CHAP. VI.

Of justice, in reference to the rights acquired by personal endowments or outward rank.

A

III. THERE are other rights acquired by personal accomplishments, such as wisdom and learning, integrity and courage, generosity and goodness, which do naturally render men exceeding useful and beneficial to the world; and therefore by these men do acquire a just right to be highly esteemed and honoured by all that know them. For praise and honour are the natural dues, the birthright and patrimony of excellency; which by its own inherent merit challenges esteem and veneration. He who excels another hath a right to be preferred before him in the esteem and value of the world; to have his light reflected with a more glorious splendour, and his excellencies resounded with higher eulogiums. Now the excellency of a man consists in the graces and ornaments of his mind: and as we do not esteem a ship to be excellent because it is curiously carved and inlaid, but because it is exactly fitted to all the purposes of navigation; as we do not account a sword to be excellent because it hath a rich hilt or embroidered scabbard, but because it hath a keen edge, a sharp point, or a good guard and temper: so none but fools will esteem a man to be excellent, because he hath a great estate, or a comely body, or wears fine clothes and rich trappings, but because he hath a brave and a goodly mind, a soul well adorned with intellectual or moral accomplishments. These are the glories of the man; whereas all the rest are only the embellishments of his case and outside. So that the true stamp of

nobility is upon the minds of men; and consists in those graces of understanding and will, whereby we represent and resemble God, who is the pattern of excellency and the fountain of honour. So that true honour is nothing else but a due acknowledgment of the excellencies of men's minds and wills, or their own intellectual or moral accomplishments echoed and reverberated upon them in just acknowledgments and commendations; which to withhold from one that truly deserves them is great injustice and dishonesty. For he who detains from a worthy person those honourable acknowledgments that are due to his virtues, robs virtue itself of one of the fairest jewels in her diadem, and that is her honour and glory; he strips and despoils her of her garments of praise, steals from her her native rays and lustre, and buries her alive in darkness and obscurity and therefore since to rob a virtuous person of his honour and reputation is so great an outrage to virtue itself, it must needs be highly unjust and dishonest. And herein consists the great iniquity of detraction, and of lessening or debasing men's deserved praises and commendations; which is a higher injustice than to pick their purses: for he that clips or embases a man's honour, robs him of his best and dearest property; and whilst he sucks the veins of another's reputation to put colour into the cheeks of his own, he lives upon the spoils of his neighbour, and is every whit as injurious to him, as if he should pull down his house about his ears to build himself another in its ruins. And yet how common is this unrighteous practice among men! How doth this grovelling serpent lurk almost in every hedge, to snap at the heel of every nobler creature that passes

by! Insomuch that a man can hardly mention in any company another man's excellencies, but presently some little viper or other will be perking up to sting and spit poison at him; and if he can say nothing against him, yet something he will seem to know; and with a crafty nod and shrug, a malicious smile or sneer, suppress and conceal it; and if he chance to speak of another, what care doth he take to stifle what may commend, and blazon what may shame and disgrace him! Like the envious panther, that shadows in dusky colours all the graceful parts and features, but carefully exposes the spots and blemishes to open view. These and a thousand other tricks of detraction are frequently practised in all conversations; but certainly did men but consider what a villainous injustice this is, and how much it provokes God, who will one day make a strict inquisition for men's good names, as well as for their blood, they would never dare to allow themselves in such a crying injustice towards one another.

IV. There are other rights acquired by outward rank and quality, whether it be in respect of titular dignity, or of wealth and large possessions; by both which men do acquire a right to civil respect and outward obeisance. For as for the several degrees of nobility, titles, and places of dignity, by which men are advanced above the vulgar class into the upper form of mankind, they are so many marks and badges of honour, by which the king, who is the fountain of honour, and who, by smiling on a clod of earth, can, with the April sun, prefer it into a gay flower, doth raise and ennoble men, advance them into a higher orb, a more illustrious rank and

station in the world. Now, though by virtue of this titular dignity we are no farther obliged to reverence or esteem men than their wisdom or virtue deserves, yet are we bound to give them their due titles, and demean ourselves towards them with that outward preference, observance, and ceremony, which their degree and quality requires; otherwise we rob them of those rights which the king, who is master of outward respects and precedencies, hath bestowed upon them. them. For the royal stamp upon any kind of metal gives it an extrinsic value, and determines the rate at which it is to pass among coins; though it cannot raise its intrinsic worth, nor make that which is but brass to be gold. And as titular dignities entitle men to an outward respect and observance, so also doth wealth and large possessions for these are badges of honour as well as the other, only the other we receive from the king, but these from the King of kings. For when God bestows upon one man a larger fortune and possessions than on another, he doth thereby prefer and advance him into a higher sphere and condition; and when God hath set him above us, it is just and fit that we should rise and give place to him. And though a wise or virtuous poor man hath more right to our esteem than a fortunate knave or fool, who in all his glory is but a beast of burden in rich trapping and caparisons; yet, forasmuch as in outward rank and condition God hath preferred the latter, he hath the right of precedency and of outward respect and observances, and ought to be treated with greater obeisance and regard.

CHAP. VII.

Of justice, in reference to the rights acquired by compact. V. FIFTHLY and lastly, There are other rights acquired by bargaining and compact: for compacts being a mutual transferring of rights, wherein the person with whom I bargain makes over such a commodity to me for so much money or other valuable thing, the right whereof I make over to him, we mutually owe this right to one another, to deal truly and honestly in making, and sincerely and faithfully in discharging our compacts and mutual engagements with each other. For since the end of commerce, and buying and selling, is mutually to assist and furnish one another with the necessaries and conveniencies of life, both buyer and seller must thence have a right accruing to them so to buy and sell, as that they may be mutually assisted by one another; as that the buyer may have the worth of his price, and the seller the worth of his commodity for otherwise, instead of mutually assisting, the one must necessarily depress and damnify the other. What the exact measure is, which in matter of buying and selling ought to be observed between man and man, is, I confess, a difficult question, and hardly capable of being nicely determined, especially by us who are so little acquainted with the affairs of the world, the necessities of things, and the particular and hidden reasons of some sorts of traffick and dealing: and therefore, that I may not venture beyond my depth in the determination of this matter, I shall only prescribe such general rules of righteousness to conduct our bargains and con