: the leprous, a right mind to those that were possessed, and life to the dead. No miracle of his is to be found to have been of judgment or revenge, but all of goodness and mercy, and respecting man's body; for as touching riches he did not vouchsafe to do any miracle, save one only, that tribute might be given to Cæsar. OF THE INNOCENCY OF THE DOVE, AND THE WISDOM OF THE SERPENT. "The fool receiveth not the word of wisdom, except thou discover to him what he hath in his heart." To a man of a perverse and corrupt judgment, all instruction or persuasion is fruitless and contemptible, which begins not with discovery and laying open of the distemper and ill complexion of the mind which is to be recured, as a plaster is unseasonably applied before the wound be searched; for men of corrupt understanding, that have lost all sound discerning of good and evil, come possest with this prejudicate opinion, that they think all honesty and goodness proceedeth out of a simplicity of manners, and a kind of want of experience and unacquaintance with the affairs of the world. Therefore, except they may perceive that those things which are in their hearts, that is to say, their own corrupt principles, and the deepest reaches of their cunning and rottenness to be thoroughly sounded, and known to him that goes about to persuade with them, they make but a play of the words of wisdom. Therefore it behoveth him which aspireth to a goodness (not retired or particular to himself, but a fructifying and begetting goodness which should draw on others) to know those points, which be called in the Revelation the deeps of Satan, that he may speak with authority and true insinuation. Hence is the precept, " Try all things, and hold that which is good;" which endureth a discerning election out of an examination whence nothing at all is excluded: out of the same fountain ariseth that direction, "Be you " wise as serpents, and innocent as doves." There are neither teeth nor stings, nor venom, nor wreaths and folds of serpents, which ought not to be all known and, as far as examination doth lead, tried: neither let any man here fear infection or pollution, for the sun entereth into sinks and is not defiled; neither let any man think that herein he tempteth God, for his diligence and generality of examination is commanded, and God is sufficient to preserve you immaculate and pure. OF THE EXALTATION OF CHARITY. "If I have rejoiced at the overthrow of him that hated me, or took pleasure when adversity did befall him." The detestation or renouncing, of Job. For a man to love again where he is loved, it is the charity of publicans contracted by mutual profit and good offices; but to love a man's enemies is one of the cunningest points of the law of Christ, and an imitation of the divine nature. But yet again, of this charity there be divers degrees; whereof the first is, to pardon our enemies when they repent: of which charity there is a shadow and image, even in noble beasts; for of lions, it is a received opinion that their fury and fierceness ceaseth towards any thing that yieldeth and prostrateth itself, The second degree is, to 4 pardon our enemies, though they persist, and without satisfactions and submissions, The third degree is, not only to pardon and forgive, and forbear our enemies, but to deserve well of them and to do them good: but all these three degrees either have or may have in them a certain bravery and greatness of the mind rather than pure charity; for when a man perceiveth virtue to proceed and flow from himself, it is possible that he is puffed up and takes contentment rather in the fruit of his own virtue than in the good of his neighbours; but if any evil overtake the enemy from any other coast than from thyself, and thou in the inwardest motions of thy heart be grieved and compassionate, and dost no ways insult, as if thy days of right and revenge were at the last come; this I interpret to be the height and exaltation of Charity. OF THE MODERATION OF CARES. "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." ; : There ought to be a measure in worldly cares otherwise they are both unprofitable, as those which oppress the mind and astonish the judgment, and prophane, as those which savour of a mind which promiseth to itself a certain perpetuity in the things of this world; for we ought to be day's men and not to-morrow's men, considering the shortness of our time; and as he saith, " Laying hold on the present "day;" for future things shall in their turns become presents, therefore the care of the present sufficeth; and yet moderate cares (whether they concern our particular, or the commonwealth, or our friends) are not blamed. But herein is a twofold excess; the one when the chain or thread of our cares, extended and spun out to an over great length, and unto times too far off, as if we could bind the divine providence by our provisions, which even with the heathen, was always found to be a thing insolent and unlucky; for those which did attribute much to fortune, and were ready at hand to apprehend with alacrity the present occasions, have for the most part in their actions been happy; but they who in a compass, wisdom, have entered into a confidence that they had belayed all events, have for the most part encountered misfortune. The second excess is, when we dwell longer in our cares than is requisite for due deliberating or firm resolving; for who is there amongst us that careth no more than sufficeth either to resolve of a course or to conclude upon an impossibility, and doth not still chew over the same things, and tread a maze in the same thoughts, and vanisheth in them without issue or conclusion: which kind of cares are most contrary to all divine and human respects. OF EARTHLY HOPE. "Better is the sight of the eye, than the apprehension of the mind." Pure sense receiving every thing according to the natural impression, makes a better state and govern ! 1 ment of the mind, than these same imaginations and apprehensions of the mind; for the mind of man hath this nature and property even in the gravest and most settled wits, that from the sense of every particular, it doth as it were bound and spring forward, and take hold of other matters, foretelling unto itself that all shall prove like unto that which beateth upon the present sense; if the sense be of good, it easily runs into an unlimited hope, and into a like fear, when the sense is of evil, according as is said "The oracles of hopes doth oft abuse," And that contrary, "A froward soothsayer is fear in doubts." But yet of fear there may be made some use; for it prepareth patience and awaketh industry, "No shape of ill, comes new or strange to me, But hope seemeth a thing altogether unprofitable; for to what end serveth this conceit of good. Consider and note a little if the good fall out less than thou hopest; good though it be, yet less because it is, it seemeth rather loss than benefit through thy excess of hope; if the good prove equal and proportionable in event to thy hope, yet the flower thereof by thy hope is gathered; so as when it comes the grace of it is gone, and it seems used, and therefore sooner draweth on satiety; admit thy success prove better than thy hope, it is true a gain seems to be made: but had it not been better to have gained the principal by hoping for nothing, than the increase by hoping for less; and this is the operation of hope VOL. III. P |