WHEN thou lookest upon the Imperfections of others, allow one Eye for what is Laudable in them, & the balance they have from some excellency, which may render them considerable. while we look with fear or hatred upon the teeth of the Viper, we may behold his Eye with love. In venemous Natures something may be amiable: Poysons afford Antipoysons: no thing is totally, or altogether uselesly bad. Notable Virtues are sometimes dashed with notorious Vices, & in some vicious tempers have been found illustrious Acts of Virtue; which makes such observable worth in some actions of King Demetrius, Antonius, and Ahab, as are not to be found in the same kind in Aristides, Numa, or David. Constancy, Generosity, Clemency, & Liberality have been highly conspicuous in some Persons not markt out in other concerns for Example or Imitation. But since Goodness is exemplary in all, if others have not other Virtues, let us not be wanting in theirs, nor scorning them for their Vices whereof we are free, be condemned by their Virtues, wherein we are deficient. There is Dross Alloy, &
Embasement in all human temper, and he flieth without Wings, who thinks to find Ophyr or pure Metal in any. For perfection is not like Light center'd in any one Body, but like the dispersed Seminalities of Vegetables at the Creation scattered through the whole Mass of the Earth, no place producing all and almost all some. So that 'tis well, if a perfect Man can be made out of many Men, and to the perfect Eye of God even out of Mankind. Time, which perfects some Things, imperfects also others. Could we intimately apprehend the Ideated Man, and as he stood in the intellect of God upon the first exertion by Creation, we might more narrowly comprehend our present Degene ration, and how widely we are fallen from the pure Exemplar and Idea of our Nature: for after this corruptive Elongation from a primitive and pure Creation, we are almost lost in Degeneration; and Adam hath not only fallen from his Creator, but we our selves from Adam, our Tycho and primary Generator.
