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 varieties 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 to-morrow'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 tomorrow 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. Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them, and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly: for this day is only ours: we are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born to the 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 fit 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 expectation of sorrows. "O death, how bitter art thou to a man, that is at rest in his posses-. sions!" 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 and 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 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, and 7. If you will secure a contented spirit, you must measure your desires by your fortune and condition, not your fortunes by your desires: that is, be governed by your needs, not by your fancy; by nature, not by evil customs and ambitious principles. 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 storehouses 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 turft? turft? 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; Assai basta per chi non è ingordo. t Quantò præstantius esset Numen aquæ, viridi si margine clauderet undas Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum.-Juv. iii. 20. me pascunt olivæ, Me cichorea, levesque malvæ. Frui paratis et valido mihi, Latoe, dones.-Horat. 1. i. Od. 31. Amabo levem cupressum, Omissis Creta pascuis: Terræ mihi datum est parùm ; Careo interim doloribus.— Pindar. frag. 43. 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 fails 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 when 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 every thing 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 " Vacare culpâ in calamitatibus maximum solatium. 2 Cor. iv. 8, 9. w 1 Pet. iii. 13; iv. 15, 16. |