filii_," sons of the morning, in whom the expectation and comfort of their friends consisteth, shall be cast away and destroyed in such a vain manner. But much more it is to be deplored when so much noble and genteel blood should be spilt upon such follies, as, if it were adventured in the field in service of the King and realm, were able to make the fortune of a day and change the future of a kingdom. So your lordships see what a desperate evil this is; it troubleth peace; it disfurnisheth war; it bringeth calamity upon private men, peril upon the State, and contempt upon the law.

Touching the causes of it: the first motive, no doubt, is a false and erroneous imagination of honor and credit; and therefore the King, in his last proclamation, doth most aptly and excellently call them bewitching duels. For, if one judge of it truly, it is no better than a sorcery that enchanteth the spirits of young men, that bear great minds with a false show, _species_ _falsa_; and a kind of satanical illusion and apparition of honor against religion, against law, against moral virtue, and against the precedents and examples of the best times and valiantest nations; as I shall tell you by and by, when I shall show you that the law of England is not alone in this point. But then the seed of this mischief being such, it is nourished by vain discourses and green and unripe conceits, which, nevertheless, have so prevailed as though a man were staid and sober-minded and a right believer touching the vanity and unlawfulness of these duels; yet the stream of vulgar opinion is such, as it imposeth a necessity upon men of value to conform themselves, or else there is no living or looking upon men's faces; so that we have not to do, in this case, so much with particular persons as with unsound and depraved opinions, like the dominations and spirits of the air which the Scripture speaketh of. Hereunto may be added that men have almost lost the true notion and understanding of fortitude and valor. For fortitude distinguisheth of the grounds of quarrels whether they be just; and not only so, but whether they be worthy; and setteth a better price upon men's lives than to bestow them idly. Nay, it is weakness and disesteem of a man's self, to put a man's life upon such ledger performances. A man's life is not to be trifled away; it is to be offered up and sacrificed to honorable services, public merits, good causes, and noble adventures. It is in expense of blood as it is in expense of money. It is no liberality to make a profusion of money upon every vain occasion; nor no more is it fortitude to make effusion of blood, except the cause be of worth. And thus much for the cause of this evil.