of all fear of death. They were flesh and blood, as well as we : life was as sweet to them, as to us: their bodies were as sensible of pain, as ours: we go to the same heaven with them. How comes it then, that they were so courageous, in abiding such torments in their death, as the very mention strikes horror into any reader; and we are so cowardly, in encountering a fair and natural death? If this valour had been of themselves, I would never have looked after them in hope of imitation: now, I know it was he, for whom they suffered and that suffered in them, which sustained them. They were of themselves as weak as I; and God can be as strong in me, as he was in them. O Lord, thou art not more unable to give me this grace; but I am more unworthy to receive it: and yet thou regardest not worthiness, but mercy. Give me their strength, and what end thou wilt.

IV.

Our first age is all in hope. When we are in the womb, who knows whether we shall have our right shape and proportion of body being neither monstrous nor deformed? When we are born, who knows whether, with the due features of a man, we shall have the faculties of reason and understanding? When yet our progress in years discovereth wit or folly, who knows whether, with the power of reason, we shall have the grace of faith to be Christians? and, when we begin to profess well, whether it be a temporary and seeming, or a true and saving faith? Our middle age is half in hope, for the future; and half in proof, for that is past; our old age is out of hope; and altogether in proof. In our last times, therefore, we know, both what we have been, and what to expect. It is good for youth to look forward, and still to propound the best things unto itself: for an old man to look backward, and to repent him of that wherein he hath failed, and to recollect himself for the present; but, in my middle age, I will look both backward and forward; comparing my hopes with my proof; redeeming the time, ere it be all spent, that my recovery may prevent my repentance. It is both a folly and misery to say, "This I might have done."

V.

It is the wonderful mercy of God, both to forgive us our debts to him in our sins, and to make himself a debtor to us in his promises: so that now, both ways, the soul may be sure; since he neither calleth for those debts which he hath once forgiven, nor withdraweth those favours and that heaven which he hath promised: but, as he is a merciful creditor to forgive, so he is a true debtor to pay whatsoever he hath undertaken. Whence it is come to pass, that the penitent sinner owes nothing to God, but love and obedience; and God owes still much

and all to him: for he owes as much as he hath promised; and what he owes, by virtue of his blessed promise, we may challenge. O infinite mercy! He, that lent us all that we have, and in whose debt-books we run hourly forward till the sum be endless; yet owes us more, and bids us look for payment. I cannot deserve the least favour he can give; yet will I as confidently challenge the greatest, as if I deserved it. Promise indebteth no less, than loan or desert.

VI.

It is no small commendation, to manage a little well. He is a good waggoner, that can turn in a narrow room. To live well in abundance, is the praise of the estate, not of the person. I will study more, how to give a good account of my little, than how to make it more.

VII.

Many Christians do greatly wrong themselves, with a dull and heavy kind of sullenness; who, not suffering themselves to delight in any worldly thing, are thereupon ofttimes so heartless, that they delight in nothing. These men, like to careless guests, when they are invited to an excellent banquet, lose their dainties for want of a stomach; and lose their stomach, for want of exercise. A good conscience keeps always good cheer: he cannot chuse but fare well, that hath it: unless he lose his appetite, with neglect and slothfulness. It is a shame for us Christians, not to find as much joy in God, as worldlings do in their forced merriments, and lewd wretches in the practice of their sins.

VIII.

A wise Christian hath no enemies. Many hate and wrong him; but he loves all, and all pleasure him. Those, that profess love to him, pleasure him with the comfort of their society, and the mutual reflection of friendship: those, that profess hatred, make him more wary of his ways; shew him faults in himself, which his friends would either not have espied or not censured; send him the more willingly to seek favour above: and, as the worst do bestead him, though against their wills; so he again doth voluntarily good to them. To do evil for evil, as Joab to Abner, is a sinful weakness: to do good for good, as Ahasuerus to Mordecai, is but natural justice: to do evil for good, as Judas to Christ, is unthankfulness and villainy : only to do good for evil, agrees with Christian profession. And what greater work of friendship, than to do good? If men will not be my friends in love, I will perforce make them my friends in a good use of their hatred. I will be their friend, that are mine, and would not be.

IX.

All temporal things are troublesome: for, if we have good things, it is a trouble to forego them; and, when we see they must be parted from, either we wish they had not been so good, or that we never had enjoyed them. Yea, it is more trouble to lose them, than it was before joy to possess them. If, contrarily, we have evil things, their very presence is troublesome; and still we wish that they were good, or that we were disburdened of them. So, good things are troublesome, in event; evil things in their use: they, in the future: these, in the present; they, because they shall come to an end; these because they do continue. Tell me, thy wife or thy child lies dying, and now makes up a loving and dutiful life with a kind and loving parture; whether wouldst thou rather for thy own part, she had been so good or worse? would it have cost thee so many hearty sighs and tears, if she had been perverse and disobedient? Yet, if in her life-time I put thee to this choice, thou thinkest it no choice at all, in such inequality. It is more torment, sayest thou, to live one unquiet month, than it is pleasure to live an age in love. Or, if thy life be yet dearer: thou hast lived to grey hairs; not hastened with care, but bred with late succession of years: thy table was ever covered with variety of dishes: thy back softly and richly clad: thou never gavest denial to either skin or stomach: thou ever favouredst thyself; and health, thee. Now death is at thy threshold, and unpartially knocks at thy door; dost thou not wish thou hadst lived with crusts, and been clothed with rags? Wouldst not thou have given a better welcome to death, if he had found thee lying upon a pallet of straw, and supping of water-gruel; after many painful nights, and many sides changed in vain? Yet this beggarly estate thou detesteth in health, and pittiest in others, as truly miseral. The sum is: A beggar wisheth he might be a monarch, while he lives; and the great potentate wisheth he had lived a beggar, when he comes to die: and, if beggary be to have nothing, he shall be so in death, though he wished it not. Nothing therefore but eternity can make a man truly happy; as nothing can make perfect misery but eternity; for, as temporal good things afflict us in their ending, so temporal sorrows afford us joy in the hope of their end. What folly is this in us, to seek for our trouble, to neglect our happiness! I can be but well; and this, That I was well, shall one day be grievous. Nothing shall please me but that once I shall be happy for ever.

X.

The eldest of our forefathers lived not so much as a day to God, to whom a thousand years is as no more; we live but as

an hour to the day of our forefathers; for, if nine hundred and sixty were but their day, our fourscore is but as the twelfth part of it. And yet, of this our hour, we live scarce a minute to God: for, take away all that time, that is consumed in sleeping, dressing, feeding, talking, sporting; of that little time, there can remain not much more than nothing: yet the most 'seek pastimes to hasten it. Those, which seek to mend the pace of Time, spur a running horse. I had more need to redeem it, with double care and labour; than to seek how to sell it, for nothing.

XI.

Each day is a new life, and an abridgment of the whole. I will so live, as if I counted every day my first, and my last; as if I began to live but then, and should live no more afterwards.

XII.

It was not in vain, that the ancient founders of languages. used the same word in many tongues, to signify both Honour and Charge; meaning therein, to teach us the inseparable connection of these two. For there scarce ever was any charge, without some opinion of honour; neither ever was there honour, without a charge: which two, as they are not without reason joined together in name, by human institution; so they are most wisely coupled together by God, in the disposition of these worldly estates. Charge, without honour to make it amends, would be too toilsome; and must needs discourage and over-lay a man: Honour, without charge, would be too pleasant; and, therefore, both would be too much sought after, and must needs carry away the mind in the enjoying it. Now, many dare not be ambitious, because of the burden; chusing rather to live obscurely and securely and yet, on the other side, those, that are under it, are refreshed in the Charge with the sweetness of Honour. Seeing they cannot be separated, it is not the worst estate to want both. They, whom thou enviest for honour, perhaps envy thee more for thy quietness.

XIII.

He, that taketh his own cares upon himself, loads himself in vain with an uneasy burden. The fear of what may come, expectation of what will come, desire of what will not come, and inability of redressing all these, must needs breed him continual torment. I will cast my cares upon God: he hath bidden me they cannot hurt him: he can redress them.

XIV.

Our infancy is full of folly; youth, of disorder and toil; age, of infirmity. Each time hath his burden; and that, which may justly work our weariness: yet infancy longeth after youth; and youth, after more age: and he, that is very old, as he is a child for simplicity, so he would be for years. I account old age the best of the three; partly, for that it hath passed through the folly and disorder of the others; partly, for that the inconveniences of this are but bodily, with a bettered estate of the mind; and partly, for that it is nearest to dissolution. There is nothing more miserable, than an old man that would be young again. It was an answer worthy the commendations of Petrarch; and that, which argued a mind truly philosophical of him, who, when his friend bemoaned his age appearing in his white temples, telling him he was sorry to see him look so old, replied, "Nay, be sorry rather, that ever I was young, to be a fool."

XV.

There is not the least action or event, whatever the vain Epicures have imagined, which is not overruled and disposed by a Providence: which is so far from detracting ought from the Majesty of God, for that the things are small; as that there can be no greater honour to him, than to extend his providence and decree to them, because they are infinite. Neither doth this hold in natural things only, which are chained one to another by a regular order of succession; but even in those things, which fall out by casualty and imprudence: whence that worthy Father, when as his speech digressed his intention to a confutation of the errors of the Manichees, could presently guess, that, in that unpurposed turning of it, God intended the conversion of some unknown auditor; as the event proved his conjecture true ere many days. When ought falls out contrary to that I proposed, it shall content me, that God proposed it, as it is fallen out: so the thing hath attained his own end, while it missed mine. I know what I would, but God knoweth what I should will. It is enough, that his will is done, though mine be crossed.

XVI.

It is the most thankless office in the world, to be a man's pander unto sin. In other wrongs, one man is a wolf to another; but in this, a devil. And, though, at the first, this damnable service carry away reward; yet, in conclusion, it is requited with hatred and curses. For, as the sick man, extremely distasted with a loathsome potion, hateth the very cruse wherein it was brought him; so doth the conscience,