Book I. The covetous Man prays for the vain and fuperfluous Prefervation of his Riches; the Ambitious, for Victory, and the Conduct of his Fortune: The Thief calls God to his Affiftance, to deliver him from the Dangers and Difficulties that obftruct his wicked Defigns; or returns him Thanks for the Facility he has met with in cutting a Traveller's Throat. At the Door of the Houfe they are going to ftorm, or break into by Force of a Petard, they fall to Prayers for Succefs, having their Intention and Hopes full of Cruelty, Avarice, and Luxury. Hoc ipfum quo tu Jovis aurem impellere tentas, Well, what you urg'd to Jove before, impart Margaret, Queen of Navarre, tells of a young Prince (who, tho' fhe does not name him, is eafily enough, by his great Quality, to be known,) who going upon an amorous Affignation, to lie with an Advocate's Wife of Paris, his Way thither being thro' a Church, he never paffed that holy Place, going to or returning from this Exercise, but he always kneeled down to pray. What it was he implored the divine Favour for, while his Soul was full of fuch virtuous Meditations, I leave you to judge: This, nevertheless, the Queen inftances for a Teftimony of fingular Devotion. But this is not the only Proof that Women are not very fit to treat of Theological Points. True Prayer, and a religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty God, cannot enter into an impure Soul, which is at that very Inftant fubject to the Dominion of Satan. He who calls God to his Affiftance, whilst he is in a Train of Vice, does Folly of Mankind! They whifper the most execrable Prayers to the Gods, and if any Mortal lend an Ear they are filent, for fear Men should know what they mutter to the Deity.' Perf. Sat, 2. v. 21. does as if a Cut-purfe fhould call a Magiftrate to help him, or like those who bring in the Name of God to the Atteftation of a Lie. Tacito mala vota fufurro Concipimus*. i. e. In Whispers we do guilty Prayers make. Few Men durft publish the fecret Petitions they make to God. Haud cuivis promptum eft, murmurque humilefque fufurros Few from their pious Mumblings dare depart, And this is the Reason why the Pythagoreans would have their Prayers always publick, to be heard by every one, to the End they might not Petition for Things indecent or unjust, as he did, -Clare cum dixit, Apollo, Labra movet metuens audiri: Pulchra Laverna, Who with loud Voice pronounc'd Apollo's Name; • Of Darkness and of Night, my Crimes conceal!' The Gods did feverely punish the wicked Prayers of Oedipus, in granting them; he had prayed, that his Children might, amongst themselves, determine the Succeffion to his Throne by Arms; and was fo miferable, as to fee himself taken Lucan. lib. v. v. 104, 105. + Perfius, Sat. 2, v. Hor. lib. i. epift. 16. v. 59, &c. 6,7. taken at his Word. We are not to pray, that all Things may go as we would have them, but as it fhall please the divine Wifdom. Prayer bow abufed. We seem, in Truth, to make use of our Prayers, as of a Kind of Gibberish, and as thofe do who employ holy Words about Sorceries and magical Operations: And as if we made account, that the Effect of them depended upon the Contexture, Sound and Series of Words, or upon the compofing of the Countenance. For having the Soul contaminated with Concupifcence, not touched with Repentance, or comforted by any late Reconciliation with Almighty God, we go to prefent him fuch Words as the Memory fuggefts to the Tongue, and hope from thence to obtain the Remiffion of our Sins. There is nothing fo eafy, fo mild, and fo favourable as the divine Law; it calls us to it, guilty and abominable as we are; extends its Arms, and receives us into its Bofom, as foul and polluted as we at prefent are, and are like to be for the future. But then, in return, we are to look upon it with a refpectful Eye, we are to receive this Pardon with Thanksgiving, and, for that Inftant at leaft, wherein we addrefs ourfelves to God, to have the Soul forry for its Faults, and at variance with those Paffions, that feduced her to offend him; for neither the Gods, nor good Men (says Plato) will accept the Present of a wicked Man. Immunis aram fi tetigit manus, Farre pio, & faliente mica*. i. e. The pious Off'ring of a Piece of Bread, Hor. lib. iii. Ode 23. v. 17, &c. С НА Р. I CHA P. LVII. Of Age, Age of Cato when he killed Cannot allow of our Way of establishing the duration of Life. I fee that the wife contract it very much, in Comparison of the himself. common Opinion. What (faid the What (faid the younger Cato to those who would stay his Hand from killing himself,) am i now of an Age to be reproached that I go out of the World too foon? And yet he was but forty-eight Years old. He thought that to be a mature and really an advanced Age, confidering how few arrive to it; and they who The natural foothing their Thoughts with I know not what Course of Courfe, which they call natural, promise them- Man's Life. felves fome Years beyond it, could they be privileged from the fatal Accidents, to which every one is by Nature expofed, might have fome Reafon fo to do. What an idle Conceit it is, to expect to die of a meer Decay of Strength, attending extreme old Age, and to propose to ourselves no fhorter Leafe of Life than that, confidering it as a Kind of Death of all others the moft rare and uncommon? We call this only a natural Death, as if it were contrary to Nature, to fee a Man break his Neck with a Fall, be drowned in Shipwreck at Sea; or fnatched away with a Pleurify, or the Plague; and, as if our ordinary Condition of Life did not expofe us to all these Inconveniences. Let us no more flatter ourselves with thefe fine Words: We ought rather, at a venture, to call that nas tural, which is general, common and universal. To die of old Age, is a Death rare, ex- To die of old traordinary and fingular, and therefore by Age, a Thing fo much the lefs natural than the other fingular and Deaths: It is the laft and extremeft Sort of extraordinary. dying: And the more remote from us, 'tis the less to be hoped for. It is indeed the Boundary of Life, beyond I which *Plutarch in the Life of Cate of Utica, ch. 20. Book I. which we are not to pass; and which the Law of Nature has pitched for a Limit not to be exceeded: But it is withal a Privilege fhe is rarely feen to give us to laft till then. It is a Leafe it only grants by particular Favour, perhaps, to one only, in the fpace of two or three Ages: Difcharging him from all the Traverfes and Difficulties fhe had ftrewed in the Mid-way of this long Career. And therefore my Opinion is, that when once forty Years old, we fhould confider our Time of Life, as an Age to which very few arrive: For feeing that Men do not ufually last fo long, it is a Sign that we are pretty well advanced; and fince we have exceeded the Bounds, which make the true Measure of Life, we ought not to expect to go much further. Having escaped fo many Pits of Death, whereinto we have seen fo many other Men to fall, we fhould acknowledge that fo extraordinary a Fortune, as that which has hitherto kept us above Ground beyond the ordinary Term of Life, is not likely to continue long. The Defect of 'Tis a falfe Notion that our very Laws are guilty of, which do not allow that a Man is capable of managing his own Eftate, till he be twenty-five Years old, whereas he will have much ado to manage his Life fo Management of long. Auguftus cut off five Years from the their Eftates. ancient Roman Standard, and declared, that thirty Years was an Age fufficient to be a Judge. Servius Tullius excufed Gentlemen of above forty-feven Years of Age, from the Fatigues of War: Auguftus difmiffed them at forty-five: Tho' methinks it feems a little unreasonable that Men fhould be fent home to their Fire Sides, till fiftyfive or fixty Years of Age. I fhould be of Opinion, that our Vocation and Employment, fhould be as far as poffible extended for the publick Good: But I think it a Fault on the other Hand, that we are not employed foon enough. This Emperor was Arbiter of the whole World at nineteen, and yet would have a Man to be thirty, be'fore he could be fit to bear the loweft Office. the Laws, in making it fo late in Life be fore they admit Men to the * Suetonius in the Life of Auguftus, fe&t. 32. For |