τέτο

seus as λόγῳ. Plut. ad Apol. p. 195.

Job tells us, where the wicked ceafe Job 3. 17. from troubling, and where the weary be at rest; where the prisoners reft together; they hear not the voice of the oppreflour; the Small and great are there; and the fervant is free from his Mafter. 'Tis therefore but hold-OES TO μέλλεις Keira xaciing out a while, and a deliverance, TUTO from the worst this World can moleft us with, shall of its own accord arrive unto us; in the mean time 'tis better that we at present owe the benefit of our comfort to reason, than afterward to time; by rational confideration to work patience and contentment in our felves; and to use the shortness of our life as an argument to sustain us in our affliction, than to find the end thereof onely a natural and neceffary means of our rescue from it. The contemplation Omnia brevia tolerabilia effe of this cannot fail to yield fome- debent, etiamfi thing of courage and folace to us in magna. Cic. Læl. ad fin. the greatest preffures; thefe tranfient, and fhort-liv'd evils, if we confider them as fo, cannot appear fuch horrid bugbears, as much to affright

or

or difmay us; if we remember how short they are, we cannot esteem them fo great, or fo intolerable. There be, I must confefs, divers more noble confiderations, proper and available to cure difcontent and impatience. The confidering, that all these evils proceed from God's just will, and wife providence; unto which it is fit, and we upon all accompts are obliged readily to fubmit; that they do ordinarily come from God's goodness, and gratious defign towards us; that they are medicines (although ungratefull, yet wholfome) adminiftred by the Divine Wifedom, to prevent,remove or abate our diftempers of foul (to allay the tumours of pride, to cool the fevers of intemperate defire; to rouse us from the lethargy of floath; to stop the gangrene of bad confcience) that they are fatherly corrections, intended to reclaim us from fin, and excite us to duty; that they ferve as inftruments or occafions to exercise, to try, to refine our vertue;

to

to beget in us the hope, to qualifie us for the reception of better rewards; fuch difcourfes indeed are of a better nature, and have a more excellent kind of efficacy: yet no fit help, no good art, no just weapon is to be quite neglected in the combat against our fpiritual foes. A Pebble-ftone hath been sometimes found more convenient than a Sword or a Spear to flay a Giant. Bafer remedies by reason of the Patient's constitution, or circumstances) do fometime produce good effect, when others in their own nature more rich and potent want efficacy. And furely frequent reflexions upon our mortality, and living under the fense of our life's frailty cannot but conduce fomewhat to the begetting in us an indifferency of mind toward all these temporal occurents; to extenuate both the goods and the evils we here meet with; confequently therefore to compofe and calm our paffions about them.

III. But

III. But I proceed to another use of that confideration we fpeak of emergent from the former, but fo as to improve it to higher purpofes. For fince it is usefull to the diminishing our admiration of these worldly things, to the withdrawing our affections from them, to the flackning our endeavours about them; it will follow that it must conduce alfo to beget an esteem, a defire, a prosecution of things conducing to our future welfare; both by removing the obftacles of doing fo, and by engaging us to confider the importance of those things in comparison with these. By removing obftacles I fay; for while our hearts are poffeffed with regard and paffion toward these present things, there can be no room left in them for refpect and affection toward things future. 'Tis in our foul as in the reft of nature; there can be no penetration of objects (as it were) in our hearts, nor any vacuity in them;

Our

our mind no more than our body can be in feveral places, or tend feveral ways, or abide in perfect reft; yet fome-where it will always be ; fome-whither it will always go; fome-what it will ever be doing. If we have a treasure here (fome-what Matth. 6. 21. we greatly like and much confide in) our hearts will be here with it; and if here, they cannot be otherwhere; they will be taken up; they will reft fatisfied; they will

12.43.

not care to feek farther. If we af- John 5. 44. fect worldly glory and delight in Matth. 6. 24. the applause of men, we fhall not be fo carefull to please God, and feek his favour. If we admire and repose confidence in riches, it will make us neglectfull of God, and diftruftfull of his Providence; if our Rom. 8. 5.1 mind thirsts after, and fucks in greedily fenfual pleasures, we shall not relish fpiritual delights, attending the practice of vertue and piety, or arifing from good confcience; adhering to, attending upon Masters of fo different, fo oppofite a quality F

is