For the heavens
are not only fruitful in new and unheard-of stars, the
earth in plants and animals, but men's minds also in
villany and vices. Now the dulness of my reason, and
the vulgarity of my disposition, never prompted my in-
vention nor solicited my affection unto any of these;--
yet even those common and quotidian infirmities that
so necessarily attend me, and do seem to be my very
nature, have so dejected me, so broken the estimation
that I should have otherwise of myself, that I repute
myself the most abject piece of mortality. Divines pre-
scribe a fit of sorrow to repentance: there goes indigna-
tion, anger, sorrow, hatred, into mine, passions of a con-
trary nature, which neither seem to suit with this action,
nor my proper constitution. It is no breach of charity
to ourselves to be at variance with our vices, nor to
abhor that part of us, which is an enemy to the ground
of charity, our God; wherein we do but imitate our
great selves, the world, whose divided antipathies and
contrary faces do yet carry a charitable regard unto the
whole, by their particular discords preserving the com-
mon harmony, and keeping in fetters those powers,
whose rebellions, once masters, might be the ruin of all.
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