knowledge, (of what ufe or ornament foever,) after it s ER M. is hardly purchased, muft foon be parted with; to be XI. fimple or ignorant will be no great matter of lamentation as those will appear no folid goods, fo these confequently must be only umbra malorum, phantafms, or fhadows of evil, rather than truly or fubftantially fo; (evils created by fancy, and fubfifting thereby; which reason fhould, and time will furely remove;) that in being impatient or difconfolate for them, we are but like children, that fret and wail for the want of petty toys. And for the more real or pofitive sen. Ep. 89. evils fuch as violently affault nature, whofe impreffions no reafon can fo withstand, as to extinguish all diftafte or afflictive sense of them; yet this confideration will aid to abate and affuage them; affording a certain hope and profpect of approaching redress. It is often feen at fea, that men (from unacquaintance with fuch agitations, or from brackish fteams arifing from the falt water) are heartily fick, and discover themselves to be fo by apparently grievous fymptoms; yet no man hardly there doth mind or pity them, because the malady is not fuppofed dangerous, and within a while will probably of itself pafs over; or that however the remedy is not far off; the fight of land, a tafte of the fresh air will relieve them: it is near our cafe: we paffing over this troublesome fea of life; from unexperience, joined with the tenderness of our conftitution, we cannot well endure the changes and croffes of fortune; to be toffed up and down; to fuck in the sharp vapours of penury, difgrace, ficknefs, and the like, doth beget a qualm in our ftomachs; make us nauseate all things, and appear forely diftempered; yet is not our condition fo difmal as it feems; we may grow hardier, and wear out our sense of affliction: however, the land is not far off, and by difembarking hence we fhall fuddenly be discharged of all our moleftations'. It is a common folace of

Θάρσει· πόνε γὰρ ἄκρον ἐκ ἔχει χρόνον. fchyl. apud Plutarch, de Aud. Poet. fub finem.

SER M. grief, approved by wife men, fi gravis, brevis eft; fi XI. longus, levis; if it be very grievous and acute it cannot continue long, without intermiffion or refpite; if it abide long, it is fupportable; intolerable pain is like lightning, it deftroys us, or is itself inftantly deftroyed. However, death at length (which never is far off) will free us; be we never fo much toffed with ftorms of misfortune, that is a fure haven; be we perfecuted with never so many enemies, that is a safe refuge; let what pains or diseases foever infeft us, that is an affured anodynon, and infallible remedy for them all; however we be wearied with the labours of the day, the night will come and cafe us; the grave will become a bed of reft unto us. m Shall I die? I fhall then ceafe to be fick; I fhall be exempted from difgrace; I fhall be enlarged from prifon; I fhall be no more pinched with want; no more tormented with pain. Death is a winter, that as it withers the rofe and lily, fo it kills the nettle and thistle; as it ftifles all worldly joy and pleafure, fo it fuppreffes all care and grief; as it hufhes the voice of mirth and melody, so it ftills the clamours and the fighs of mifery; as it defaces all the world's glory, fo it covers all difgrace, wipes off all tears, filences all complaint, buries all difquiet and discontent. King Philip of Macedon once threatened the Spartans to vex them forely, and bring them into great ftraits; but, anfwered they, can he hinder us from dying"? that indeed is a way of evading

Τὸ μὲν ἀφόρητον ἐξάγει τὸ δὲ χρονίζον φορητόν. Ant. VII. Sect. 33.

Summi doloris intentio invenit finem: nemo poteft valde dolere et diu: fic nos amantiffima noftri natura difpofuit, ut dolorem aut tolerabilem, aut brevem faceret. Sen. Ep. 74.

m Dolore perculfi mortem imploramus, eamque unam, ut miferiarum malorumque terminum, exoptamus. Cic. Confolat.

Moriar? hoc dicis ; definam ægrotare poffe, &c. Sen. Ep. 24. η Αδην ἔχων βοηθὸν, οὐ τρέμω σκιάς.

Eripere vitam nemo non homini poteft; at nemo mortem. Sen.

Trag.

which no enemy can obftruct, no tyrant can debars ER M. men from; they who can deprive of life, and its con- XI. veniences, cannot take away death from them. There

is a place, Job tells us, where the wicked ceafe from Job iii. 17. troubling, and where the weary be at reft: where the prifoners reft together; they hear not the voice of the oppreffor: the fmall and great are there; and the fervant is free from his mafter. It is therefore but holding out a while, and a deliverance from the worst this world can moleft us with fhall of its own accord arrive unto us; in the mean time it is better that we at present owe the benefit of our comfort to reason, than afterward to time; by rational confideration to work patience and contentment in ourselves; and to use the fhortnefs of our life as an argument to fuftain us in our affliction, than to find the end thereof only a natural and neceffary means of our rescue from it. The contemplation of this cannot fail to yield fomething of courage and folace to us in the greateft preffures; thefe tranfient and short-lived evils, if we confider them as fo, cannot appear fuch horrid bugbears, as much to affright or difmay us; if we remember how fhort they are, we cannot esteem them fo great, or fo intolerable P. There be, I must confefs, divers more noble confiderations, proper and available to cure difcontent and impatience. The confidering, that all these evils proceed from God's just will, and wife providence; unto which it is fit, and we upon all accounts are obliged readily to fubmit; that they do ordinarily come from God's goodness, and gracious defign toward us; that they are medicines (although ungrateful, yet wholesome) administered by the Divine Wisdom to prevent, remove, or abate our diftempers of foul, (to allay the tumors of pride, to cool

· Ο μέλλεις τῷ χρόνῳ χαρίζεσθαι, τῦτο τῷ λόγῳ χαρίσαι. Plut. ad Apol. p. 195.

Omnia brevia tolerabilia effe debent, etiamfi magna fint. Cic. Læl. ad fin.

the

XI.

SER M. the fevers of intemperate defire, to roufe us from the lethargy of floth, to ftop the gangrene of bad conscience ;) that they are fatherly corrections, intended to reclaim us from fin, and excite us to duty; that they serve as inftruments or occafions to exercife, to try, to refine our virtue; to beget in us the hope, to qualify us for the reception of better rewards: fuch difcourfes indeed are of a better nature, and have a more excellent kind of efficacy; yet no fit help, no good art, no juft weapon is to be quite neglected in the combat against our fpiritual foes. A pebbleftone hath been fometimes found more convenient than a fword or a fpear to flay a giant. Bafer remedies (by reafon of the patient's conftitution, or circumftances) do fometime produce good effect, when others in their own nature more rich and potent want efficacy. And furely frequent reflections upon our mortality, and living under the fenfe of our lives' frailty, cannot but conduce fomewhat to the begetting in us an indifferency of mind toward all these temporal occurrents; to extenuate both the goods and the evils we here meet with; confequently therefore to compofe and calm our paffions about them.

3. But I proceed to another use of that confideration we speak of emergent from the former, but fo as to improve it to higher purposes. For fince it is ufeful to the diminishing our admiration of these worldly things, to the withdrawing our affections from them, to the flackening our endeavours about them; it will follow that it must conduce alfo to beget an esteem, a defire, a profecution of things conducing to our future welfare; both by removing the obftacles of doing fo, and by engaging us to confider the importance of those things in comparison with these. By removing obftacles, I fay; for while our hearts are poffeffed with regard and paffion toward these present things, there can be no room left in them for refpect and affection toward things future. It is in

our

XI.

xii. 43.

our foul as in the reft of nature; there can be no s ER M. penetration of objects, as it were, in our hearts, nor any vacuity in them; our mind no more than our body can be in feveral places, or tend several ways, or abide in perfect reft; yet fomewhere it will always be; fomewhither it will always go; fomewhat it will ever be doing. If we have a treasure here, (fomewhat Matt.vi. 21. we greatly like and much confide in,) our hearts will be here with it; and if here, they cannot be otherwhere; they will be taken up; they will reft fatisfied; they will not care to feek farther. If we affect worldly glory, and delight in the applause of men, we shall not be fo careful to please God, and feek his favour. If we admire and repofe confidence in riches, it will John v. 44. make us neglectful of God, and diftrustful of his providence: if our mind thirfts after, and fucks in gree- Mat. vi. 24. dily fenfual pleasures, we shall not relish spiritual delights, attending the practice of virtue and piety, or Rom.viii. 5. arifing from good confcience: adhering to, attending upon mafters of fo different, fo oppofite a quality is inconfiftent; they cannot abide peaceably together, they cannot both rule in our narrow breasts; we shall love and hold to the one, hate and despise the other. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not 1 John ii. in him; the love of the world, as the prefent gueft, 15. fo occupies and fills the room, that it will not admit, cannot hold the love of God. But when the heart is discharged and emptied of these things; when we begin to despise them as bafe and vain; to diftaste them as infipid and unfavoury; then naturally will fucceed a defire after. other things promifing a more folid content; and defire will breed endeavour; and endeavour (furthered by God's affiftance always ready to back it) will yield fuch a glimpse and tafte of things, as will fo comfort and fatisfy our minds, that thereby they will be drawn and engaged into a more earneft profecution of them. When, I fay, driving on ambitious projects, heaping up wealth, providing for the flesh, (by reflecting

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