Monday, April 21, 2014
Meditation on a Cock Fight
Joseph Hall (1574-1656), Occasionall Meditations, 3rd ed. (London: Printed by M[iles] F[lesher] for Nathaniel Butter, 1633), pp. 59-63 (XXIIII = Vpon sight of a Cocke fight):
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How fell these Creatures out? Whence grew this so bloudy combat? Heere was neyther old grudge, nor present injurie. What then is the quarrell? Surely nothing but that which should rather unite, and reconcile them; one common Nature; they are both of one feather. I doe not see eyther of them flye upon Creatures of different kinds; but whiles they have peace with al others, they are at war with themselves; the very sight of each other was sufficient provocation. If this be the offence, why doth not each of them fall out with himselfe, since hee hates, and revenges in another, the being of that same which himselfe is?Related posts:
Since Mans sin brought Debate into the World, nature is become a great quarreller.
The seeds of discord were scattered in every furrow of the Creation, & came up in a numberlesse variety of antipathies, whereof yet none is more odious, and deplorable, then those which are betwixt creatures of the same kind. What is this but an image of that woeful hostility which is exercised betwixt us reasonables, who are conjoyned in one common humanity, if not Religion?
We fight with, and destroy each other, more then those creatures that want reason to temper their passions; No beast is so cruel to man, as himselfe; where one man is slain by a beast, ten thousand are slaine by man. What is that war which wee study and practise, but the art of killing? What ever Turkes and Pagans may do, O Lord how long shall this brutish fury arme Christians against each other, whiles even divels are not at enmity with themselves, but accord in wickednesse, why do we men so mortally oppose each other in good?
Oh thou, that art the GOD of Peace, compose the unquiet hearts of men to an happy and universal Concord, and at last refresh our Soules with the multitude of Peace.
