nydus/Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the AncientsPublic
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Table of Contents
APPENDIX TO ESSAYS.
Of all kind of men, God is the least beholden unto them; for he doth most for them, and they do, ordinarily, least for him.
A king that would not feel his crown too heavy for him, must wear it every day; but if he think it too light, he knoweth not of what metal it is made.
He must make religion the rule of government, and not to balance the scale; for he that casteth in religion only to make the scales even, his own weight is contained in those characters: “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin: He is found too light, his kingdom shall be taken from him.”
And that king that holds not religion the best reason of state, is void of all piety and justice, the supporters of a king.
He must be able to give counsel himself, but not rely thereupon; for though happy events justify their counsels, yet it is better that the evil event of good advice be rather imputed to a subject than a sovereign.
He is a fountain of honor, which should not run with a waste-pipe, lest the courtiers sell the water, and then, as Papists say of their holy wells, it loses the virtue.
He is the life of the law, not only as he is Lex loquens himself, but because he animateth the dead letter, making it active towards all his subjects præmio et pœna.
A wise king must do less in altering his laws than he may; for new government is ever dangerous. It being true in the body politic, as in the corporal, that omnis subita immutatio est periculosa; and though it be for the better, yet it is not without a fearful apprehension; for he that changeth the fundamental laws of a