66 66 66 nor more brag if they shine round about his own walls; he that is neither moved with good fortune coming to him, nor going from him; that can look upon another man's lands evenly and pleasedly as "if they were his own, and yet look upon his own, "and use them too, juft as if they were another man's; that neither spends his goods prodigally and like a "fool, nor yet keeps them avaritiously and like a wretch; that weighs not Benefits by weight and "number, but by the mind and circumftances of him "that gives them; that never thinks his Charity expenfive if a worthy perfon be the receiver: he that does nothing for opinion fake, but every thing for "confcience, being as curious of his thoughts as of his actings in Markets and Theatres, and is as much "in awe of himfelt as of a whole affembly; he that "knows God looks on, and contrives his fecret affairs 66 as in the presence of God and his holy Angels; that 66 eats and drinks because he needs it, not that he may "ferve a luft or load his belly; he that his bountiful "and chearful to his friends, and charitable and apt to "forgive his Enemies; that loves his Country, and obeys his Prince, and defires and endeavours no"thing more than that they may do honour to God: This perfon may reckon his life to be the life of a man, and compute his months not by the course of the Sun, but the Zodaick and circle of his Vertues: becaufe thefe are fuch things which fools and children, and birds and beafts cannot have; these are therefore the actions of life, because they are the feeds of immortality. That day in which we have done fome excellent thing, we may as truly reckon to be added to our life, as were the fifteen years to the days of Hezekiah. SECT. SECT. IV. As Confideration of the Mileries of Man's Life. S our Life is very short, fo it is very miferable and therefore it is well it is fhort. God in pity to mankind, left his burthen fhould be infupportable, and his nature an intolerable load, hath reduced our ftate of mifery to an abbreviature; and the greater our mifery is, the lefs while it is like to laft: the forrows of a man's fpirit being like ponderous weights, which by the greatnefs of their burthen make a 1wifter motion, and defcend into the grave to reft and ease our wearied limbs; for then only we fhall fleep quietly, when those fetters are knocked off, which not only bound our fouls in prifon, but also ate the flesh till the very bones opened the fecret garments of their cartilages, difcovering their nakedness and sorrow. & culium. 1. Here is no place to fit down in, but you must Nulla requies rife as foon as you are fet; for we have gnats in our in terris, furgite poftchambers, and worms in our gardens, and spiders quam federiand flies in the Palaces of the greatest Kings. How ts; hic eft lo few men in the World are profperous? What an infi- cus pulicum nite number of flaves and beggars, of perfecuted and oppreffed people fill all corners of the earth with groans, and Heaven it felf with weeping, prayers and fad remembrances? How many Provinces and Kingdoms are afflicted by a violent War, or made defolate by popular difeafes? Some whole Countries are remarked with fatal evils, or periodical fickneffes. Grand Cairo in Egypt feels the Plague every three years returning like a Quartan Ague, and deftroying many thousands of perfons. All the Inhabitants of Arabia the defart are in continual fear of being buried in huge heaps of Sand; and therefore dwell in tents and ambulatory houses, or retire to unfruitful mountains, to prolong an uneafie and wilder life. And all the Countries round about the Adriatick Sea feel fuch violent convulfions by tempefts and intolerable earthquakes, that fometimes whole Cities find a Tomb, Tomb, and every man finks with his own houfe made * Ἔστι καὶ ΣιμΘ- ἄμμΘ, ἐσεῖται Sibyll. Orac. * Divine anger and fhall not all the world again be destroyed by fire? Are there not many thousands that die every night, and that groan and weep fadly every day? But what fhall we think of that great evil which for the fins of men God hath fuffered to poffels the greatest part of Mankind? Most of the men that are now alive, or that have been living for many ages, are fews, Heathens, or Turks: and God was pleafed to fuffer a bafe Epileptick perfon, a villain and a vicious, to fet up a religion which hath filled all the nearer parts of Asia, and much of Africa, and fome parts of Europe; fo that the greatest number of men and women born in fo many Kingdoms and Provinces are infallibly made Mahumetan, ftrangers and enemies to Chrift, by whom alone we can be faved. This confideration is extremely fad, when we remember how univerfal and how great an evil it is, that fo many millions of fons and daughters are born to enter into the poffeffion of Devils to eternal ages. Thefe evils are the miseries of great parts of Mankind, and we cannot eafily confider more particularly the evils which happen to us, being the inseparable affections or incidents to the whole nature of Man. 2. We find that all the Women in the World are either born for barrennefs or the pains of Child- birth, and yet this is one of our greatest bleffings: but fuch indeed are the Bleffings of this World; we cannot be well with, nor without many things. Perfumes make our heads ake, Rofes prick our fingers, and in our very blood, where our life dwells, is the Scene under which nature acts many fharp fevers and heavy ficknefles. It were too fad if I should tell how many perfons are afflicted with evil fpirits, with spectres and illufions of the night; and that huge multitudes of men men and women live upon man's flesh; nay worse yet, upon the fins of men, upon the fins of their fons and of their daughters, and they pay their fouls down for the bread they eat, buying this day's meal with the price of the laft night's fin. 3. Or if you please in charity to vifit an Hospital which is indeed a map of the whole World, there you fhall fee the effects of Adam's fin, and the ruines of humane nature; bodies laid up in heaps like the bones of a destroyed town; homines precarii fpiritûs & malè hærentis, men whofe fouls feem to be borrowed, and are kept there by art and the force of Medicine, whofe miferies are fo great, that few people have charity or humanity enough to vifit them, fewer have the heart to drefs them, and we pity them in civility or with a tranfient prayer, but we do not feel their forrows by the mercies of a religious pity: and therefore as we leave their forrows in many degrees unrelieved and uneafed, fo we contract by our unmercifulness a guilt by which our felves become liable to the fame calamities. Those many that need pity, and thofe infinites of people that refufe to pity, are miferable upon a feveral charge, but yet they almoft make up all mankind. 4. All wicked men are in love with that which intangles them in huge varieties of troubles; they are flaves to the worst of Masters, to Sin and to the Devil, to a Paffion, and to an imperious Woman. Good men are for ever perfecuted, and God chaftifes every fon whom he receives, and whatfoever is eafie is trifling and worth nothing, and whatsoever is excellent is not to be obtained without labour and forrow; and the conditions and ftates of men that are free from great cares are fuch as have in them nothing rich and orderly, and thole that have are ftuck full of thorns and trouble. Kings are full of care; and Learned men * in all ages have been obferved to be very poor, & boneftas miferias accufant, they complain of their honeft miferies. Fetron. Vilis adulator pito jacet ebrius oftro, * 5. But thefe evils are notorious and confeffed; even they also whofe felicity men ftare at and admire, befides their fplendour and the fharpnefs of their light, will with their appendent forrows wring a tear from the moft refolved eye: for not only the Winter-quarter is full of ftorms and cold and darknefs, but the beauteous Spring hath blasts and sharp trofts, the fruitful teeming Summer is melted with heat, and burnt with the kiffes of the Sun her friend, and choaked with duft, and the rich Autumn is full of fickness; and we are weary of that which we enjoy, because forrow is its bigger portion: and when we remember that upon the taireft face is placed one of the worst finks of the body, the nofe; we may use it not only as a mortification to the pride of Beauty, but as an allay to the faireft outfide of condition, which any of the fons and daughters of Adam do poffefs. For look upon Kings and Conquerors: I will not tell that many of them fall into the condition of fervants, and their fubjects rule over them, and ftand upon the ruines of their families, and that to fuch perfons the forrow is bigger than ufually happens in fmaller fortunes: but let us fuppofe them ftill conquerours, and fee what a goodly purchase they get by all their pains and amazing fears, and continual dangers. They carry their arms beyond Ifter, and pass the Euphrates, and bind the Germans with the bounds of the River Rhene: I fpeak in the style of the Roman Greatness; for now-a-days the biggest fortune fwells not beyond the limits of a petty Province or two, and a hill confines the progrefs of their profperity, or a River checks it. But whatfoever tempts the pride and vanity of ambitious perfons is not fo big as the fmalleft Star which we see scattered in diforder and unregarded upon the pavement and floor of Heaven. And if we fhould fuppofe the Pilmires had but our understanding, they alfo would have the method of a Man's greatness, and divide their little Mole-hills into Provinces and Exarchats: Vilis fervus habet regni bona, cafam. Petron. Omnia, crede mihi, etiam felicibus dubia funt. Seneca. and |