runken things, full of
melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?

One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum,
because it fireth the imagination; and yet, it is but with the shadow of
a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the
lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt; such as we
spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved
judgments, and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself,
teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing
of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the
belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of
human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days,
was the light of the sense; the last, was the light of reason; and his
sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First he
breathed light, upon the face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed
light, into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light,
into the face of his chosen. The poet, that beautified the sect, that
was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a
pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea;
a pleasure, to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle,
and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the
standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded,
and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors,
and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below; so always
that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling, or pride.
Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in
charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological, and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil
business; it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not,
that clear, and round dealing, is the honor of man's nature; and that
mixture of falsehoods, is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which
may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these
winding, and crooked courses, are the goings of the serpent; which goeth
basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice, that
doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false and perfidious. And
therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why t