tfi*
BIBLE TKUTHS
WITH
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS
BEING
SELECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE,
MORAL, DOCTRINAL, AND PRECEPTIAL,
WITH PASSAGES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE TEXT,
FROM THE WRITINGS OF SHAKSPEARE.
" All human understandings five nourished by the one Divine Word."
A Fragment of " Heraclitus."
LONDON:
WHITTAKER AND CO., AVE MARIA LANE.
1862.
30IZ
PRINTED BV R. AND R. CLARK, EDINBURGH.
PREFACE.
" In His hand are both we and our words."
WISDOM vii. 17.
ONE of the most interesting characteristics of the
standard literature of our country is the sterling
biblical morality it reflects. This is not only ob-
servable in those works which form so important
and fundamental a part of British Classics, the
writings of our standard divines — where indeed
such a speciality might naturally be expected —
but it is also a prominent feature in the writings
of our greatest philosophers and poets. In the
works of Bacon and Milton it is especially notice-
able. Throughout the entire works of the great
" father of experimental philosophy " this peculi-
arity is sufficiently apparent ; but in his essays —
the especial favourites of the author — which he so
carefully revised and re-wrote in the ripeness of
VI PREFACE.
TY1 Q"Vr
his age and experience, and which, therefore may
be considered the very cream and essence of his
wonderful genius, this characteristic element ob-
tains a prominence that cannot fail to have struck
his most cursory reader. Out of these fifty-eight
short essays, I have found, in twenty-four of them
that treat more exclusively of moral subjects, more
than seventy allusions to Scripture. So natural
was it — to borrow a figure of his own — for his
great mind "to turn upon the poles of truth,"
and to revert to its great fountain-head, in support
and confirmation of his own profound conclusions.
An analogous moral tone is so abundantly
apparent in the works of Milton, that it is un-
necessary to particularize it ; and although the
nature of the controversies that vexed his times,
and in which he took so prominent a part, would
have been more than sufficient to have given his
prose writings this particular colour and bent, yet
in his poems, " the immortal part of him," a similar
spirit pervades every page. To such heights of
moral grandeur, indeed, does it lead him, in some
PREFACE. Vll
of those sublimer passages of his, that one feels as
he reads that they have been written in the con-
scious over-shadowing of that same Spirit, from
under whose cloud-veiled majesty on the mount
issued the eternal politics of heaven.
In an almost equal degree downwards toward
our minor writers will this feature be found to
exist, and there is scarcely an abiding name in
literature in which it is not a notable characteristic.
This unconscious coincidence between the morality
of the greatest minds and that of revelation sug-
gests a field of inquiry, tempting indeed to enter,
but of too extended a character to be treated, as
the fertility of the subject would require, within
the narrow limits of a preface. That such a coin-
cidence, however, is not altogether the mere result
of educational prejudice, as some no doubt will be
ready to assume, is quite evident from the fact of
its having been sometimes conspicuous in the
works of men singularly heedless of Scripture
morality, and even of men, the general tone of
whose works has been notoriously out of keeping
Vlii PREFACE.
and opposed to it ; and further, by the fact that it
also holds good in many cases "between the morality
of the New Testament and the minds of men who
wrote before the Christian era. The Christianity
of Platonism affords an interesting evidence of
this. The coincidence, I imagine, is no mere out-
ward accident of education, but a God-implanted
principle, radical and innate, the very natural hom-
age of the greatest spirits to the Father of all spirits,
the irresistible gravitation of all moral genius to
its common centre.
But by far the most prominent example of this
deference and homage paid to revealed truth will be
found in the works of Shakspeare. As he excels in
nearly all other points, so also is he greatest in this.
So perfectly impregnated with the leaven of the Bible
are his works, that we can scarcely open them as
if by accident without encountering one or other
of its great truths which his genius has assimilated
and reproduced in words that seem to renew its
authority, and strengthen its claims upon men's
attention.
PEEFACE. IX
The character and extent of Shakspeare's edu-
cation is a subject which has been discussed al-
ready ad nauseam — one of those unfortunate points
of which so little is known, that every one thinks
himself entitled to have his say in it But if in-
ternal evidence from his works has any place in
the argument at all, the most extreme disputants
on either side the question will readily concede
that one of the principal influences that moulded
and guided his intellect — that one of his great
teachers indeed was the Bible. It is not only
apparent in the tone of his morality, but in the
manner of it also. Both the spirit and the letter
bear witness. It has left its impression not only
on his mind, but on his idiom, on the exquisite
simplicity of his diction, and on the intense home-
liness with which he brings his truths to bear on
men's " business and bosoms," while his innumer-
able allusions, direct and indirect, to Scripture his-
tory, persons, places, events, doctrines, parables,
precepts, and even phrases, discovers a familiarity
with the Bible, that proves it must have been
X PREFACE.
eminently the book after his own heart.* The
Reformation tinged the entire literature of the
Elizabethean era with the same spirit. It was the
distinguishing feature of the time, and naturally
enough culminated in the greatest genius of the
time. The awakening spirit of religious freedom,
that early in the century had received such an
impetus from the fire then kindled in Germany,
and that had been so mightily aided by the art of
printing, then established in the country for about
half a century, had now fairly taken root in the
English character. Men's minds were on the rack
of curiosity, eager to anticipate the result that so
many open Bibles would surely bring about, and
so to speak, were waiting upon the men who could
popularly incorporate the glorious element in
their literature. Modern civilization can scarcely
* And there can be little doubt but that he could have endorsed
the following confession of one of the greatest of modern writers,
who, with considerable justice, has been called the Shakspeare of
Germany. "It is a belief in the Bible," says Goethe, "which
has served me as the guide of my literary life. I have found it
a capital safely invested, and richly productive of interest.''
PREFACE. xi
be too grateful for the providential fact of Shak-
speare's coming into the world when he did. The
time demanded him, and he came like a star to its
appointed orbit, so wonderfully did his genius fit
the spiritual necessities of the age.
It would be an interesting question to answer,
How much of Shakspeare's generally admitted
superiority may be fairly attributed to this uni-
versal habit of his, of adopting and identifying
himself in his works with the morality of Scrip-
ture ? I suspect it is one of the principal secrets
of his wide-spread and wide-spreading fame. A
great deal more of the purely moral element goes
to the build, of what we call genius, than the great
majority of people are prepared to admit. The
materialism that in its pseudo-scientific mask has
such an all-deceiving fascination for the present
age, has done its best to disguise the fact, and
would like nothing so well as to be able to prove
that all mental and spiritual superiority in a man
is to be accounted for, on certain fixed basis of
physiological structure and development. With-
Xll PEEFACE.
out detracting from such an argument one syllable
of the truth it manifestly contains, it should by no
means be held to settle the whole question. The
almost blasphemous self-sufficiency with which
such arguments are now-a-days advanced, as ex-
plaining the whole mystery, does not meet with
the opposition it deserves, tending as it certainly
has already done to a mischievous extent, popu-
larly to blunt all faith, if not indeed to bring
about an utter scepticism in the only true source
of power in a man, and the only channel through
which the highest influences can reach him —
namely, that mysterious point of contact between
him and his Creator, which no science can ever
hope to explain. This fatal teaching is fast
framing a religion, that almost forgets the only
object of worship, in a morbid hurry, and in-
satiable desire to explain moral phenomena that
lie far out of human reach, and has laid the foun-
dation of a philosophy which encourages in its
disciples such an inordinate love of those secondary
laws that regulate the mere details of the mental
PREFACE. Xlii
machine, that it leaves out of count altogether the
Prime Mover. It is all the more to be deplored
that such a tendency should be commonly alluded
to by many as a feature upon which the age should
be congratulated, instead of being crushed as ex-
hibiting the first symptoms, in the man or in the
nation, of ultimate imbecility. No mere prepon-
derance of intellectual power alone can sufficiently
account for the workings of that faculty so " fear-
fully and wonderfully made," which constitutes the
highest forms of genius. It is all the more inscru-
table that its source is not so much intellectual as
spiritual. We call it inspiration. Does not the
very word breathe a rebuke to the materialism,
that, ignoring its direct indebtedness to God, would
proceed to explain it as only a more elaborate
piece of mental mechanism ? Does not the very
word confess it to be a breath of that more myste-
rious Spirit that " bio weth where it listeth; thou
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence
it coineth or whither it goeth." The most perfect
human organisation must wait upon the moving of
XIV PREFACE.
a higher spirit than its own ; and its moral endow-
ment, before it has any right to be called genius,
must be commensurate with its intellectual gift.
We require to take but a very cursory view of the
works of our greatest authors, to enable us to con-
clude that it is not the power and beauty alone of
genius that gives that perennial freshness to all
that is imperishable in literature, but that its
morality is its greatest preservative. In addition
to all other claims on our admiration, it must also
possess " some soul of goodness " to enable it to
outlive the storms of time. There is also a strong
negative presumption in favour of this view, in
the fact that there is nothing so shortlived and
suicidal in literature as impurity. The age of
which we have been speaking affords us a striking
example of it. Never was there such a moral
declension, and with it an intellectual atrophy, as
exhibited between the drama of Elizabeth and the
drama of the Restoration. In the time of Eliza-
beth and James dramatic literature was the vehicle
of as great thoughts as ever were uttered, or per-
PREFACE. XV
haps ever will be uttered, in the whole history of
our language ; but by the dry rot of impurity that
began to eat into it in the subsequent reigns of the
two Charleses, it fell so low that even the genius
of Dryden will never be able to lift it out of the
moral puddle he helped to sink it in. All that
was great in nature forsook it, and what was only
paltry in art remained, till dragging on through
the mire in the hands of Wycherly, Congreve,
Vanburgh, and Farquhar, it gradually weakened
down into the most rubbishy small talk that ever
disgraced a nation's literature.
So quickly does this moral gangrene bring
about its own dissolution. It not only neutralizes
the effect by impairing the beauty of the thing
written, but by that dreadful law of retribution by
which evil thought and evil done are made to
gravitate towards each other, like monsters that
hug each other to death, the writer, too, is dragged
down, it may be to him by imperceptible degrees,
but not the less surely down to the level of the
thing he writes. It does not only clog the action,
XVI PREFACE.
but it breaks the very springs of genius, and men
of otherwise great powers and parts are dwarfed
by its narrowing tendency into mere sayers of
smart things, mere coiners of literary conceits,
until they get so entangled and limed, so to speak,
in their own impurity, that they cannot be great
if they would.
" In such cases
Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,
Though great ones are their object."
Even in our greatest authors who have mixed
with the pure fire of their genius more than
enough of the grosser elements of earth, it will be
found that their true fame rests altogether on the
pure metal, and never, as some would almost hint,
upon the earthy ore with which it is alloyed, how-
ever enhanced such impurity may be by the
brilliancy of the talent which accompanies it.
Where in such a case there exists real worth in
a man's writings, time seems to serve them in the
capacity of a vessel wherein the whole is held in
solution, until all that is impure falls to the
PREFACE. Xvii
bottom like a useless precipitate, and the real
nectar only is left. I know no better illustration
of this than in the case of Burns. It is not now
the outward dash of his boisterous license that we
revere in him, with whatever genius he wield his
weapon, but the abiding grandeur of his name,
and what we really love above all to remember in
him, is the central fire of the man, that in spite of
himself continually flashes out behind the blackest
cloud of his earthiness, revealing a character whose
deep foundations are built upon a rock of the
rarest humanity and the stanchest truth, and on
a morality, indeed, whose basis is rigidly and
essentially biblical.
Amongst the many good things that fell from
the pen and lips of the late professor George Wil-
son, of Edinburgh, it used to be a common regret
of his that the readers of the present age did not
sufficiently peruse " their Bibles and their Shak-
speares." And if the character of the general
literary taste of the day may be determined in
any measure by the quality of a great part of the
XV111 PREFACE.
supply, we must admit that the age yields abun-
dant proof that the censure is only too well
deserved. The literature of the day — more par-
ticularly in its periodical forms, which have so
amazingly increased upon us of late — has in many
cases almost supplanted the literature of the ages.
But of course a great deal of this evil is inevitable,
as it is impossible to increase the facilities of
obtaining and cultivating a luxury such as read-
ing— or, indeed, any other luxury-r-without also
increasing the facility and probability of its abuse.
It is to be deplored, however, that the reverence
for our best books seems to have decayed in almost
the same ratio as their cheapness and plentifulness
has increased. Like all our other best blessings,
their very commonness blinds us to their true
value, so that they do not carry that weight and
authority with them they deserve ; and even in
the case of the Book of books, I make bold to say
that the literature of the sixty or seventy years
that embraced the names of Shakspeare, Bacon,
Hooker, Taylor, Milton, and a few others, carries
PREFACE. Xix
upon it deeper and more abiding marks of biblical
influence and spirit than the literature of any
subsequent era, our own remarkable times of
steam-presses and fourpence-halfpenny Testaments
included. With the great majority, the duty of
reading has gradually degenerated into the plea-
sure of it. We seldom sit down to a book as our
forefathers used to do, when books cost a deal of
money, with the deliberate view of getting profit
and instruction out of it ; we seldom read with a
definite object, but for the most part merely to
stop up with pleasure to ourselves the gaps that
occur in the intervals of business. With a large
class the case is even worse — a class of readers ill
to define — who live as if all their lives they were
waiting for a train, and who take up a book, as
they take up anything else, merely " pour passer
le temps."
In conclusion, I have only to add that I trust
the readers of these parallels may experience some
of the interest and pleasure the compiler has had
in ferreting them out and arranging them, and
XX
PREFACE.
that the attempt may perhaps induce some othei
to make some further search for additional illus-
trations of the subject, in the glorious mines from
which these are but broken fragments. The writer
can speak for the pleasantness of the work, for al-
though it has occupied the greater part of the
leisure hours of a few years, it has been altogether
of that nature which only enables him to subscribe
with greater emphasis his testimony to the truth
of the Shakspearean proverb that tells us " The
labour we delight in physics pain."
SELKIRK, 1st May 1862.
BIBLE TEUTHS
v WITH
SHAKSPEAEEAN PAEALLELS.
I.
MAN'S EEDEMPTION.
But God commendetli his love toward us, in that,
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.1
EOM. v. 8.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life.2 — JOHN iii. 16.
All the souls, that were, were forfeit once ;
And He, that might the vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy.*
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act n. Scene 2.
1 1 Peter iii. 18. 1 John iii. 16; iv. 9, 10. John xv. 13.
2 Eph. ii. 4, 5, 6, 7. Titus iii. 4, 5, 6, 7. 2 Cor. v. 19.
Luke xix. 10. 2 Peter iii. 9.
* Shakspeare's faith in this fundamental doctrine is also
manifest, in the following extract from his will, preserved in the
B
2 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
II.
THE COMPENSATIONS OF ADVEESITY.
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious
seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bring-
ing his sheaves with him.1 — Ps. cxxvi. 5, 6.
They shall come with weeping, and with supplica-
tions will I lead them : I will cause them to walk by
the rivers of waters, in a straight way, wherein they
shall not stumble. — JER. xxxi. 9.
And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off
all faces.2 — Is. xxv. 8.
Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be
comforted. — MATT. v. 4.
Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be
turned into joy.3 — JOHN xvi. 20.
The liquid drops of tears, that you have shed,
Shall come again, transform' d to orient pearl ;
office of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury : — " First, I Comend
my Soule into the handes of God my Creator, hoping, and assured-
lie beleeving, through thonelie merites of Jesus Christe my
Saviour, to be made partaker of lyfe everlastinge, And my bodye
to the Earth whereof yt ys made." 1 Ps. xxx. 5.
2 Eev. xxi. 4. 3 Eom. v. 3. Ps. xxx. 11.
SHAKSPEAKEAN PARALLELS. 3
Advantaging their loan, with interest
Of ten-times-double gain of happiness.
KING EICHARD III. Act iv. Scene 4.
Wipe thine eyes :
Some falls are means the happier to arise.*
CYMBELINE. Act iv. Scene 2.
How mightily, sometimes, we make us comforts of
our losses !
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. Act iv. Scene 3.
III.
THE BLESSED USES AND LESSONS
OF AFFLICTION.
Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth :
therefore despise not thou the chastening of the
Almighty.1 — JOB v. 17.
As a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God
chasteneth thee.2 — DEUT. viii. 5.
Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, 0 Lord,
and teachest him out of thy law ; that thou mayest give
him rest from the days of adversity.3 — Ps. xciv. 12, 13.
* MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. — Act i. Scene 1.
There are no faces truer than those, that are so washed (i.e.,
with tears).
1 Eev. iii. 19. 2 Prov. iii. 12. 3 1 Cor. xi. 32. Heb. iv. 9.
4 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
I Lave chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.1
Is. xlviii. 10.
My son, despise not thou the chastening of the
Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him : * For
whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth
every son whom he receiveth. Now, no chastening
for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous:
nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit
of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
HEB. xii. 5, 6, 11.
Every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it,
that it may bring forth more fruit. — JOHN xv. 2.
It is good for me that I have been afflicted ; that
I might learn thy statutes. — Ps. cxix. 71.
This sorrow 's heavenly,
It strikes where it doth love.
OTHELLO. ' Act v. Scene 2.
Affliction has a taste as sweet
As any cordial comfort.
WINTER'S TALE.
Act v. Scene 3.
1 Ps. cxviii. 18.
* ANTONY and CLEOPATRA. Act iv. Scene 2.
Bid that welcome
Which comes to punish us.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. o
Sweet are the uses of adversity ;
Which like a toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
As You LIKE IT. Act n. Scene 1.
Whom best I love, I cross ; to make my gift
The more delayed, delighted.
CYMBELINE. Act v. Scene 4.
In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men.
TEOILUS AND CRESSIDA. Act i. Scene 3.
You were used
To say, extremity was the trier of spirits.
COEIOLANUS. Act iv. Scene 1.
Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abashed behold our works •
And think them shames, which are, indeed, naught else
But the protractive trials of great Jove,
To find persistive constancy in men ?
The fineness of which metal is not found
In fortune's love : for then, the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin :
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away j
6 BIBLE TEUTHS, WITH
And what hath, mass, or matter, by itself
Lies, rich, in virtue, and unmingled.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. Act i. Sce7ie 3.
IY.
THE FALL OF AMBITION.
The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the
haughtiness of men shall be made low.1 — Is. ii. 17.
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit
before a fall. — PROV. xvi. 18.
The king spake and said, Is not this great Baby-
lon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by
the might of my power, and for the honour of my
majesty.2 While the word was in the king's mouth,
there fell a voice from heaven, saying, 0 king Nebu-
chadnezzar, to thee it is spoken, the kingdom is de-
parted from thee, and they shall drive thee from men,
and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field.
DAN. iv. 30-32.
A man's pride shall bring him low. — PROV. xxix. 23.
Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased.
MATT, xxiii. 12.
1 Prov. viii. 13 ; vi. 16, 17. 2 1 Cor. i. 31. Jer. ix. 24.
SHAKSPEAREAN PAEALLELS. 7
Vaulting ambition, which, o'er-leaps itself,
And falls on the other side. — MACBETH. Act i. Scene 7.
Fling away ambition,
By that sin angels fell ; how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by't.
KING HENRY VIII. Act in. Scene 2.
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceases to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
KING HENRY VI. ( 1st part). Act i. Scene 2.
This is the state of man ; To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him :
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ;
And, — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root,
And then he falls.
KING HENRY VIII. Act in. Scene 2.
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk ;
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound ;
But now, two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough.1
KING HENRY IV. (1st part). Act v. Scene 4.
1 The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of
a dream.— HAMLET. Act u. Scene 2.
8 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
V.
THE INFLUENCE OF ASSOCIATES.
He that walketh with wise men shall be wise * ; but
a companion of fools shall be destroyed. — PROV. xiii. 20.
Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not
in the way of evil men.2 — PROV. iv. 14.
Let thy talk be with the wise,3 and let just men
eat and drink with thee. — ECCLUS. ix. 15, 16.
He that toucheth pitch shall be denied therewith ;
and he that hath fellowship with a proud man shall
be like unto him. — ECCLUS. xiii. 1.
It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant
carriage, is caught as men take diseases one of another ;
therefore let men take heed of their company.
KING HENRY IV. (2d part). Act v. Scene 1.
Thou art noble ; yet, I see,
Thy honourable metal may be wrought
From that it is disposed ; therefore 'tis meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes ;
For who so firm that cannot be seduced 1
JULIUS CAESAR. Act i. Scene 2.
xl Kings x. 8. 2 Eph. v. 11. Ps. i. 1. 3 Col. ii. 8.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 9
Keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction
of fools. — TEOILUS AND CRESSIDA. Act u. Scene 1.
Converse with him that is wise.
KING LEAR. Act i. Scene 4.
There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often
heard of, and is known to many in our land by the
name of pitch ; this pitch, as ancient writers do report,
doth defile ! so doth the company thou keepest.
KING HENRY IV. (1st part). Act n. Scene 4.
My nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. — POEMS,
VI.
OVER CAEEFULNESS OF THE BODY
CENSUKED.
Therefore take no thought, saying, "What shall we
eat ? or, What shall we drink 1 or, Wherewithal shall we
be clothed?1 But seek ye first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness.2 — MATT. vi. 31, 33.
Poor Soul, the centre of my sinful earth.
Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array,
1 Ps. xxxiv. 9, 10 ; xxxvii. 25. 2 Eom. xiv. 17.
10 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay ?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ;
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge 1 Is this thy body's end 1
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store ;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross,
Within be fed, without be rich no more. — POEMS.
I will begin
The fashion, less without, and more within.
CYMBELINE. Act v. Scene 1.
VII.
BASH JUDGING REPROVED.
Judge not, that ye be not judged. Why beholdest
thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but con-
siderest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine
own eye ; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast
out the mote out of thy brother's eye.1
MATT. vii. 1, 3, 5.
Who art thou that judgest another man's servant ?
1 Eom. ii. 1. 1 Cor. iv. 3, 5. Jas. ii. 13; iv. 11, 12.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 11
to his own master lie standeth or falleth. Let us not
therefore judge one another any more.
EOM. xiv. 4, 13.
Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault ; ye
which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of
meekness ; considering thyself, lest thou also be
tempted.1 — GAL. vi. 1.
Go to your bosom ;
Knock there ; and ask your heart, what it doth know,
That's like thy brother's fault : if it confess
A natural guiltiness, such as his is,
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against thy brother.*
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act n. Scene 2.
We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act n. Scene 2.
Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
KING HENRY VI. (2d part). Act in. Scene 3.
Shame to him, whose cruel striking,
Kills for faults of his own liking.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act in. Scene 2.
1 l Cor. x. 12.
* He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.
JOHN viii. 7.
12 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
VIII.
ALL EVIL EECOILS UPON THE EVILD01
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein;1 and he
that rolleth a stone, it shall return upon him.
PEOV. xx vi 27.
They that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap
the same,2 By the blast of God they perish, and by
the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.
JOB iv. 8, 9.
He that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own
death. — PROV. xi. 19.
Woe unto the wicked ! it shall be ill with him ; for
the reward of his hands shall be given him.3
Is. iii. 11.
He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own
soul.4 — PROV. viii. 36.
Their sword shall enter into their own heart.
Ps. xxxvii. 15.
In the net which they hid is their own foot taken.
The wicked is snared in the work of his hands.
Ps. ix. 15, 16.
1 Ps. vii. 15, ] 6. 2 Gal. vi. 7, 8. 3 Rom. ii. 9. 4 Is. iii. 9.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 13
Sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall
pursue thee. — EZEK. xxxv. 6.
Evil pursueth sinners. — PKOV. xiii. 21.
They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the
whirlwind. — Hos. viii. 7.
Whereas men have lived dissolutely and unright-
eously, thou hast tormented them with their own
abominations. — WISDOM xii. 23.
He that followeth corruption shall have enough
thereof.1 — ECCLUS. xxxi. 5.
All iniquity is a two-edged sword. — ECCLUS. xxi. 3.
Wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also
shall he be punished. — WISDOM xi. 16.
What mischief work the wicked ones ;
Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby.
KING HENRY VI. (2d part). Act n. Scene 1.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
I Make instruments to scourge us.
KING LEAR. Act v. Scene 3.
1 Job xx. 11-14.
14 BIBLE TEUTHS, WITH
Thus doth, he force the swords of wicked men
To turn their own points on their masters' bosoms.
KING RICHARD III. Act v. Scene 1.
This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. — MACBETH. Act i. Scene 7.
0 error, soon conceived,
Thou never com'st unto a happy birth,
But kill'st the mother that engender' d thee.
JULIUS CAESAR. Act. v. Scene 3.
Sowed cockle, reap'd no corn.
LOVE'S LABOUR LOST. Act iv. Scene 3.
I told you all,
When we first put this dangerous stone a rolling
'T would fall upon ourselves.
KING HENRY VIII. Act v. Scene 2.
By bad courses may be understood,
That their events can never turn out good.
EICHARD II. Act ii. Scene 1.
Unnatural deeds breed unnatural troubles.
MACBETH. Act v. Scene 1.
Our natures do pursue
(Like rats that ravin down their proper bane),
A thirsty evil ; and, when we drink, we die.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act i. Scene 3.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 15
Sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption.
KING HENRY IV. (2d part). Act in. Scene 1.
Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.
KING EICHARD III. Act v. Scene 1.
IX.
GOVERNMENT UNDER A CHILD.
Woe unto thee, 0 land, when thy king is a child.
ECCLES. x. 16.
Woe to the land that 's govern' d by a child.
KING RICHARD III. Act n. Scene 3.
X.
CHRISTIAN CHARITY.
Love is the fulfilling of the law.1 — ROM. xiii. 10.
Charity itself fulfils the law.
LOVE'S LABOUR LOST. Act iv. Scene 3.
1 1 Cor. xiii. 4-7.
1C BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
XL
THE COURAGE OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE,
AND THE COWARDICE OF A BAD ONE.
The wicked flee when no man pursueth;1 but the
righteous are bold as a lion. — PROV. xxviii. 1.
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall
I fear ? the Lord is the strength of my life ; of whom
shall I be afraid 1 2 — Ps. xxvii. 1.
When they saw the boldness of Peter and John,
and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant
men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of
them, that they had been with Jesus.3 — ACTS iv. 1 3.
And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul
abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my
commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I
also will do this unto you ; I will even appoint over
you a terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that
shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart ;
and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
LEV. xxvi. 15-17.
The sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them ; and
they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword ; and they shall
fall when none pursueth. — LEV. xxvi. 36.
1 Gen. iii. 9, 10. 2 Is. xii. 2. 8 Is. xxx. 15.
SHAKSPEAEEAN PAKALLELS. 17
There were they in great fear, where no fear was.1
Ps. liii. 5.
For wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is
very timorous, and being pressed with conscience,
always forecasteth grievous things. — WISDOM xvii. 11.
What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted ?
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just ;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
KING HENRY VI. (2d part). Act in. Scene 2.
Conscience, it makes a man a coward.
KING KICHARD III. Act i. Scene 4.
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act in. Scene 1.
A heart unspotted is not easily daunted.
KING HENRY VI. (2d part). Act in. Scene 1.
How is 't with me when every noise appals me?
MACBETH. Act n. Scene 2.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind :
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
KING HENRY VI. (3d part). Act v. Scene 6.
1 Prov. x. 24.
C
18 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
A wicked conscience
Mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy thoughts.*
TEOILUS AND CKESSIDA. Act v. Scene
XII.
THE WKETCHEDNESS OE A BAD
CONSCIENCE.
There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.1
Is. xlviii. 22.
The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it can-
not rest, whose waters cast up niire and dirt.2
Is. Ivii. 20.
Among these nations shalt thou find no ease,
neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest : but the
Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and fail-
ing of eyes, and sorrow of mind : And thy life shall
hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day
and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life.
DEUT. xxviii. 65, 66.
* But they sleeping the same sleep that night, which was in-
deed intolerable, and which came upon them out of the bottoms
of inevitable hell, were partly vexed with monstrous apparitions,
and partly fainted, their heart failing them : for a sudden fear,
and not looked for, came upon them — WISDOM xvii. 14, 15 — (and
the remainder of the chapter).
1 Rom. iii. 16, 1.7. 8 Jude, 12, 13.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 19
The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days.
A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the
destroyer shall come upon him. He belie veth not that
he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of
the sword. Trouble and anguish shall make him
afraid; and they shall prevail against him as a king
ready to battle.— JOB xv. 20, 21, 22, 24.
Conscience is a thousand swords.
KING EICHARD III. Act v. Scene 2.
Better be with the dead,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstacy.
MACBETH. Act in. Scene 2.
The clogging burden of a guilty soul.
KING EICHARD II. Act i. Scene 3.
Great guilt,
Like poison given to work a great time after,
Now 'gins to bite the spirits.
THE TEMPEST. Act in. Scene 3.
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss ;
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
HAMLET. Act iv. Scene 5.
20 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
I'll haunt thee like a guilty conscience still.
TROILUS AND CRESSID&. Act v. Scene
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
like a phantasma, or a hideous dream :
The genius, and the mortal instruments,
Are then in council ; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
JULIUS C^SAE. Act ii. Scene 1.
Conscience, conscience,
0, ;t is a tender place.
KING HENRY VIII. Act. u. Scene 2.
Leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her.
HAMLET. Act i. Scene 5.
The worm of conscience.
KING EICHARD III. Act i. Scene 3.
0, it is monstrous ! monstrous !
Methought the billows spoke and told me of it :
The winds did sing it to me : and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ pipe, pronounced
The name of Prosper : it did bass my trespass.
THE TEMPEST. Act in. Scene 3.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 21
XIII.
THE DELIGHT OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE.
The work of righteousness shall be peace ; and the
effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for
ever.1 — Is. xxxii. 17.
A good man shall be satisfied from himself.
PROV. xiv. 14.
Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that
thing which he alloweth.2— KOM. xiv. 22.
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we
confidence toward God.3 — 1 JOHN iii. 21.
For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our
conscience. — 2 COR. i. 12.
Blessed is the man that hath not slipped with his
mouth, and is not pricked with the multitude of his
sins. Blessed is he whose conscience hath not con-
demned him, and who is not fallen from his hope in
the Lord. — ECCLUS. xiv. 1, 2.
1 Ps. cxix. 165; Is. xlviii. 18.
Acts xxiv. 1,6. 3 Job xxvii. 6-
22 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
KING HENRY VIII. Act in. Scene 2.
Truth hath a quiet breast.
KING EICHAED II. Act i. Scene 3.
A good conscience will make any possible satisfac-
tion.— KING HENRY IV. (2d part). Act v. Scene 5.
XIV.
THE COMFORTS OF A CONTENTED LIFE
CONTRASTED WITH THE TROUBLES OF
GREATNESS.
Better is an handful with quietness, than both
hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.
ECCLES. iv. 6.
There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath
nothing : there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath
great riches.1 — PROV. xiii. 7.
As having nothing, yet possessing all things.2
2 COR. vi. 10.
1 Rev. iii. 17, 18. 2 Philip, iii. 7-9.
SHAKSPEAKEAN PARALLELS. 23
Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Con-
sider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in
little ; ye eat, but ye have not enough ; ye drink, but
ye are not filled with drink ; ye clothe you, but there
is none warm; and he that earneth wages, earneth
wages to put it into a bag with holes.1 — HAGGAI i. 5, 6.
Take heed, and beware of covetousness ; for a man's
life consisteth not in the abundance of the things
which he possesseth.2 — LUKE xii. 15.
Godliness with contentment is great gain.
1 TIM. vi. 6.
Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great
treasure and trouble therewith. — PEOV. xv. 16.
'Tis better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
KING HENRY VIII. Act n. Scene 3.
Nought 's had, all 's spent,
Where our desire is got without content.
MACBETH. Act in. Scene 2.
1 Micah vi. 14, 15. a 1 Tim. vi. 17 ; Matt. xiii. 22.
BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Poor, and content, is rich, and rich enough ;
But riches fineless, is as poor as winter,
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
OTHELLO. Act in. Scene
My crown is in my heart, not on my head :
Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen ; my crown is call'd content :
A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.
KING HENRY VI. (3d part).
Act m. Scene I.
0, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us ! *
Who would not wish from wealth to be exempt,
Since riches point to misery and contempt 1
Who'd be so mock'd with glory? or to live
But in a dream of friendship 1
To have his pomp and all what state compounds,
But only painted like his varnished friends.
TIMON OP ATHENS. Act iv. Scene 2.
Our content
Is our best having.
KING HENRY VIII. Act n. Scene 3.
* Too much honour :
0, 'tis a burden, 'tis a burden,
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven.
KINO HENRY VIII. Act in. Scene 2.
SHAKSPEAEEAN PARALLELS. 25
Most miserable
Is the desire that 's glorious : blessed be those,
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,
Which seasons comfort.
CYMBELINE. Act i. Scene 7.
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Then doth a rich embroidered canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery ?
0, yes, it doth : a thousandfold it doth.
The shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince's delicates ;
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couched in a curious bed,
When care, mistrust, and treason, wait on him.
KING HENKY VI. (3d part).
Act ii. Scene 5.
0 polished perturbation ! golden care !
That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night ! — sleep with it now !
Yet not so sound, and half so deeply sweet,
As he, whose brow, with homely biggin bound,
Snores out the watch of night, 0 majesty!
When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
26 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Like a rich armour, worn in the heat of day,
That scalds with safety.*
KING HENRY IV. (2d part).
Act iv. Scene 4.
They that stand high have many "blasts to shake them,
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
KING EICHARD III. Act i. Scene 3.
Often, to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded beetle in a safer hold
Than is the full- winged eagle.
CYMBELINE. Act in. Scene 3.
* Shakspeare gives us another picture of "golden care" or
"great treasure and trouble therewith " in the following sonnet :
" The aged man that coffers up his gold
Is plagued with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits,
And scarce has eyes his treasure to behold,
But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless barns the harvest of his wits;
Having no other pleasure of his gain,
But torment that it cannot cure his pain.
So then he hath it, when he cannot use it,
And leaves it to be master'd by his young :
Who in their pride do presently abuse it ;
Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.
The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours,
Even in the moment that we call them ours."
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 27
Eest state, contentless,
Hath a distracted and most wretched being,
Worse than the worst, content.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Ad iv. Scene 3.
XV.
])IUEDEE CANNOT BE HIDDEN,
And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of
thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
GEN. iv. 10.
Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his
blood be shed. — GEN. ix. 6.
Blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth.
KING RICHARD II. Act i. Scene 1.
Blood will have blood ;
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak ;
Augurs, and understood relations, have,
By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret'st man of blood, — MACBETH. Act in. Scene 4.
Guiltiness will speak,
Though tongues were out of use.
OTHELLO. Act v. Scene 1.
28 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
For murder, though, it have no tongue, will speak,
With most miraculous organ.
HAMLET. Act u. Scene
XVI.
DEATH, THE END OF ALL EAETHLY PAS-
SIONS AND TEOUBLES.
There the wicked cease from troubling, and the
weary are at rest. — JOB iii. 17.
Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is
now perished. — ECCLES. ix. 6.
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
KING EICHARD II. Act u. Scene 1.
Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells ;
Here grow no damned grudges ; here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep."*
TITUS ANDRONICUS. Act i. Scene 2.
Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke ;
* The arbitrator of despairs,
Just Death, kind umpire of men's miseries.
HENRY VI. (1st part). Act u. Scene 5.
SHAKSPEAEEAN PAEALLELS. 29
Care no more to clothe and eat ;
To thee the reed is as the oak.
Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all dreaded thunder-stone,
Fear not slander, censure rash ;
Thou hast finished joy and moan.
CYMBELINE. Act iv. Scene 2.
XVII.
DEATH COMMON TO ALL.
There is one event to the righteous,1 and to the
wicked ; to the good and to the clean, and to the un-
clean.— ECCLES. ix. 2.
And I myself perceived also that one event hap-
peneth to them all. — ECCLES. ii. 14.
The small and the great are there ; and the servant
is free from his master. — JOB iii. 19.
There is no man that hath power over the spirit to
retain the spirit ; neither hath he power in the day of
death ; and there is no discharge in that war.2
ECCLES. viii. 8.
And how dieth the wise man ? as the fool.3
ECCLES. ii. 16.
1 Isa. Ivii. 1, 2. 3 Gen. iii. 19. 3 Job xxi. 26.
30 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool
and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth
to others.— Ps. xlix. 10.
It is appointed unto men once to die.— HEB. ix. 27.
The beggar died, and was carried by the angels into
Abraham's bosom; the rich man also died, and was
buried. — LUKE xvi. 22.
Mean and mighty, rotting
Together, have one dust.
CYMBELINE. Act iv. Scene 2.
"Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust 1
And live we how we can, yet die we must.
KING HENRY VI. (3d part). Act v. Scene 2.
All that live must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLET. Act i. Scene 2.
"We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.
KING JOHN. Act iv. Scene' 2.
Time doth transfix the nourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow !
1 Rom. v. 12.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 31
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
POEMS.
That fell arrest
Without all* bail.— POEMS.
Icings and mighty potentates must die,
For that's the end of human misery.
KING HENRY VI. (1st part). Act in. Scene 2.
Golden lads and girls all must,
Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
CYMBELINE. Act iv. Scene 2. (Song).
By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death
Will seize the doctor too.
CYMBELINE. Act v. Scene 5.
Your worm is your only emperor for diet ; we fat
all creatures else to fat us ; and we fat ourselves for
maggots ; your fat king, and your lean beggar, is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's
the end. — HAMLET. Act iv. Scene 3.
XVIII.
THE IMPORTANCE OF EARLY TRAINING.
Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest ; yea,
he shall give delight unto thy soul.1 — PROV. xxix. 17.
* i. e., Without any bail.
1 Prov. xiii. 24; xix. 18; xxii. 15; xxiii. 13, 14; xxix. 15,
32 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Train up a child in the way he should go ; and
when he is old he will not depart from it.1
PROV. xxii. 6.
And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,
but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord.2 — EPH. vi. 4.
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons * be disclosed ;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent ;
Be wary then. — HAMLET. Act i. Scene 3.
Tender youth is soon suggested.
Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. Act in. Scene 1.
Now 'tis spring, and weeds are shallow rooted;
Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden,
And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.
HENRY VI. (2 d part). Act in. Scene I.
XIX.
EKKOR ITS OWN CORRECTIVE.
Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy
backsliding shall reprove thee ; know, therefore, and
1 Deut. iv. 9; vi. 6, 7. 2 1 Chron. xxviii. 9. Prov. iv. 10-13.
* Buds.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 33
see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast
forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in
thee, saith the Lord.1 — JER. ii. 19.
Before I was afflicted, I went astray ; but now have
I kept thy word.2 — Ps. cxix. 67.
Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God.
EOMANS xi. 22.
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his
youth. He putteth his mouth in the dust ; if so be
there may be hope.— Lam. iii. 27, 29.
(Our fathers) for a few days chastened us after their
own pleasure ; but He for our profit, that we might be
partakers of his holiness.3 — HEB. xii. 10.
Therefore chastenest thou them by little and little
that offend, and warnest them by putting them in
remembrance wherein they have offended, that leaving
their wickedness, they may believe on thee, 0 Lord.
WISDOM xii. 2.
His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself,
and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
PROV. v. 22.
1 Prov. i. 30, 31. 2 Jer. xxxi. 18, 19.
8 Rom. v. 3, 4 ; John xv. 2 ; Isa. xxvii. 9.
D
34 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
To wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters.
KING LEAR. Act n. Scene
They say best men are moulded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act v. Scene 1.
As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act i. Scene 3.
You snatch some hence for little faults ; that Js love,
To make them fall no more : you some permit
To second ills with ills, each elder worse ;
And make them dread it, to the doer's thrift.*
CYMBELINE. Act v. Scene 1.
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
KING HENRY V. Act iv. Scene 1.
In poison there is physic.
KING HENRY IV. (2d part). Act i. Scene 1.
* Advantage.
SHAKSPEAKEAN PARALLELS. 35
Headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.*
COMEDY OP ERRORS. Act n. Scene 1.
XX.
SIN BREEDS
Shun profane and vain babblings ; for they will in-
crease unto more ungodliness. — 2 TIM. ii. 16.
Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse,
deceiving and being deceived.1 — 2 TIM. iii. 13.
One sin another doth provoke.
PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. Act i. Scene 1.
The cloy'd will
(That satiate yet unsatisfied desire,
That tub both filled and running), ravening first
The lamb, longs after for the garbage.
CYMBELINE. Act i. Scene 7.
* Shakspeare shews also the need of this correction in the
following passage : —
" If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
'T will come.
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.
KING LEAR. Act iv. Scene 2.
1 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.
36 BIBLE TKUTHS, WITH
Sin will pluck on sin.
KING EICHAKD III. Act iv. Scene 2.
XXI.
OUR FACULTIES TO BE MADE GOOD USE
OF, AND NOT TO LIE UNUSED.
Break up your fallow ground. — Hos. x. 12.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may
see your good works, and glorify your father which is
in heaven.1 — MATT. v. 16.
Neglect not the gift that is in thee.2 — 1 TIM. iv. 14.
It is required in stewards that a man be found
faithful.— 1 COR. iv. 2.
Unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and
to another one ; to every man according to his several
ability.3* — MATT. xxv. 15.
For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall
be much required. — LUKE xii. 48.
1 2 Cor. vi. 1. 2 Rom. xii. 6; 1 Cor. xii. 7, 11. 3 1 Pet. iv. 10,
* See also the remainder of the parable, to verse 30.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 37
I would that you would make use of that good
wisdom whereof I know you are fraught.
KING LEAR.
Act i. Scene 4.
The means that heaven yields, must be embraced,
And not neglected.
KING EICHARD II. Act in. Scene 2.
What is a man,
If his chief good, and market of his time,
Be but to sleep and feed 1 a beast, no more.
Sure, He, that made us with such large discourse
Looking before, and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused.
HAMLET. Act iv. Scene 4.
Heaven doth with us as we with torches do :
Nof light them for themselves ; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched
But to fine issues ; nor nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
Act i. Scene 1.
38 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
XXII.
READINESS FOR DEATH.
The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the
night.1— 2 PET. iii. 10.
Be ye therefore ready, for the Son of Man cometh
at an hour when ye think not.2 — LUKE xii. 40.
Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that
watcheth. — REV. xvi. 15.
I every day expect an embassage
From my Redeemer to redeem me hence.
KING RICHARD III. Act 11. Scene 1.
Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither :
Ripeness is all*
KING LEAR, Act v. Scene 2.
1 Matt. xxiv. 42, 43 ; 1 Thess. v. 2, 3. 2 Rev. iii. 3.
* 'T is a vile thing to die.
When men are unprepared, and look not for it.
KING RICHARD III. Act in. Scene 2.
SHAKSPEAEEAN PARALLELS. 39
XXIII.
SPIKITUAL LIFE.
Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it ;
and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.1
LUKE xvii. 33.
For me .... to die is gain.2 — PHIL. i. 21.
To sue to live, I find, I seek to die ;
And seeking death find life.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act in. Scene 1.
My joy is death ;
Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard,
Because I wish'd this world's eternity.
KING HENRY VI. (2d part). Act n. Scene 4.
XXIV.
A SAVING SACRIFICE.
If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off,
and cast them from thee : it is better for thee to enter
1 John xii. 25. 2 Eev. xiv. 13.
40 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands
or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.1
MATT, xviii. 8.
For it is profitable for thee that one of thy mem-
bers should perish, and not that thy whole body should
be cast into hell. — MATT. v. 30.
This festered joint cut off, the rest, rest sound;
This, let alone, will all the rest confound.
KING KICHARD II. Act v. Scene 3.
XXY.
FAITHLESSNESS.
Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted,
which did eat my bread, hath lifted up his heel against
me.2 — Ps. xli. 9.
Who should be trusted now, when one's right hand
Is perjured to the bosom 2
Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
Act v. Scene 4.
1 Mark ix. 43, 44, 47 ; Col. iii. 5 ; Rom. viii. 13.
J Ps. Iv. 12, 13 ; 2 Sam. xv. 12 ; Obadiah 7 ; John xiii. 18.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 41
XXYI.
LIVING FOE THE PRAISE OF MEN
CENSUEED.
How can ye believe, which receive honour one of
another, and seek not the honour that cometh from
God only1? — JOHN v. 44.
They loved the praise of men more than the praise
of God.1 — JOHN xii. 43.
To have respect of persons is not good; for, for a
piece of bread that man will transgress.
PROV. xxviii. 21.
Glory grows guilty of detested crimes ;
When for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,
We bend to that the working of the heart.*
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. Act iv. Scene 1,
Worse than the sun in March, r
This praise doth nourish agues.
KING HENRY IV. (1st part). Act iv. Scene 1,
1 Kom. ii. 29 ; Heb. xi. 27. •
This earthly world ; where to do harm,
Is often laudable ; to do good, sometime,
Accounted dangerous folly.
MACBETH. Act iv. Scene 2.
42 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
XXVII.
FOKGIVEKESS.
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men
their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your
trespasses. — MATT. vi. 14, 15.
When ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught
against any ; that your Father also which is in heaven
may forgive you your trespasses.1 — MARK xi. 25.
And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake
hath forgiven you. — EPH. iv. 32.
For he shall have judgment without mercy that
hath shewed no mercy.2 — JAMES ii. 13.
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another,
if any man have a quarrel against any : even as Christ
forgave you, so also do ye. — COL. iii. 13.
I pardon him as God shall pardon me.
KING EICHARD II. Act v. Scene 3.
1 Matt, xviii. 21, 22; Luke xvii. 4.
2 Matt, xviii. 34, 35; Lev. xix. 18.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 43
The power that I have on you, is to spare you j
The malice towards you, to forgive you.
CYMBELINE. Act v. Scene 5.
I as free forgive, as I would be forgiven.
KING HENRY VIII. Act n. Scene 1.
How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none ?
MERCHANT OF VENICE. Act iv. Scene 1.
XXVIII.
FEEE WILL.
See, I have set before thee this day life and good,
and death and evil. I call heaven and earth to record
this day against you, that I have set before you life
and death, blessing and cursing : therefore choose life,
that both thou and thy seed may live.1
DEUT. xxx. 15, 19.
He hath set fire and water before thee, stretch forth
thy hand unto whither thou wilt.2 — ECCLUS. xv. 16.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven : the fated sky
Grives us free scope : only doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. Act i. Scene 1.
1 Deut. xi. 26-28. 2 Jer. xxi. 8; Is. i. 19, 20.
BIBLE TPJJTHS, WITH
Men at some time are masters of their fates ;
The fault is not in our stars,
But in ourselves. — JULIUS C^SAR. Act i. Scene 2.
XXIX.
EKIENDS EOKSAKING POVEKTY AJSTD
ADVEESITY.
The poor is hated even of his own neighbour ; but
the rich hath many friends. — PEOV. xiv. 20.
My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my
sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off. — Ps. xxxviii. 11.
Wealth maketh many friends; but the poor is
separated from his neighbour. All the brethren of the
poor do hate him : how much more do his friends go
far from him ? he pursueth them with words, yet they
are wanting to him. — PROV. xix. 4, 7.
A poor man being down is thrust away by his
friends. — ECCLUS. xiii. 21.
The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies.
HAMLET. Act in. Scene 2.
Where you are liberal of your loves, and councils,
Be sure, you be not loose : for those you make your
friends,
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 45
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away
Like water from ye, never found again
But where they mean to sink ye.
KING HENEY VIII. Act u. Scene 1.
As we do turn our backs
From our companion, thrown into his grave :
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink all away ; leave their false vows with him
Like empty purses pick'd ; and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,
With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone.
TIMON OP ATHENS. Act iv. Scene 2.
'T is certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too : what the declined is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,
As feel in his own fall ; for men, like butterflies,
Shew not their mealy wings, but to the summer.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. Act in. Scene 3.
That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in the storm.
KING LEAR. Act. n. Scene 4.
When fortune, in her shift and change of mood,
Spurns down her late beloved ; all his dependants,
46 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Which laboured after him to the mountain's top,
Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,
Not one accompanying his declining foot.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act i. Scene 1.
A poor sequester' d stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish ; and indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting ; and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase.
But what said Jaques ?
Did he not moralize this spectacle 1
0, yes, into a thousand similes.
First, for his weeping in the needless stream ;
" Poor deer," quoth he, " thou mak'st a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much." Then, being alone,
Left and abandoned of his velvet friends ;
" ;Tis right," quoth he; "thus misery doth part
The flux of company." Anon, a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,
And never stays to greet him : " Ay," quoth Jaques,
" Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens ;
'Tis just the fashion: Wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there ? "
As You LIKE IT.
Act ii. Scene 1.
SHAKSPEAKEAN PAKALLELS. 47
Men shut their doors against a setting sun.
TIMON OF ATHENS.
Act i. Scene 2.
The swallow follows not summer more willingly —
nor more willingly leaves winter: such summer birds
are men.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act in. Scene 6.
Words are easy, like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find;
Every man will be thy friend,
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend;
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want.
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call;
And with such like nattering,
" Pity but he were a king."
But if fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown ;
They that fawn'd on him before,
Use his company no more. — POEMS.
Ah ! when the means are gone that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made :
Feast-won, fast-lost ; one cloud of winter showers,
These flies are couch'd.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act n. Scene 2.
48 BIBLE TEUTHS, WITH
XXX.
THE KEBUKE OF A TKUE FRIEND
IIWALUABLE.
Faithful are tlie wounds of a Mend ;J but the kisses
of an enemy are deceitful. — PROV. xxvii. 6.
Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.
PROV. ix. 8.
Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness ;
and let them reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil,
which shall not break my head.2 — Ps. cxli. 5.
He tells me, that if, peradventure,
He speak against me on the adverse side,
I should not think it strange ; for 't is a physic
That 's bitter to sweet end.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act iv. Scene 6.
(There is) no railing in a known, discreet man,
though he do nothing but reprove.
TWELFTH NIGHT. Act i. Scene 5.
1 Matt, xviii. 15. 2 Prov. xxv. 12 ; Gal, vi. 1.
SHAKSPEAKEAN PAEALLELS. 49
Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can
put them to mending.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Act n. Scene 3.
XXXI.
GENEROSITY.
When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard,
thou shalt not glean it afterward; it shall be for the
stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.1
DEUT. xxiv. 21.
Shake the superflux to them,*
And show the heavens more just.
KING LEAR. Act in. Scene 4.
XXXII
AN OVERRULING PROVIDENCE.
A man's heart deviseth his way; but the Lord
directeth his steps.2 — PEOV. xvi. 9.
0 Lord, I know that the way of man is not in him-
self : it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.8
JER. x. 23.
1 Lev. xix. 10; Ps. xli. 1. 2 Ps. xxxvii. 23.
3 Ps. xvii. 4, 5. * To the poor.
E
50 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
There are many devices in a man's heart;1 never-
theless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.2
PROV. xix. 21.
The lot is cast into the lap ; but the whole dispos-
ing thereof is of the Lord. — PROV. xvi. 33.
We are in God's hand.
KING HENRY V. Act in. Scene 6.
There 's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Kough-hew them how we will.
HAMLET. Act v. Scene 2.
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
HAMLET. Act in. Scene 2.
Heaven has an end in all.
KING HENRY VIII. Act n. Scene 1.
XXXIII.
GOD'S GUIDANCE.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto
my path.3 — Ps. cxix. 105.
God shall be my hope,
My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.
KING HENRY VI. (2d part\ Act n. Scene 3.
1 Prov. xvi. 1. 2 Is. xlvi. 10; Ps. xxxiii. 11; Lam. iii. 37.
3 Prov. vi. 23 ; Ps. xliii. 3.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 51
XXXIV.
THE FEAK OF GOD HONOURABLE.
By humility, and the fear of the Lord, are riches
and honour.1 — PEOV. xxii. 4.
Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.2
JOB xxviii. 28.
And, to add greater honours to his age
Than man could give him, he died, fearing God.
KING HENRY VIII. Act iv. Scene 2.
XXXV.
THE WIDOWS' FKIEND.
Let thy widows trust in me. — JER. xlix. 11.
A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the
widows, is God in his holy habitation.3 — Ps. Ixviii. 5.
He relieveth the fatherless and widow.
Ps. cxlvi. 9.
1 Deut. iv. 6. 2 Ps. cxi. 10; Eccles. xii. 13.
3 Deut. x. 17, 18.
52 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child.
If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all
unto me, I will surely hear their cry.1
EXOD. xxii. 22, 23.
Heaven, the widow's champion and defence.
KING RICHARD II. Act i. Scene 2.
XXXVI.
GOD'S MERCY TO US SHOULD TEACH US
MERCY.
Then his lord, after that he had called him, said
unto him, 0 thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all
that debt, because thou desirest me : shouldest not
thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant,
even as I had pity on thee 1 And his lord was wroth,
and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should
pay all that was due him.2 So likewise shall my
heavenly Eather do also unto you, if ye from your
hearts forgive not every one his brother their tres-
passes.— MATT, xviii. 32-35.
Eorgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
MATT. vi. 12.
1 James i. 27. 2 James ii. 13.
SHAKSPEAEEAN PAKALLELS. 53
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand,
Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared
for the devil and his angels : For I was an hungered,
and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave
me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me not in :
naked, and ye clothed me not : sick, and in prison, and
ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, say-
ing, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or
a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not
minister unto thee. Then shall he answer them, say-
ing, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not
to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And
these shall go away into everlasting punishment.1
MATT. xxv. 41-46.
Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he
also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.2
PROV. xxi. 13.
With the merciful thou shalt shew thyself merci-
ful.3— Ps. xviii. 25.
Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is
merciful.4 — LUKE vi. 36.
Consider this, —
That, in the course of justice, none of us
1 Rom. ii. 5-9; Matt. iii. 12. 2 Luke vi. 38 ; 2 Cor. ix. 7
1 John iii. 17. 3 Ps. xli. 1, 2. 4 Col. iii. 12.
54 BIBLE TRUTHS, "WITH
Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy :
And that same prayer doth teach us to render
The deeds of mercy.
MEKCHANT OF VENICE. Act iv. Scene 1.
How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are 1 0, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act n. Scene 2.
XXXVII.
GOOD FOE EVIL.
Say not thou, I will recompense evil.1
PROV. xx. 22.
If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat ;
and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink.2
PROV. xxv. 21.
Say not, I will do to him as he hath done to me.3
PROV. xxiv. 29.
1 Deut. xxxii. 35 ; Heb. x. 30. u Matt. v. 38, 39.
3 Rom. xii. 19.
SHAKSPEAREAN PAEALLELS. 55
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with
good. — KOM. xii. 21.
See that none render evil for evil unto any man ;
but ever follow that which is good, both among your-
selves, and to all men. — 1 THESS. v. 15.
Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing:
but contrariwise blessing ; knowing that ye are there-
unto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.1
1 PET. iii. 9.
Love your enemies, do good to them which hate
you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them
which despitefully use you.2 — LUKE vi. 27, 28.
We must do good against evil.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
Act ii. Scene 5.
Kindness, nobler ever than revenge.
As You LIKE IT. Act iv. Scene 3.
The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance.
THE TEMPEST. Act v. Scene 1.
To revenge is no valour, but to bear.
TIMON OP ATHENS. Act in. Scene 5.
1 Heb. xii. 3. 2 1 Pet. ii. 23.
56 BIBLE TKUTHS, WITH
XXXVIII.
PLENTY AND EASE OFIEN LEAD TO MORAL
POVERTY AND MISERY.
He gave them their request ; but sent leanness into
their soul.1 — Ps. cvi. 15.
The prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
PROV. i. 32.
He also that received seed among the thorns is he
that heareth the word ; and the care of this world, and
the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he be-
cometh unfruitful.2 — MATT. xiii. 22.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
And that craves wary walking.
JULIUS C^SAR. Act ii. Scene 1.
Eat paunches have lean pates ; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bank'rout quite the wits.
LOVE'S LABOUR 's LOST. Act i. Scene 1.
Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds.
KING HENRY IV. (2d part). Act iv. Scene 1.
1 Numb. xi. 31-33.
3 Luke xxi. 31 ; 1 Tim. vi. 9, 10; 2 Tim. iv. 10.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 57
The path is smooth that leadeth unto danger.
POEMS.
The profit of excess
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
That they 'prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.
POEMS.
XXXIX.
UNIVERSALITY OF GUILT.
In many things we offend all. — JAMES iii. 2.
There is no man which sinneth not.1
2 CHEON. vi. 36.
For there is not a just man upon the earth, that
doeth good, and sinneth not.2 — ECCLES. vii. 20.
If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, 0 Lord,
who shall stand? — Ps. cxxx. 3.
"W?ho can say, I have made my heart clean, I am
pure from my sin.3 — Pnov. xx. 9.
1 1 Kings viii. 46. 2 Horn. iii. 23. 3 1 John i. 8.
58 BIBLE TKUTHS, WITH
"Who has a heart so pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keeps leets and lawdays, and in session sit
With meditations lawful.
OTHELLO. Act in. Scene 3.
Use every man after his desert, and who shall
'scape whipping. — HAMLET. Act u. Scene 2.
Eoses have thorns, and silver fountains mud ;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun ;
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud :
All men make faults. — POEMS.
Nobody but has his fault.
MERET WIVES OF WINDSOR.
Act i. Scene 4.
Where 's that palace, whereinto foul things
Sometimes intrude not.
OTHELLO. Act in. Scene 3.
No perfection is so absolute,
That some impurity doth not pollute. — POEMS.
We all are men,
In our own natures frail : and capable
Of our flesh.
KING HENRY VIII. Act v. Scene 2.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 59
XL.
GOD'S FAVOUBS EQUALLY DISTRIBUTED.
God is no respecter of persons.1 — ACTS x. 34.
(He) aceepteth not the persons of princes, nor re-
gardeth the rich more than the poor, for they are all
the work of his hands. — JOB xxxiv. 19.
The king is but a man as I am ; the violet smells
to him as it doth to me ; the element shews to him as
it doth to me; all his senses have but human condi-
tions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he
appears but a man.
KING HENRY V. Act. iv. Scene 1.
The gods sent not
Corn to the rich men only.
CORIOLANUS. Act i. Scene 1.
Once or twice
I was about to speak ; and tell him plainly
The selfsame sun, that shines upon his court,
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
Looks on alike.
WINTER'S TALE. Act iv. Scene 3.
1 Gal. ii. 6; Rom. ii. 11.
60 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
XLI.
THE SAFETY OF A MIDDLE STATE.
Give me neither poverty nor riches ; feed me with
food convenient for me.1 — PROV. xxx. 8.
They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they
that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness,
therefore, to be seated in the mean.
MERCHANT OP VENICE.
Act i. Scene 2.
Full oft 't is seen
Our mean* secures us; and our mere defects
Prove our commodities.
KING LEAR. Act iv. Scene I.
His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him ;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little.
KING HENRY VIII.
Act iv. Scene 2.
1 1 Tim. vi. 6-10 ; Deut. xxxii. 15 ; James iv. 3 ; Hos. xiii. 6.
* i. e., Our mediocrity.
SHAKSPEAREAN PAEALLELS. 61
XLII.
HONOUE.
Eender therefore to all their dues : honour to whom
honour.1 — EOM. xiii. 7.
The due of honour in no point omit.
CYMBELINE. Act in. Scene 5.
XLIII.
THE COEEUPTIOK OF HUMAN NATUEE.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and des-
perately wicked : 2 who can know it 1 — JER. xvii. 9.
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in
the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually.3 — GEN. vi. 5.
The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and
madness is in their heart while they live.4
ECCLES. ix. 3.
1 Lev. xix. 32. 2 Matt. xv. 19.
3 Job xv. 14. 4 ps \i 5
62 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
The imagination of man's heart is evil from his
youth.1 — GEN. viii. 21.
All is oblique :
There 's nothing level in our cursed natures,
But direct villany.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act iv. Scene 3.
0 mischief ! thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men.
ROMEO AND JULIET. Act v. Scene I.
Who lives ; that 's not
Depraved, or depraves?
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act n. Scene 1.
XLIV.
A VEEY LITTLE, WITH LOVE, IS GOOD
CHEER.
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a
stalled ox and hatred therewith.2 — PEOV. xv. 17.
Small cheer, and great welcome, makes a merry
feast. — COMEDY OF ERRORS. Act m. Scene 1.
1 Job xiv. 4; James i. 14. 3 Eccles. iv. 6; v. 12.
SHAKSPEAEEAN PARALLELS. 63
XLY.
HUMILITY.
When ye shall have done all those things which
are commanded you, say we are unprofitable servants.1
LUKE xvii. 10.
Behold, I am vile ; what shall I answer thee 1 I
will lay mine hand upon my mouth.2 — JOB xl. 4.
But we are all as an unclean thing, and our right-
eousnesses are as filthy rags.3 — Is. Ixiv. 6.
More will I do :
Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.
EJNG HENRY V. Act iv. Scene 1.
Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,
But graciously to know I am no better.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act n. Scene 4.
Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride ;
Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent,
Quite from himself, to God.*
KING HENRY V. Act v. Scene 1.
1 Gen. xxxii. 10. 2 Ps. 11. 3-5; Ezra ix. 6 ; Dan. ix. 5-8;
Neh. ix. 33. 3 Rom. iii. 27 ; Ps. cxliii. 2.
* What hast thou that thou didst not receive? — 1 Cor. iv. 7.
64 BIBLE TEUTHS, WITH
XLVI.
IDLENESS LEADS TO POVEETY.
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty.1
PROV. xx. 13.
Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
PROV. xxiii. 21.
The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold ;
therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing.2
PROV. xx. 4.
He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand.
PROV. x. 4.
Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary.
KING RICHARD III.
Act iv. Scene 3.
In delay there lies no plenty.
TWELFTH NIGHT. Act n. Scene 3.
Prov. xxiv. 33, 34. 2 Matt. xxv. 3-9 ; xxv. 26-30.
SHAKSPEAKEAN PARALLELS. 65
XLYII.
INDUSTKY INCULCATED.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways,
and be wise ; which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her
food in the harvest.1 — PROV. vi. 6-8.
We '11 set thee to school to an ant.
KING LEAR. Act u. Scene 4.
XLVIII.
THE PKESENT TIME ONLY OUES.
Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come
upon you : for he that walketh in darkness knoweth
not whither he goeth. — JOHN xii. 35.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy
might; for the re is no work, nor device, nor knowledge,
nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goes!2
ECCLES. ix. 10.
1 Job xii. 7; xxxy. 11. 2 Is. Iv. 6.
BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Go to now, ye that say, To-day, or to-morrow, we
will go into such a city, and continue there a year,
and buy and sell, and get gain; whereas ye know not
what shall be on the morrow: for what is your life?
It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time,
and then vanisheth away. — JAS. iv. 13, 14.
Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest
not what a day may bring forth.1 — PROV. xxvii. 1.
Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause
darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark
mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into
the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.
JER. xiii. 16.
The night cometh when no man can work.
JOHN ix. 4.
When the day serves before black-corner'd night,
Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act v. Scene 1.
Let's take the instant by the forward top ;
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WTELL. Act v. Scene 3.
1 Is. Ivi. 12; Lukexii. 19-21.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 67
We must take the current while it serves.
JULIUS CAESAR. Act iv. Scene 3.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace, from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time ;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
MACBETH. Act v. Scene 5.
Take all the swift advantage of the hours.
KING EICHAKD III. Act iv. Scene 1.
The time is worth the use on 't.
WINTER'S TALE. Act in. Scene L
What we would do,
We should do when we would; for this would
changes,
And hath abatements and delays as many,
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents ;
And then this should is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing.*
HAMLET. Act iv. Scene 7.
* The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,
Unless the deed go with it.
MACBETH. Act iv. Scene 1.
68 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
XLIX.
TIME THE TEST OF TRUTH.
And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men,
and let them alone : for if this counsel or this work be
of men, it will come to nought : but if it be of God, ye
cannot overthrow it.1 — ACTS v. 38, 39.
Time's glory is —
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.
POEMS.
Time is the old justice that examines all offenders.
As You LIKE IT. Act iv. Scene 1.
I (Time), that please some, try all.
WINTER'S TALE. Act iv. Chorus.
That old, common arbitrator, Time.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. Act iv. Scene 5.
L.
PRECEPT AT VARIANCE WITH PRACTICE.
What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or
that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth,
1 Prov. xxi. 30; Is. viii. 10.
SHAKSPEAKEAN PARALLELS. 69
seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words
behind thee.— Ps. 1. 16, 17.
This people draw near me with their mouth, and
with their lips do honour me, but have removed their
heart far from me,1 and their fear toward me is taught
by the precept of men. — Is. xxix. 13.
Thou art near in their mouth, and far from their
reins. — JER. xii. 2.
Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things
which I say?2 — LUKE vi. 46.
Hast thou that holy feeling in thy soul,
To counsel me to make my peace with God?
And art thou yet to thy own soul so blind,
That thou wilt war with God?
KING KICHAED III. Act i. Scene 4.
The flamen,*
That scolds against the quality of flesh,
And not believes himself.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act iv. Scene 3.
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Shew me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
1 Ezek. xxxiii. 32 ; Matt, xv, 7, 9.
2 Mai. i. 6; Matt. vii. 21 ; xxv. 11, 12; Luke xiii. 25.
* Priest.
70 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Whilst, like a puffd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads.*
HAMLET. Act i. Scene
LI.
MOEAL BLINDNESS OF THE WICKED.
From the wicked their light is withholden.1
JOB xxxviii. 15.
The way of the wicked is as darkness j they know
not at what they stumble.2 — PROV. iv. 19.
Evil men understand not judgment ; but they that
seek the Lord understand all things.3
PROV. xxviii. 5.
Having their understanding darkened, being alien-
ated from the life of God through the ignorance that is
in them because of the blindness of their heart.4
EPH. iv. 18.
* It is a good divine that follows his own instructions : I can
easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of
the twenty to follow mine own teaching.
MERCHANT OF VENICE. Act i. Scene 2.
1 Prov. xiii. 9 ; Job xxi. 17.
2 Job xxiv. 13; xviii. 5, 6, 18; Is. lix. 10; 1 Sam. ii. 9.
3 John vii. 17 ; Ps. xxv. 9. 4 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 71
And for this cause God shall send them strong de-
lusion that they should believe a lie.1 — 2 THESS. ii. 11.
For the bewitching of naughtiness doth obscure
things that are honest. — WISDOM iv. 12.
Their own wickedness hath blinded them.
WISDOM ii. 21.
Good, my lord —
But when we in our viciousness grow hard,
(0 misery on 't) the wise gods seal our eyes ;
In our own filth drop our clear judgments ; make us
Adore our errors ; laugh at us, while we strut
To our confusion.
WINTER'S TALE. Act in. Scene 1.
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile,
Filths savour but themselves.
KING LEAR. Act iv. Scene 2.
in.
A GOOD WIFE.
A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.2
PEOV. xii. 4.
1 Ps. Ixxxi. 11, 12; Kom. i. 28.
2 1 Cor. xi. 7 ; Prov. xxxi. 10 ; Ecclus. xxvi. 14.
72 BIBLE TEUTHS, WITH
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her,
so that he shall have no need of spoil.
PROV. xxxi. 11.
As for my wife,
I would you had her spirit in such another,
The third o' the world is yours.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATKA. Act u. Scene 2.
You are my true and honourable wife,
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.
JULIUS CJESAR. Act u. Scene 1.
LIII.
A BAD WIFE.
It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop,
than with a brawling woman in a wide house.1
PROV. xxi. 9.
I had rather dwell with a lion and a dragon, than
to keep house with a wicked woman. All wickedness
is but little to the wickedness of a woman. A wicked
woman maketh an heavy countenance and a wounded
heart.— ECCLUS. xxv. 16, 19, 23.
1 Prov. xxi. 19; xix. 13.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 73
An evil wife is a yoke shaken to and fro : he that
hath hold of her is as though he held a scorpion.1
ECCLUS. xxvi. 7.
It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a
contentious and an angry woman. — PKOV. xxi. 19.
War is no strife,
To the dark house, and the detested wife.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
Act n. Scene 3.
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid as in woman.
KING LEAR. Act iv. Scene 2.
A light wife doth make a heavy husband.
MERCHANT OF VENICE. Act v. Scene 1.
LIV.
THE WICKED BLIND TO THEIR OWN
WRETCHEDNESS.
Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods,
and have need of nothing ; and knowest not that thou
art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and
naked.2 — REV. iii 17. .
1 1 Kings xxi. 25 ; Ecclus. xxv. 13. 2 Hos. xii. 8 ; Is. i. 5, 6.
74 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes.1
PROV. xii. 15.
Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear,
Their own transgressions partially they smother.
0 ! how are they wrapt in with infamies,
That from their own misdeeds askance their eyes.
POEMS.
LV.
THE HAPPINESS OF THE KIGHTEOUS.
Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous : and
shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.2
Ps. xxxii. 11.
I have set the Lord always before me : he is at my
right hand, therefore my heart is glad.3 — Ps. xvi. 8, 9.
Virtue —
Led on by heaven, and crown'd with joy at last.
PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE.
Act v. Scene 3.
1 Prov. iii. 7 ; xxvi. 12. 2 Phil. iv. 4 ; Ps. Ixiv. 10.
3 Acts ii. 28 ; Ps. xxxvi. 8.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 75
Happiness
By virtue 'specially to be achieved.
TAMING OP THE SHREW.
Act i. Scene 1.
LYI.
THE WICKED CANNOT ELUDE GOD'S
VENGEANCE.
There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where
the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.1
JOB xxxiv. 22.
Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall
not see him 1 saith the Lord.2 — JEK. xxiii. 24.
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret
sins in the light of thy countenance. — Ps. xc. 8.
Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the
Lord looketh on the heart.8 — 1 SAM. xvi. 7.
All things are naked and open in the eyes of him
with whom we have to do. — HEB. iv. 13.
1 Prov. xv. 3; Is. xxix. 15; Ezek. viii. 12; Gen. xvi. 13.
2 Jobxxii. 13, 14; Ps. x. 11.
3 Acts i. 24; 1 Kings viii. 39; 1 Cliron. xxviii. 9.
76 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand
take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence
will I bring them down : And though they hide them-
selves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them
out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in
the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the ser-
pent, and he shall bite them.1 — AMOS ix. 2, 3.
Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap.2 — GAL. vi. 7.
Behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be
sure your sin will find you out.3 — NUMB, xxxii. 23.
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice ;
And oft 't is seen, the wicked prize, itself
Buys out the law. But 't is not so above :
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature ; and we ourselves compelled,
Even in the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. — HAMLET. Act in. Scene 3.
Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them to men's eyes.
HAMLET. Act i. Scene 2.
1 Ps. cxxxix. 8 ; Jer. li. 53.
2 Job iv. 8 ; Prov. xi. 18 ; Hos. viii. 7.
3 Gen. iv. 7 ; xliv. 16 ; Is. lix. 12 ; Prov. xiii. 21.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 77
Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides.
KING LEAR. Act. i. Scene 1.
Now if these men have defeated the law, and out-
run native punishment, though they can outstrip men,
they have no wings to % from God.
KING HENRY V. Act iv. Scene 1.
Can we outrun the heavens 1
KING HENRY VI. (2dpart).
Act v. Scene 2.
LVII.
A SINGLE FAULT
SOMETIMES EXTINGUISHES ALL MEEIT.
Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to
send forth a stinking savour : so doth a little folly him
that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.
ECCLES. x. 1.
Oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth (wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose her origin) •
Or, by the overgrowth of some complexion,
78 BIBLE TKUTHS, WITH
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit that too much o'erleavens
The form of plausive manners ; — that these men-
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect ;
Being nature's livery or fortune's star, —
Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo)
Shall, in the general censure, take corruption
From that particular fault ; the dram of base
Doth all the noble substance often dout,*
To his own scandal. — HAMLET. Act i. Scene 4.
LVIII.
THE DANGERS OF IDLENESS.
By much slothfulness the building decay eth; and
through idleness of the hands the house droppeth
through. — ECCLES. x. 18.
Send him to labour that he be not idle; for idle-
ness teacheth much evil. — ECCLUS. xxxiii. 27.
Oh, then we bring forth weeds
When our quick minds lie still.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. Act i. Scene 2.
* Do out.
SHAKSPEAREAN PAEALLELS. 79
LIX.
THE ENVY OF THE WICKED.
The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to
slay him.1 — Ps. xxxvii. 32.
The Scribes and Pharisees watched [Jesus], whether
he would heal on the Sabbath-day; that they might
find an accusation against him.2 — LUKE vi. 7.
Oh, what a world is this, when what is comely
Envenoms him that bears it.
As You LIKE IT. Act n. Scene 3.
LX.
SELF -DELUSION AND SHOETSIGHTEDNESS
OF THE WICKED.
They (sinners) lay wait for their own blood: they
lurk privily for their own lives.3 — PEOV. i. 18.
The wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.4
PROV. xi. 5.
1 Gen. xxxvii. 18-20 ; xxvii. 41. 2 Dan. vi. 4.
3 'Matt, xxvii. 3-5. 4 Ps. vii. 15; Ezek. xviii. 27.
80 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had
prepared for Mordecai.1 — ESTHER vii. 10.
His mischief shall return upon his own head, and
his violent dealing shall come down upon his own
pate. — Ps. vii. 16.
Let his net that he hath hid catch himself; into
that very destruction let him fall 2 — Ps. xxxv. 8.
Though those that are betrayed
Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
Stands in worse case of woe.
CYMBELINE. Act in. Scene 4.
What things are we !
Merely our own traitors. And as in the common
course of all treasons, we still see them reveal them-
selves, till they attain to their abhorred ends ; so he,
that contrives against his own nobility, in his proper
stream overflows himself.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
Act TV. Scene 3.
Time's glory is —
To mock the subtle, in themselves beguiled.
POEMS.
1 Ps. ix. 15, 16. 2 Dan. vi. 24; Ps. xxxvii. 35, 36.
SHAKSPEAEEAN PAEALLELS. 81
LXI.
IMMOETALITY.
Neither can they die any more ; for they are equal
unto the angels.1 — LUKE xx. 36.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.2
1 COR. xv. 26.
And, death once dead, there 's no more dying then.
POEMS.
LXIL
INSTINCT.
The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's
crib.3— Is. i. 3.
Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
CORIOLANUS. Act ii. Scene 1.
1 Hos. xiii. 14 ; Is. xxv. 8 ; John xi. 25 ; 1 Cor. xv. 54, 55.
2 Rev. xx. 14; 2 Tim. i. 10 ; Heb. ii. 14; Rom. viii. 17.
3 Jer. viii. 7.
82 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
LXIIL
BANEFUL EFFECTS OF INTEMPERANCE.
Who hath woe ? who hath sorrow 1 who hath con-
tentions 1 who hath babblings 1 who hath wounds with-
out cause ? who hath redness of eyes 1 They that tarry
long at the wine. At the last it biteth like a serpent
and stingeth like an adder.1 — PROV. xxiii. 29, 30, 32.
Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning,
that they may follow strong drink ! that continue until
night, till wine inflame them !2 — Is. v. 11.
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging ; and
whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.3
PROV. xx. 1.
Drunkenness increaseth the rage of a fool till he
offend ! it dirninisheth strength and maketh wounds.
ECCLUS. xxxi. 30.
Wine measurably drunk and in season bringeth
gladness of the heart, and cheerfulness of the rnind !4
But wine drunken with excess maketh bitterness of the
mind,5 with brawling and quarrelling.
ECCLUS. xxxi. 28, 29.
1 Ecclus. xxxi. 20.
2 Eph. v. 18; Luke xxi. 34 ; 1 Pet. iv. 3 ; Is. v. 22.
3 Is. xxviii. 7. 4 Ps. civ. 15. 5 Hos. iv. 11.
SHAKSPEAREAN PAEALLELS. 83
Wine has destroyed many.1 — ECCLUS. xxxi. 25.
0 thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no
name to be known by, let ns call thee — devil ! . . .
0 that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to
steal away their brains ! that we should with joy, revel,
pleasure, and applause, transform ourselves to beasts ! *
OTHELLO. Act n. Scene 3.
"What's a drunken man like 1 Like a drowned man,
a fool, and a madman ; one draught above heat makes
him a fool ; the second mads him ; and a third drowns
him. — TWELFTH NIGHT. Act i. Scene 5.
Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredi-
ent is a devil. OTHELLO. Act n. Scene 3.
Poison' d hours hath bound me up
From mine own knowledge.
ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA. Act n. Scene 2.
It hath pleased the devil, drunkenness, to give place
to the devil, wrath ; one imperfectness shews me an-
other, to make me frankly despise myself.
OTHELLO. Act n. Scene 3.
1 2 Sam. xiii. 28 ; 1 Kings xvi. 9 ; Judith xiii. 2, 8.
* " I could well wish," says Cassio, " courtesy would invent
some other custom of entertainment."
84 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Boundless intemperance
In nature is a tyrant ; it hath "been
Th' untimely emptying of the happy throne,
And fall of many kings.
MACBETH. Act iv. Scene 3.
It is a custom
More honoured in the breach than the observance,
This heavy-headed revel, east and west,
Makes us traduced, and taxed of other nations j
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition : and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though performed at height,
The pith and marrow of our attributes.
HAMLET. Ad i. Scene 4.
LXIV.
THE UNPKOFITABLENESS OF AVAEICE.
There is that scattereth, and yvi increaseth; and
there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it
tendeth to poverty.1 — PROV. xi 24.
Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets ;
But gold, that 's put to use, more gold begets.
POEMS.
1 Haggai i. 6 ; Luke vi. 38.
SHAKSPEAKEAN PARALLELS. 85
LXV.
BEEYITY OF LIFE.
Our days upon earth are a shadow.1 — JOB viii. 9.
Man is like to vanity; his days are as a shadow
that passeth away.2 — Ps. cxliv. 4.
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle.3
JOB vii. 6.
Life 's but a walking shadow.
MACBETH. Act v. Scene 5.
Life is a shuttle.
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Act v. Scene 1.
Some, how brief the life of man,
Euns his erring pilgrimage :
That the stretching of a span
Buckles in his sum of age.
As You LIKE IT. Act in. Scene 2.
0 gentlemen, the time of life is short :
To spend that shortness basely were too long,
Job xiv. 1, 2 ; Ps. ciii. 15, 16. 2 Ps. xxxix, 5 ; Is. xl. 6.
3 James iv. 14; 1 Cor. vii. 29-31.
86 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
If life did ride upon a dial's point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.1
KING HENEY IV. (1st part). Act v. Scene
LXVL
THE LAW OF KINDNESS.
Thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine
hand from thy poor brother ; but thou shalt open thy
hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him suf-
ficient for his need in that which he wanteth.2
DEUT. xv. 7, 8.
Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that
would borrow of thee turn not thou away.3
MATT. v. 42.
We are born to do benefits.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act i. Scene 2.
What is yours to bestow, is not yours to reserve.
TWELFTH NIGHT. Act i. Scene 5.
To build his fortune, I will strain a little,
For }t is a bond in men.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act i. Scene 1.
1 Ps. xc. 12. 2 1 John iii. 17 ; 2 Pet. i. 5, 7 ; 1 John
iv. 21 ; John xiii. 35. 8 Luke vi. 34; Prov. iii. 28.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 87
LXVII.
MAMMON.
If there come into your assembly a man with a gold
ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor
man in vile raiment ; and ye have respect to him that
weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou
here in a good place ; and say to the poor, Stand thou
there, or sit here under my footstool : l are ye not then
partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil
thoughts?2 — JAMES ii. 2, 3, 4.
The poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words
are not heard. — ECCLES. ix. 16.
When a rich man speaketh, every man holdeth his
tongue,3 and look, what he saith, they extol it to the
clouds; but if the poor man speak, they say, What
fellow is this1? and if he stumble, they will help to
overthrow him.4 — ECCLUS. xiii. 23.
Through tattered clothes small vices do appear ;
Eobes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with
gold,
1 Prov. xiv. 20, 21. 2 John vii. 24.
8 Job xxix. 9. * Rom. xii. 6.
88 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
And the strong lance of justice fruitless breaks:
Arm it with rags a pigmy straw doth pierce it.
KING LEAR. Act iv. Scene 6.
The learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act iv. Scene 3.
Eaise me this beggar, and denude that lord ;
The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,
The beggar native honour :
It is the pasture lards the browser's sides,
The want that makes him lean.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act iv. Scene 3.
0 what a world of vile, ill-favour'd faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year.
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
Act in. Scene 4.
Faults that are rich are fair.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act i. Scene 2.
If money go before, all ways lie open.
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
Act ii. Scene 2.
0, that estates, degrees, and offices,
Were not derived corruptly ! and that clear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer !
SHAKSPEAEEAN PAEALLELS. 89
How many then should cover, that stand bare !
How many be commanded that command !
How much low peasantry would then be glean' d
From the true seed of honour! and how much
honour
Picked from the chaff and ruin of the times,
To be new varnished.
MERCHANT OP VENICE. Act n. Scene 9.
LXVIIL
THE FOOLISHNESS OF TKUSTING IN MAN.
Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of
man, in whom there is no help.1 — Ps. cxlvi. 3.
Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trust-
eth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose
heart departeth from the Lord.2 — JER. xvii. 5.
Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils.3
Is. ii. 22.
0, momentary grace of mortal man,
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God !
Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks,
1 Job vii. 17. ,2 Heb. iii. 12. 3 Ps. cxviii. 8, 9.
90 BIBLE TEUTHS, WITH
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast :
Eeady with every nod to tumble down
Into the fatal bowels of the deep.
KING EICHARD III. Act in. Scene 4.
An habitation giddy and unsure,
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
KING HENRY IV. (2d part). Act i. Scene 3.
He that depends
Upon your favours swims with fins of lead,
And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye!
Trust ye?
With every minute you do change a mind ;
And call him noble that was now your hate, —
Him vile that was your garland.*
CORIOLANUS. Act i. Scene I.
Poor wretches, that depend
On greatness' favour, dream,
Wake, and find nothing.
CYMBELINE. Act v. Scene 4.
LXIX.
THE GEANDEUE OF MAN'S NATTIEE.
He is the image and glory of God.1 — 1 COR. xi. 7.
* Spoken to a multitude. 1 Gen. i. 27; Ps. c. 3.
SHAKSPEAREAN PAEALLELS. 91
Made after the similitude of God. — JAMES iii. 9.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works
of thy hands ; thon hast put all things under his feet.
Ps. viii. 6.
Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Ps. viii. 5.
"What a piece of work is man ! How noble in rea-
son ! How infinite in faculties ! In form, and mov-
ing, how express and admirable ! In action, how like
an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The
beauty of the world ! — the paragon of animals.
HAMLET. Act n. Scene 2.
LXX.
THE MARRIAGE TIE A SACKED ONE.
What therefore God hath joined together, let not
man put asunder.1 — MATT. xix. 6.
God forbid that I should wish them sever'd,
Whom God hath joined together.
KING HENRY VI. (3d part). Act iv. Scene 1.
1 1 Cor. vii. 10, 11.
92 BIBLE TKUTHS, WITH
God, the best maker of all marriages,
Combine your hearts in one.
KING HENRY V. Act. v. Scene
LXXL
MEN'S CUESES EECOIL ON THEIE OWN
HEADS.
As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him.
Ps. cix. 17.
Dread curses — like the sun 'gainst glass,
Or* like an overcharged gun — recoil.
KING HENRY VI. (2d part). Act in. Scene 2.
Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.
KING HENRY VI. (2dpart). Act v. Scene 1.
LXXII.
MEECY AN ATTEIBUTE OF GOD.
He delighteth in mercy.1 — MICAH vii. 18.
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger,
and plenteous in mercy. — Ps. ciii. 8.
1 Is. liv. 7, 8.
SHAKSPEAKEAN PARALLELS. 93
To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgive-
ness, though we have rebelled against him.1
PAN. ix. 9.
The Lord is longsuffering and of great mercy.2
NUMB. xiv. 18.
But mercy is above this scepter'd sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings :
It is an attribute to God himself.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
Act iv. Scene I.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods ?
Draw near them then in being merciful.
TITUS ANDRONICUS. Act i. Scene 2.
LXXIII.
THE BEKEFICIAL EFFECTS OF MIRTH.
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine : but a
broken spirit drieth the bones. — PROV. xvii. 22.
He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.
PROV. xv. 15.
1 Neh. ix. 16, 17; Ps. cxxx. 4, 7.
2 Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7; Ps. cxlv. 8; John iv. 2.
94 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance : but
by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.
PROV. xv. 13.
Give not over thy mind to heaviness, and affli
not thyself in thine own counsel.1 The gladness of
the heart is the life of a man; and the joyfulness of a
man prolongeth his days. — ECOLUS. xxx. 21, 22.
•
,t
~f
A light heart lives long.
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.
Act v. Scene 2.
Care's an enemy to life.
TWELFTH NIGHT. Act i. Scene 3.
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile.
WINTER'S TALE. Act iv. Scene 2.
Sweet recreation barr'd what doth ensue,
But moody and dull Melancholy,
(Kinsman to grim and comfortless Despair),
And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop
Of pale' distemperatures, and foes to life.
COMEDY OF ERRORS. Act v. Scene 1.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster1?
1 Prov. xii. 25 ; Ecclus. xxx. 23, 24.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 95
Sleep, when he wakes 1 and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish ? *
MERCHANT OF VENICE. Act i. Scene 1.
LXXIV.
MODERATION RECOMMENDED.
Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient
for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.1
PROV. xxv. 16.
Let your moderation be known to all men.
PHIL. iv. 5.
Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your
hearts be overcharged with surfeiting.2 — LUKE xxi. 34.
A surfeit of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
Act ii. Scene 3.
* In wooing sorrow let 's be brief,
Since, wedding it, there is such length of grie,f.
KING EICHARD II. Act v. Scene 1.
Gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.
KING KICHARD II. Act i. Scene 3.
1 1 Tim. iv. 4. 2 1 Cor. ix. 25.
96 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Let 's teach ourselves that honourable stop,
Not to outsport discretion.
OTHELLO. Act IT. Scene 3.
The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite,
Therefore love moderately.
ROMEO AND JULIET. Act n. Scene 6.
LXXV.
THE LOVE OF MONEY THE EOOT OF ALL
EVIL.
But they that will be rich fall into temptation, and
a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which
drown men in destruction and perdition. For the
love of money is the root of all evil. — 1 TIM. vi 9, 10.
The deceitfulness of riches chokes the word, and
he becometh unfruitful.1 — MATT. xiii. 22.
Mortify therefore your members which are upon
the earth; . . . and covetousness, which is idolatry.
COL. iii, 5.
1 Mark x. 21-23; 2 Tim. iv. 10.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 97
Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went
unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will
ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And
they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.1
MATT. xxvi. 14, 15.
How quickly nature
Ealls to revolt, when gold becomes her object.
KING HENRY IV. (2d part). Act iv. Scene 4.
Avarice
Grows with more pernicious root
Than summer-seeding lust.
MACBETH. Act iv. Scene 3.
Gold ! yellow, glittering, precious gold,
. . . will make black, white ; foul, fair ;
Wrong, right; base, noble; old, young; coward,
valiant :
Why, this
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides ;
Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads :
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions ; bless the accurs'd ;
Make the hoar leprosy ador'd ; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,, ^
With senators on the bench.
1 Ecclus. xxxi. 6.
H
98 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
This it is
That makes the wappen'd widow wed again ;
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the April day again.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act iv. Scene 3.
There is thy gold ,; worse poison to men's souls ;
Doing more murders in this loathsome world
Than these poor compounds that thou may'st not
sell;
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.*
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Act v. Scene 1.
0 thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
'Twixt natural son and sire ! thou bright denier
Of Hymen's purest bed ! thou valiant Mars !
Thou ever young, fresh, loved, and delicate wooer
That lies on Dian's lap ! thou visible god,
That solder'st close impossibilities,
And mak'st them kiss! that speak'st with every
tongue
To every purpose ! 0 thou touch of hearts !
Think, thy slave man rebels ; and by thy virtue
Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
May havo the world in empire.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act iv. Scene 3.
Spoken to an apothecary.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 99
LXXVI.
MOEAL CONFLICT.
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the
Spirit against the flesh : and these are contrary one to
the other; so that ye cannot do the things that ye
would.1 — GAL. v. 17.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence, and medicine power;
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each
part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed foes encampt them still
In man as well as herbs — grace and rude will ;
And, where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
EOMEO AND JULIET.
Act ii. Scene 3.
The flesh being proud, desire doth fight with grace.
For there it revels ; and when that decays,
The guilty rebel for remission prays. — POEMS.
Rom. vii. 19, 22, 23 ; John iii. 6, 7 ; Rom. viii. 6, 7.
100 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
LXXYII.
SPIEITUAL BLINDNESS.
And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye in-
deed, but understand not ; and see ye indeed, but per-
ceive not.1 — Is. vi. 9.
The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness
comprehended it not.2 — JOHN i. 5.
What an infinite mock is this, that a man should
have the best use of his eyes to see the way of blind-
ness ! — CTMBELINE. Act v. Scene 4.
LXXYIII.
THE SOOTHING EFFECTS OF MUSIC.
And it came to pass, when the evil spirit was upon
Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his
hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the
evil spirit departed from him. — 1 SAM. xvi. 23.
1 Acts xxviii. 25-27 ; Bom. xi. 8. 2 1 Cor. ii. 14 ; John iii. 19.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 101
A solemn air, the best comforter
To an unsettled fancy.
THE TEMPEST. Act v. Scene I.
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for a time doth change his nature.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
Act v. Scene 1.
Preposterous ass ! that never read so far
To know the cause why music was ordained :
Was it not to refresh the mind of man,
After his studies or his usual pain ?
TAMING OF THE SHREW.
Act in. Scene 1.
This music crept by me upon the waters ;
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air.
THE TEMPEST. Act i. Scene 2.
For Orpheus' lute was strung with poet's sinews ;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones.
Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
Act in. Scene 2.
Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops, that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing ;
102 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
To his music, plants, and flowers
Ever spring; as sun and showers,
There had been a lasting spring.
Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by, —
In sweet music is such art :
Killing care, and grief of heart,
Fall asleep, or, hearing, die.
KING HENRY VIII.
Act in. Scene 1.
LXXIX.
THE VALUE OF A GOOD NAME.
A good name is rather to be chosen than great
riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.1
PROV. xxii. 1.
Good name in man and woman
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash ; 't is something,
nothing ;
JTwas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thou-
sands ;
1 Luke x. 20.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 103
But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
OTHELLO. Act in. Scene 1.
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation ; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
KING EICHARD II. Act i. Scene 1.
LXXX.
OLD AGE VEKEKABLE.
Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and
honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God.1
LEV. xix. 32.
The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found
in the way of righteousness.2 — PROV. xvi. 31.
Silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,
And buy men's voices to commend our deeds.
JULIUS C^ISAR. Act ii. Scene 1.
1 Gen. xxxi. 35; Eph. ?i. 1-3. 2 Prov. xx. 29.
104< BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Old folks have discretion, as they say, and know the
world. — MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Act n. Scene 2.
Youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears,
Than settled age his sables, and his weeds
Importing health and graveness.
HAMLET. Act iv. Scene 7.
LXXXI.
GOD'S BLESSING ON PEACEMAKEES.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called
the children of God.1 — MATT. v. 9.
It is an honour for a man to cease from strife.2
PROV. xx. 3.
God's benison go with you ; and with those
That would make good of bad, and friends of foes.
MACBETH. Act n. Scene 4.
1 2 Cor. xiii. 11 ; Phil. ii. 14, 15; Kom. xii. 18.
2 Gen. xiii. 8; James iii. 17, 18.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 105
LXXXIL
THE PEAYERS OF THE WICKED
INEFFECTUAL,
Now we know that God heareth not sinners.1
JOHN ix. 31.
If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not
hear me.2— Ps. Ixvi. 18.
For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he
hath gained, when God taketh away his soul? Will
God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him 1 3
JOB xxvii. 8, 9.
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide
mine eyes from you ; yea, when ye make many prayers,
I will not hear : your hands are full of blood.4
Is. i. 15.
The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows ;
They are polluted springs, more abhorr'd
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
TEOILUS AND CRESSIDA. Act v. Scene 3.
1 Prov. xv. 8, 29 ; James iv. 3.
2 Is. lix. 2 ; Matt, xxiii. 14.
3 Jer. xi. 11 ; Ezek. viii. 18 ; Zee. vii. 13.
4 Prov. xxviii. 9; Jer. xiv. 12; James v. 16; 1 John iii. 22.
106 BIBLE TFJJTHS, WITH
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
HAMLET. Act in. Scene 3.
LXXXIII.
QUAEEELS SHOULD BE LEFT TO GOD.
Say not, I will do to him as he hath done to me.
PEOV. xxiv. 29.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather
give place unto wrath : for it is written, Vengeance is
mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.1 — EOM. xii. 19.
His disciples James and John said, Lord,
wilt thou that we command fire to come down from
heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But he
turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not
what manner of spirit ye are of.2 — LUKE ix. 54, 55.
Say not thou, I will recompense evil ; but wait on
the Lord, and he shall save thee.3 — PROV. xx. 22.
God will be avenged for the deed ;
Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm ;
1 Lev. xix. 18; Gen. xlix. 5-7 ; 1 Sam. xxiv. 17.
2 1 Pet. ii. 21-23; Matt. v. 44.
3 1 Tim. v. 15; Matt. v. 38, 39.
SHAKSPEAKEAN PARALLELS. 107
He needs no indirect nor lawless course
To cut off those who have offended him.
KING EICHAED III. Act i. Scene 4.
Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven,
Who, when he sees the hours ripe on earth,
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.
KING EICHAED II. Act i. Scene 2.
LXXXIV.
THE TEIUMPH OF EELIGION IN AFFLICTION.
My flesh and my heart faileth : but God is the
strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.1
Ps. Ixxiii. 26.
0 Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my
refuge in the day of affliction.2 — JER. xvi. 19.
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.3
JOB xiii. 15.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for thou art with
me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.4
Ps. xxiii. 4.
1 Lam. iii. 24 ; Ps. cxix. 57. 2 Ps. xlvi. 1 ; Is. xxxi. 1,2.
3 Kom. viii. 38, 39 ; 2 Tim. iv. 6-8 ; Prov. xiv. 32.
4 Is. xliii. 2 ; 1 Cor. xv. 55.
108 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Now God be praised ! that to believing souls
Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
KING HENKY VI. (2d part).
Act ii. Scene 1.
LXXXY.
HYPOCRISY IN DEVOTIOK
This people draw 3th nigh unto me with their
mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their
heart is far from me.1 — MATT. xv. 8.
There is a generation that are pure in their own
eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.2
PROV. xxx. 12.
Two men went up into the temple to pray ; the
one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Phari-
see stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank
thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, un-
just, adulterers, or even as this publican.3
LUKE xviii. 10, 11.
Ye are they which justify yourselves before men ;
but God knoweth your hearts.4 — LUKE xvi. 15.
1 Is. Iviii. 1-3 ; Tit. i. 16.
2 Acts viii. 21 ; Rev. iii. 2 ; Prov. xxiii. 26.
3 Is. i. 15; Rev. iii. 17, 18 ; 2 Tim. iii. 5.
4 1 Sam. xvi. 7; Jer. xvii. 10; Matt, xxiii. 25.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 109
'T is too much proved, that with devotion's visage,
And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The devil himself. — HAMLET. Act in. Scene 1.
Oh, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side !
MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
Act in. Scene 2.
God knows, of pure devotion.
KING HENRY VI. (2dpart).
Act ii. Scene I.
LXXXVI.
PRACTICE BETTEE THAN PRECEPT.
Let us not love in word, neither in tongue ; but in
deed, and in truth. — 1 JOHN iii. 18.
Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only,
deceiving your own selves.1 — JAMES i. 22.
See that thou come
Not to woo honour, but to wed it.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
Act ii. Scene 1.
1 Matt. vii. 21 ; Luke xi. 28 ; John xiii. 17 ; Rom. ii. 13.
110 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
LXXXVII.
HEEOISM OF SELF-GOVEENMENT.
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty :
and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a
city.1 — PROV. xvi. 32.
Brave conquerors ! for so you are
That war against your own affections,
And the huge army of the world's desires.
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. Act i. Scene 1.
Better conquest never canst thou make
Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts
Against these giddy, loose suggestions.
KING JOHN. Act in. Scene 1.
LXXXVIII.
DUTY OF SELF-EXAMINATION.
Examine yourselves. — 2 COR. xiii. 5.
Let a man examine himself ; for if we would judge
ourselves, we should not be judged. — 1 COR. xi. 28, 31.
1 Prov. xix. 11 ; 1 Sam. xxv. 32, 33; Eev. ii. 7.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. Ill
If a man think himself to be something, when he
is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man
prove his own work.1 — GAL. vi. 3, 4.
O that you would turn your eyes towards the napes
of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your
good selves.* — CORIOLANUS. Act u. Scene 1.
Go to your bosom :
Knock there.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act IT. Scene 2.
LXXXIX.
SELF-PRAISE UNSEEMLY.
Let another man praise thee, and not thine own
mouth ; a stranger, and not thine own lips.
PROV. xxvii. 2.
For men to search their own glory is not glory.'
PROV. xxv. 27.
1 Lam. iii. 40 ; Ps. Ixxvii. 6.
2 Gen. xi. 4; Dan. iv. 30 ; Phil. ii. 3 ; John v. 44 ; James v. 16.
* "With allusion," says Johnson, " to the fable which tells
us that every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he
puts his neighbours' faults ; and another behind him, in which
he stows his own."
112 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
If that the praised himself brings forth the praise.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. Act i. Scene 3.
tl
He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own
glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle ; and what-
ever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in
the praise. — TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. Act 11. Scene 3.
We wound our modesty, and make foul the clear-
ings of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish
them.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. Act i. Scene 3.
It is the witness still of excellency,
To put a strange face on his own perfection.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Act n. Scene 3.
XC.
SIMPLICITY OF A CHAEITABLE SPIRIT.
(Charity) thinketh no evil. — 1 COR. xiii. 5.
Whose nature is so far from doing harms,
That he suspects none.
v KING LEAR, Act i. Scene 2.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 113
XCI.
KESISTANCE OF SIK
Eesist the devil, and he will flee from you.1
JAMES iv. 7.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this ;
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on ; refrain to-night,
And that will lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence ; the next more easy,
For use can almost change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency.
HAMLET. Act in. Scene 4.
XCIL
A SPECIAL PKOVIDESTCE.
Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not,
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your
heavenly Father feedeth them.2 — MATT. vi. 26.
1 Epb. iv. 27 ; 1 Pet. v. 8, 9 ; Epb. \i. 11. 2 Luke xii. 24.
I
114 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing 1 and one
of them shall not fall on the ground without your
Father.— MATT. x. 29.
Who provideth for the raven his food.1
JOB xxxviii. 41.
There is a special providence in the fall of a spar-
row.— HAMLET. Act v. Scene 2.
He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age !
As You LIKE IT. Act n. Scene 3.
XCIII.
DECEIT.
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter,
but war was in his heart : his words were softer than
oil, yet were they drawn swords.2 — Ps. Iv. 21.
Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the
workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neigh-
bours, but mischief is in their hearts. — Ps. xxviii. 3.
1 Ps. cxlvii. 8, 9 ; civ. 27. 2 Matt. xxvi. 49 ; Prov. xii. 18.
SHAKSPEAREAN PARALLELS. 115
They bless with, their mouth, but they curse in-
wardly.— Ps. Ixii. 4.
Some that smile have in their hearts, I fear,
Millions of mischief.
JULIUS C^SAE. Act iv. Scene 1.
Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice.
KING EICHARD III. Act n. Scene 2.
My tables — meet it is, I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
HAMLET. Act i. Scene 5.
Thou art like the harpy,
Which, to betray, doth wear an angel's face,
Seize with an eagle's talons.
PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. Act iv. Scene 4.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.*
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek :
A goodly apple rotten at the heart :
0, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
Act i. Scene 3.
* As in Matt. iv. 6.
116 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
XCIV.
PENITENCE SHOULD SATISFY ALL.
If thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him
his fault between thee and him alone : if he shall hear
thee, thou hast gained thy brother.1
MATT, xviii. 15.
\
If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him;
and if he repent, forgive him.2 — LUKE xvii. 3.
Who by repentance is not satisfied ?
Is nor of heaven, nor earth ; for these are pleased ;
By penitence the Eternal's wrath 's appeas'd.
Two GENTLEMEN OF VEKONA. Act v. Scene 4.
Not to relent, is beastly, savage, devilish.
KING HENRY VIII Act i. Scene 4.
XCV.
OATHS.
Swear not at all. But let your communication
be, Yea, yea ; Nay, nay ; for whatsoever is more than
these cometh of evil. — MATT. v. 34, 37.
1 Luke xix. 17. 2 Ps. cxli. 5; James v. 20.
SHAKSPEAEEAN PAEALLELS. 117
Let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye
fall into condemnation. — JAMES v. 12.
Tis not the many oaths that make the truth;
But the plain single vow, that is vow'd true.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
Act iv. Scene 2.
What other oath
Than honesty to honesty engaged,
That this shall be, or we will fall for it 1
Swear priests, and cowards, and men catelous,*
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs ; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt ; but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,
Nor the insuppressive metal of our spirits,
To think, that or our cause or our performance,
Did need an oath.
JULIUS CAESAR. Act ii. Scene 2.
I'll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath ;
Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both.
PERICLES, PRINCE OP TYRE.
Act i. Scene 2.
* Deceitful.
118 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
XCVI.
SATANIC SUBTILTY.
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.1
2 COR. xi. 14.
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of
the field which the Lord God had made.2 — GEN. iii. 1.
That old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which
deceiveth the whole world. — REV. xii. 9.
Devils soonest tempt, resembling Spirits of Light.
LOVE'S LABOUR ;s LOST. Act iv. Scene 3.
The devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape.
HAMLET. Act u. Scene 2.
When devils will their blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.
TIMON OF ATHENS. Act n. Scene 3.
Oh cunning enemy, that to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook ! Most dangerous
1 Job ii. 1. 2 2 Cor. xi. 3.
SHATCSPEAEEAN PAEALLELS. 119
Is that temptation, that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue.*
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act n. Scene 2.
Oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.
MACBETH. Act i. Scene 3.
0, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal !
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Act iv. Scene 1.
Let 7s write good angel on the devil's horn,
'T is not the devil's crest.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Act n. Scene 4.
XCYII.
IDOLATRY.
They worship the work of their own hands, that
which their own fingers have made.1 — Is. ii. 8.
* There is no vice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
MERCHANT or VENICE. Act in. Scene 2.
1 Hosea viii. 6.
120 BIBLE TRUTHS, WITH
For health, he calleth upon that which is weak ;
for life, prayeth to that which is dead ; for aid, humbly
beseecheth that which hath least means to help ; and
for a good journey he asketh of that which cannot set
a foot forward; and for gaining and getting, and for
good success of his hands, asketh ability to do of him
that is most unable to do any thing.
WISDOM xiii. 18, 19.
'T is mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god.
TEOILUS AND CRESSIDA. Act n. Scene 2.
XCYIII.
TEMPTATION TO BE AVOIDED.
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.1
MATT. xxvi. 41.
Abstain from all appearance of evil.2
1 THESS. v. 22.
Jesus answered and said, Get thee behind me,
Satan. — LUKE iv. 8.
1 1 Pet. v. 8; Eph. vi. 18. 2 Rom. xiv. 21.
SHAKSPEAREAN PAEALLELS. 121
Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not
in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn
from it, and pass away.1 — PKOV. iv. 14, 15.
My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
PKOV. i. 10.
Come out from among them, and be ye separate,
saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.
2 COK. vi. 17.
He is no man on whom perfections wait,
That knowing sin within will touch the gate.
PERICLES, PKINCE OP TYRE.
Act i. Scene 1.
lie in the lap of sin, and not mean harm 1
It is hypocrisy against the devil ;
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt
heaven. — OTHELLO. Act iv. Scene 1.
Satan avoid ! I charge thee tempt me not.
COMEDY OF ERRORS. Act iv. Scene 3.
'T is not for gravity to play at cherrypit with Satan.
TWELFTH NIGHT. Act in. Scene 4.
1 Ps. i. 1, 2; Eph. v. 11.
122 BIBLE TRUTHS, ETC.
Do not give dalliance
Too much the rein ; the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i' the blood. — TEMPEST. Act iv. Scene 1.
Sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,
Presuming on their chainful potency.*
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. Act iv. Scene 4.
XCIX.
THE DANGEK OF AN UNGOVEKNED
TONGUE.
The wicked is snared by the transgression of his
lips.1 — PROV. xii. 13.
The lips of a fool will swallow up himself.2
ECCLES. x. 12.
Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue, keepeth
his soul from troubles. — PROV. xxi. 23.
Many a man's tongue shakes out his master's un-
doing.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. Act n. Scene 4.
* How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds,
Makes deeds ill done !
KING JOHN. Act iv. Scene 2.
1 2 Sam. i. 2-16 ; Dan. vi. 7, 8, 24. 2 Luke xix. 22 ; Job xv. 6.
SHAKSPEAEE'S ALLUSIONS
TO
SCEIPTUEE CHAEACTEES, INCIDENTS, ETC.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.
He alludes to Herod, in Henry V., act iii., sc. 3 ; in
Antony and Cleopatra, act i., sc. 2 ; twice in act
iii., sc. 3 of the same play ; also in act iii., sc.
6, and act iv., sc. 6, and in Hamlet, act iii.,
scene 2.
To Pilate, in King Eichard II., act iv., sc. 1 ; and
King Eichard III, act i., sc. 4.
To Judas, in Love's Labour 's Lost, act v., sc. 2 ; As
You Like It, act iii., sc. 4 ; King Eichard II.,
act iii., sc. 2 ; and act iv., sc. 1 ; and in King
Henry VI. (3d part), act v., sc. 7.
To Barrabas, in the Merchant of Venice, act iv., sc. 1.
To the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, in King
Eichard II., act iv., sc. 1 ; in King Henry IV.
(1st part), act iv., sc. 2, and act iii., sc. 3 of the
same play.
124 SHAKSPEARE'S ALLUSIONS TO
To the Parable of the Prodigal Son, in the Merry
Wives of Windsor, act iv., sc. 5 ; in the Comedy
of Errors, act iv., sc. 3 ; in King Henry IV. (1st
part), act iv., sc. 2 ; in As You Like It, act i., sc.
1 ; and in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, act ii.,
sc. 3.
To the Legion of Devils, in Twelfth Night, act iii., sc.
4 j and in the Merchant of Venice, act i., sc. 3.
To Golgotha, in Macbeth, act i., sc. 2 ; and in King
Eichard II., act iv., sc. 1.
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
He alludes to Adam, twice in Much Ado about
Nothing, act ii., sc. 1 ; in Love's Labour 's Lost,
act iv., sc. 2 ; in As You Like It, act ii., sc. 1 ;
in the Comedy of Errors, act iv., sc. 3 ; in King
Henry IV. (1st part), act iii., sc. 3 ; in King
Henry V., act i., sc. 1 ; in King Henry VI (2d
part), act iv., sc. 2 ; and twice in Hamlet, act v.,
sc. 1.
To Adam and Eve, in Love's Labour's Lost, act v., sc.
2 ; and in King Eichard II., act iii., sc. 4.
To Eve, in Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iii., sc. 1 ;
Merry Wives of Windsor, act iv., sc. 2 ; Twelfth
Night, act i., sc. 5 ; and in Love's Labour 's Lost,
act i., sc. 1.
To Cain, in Love's Labour 's Lost, act iv., sc. 2 ; King
John, act iii., sc. 4 ; King Eichard II., act v., sc.
6 ; King Henry IV. (2d part), act i., sc. 1 ; King
SCKIPTUKE CHARACTERS, ETC. 125
Henry VI. (1st part), act i., sc. 3 ; Hamlet, act
v., sc. 1.
To Abel, King Kichard II., act 1, sc. 1 j King Henry
VI. (1st part), act i., sc. 3.
To Abraham, twice in the Merchant of Venice, act i.,
sc. 3,
To Jacob, five times in the Merchant of Venice, act i.,
sc. 3 ; and once in act ii., sc. 5, of the same play.
To Japheth, in King Henry IV. (2d part), act ii., sc. 2.
To Hagar, in the Merchant of Venice, act ii., sc. 5.
To Laban, twice in the Merchant of Venice, act i., sc. 3.
To Noah, in Twelfth Mght, act iii., sc. 2.
To the Flood, in the Comedy of Errors, act iii., sc. 2.
To the Beasts entering the Ark, in As You Like It, act
v., sc. 4.
To Pharaoh's Soldiers, in Much Ado about Nothing,
act iii., sc. 3.
To Pharaoh's Lean Kine* King Henry IV. (1st part),
act ii., sc. 4.
To the manner of Sisera's death, in the Tempest, act
iii, sc. 2.
To Job, in King Henry IV. (2d part), act i., sc. 2.
To Job and his Wife, in Merry Wives of Windsor, act
v., sc. 5.
* Stevens says that the following lines from Hamlet, act iii.,
sc. 4, contain an allusion to Pharaoh's dream, in Gen. xli. : —
Look you now, what follows :
Here is your husband ; like a mildew 'd ear,
Blasting Ms wholesome brother.
But the allusion is a little obscure, and may be questioned.
126 SHAKSPE ARE'S ALLUSIONS TO
To Daniel, in the Merchant of Venice, act iv., sc. 1.
To Nebuchadnezzar, in All 's Well that Ends Well, act
iv., sc. 5.
To Samson, in Love's Labour ;s Lost, act i., sc. 2.
To Samson and Goliath, in King Henry VI. (1st part),
act i., sc. 2.
To Goliath, in Merry Wives of Windsor, act v., sc. 1.
To Deborah* in King Henry VI. (1st part), act i., sc. 2.
To Jezebel, in Twelfth Mght, act ii., sc. 5.
To Jephthah, in Hamlet, act ii., sc. 2; and in King
Henry VI. (2d part), act iii., sc. 2.
To David, in King Henry IV. (2d part), act iii., sc. 2.
To Ahithophel, in King Henry IV. (2d part), act i.,
sc. 2.
To Solomon, in Love's Labour 's Lost, act i., sc. 2, and
act iv., sc. 3.
To the Queen of Sheba, in King Henry VIII., act v.,
sc. 4.t
I have collected these Allusions in order to illus-
trate more fully the frequency and facility with which
Shakspeare was in the habit of referring to such sub-
jects, and to shew with what extreme readiness they
offered themselves to his mind and pen; arguing, as
they do, a familiarity with the Bible not very common
in any case, and, in his particular arena, most singu-
* Not Kebekah's nurse, but Deborah the prophetess,
f Shakspeare also alludes to several characters of the Apocry-
phal books which I have not included in the above.
SCEIPTUKE CHARACTERS, ETC. 127
larly exceptional. Besides these, there are still a great
number of passages in his writings, although not
quotable either as parallels or as direct allusions, that
nevertheless, by some peculiarity of phrase or figure,
distinctly reveal a biblical source, or suggest at once
some biblical equivalent. Take, for example, the
following from "All's Well that Ends Well," act ii.,
sc. 1, where Helena, the daughter of a famous physi-
cian, in trying to persuade the King of France to try
the remedy she possesses for the cure of his disease,
pleads the following arguments in defence of her youth
and seeming inexperience : —
He that of greatest works is finisher,
Oft does them by the weakest minister ;
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
When judges have been babes. Great floods have
flown
From simple sources ; and great seas have dried
When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises ; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits.
What a comprehensive ramification of biblical al-
lusion do these few words contain. The first lines call
to mind at once the text in 1st Corinthians — " God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound
the things that are mighty." Then in the next lines
we are reminded of Matthew xxi. 16 — "Out of
the mouths of babes," etc., and in the words, "When
judges have been babes," of the child-prophet Samuel,
128 BIBLICAL TONE OF
and of the youthful Daniel judging the two elders. In
the next sentence we have a hint of Moses' miracle in
Horeb (Exodus xvii.), and in the passage, " Great seas
have dried/' etc., reference is made to the children of
Israel passing through the Red Sea, when the power by
which such miracles were wrought was denied by " the
greatest," evidently alluding in this case to Pharaoh.
But, although such numerous allusions undeniably
prove a most intimate and ready acquaintance with the
Bible, it is not the literal evidence these afford, so much
as the general tone and morality of the works of Shak-
speare that reveal the eminently scriptural tendency of
his genius. The letter in many cases yields but a
doubtful testimony. Shakspeare himself tells us that
even " the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose," and
it is not so much in these verbal proofs, as in the purely
scriptural character of his exalted philosophy that the
most conclusive evidence of this distinguishing tendency
is shown. Outside the Scriptures themselves there is
no more eloquent exponent of divine truth than he ; and
so comprehensive is the range of his intelligence in this
specialty of his many-sided power, that there is scarcely
a valuable truth in the wide field of moral philosophy
the Scriptures unfold, he has not wielded with the over-
whelming power which genius only can, and illustrated
with that colossal breadth of utterance which is his,
and his alone.
x One of the greatest attractions in the biblical tone
of his philosophy, arises from its being so eminently
characterized by those influences which flow more im-
SHAKSPEARE'S MORALITY. 129
mediately from Christian sources, and from the fact
of its never sinking to the dead level of that respect-
able pagan morality which constituted the greater
part of the philosophy of his classical times, and, un-
fortunately, still continues to hold its place in a great
deal of the morality, and more especially of the preached
morality of our own. In our own day, however, it is
unquestionably exhibiting symptoms of a steady decline.
The regular trade article in morality has not the ready
market it once had, and is not listened to with anything
like the same degree of patience. The dispensers of
these " beggarly elements " of philosophy have almost
had their day ; the age has out-grown them, and ex-
hibits a daily increasing impatience of their distressing
unfitness. Perhaps they will not be much longer
wanted. In these times of miraculous mechanical con-
trivance, I live in daily expectation that some moral
Babbage will invent a machine, something of the nature
of the calculating hand-organ of his name, which, with
every revolution, shall evolve these respectable old tru-
isms, with a corollary of appropriate reflections to each,
so many in the minute, that will effectually supersede
the flesh and blood apparatus now in use for that pur-
pose. Such an invention would not only save the
conscientious hearer that harassing irritation that arises
between the duty of listening and the difficulty of list-
ening to any profit, but it would save the speaker also
the moral twinge that, in every honest man, must ac-
company the heartless reiteration of such barren
twaddle.
K
130 BIBLICAL TONE OF
} to
But to return to our subject : it is impossible to
find any of this ready-made article in Shakspeare. You
never detect his morality arranged in graceful folds
about him for purposes of exhibition ; far less in any
case in the shape of mere literary padding. As you
read you feel that it is in the blood and bone ; that his
philosophy and he have indeed " grown together," and
that their parting would be " a tortured body."
The peculiarly Christian spirit I have referred to as
leavening his whole philosophy is everywhere observ-
able in the fondness with which, through the medium
of his nobler characters, he produces in endless change
of argument and imagery, illustrations of that wisdom
which is "first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy
to be entreated." In his allusions to the Almighty, he
delights in those attributes that more particularly repre-
sent him in the character of his New Testament title of
of " The God of Peace ; " and between man and man
would rather inculcate the humanizing doctrine of for-
giveness, and recommend the " quality of mercy," than
the rugged justice of the " eye for eye and tooth for
tooth " morality of the first dispensation. With what
tenderness, and yet with what power he advocates, in
innumerable passages, those virtues which more im-
mediately grow from the seed sown in the Christian
revelation ; of that gentle spirit that " seeketh not her
own."
" That hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day for melting charity."
Of Forgiveness : the forgiveness that, carrying the fifth
SEAKSPEARE'S MORALITY. 131
petition of the Lord's Prayer in its heart, can say, " I
pardon him, as God shall pardon me." Of Kindness,
" the cool and temperate wind of grace," " nobler ever
than revenge ; " Kindness, that to help another in
adversity
" Will strain a little,
For 'tis a bond in men."
Of Forbearance, that teaches " To revenge is no valour
but to bear ; " and that
" The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance."
Of Charity ("an attribute to God himself"), that
droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven, upon the
place beneath." Of Peace, that " draws the sweet
infant breath of gentle sleep ; " not the peace, however,
of inaction ; not the maudlin peace at any price of the
half-hearted and timid, for he teaches also that,
" Rightly to be great
Is greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake ;"
but that self-restraining, self-denying, self-victorious
peace ; that peace which
" Is of the nature of a conquest ;
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser."
Of Pity " that's a degree * to love." Of Compassion
* Kelation.
132 BIBLICAL TONE OF
that hates " the cruelty that loads a falling man," and
tells us
" Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after."
And again, of the duty of charitable judging, a duty so
emphatically prominent in New Testament morality,
where can we find a more pointed and more powerfully
beautiful rendering of the text " Judge not lest ye be
judged," than in the following passage from " Measure
for Measure" — words that might arrest an unkind
speech on the very lips, sending it back " as deep as to
the lungs."
" How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are ? 0, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.'1
On the other hand, there is scarcely a vice he has
not helped to make more repugnant, and which he has
not gibbeted in its turn. On this side of the question
he utters no uncertain sound, nor ever incurs the woe
the prophet threatens " unto them that call evil good
and good evil." For although possessing above all men
the power to " season with a gratious voice," he never
uses it to " obscure the show of evil," but with a rhetoric
that gives no quarter, and that in some cases would be
inexcusably coarse, except upon the plea of his own
proverb, that " diseases desperate grown " are only to be
remedied by "desperate appliance," he attacks the enemy
with the zeal of a reformer. With a matter of fact liter-
SHAKSPE ARE'S MORALITY. 133
ality of power and purpose, that disarms vice at all points
of the delusive fascination that surrounds it, and strips
all falsehood of its dangerous plausibility : —
" The seeming truth which cunning times put on,
To entrap the wisest."
With a magic eloquence that dissolves " into thin air "
every argument that would attempt to
" Hide the grossness with fair ornament,"
and with an utter scorn and repudiation of the self-
deceiving and exculpatory logic that would " skin the
vice o' the top," he drags it to the light of day, and ex-
hibits the monster in all its native hideousness, with
" the primal eldest curse uponV One after another,
in dismal procession, he leads the culprits out, to take
their place in a pillory-that will last as long as language,
making them hateful in a single line, sometimes in
a single epithet, " Leanfaced Envy ; " " Back- wounding
Calumny;" "Tiger-footed Kage;" "Vaulting Ambi-
tion " (" by that sin angels fell ") ; " Viperous Slander/'
" whose tongue out- venoms all the worms of Nile ; "
Jealousy, " The Green-eyed Monster ; " Ingratitude,
"The Marble-hearted Fiend," and that most heinous
form of it, " Filial Ingratitude," he puts in its perfect
place in these two lines : —
" Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand,
For lifting food to't?"
" Avarice," the " ambitious foul infirmity/' that " Grows
with such pernicious root."
134 BIBLICAL TONE OF
The Deceitfulness
" Which to betray doth wear an angel's face,
Seize with an eagle's talons."
The relentless Implacability that is " beastly, savage,
devilish." The deep Duplicity that can "smile and
smile and be a villian." The Hypocrisy, that " with
devotion's visage, and pious action," can " sugar o'er the
devil himself."
The eloquent power with which Shakspeare repro-
duces the leading truths of Scripture, tells with what
terrible effect — "sharper than a two-edged sword" —
they must have entered his own soul ; and not entering
merely, but taking sternest possession, and " bringing
into captivity every thought" to their obedience.
Judging, indeed, from his works, never did the
seed fall in more fertile ground, producing and re-
producing flowers, fruit, and seed again " an hundred-
fold," and in a form so catching and so easy of re- dis-
tribution, that no doubt many a chance wind, acting
unconsciously as God's missionary, has carried stray
seeds of his genius far into the waste places of the
earth, and permeating the crowded and almost inacces-
sible centres of those moral deserts called civilized, must
have cheered and re-established in hope many a poor
neglected heart that, but for him, had scarcely heard of
the good seed at all.
Some of his most eloquent passages exhibit in a re-
markable degree that invaluable power, which seems to
belong exclusively to genius, and most eminently to his,
SHAKSPEARE'S MORALITY. 135
of impressing us with those truths, which, from their
universally acknowledged importance, have at length
sunk by their extreme triteness into the most vapid of
common-places; so utterly "flat, stale, and unprofit-
able " as almost to have ceased impressing us at all.
Truths that are old enough to have come in with the
light from chaos, and have been the common property
of philosophers ever since ; truths that in modem times
are handed about, and looked upon rather in the light
of interesting moral fossils, than calculated in any way
to fill a useful office in life, and that, no doubt, if there
is any truth in the theory of the extreme antiquity of
the race, must have constituted the principal stock-in-
trade of the pre-Adamite moralist, if that interesting
variety of the genus homo was then developed. These
fossiliferous cake-dried axioms, that in common hands
have almost ceased to retain any organic feature, with
one touch from the genius of Shakspeare start into new
life, shake off the trammels of prescribed form, and walk
forth again in the proportions of nature. And, although,
in many cases he takes his text from the homeliest of
every-day reflections, his morality never flattens into
preaching, his advice is never obtrusive, his rebuke
never degenerates into mere railing, his sentiment never
sickens into sentimentality. The old gray-haired re-
flections that wag their heads and their tongues in stereo-
typed phrase over such subjects as the " swiftness of
time," the " shortness of life," the " danger of delay,"
and such like ; subjects that have served the purposes
of philosophers and moralists so long, that it is all but
136 BIBLICAL TONE OF
impossible to say anything new about them that is true
or true that is new ; these he clothes with such fresh-
ness and rejuvenescence, and launches with such
emphasis and originality that they strike again as if for
the first time.
Truths of a more purely religious nature he touches
with the simple reverence of one who feels that he is
handling sacred things, and he never loses an oppor-
tunity of bringing their higher influence to bear on the
ordinary conduct of life. Amongst those zealous bio-
graphers of Shakspeare who have laboured to shew
what employment or profession he was educated for,
and what office in life he was originally intended to
fill (from evidence afforded by particular passages in
his works, such as those quoted by Malone, and con-
curred in by Collier, as tending to prove he must have
studied for the law, or such as many other of his bio-
graphers have brought forward in support of the various
professions they severally contend for), I have often
wondered that no ingenious critic should ever have at-
tempted to shew that he must have been intended for
the church.
Certainly the theory would not be any more absurd
than some of those that have been already argued, and
innumerable passages might be quoted from his works
in support of it, that would not require half the racking
to make them fit, that some of them have been subjected
to for similar purposes.
It is indeed impossible to peruse his works with-
out the reflection being repeatedly forced upon one, that
ue,
SHAKSPEARE'S MOKALITY. 137
if the world in him has gained its greatest dramatist, it
has at least lost a divine — perhaps the divinest.
Jeremy Taylor has been called u The Shakspeare of
the Church," and probably he of all others best deserves
the compliment. Yet, putting them both together, and
honestly looking " upon this picture and on that," it is
impossible but to admit that the good bishop suffers
considerably — as indeed, who does not ? — by such a
comparison. If Shakspeare's mind is at all reflected in
his works ; if in them, he has, in his own phrase,
" Set us up a glass
Where we can see the inmost part of him,"
he has certainly revealed a moral genius, whose un-
paralleled force, and almost inconceivable fecundity, has
lifted him out of all comparison with any other writer,
divine or otherwise, and in fact has exhibited "material "
enough ( " not to speak it profanely " ) to furnish a whole
Upper House of ordinary bishops.
Of his other general gifts, had they been developed
in that direction, whose eloquence could have been more
powerful than his, " to stir men's blood," and awaken
the " capability and god-like reason " to clearer concep-
tions of its highest interests ?
To whose more gifted tongue could with greater
power have been committed the " oracles of God 1" with
eloquence like his to such a " cause conjoined."
" Preaching to stones
Would make them capable."
138 BIBLICAL TONE OF
What voice more tenderly fitted than his — " in words
that rob the Hybla bees, and leave them honeyless " —
to teach the sweet " uses of adversity ? " to
" Speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow ; "
or to commend the efficacy and " twofold force " of
prayer —
" To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardoned being down."
Or, turning from the amenities of the gospel to the
frowning terrors of the law, who could have wielded
the sword of the Spirit with more terrible effect than
he? Never did any writer bring nearer to the con-
sciences of men those influences which reach us from
" that undiscovered country/' the world of spirits ; or
urge with greater force those wholesome restraints that
grow out of " a dread of something after death ; " whilst
in the shuddering glimpses he gives us of the torments
of a horrible hereafter, "the secrets of the prison-house "
are revealed to us, and rendered with such terrific
effect as to turn all the fire and brimstone eloquence of
ordinary preaching into the merest pyrotechny and in-
effectual cracker. Who again teaches us the dread
lessons of all-eloquent death, —
" Last scene of all,
That ends life's strange eventful history,"
in more impressive language than he] that "fell arrest
without all bail," which one day will lay hold upon each
SHAKSPEAKE'S MORALITY. 139
one, with its warrant in the name of God, from which
there can be no appeal. Though " we fat all creatures
else," says he, " to fat us, we fat ourselves for maggots."
Do what we can to ward off and postpone the evil day,
it will come in spite of all the cunning and skill we
can bring to bear against it, for he reminds us that, al-
though
" By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death
Will seize the doctor too."
He takes every available opportunity of edging in the
salutary remembrance of the " one event that happeneth
to the righteous and to the wicked, to the clean and to
the unclean ;" giving particular prominence to the fact
that " there is no discharge in that war."
It spares no ranks, and has no respect of persons.
" Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable
service, two dishes but to one table." Let a man have
all the advantages this world can bestow, " on fortune's
cap, the very button," " framed in the prodigality of
nature," and let
" his fame fold in
This orb o' the earth ;"
nevertheless, unto him, as unto all, the day will come,
when
" Two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough."
The objection, however, may be made, that we have
been dwelling altogether upon Shakspeare's virtues,
140 BIBLICAL TONE OF
without once mentioning his faults ; that we have been
drawing attention to his beauties, but have said nothing
about what may be considered objectionable in him.
Yet, of course, it will be admitted, that in collecting
parallels from his works, wherewith to illustrate the
truths of Scripture, it was altogether unavoidable that
the higher side of his philosophy should thereby be ex-
hibited. As for his faults, for although all those who
have made a study of his works, and to whom his wis-
dom is " familiar as household words," will be ready to
say in the language of one of his most eminent con-
temporaries, " I honour his memory on this side idolatry
as much as any man ; " * it would be saying he was
more than human to say he had none, whilst perhaps
the very humanness of his philosophy, so closely coincid-
ing and dovetailing with the innermost experiences of
his fellow-men, is the only satisfactory explanation of
his world-wide fame, and the main secret why "all
men's hearts are his." Most of his shortcomings, how-
ever, will be found on examination to belong more to
the age in which he lived than to the man himself -,
impurities in a great measure contracted from the con-
tagious circumstances through which it was his lot to
pass, and which seem to have oppressed no man so
much as they did Shakspeare himself. For, on com-
paring his works with those of his contemporaries in
the same department of literature, it is impossible not
to be struck with the higher standard of morality, and
* Ben Jonson— Discoveries.
SHAKSPE ARE'S MORALITY. 141
the immeasurably greater purity of his writings. In
his sonnets (the only trustworthy biography of his inner
life) we find him deploring the associations which the
nature of his public calling inevitably drew upon him,
in the following lines : —
" 0, for my sake do you with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Than public means, which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in like the dyer's hand :
Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd ;
Whilst like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eyesell * 'gainst my strong infection,
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend." t
To such as do not deem this a sufficient answer, we
have nothing further to urge, but would only ask a
question in return ; the perfect man, who is he 1 Where
shall we find "the beauty of the world, the paragon
of animals," without the "dram of base;'' the per-
fection
" so absolute
That some impurity doth not pollute,"
the precious metal " unmixed with baser matter."
In the words of the wise king, " Who can say, I
have made my heart clean. I am pure from my sin ? "
* Vinegar. f Sonnet CXI.
142 BIBLICAL TONE OF SHAKSPEARE'S MORALITY.
or who, "before Hamlet's searching query, can do other-
wise than stand silent, " Use every man after his
desert, and who shall 'scape whipping 1 "
It has been said that the best of men at best is but
a man ; so we must even accept Shakspeare on the like
human conditions ; and it is enough, perhaps, to leave
the question here, and keeping our eyes still upon his
virtues, which alone can profit us, to say that, except in
the inspired volume itself, there is no higher, no purer
philosophy; no more exalted conceptions of the Al-
mighty, or of all that is good and beautiful in his uni-
verse ; no keener, shrewder wisdom for men's use ; no
deeper, surer counsels — with "the milk of human
kindness " running audibly through them — for life's
trials ; no wider, larger-hearted sympathy for the whole
human race, than can be found in the writings of
Shakspeare.
PR Brown, James Bucham
3012 Bible truths
B7
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