Trees — Meditation 5
VVOuld any man think to find such rare delicious fruit upon such an unworthy Tree to appearance as this is? I should rather have expected the most delicious fruit from the most handsome and flourishing Trees; but I see I must neither judge the worth of Tree or Men, by their external form and appearance. This is not the first time I have been deceived in judging by that rule; under fair and promising out-sides I have found nothing of worth, and in many deformed despicable bodies, I have found precious richly furnished souls. The sap and juice of this scrubbed Tree is concocted into rare and excellent fruits, while the juice and sap of some other fair, but barren Trees, serves only to keep them from rotting, which is all the use that many souls which dwell in beaut[•]u[•]l bodies serve for; they have (as one says) animam pro sale; their souls are butsalt to their bodies. Or thus, The only use to which their souls do serve Is but like salt, their bodies to preserve.
If God have given me a sound soul, in a sound body, I have a double mercy to bless him for; but whither my body be vigorous and beautiful or not, yet let my soul be so: For as the esteem of this Tree, so the esteem and true honour of every man rises rather from his fruitfulness and usefulness, than from his shape and form.
