CHAPTER II: OF CHRISTIAN SOBRIETY.

OF CHRISTIAN SOBRIETY. __________________________________________________________________

SECTION I. __________________________________________________________________

Of Sobriety in the general sense.

Christian religion, in all its moral parts, in nothing else but the law of nature, and great reason; complying with the great necessities of all the world, and promoting the great profit of all relations, and carrying us through all accidents and variety of changes, to that end which God hath from eternal ages purposed for that live according to it, and which he hath revealed in Jesus Christ: and, according to the apostle's arithmetic, hath but these three parts of it; 1. Sobriety, 2. Justice, 3. Religion. "For the grace of God, being salvation, hath appeared to all men; teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live. 1. Soberly, 2. Righteously, and, 3. Godly, in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The first contains all our deportment in our personal and private capacities, the fair treating of our bodies and our spirits. The second enlarges our duty in all relations to our neighbour. The third contains the offices of direct religion, and intercourse with God.

Christian sobriety is also that duty that concerns ourselves in the matter of meat, and drink, and pleasures, and thoughts; and it hath within it the duties of 1. Temperance, 2. Chastity, 3. Humility, 4. Modesty, 5. Content.

It is a using severity, denial, and frustration of our appetite, when it grows unreasonable in any of these instances: the necessity of which we shall to best purpose understand, by considering the evil consequences of sensuality, effeminacy, or fondness after carnal pleasures. __________________________________________________________________

Evil Consequences of Voluptuousness or Sensuality.

1. A longing after sensual pleasures is a dissolution of the spirit of a man, and makes it loose, soft, and wandering; unapt for noble, wise, or spiritual employments; because the principles upon which pleasure is chosen and pursued are sottish, weak, and unlearned, such as prefer the body before the soul, [61] the appetite before reason, sense before the spirit, the pleasures of a short abode before the pleasures of eternity.

2. The nature of sensual pleasure is vain, empty, and unsatisfying, biggest always in expectation, and a mere vanity in the enjoying, and leaves a sting and thorn behind it when it goes off. Our laughing, if it be loud and high, commonly ends in a deep sigh; and all the instances of pleasure have a sting in the tail, though they carry beauty on the face, and sweetness on the lip.

3. Sensual pleasure is a great abuse to the spirit of a man, being a kind of fascination or witchcraft, blinding the understanding and enslaving the will. And he that knows he is free-born, or redeemed with the blood of the Son of God, will not easily suffer the freedom of his soul to be entangled and rifled. [62]

4. It is most contrary to the state of a Christian, whose life is a perpetual exercise, a wrestling and warfare, to which sensual pleasure disables him, by yielding to that enemy with whom he must strive if ever he will be crowned. [63] And this argument the apostle intimated: "He that striveth for masteries to temperate in all things: now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible." [64]

5. It is by a certain consequence the greatest impediment in the world to martyrdom: that being a fondness, this being a cruelty to the flesh; to which a Christian man, arriving by degrees, must first have crucified the lesser affections: for he that is overcome by little arguments of pain, will hardly consent to lose his life with torments. __________________________________________________________________

[61] Tu sia nimum vicisi potius quam animus te, est quod gaudeas. Qui animum vincunt, quam quos animus, semper prokiores cluent.--Triuum 2.2. 29.

[62] Mouou skipssu posou poleis tlu seautou praireaiu, amphrope ei reotu allo, re oligou autpu polpads.--Arrian, c. 2.1 i.

[63] philees olugpia uekeasi: Dei se eutakteiu, auankotropheiu apechesphau peraton, germazesxat pmankem, etc. Epict. c. 29. 2. ed.Schw.

[64] 1. Cor. ix. 25. __________________________________________________________________

Degrees of Sobriety.

Against this voluptuousness, sobriety is opposed in three degrees.

1. A despite or disaffection to pleasures, or a resolving against all entertainment of the instances and temptations of sensuality; and it consists in the internal faculties of will and understanding, decreeing and declaring against them disapproving and disliking them, upon good reason and strong resolution.

2. A tight and actual war against all the temptations and offers of sensual pleasure in all evil instances and degrees: and it consists in prayer, in fasting, in cheap diet and hard lodging, and laborious exercises, and avoiding occasions, and using all arts and industry of fortifying the spirit, and making it severe, manly, and Christian.

3. Spiritual pleasure is the highest degree of sobriety; and in the same degree in which we relish and are in love with spiritual delights, the hidden manna, [65] with the sweetness of devotion, with the joys of thanksgiving, with rejoicing in the Lord, with the comforts of hope, with the deliciousness of charity and alms-deeds, with the sweetness of a good conscience, with the peace of meekness, and the felicities of a contented spirit; in the same degree we disrelish and loathe the husks of swinish lusts, and the parings of the apples of Sodom, and the taste of sinful pleasures is unsavoury as the drunkard's vomit. __________________________________________________________________

[65] Apoc. ii. 17. __________________________________________________________________

Rules for suppressing Voluptuousness.

The precepts and advices which are of best and of general use in the curing of sensuality, are these:

1. Accustom thyself to cut off all superfluity in the provisions of thy life, for our desires will enlarge beyond the present possession so long as all the things of this world are unsatisfying: if, therefore, you suffer them to extend beyond the measures of necessity or moderated conveniency, they will still swell: but you reduce them to a little compass when you make nature to be your limit. We must more take care that our desires should cease [66] than that they should be satisfied: and, therefore, reducing them in narrow scantlings and small proportions is the best instrument to redeem their trouble, and prevent the dropsy, because that is next to an universal denying them: it is certainly a paring off from them all unreasonableness and irregularity. "For whatsoever covets unseemly things, and is apt to swell into an inconvenient bulk, is to be chastened and tempered: and such are sensuality, and a boy, [67] said the philosopher.

2. Suppress your sensual desires in their first approach; [68] for then they are least, and thy faculties and election are stronger; but if they, in their weakness, prevail upon thy strengths, there will be no resisting them when they are increased, and thy abilities lessened. "You shall scarce obtain of them to end, if you suffer them to begin."

3. Divert them with some laudable employment, and take off their edge by inadvertency, or a not attending to them. For, since the faculties of a man cannot at the same time, with any sharpness, attend to two objects, if you employ your spirit upon a book or a bodily labour, or any innocent and indifferent employment, you have no room left for the present trouble of a sensual temptation. For to this sense it was, that Alexander told the queen of Caria, that his tutor, Leonidas, had provided two cooks for him; [69] "Hard marches all night and a small dinner the next day: these tamed his youthful aptnesses to dissolution, so long as he ate of their provisions.

4. Look upon pleasures, not upon that side that is next the sun, or where they look beauteously; that is, as they come towards you to be enjoyed, for then they paint and smile, and dress themselves up in tinsel and glass gems, and counterfeit imagery; but when thou hast rifled and discomposed them with enjoying their false beauties, and that they begin to go off, then behold them in their nakedness and weariness. [70] See, what a sigh and sorrow, what naked unhandsome proportions, and a filthy carcass they discover; and the next time they counterfeit, remember what you have already discovered, and be no more abused. And I have known some wise persons have advised to cure the passions and longings of their children by letting them taste of every thing they passionately fancied; for they should be sure to find less in it than they looked for, and the impatience of their being denied would be loosened and made slack: and when our wishes are no bigger than the thing deserves, and our usages of them according to our needs (which may be obtained by trying what they are, and what good they can do us,) we shall find in all pleasures so little entertainment, that the vanity of the possession will soon reprove the violence of the appetite. [71] And if this permission be in innocent instances it may be of good use: but Solomon tried it in all things, taking his fill of all pleasures, and soon grew weary of them all. The same thing we may do by reason which we do by experience, if either we look upon pleasures as we are sure they look when they go off, after their enjoyment; or if we will credit the experience of those men who have tasted them and loathed them.

5. Often consider and contemplate the joys of heaven, that, when they have filled thy desires, which are the sails of the soul, thou mayst steer only thither, and never more look back to Sodom. And when thy soul dwells above, and looks down upon the pleasures of the world, they seem like things at distance, little and contemptible, and men running after the satisfaction of their sottish appetites seem foolish as fishes, thousands of them running after a rotten worm, that covers a deadly book; or, at the best, but like children with great noise pursuing a bubble rising from a walnut-shell, which ends sooner than the noise.

6. To this the example of Christ and his apostles, of Moses, and all the wise men of all ages of the world, will much help; who, understanding how to distinguish good from evil, did choose a sad and melancholy way to felicity, rather than the broad, pleasant, and easy path to folly and misery.

But this is but the general. Its first particular is temperance. __________________________________________________________________

[66] Desideria tua parvo redime; hoe enim tantum curare debes, ut desinant.--Senec.

[67] Lic. iii. Eth c. 12. p. 129. ed. Wilk.

[68] Facilius est initia affectuum prohibere, quam impetum regere.--Senec. ep. 86.

[69] muktiporiau kai oligaristian.
[70] Nuktiporian kai oligaristan.

[71] Voluptates abeuntes fessas et poenitentia plenas, animis nostris natura subjecit, quo minus cupide repetantur.--Seneca. Laete venire Venus, trists abire solet. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

SECTION II. __________________________________________________________________

Of Temperance in Eating and Drinking.

Sobriety is the bridle of the passions of desire, and temperance is the bit and curb of that bridle, a restraint put into a man's mouth, a moderate use of meat and drink, so as may best consist with our health, and may not hinder but help the works of the soul by its necessary supporting us, and ministering cheerfulness and refreshment.

Temperance consists of the actions of the soul principally: for it is a grace that chooses natural means in order to proper and natural, and holy ends; it is exercised about eating and drinking, because they are necessary; but therefore it permits the use of them only as they minister to lawful ends; it does not eat and drink for pleasure, but for need, and for refreshment, which is a part or a degree of need. I deny not that eating and drinking may be, and in healthful bodies always is, with pleasure; because there is in nature no greater pleasure than that all the appetites which God hath made should be satisfied: and a man may choose a morsel that is pleasant, the less pleasant being rejected as being less useful, less apt to nourish, or more agreeing with an infirm stomach, or when the day is festival, by order or by private joy. In all these cases it is permitted to receive a more free delight, and to design it too, as the less principal: that is, that the chief reason why we choose the more delicious be the serving that end for which such refreshments and choices are permitted. But when delight is the only end, and rest itself, and dwells there long, then eating and drinking is not a serving of God, but an inordinate action; because it is not in the way to that end whither God directed it. But the choosing of a delicate before a more ordinary dish is to be done as other human actions are in which there are no degrees and precise natural limits described, but a latitude is indulged; it must be done moderately, prudently, and according to the accounts of wise, religious, and sober men: and then God, who gave us such variety of creatures, and our choice to use which we will, may receive glory from our temperate use, and thanksgiving; and we may use them indifferently without scruple, and a making them to become snares to us, either by too licentious and studied use of them, or too restrained and scrupulous fear of using them at all, but in such certain circumstances, in which no man can be sure he is not mistaken.

But temperance is meat and drink is to be estimated by the following measures. __________________________________________________________________

Measures of Temperance in Eating.

1. Eat not before the time, unless necessity, or charity, or any intervening accident, which may make it reasonable and prudent, should happen. Remember, it had almost cost Jonathan his life, because he tasted a little honey before the sun went down, contrary to the king's commandment; and although a great need which he had excused him from the sin of gluttony, yet it is inexcusable when thou eatest before the usual time, and thrustest thy hand into the dish unseasonably, out of greediness of the pleasure, and impatience of the delay.

2. Eat not hastily and impatiently, but with such decent and timely action that your eating be human act, subject to deliberation and choice, and that you may consider in the eating: whereas, he that eats hastily cannot consider particularly of the circumstances, degrees, and little accidents and chances, that happen in his meal; but may contract many little indecencies, and be suddenly surprised.

3. Eat not delicately or nicely, that is, be not troublesome to thyself or others in the choice of thy meats or the delicacy of thy sauces. It was imputed us a sin to the sons of Israel, that they loathed manna and longed for flesh: the quails stunk in their nostrils, and the wrath of God fell upon them. And the the manner of dressing, the sons of Eli were noted of indiscreet curiosity: they would not have the flesh boiled but raw, that they might roast it with fire. Not that it was a sin to eat it, or desire meat roasted; but that when it was appointed to be boiled, they refused it: which declared an intemperate and a nice palate. It was lawful in all senses to comply with a weak and a nice stomach, but not with a nice and curious palate. When our health requires it, that ought to be provided for; but not so our sensuality and intemperate longings. Whatsoever is set before you eat it, be it never so delicate; and be it plain and common, so it be wholesome, and fit for you, it must not be refused upon curiosity: for every degree of that is a degree of intemperance. Happy and innocent were the ages of our forefathers, who ate herbs and parched corn, and drank the pure stream, and broke their fast with nuts and roots; [72] and when they were permitted flesh, ate it only dressed with hunger and fire; and the first sauce they had was bitter herbs, and sometimes bread dipped in vinegar. But in this circumstance, moderation is to be reckoned in proportion to the present customs, to the company, to edification, and the judgment of honest and wise persons, and the necessities of nature.

4. Eat not too much: load neither thy stomach nor thy understanding. If thou sit at a bountiful table, be not greedy upon it, and say not there is much meat on it. Remember that a wicked eye is an evil thing: and what is created more wicked than an eye? Therefore it weepeth upon every occasion. Stretch not thy hand whithersoever it looketh, and thrust it not with him into the dish. A very little is sufficient for a man well nurtured, and he fetcheth not his wind short upon his bed. __________________________________________________________________

[72] Felix initium, prior aetas contenia dulcibus arvis; Facileque sera solebat jejunia solvere glande. Boeth. lib. 1. de Consol. Arbuteos foetus, montanaque fraga legebant.--Ov. M. i. 104. __________________________________________________________________

Signs and Effects of Temperance.

We shall best know that we have the grace of temperance by the following signs, which are as so many arguments to engage us also upon its study and practice.

1. A temperate man is modest: greediness is unmannerly and rude. And this is intimated in the advice of the son of Sirach. When thou sittest amongst many, reach not thy hand out first of all. Leave off first for manner's sake, and be not insatiable lest thou offend. 2. Temperance is accompanied with gravity of deportment: greediness is garish, and rejoices loosely at the sight of dainties. [73] 3. Sound but moderate sleep is its sign and its effect. Sound sleep cometh of moderate eating; he riseth early, and his wits are with him. 4. A spiritual joy and a devout prayer. 5. A suppressed and seldom anger. 6. A seldom-returning and a never-prevailing temptation. 8. To which add, that a temperate person is not curious of fancies and deliciousness. He thinks not much, and speaks not often of meat and drink; hath a healthful body and long life, unless it be hindered by some other accident: whereas to gluttony, the pain of watching and cholera, the pangs of the belly are continual company. And therefore Stratonicus said handsomely concerning the luxury of the Rhodians, "They built houses as if they were immortal; but they feasted as if they meant to live but a little while." And Antipater, by his reproach of the old glutton Demades, well expressed the baseness of this sin, saying, that Demades, now old, [74] and always a glutton, was like a spent sacrifice, nothing left of him but his belly and his tongue; all the man besides is gone. __________________________________________________________________

[73] Cicero vocat Temperantiam ornatum vitae, in quo decorum illud et honestum situm est.

[74] Plutarch. de Cupid. Divit. __________________________________________________________________

Of Drunkenness.

But I desire that it be observed, that because intemperance in eating is not so soon perceived by others as immoderate drinking, and the outward visible effects of it are not either so notorious or so ridiculous, therefore gluttony is not of so great disreptuation amongst men as drunkenness; yet, according to its degree, it puts on the greatness of the sin before God, and is most strictly to be attended to, lest we be surprised by our security and want of diligence, and the intemperance is alike criminal in both, according as the affections are either to the meat or drink. Gluttony is more uncharitable to the body, and drunkenness to the soul, or the understanding part of man; and therefore in Scripture is more frequently forbidden and declaimed against than the other: and sobriety hath by use obtained to signify temperance in drinking.

Drunkenness is an immoderate affection and use of drink. That I call immoderate that is beside or beyond that order of good things for which God hath given us the use of drink. The ends are digestion of our meat, cheerfulness and refreshment of our spirits, or any end of health; beside which if we go, or at any time beyond it, it is inordinate and criminal -- it is the vice of drunkenness. It is forbidden by our blessed Saviour in these words: [75] "Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness:" surfeiting, that is, the evil effects, the sottishness and remaining stupidity of habitual, or of the last night's drunkenness. For Christ forbids both the actual and the habitual intemperance; not only the effect of it, but also the affection to it; for in both there is sin. He that drinks but little, if that little makes him drunk, and if he knew beforehand his own infirmity, is guilty of surfeiting, not of drunkenness. [76] But he that drinks much, and is strong to bear it, and is not deprived of his reason violently, is guilty of the sin of drunkenness. It is a sin not to prevent such uncharitable effects upon the body and understanding, and therefore a man that loves not the drink is guilty of surfeiting if he does not watch to prevent the evil effect; and it is a sin, and the greater of the two, inordinately to love or to use the drink, though the surfeiting or violence do not follow. Good, therefore, is the counsel of the son of Sirach, Show not thy valiantness in wine; for wine hath destroyed many.' [77] __________________________________________________________________

[75] Luke xxi. 34.

[76] Kraipalm apo pphoteraias aut apo chdizms oino posias.--Schol. in Aristoph. Idem fere apud Plutarch. Vinolentia animi quandam remissiem et levitatem, ebrietas futilitatem significat.--Plutarch. de Garrul.

[77] Ecclus. xxxi. 25. __________________________________________________________________

Evil Consequents to Drunkenness.

The evils and sad consequents of drunkenness (the consideration of which are as so many arguments to avoid the sin) are to this sense reckoned by the writers of holy Scripture, and other wise personages of the world. 1. It causeth woes and mischief, [78] wounds and sorrow, sin and shame; [79] it maketh bitterness of spirit, brawling and quarrelling; it increaseth rage and lesseneth strength; it maketh red eyes, and a loost and babbling tongue. 2. It particularly ministers to lust, and yet disables the body; so that in effect it makes man wanton as a satyr, and impotent as age. And Solomon, in enumerating the evils of this vice, adds this to the account, [80] thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things: as if the drunkard were only desire, and then impatience, muttering and enjoying like an eunuch embracing a woman. 3. It besots and hinders the actions of the understanding, making a man brutish in his passions, and a fool in his reason; and differs nothing from madness but that it is voluntary, and so is an equal evil in nature, and a worse in manners.
[81] 4. It takes off all the guards, and lets loose the reins of all those evils to which a man is by is nature or by his evil customs inclined, and from which he is restrained by reason and severe principles. Drunkenness calls off the watchmen from their towers; and then all the evils that can proceed from a loose heart and an untied tongue, and a dissolute spirit, and an unguarded unlimited will, all that we may put upon the accounts of drunkenness. 5. It extinguisheth and quenches the Spirit of God and with wine at the same time. And therefore St. Paul makes them exclusive of each other: [82] Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.' And since Joseph's cup was put into Benjamin's sack, no man had a divining goblet. 6. It opens all the sanctuaries of nature, and discovers the nakedness of the soul, all its weaknesses and follies; it multiplies sins and discovers them; it makes a man incapable of being a private friend or a public counsellor. 7. It taketh a man's soul into slavery and imprisonment more than any vice whatever, [83] because it disarms a man of all his reason and his wisdom, whereby he might be cured, and therefore commonly it grows upon him with age; a drunkard being still more a fool and less a man. I need not add any sad examples, since all story and all ages have too many of them. Amnon was slain by his brother Absalom when he was warm and high with wine. Simon, the high-priest, and two of his sons, were slain by their brother at a drunken feast. Holofernes was drunk when Judith slew him; and all the great things that Daniel spake of Alexander [84] were drowned with a surfeit of one night's intemperance: and the drunkenness of Noah and Lot are upon record to eternal ages, that in those early instances, and righteous persons, and less criminal drunkenness than is that of Christians in this period of the world, God might show that very great evils are prepared to punish this vice; no less than shame, and slavery, and incest; the first upon Noah, the second upon one of his sons, and the third in the person of Lot. __________________________________________________________________

[78] Prov. xxiii. 29; Ecclus. xxxi. 26.

[79] Multa faciunt ebrii quibus sobrii erubescunt. Senec. Ep. 83, 17.

[80] Prov. xxiii. 33.

[81] Insaniae comes est ira, contubernalis ebrietas.--Plutarch -- Corpus onustum Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat.--Horat. Ebrietas est voluntaria insania.--Senec.

[82] Ephes. v. 18.
[83] Prov. xxxi. 4.

[84] Alexandrum intemperantia bibendi, et ille Herculanus ac fatalis scyphus perdidit.--Senec. Ep. 1xxxiii. 21. __________________________________________________________________

Signs of Drunkenness.

But if it be inquired concerning the periods and distinct significations of this crime; and when a man is said to be drunk; to this I answer, that drunkenness in in the same manner to be judged as sickness. As every illness or violence done to health, in every part of its continuance, is a part or degree of sickness; so is every going off from our natural and common temper and our usual severity of behaviour, a degree of drunkenness. He is not only drunk that can drink no more; for few are so: but he hath sinned in a degree of drunkenness who hath done anything towards it beyond his proper measure. But its parts and periods are usually thus reckoned: 1. apish gestures; 2. much talking;
3. immoderate laughing; 4. dullness of sense; 5. scurrility, that is, wanton, or jeering, or abusive language; 6. an useless understanding;
7. stupid sleep; 8. epilepsies, or fallings and reelings, and beastly vomitings. The least of these, even when the tongue begins to be untied, is a degree of drunkenness.

But that we may avoid the sin of intemperance in meats and drinks, besides the former rules of measures, these counsels also may be useful. __________________________________________________________________

Rules for obtaining Temperance.

1. Be not often present at feasts, nor at all in dissolute company, when it may be avoided, for variety of pleasing objects steals away the heart of man; and company is either violent or enticing, and we are weak or complying, or perhaps desirous enough to be abused. But if you be unavoidably or indiscreetly engaged, let not mistaken civility or good nature engage thee either to the temptation of staying, (if thou understandest thy weakness,) or the sin of drinking inordinately.

2. Be severe in your judgment concerning your proportions, and let no occasion make you enlarge far beyond your ordinary. For a man is surprised by parts; and while he thinks one glass more will not make him drunk, that one glass hath disabled him from well discerning his present condition and neighbour-danger. While men think themselves wise, they become fools: they think they shall taste the aconite and not die, or crown their heads with juice of poppy and not be drowsy; and if they drink off the whole vintage, still they think they can swallow another goblet. [85] But remember this, whenever you begin to consider whether you may safely take one draught more, it is then high time to give over. Let that be accounted a sign late enough to break off; for every reason to doubt is a sufficient reason to part the company.

3. Come not to table but when thy need invites thee; and, if thou beest in health, leave something of thy appetite unfilled, something of thy natural heat unemployed, that it may secure thy digestion and serve other needs of nature or the spirit.

4. Propound to thyself (if thou beest in a capacity) a constant rule of living, of eating and drinking, which, though it may not be fit to observe scrupulously, lest it become a snare to thy conscience, or endanger thy health upon every accidental violence; yet let not thy rule be broken often nor much, but upon great necessity and in small degrees.

5. Never urge any man to eat or drink beyond his own limits and his own desires. He that does otherwise is drunk with his brother's surfeit,
[86] and reels and falls with his intemperance; that is, the sin of drunkenness is upon both their scores, they both lie wallowing in the guilt.

6. Use St. Paul's instruments of sobriety: Let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and, for an helmet, the hope of salvation.' Faith, hope, and charity are the best weapons in the world to fight against intemperance. The faith of the Mahometans forbids them to drink wine, and they abstain religiously, as the sons of Rechab; and the faith of Christ forbids drunkenness to us, and therefore is infinitely more powerful to suppress this vice, when we remember that we are Christians, and to abstain from drunkenness and gluttony is part of the faith and discipling of Jesus, and that with these vices neither our love to God nor our hopes of heaven can possibly consist; and, therefore, when these enter the heart the others go out at the mouth; for this is the devil that is cast out by fasting and prayer, which are the proper actions of these graces.

7. As a pursuance of this rule, it is a good advice, that, as we begin and end all our times of eating with prayer and thanksgiving, so, at the meal, we remove and carry up our mind and spirit to the celestial table, often thinking of it, and often desiring it; that by enkindling thy desire to heavenly banquets, thou mayest be indifferent and less passionate for the earthly.

8. Mingle discourses, pious, or in some sense, profitable, and in all senses charitable and innocent, with thy meal, as occasion is ministered.

9. Let your drink so serve your meat as your meat doth your health; that it be apt to convey and digest it, and refresh the spirits; but let it never go beyond such a refreshment as may a little lighten the present load of a sad or troubled spirit, never to inconvenience, lightness, sottishness, vanity, or intemperance; and know that the loosing the bands of the tongue, and the very first dissolution of its duty, is one degree of the intemperance.

10. In all cases be careful, that you be not brought under the power of such things which otherwise are lawful enough in the use. "All things are lawful for me; but I will not be brought under the power of any", said St. Paul. And to be perpetually longing, and impatiently desirous of anything, so that a man cannot abstain from it, is to lose a man's liberty, and to become a servant of meat and drink, or smoke. And I wish this last instance were more considered by persons who little suspect themselves guilty of intemperance, though their desires are strong and impatient, and the use of it perpetual and unreasonable to all purposes, but that they have made it habitual and necessary as intemperance itself is made to some men.

11. Use those advices which are prescribed as instruments, to suppress voluptuousness, in the foregoing section. __________________________________________________________________

[85] Chi ha bevuto tutto il mare, puo bere anche un trano.--Senec. Ep. 83.

[86] Nil interest, faveas sceleri, an illud facias.--Senec. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

SECTION III. __________________________________________________________________

Of Chastity

Reader, stay, and read not the advices of the following section, unless thou hast a chaste spirit, or desirest to be chaste, or at least art apt to consider whether you ought or no. For there are some spirits so atheistical, and some so wholly possessed with a spirit of uncleanness, that they turn the most prudent and chaste discourses into dirty and filthy apprehensions; like choleric stomachs, changing their very cordials and medicines into bitterness, and, in a literal sense, turning the grace of God into wantonness. They study cases of conscience in the matter of carnal sins, not to avoid, but to learn ways how to offend God and pollute their own spirits; and search their houses with a sunbeam, that they may be instructed in all the corners of nastiness. I have used all the care I could in the following periods, that I might neither be wanting to assist those that need it, nor yet minister any occasion of fancy or vainer thoughts to those that need them not. If any man will snatch the pure taper from my hand and hold it to the devil, he will only burn his own fingers, but shall not rob me of the reward of my care and good intention, since I have taken heed how to express the following duties, and given him caution how to read them.

Chastity is that duty which was mystically intended by God in the law of circumcision. It is the circumcision of the heart, the cutting off all superfluity of naughtiness, and a suppression of all irregular desires in the matters of sensual or carnal pleasure. I call all desires irregular and sinful that are not sanctified: 1. by the holy institution, or by being within the protection of marriage; 2. by being within the order of nature; 3. by being within the moderation of Christian modesty. Against the first are fornication, adultery, and all voluntary pollutions of either sex. Against the second are all unnatural lusts and incestuous mixtures. Against the third is all immoderate use of permitted beds, concerning meats and drinks, there being no certain degree of frequency or intention prescribed to all persons; but it is to be ruled as the other actions of a man, by proportion to the end, by the dignity of the person in the honour and severity of being a Christian, and by other circumstances of which I am to give account.

Chastity is that grace which forbids and restrains all these, keeping the body and soul pure in that state in which it is placed by God, whether of the single or of the married life; concerning which our duty is thus described by St. Paul: For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication; that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God.' [87]

Chastity is either abstinence or continence. Abstinence is that of virgins or widows; continence of married persons. Chaste marriage are honourable and pleasing to God; widowhood is pitiable in its solitariness and loss, but amiable and comely when it is adorned with gravity and purity, and not sullied with remembrances of the past license, nor with present desires of returning to a second bed. But virginity is a life of angels, the enamel of the soul, the huge advantage of religion, the great opportunity for the retirements of devotion; [88] and, being empty of cares it is full of prayers; being unmingled with the world, it is apt to converse with God; and by not feeling the warmth of a too forward and indulgent nature, flames out with holy fires till it be burning like the cherubim and the most ecstasied order of holy and unpolluted spirits.

Natural virginity, of itself, is not a state more acceptable to God; but that which is chosen and voluntary, in order to the conveniences of religion and separation from worldly encumbrances, is therefore better than the married life, not that it is more holy, but that it is a freedom from cares, an opportunity to spend more time in spiritual employments. It is not allayed with businesses and attendances upon lower affairs; and if it be a chosen condition to these ends, it containeth in it a victory over lusts, and greater desires of religion and self-denial, and therefore is more excellent than the married life, in that degree in which it hath greater religion, and a greater mortification, a less satisfaction of natural desires, and a greater fulness of the spiritual: and just so is to expect that little coronet, or special reward, which God hath prepared (extraordinary and besides the great crown of all faithful souls) for those who have not defiled themselves with women, but follow the virgin Lamb for ever.' [89]

But some married persons, even in their marriage, do better please God than some virgins in their state of virginity: they, by giving great example of conjugal affection, by preserving their faith unbroken, by educating children in the fear of God, by patience, and contentedness, and holy thoughts, and the exercise of virtues proper to that state, do not only please God, but do in a higher degree than those virgins whose piety is not answerable to their great opportunities and advantages.

However, married persons, and widows, and virgins, are all servants of God, and co-heirs in the inheritance of Jesus, if they live within the restraints and laws of their particular estate, chastely, temperately, justly, and rigorously. __________________________________________________________________

[87] 1 Thess. iv. 3-5.

[88] Virginitas est, in arne corruptibili, incorruptionis perpetua meditatio--St. Aug. 1. de Virg. c.13.

[89] Apoc. xiv. 4. __________________________________________________________________

The evil Consequent of Uncleanness.

The blessings and proper effects of chastity we shall best understand, by reckoning the evils of uncleanness and carnality.

1. Uncleanness, of all vices, is the most shameful. The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me; and disguiseth his face. In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the day-time; they knew not the light, for the morning is to them as the shadow of death. He is swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth; he beholdeth not the way of the vineyards.' [90] Shame is the eldest daughter of uncleanness.
[91]

2. The appetites of uncleanness are full of cares and trouble, and its fruitation is sorrow and repentance. The way of the adulterer is hedged with thorns; [92] full of fears and jealousies, burning desires and impatient waitings, tediousness of delay, and sufferance of affronts and amazements of discovery. [93]

3. Most of its kinds are of that condition that they involve the ruin of two souls, and he that is a fornicator or adulterous steals the soul, as well as dishonours the body of his neighbour; and so it becomes like the sin of falling Lucifer, who brought a part of the stars with his tail from heaven.

4. Of all carnal sins, it is that alone which the devil takes delight to imitate and counterfeit; communicating with witches and impure persons in the corporal act, but in this only.

5. Uncleanness, with all its kinds, is a vice which hath a professed enmity against the body, Every sin which a man doth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.'
[94]

6. Uncleanness is hugely contrary to the spirit of government [95] by embasing the spirit of a man, making if effeminate, sneaking, soft, and foolish, without courage, without confidence. David felt this after his folly with Bathsheba; he fell to unkingly acts and stratagems to hide the crime; and he did nothing but increase it, and remained timorous and poor spirited, till he prayed to God once more to establish him with a free and a princely spirit. [96] And no superior dare strictly observe discipline upon his charge, if he hath let himself loose to the shame of incontinence.

7.The gospel hath added two arguments against uncleanness which were never before used, nor, indeed, could be; since God hath given the Holy Spirit to them that are baptized, and rightly confirmed and entered into covenant with him, our bodies are made temples of the Holy Ghost, in which he dwells; and therefore uncleanness is sacrilege, and defiles a temple. It is St. Paul's argument, Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?' [97] and He that defiles a temple him will God destroy. [98] Therefore glorify God in your bodies; that is, flee fornication. To which, for the likeness of the argument, add, that our bodies are members of Christ; and therefore God forbid that we should take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot.' So that uncleanness dishonours Christ, and dishonours the Holy Spirit: it is a sin against God, and in this sense, a sin against the Holy Ghost.

8. The next special argument which the gospel ministers, especially against adultery, and for the preservation of the purity of marriage, is, that marriage is by Christ hallowed into a mystery, to signify the sacramental and mystical union of Christ and his church. [99] He, therefore, that breaks this knot, which the church and their mutual faiths have tied, and Christ hath knit up into a mystery dishonours a great rite of Christianity, of high, spiritual, and excellent signification.

9. St. Gregory reckons uncleanness to be the parent of these monsters, blindness of mind, inconsideration, precipitancy, or giddiness in actions, self-love, hatred of God, love of the present pleasures, a despite or despair of the joys of religion here, and of heaven hereafter. Whereas, a pure mind in a chaste body is the mother of wisdom and deliberation, sober counsels and ingenuous actions, open deportment and a sweet carriage, sincere principles and unprejudicate understanding, love of God and self-denial, peace and confidence, holy prayers and spiritual comfort, and a pleasure of spirit infinitely greater than the sottish and beastly pleasures of unchastity. "For to overcome pleasure is the greatest pleasure; and no victory is greater than that which is gotten over our lusts and filthy inclinations."

10. Add to all these, the public dishonesty and disreputation that all the nations of the world have cast upon adulterous and unhallowed embraces. Abimelech, to the men of Gerar, made it death to meddle with the wife of Isaac, and Judah condemned Thamar to be burnt for her adulterous conception; and God, besides the law made to put the adulterous person to death, did constitute a settled and constant miracle to discover the adultery of a suspected woman, that her bowels should burst with drinking the waters of jealousy. The Egyptian law was to cut off the nose of the adulteress, and the offending part of the adulterer. The Locrians put out both the adulterer's eyes. The Germans (as Tacitus reports) placed the adulteress amidst her kindred, naked, and shaved her head, and caused her husband to beat her with clubs through the city. The Gortynaeans crowned the man with wool, to shame him for his effeminacy; and the Cumani caused the woman to ride upon an ass, naked, and hooted at, and for ever after called her by an appellative of scorn, "a rider upon the ass." All nations, barbarous and evil, agreeing in their general design, of rooting so dishonest and shameful a vice from under heaven.

The middle ages of the church were not pleased that the adulteress should be put to death: but in the primitive ages, the civil laws by which Christians were then governed gave leave to the wronged husband to kill his adulterous wife if he took her in the fact; but because it was a privilege indulged to men, rather than a direct detestation of the crime, a consideration of the injury rather than of the uncleanness, therefore it was soon altered; but yet hath caused an inquiry, Whether is worse, the adultery of the man or the woman?

The resolution of which case, in order to our present affair, is thus: in respect of the person, the fault is greater in a man than in a woman, who is of a more pliant and easy spirit, and weaker understanding, and hath nothing to supply the unequal strengths of men, but the defensative of a passive nature and armour of modesty, which is the natural ornament of that sex. "And it is unjust that the man should demand chastity and severity from his wife which himself will not observe towards her, [100] said the good Emperor Antoninus: it is as if the man should persuade his wife to fight against those enemies to which he had yielded himself a prisoner. [101] In respect of the effects and evil consequents, the adultery of the woman is worse, as bringing bastardly into a family, and disinherisons or great injuries to the lawful children, and infinite violations of peace, and murders, and divorces, and all the effects of rage and madness. But in respect of the crime, and as relating to God, they are equal, intolerable, and damnable: and since it is no more permitted to men to have many wives than to women to have many husbands, and that in this respect their privilege is equal, their sin is so too. And this is the case of the question in Christianity. And the church anciently refused to admit such persons to the holy communion, until they had done seven years penances in fasting, in sackcloth, in severe inflictions and instruments of charity and sorrow, according to the discipline of those ages. __________________________________________________________________

[90] Job, xxiv. 15, etc.
[91] Atiria paxm.
[92] Hos. ii. 6.

[93] Appetitus fornicationis anxietas est, satietas vero poenitentia.--S. Hieron.

[94] 1 Cor. vi. 18.
[95] phxartikai ton archon.
[96] Spiritu principali me confirma.--Psal. 1l.
[97] 1 Cor. vi. 19.
[98] 1 Cor. iii. 17.
[99] Ephes. v. 32.

[100] Apud Aug. de Adulter. Conjug-Plut. Conjug. Praecept.--Casso saltem delectamine amare quot potiri non licest.

[101] Patellas luxuriae oculos, dixit Isidorus. __________________________________________________________________

Acts of Chastity in general.

The actions and proper office of the grace of chastity in general, are these:

1. To resist all unchaste thoughts: at no hand entertaining pleasure in the unfruitful fancies and remembrances of uncleanness, although no definite desire or resolution be entertained.

2. At no hand to entertain any desire, or any fantastic imaginative loves, though by shame, or disability, or other circumstance, they be restrained from act.

3. To have a chaste eye and hand: [102] for it is all one with what part of the body we commit adultery: and if a man lets his eye loose and enjoys the lust of that, he is an adulterer. Look not upon a woman to lust after her. And supposing all the other members restrained, yet if the eye be permitted to lust, the man can no otherwise be called chaste than he can be called severe and mortified that sits all day long seeing plays and revellings, and out of greediness to fill his eye, neglects his belly. There are some vessels which, if you offer to lift by the belly or bottom, you cannot stir them, but are soon removed if you take them by the ears. It matters not with which of your members you are taken and carried off from your duty and severity.

4. To have a heart and mind chaste and pure; that is, detesting all uncleanness; disliking all its motions, past actions, circumstances, likenesses, discourses: and this ought to be the chastity of virgins and widows, of old persons and eunuchs especially, and generally of all men, according to their several necessities.

5. To discourse chastely and purely; [103] with great care declining all indecencies of language, chastening the tongue and restraining it with grace, as vapours of wine are restrained with a bunch of myrrh.

6. To disapprove by an after-act all involuntary and natural pollutions: for, if a man delights in having suffered any natural pollution, and with pleasure remembers it, he chooses that which was in itself involuntary; and that which, being natural, was innocent, becoming voluntary, is made sinful.

7. They that have performed these duties and parts of chastity will certainly abstain from all exterior actions of uncleanness, those noonday and midnight devils, those lawless and ungodly worshippings of shame and uncleanness, whose birth is in trouble, whose growth is in folly, and whose end is in shame.

But besides these general acts of chastity which are common to all states of men and women, there are some few things to the severals. __________________________________________________________________

[102] Time videre unde possis cadere, et noli fieri perversa simplicitate securus.--St. Aug.

[103] Sp. Minucius Pontifex Posthumium monuit, ne verbis vitae eastimoniam non aequantibus uteretur.--Plut. de Cap. ex Inim Utilit. __________________________________________________________________

Acts of Virginal Chastity.

1. Virgins must remember, that the virginity of the body is only excellent in order to the purity of the soul; who therefore must consider, that since they are in the some measure in a condition like that of angels, it is their duty to spend much of their time in angelical employment: for in the same degree that virgins live more spiritually than other persons, in the same degree is their virginity a more excellent state. But else, it is no better than that of involuntary or constrained eunuchs; a misery and a trouble, or else a mere privation, as much without excellency as without mixture.

2. Virgins must contend for a singular modesty; whose first part must be an ignorance in the distinction of sexes, or their proper instruments; or if they accidentally be instructed in that, it must be supplied with an inadvertency or neglect of all thoughts and remembrances of such difference; and the following parts of it must be pious and chaste thoughts, holy language, and modest carriage.

3. Virgins must be retired and unpublic: for all freedom and looseness of society is a violence done to virginity, not in its natural, but in its moral capacity; that is, it loses part of its severity, strictness, and opportunity of advantages, by publishing that person whose work is religion, whose company is angels, whose thoughts must dwell in heaven, and separate from all mixtures of the world.

4. Virgins have a peculiar obligation to charity: for this is the virginity of the soul; as purity, integrity, and separation is of the body: which doctrine we are taught by St. Peter: Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart, fervently.' [104] For a virgin that consecrates her body to God, and pollutes her spirit with rage, or impatience, or inordinate anger, gives him what he most hates, a most foul and defiled soul.

5. These rules are necessary for virgins that offer that state to God, and mean not to enter into the state of marriage; for they that only wait the opportunity of a convenient change are to steer themselves by the general rules of chastity. __________________________________________________________________

[104] 1 Pet. i. 22. __________________________________________________________________

Rules for Widows or Vidual Chastity.

For widows, the fontanel of whose desires hath been opened by the former permissions of the marriage-bed, they must remember,

1. That God hath now restrained the former license, bound up their eyes, and shut up their heart into a narrower compass, and hath given them sorrow to be a bridle to their desires. A widow must be a mourner; and she that is not cannot so well secure the chastity of her proper state.

2. It is against public honesty to marry another man so long as she is with child by her former husband: and of the same fame it is, in a lesser proportion, to marry within the year of mourning; but anciently it was infamous for her to marry till by common account the body was dissolved into its first principle of earth.

3. A widow must restrain her memory and her fancy, not recalling or recounting her former permissions and freer licenses with any present delight: for then she opens that slice which her husband's death and her own sorrow have shut up.

4. A widow that desires her widowhood should be a state pleasing to God, must spend her time as devoted virgins should, in fastings and prayers and charity.

5. A widow must forbid herself to sue those temporal solaces, which in her former estate were innocent, but now are dangerous. __________________________________________________________________

Rules for Married Persons, or Matrimonial Chastity.

Concerning married persons, besides the keeping of their mutual faith and contract with each other, these particulars are useful to be observed: [105]

1. Although their mutual endearments are safe within the protection of marriage, yet they that have wives or husbands must be as though they had them not; that is, they must have an affection greater to each other than they have to any person in the world, but not greater than they have to God: but that they be ready to part with all interest in each other's person rather than sin against God.

2. In their permissions and license they must be sure to observe the order of nature, and the ends of God. "He is an ill husband that uses his wife as a man treats a harlot," having no other end but pleasure. Concerning which our best rule is, that although in this, as in eating and drinking, there is an appetite to be satisfied which cannot be done without pleasing that desire, yet, since that desire and satisfaction was intended by nature for other ends, they should never be separate from those ends, but always be joined with all or one of these ends, "with a desire of children, or to avoid fornication, or to lighten and ease the cares and sadnesses of household affairs, or to endear each other: "but never with a purpose, either in act or desire, to separate the sensuality from these ends which hallow it. Onan did separate his act from it proper end, and so ordered his embraces that his wife should not conceive, and God punished him.

3. Married persons must keep such modesty and decency of treating each other, that they never force themselves into high and violent lusts, with arts and misbecoming devices; always remembering, that those mixtures are most innocent which are most simple and most natural, most orderly and most safe.

4. It is a duty of matrimonial chastity to be restrained and temperate in the use of their lawful pleasures: concerning which, although no universal rule can antecedently be given to all persons, any more than to all bodies one proportion of meat and drink, yet married persons are to estimate the degree of their license according to the following proportions. 1. That it be moderate, so as to consist with health. 2. That it be so ordered as not to be too expensive of time, that precious opportunity of working out our salvation. 3. That when duty is demanded, it be always paid (so far as is in our powers and election) according to the foregoing measures. 4. That it be with a temperate affection, without violent transporting desires, or too sensual applications. Concerning which a man is to make judgment by proportion to other actions, and the severities of his religion, and the sentences of sober and wise persons; always remembering, that marriage is a provision for supply of the natural necessities of the body, not for the artificial and procured appetites of the mind. And it is a sad truth, that many married persons, thinking that the flood-gates of liberty are set wide open without measures or restraint, (so they sail in that channel,) have felt the final rewards of intemperance and lust, by their unlawful using of lawful permissions. Only let each of them be temperate, and both of them be modest. Socrates was wont to say, that those women to whom nature hath not been indulgent in good features and colours, should make it up themselves with excellent manners; and those who were beautiful and comely should be careful that so fair a body be not polluted with unhandsome usages. To which Plutarch adds, that a wife, if she be unhandsome, should consider how extremely ugly she would be if she wanted modesty: but if she be handsome, let her think how gracious that beauty would be if she super adds chastity.

5. Married persons by consent are to abstain from their mutual entertainments at solemn times of devotion; not as a duty of itself necessary, but as being the most proper act of purity, which, in their condition, they can present to God, and being a good advantage for attending their preparation to the solemn duty and their demeanour in it. It is St. Paul's counsel, that by consent for a time they should abstain, that they may give themselves to fasting and prayer.' And though when Christians did receive the holy communion every day, it is certain they did not abstain but had children; yet, when the communion was more seldom, they did with religion abstain from the marriage-bed during the time of their solemn preparatory devotions, as anciently they did from eating and drinking, till the solemnity of the day was past.

6. It were well if married persons would, in their penitential prayers, and in their general confessions, suspect themselves, and accordingly ask a general pardon for all their indecencies, and more passionate applications of themselves in the offices of marriage; that what is lawful and honourable in its kind may not be sullied with imperfect circumstances; or, if it be, it may be made clean again by the interruption and recallings of such a repentance, of which such uncertain parts of action are capable.

But, because of all the dangers of a Christian, none more pressing and troublesome than the temptations to lust, no enemy more dangerous than that of the flesh, no accounts greater than what we have to reckon for at the audit of concupiscence, therefore it concerns all that would be safe from this death to arm themselves by the following rules, to prevent or to cure all the wounds of our flesh made by the poisoned arrows of lust. __________________________________________________________________

[105] Nisi fundamenta stirpis jacta sint probe, Miseros necesse est esse deinceps posteros.--Eurip. __________________________________________________________________

Remedies against Uncleanness.

1. When a temptation of lust assaults thee, do not resist it by heaping up arguments against it and disputing with it; considering its offers and its dangers, but fly from it; [106] that is, think not at all of it, lay aside all consideration concerning it, and turn away from it by any severe and laudable thought of business. Saint Jerome very wittingly reproves the Gentile superstition, who pictured the virgin-deities armed with a shield and lance, as if chastity could not be defended without war and direct contention. No; this enemy is to be treated otherwise. If you hear it speak, though but to dispute with it, it ruins you; and the very arguments you go about to answer, leave a relish upon the tongue. A man may be burned if he goes near the fire, though but to quench his house; and by handling pitch, though but to draw it from your clothes, you defile your fingers.

2. Avoid idleness, and fill up all the spaces of thy time with severs and useful employment; for lust usually creeps in at those emptinesses where the soul is unemployed, and the body is at ease. For no easy, healthful, and idle person was ever chaste, if he could be tempted. But of all employments bodily labour is most useful, and of greatest benefit for the driving away the devil.

3. Give no entertainment to the beginnings, the first motions and secret whispers of the spirit of impurity: for if you totally suppress it, it dies; [107] if you permit the furnace to breathe its smoke and flame out at any vent, it will rage to the consumption of the whole. This cockatrice is soonest crushed in the shell; but if it grows, it turns to a serpent, and a dragon, and a devil.

4. Corporal mortification, and hard usages of our body, hath, by all ages of the church, been accounted a good instrument, and of some profit against the spirit of fornication. A spare diet, and a thin course table, seldom refreshment, frequent fasts, not violent, and interrupted with returns to ordinary feeding, but constantly little, unpleasant, of wholesome but sparing nourishment: for by such cutting off the provisions of vectorial, we shall weaken the strengths of our enemy. To which if we add lyings upon the ground, painful postures in prayer, reciting our devotions with our arms extended at full length, like Moses praying against Amalek, or our blessed Saviour hanging upon his painful bed of sorrows, the cross, and (if the lust be upon us, and sharply tempting) by inflicting any smart to overthrow the strongest passion by the most violent pain, we shall find great ease for the present, and the resolution and apt sufferance against the future danger. And this was St. Paul's remedy. I bring my body under;' he used some rudenesses towards it. But it was a great nobleness of chastity which St. Jerome reports of a son of the king of Nicomedia, [108] who, being tempted upon flowers and a perfumed bed with a soft violence, but yet tied down to the temptation, and solicited with circumstances of Asian luxury by an impure courtesan, lest the easiness of his posture should abuse him, spit out his tongue into her face; to represent that no virtue hath cost the saints so much as this of chastity. [109]

5. Fly from all occasions, temptations, loosenesses of company, balls and revellings, indecent mixtures of wanton dancings, idle talk, private society with strange women, starings upon a beauteous face, the company of women that are singers, amorous gestures, garish and wanton dresses, feasts and liberty, banquets and perfumes, [110] wine and strong drink, which are made to persecute chastity; some of these being the very prologues to lust, and the most innocent of them being but like condited or pickled mushrooms, which if carefully corrected and seldom tasted may be harmless, but can never do good: ever remembering, that it is easier to die for chastity than to live with it; and the hangman could not extort a consent from some persons from whom a lover would have entreated it. For the glory of chastity will easily overcome the rudeness of fear and violence; but easiness and softness and smooth temptations creep in, and, like the sun, make a maiden lay by her veil and robe, which persecution, like the northern wind, makes her hold fast and clap close about her.

6. He that will secure his chastity must first cure his pride and his rage. For oftentimes lust is the punishment of a proud man, to tame the vanity of his pride by the shame and affronts of unchastity; and the same intemperate heat that makes anger does enkindle lust.

7. If thou beest assaulted with an unclean spirit, trust not thyself alone; but run forth into company whose reverence and modesty may suppress, or whose society may divert thy thoughts: and a perpetual witness of thy conversation is of especial use against this vice, which evaporates in the open air like camphier, being impatient of light and witnesses.

8. Use frequent and earnest prayers to the King of purities, that first of virgins, the eternal God, who is of an essential purity, that he would be pleased to reprove and cast out the unclean spirit. For beside the blessings of prayer by way of reward, it hath a natural virtue to restrain this vice: because a prayer against it is an unwillingness to act it; and so long as we heartily pray against it our desires are secured, and then this devil hath no power. This was St. Paul's other remedy: For this cause I besought the Lord thrice.' And there is much reason and much advantage in the use of this instrument; because the main thing that in this affair is to be secured is a man's mind. He that goes about to cure lust by bodily exercises alone(as St. Paul's phrase is) or mortifications, shall find them sometimes instrumental to it, and incitations of sudden desires, but always insufficient and of little profit: but he that hath a chaste mind shall find his body apt enough to take laws; and let it do its worst, it cannot make a sin, and in its greatest violence can but produce a little natural uneasiness, not so much trouble as a severe fasting-day, or a hard night's lodging upon boards. If a man be hungry he must eat; and if he be thirsty he must drink in some convenient time, or else he dies; but if the body be rebellious, so the mind be chaste, let it do its worst, if you resolve perfectly not to satisfy it, you can receive no great evil by it. Therefore the proper cure is by application to the spirit and securities of the mind, which can no way so well be secured as by frequent and fervent prayers, and sober resolutions, and severe discourses. Therefore,

9. Hither bring in succor from consideration of the Divine presence and of his holy angels, mediation of death, and the passions of Christ upon the cross, imitation of his purities, and of the Virgin Mary, his unspotted and holy mother, and of such eminent saints, who, in their generations, were burning and shining lights, unmingled with such uncleannesses, which defile the soul, and who now follow the Lamb, withersoever he goes.

10. These remedies are of universal efficacy, in all cases extraordinary and violent; but in ordinary and common, the remedy which God hath provided, that is, honourable marriage, [111] hath a natural efficacy, besides a virtue by Divine blessing, to cure the inconveniences which otherwise might afflict persons temperate and sober. __________________________________________________________________

[106] Contra libidinis impetum apprehende fugam, si vis obtinere victoriam.--St. Aug. Nella guerra d' armr chi fuge vince.

[107] Quisquis in primo obsitit Repulitqua amorem, tutus ac victor fuit: Qui blandiendo dulce nutrivit malum, Sero recusat ferre, quod subiit, jugum.--Senec. Hippol. 134.

[108] In vita S. Pauli.

[109] Benedictus in spinis se volutavit; S. Martinianus faciem et manus. S. Johanes, cognomento Bonus, calamos acutos inter ungues et carnem digitorum intrusit. S. Theoctistus in silvia more ferarum vixit, ne inter Arabes pollueretur.

[110] Venus rosam amat propter fabellam, quam recitat.--Labanius. Venter mero awstuanus cito despumatur in libidines.--St Hieron. Il fuoco che non mi scalda, non voglio che mi scotti. -- numquid ego a te Magno prognatam deposco consule -- Velataque stola mea cum conferbuit ira?--Hobat. Serm 1.1. Sat 2.

[111] Danda est opera at matrimonio devincianur, quod est tutissimum juventutis vinculum.--Plut. de Educ. Lib. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

SECTION IV. __________________________________________________________________

Of Humility.

Humility is the great ornament and jewel of Christian religion; that whereby it is distinguished from all the wisdom of the world; it not having been taught by the wise men of the Gentiles, but first put into a discipline, and made part of a religion, by our Lord Jesus Christ, who propounded himself imitable by his disciples so signally in nothing as in the twin sisters of meekness and humility. Learn of me, for I am meek and humble; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.'

For all the world, all that we are, and all that we have, our bodies and our souls, our actions and our sufferings, our conditions at home, our accidents abroad, our many sins, and our seldom virtues, are as so many arguments to make our souls dwell low in the deep valleys of humility. __________________________________________________________________

Arguments against Pride, by way of consideration.

1. Our body is weak and impure, sending out more uncleannesses from its several sinks than could be endured, if they were not necessary and natural; and we are forced to pass that through our mouths, which as soon as we see upon the ground, we loathe like rottenness and vomiting.

2. Our strength is inferior to that of many beasts, and our infirmities so many that we are forced to dress and tend horses and asses, that they may help our needs, and relieve our wants.

3. Our beauty is in colour inferior to many flowers, and in proportion of parts it is no better than nothing; for even a dog hath parts as well proportioned and fitted to his purposes, and the designs of his nature, as we have; and when it is most florid and gay, three fits of an ague can change it into yellowness and leanness, and the hollowness and wrinkles of deformity.

4. Our learning is then best when it teaches most humility; but to be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance in the world. For our learning is so long in getting, and so very imperfect, that the greatest clerk knows not the thousandth part of what he is ignorant; and knows so uncertainly what he seems to know, and knows no otherwise than a fool or a child even what is told him or what he guesses at, that except those things which concern his duty, and which God hath revealed to him, which also every woman knows so far as is necessary, the most learned man hath nothing to be proud of, unless this be a sufficient argument to exalt him, that he uncertainly guesses at some more unnecessary things than many others, who yet know all that concerns them, and mind other things more necessary for the needs of life and commonwealths.

5. He that is proud of riches is a fool. For if he be exalted above his neighbours, because he hath more gold, how much inferior is he to a gold mine! How much is he to give place to a chain of pearl, or a knot of diamonds! For certainly that hath the greatest excellence from whence he derives all his gallantry and pre-eminence over his neighbours.

6. If a man be exalted by reason of any excellence in his soul, he may please to remember that all souls are equal; and their differing operations are because their instrument is in better tune, their body is more healthful or better tempered; which is no more praise to him than it is that he was born in Italy.

7. He that is proud of his birth is proud of the blessings of others, not of himself; for if his parents were more eminent in any circumstance than their neighbours, he is to thank God, and rejoice in them; but still he may be a fool, or unfortunate, or deformed; and when himself was born, it was indifferent to him whether his father were a king, or a peasant, for he knew not anything nor chose anything; and most commonly it is true, that he that boasts of his ancestors, who were the founders and raisers of a noble family, doth confess that he hath in himself a less virtue and a less honour, and therefore he is degenerated.

8. Whatsoever other difference there is between thee and thy neighbour, if it be bad, it is thine own, but thou hast no reason to boast of thy misery and shame: if it be good thou hast received it from God; and then thou art more obliged to pay duty and tribute, use and principal to him, and it were a strange folly for a man to be proud of being more in debt than another.

9. Remember what thou wert before thou wert begotten. Nothing. What wert thou in the first regions of thy dwelling, before thy birth? Uncleanness. What wert thou for many years after? A great sinner. What in all thy excellencies? A mere debtor to God, to thy parents, to the earth, to all the creatures. But we may, if we please, use the method of the Platonists, [112] who reduce all the causes and arguments for humility, which we can take from ourselves to these seven heads. 1. The spirit of a man is light and troublesome. 2. His body is brutish and sickly. 3. He is constant in his folly and error, and inconsistent in his manners and good purposes. 4. His labours are vain, intricate, and endless. 5. His fortune is changeable, but seldom pleasing, never perfect. 6. His wisdom comes not till he be ready to die, that is, till he be past using it. 7. His death is certain, always ready at the door, but never far off. Upon these or the like meditations if we dwell, or frequently retire to them, we shall see nothing more reasonable than to be humble, and nothing more foolish than to be proud. __________________________________________________________________

[112] Apuleius de Dennon. Socratis. __________________________________________________________________

Acts or Offices of Humility.

The grace of humility is exercised by these following rules.

1. Think not thyself better for anything that happens to thee from without. For although thou mayest, by gifts bestowed upon thee, be better than another, as one horse is better than another, that is of more use to others; yet as thou art a man, thou hast nothing to commend thee to thyself but that only by which thou art a man, that is, by what thou choosiest and refusest.

2. Humility consists not in railing against thyself, or wearing mean clothes, or going softly and submissively; but in hearty and real evil or mean opinion of thyself. Believe thyself an unworthy person heartily, as thou believest thyself to be hungry, or poor, or sick, when thou art so.

3. Whatsoever evil thou sayest of thyself, be content that others should think to be true: and if thou callest thyself fool, be not angry if another say so of thee. For if thou thinkest so truly, all men in the world desire other men to be of their opinion; and he is an hypocrite that accuses himself before others, with an intent not to be believed. But he that calls himself intemperate, foolish, lustful, and is angry when his neighbours call him so, is both a false and a proud person.

4. Love to be concealed, and little esteemed: [113] be content to want praise, never being troubled when thou art slighted or undervalued; for thou canst not undervalue thyself, and if thou thinkest so meanly as there is reason, no contempt will seem unreasonable, and therefore it will be very tolerable. [114]

5. Never be ashamed of thy birth, or thy parents, or thy trade, [115] or thy present employment, for the meanness or poverty of any of them; and when there is an occasion to speak of them, such an occasion as would invite you to speak of anything that pleases you, omit it not, but speak as readily and indifferently of thy meanness as of thy greatness. Primislaus, the first king of Bohemia, kept his country-shoes always by him, to remember from whence he was raised: and Agathocles, by the furniture of his table, confessed that from a potter he was raised to be the king of Sicily.

6. Never speak anything directly tending to thy praise or glory; that is, with the purpose to be commended, and for no other end. If other ends be mingled with thy honour, as if the glory of God, or charity, or necessity, or anything of prudence be thy end, you are not tied to omit your discourse or your design, that you may avoid praise, but pursue your end, though praise come along in the company. Only let not praise be the design.

7. When thou hast said or done anything for which thou receivest praise or estimation, take it indifferently, and return it to God, reflecting upon his as the giver of the gift, or the blesser of the action, or the aid of the design; and give God thanks for making thee an instrument of his glory, for the benefit of others.

8. Secure a good name to thyself by living virtuously and humbly; but let this good name be nursed abroad, and never be brought home to look upon it: let others use it for their own advantage; let them speak of it if they please; but do not thou at all use it, but as an instrument to do God glory, and thy neighbour more advantage. Let thy face, like Moses's, shine to others, but make no looking-glasses for thyself.

9. Take no content in praise when it is offered thee; but let thy rejoicing in God's gift be allayed with fear, lest this good bring thee to evil. Use the praise as you use your pleasure in eating and drinking; if it comes, make it do drudgery; let it serve other ends, and minister to necessities, and to caution, lest by pride you lose your just praise, which you have deserved, or else, by being praised unjustly, you receive shame into yourself with God and wise men.

10. Use no stratagems and devices to get praise. Some use to inquire into the faults of their own actions or discourses, on purpose to hear that it was well done or spoken, and without fault; others bring the matter into talk, or thrust themselves into company, and intimate and give occasion to be thought or spoken of. These men make a bait to persuade themselves to swallow the hook, till by drinking the waters of vanity they swell and burst.

11. Make no suppletories to thyself, when thou art disgraced or slighted, by pleasing thyself with supposing thou didest deserve praise, though they understood thee not, or enviously detracted from thee: neither do thou get to thyself a private theatre and flatterers,
[116] in whose vain noises and fantastie praises thou mayest keep up thine own good opinion of thyself.

12. Entertain no fancies of vanity and private whispers of this devil of pride, such as was that of Nebuchadnezzar: Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the honour of my name, and the might of my majesty, and the power of my kingdom?' Some fantastic spirits will walk alone, and dream waking of greatness, of palaces, of excellent orations, full theatres, loud applauses, sudden advancement, great fortunes, and so will spend an hour with imaginative pleasure; all their employment being nothing but fumes of pride, and secret indefinite desires and significations of what their heart wishes. In this, although there is nothing of its own nature directly vicious, yet is either an ill mother or an ill daughter an ill sign or an ill effect; and therefore at no hand consisting with the safety and interests of humility.

13. Suffer others to be praised in thy presence, and entertain their good and glory with delight; but at no hand disparage them, or lessen the report, or make an objection; and think not the advancement of thy brother is a lessening of thy worth. But this act is also to extend further.

14. Be content that he should be employed, and thou laid by as unprofitable; his sentence approved, thine rejected; he be preferred, and thou fixed in a low employment.

15. Never compare thyself with others, unless it be to advance them and to depress thyself. To which purpose, we must be sure, in some sense or other, to think ourselves the worst in every company where we come: one is more learned than I am, another is more prudent, a third more charitable, or less proud. For the humble man observes their good, and reflects only upon his own vileness; or considers the many evils of himself certainly known to himself, and the ill of others but by uncertain report; or he considers that the evils done by another are out of much infirmity or ignorance, but his own sins are against a clearer light, and if the other had so great helps, he would have done more good and less evil; or he remembers, that his old sins before his conversion were greater in the nature of the thing, or in certain circumstances, than the sins of other men. So St. Paul reckoned himself the chiefest of sinners, because formerly he had acted the chiefest sin of persecuting the church of God. But this rule is to be used with this caution, that though it be good always to think meanest of ourselves, yet it is not ever safe to speak it, because those circumstances and considerations which determine thy thoughts are not known to others as to thyself; and it may concern others that they hear thee give God thanks for the graces he hath given thee. But if thou preservest thy thoughts and opinions of thyself truly humble, you may with more safety give God thanks in public for that good which cannot, or ought not to be concealed.

16. Be not always ready to excuse every oversight, or indiscretion, or ill action, but if thou beest guilty of it confess it plainly; for virtue scorns a lie for its cover, but to hide a sin with it is like a crust of leprosy drawn upon an ulcer. If thou beest not guilty (unless it be scandalous,) be not over-earnest to remove it, but rather use it as an argument to chastise all greatness of fancy and opinion in thyself; and accustom thyself to bear reproof patiently and contentedly, and the harsh words of thy enemies, as knowing that the anger of an enemy is a better monitor, and represents our faults, or admonishes us of our duty, with more heartiness than the kindness does or precious balms of a friend.

17. Give God thanks for every weakness, deformity, and imperfection, and accept is as a favour and grace of God, and an instrument to resist pride, and nurse humility, ever remembering, that when God, by giving thee a crooked back, hath also made thy spirit stoop or less vain, thou art more ready to enter the narrow gate of heaven, than by being straight, and standing upright, and thinking highly. Thus the apostles rejoiced in their infirmities, not moral, but natural and accidental, in their being beaten and whipped like slaves, in their nakedness, and poverty.

18. Upbraid no man's weakness to him to discomfort him, neither report it to disparage him, neither delight to remember it to lessen him, or to set thyself above him. Be sure never to praise thyself, or to dispraise any man else, unless God's glory or some holy end do hallow it. And it was noted to the praise of Cyrus, that, amongst his equals in age, [117] he would never play at any sport, or use any exercise, in which he knew himself more excellent than they; but in such in which he was unskillful he would make his challenges, lest he should shame them by his victory, and that himself might learn something of their skill, and do them civilities.

19. Besides the foregoing parts and actions, humility teaches us to submit ourselves and all our faculties to God, to believe all things, to do all things, to suffer all things,' which his will enjoins us; to be content in every state or change, knowing we have deserved worse than the worst we feel, and, as Anytus said to Alcibiades, he hath taken but half when he might have taken all, to adore his goodness, to fear his greatness, to worship his eternal and infinite excellencies, and to submit ourselves to all our superiors, in all things, according to godliness, and to be meek and gentle in our conversation towards others. [118]

Now, although, according to the nature of every grace, this begins as a gift, and is increased like a habit, that is, best by its own acts; yet, besides the former acts and offices of humility, there are certain other exercises and considerations, which are good helps and instruments for the procuring and increasing this grace, and the curing of pride. __________________________________________________________________

[113] Ama nesciri et pro nihilo reputari.--Gerson.

[114] I1villan nobilitado non cognosce partentado.

[115] Chi del arte sua se vergogna, semqure vive con vergogna.

[116] Alter alteri satis amplum theatrum sumus; satis unus, satismullus.--Sen.

[117] Ama l'amico tuo con il difetto suo. In colloquiis pueri invisi aliis non fient, si non omnino in disputationibus victoriam sempetr obtinere laborent. Non tantum egregium est scire vincere, sed etiam posse vinci pulchrum est, ubi victoria est damnosa.--Plut. de Educ. Liber.

[118] Nihil ita dignum est odio, ut eorum mores, qui compellantibus se difficiles, praebent.--Plut. __________________________________________________________________

Means and Exercises for obtaining and increasing the Grace of Humility.

1. Make confession of thy sins often to God; and consider what all that evil amounts to which you then charge upon yourself. Look not upon them as scattered in the course of a long life; now an intemperate anger, then too full a meal; now idle talking, and another time impatience; but unite them into one continued representation, and remember, that he whose life seems fair, by reason that his faults are scattered at large distances in the several parts of his life, yet, if all his errors and follies were articled against him, the man would seem vicious and miserable; and possibly this exercise, really applied upon thy spirit may be useful.

2. Remember that we usually disparage others upon slight grounds and little instances, and toward them one fly is enough to spoil a whole box of ointment; and if a man be highly commended, we think him sufficiently lessened if we clap one sin or folly or infirmity into his account. Let us, therefore, be just to ourselves, since we are so severe to others, and consider that whatsoever good any one can think or say of us, we can tell him of hundreds of base, and unworthy, and foolish actions, any one of which were enough (we hope) to destroy another's reputation; therefore, let so many be sufficient to destroy our over-high thoughts of ourselves.

3. When our neighbour is cried up by public fame and popular noises, that we may disparage and lessen him, we cry out that the people is a herd of unlearned and ignorant persons, ill judges, loud trumpets, but which never give certain sound; let us use the same art to humble ourselves, and never take delight and pleasure in public reports and acclamations of assemblies, and please ourselves with their judgment, of whom, in other the like cases, we affirm that they are mad.

4. We change our opinion of others by their kindness or unkindness towards us. If he be my patron, and bounteous, he is wise, he is noble, his faults are but warts, his virtues are mountains; but if he proves unkind, or rejects our importunate suit, then he is ill-natured, covetous, and his free meal is called gluttony; that which before we called civility is now very drunkenness, and all he speaks if flat, and dull, and ignorant as a swine. This, indeed, is unjust towards others; but a good instrument if we turn the edge of it upon ourselves. We use ourselves ill, abusing ourselves with false principles, cheating ourselves with lies and pretences, stealing the choice and elections from our wills, placing voluntary ignorance in our understandings, denying the desires of the spirit, setting up a faction against every noble and just desire, the least of which, because we should resent up to reviling the injurious person, it is but reason we should at least not flatter ourselves with fond and too kind opinions.

5. Every day call to mind some one of thy foulest sins, or the most shameful of thy disgraces, or the indiscreetest of thy actions, or anything that did then most trouble thee, and apply it to the present swelling of thy spirit and opinion, and it may help to allay it.

6. Pray often for his grace with all humility of gesture and passion of desire, and in thy devotion interpose many acts of humility, by way of confession and address to God, and reflection upon thyself.

7. Avoid great offices and employments, and the noises of worldly honour. [119] For in those states, many times so many ceremonies and circumstances will seem necessary, as will destroy the sobriety of thy thoughts. If the number of thy servants be fewer, and their observances less, and their reverences less solemn, possibly they will seem less than thy dignity; and if they be so much and so many it is likely they will be too big for thy spirit. And here be thou very careful, lest thou be abused by a pretence, that thou wouldest use thy great dignity as an opportunity of doing great good. For supposing it might be good for others, yet it is not good for thee; they may have encouragement in noble things from thee, and, by the same instrument, thou mayest thyself be tempted to pride and vanity. And certain it is, God is as much glorified by thy example of humility in a low or temperate condition, as by thy bounty in a great and dangerous.

8. Make no reflex upon thy own humility, nor upon any other grace with which God hath enriched thy soul. For since God oftentimes hides from his saints and servants the sight of those excellent things by which, they shine to others (though the dark side of the lantern be toward themselves,) that he may secure the grace of humility, it is good that thou do so thyself; and if thou beholdest a grace of God in thee, remember to give him thanks for it, that thou mayest not boast in that which is none of they own; and consider how thou hast sullied it by handling it with dirty fingers, with thy own imperfections, and with mixture of anhandsome circumstances. Spiritual pride is very dangerous, not only by reason it spoils so many graces, by which we draw nigh unto the kingdom of God, but also because it so frequently creeps upon the spirit of holy persons. For it is no wonder for a beggar to call himself poor, or a drunkard to confess that he is no sober person; but for a holy person to be humble, for one whom all men esteem a saint to fear lest himself become a devil, and to observe his own danger, and to discern his own infirmities, and make discovery of his bad adherences, is as hard as for a prince to submit himself to be guided by tutors, and make himself subject to discipline, like the meanest of his servants.

9. Often meditate upon the effects of pride on one side, and humility on the other. First, That pride is like a canker, and destroys the beauty of the fairest flowers, the most excellent gifts and graces; but humility crowns them all. Secondly, That pride is a great hinderance to the perceiving the things of God, [120] and humility is an excellent preparative and instrument of spiritual wisdom. Thirdly, That pride hinders the acceptation of our prayers, but humility pierceth the clouds, and will not depart till the Most High shall regard. Fourthly, That humility is but a speaking truth, and all pride is a lie. Fifthly, That humility is the most certain way to real honour, and pride is ever affronted or despised. Sixthly, That pride turned Lucifer into a devil, and humility exalteth the Son of God above every name, and placed him eternally at the right hand of his Father. Seventhly, That God resisteth the proud,' [121] professing open defiance and hostility against such persons, but giveth grace to the humble; grace and pardon, remedy and relief, against misery and oppression, content in all conditions, tranquillity of spirit, patience in afflictions, love abroad, peace at home, and utter freedom from contention, and the sin of censuring others, and the trouble of being censured themselves. For the humble man will not judge his brother for the mote in his eye, being more troubled at the beam in his own eye; and is patient and glad to be reproved, because himself hath cast the first stone at himself, and therefore wonders not that others are of his mind.

10. Remember that the blessed Saviour of the world hath done more to prescribe, and transmit, and secure this grace than any other; [122] his whole life being a great continued example of humility; a vast descent from the glorious bosom of his Father to the womb of a poor maiden, to the form of a servant, to the miseries of a sinner, to a life of labour, to a state of poverty, to a death of malefactors, to the grave of death, and the intolerable calamities which we deserved; and it were a good design, and yet but reasonable, that we should be as humble, in the midst of our greatest imperfections and basest sins, as Christ was in the midst of his fulness of the Spirit, great wisdom, perfect life and most admirable virtue.

11. Drive away all flatterers from thy company, and at no hand endure them, for he that endures himself so to be abused by another is not only a fool for entertaining the mockery, but loves to have his own opinion of himself to be heightened and cherished.

12. Never change thy employment for the sudden coming of another to thee; but if modesty permits, or discretion, appear to him that visits thee the same that thou wert to God and thyself in thy privacy. But if thou wert walking or sleeping, or in any other innocent employment or retirement, snatch not up a book to seem studious, nor fall on thy knees to seem devout, nor alter anything to make him believe thee better employed than thou wert.

13. To the same purpose it is of great use that he who would preserve his humility should choose some spiritual person to whom he shall oblige himself to discover his very thoughts and fancies, every act of his, and all his intercourse with others, in which there may be danger; that by such an openness of spirit he may expose every blast of vain glory, every idle thought, to be chastened and lessened by the rod of spiritual discipline: and he that shall find himself tied to confess every proud thought, every vanity of his spirit, will also perceive they must not dwell with him, nor find any kindness from him; and, besides this, the nature of pride is so shameful and unhandsome, that the very discovery of it is a huge mortification and means of suppressant it. A man would be ashamed to be told that he inquires after the faults of his last oration or action on purpose to be commended; and, therefore, when the man shall tell his spiritual guide the same shameful story of himself, it is very likely he will be humbled and heartily ashamed of it.

14. Let every man suppose what opinion he should have of one that should spend his time in playing with drum-sticks and cockle-shells, and that should wrangle all day long with a little boy for pins, or should study hard and labour to cozen a child of his gauds; and who would run into a river, deep and dangerous, with a great burden upon his back, even then when he were told of the danger, and earnestly importuned not to do it? and let him but change the instances and the person, and he shall find that he hath the same reason to think as bad of himself, who pursues trifles with earnestness, spending mistime in vanity, and his labour for that which profits not; who, knowing the laws of God, the rewards of virtue, the cursed consequents of sin, that it is an evil spirit that tempts him to do it, a devil, one that hates him, that longs extremely to ruin him; that it is his own destruction that he is then working; that the pleasures of his sin are base and brutish, unsatisfying in the enjoyment, soon over, shameful in their story, bitter in the memory, painful in the effect here, and intolerable hereafter, and for ever; yet in despite of all this, he runs foolishly into his sin and his ruin, merely because he is a fool, and winks hard, and rushes violently like a horse into the battle, or, like a madman, to his death. He that can think great and good things of such a person, the next step may court the pack for an instrument of pleasure, and admire a swing for wisdom, and go for counsel to the prodigal and trifling grasshopper.

After the use of these and such like instruments and considerations, if you would try how your soul is grown, you shall know that humility, like the root of a goodly tree, is thrust very far into the ground by these goodly fruits which appear above ground. __________________________________________________________________

[119] Fabis abstine, dixit Pythagoras. Olim nam Magistratus per suffragia fabis lata creabantur.--Plut.

[120] Matt. xi. 25.
[121] James, iv. 6.

[122] John, xiii. 15. __________________________________________________________________

Signs of Humility.

1. The humble man trusts not to his own discretion, but in matters of concernment relies rather upon the judgment of his friends, counsellors, or spiritual guides. 2. He does not pertinaciously pursue the choice of his own will, but in all things lets God choose for him, and his superiors, in those things which concern them. 3. He does not murmur against commands. [123] 4. He is not inquisitive into the reasonableness of indifferent and innocent commands, but believes their command to be reasonable enough in such cases to exact his obedience.
5. He lives according to a rule, and with compliance to public customs, without any affectation or singularity. 6. He is meek and indifferent in all accidents and chances. 7. He patiently bears injuries. [124] 8. He is always unsatisfied in his own conduct, resolutions, and counsels.
9. He is a great lover of good men, and a praiser of wise men, and a censurer of no man. 10. He is modest in his speech, and reserved in his laughter. 11. He fears when he hears himself commended, lest God make another judgment concerning his actions than men do. 12. He gives no part of saucy answers when he is reproved, whether justly or unjustly.
13. He loves to sit down in private, and, if he may, be refuses the temptation of offices and new honours. 14. He is ingenuous, free, and open in his actions and discourses. 15. He mends his fault, and gives thanks when he is admonished. 16. He is ready to do good offices to the murderers of his fame, to his slanderers, backbiters, and detractors, as Christ washed the feet of Judas. 17. And is contented to be suspected of indiscretion, so before God he may really be innocent, and not offensive to his neighbour, nor wanting to his just and prudent interest. __________________________________________________________________

[123] Assai commanda, chi ubbidisce al saggio.

[124] Verum humilem patientia ostendit.--St. Hier. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

SECTION V. __________________________________________________________________

Of Modesty.

Modesty is the appendage of sobriety, and is to chastity, to temperance, and to humility, as the fringes are to a garment. It is a grace of God, that moderates the over-activeness and curiosity of the mind, and orders the passions of the body and external actions, and is directly opposed to curiosity, to boldness, to indecency. The practice of modesty consists in the following rules: __________________________________________________________________

Acts and Duties of Modesty, as it is opposed to Curiosity.

1. Inquire not into the secrets of God, but be content to learn thy duty according to the quality of thy person or employment; that i plainly, if thou beest not concerned in the conduct of others; but if thou beest a teacher, learn it so as may best enable thee to discharge thy office. God's commandments were proclaimed to all the world; but God's counsels are to himself and to his secret ones, when they are admitted within the veil.

2. Inquire not into the things which are too hard for thee, but learn modestly to know thy infirmities and abilities; and raise not thy mind up to inquire into mysteries of state, or the secrets of government, or difficulties theological, if thy employment really be, or thy understanding be judged to be, of a lower rank.

3. Let us not inquire into the affairs of others that concern us not, but be busied within ourselves and our own spheres; ever remembering that to pry into the actions or interests of other men not under our charge, may minister to pride, to tyranny, to uncharitableness, to trouble, but can never consist with modesty, unless where duty or the mere intentions of charity and relation do warrant it.

4. Never listen at the doors or windows: [125] for, besides that it contains in it danger and a snare, it is also an invading thy neighbour's privacy, and a laying that open which he therefore enclosed, that it might not be open. Never ask what he carried covered s o curiously; for it is enough that it is covered curiously. Hither also is reducible that we never open letters without public authority, or reasonably presumed leave, or great necessity, or charity.

Every man hath in his own life sins enough, in his own mind trouble enough, in his own fortune evils enough, and in performance of his offices failings more than enough, to entertain his own inquiry; so that curiosity after the affairs of others cannot be without envy, and an evil mind. What is it to me, if my neighbour's grandfather were a Syrian, or his grandmother illegitimate; or that another is indebted five thousand pounds, or whether his wife be expensive? But commonly curious persons, or (as the apostle's phrase is) busybodies,' are not solicitous or inquisitive into the beauty and order of a well-governed family, or after the virtues of an excellent person; but if there be anything for which men keep locks and bars, and porters, things that blush to see the light, and either are shameful in manners, or private in nature, these things are their care and their business. But if great things will satisfy our inquiry, the course of the sun and moon, the spots in their faces, the firmament of heaven, and the supposed orbs, the ebbing and flowing of the sea, are work enough for us; or if this be not, let him tell me whether the number of the stars be even or odd, and when they began to be so, since some ages have discovered new stars which the former knew not, but might have seen if they had been where now they are fixed. If these be too troublesome search lower, and tell me why this turf this year brings forth a daisy, and the next year a plantain; why the apple bears his seed in his heart, and wheat bears it in his head: let him tell why a graft, taking nourishment from a crab-stock, shall have a fruit more noble than its nurse and parent: let him say why the best of oil is at the top, the best of wine in the middle, and the best of honey at the bottom, otherwise than it is in some liquors that are thinner, and in some that are thicker. But these things are to such as please busybodies; they must feed upon tragedies, and stories of misfortunes and crimes: and yet tell them ancient stories of the ravishment of chaste maidens, or the debauchment of nations, or the extreme poverty of learned persons, or the persecutions of the old saints, or the changes of government, and sad accidents happening in royal families amongst the Arsacidae, the Caesars, the Ptolemies, these were enough to scratch the itch of knowing sad stories; but unless you stem them something sad and new, something that is done within the bounds of their own knowledge or relation, it seems tedious and unsatisfying; which shows plainly, it is an evil spirit; envy and idleness married together, and begot curiosity. Therefore Plutarch rarely well compares curious and inquisitive ears to the execrable gates of cities, out of which only malefactors and hangmen and tragedies pass -- nothing that is chaste or holy. If a physician should go from house to house unsent for, and inquire what woman hath a cancer in her bowels, or what man hath a fisula in his colic-gut, though he could pretend to cure it, he would be almost as unwelcome as the disease itself; and therefore it is inhuman to inquire after crimes and disasters without pretence of amending them, but only to discover them. We are not angry with searchers and publicans, when they look only on public merchandise; but when they break open trunks, and pierce vessels, and unrip packs, and open sealed letters.

Curiosity is the direct incontinency of the spirit: and adultery itself in its principle is many times nothing but a curious inquisition after, and envying of, another man's enclosed pleasures; and there have been many who refused fairer objects that they might ravish an enclosed woman from her retirement and single possessor. But these inquisitions are seldom without danger, never with our baseness; they are neither just, nor honest, nor delightful, and very often useless to the curious inquirer. For men stand upon their guards against them, as they secure their meat against harpies and cats, laying all their counsels and secrets out of their way; or as men clap their garments close about them, when the searching and saucy winds would discover their nakedness; as knowing that what men willingly hear they do willingly speak of. Knock, therefore, at the door before you enter upon your neighbour's privacy; and remember, that there is no difference between entering into his house, and looking into it. __________________________________________________________________

[125] Ecclus. vii. 21.--Ne occhi in lettera, ne mano in tasca, ne orecchi in secreti altrui. __________________________________________________________________

Acts of Modesty as it is opposed to Boldness. [126]

1. Let us always bear about us such impressions of reverence and fear of God as to tremble at his voice, to express our apprehensions of his greatness in all great accidents, in popular judgments, loud thunders, tempests, earthquakes; not only for fear of being smitten ourselves, or that we are concerned in the accident, but also that we may humble ourselves before his Almightiness, and express that infinite distance between his infiniteness and our weaknesses, at such times especially when he gives such visible arguments of it. He that is merry and airy at shore when he sees a sad and a loud tempest on the sea, or dances briskly when God thunders from heaven, regards not when God speaks to all the world, but is possessed with a firm immodesty.

2. Be reverent, modest, and reserved, in the presence of thy betters, giving to all, according to their equality, their titles of honour, keeping distance, speaking little, answering pertinently, not interposing without leave or reason, not answering to a question propounded to another; and even present to thy superiors the fairest side of thy discourse, of thy temper, of thy ceremony, as being ashamed to serve excellent persons with unhandsome intercourse.

3. Never lie before a king or a great person, nor stand in a lie when thou art accused, nor offer to justify what is indeed a fault; but modestly be ashamed of it, ask pardon, and make amends. [127]

4. Never boast of thy sin, but at least lay a veil upon thy nakedness and shame, and python hand before thine eyes, that thou mayest have this beginning of repentance, to believe thy sin to be thy shame. For he that blushes not at his crime, but adds shamelessness to his shame, hath no instrument left to restore him to the hopes of virtue.

5. Be not confident and affirmative i an uncertain matter, but report things modestly and temperately, according to the degree of that persuasion, which is, or ought to be, begotten in thee by the efficacy of the authority, or the reason inducing thee.

6. Pretend not to more knowledge than thou hast, but be content to seem ignorant where thou art so, lest thou beest either brought to shame, or retirest into shamelessness. __________________________________________________________________

[126] Aischunm.

[127] Quem Deus tegit vercundiae pallio, hujus maculas hominibus non ostendit.--Maimon. Can. Eth. __________________________________________________________________

Acts of Modesty as it is opposed to Indecency.

1. In your prayers, in churches and places of religion, use reverent postures, great attention, grave ceremony, the lowest gestures of humility, remembering that we speak to God, in our reverence to whom we cannot possibly exceed; but that the expression of this reverence be according to law or custom, and the example of the most prudent and pious persons; that is, let it be the best in its kind to the best of essences.

2. In all public meetings, private addresses, in discourse, in journeys, use those forms of salutation, reverence, and decency, which the custom prescribes, and is usual amongst the most sober persons, giving honour to whom honour belongeth, taking place of none of thy betters, and in all cases of question concerning civil precedency giving it to any one that will take it, if it be only thy own right that is in question.

3. Observe the proportion of affections in all meetings, and to all persons: be not merry at a funeral, nor sad upon a festival' but rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep.

4. Abstain from wanton and dissolute laughter, petulant and uncomely jests, loud talking, jeering, and all such actions, which in civil account are called indecencies and incivilities.

5. Towards your parents use all modesty of duty and humble carriage; towards them and all your kindred, be severe in the modesties of chastity, ever fearing, lest the freedoms of natural kindness should enlarge into any neighbourhood of unhandsomeness. For all incestuous mixtures, and all circumstances and degrees towards it, are the highest violations of modesty in the world; for therefore incest is grown to be so high a crime, especially in the last periods of the world, because it breaks that reverence which the consent of all nations and the severity of human laws hath enjoined towards our parents and nearest kindred, in imitation of that law which God gave to the Jews in prosecution of modesty in this instance.

6. Be a curious observer of all those things which are of good report, and are parts of public honesty. [128] For public fame, and the sentence of prudent and public persons is the measure of good and evil in things indifferent, and charity requires us to comply with those fancies and affections which are agreeable to nature, or the analogy of virtue, or public laws, or old customs. It is against modesty for a woman to marry a second husband as long as she bears a burden by the first; or to admit a second love while her funeral tears are not wiped from her cheeks. It is against public honesty to do some lawful actions of privacy in public theatres, and therefore in such cases retirement is a duty of modesty. [129]

7. Be grave, decent, and modest, in thy clothing and ornament; never let it be above thy condition not always equal to it; never light or amorous discovering a nakedness through a thin veil which thou pretendest to hide; never to lay a snare for a soul; but remember what becomes a Christian, professing holiness, chastity, and the discipline of the holy Jesus: and the first effect of this let your servants feel by your gentleness and aptness to be pleased with their usual diligence, and ordinary conduct. [130] For the man or woman that is dressed with anger and impatience wears pride under their robes, and immodesty above.

8. Hither also is to be reduced singular and affected walking, proud, nice, and ridiculous gestures of body, painting and lascivious dressings; all of which together God reproves by the prophet: The Lord saith, Because the daughters of Sion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and make a tinkling with their feet; therefore the Lord will smite her with a scab of the crown of the head, and will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments.' [131] And this duty of modesty, in this instance, is expressly enjoined to all Christian women by St. Paul: That women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearl, or costly array, but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. [132]

9. As those meats are to be avoided which tempt our stomachs beyond our hunger, so, also, should prudent persons decline all such spectacles, relations, theatres, loud noises and outcries, which concern us not, and are besides our natural or moral interest. Our senses should not, like petulant and wanton girls, wander into markets and theatres without just employment; but when they are sent abroad by reason, return quickly with their errand, and remain modestly at home under their guide, till they be sent again. [133]

10. Let all persons be curious in observing modesty towards themselves, in the handsome treating their own body, and such as are in their power, whether living or dead. Against this rule they offend who expose to others their own, or pry into others' nakedness beyond the limits of necessity, or where a leave is not made holy by a permission from God. It is also said, that God was pleased to work a miracle about the body of Epiphanius to reprove the immodest curiosity of an unconcerned person who pried too near, when charitable people were composing it to the grave. In all these cases and particulars, although they seem little, yet our duty and concernment is not little. Concerning which I use the words of the son of Sirach, "He that despiseth little things shall perish by little and little." __________________________________________________________________

[128] Philip, iv. 8.

[129] At meretrix abigit testem veloque seraque; Raraque Summaeni fornice rima patet.--Mart. i. 53.

[130] Tuta sit ornatrix: odi quae sauciat ora Unguibus, et rapta brachia figit acu. Devovet, et tangit Dominae caput illa, simulque Plorat ad invisas sanguinolenta comas.--Ovid. A.A.3 238.

[131] Isa. iii. 16-18.
[132] 1Tim. ii. 9.

[133] (Edipum curiositas in extremas conjecit calamitates.--Plut. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

SECTION VI. __________________________________________________________________

Of Contentedness in all Estates and Accidents.

Virtues and discourses are, like friends, necessary in all fortunes; but those are the best, which are friends in our sadnesses, and support us in our sorrows and sad accidents: and in this sense, no man that is virtuous can be friendless; nor hath any man reason to complain of the Divine Providence, or accuse the public disorder of things, or his own infelicity, since God hath appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world, and that is a contented spirit: for this alone makes a man pass through fire, and not be scorched; through seas, and not be drowned; through hunger and nakedness, and want nothing. For since all the evil in the world consists in the disagreeing between the object and the appetite, as when a man hath what he desires not, or desires what he hath not, or desires amiss; he that composes his spirit to the present accident, hath variety of instances for his virtues, but none to trouble him, because his desires enlarge not beyond his present fortune; and a wise man is placed in the variety of chances, like the nave or centre of a wheel, in the midst of all the circumvolutions and changes of posture, without violence or change save that it turns gently in compliance with its changed parts, and is indifferent which part is up, and which id down; for there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens, either patience or thanksgiving, love or fear, moderation or humility, charity or contentedness, and they are every one of them equally in order to his great end and immortal felicity: and beauty is not made by white or red, by black eyes and a round face, by a straight body and a smooth skin; but by a proportion to the fancy. No rules can make amiability; our minds and apprehensions make that; and so is our felicity; and we may be reconciled to poverty and a low fortune, if we suffer contentedness and the grace of God to make the proportions. For no man is poor that does not think himself so: but if, in a full fortune, with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition. [134] But because this grace of contentedness was the sum of all the old moral philosophy, and a great duty in Christianity, and of most universal use in the whole course of our lives, and the only instrument to ease the burdens of the world and the enmities of sad changes, it will not be amiss to press it by the proper arguments by which God hath bound it upon our spirits; it being fastened by reason and religion, by duty and interest, by necessity and conveniency, by example, and by the proposition of excellent rewards, no less than peace and felicity.

1. Contentedness in all estates is a duty of religion; it is the great reasonableness of complying with the Divine Providence, which governs all the world, and hath so ordered us in the administration of his great family. He were a strange fool that should be angry because dogs and sheep need no shoes, and yet himself is full of care to get some. God hath supplied those needs to them by natural provisions, and to thee by an artificial: for he hath given the reason to learn a trade, or some means to make or buy them, so that it only differs in the manner of our provision: and which had you rather want, shoes or reason? Any my patron, that hath given me a farm, is freer to me than if he gives a loaf ready baked. But, however, all these gifts come from him, and therefore it is fit he should dispense them as he pleases; and if we murmur here, we may, at the next melancholy fit, be troubled that God did not make us to be angels or stars. For if that which we are or have do not content us, we may be troubled for everything in the world which is besides our being or our possessions.

God is the master of the scenes; we must not choose which part we shall act; it concerns us only to be careful that we do it well, always saying, If this please God, let it be as it is;' and we, who pray that God's will may be done in earth as it is in heaven, must remember that the angels do whatsoever is commanded them, and go wherever they are sent, and refuse no circumstances; and if their employment be crossed by a higher degree, they sit down in peace, and rejoice in the event; and when the angel of Judea could not prevail in behalf of the people committed to his charge, because the angel of Persia opposed it, he only told the story at the command of God, and was as content, and worshipped with as great an ecstasy in his proportion, as the prevailing spirit. Do thou so likewise: keep the station where God hath placed you, and you shall never long for things without, but sit at home, feasting upon the Divine Providence and thy own reason, by which we are taught that it is necessary and reasonable to submit to God.

For is not all the world God's family? Are not we his creatures? Are we not as clay in the hand of the potter? Do we not live upon his meat, and move by his strength, and do our work by his light? Are we anything but what we are from him? And shall there be a mutiny among the flocks and herds, because their lord or their shepherd chooses their pastures, and suffers them not to wander into the deserts and unknown ways? If we choose, we do it so foolishly that we cannot like it long, and most commonly not at all: but God, who can do what he pleases, is wise to choose safely for us, affectionate to comply with our needs, and powerful to execute all his wise decrees. Here, therefore, is the wisdom of the contented man, to let God choose for him; for when we have given up our wills to him, and stand in that station of the battle where our great general hath placed us, our spirits must needs rest while our conditions have for their security the power, the wisdom, and the charity of God.

2. Contentedness in all accidents brings great peace of spirit, and is the great and only instrument of temporal felicity. It removes the sting from the accident, and makes a man not to depend upon chance and the uncertain dispositions of men for his well-being, but only on God and his own spirit. We ourselves make our fortunes good or bad; and when God lets loose a tyrant upon us, or a sickness, or scorn, or a lessened fortune, if we fear to die, or know not to be patient, or are proud, or covetous, then the calamity sits heavy on us. But if we know how to manage a noble principle, and fear not death so much as a dishonest action, and think impatience a worse evil than a fever, and pride to be the biggest disgrace, and poverty to be infinitely desirable before the torments of covetousness; then we who now think vice to be so easy, and make it so familiar, and think the cure so impossible, shall quickly be of another mind, and reckon these accidents amongst things eligible.

But no man can be happy that hath great hopes and great fears of things without, and events depending upon other men, or upon the chances of fortune. The rewards of virtue are certain, and our provisions for our natural support are certain; or if we want meat till we die, then we die of that disease -- and there are many whores than to die of an atrophy or consumption, or unapt and courser nourishment. But he that suffers a transporting passion concerning things within the power of others, is free from sorrow and amazement no longer than his enemy shall give him leave; and it is ten to one but he shall be smitten then and there where it shall most trouble him; for so the adder teaches us where to strike, by her curious and fearful defending of her head. The old Stoics, when you told them of a sad story, would still answer, "Yes, for the tyrant hath sentenced you also to prison. Well, what is that? he will put a chain upon my leg; but he cannot bind my soul. No, but he will kill you. Then I will die. If presently, let me go, that I may presently be freer than himself; but if not till anon or tomorrow, I will dine first, or sleep, or do what reason or nature calls for, as at other times." This, in Gentile philosophy, is the same with the discourse of St. Paul, [135] "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry; both to abound and suffer need." [136]

We are in the world like men playing at tables, the chance is not in our power, but to play it is; and when it is fallen we must manage it as we can; and let nothing trouble us, but when we do a base action, or speak like a fool, or think wickedly -- these things God hath put into our powers; but concerning those things which are wholly in the choice of another, they cannot fall under our deliberation, and therefore neither are they fit for our passions. My fear may make me miserable, but it cannot prevent what another hath in his power and purpose; and prosperities can only be enjoyed by them who fear not at all to lose them; since the amazement and passion concerning the future takes off all the pleasure of the present possession. Therefore, if thou hast lost thy land, do not also lose thy constancy; and if thou must die a little sooner, yet do not die impatiently. For no chance is evil to him that is content; and to a man nothing is miserable unless it be unreasonable. No man can make another man to be his slave unless be hath first enslaved himself to life and death, to pleasure or pain, to hope or fear: command these passions, and you are freer than the Parthian kings. __________________________________________________________________

[134] Non facta tibi est, si dissimules, injuris.

[135] Phil. iv. 11, 12; 1 Tim. vi. 6; Heb. xiii. 5.

[136] Chi bene mal non puo soffrir, a grand honor non puo venir. __________________________________________________________________

Instruments or Exercises to procure Contentedness.

Upon the strength of these premises, we may reduce this virtue to practice by its proper instruments first, and then by some more special considerations or arguments of content.

1. When anything happens to our displeasure, let us endeavour to take off its trouble by turning it into spiritual or artificial advantage, and handle it on that side in which it may be useful to the designs of reason; for there is nothing but hath a double handle, or at least we have two hands to apprehend it. When an enemy reproaches us, let us look on him as an impartial relater of our faults, for he will tell thee truer than thy fondest friend will; and thou mayest call them precious balms, though they break thy head, and forgive his anger, while thou makest use of the plainness of his declamation. The ox, when he is weary, treads surest; and if there be nothing else in the disgrace, but that it makes us to walk warily, and tread sure for fear of our enemies, that is better than to be flattered into pride and carelessness. This is the charity of Christian philosophy, which expounds the sense of the Divine Providence fairly, and reconciles us to it by a charitable construction; and we may as well refuse all physic, if we consider it only as unpleasant in the taste; and we may find fault with the rich valleys of Thasus, because they are circled by sharp mountains; but so also we may be in charity with every unpleasant accident, because, though it taste bitter, it is intended for health and medicine.

If, therefore, thou fallest from thy employment in public, take sanctuary in an honest, retirement, being indifferent to thy gain abroad, or thy safety at home. If thou art out of favour with thy prince, secure the favour of the King of kings, and then there is no harm come to thee. And when Zeno Citiensis lost all his goods in a storm, he retired to the studies of philosophy, to his short cloak and a severe life, and gave thanks to fortune for his prosperous mischance. When the north wind blows hard, and it rains sadly none but fools sit down in it and cry; wise people defend themselves against it with a warm garment, or a good fire and a dry roof. When a storm of a sad mischance beats upon our spirits, turn it into some advantage by observing where it can serve another end, either of religion or prudence, of more safety or less envy: it will turn into something that is good, if we list to make it so; at least it may make us weary of the world's vanity, and take off our confidence from uncertain riches, and make our spirits to dwell in those regions where content dwells essentially. If it does any good to our souls, it hath made more than sufficient recompense for all the temporal affliction. He that threw a stone at a dog, and hit his cruel step-mother, said, that although he intended it otherwise, yet the stone was not quite lost; and if we fail in the first design, if we bring it home to another equally to content us, or more to profit us, then we have put our conditions past the power of chance; and this was called, in the old Greek comedy, "a being revenged on fortune by becoming philosophers," and turning the chance into reason or religion: for so a wise man shall overrule his stars, and have a greater influence upon his own content than all the constellations and planets of the firmament.

2. Never compare thy condition with those above thee; but, to secure thy content, look upon those thousands with whom thou wouldest net, for any interest, change thy fortune and condition. A soldier must not think himself unprosperous if he be not as successful as the son of Philip, or cannot grasp a fortune as big as the Roman empire. Be content that thou art not lessened as was Pyrrhus, or, if thou beest, that thou art not routed like Crassus; and when that comes to thee, it is a great prosperity that thou art not caged and made a spectacle like Bajazet, or thy eyes were not pulled out like Zedekiah's, or that thou wert not flayed alive like Valentinian. If thou admirest the greatness of Xerxes, look also on those that digged the mountain Atho, or whose ears and noses were cut off because the Hellespont carried away the bridge. It is a fine thing (thou thinkest) to be carried on men's shoulders; but give God thanks that thou art not forced to carry a rich fool upon thy shoulders, as those poor men do whom thou beholdest. There are but a few kings in mankind; but many thousands who are very miserable if compared to thee. However, it is a huge folly rather to grieve for the good of others than to rejoice for that good which God hath given us of our own.

And yet there is no wise or good man that would change persons or conditions entirely with any man in the world. It may be, he would have one man's health added to himself, or the power of a second, or the learning of a third; but still he would receive these into his own person, because he loves that best, and therefore esteems it best, and therefore overvalues all that which he is, before all that which any other man in the world can be. Would any man be Dives to have his wealth, or Judas for his office, or Saul for his kingdom, or Absalom for his bounty, or Achitophel for his policy? It is likely he would wish all these, and yet he would be the same person still. For every man hath desires of his own, and objects just fitted o them, without which he cannot be, unless he were not himself. And let every man that loves himself so well auto love himself before all the world, consider if he have not something for which in the whole he values himself far more than he can value any man else. There is therefore no reason to take the finest feathers from all the winged nation to deck that bird that thinks already she is more valuable than any of the inhabitants of the air. Either change all or none. Cease to love yourself best, or be content with that portion of being and blessing for which you can love yourself so well.

3. It conduces much to our content, if we pass by those things which happen to our trouble, and consider that which is pleasing and prosperous - that, by the representation of the butter, the worse may be blotted out; and, at the worst, you have enough to keep you alive, and to keep up and to improve your hopes of heaven. If I be overthrown in my suit at law, yet my house is left me still and my land; or I have a virtuous wife, or hopeful children, or kind friends, or good hopes. If I have lost one child, it may be I have two or three still left me. Or else reckon the blessings which already you have received, and therefore be pleased, in the change and variety of affairs, to receive evil from the hand of God as well as good Antipater, of Tarsus, used this art to support his sorrows on his death-bed, and reckoned the good things of his past life, not forgetting to recount it as a blessing, an argument that God took care of him, that he had a prosperous journey from Cilicia to Athens. Or else please thyself with hopes of the future; [137] for we were born with this sadness upon us, and it was a change that brought us into it, and a change may bring us out again. Harvest will come, and then every farmer is rich, at least for a month or two. It may be thou art entered into the cloud which will bring a gentle shower to refresh thy sorrows.

Now suppose thyself in as great a sadness as ever did load thy spirit, wouldest thou not bear it cheerfully and nobly if thou wert sure that within a certain space some strange excellent fortune would relieve thee, and enrich thee, and recompense thee, so as to overflow all thy hopes and thy desires and capacities? Now then, when a sadness lies heavy upon thee, remember that thou art a Christian designed to the inheritance of Jesus; and what dost thou think concerning thy great fortune, thy lot and portion of eternity? Dost thou think thou shalt be saved or damned? Indeed if thou thinkest thou shalt perish, I cannot blame thee to be sad, till thy heart-strings crack; but then why art thou troubled at the loss of thy money? What should a damned man do with money, which in so great a sadness it is impossible for him to enjoy? Did ever any man upon the rack afflict himself because he had received a cross answer from his mistress? or call for the particulars of a purchase upon the gallows? If thou dost really believe thou shalt be damned, I do not say it will cure the sadness of thy poverty, but it will swallow it up. But if thou believest thou shalt be saved, consider how great is that joy, how infinite is that change, how unspeakable is that glory, how excellent is the recompense, for all the sufferings in the world, if they were all laden upon thy spirit! So that let thy condition be what it will, if thou considerest thy own present condition, and comparest it to thy future possibility, thou canst not feel the present smart of a cross fortune to any great degree, either because thou hast a far bigger sorrow, or a far bigger joy. Here thou art but a stranger, travelling to the country where the glories of a kingdom are prepared for thee; it is, therefore, a huge folly to be much afflicted because thou hast a less convenient inn to lodge in by the way.

But these arts of looking forwards and backwards are more than enough to support the spirit of a Christian: there is no man but hath blessings enough in present possession to outweigh the evils of a great affliction. Tell the joints of thy body, and do not accuse the universal Providence for a lame leg, or the want of a finger, when all the rest is perfect, and you have a noble soul, a particle of divinity, the image of God himself; and by the want of a finger you may the better know how to estimate the remaining parts, and to account for every degree of the surviving blessings. Aristippus, in a great suit at law, lost a farm, and to a gentleman, who in civility pitied and deplored his loss; he answered, "I have two farms left still, and that is more than I have lost, and more than you have by one." If you miss an office for which you stood candidate, then, besides that you are quit of the cares and the envy of it, you still have all those excellences which rendered you capable to receive it, and they are better than the best office in the commonwealth. If your estate be lessened, you need the less to care who governs the province, whether he be rude or gentle. I am crossed in my journey, and yet I escaped robbers; and I consider, that if I had been set upon by villains, I would have redeemed that evil by this which I now suffer, and have counted it a deliverance; or if I did fall into the hands of thieves, yet they did not steal my land. Or, I am fallen into the hands of publicans and sequestrators, and they have taken all from me: what now? let me look about me. They have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me, and I can still discourse; and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience; they still have left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate; I can walk in my neighbour's pleasant fields, and see the variety of natural beauties, and delight in all that in which God delights- that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God himself. And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. Such a person is fit to bear Nero company in his funeral sorrow for the loss of one of Poppea's hairs, or help to mourn for Lesbia's sparrow; and because he loves it, he deserves to starve in the midst of plenty, and to want comfort while he is encircled with blessings.

4. Enjoy the present, whatsoever it be, and be not solicitous for the future; for if you take your foot from the present standing, and thrust it forward towards tomorrow's event, you are in a restless condition: it is like refusing to quench your present thirst by fearing you shall want drink the next day. If it be well to-day, it is madness to make the present miserable by fearing it may be ill to-morrow -- when your belly is full of to-day's dinner, to fear you shall want the next day's supper; for it may be you shall not, and then to what purpose was this day's affliction? But if to-morrow you shall want, your sorrow will come time enough, though you do not hasten it: let your trouble tarry till its own day comes. But if it chance to be ill to-day, do not increase it by the care of to-morrow. He, therefore, that enjoys the present if it be good, enjoys as much as is possible; and if only that day's trouble leans upon him, it is singular and finite. Sufficient to the day (said Christ) is the evil thereof': sufficient but not intolerable. But if we look abroad, and bring into one day's thoughts the evil of many, certain and uncertain, what will be, and what will never be, our load will be as intolerable as it is unreasonable. To reprove this instrument of discontent, the ancients feigned that in hell stood a man twisting a rope of hay; and still he twisted on, suffering an ass to eat up all that was finished -- so miserable is he who thrusts his passions forwards towards future events, and suffers all that he may enjoy to be lost and devoured by folly and inconsideration, thinking nothing fits to be enjoyed but that which is not or cannot be had. Just so, many young persons are loath to die, and therefore desire to live to old age, and when they are come thither, are troubled that they are come to that state of life, to which before they were come they were hugely afraid they should never come.

5. Let us prepare our minds against changes, always expecting them, that we be not surprised when they come; for nothing is so great an enemy to tranquillity and a contented spirit as the amazement and confusions of unreadiness and inconsideration; and when our fortunes are violently changed our spirits are unchanged, if they always stood in the suburbs and expectations of sorrows. O death, how bitter art thou to a man that is at rest in his possessions!' And to the rich man who had promised to himself ease and fulness for many years, it was a sad arrest that his soul was surprised the first night; but the apostles, who every day knocked at the gate of death, and looked upon it continually, went to their martyrdom in peace and evenness.

6. Let us often frame to ourselves, and represent to our considerations, the images of those blessings we have, just as we usually understand them when we want them. Consider how desirable health is to a sick man, or liberty to a prisoner; and if but a fit of the toothache seizes us with violence, all those troubles which in our health afflicted us disband instantly, and seem inconsiderable. He that in his health is troubled that he is in debt, and spends sleepless nights, and refuses meat because of his infelicity, let him fall into a fit of the stone or a high fever, he despises the arrest of all his first troubles, and is as a man unconcerned. Remember then that God hath given thee a blessing, the want of which is infinitely more trouble than thy present debt, or poverty, or loss; and therefore is now more to be valued in the possession, and ought to outweigh thy trouble. The very privative blessings, the blessings of immunity, safeguard, liberty, and integrity, which we commonly enjoy, deserve the thanksgiving of a whole life. If God should send a cancer upon thy face, or a wolf into thy side, if he should spread a crust of leprosy upon thy skin, what wouldest thou give to be but as now thou art? Wouldest thou not, on that condition, be as poor as I am, or as the meanest of thy brethren? Would you not choose your present loss or affliction as a thing extremely eligible, and a redemption to thee, if thou mightest exchange the other for this? Thou art quit from a thousand calamities, every one of which, if it were upon thee, would make thee insensible of thy present sorrow: and therefore let thy joy (which should be as great for thy freedom from them, as is thy sadness when thou feelest any of them) do the same cure upon thy discontent. For if we be not extremely foolish or vain, thankless or senseless, a great joy is more apt to cure sorrow and discontent than a great trouble is. I have known an affectionate wife, when she hath been in fear of parting with her beloved husband, heartily desire of God his life or society upon any conditions that were not sinful; and choose to beg with him rather than to feast without him; and the same person hath, upon that consideration, borne poverty nobly, when God hath heard her prayer in the other matter. What wise man in the world is there who does not prefer a small fortune with peace before a great one with contention and war and violence? And then he is no longer wise if he alters his opinion when he hath his wish.

7. If you will secure a contented spirit, you must measure your desires by your fortune and condition, not your fortunes by your desire -- that is, be governed by your needs, not by your fancy; by nature, not by evil customs and ambitious principles. [138] He that would shoot an arrow out of a plough, or hunt a hare with an elephant, is not unfortunate for missing the mark or prey; but he is foolish for choosing such unapt instruments: and so is he that runs after his content with appetites not springing from natural needs, but from artificial, fantastical, and violent necessities. These are not to be satisfied; or if they were, a man hath chosen an evil instrument towards his content: nature did not intend rest to a man by filling of such desires. Is that beast better that hath two or three mountains to graze on, than a little bee that feeds on dew or manna, and lives upon what falls every morning from the storehouse of heaven, clouds and providence? Can a man quench his thirst better out of a river than a full urn, or drink better from the fountain which is finely paved with marble than when it swells over the green turf? [139] Pride and artificial gluttonies do but adulterate nature, making our diet healthless, our appetites impatient and unsatisfiable, and the taste mixed, fantastical, and meretricious. But that which we miscall poverty is indeed nature; and its proportions are the just measures of a man and the best instruments of content. But when we create needs that God or nature never made, we have erected to ourselves an infinite stock of trouble that can have no period. Sempronius complained of want of clothes, and was much troubled for a new suit, being ashamed to appear in the theatre with his gown a little threadbare; but when he got it, and gave his old clothes to Codrus, the poor man was ravished with joy, and went and gave God thanks for his new purchase; and Codrus was made richly fine and cheerfully warm by that which Sempronius was ashamed to wear; and yet their natural needs were both alike, the difference only was that Sempronius had some artificial and fantastical necessities superinduced, which Codrus had not, and was harder to be relieved, and could not have joy at so cheap a rate, because he only lived according to nature, the other by pride and ill customs, and measures taken by other men's eyes and tongues, and artificial needs. He that propounds to his fancy things greater than himself or his needs, and is discontent and troubled when he wails of such purchases, ought not to accuse Providence, or blame his fortune, but his folly. God and nature made no more needs than they mean to satisfy; and he that will make more must look for satisfaction where he can.

8. In all troubles and sadder accidents, let us take sanctuary in religion, and by innocence cast out anchors for our souls to keep them from shipwreck, though they be not kept from storm. For what philosophy shall comfort a villain that is haled to the rack for murdering his prince, or that is broken upon the wheel for sacrilege? His cup is full of pure and unmingled sorrow: his body is rent with torment, his name with ignominy, his soul with shame and sorrow, which are to last eternally. But when a man suffers in a good cause, or is afflicted, and yet walks not perversely with his God, then "Anytus and Melitus may kill me, but they cannot hurt me;" then St. Paul's character is engraved in the forehead of our fortune; We are troubled on every side, but not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?' For indeed everything in the world is indifferent but sin, and all the scorchings of the sun are very tolerable in respect of the burnings of a fever or a calenture. The greatest evils are from within us, and from ourselves also we must look for our greatest good; for God is the fountain of it, but reaches it to us by our own hands; and when all things look sadly round about us, then only we shall find how excellent a fortune it is to have God to our friend; and of all friendships, that only is created to support us in our needs; for it is sin that turns an ague into a fever, and a fever to the plague, fear into despair, anger into rage, and loss into madness, and sorrow to amazement and confusion. But if either we were innocent, or else by the sadness are made penitent, we are put to school, or into the theatre, either to learn how, or else actually to combat for a crown; the accident may serve an end of mercy, but is not a messenger of wrath.

Let us not, therefore, be governed by external, and present, and seeming things; not let us make the same judgment of things that common and weak understandings do; nor make other men, and they not the wisest, to be judges of our felicity, so that we be happy or miserable as they please to think us: but let reason, and experience, and religion, and hope, relying upon the divine promises, be the measure of our judgment. No wise man did ever describe felicity without virtue,
[140] and no good man did ever think virtue could depend upon the variety of a good or bad fortune. It is no evil to be poor, but to be vicious and impatient. __________________________________________________________________

[137] La speranza e il pan de poveri. Non si male nunc, et olim sic erit.--Hor. ii. 10.

[138] Assai bastra per chi non e ingordo.

[139] Quanto preaestantius esset Numen aquae, viridi si margine claugeret undas Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum. Juv. iii. 20.

[140] Beatitudo pendet a recis consilliis in affectionem animi constantern desinentibus.--Plut. __________________________________________________________________

Means to obtain Content by way of considerations.

To these exercises and spiritual instruments if we add the following considerations concerning the nature and circumstance of human chance, we may better secure our peace. For as to children, who are afraid of vain images, we use to persuade confidence by making them to handle and look nearer such things that when, in such a familiarity, they perceive them innocent they may overcome their fears: so must timorous, fantastical, sad, and discontented persons be treated; they must be made to consider and on all sides to look upon the accident, and to take all its dimensions, and consider its consequences, and to behold the purpose of God, and the common mistakes of men, and their evil sentences they usually pass upon them. For then we shall perceive, that, like colts or unmanaged horses, we start at dead bones and lifeless blocks, things that are inactive as they are innocent. But if we secure our hopes and our fears, and make them moderate and within government, we may the sooner overcome the evil of the accident; for nothing that we feel is so bad as what we fear.

1. Consider that the universal providence of God hath so ordered it, that the good things of nature and fortune are divided, that we may know how to bear our own and relieve each other's wants and imperfections. It is not for a man, but for a God to have all excellencies and all felicities. [141] He supports my poverty with his wealth, I counsel and instruct him with my learning and experience. He hath many friends, I many children; he hath no heir, I have no inheritance; and any one great blessing, together with the common portions of nature and necessity, is a fair fortune, if it be but health or strength, or the swiftness of Ahimanz. For it is an unreasonable discontent to be troubled that I have not so good cocks, or dogs, or horses, as my neighbor, being more troubled that I want one thing that I need not, than thankful for having received all that I need. Nero had this disease, that he was not content with the fortune of his whole empire, but put the fiddlers to death for being more skilful in the trade than he was; and Dionysius the elder was so angry at Philoxenus for singing, and with Plato for disputing better than he did, that he sold Plato a slave into Egina, and condemned the other to the quarries.

This consideration is to be enlarged by adding to it, that there are some instances of fortune and a fair condition that cannot stand with some others; but if you desire this, you must lose that, and unless you be content with one, you must lose the comfort of both. If you covet learning, you must have leisure and a retired life; if to be a politician, you must go abroad and get experience, and do all businesses, and keep all company, and have no leisure at all; if you will be rich, you must be frugal; if you will be popular, you must be bountiful; if a philosopher, you must despise riches. The Greek that designed to make the most exquisite picture that could be imagined, fancied the eye of Chioue, and the hair of Paegnium, and Tarsia's lip, Philenitum's chin, and the forehead of Delphia, and set all these upon Milphidippa's neck, and thought that he should outdo both art and nature. But when he came to view the proportions, he found, that what was excellent in Tarsia did not agree with the other excellency of Philenium; and although singly they were rare pieces, yet in the whole they made a most ugly face. The dispersed excellencies and blessings of many men, if given to one, would not make a handsome, but a monstrous fortune. Use, therefore, that faculty which nature hath given thee, and thy education hath made actual, and thy calling hath made a duty. But if thou desirest to be a saint, refuse not his persecution; if thou wouldest be famous as Epaminondas or Fabricius, accept also of their poverty, for that added lustre to their persons, and envy to their fortune, and their virtue without it could not have been so excellent. Let Euphorion sleep quietly with his old rich wife, and let medius drink on with Alexander, and remember thou canst not have the riches of the first, unless you have the old wife too; nor the favour which the second had with his prince, unless you buy it at his price, that is, lay thy sobriety down at first, and thy health a little after, and then their condition, though it look splendidly, yet, when you handle it on all sides, it will prick your fingers.

2. Consider how many excellent personages in all ages have suffered as great or greater calamities than this which now tempts thee to impatience. Agis was the most noble of the Greeks, and yet his wife bore a child by Alcibiades; and Philip was prince of Ituraea, and yet his wife ran away with his brother Herod into Galilee; and certainly, in a great fortune, that was a great calamity. But these are but single instances. Almost all the ages of the world have noted that their most eminent scholars were most eminently poor, some by choice, but most by chance, and an inevitable decree of Providence; and in the whole sex of women God hath decreed the sharpest pains of childbirth, to show that there is no state exempt from sorrow, and et that the weakest persons have strength more than enough to bear the greatest evil; and the greatest queens, and the mothers of saints and apostles, have no charter of exemption from this sad sentence. But the Lord of men and angels was also the King of sufferings; and if thy coarse robe trouble thee, remember the swaddling-clothes of Jesus; if thy bed be uneasy, yet it is not worse than his manger; and it is no sadness to have a thin table if thou callest to mind that the King of heaven and earth was fed with a little breast-milk; and yet besides this, he suffered all the sorrows which we deserved. We therefore have great reason to sit down upon our own hearths, and warm ourselves at our own fires, and feed upon content at home; for it were a strange pride to expect to be more gently treated by the Divine Providence than the best and wisest men, than apostles and saints, nay, the Son of the eternal God, the heir of both the worlds.

This consideration may be enlarged by surveying all the states and families of the world: and he that at once saw Egina and Megara, Pyraus and Corinth, lie gasping in their ruins, and almost buried in their own heaps, had reason to blame Cicero for mourning impatiently the death of one woman. In the most beauteous and splendid fortune there are many cares and proper interruptions and allays: in the fortune of a prince there is not the coarse robe of beggary, but there are infinite cares; and the judge sits upon the tribunal with great ceremony and ostentation of fortune, [142] and yet, at his house or in his breast there is something that causes him to sigh deeply. Pittacus was a wise and valiant man, but his wife overthrew the table when he had invited his friends; upon which the good man, to excuse her incivility and his own misfortune said, "that every man had one evil, and he was most happy that had but that alone." And if nothing else happens, yet sicknesses so often do embitter the fortune and content of a family, that a physician in a few years, and with the practice upon a very few families, gets experience enough to administer to almost all diseases. And when thy little misfortune troubles thee, remember that thou hast known the best of kings and the best of men put to death publicly by his own subjects.

3. There are many accidents which are esteemed great calamities, and yet we have reason enough to bear them well and unconcernedly; for they neither touch our bodies nor our soul -- or health and our virtue remain entire, our life and our reputation. It may be I am slighted, or I have received ill language; but my head aches not for it, neither hath it broken my thigh, nor taken away my virtue, unless I lose my charity or my patience. Inquire, therefore, what you are the worse, either in your soul or in your body, for what hath happened; for upon this very stock many evils will disappear, since the body and the soul make up the whole man. And when the daughter of Stilpo proved a wanton, he said it was none of his sin, and therefore there was no reason it should be his misery. And if an enemy hath taken all that from a prince whereby he was a king, he may refresh himself by considering all that is left him whereby he is a man.

4. Consider that sad accidents and a state of affliction is a school of virtue; it reduces our spirits to soberness, and our counsels to moderation; it corrects levity, and interrupts the confidence of sinning. It is good for me (said David) that I have been afflicted, for thereby I have learned thy law.' And I know (O Lord) that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled.' For God, who in mercy and wisdom governs the world, would never have suffered so many sadnesses, and have sent them especially to the most virtuous and the wisest men, but that he intends they should be the seminary of comfort, the nursery of virtue, the exercise of wisdom, the trial of patience, the venturing for a crown, and the gate of glory.

5. Consider that afflictions are oftentimes the occasions of great temporal advantages; and we must not look upon them as they sit down heavily upon us, but as they serve some of God's ends, and the purposes of universal Providence. And when a prince fights justly, and yet unprosperously, if he could see all those reasons for which God hath so ordered it, he would think it the most reasonable thing in the world, and that it would be very ill to have it otherwise. If a man could have opened one of the pages of the Divine counsel, and could have seen the event of Joseph's being sold to the merchants of Amalek, he might, with much reason, have dried up the young man's tears: and when God's purposes are opened in the events of things, as it was in the case of Joseph, when he sustained his father's family and became lord of Egypt, then we see what ill judgment we made of things, and that we were passionate as children, and transported with sense and mistaken interest. The case of Themistocles was almost like that of Joseph, for being banished into Egypt, he also grew in favour with the king, and told his wife "he had been undone, unless he had been undone". For God esteems it one of his glories, that he brings good out of evil; and therefore it were but reason we should trust God to govern his own world as he pleases; and that we should patiently wait till the change cometh or the reason be discovered.

And this consideration is also of great use to them who envy the prosperity of the wicked, and the success of persecutors, and the baits of fishes, and the bread of dogs. God fails not to sow blessings in the long furrows which the ploughers plough upon the back of the church; and this success which troubles us will be a great glory to God, and a great benefit to his saints and servants, and a great ruin to the persecutors, who shall have but the fortune of Theramenes, one of the thirty tyrants of Athens, who escaped when his house fell upon him, and was shortly after put to death with torments by his colleagues in the country.

To which also may be added, that the great evils which happen to the best and wisest men are one of the great arguments upon the strength of which we can expect felicity to our souls and the joys of tolerable and eligible, when with so great advantages they minister to the faith and hope of a Christian. But if we consider what unspeakable tortures are provided for the wicked to all eternity, we should not be troubled to see them prosperous here, but rather wonder that their portion in this life is not bigger, and that ever they should be sick, or corssed, or affronted, or troubled with the contradiction and disease of their own vices, since, if they were fortunate beyond their own ambition, it could not make them recompense for one hour's torment in hell, which yet they shall have for their eternal portion.

After all these considerations deriving from sense and experience, grace and reason, there are two remedies still remaining, and they are necessity and time.

6. For it is but reasonable to bear that accident patiently which God sends, since impatience does but entangle us, like the fluttering of a bird in a net, but cannot at all ease our trouble, or prevent the accident: it must be run through, and therefore it were better we compose ourselves to a patient than to a troubled and miserable suffering.

7. But, however, if you will not otherwise be cured, time at last will do it alone; and then consider, do you mean to mourn always, or but for a time? If always, you are miserable and foolish. If for a time, then why will you not apply those reasons to your grief at first with which you will cure it at last? or if you will not cure it with reason, see how little of a man there is in you, that you suffer time to do more with you than reason or religion! You suffer yourself to be cured, just as a beast or a tree is; let it alone, and the thing will heal itself: but this is neither honourable to thy person, nor to reputation to thy religion. However, be content to bear thy calamity, because thou art sure, in a little time, it will sit down gentle and easy, for to a moral man no evil is immortal. And here let the worst thing happen that can, it will end in death, and we commonly think that to be near enough.

8. Lastly, of those things which are reckoned amongst evils, some are better than their contraries; and to a good man the very worst is tolerable. __________________________________________________________________

[141] Non te ad omnia laeta genuit, O Agamemnon, Atreus, Opus est te gaugere et maercre: mortalis enim natus es, et ut haud veilis; superi sic constucrunt.

[142] Hie in foro beatus esse creditur, Cum foribus apertis sit suis miserrimus: Imperat mulier, jubet omnia, semper litigat. Multra adferunt ilt dolorem, nihil mihi -- Ferre, quam sortem patiuntur omnes, Nemo recusat. __________________________________________________________________

Poverty or a low fortune.

1. Poverty is better than riches, and a mean fortune to be chosen before a great and splendid one. It is indeed despised, and makes men contemptible; it exposes a man to the insolence of evil persons, and leaves a man to the insolence of evil persons, and leaves a man defenceless; it is always suspected; its stories are accounted lies, and all its counsels follies; it puts a man from all employment; it makes a man's discourses tedious, and his society troublesome. This is the worst of it; and yet all this, and far worse than this, the apostles suffered for being Christians; and Christianity itself may be esteemed an affliction as well as poverty, if this be all that can be said against it; for the apostles and the most eminent Christians were really poor, and were used contemptuously; and yet, that poverty is despised may be an argument to commend it, if it be despised by none but persons vicious and ignorant. [143] However, certain it is that a great fortune is a great vanity, and riches are nothing but danger, trouble, and temptation; like a garment that is too long, and bears a train; not so useful to one, but it is troublesome to two -- to him that bears the one part upon his shoulders, and to him that bears the other part in his hand. But poverty is the sister of a good mind, the parent of sober counsels, and the nurse of all virtue.

For what is it that you admire in the fortune of a great king? Is it that he always goes in a great company? You may thrust yourself into the same crowd, or go often to church, and then you have as great a company as he hath; and that may upon as good grounds please you as him, that is, justly neither: for so impertinent and useless pomp, and the other circumstances of his distance, are not made for him, but for his subjects, that they may learn to separate him from common usages, and be taught to be governed. [144] But if you look upon them as fine things in themselves, you may quickly alter your opinion when you shall consider that they cannot cure the toothache, nor make one wise, or fill the belly, or give one night's sleep -- (though they help to break many,) -- not satisfying any appetite of nature, or reason or religion; but they are states of greatness which only make it possible for a man to be made extremely miserable. And it was long ago observed by the Greek tragedians, and from them by Arrianus, [145] saying, "that all our tragedies are of kings and princes, and rich or ambitious personages; but you never see a poor man have a part, unless it be as a chorus, or to fill up the scenes, to dance or to be derided; but the kings and the great generals. First, says he, they begin with joy, crown the houses, but about the third or fourth act they cry out, O Citheron! why didst thou spare my life to reserve me for this more sad calamity?" And this is really true in the great accidents of the world; for a great estate hath great crosses, and a mean fortune hath but small ones. It may be the poor man loses a cow; or if his child dies he is quit of his biggest care; but such an accident in a rich and splendid family doubles upon the spirits of the parents. Or, it may be the poor man is troubled to pay his rent, and that is his biggest trouble; but is is a bigger care to secure a great fortune in a troubled estate, or with equal greatness, or with the circumstances of honour and the niceness of reputation, to defend a lawsuit; and that which will secure a common man's whole estate is not enough to defend a great man's honour.

And therefore it was not without mystery observed among the ancients, that they who made gods of gold and silver, of hope and fear, peace and fortune, garlic and onions, beasts and serpents, and a quartan ague, yet never deified money; meaning that however wealth was admired by common or abused understandings, yet from riches, that is from that proportion of good things which is beyond the necessities of nature, no moment could be added to a man's real content or happiness. Corn from Sardinia, herds from Calabrian cattle, meadows through which pleasant Liris glides, silks from Tyrus, and golden chalices to drown my health in, are nothing but instruments of vanity or sin; and suppose a disease in the soul of him that longs for them or admires them. And this I have otherwhere represented more largely; to which I here add, that riches have very great dangers to their souls not only to them who covet them, but to all that have them. For if a great personage undertakes an action passionately and upon great interest, let him manage it indiscreetly, let the whole design be unjust, let it be acted with all the malice and impotency in the world, he shall have enough to flatter him, but not enough to reprove him. He had need be a bold man that shall tell his patron he is going to hell; and that prince had need be a good man that shall suffer such a monitor; and though it be a strange kind of civility, and an evil dutifulness in friends and relatives to suffer him to perish without reproof or medicine, rather than to seem unmannerly to a great sinner, yet it is none of their least infelicities that their wealth and greatness shall put them into sin, and yet put them past reproof. I need not instance in the habitual intemperance of rich tables, nor the evil accidents and effects of fulness, pride and lust, wantonness and softness of disposition, huge talking and an imperious spirit, despite of religion, and contempt of poor persons; at the best, it is a great temptation for a man to have in his power whatsoever he can have in his sensual desires; [146] and therefore riches is a blessing like to a present made of a whole vintage to a man in a hectic fever; he will be much tempted to drink of it, and if he does, he is inflamed, and may chance to die with the kindness.

Now besides what hath been already noted in the state of poverty, there is nothing to be accounted for but the fear of wanting necessaries; of which, if a man could be secured that he might live free from care, all the other parts of it might be reckoned amongst the advantages of wise and sober persons, rather than objections against that state of fortune.

But concerning this, I consider that there must needs be great security to all Christians, since Christ not only made express promises that we should have sufficient for this life, but took great pains and used many arguments to create confidence in us; and such they were, which by their own strength were sufficient, though you abate the authority of the speaker. The Son of God told us, his Father takes care of us: he that knew all his Father's counsels, and his whole kindness towards mankind, told us so. How great is that truth, how certain, how necessary, which Christ himself proved by arguments! The excellent words and most comfortable sentences which are our bills of exchange, upon the credit of which we lay our cares down and receive provisions for our need, are these, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them! Are ye not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature? and why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow -- they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Therefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothes? (for after all these things do the gentiles seek); for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself: sufficient to the day is the evil thereof." The same discourse is repeated by St. Luke; [147] and accordingly our duty is urged, and our confidence abetted, by the disciples of our Lord, in divers places of Holy Scripture. So St. Paul -- Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." And again, "Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. And yet again, "Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee: so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper." [148] And all this is by St. Peter summed up in our duty thus: "Cast all your care upon him, for he careth for you." Which words he seems to have borrowed out of the fifty-fifth Psalm, ver. 23, where David saith the same thing almost in the same words; to which I only add the observation made by him, and the argument of experience: I have been young, and now am old, and yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.' And now after all this, a fearless confidence in God, concerning a provision of necessaries, is so reasonable, that it is become a duty; and he is scarce a Christian whose faith is so little as to be jealous of God and suspicious concerning meat and clothes -- that man hath nothing in him of the nobleness or confidence of charity.

Does not God provide for all the birds and beasts and fishes? Do not the sparrows fly from their bush, and every morning find meat where they laid it not? Do not the young ravens call to God, and he feeds them? And were it reasonable that the sons of the family should fear the father would give meat to the chickens and the servants, his sheep and his dogs, but give none to them? He were a very ill father that should do so; or he were a very foolish son that should think so of a good father. But besides the reasonableness of this faith and this hope, we have infinite experience of it. How innocent, how careless, how secure, is infancy! and yet how certainly provided for! We have lived at God's charges all the days of our life, and have (as the Italian proverb says) set down to meat at the sound of a bell; and hitherto he hath not failed us: we have no reason to suspect him for the future; we do not use to serve men so; and less time of trial creates great confidences in us towards them, who for twenty years together never broke their word with us: and God hath so ordered it, that a man shall have had the experience of many years' provision before he shall understand how to doubt; that he may be provided for an answer against the temptation shall come, and the mercies felt in his childhood may make him fearless when he is a man. Add to this, that God hath given us his Holy Spirit; he hath promised heaven to us; he hath given us his Son; and we are taught from Scripture to make this inference from hence, How should not he with him give us all things else?' __________________________________________________________________

[143] Alta fortuna also travaglio apporta.
[144] Da autorita la ceremonia al atto.

[145] Ondeis oe penms tragpsoian snmplmsoi ei rg choreutis. Bis sex dierum mensura consero ego agros, Berecynthia arva. Animusque menus sursum usque evectus ad polum Decidit humi, et me sic videtur alloqui; Disea haud nimis magnifacere mortalia. Tantal. in Traged.

[146] James, ii. 5-7.
[147] Matt. vi. 25, etc.

[148] Heb. xiii. 5, 6. __________________________________________________________________

The Charge of many Children.

We have a title to be provided for, as we are God's creatures, another title as we are his children, another because God hath promised -- and every of our children hath the same title; and therefore it is a huge folly and infidelity to be troubled and full of care because we have many children. Every child we have to feed is a new revenue, a new title to God's care and providence; so that many children are a great wealth; and if it be said they are chargeable, it is no more than all wealth and great revenues are. For what difference is it? Titus keeps ten ploughs, Cornelia hath ten children: he hath land enough to employ and feed all his hinds; she, blessings and promises, and the provisions and the truth of God to maintain all her children. His hinds and horses eat up all his corn, and her children are sufficiently maintained with her little. They bring in and eat up, and she indeed eats up, but they also bring in from the store-houses of heaven, and the granaries of God; and my children are not so much mine as they are God's -- he feeds them in the womb, by ways secret and insensible, and would not work a perpetual miracle to bring them forth, and then to starve them. __________________________________________________________________

Violent Necessities.

But some men are highly tempted, and are brought to a strait, that without a miracle, they cannot be relieved -- what shall they do? It may be their pride or vanity hath brought the necessity upon them, and it is not a need of God's making: and if it be not, they must cure it themselves, by lessening their desires and moderating their appetites: and yet if it be innocent, though unnecessary, God does usually relieve such necessities; and he does not only upon our prayers grant us more than he promised of temporal things, but also he gives many times more than we ask. This is no object for our faith, but ground enough for a temporal and prudent hope; and if we fail in the particular, God will turn it to a bigger mercy if we submit to his dispensation and adore him in the denial. But if it be a matter of necessity, let not any man, by way of impatience, cry out that God will not work a miracle; for God, by miracle, did give meat and drink to his people in the wilderness, of which he made no particular promise in any covenant; and if all natural means fail, it is certain that God will rather work a miracle than break his word; he can do that -- he cannot do this. Only we must remember that our portion of temporal things is but food and raiment. God hath not promised us coaches and horses, rich houses and jewels, Tyrian silks and Persian carpets; neither hath he promised to minister to our needs in such circumstances as we shall appoint, but such as himself shall choose. God will enable thee either to pay thy debt (if thou beggest it of him), or else he will pay it for thee; that is, take thy desire as a discharge of thy duty, and pay it to thy creditor in blessings, or in some secret of his providence. It may be he hath laid up the corn that shall feed thee in the granary of thy brother, or will clothe thee with his wool. He enabled St. Peter to pay his gabel by the ministry of a fish, and Elias to be waited on by a crow, who was both his minister and his steward for provisions; and his holy Son rode in triumph upon an ass that grazed in another man's pastures. And if God gives to him the domination, and reserves the use to thee, thou hast the better half of the two; but the charitable man serves God and serves thy need, and both join to provide for thee, and God blesses both. But if he takes away the flesh-pots from thee, he can also alter the appetite, and he hath given thee power and commandment to restrain it; and if he lessens the revenue, he will also shrink the necessity; or if he gives but a very little, he will make it go a great way; or if he sends thee but a course diet, he will bless it and make it healthful, and can cure all the anguish of thy poverty by giving thee patience and the grace of contentedness. For the grace of God feeds and supports the spirit in the want of provisions; and if a thin table be apt to enfeeble the spirits of one used to feed better, yet the cheerfulness of a spirit that is blessed will make a thin table become a delicacy, if the man was as well taught as he was fed, and learned his duty when he received the blessing. Poverty, therefore, is in some senses eligible, and to be preferred before riches; but in all senses it is very tolerable. __________________________________________________________________

Death of Children, or nearest Relatives and Friends.

There are some persons, who have been noted excellent in their lives and passions, rarely innocent, and yet hugely penitent for indiscretions and harmless infirmities; such as was Paulina, one of the ghostly children of St. Jerome; and yet, when any of her children died, she was arrested with a sorrow so great as brought her to the margin of her grave. And the more tender our spirits are made by religion, the more easy we are to let in grief, if the cause be innocent, and be but in any sense twisted with piety and due affections; to cure which we may consider that all the world must die, and therefore to be impatient at the death of a person concerning whom it was certain and known that he must die, is to mourn because thy friend or child was not born an angel; and when thou hast awhile made thyself miserable by an importunate and useless grief, it may be thou shalt die thyself, and leave others to their choice whether they will mourn for thee or no; but by that time it will appear how impertinent that grief was which served no end of life, and ended in thy own funeral. But what great matter is it if sparks fly upward, or a stone falls into a pit; if that which was combustible be burned, or that which was liquid be melted, or that which is mortal to die? It is no more than a man does every day; for every night death hath gotten possession of that day, and we shall never live that day over again; and when the last day is come, there are no more days left for us to die. And what is sleeping and waking, but living and dying? what is spring and autumn, youth and old age, morning and evening, but real images of life and death, and really the same to many considerable effects and changes? __________________________________________________________________

Untimely Death.

But it is not mere dying that is pretended by some as the cause of their impatient mourning: but that the child died young, before he knew good and evil, his right hand from his left, and so lost all his portion of this world, and they know not of what excellency his portion in the next shall be. If he died young, he lost but little, for he understood but little, and had not capacities of great pleasures or great cares; but yet he died innocent and before the sweetness of his soul was deflowered and ravished from him by the flames and follies of a forward age; he went out from the dining-room before he had fallen into error by the intemperance of his meat, or the deluge of drink; and he hath obtained this favor of God, that his soul hath suffered a less imprisonment, and her load was sooner taken off, that he might, with lesser delays, go and converse with immortal spirits -- and the babe is taken into paradise before he knows good and evil (for that knowledge threw our great father out, and this ignorance returns the child thither). But (as concerning thy own particular) remove thy thoughts back to those days in which thy child was not born, and you are now but as then you was, and there is no difference, but that you had a son born; and if you reckon that for evil, you are unthankful for the blessing; if it be good, it is better that you had the blessing for awhile, than not at all; and yet, if he had never been born, this sorrow had not been at all. [149] But be no more displeased at God for giving you a blessing for awhile, than you would have been if he had not given it at all; and reckon that intervening blessing for a gain, but account it not an evil; and if it be a good, turn it not into sorrow and sadness. But if we have great reason to complain of the calamities and evils of our life, then we have the less reason to grieve that those whom we loved have so small a portion of evil assigned to them. And it is no small advantage that our children dying young receive; for their condition of a blessed immortality is rendered to them secure by being snatched from the dangers of an evil choice, and carried to their little cells of felicity, where they can weep no more. And this the wisest of the Gentiles understood well, when they forbade any offerings of libations to be made for dead infants, as was usual for their other dead; as believing they were entered into a secure possession, to which they went with no other condition but that they passed into it through the way of mortality, and, for a few months, wore an uneasy garment. And let weeping parents say if they do not think that the evils their little babes have suffered are sufficient. If they be, why are they troubled that they were taken from those many and greater which in succeeding years are great enough to try all the reason and religion which art, and nature, and the grace of God have produced in us, to enable us for such sad contentions? And, possibly, we may doubt concerning men and women, but we cannot suspect that to infants death can be such an evil, but that it brings to them much more good than it takes from them in this life. __________________________________________________________________

[149] Itidem si puer parvulus occidat, aequo animo ferendum putant; si vero in cunis, ne querendum quidem; atqui hoc acerbius exegit natura quod dederat. At id quidem in caeteris rebus melius putatur, aliquam partem quaim nummam attingere.--Senec. __________________________________________________________________

Death unseasonable.

But others can well bear the death of infants; but when they have spent some years of childhood or youth, and are entered into arts and society, when they are hopeful and provided for, when the parents are to reap the comfort of all their fears and cares, then it breaks the spirit to lose them. This is true in many; but this is not love to the dead, but to themselves; for they miss what they had flattered themselves into by hope and opinion; and if it were kindness to the dead, they may consider, that since we hope he is gone to God and to rest, it is an ill expression of our love to them that we weep for their good fortune. For that life is not best which is longest: and when they are descended into the grave it shall not be inquired how long they have lived, but how well: and yet this shortening of their days is an evil wholly depending upon opinions. [150] For if men did naturally live but twenty years, then we should be satisfied if they died about sixteen or eighteen; and yet eighteen years now are as long as eighteen years would be then: and if a man were but a day's life, it is well if he lasts till even song, and then says his compline an hour before the time -- and we are pleased, and call not that death immature, if he lives till seventy; and yet this age is as short of the old periods before and since the flood, as this youth's age (for whom you mourn) is of the present fulness. Suppose, therefore, a decree passed upon this person, (as there have been many upon all mankind,) and God hath set him a shorter period; and then we may as well bear the immature death of the young man as the death of the oldest men; for they also are immature and unseasonable in respect of the old periods of many generations. And why are we troubled that he had arts and sciences before he died? or are we troubled that he does not live to make use of them? The first is cause of joy, for they are excellent in order to certain ends; and the second cannot be cause of sorrow, because he hath no need to use them, as the case now stands, being provided for with the provisions of an angel and the manner of eternity. However, the sons and the parents, friends and relatives, are in the world like hours and minutes to a day. The hour comes, and must pass; and some stay by minutes, and they also pass, and shall never return again. But let it be considered, that from the time in which a man is conceived, from that time forward to eternity he shall never cease to be; and let him die young or old, still he hath an immortal soul, and hath laid down his body only for a time, as that which was the instrument of his trouble and sorrows and the scene of sicknesses and disease. But he is in a more noble manner of being after death than he can be here; and the child may with more reason be allowed to cry for leaving his mother's womb for this world, than a man can for changing this world for another. __________________________________________________________________

[150] Juvenis relinquit vitam, quem Dii diligunt.--Menand. Clerc. p. 46. __________________________________________________________________

Sudden Death, or Violent.

Others are yet troubled at the manner of their child's or friends death. He was drowned, or lost his head, or died of the plague; and this is a new spring of sorrow. But no man can give a sensible account how it shall be worse for a child to die with drowning in half an-hour, than to endure a fever of one-and-twenty days. And if my friend lost his head, so he did not lose his constancy and his religion, he died with huge advantage. __________________________________________________________________

Being Childless.

But by this means I am left without an heir. Well, suppose that: thou hast no heir, and I have no inheritance; and there are many kings and emperors that have died childless, many royal lines are extinguished; and Augustus Caesar was forced to adopt his wife's son to inherit all the Roman greatness. And there are many wise persons that never married; and we read nowhere that any of the children of the apostles did survive their fathers; and all that inherit anything of Christ's kingdom come to it by adoption, not by natural inheritance: and to die without a natural heir is no intolerable evil, since it was sanctified in the person of Jesus, who died a virgin. __________________________________________________________________

Evil or unfortunate Children.

And by this means we are exposed to the greater sorrow of having a fool, a swine, or a goat, to rule after us in our families; and yet even this condition admits of comfort. For all the wild Americans are supposed to be the sons of Dodoniam; and the sons of Jacob are now the most scattered and despised people in the whole world. The son of Solomon was but a silly weak man; and the son of Hezakiah was wicked: and all the fools and barbarous people, all the thieves and pirates, all the slaves and miserable men and women of the world, are the sons and daughters of Noah; and we must not look to be exempted from that portion of sorrow which God gave to Noah, and Adam, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob: I pray God send us into the lot of Abraham. But if anything happens worse to us, it is enough for us that we bear it evenly. __________________________________________________________________

Our own Death.

And how, if you were to die yourself? You know you must. Only be ready for it by the preparations of a good life; and then it is the greatest good that ever happened to thee; else there is nothing that can comfort you. But if you have served God in a holy life, send away the women and the weepers; tell them it is as much intemperance to weep too much as to laugh too much; and when thou art alone, or with fitting company, die as thou shouldest, but do not die impatiently, and like a fox catched in a trap. For if you fear death, you shall never the more avoid it, but you make it miserable. Fannius, that killed himself for fear of death, died as certainly as Portia, that ate burning coals, or Cato, that cut his own throat. To die is necessary and natural, and it may be honourable; but to die poorly, and basely, and sinfully, that alone is it that can make a man unfortunate. No man can be a slave, but he that fears pain, or fears to die. To such a man nothing but chance and peaceable times can secure his duty, and he depends upon things without for his felicity; and so is well but during the pleasure of his enemy, or a thief, or a tyrant or it may be of a dog or a wild bull. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

PRAYERS FOR THE SEVERAL GRACES AND PARTS OF CHRISTIAN SOBRIETY.

A Prayer against Sensuality.

O eternal Father, thou that sittest in heaven invested with essential glories and divine perfections, fill my soul with so deep a sense of the excellences of spiritual and heavenly things, that, my affections being weaned from the pleasures of the world and the false allurements of sin, I may, with great severity, and the prudence of a holy discipline and strict desires, with clear resolutions and a free spirit, have my conversations in heaven and heavenly employments; that being, in affections as in my condition, a pilgrim and a stranger here, I may covet after and labour for an abiding city, and at last may enter into and for ever dwell in the celestial Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For Temperance.

O Almighty God and gracious Father of men and angels, who openest thy hand and fillest all things with plenty, and hast provided for thy servant sufficient to satisfy all my needs; teach me to use thy creatures soberly and temperately, that I may not, with loads of meat or drink, make the temptations of my enemy to prevail upon me, or my spirit unapt for the performance of my duty, or my body healthless, or my affections sensual and unholy. O my God, never suffer that the blessings which thou givest me may either minister to sin or sickness, but to health and holiness and thanksgiving; that in the strength of thy provisions I may cheerfully and actively and diligently serve thee; that I may worthily feast at thy table here, and be accounted worthy, through thy grace, to be admitted to thy table hereafter, at the eternal supper of the Lamb, to sing an hallelujah to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever. Amen.

For Chastity: to be said especially by Unmarried Persons.

Almighty God, our most holy and eternal Father, who art of pure eyes, and canst behold no uncleanness; let thy gracious and holy Spirit descend upon thy servant, and reprove the spirit of fornication and uncleanness, and cast him out; that my body may be a holy temple, and my soul a sanctuary to entertain the Prince of purities, the holy and eternal Spirit of God. O, let no impure thoughts pollute that tongue which God hath commanded to be an organ of his praises; no unholy and unchaste action rend the veil of that temple where the holy Jesus hath been pleased to enter, and hath chosen for his habitation: but seal up all my senses from all vain objects, and let them be entirely possessed with religion, and fortified with prudence, watchfulness, and mortification; that I, possessing my vessel in holiness, may lay it down with a holy hope, and receive it again in a joyful resurrection, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Prayer for the Love of God, to be said by Virgins, and Widows, professed or resolved so to live: and may be used by any one.

Oh holy and purest Jesus, who wert pleased to espouse every holy soul, and join it to thee with a holy union and mysterious instruments of religious society and communications; O, fill my soul with religion, and desires holy as the thoughts of cherubim, passionate beyond the love of women; that I may love thee as much as ever any creature loved thee, even with all my soul and all my faculties, and all the degrees of every faculty; let me know no loves but those of duty and charity, obedience and devotion; that I may for ever run after thee, who art the King of virgins, and with whom whole kingdoms are in love, and for whose sake queens have died, and at whose feet kings with joy have laid their crowns and sceptres. My soul is thing, O dearest Jesus; thou art my Lord, and hast bound up my eyes and heart from all stranger affections; give me for my dowry purity and humility, modesty and devotion, charity and patience, and at last bring me into the bride-chamber to partake of the felicities, and to lie in the bosom of the Bridegroom to eternal ages, O holy and sweetest Saviour Jesus. Amen.

A Prayer to be said by Married Persons in behalf of themselves and each other.

O eternal and gracious Father, who hast consecrated the holy estate of marriage to become mysterious, and to represent the union of Christ and his church, let thy Holy Spirit so guide me in the doing the duties of this state, that it may not become a sin unto me; nor that liberty, which thou hast hallowed by the holy Jesus, become an occasion of licentiousness by my own weakness and sensuality; and do thou forgive all those irregularities and too sensual applications which may have, in any degree, discomposed my spirit and the severity of a Christian. Let me, in all accidents and circumstances, be severe in my duty towards thee, affectionate and dear to my wife, (or husband,) a guide and good example to my family, and in all quietness, sobriety, prudence, and peace, a follower of those holy pairs who have served thee with godliness and a good testimony. And the blessings of the eternal God, blessings of the right hand and of the left, be upon the body and soul of thy servant, my wife, (or husband,) and abide upon her (or him) till the end of a holy and happy life; and grant that both of us may live together for ever in the embraces of the holy and eternal Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

A Prayer for the Grace of Humility.

O holy and most gracious Master and Saviour Jesus, who by thy example and by thy precept, by the practice of a whole life and frequent discourses, didst command us to be meek and humble, in imitation of thy incomparable sweetness and great humility, be pleased to give me the grace, as thou hast given me the commandment: enable me to do whatsoever thou commandest, and command whatsoever thou pleasest. O mortify in me all proud thoughts and vain opinions of myself; let me return to thee the acknowledgment and the fruits of all those good things thou hast given me, that, by confessing I am wholly in debt to thee for them, I may not boast myself for what I have received, and for what I am highly accountable; and for what is my own teach me to be ashamed and humbled, it being nothing but sin and misery, weakness and uncleanness. Let me go before my brethren in nothing but in striving to do them honour and thee glory, never to seek my own praise, never to delight in it when it is offered: that, despising myself, I may be accepted by thee in the honours with which thou shalt crown thy humble and despised servants, for Jesus' sake, in the kingdom of eternal glory. Amen.

Acts of Humility and Modesty by way of Prayer and Meditation.

I.

Lord, I know that my spirit is light and thorny, my body is brutish and exposed to sickness; I am constant to folly, and inconstant in holy purposes. My labours are vain and fruitless; my fortune full of change and trouble, seldom pleasing, never perfect; my wisdom is folly; being ignorant even of the parts and passions of my own body; and what am I, O Lord, before thee, but a miserable person, hugely in debt, not able to pay?

II.

Lord, I am nothing, and I have nothing of myself: I am less than the least of all thy mercies.

III.

What was I before birth? First, nothing, and then uncleanness. What during my childhood? Weakness and folly. What in my youth? Folly still, and passion, lust, and wildness. What in my whole life? A great sinner, a deceived, and an abused person. Lord, pity me; for it is thy goodness that I am kept form confusion and amazement, when I consider the misery and shame of my person, and the defilements of my nature.

IV.

Lord, what am I? And, Lord, what art thou? "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou so regardest him?"

V.

How can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold, even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man that is a worm, and the son of man which is a worm! Job, xxxv.4, etc.

A Prayer for a contented Spirit, and the Grace of Moderation and Patience.

O Almighty God, Father and Lord of all the creatures, who hast disposed all things and all chances so as may best glorify thy wisdom, and serve the ends of thy justice, and magnify thy mercy by secret and indiscernible ways, bringing good out of evil; I most humbly beseech thee to give me wisdom from above, that I may adore thee and admire thy ways and footsteps, which are in the great deep and not to be searched out; teach me to submit to thy providence in all things, to be content in all changes of person and conditions, to be temperate in prosperity, and to read my duty in the lines of thy mercy; and in adversity to be meek, patient, and resigned; and to look through the cloud, that I may wait for the consolation of the Lord and the day of redemption; in the meantime doing my duty with an unwearied diligence, and an undisturbed resolution, having no fondness for my hopes in heaven and the rewards of holy living, and being strengthened with the spirit of the inner man, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________