Truth is a Naked and Open day light, that doth not shew the Masques, and Mummeries, and Triumphs of the World[1], halfe so stately and daintily as Candlelights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that sheweth best by day; But it will not rise to the price of a Diamond, or Carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A Mixture of a Lie doth ever adde Pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of Men's Mindes Vaine Opinions, Flattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations as one would[2], and the like, but it would leave the Mindes of a Number of Men poore shrunken Things, full of Melancholy and Indisposition[3], and unpleasung to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum dæmonum,[4] because it filleth 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[5] we spake of before. But, howsoever[6] these things are thus in men’s depraved Iudgements, and Affections, yet Truth, which only doth iudge it selfe, teacheth that the Inquirie of Truth, which is the Love-making, or Wooing of it; The knowledge of Truth, which is the Presence of it; and the Beleefe of Truth, which is the Enjoying of it; is the Soveraigne Good of humane[7] Nature. The first Creature[8] of God, in the workes of the Dayes, was the Light of the Sense; The last, was the Light of Reason; And his Sabbath Worke, ever since, is the Illumination of his Spirit[9]. First he breathed Light into 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[10] 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 tost
