own house), to them, after he hath shewed the unlawfulness of spending the day in dressing, complimenting, visiting, and sporting, he first commends the study of the civil law, as a brave and wise knowledge; the professors whereof were much employed by Queen Elizabeth; because it is the key of commerce, and discovers the rules of foreign nations. Secondly, he commends the mathematics, as the only wonder-working knowledge, and therefore requiring the best spirits. After the several knowledge of these, he adviseth to insist and dwell chiefly on the two noble branches thereof, of fortification and navigation; the one being useful to all countries, and the other especially to islands. But if the young gallant think these courses dull and phlegmatic, where can he busy himself better, than in those new plantations and discoveries, which are not only a noble, but also, as they may be handled, a religious employment? Or let him travel into Germany and France; and, observing the artifices and manufactures there, transplant them hither, as divers have done lately, to our country's advantage.

THE Country Parson's library is A HOLY LIFE; for (besides the blessing that that brings upon it, there being a promise, that if the kingdom of God be first sought, all other things shall be added) even itself is a sermon. For, the temptations with which a good man is beset, and the ways which he used to overcome them, being told to another, whether in private conference or

in the church, are a sermon. He that hath considered how to carry himself at table about his appetite, if he tell this to another, preacheth; and much more feelingly and judiciously, than he writes his rules of temperance out of books. So that the parson having studied and mastered all his lusts and affections within, and the whole army of temptations without, hath ever so many sermons ready penned, as he hath victories. And it fares in this as it doth in physic. He that hath been sick of a consumption, and knows what recovered him, is a physician, so far as he meets with the same disease and temper; and can much better and particulaly do it, than he that is generally learned, and was never sick. And if the same person had been sick of all diseases, and were recovered of all, by things that he knew, there were no such physician as he, both for skill and tenderness. Just so it is in divinity; and that not without manifest reason. For though the temptations may be diverse in divers Christians, yet the victory is alike in all, being by the selfsame Spirit.

Neither is this true only in the military state of a Christian life, but even in the peaceable also; when the servant of God, freed for a while from temptation, in a quiet sweetness seeks how to please his God. Thus the parson, considering that repentance is the great virtue of the gospel, and one of the first steps of pleasing God, having for his own use examined the nature of it, is able to explain it after to others. And, particularly, having doubted sometimes, whether his repentance were true, or at least in that degree it ought to be,-since he found himself sometimes to weep more for the loss of some temporal things, than for offending God,-he came at length to this resolution, that repentance is an act of the mind, not of the body (even as the original signifies),

and that the chief thing which God in scriptures requires, is the heart and the spirit, and to worship him in truth and spirit. Wherefore, in case a Christian endeavor to weep and cannot, since we are not masters of our own bodies, this sufficeth. And consequently he found that the essence of repentance (that it may be alike in all God's children,-which, as concerning weeping, it cannot be, some being of a more melting temper than others) consisteth in a true detestation of the soul, abhorring and renouncing sin, and turning unto God in truth of heart and newness of life: which acts of repentance are and must be found in all God's servants. Not that weeping is not useful, where it can be (that so the body may join in the grief, as it did in the sin), but that, so the other acts be, that is not necessary. So that he as truly repents, who performs the other acts of repentance, when he cannot more, as he that weeps a flood of tears. This instruction and comfort the parson getting for himself, when he tells it to others, becomes a sermon. The like he doth in other Christian virtues, as of faith, and love, and the cases of conscience belonging thereto; wherein (as St. Paul implies that he ought, Rom. ii.), he first preacheth to himself, and then to others.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Parson's Dexterity in Applying of Remedies.

THE Country Parson knows that there is a double state of a Christian even in this life; the one military, the other peaceable. The military is, when we are assaulted with temptations, either from within or from without. The peaceable is, when the devil for a time

leaves us, as he did our Saviour, and the angels minister to us their own food, even joy, and peace, and comfort in the Holy Ghost. These two states were in our Saviour, not only in the beginning of his preaching, but afterwards also (as, Matt. xxii. 35, he was tempted; and Luke x. 21, he rejoiced in spirit): and they must be likewise in all that be his. Now the parson having a spiritual judgment, according as he discovers any of his flock to be in one and the other state, so he applies himself to them.

Those that he finds in the peaceable state, he adviseth to be very vigilant, and not to let go the reins as soon as the horse goes easy. Particularly, he counselleth them to two things. First, to take heed lest their quiet betray them, as it is apt to do, to a coldness and carelessness in their devotions; but to labor still to be as fervent in Christian duties, as they remember themselves were, when affliction did blow the coals. Secondly, not to take the full compass and liberty of their peace; not to eat of all those dishes at table, which even their present health otherwise admits; nor to store their house with all those furnitures, which even their present plenty of wealth otherwise admits; nor, when they are among them that are merry, to extend themselves to all that mirth, which the present occasion of wit and company otherwise admits: but to put bounds and hoops to their joys; so will they last the longer, and, when they depart, return the sooner. If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; and if we would bound ourselves, we should not be bounded. But if they shall fear that, at such or such a time, their peace and mirth have carried them further than this moderation; then to take Job's admirable course, who sacrificed, lest his children should have transgressed in their mirth. So

let them go, and find some poor afflicted soul, and there be bountiful and liberal; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

Those that the parson finds in the military state, he fortifies, and strengthens with his utmost skill.—Now, in those that are tempted, whatsoever is unruly falls upon two heads. Either they think that there is none that can or will look after things, but all goes by chance or wit: or else, though there be a great Governor of all things, yet to them he is lost; as if they said, God doth forsake and persecute them, and there is none to deliver them.

If the parson suspect the first, and find sparks of such thoughts now and then to break forth, then, without opposing directly (for disputation is no cure for atheism), he scatters in his discourse three sorts of arguments; the first taken from nature, the second from the law, the third from grace.-For nature, he sees not how a house could be either built without a builder, or kept in repair without a house-keeper. He conceives not possibly how the winds should blow so much as they can, and the sea rage so much as it can; and all, not only without dissolution of the whole, but also of any part, by taking away so much as the usual seasons of summer and winter, earing and harvest. Let the weather be what it will, still we have bread; though sometimes more, sometimes less; wherewith also a careful Joseph might meet.

He conceives not possibly how he, that would believe a divinity if he had been at the creation of all things, should less believe it, seeing the preservation of all things. For preservation is a creation; and more, it is a continued creation, and a creation every moment. Secondly, for the law, there may be so evident, though unused a proof of divinity taken from thence, that