XI. accounted a happy advantage, than any part of mifery S ER M. to us? If it feem, that the greatest perfection of curious knowledge (of what ufe or ornament foever) after it is hardly purchased, must foon be parted with; to be fimple or ignorant will be no great matter of lamentation as those will appear no folid goods, so these confequently must be only umbræ malorum, phantafms, or fhadows of evil, rather than truly or fubftantially fo; (evils created by fancy, and fubfifting thereby; which reafon fhould, and time will furely remove) that in being impatient or difconfolate for them, we are but like children, that fret and wail for the want of petty toys. And for the more real or pofitive Sen. Ep. 89. evils fuch as violently affault nature, whofe impreffions no reason can fo withstand, as to extinguish all distaste or afflictive sense of them; yet this confideration will aid to abate and affuage them; affording a certain hope and profpect of approaching redrefs. It is often feen at fea, that men (from unacquaintance with fuch agitations, or from brackish teams arifing from the falt water) are heartily fick, and difco- ver themselves to be fo by apparently grievous fymptoms; yet no man hardly there doth mind or pity them, because the malady is not fuppofed dangerous, and within a while will probably of itself pass over; or that however the remedy is not far off; the fight of land, a taste of the fresh air will relieve them: it is near our cafe: we paffing over this troublesome fea of life; from unexperience, joined with the tenderness of our conftitution, we cannot well endure the changes and croffes of fortune; to be toffed up and down; to fuck in the sharp vapours of penury, difgrace, fickness, and the like, doth beget a qualm in our ftomachs; make us naufeate all things, and appear forely diftempered; yet is not our condition fo difmal as it feems; we may grow hardier, and wear out our fenfe of affliction: however, the land is not far off, and by difembarking hence we fhall fuddenly be discharged of SER M. of all our moleftations *. It is a common folace of XI. grief, approved by wife men, fi gravis, brevis eft ; fi longus, levis; if it be very grievous and acute it cannot continue long, without intermiffion or refpite; if it abide long, it is fupportable; intolerable pain is like lightening, it destroys us, or is itself inftantly deftroyed. However, death at length (which never is far off) will free us; be we never fo much toffed with ftorms of misfortune, that is a fure haven; be we perfecuted with never so many enemies, that is a fafe refuge; let what pains or diseases foever infeft us, that is an affured anodynon, and infallible remedy for them all; however we be wearied with the labours of the day, the night will come and eafe us; the grave will become a bed of reft unto us. * Shall I die? I fhall then cease to be fick; I fhall be exempted from difgrace; I fhall be enlarged from prifon; I fhall be no more pinched with want; no more tormented with pain. Death is a winter, that as it withers the rofe and lily, fo it kills the nettle and thistle; as it ftifles all worldly joy and pleafure, fo it fuppreffes all care and grief; as it hushes the voice of mirth and melody, fo it ftills the clamours and the fighs of mifery; as it defaces all the world's glory, fo it covers all difgrace, wipes off all tears, filences all complaint, buries all difquiet and discontent. King Philip of Macedon once threatened the Spartans to vex them forely, and bring them into great ftraits; but, anfwered they, can he binder us from dying? that indeed is a way of evading * Θάρσει· πόνε γὰρ ἄκρον ἐκ ἔχει χρόνον. Afchyl. apud Plutarch. de Aud. Poet. fub finem. Τὸ μὲν ἀφόρητον ἐξάγει· τὸ δὲ χρονίζον φορητόν. Ant. VII. Sect. 33. Summi doloris intentio invenit finem: nemo poteft valde dolere et diu: fic nos amantissima nostri natura disposuit, ut dolorem aut tolerabilem, aut brevem faceret. Sen. Ep. 74. * Dolore perculfi mortem imploramus, eamque unam, ut miferiarum malorumque terininum, exoptamus. Cic. Confolat. Moriar? hoc dicis ; definam ægrotare poffe, &c. Sen. Ep. 24. Eripere vitam nemo non homini poteft; at nemo mortem. Sen. Trag. which XI. which no enemy can obftruct, no tyrant can debar S E R M. men from; they who can deprive of life, and its conveniences, cannot take away death from them. There is a place Job tells us, where the wicked ceafe from Jeb iii. 17. troubling, and where the weary be at reft; where the prifoners reft together; they hear not the voice of the oppreffor; the fmall and great are there; and the fervant is free from his mafter. It is therefore but holding out a while, and a deliverance from the worst this world can moleft us with, fhall of its own accord arrive unto us; in the mean time it is 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 ourfelves; and to ufe the fhortness of our life as an argument to fuftain us in our affliction, than to find the end thereof only a natural and neceffary means of our refcue from it. The contemplation of this cannot fail to yield fomething of courage and folace to us in the greatest preffures; these tranfient, and fhort-lived evils, if we confider them as fo, cannot appear fuch horrid bugbears, as much to affright 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 juft will, and wife providence; unto which it is fit, and we upon all accounts are obliged readily to fubmit; that they do ordinarily come from God's goodness, and gracious defign toward us; that they are medicines (although ungrateful, yet wholefome) adminiftred by the Divine Wisdom to prevent, remove, or abate our diftempers of foul (to allay the tumors of pride, to cool * Ο μέλλεις τῷ χρόνῳ χαρίζεσθαι, τέτο τῷ λόγῳ χαρίσαι. Plut. ad Apol. p. 195. + Omnia brevia tolerabilia effe debent, etiamfi magna fint. Cic. Læl. ad fin. the XI. SER M. the fevers of intemperate defire, to roufe us from the lethargy of floth, to ftop the gangrene of bad confcience) that they are fatherly corrections intended to reclaim us from fin, and excite us to duty; that they serve as instruments or occafions to exercise, to try, to refine our virtue; to beget in us the hope, to qualify 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 juft weapon is to be quite neglected in the combat against our fpiritual foes. A pebbleftone hath been fometimes found more convenient than a sword or a spear to flay a giant. Baser remedies (by reason of the patient's conftitution, or circumftances) do fometime produce good effect, when others in their own nature inore rich and potent want efficacy. And furely frequent reflections upon our mortality, and living under the fenfe of our lives' frailty, cannot but conduce fomewhat to the begetting in us an indifferency of mind toward all thefe temporal occurrents; to extenuate both the goods and the evils we here meet with; confequently therefore to compofe and calm our paffions about them. 3. But I proceed to another ufe of that confideration we speak of emergent from the former, but fo as to improve it to higher purposes. For fince it is ufeful to the diminishing our admiration of these worldly things, to the withdrawing our affections from them, to the flackening our endeavours about them; it will follow that it must conduce alfo to beget an esteem, a defire, a profecution of things conducing to our future welfare; both by removing the obftacles of doing fo, and by engaging us to confider the importance of thofe things in comparison with these. By removing obftacles, I fay; for while our hearts are poffeffed with regard and paffion toward these prefent things, there can be no room left in them for refpect and affection toward things future. It is in our pro XI. xii. 43. our foul as in the reft of nature; there can be no s ER M. penetration of objects, as it were, in our hearts, nor any vacuity in them; our mind no more than our body can be in feveral places, or tend several ways, or abide in perfect reft; yet fomewhere it will always be; fomewhither it will always go; fomewhat it will ever be doing. If we have a treasure here (fomewhat Mat. vi. 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 not care to feek farther. If we affect worldly glory, and delight in the applaufe of men, we shall not be fo careful to pleate God, and feek his favour. If we admire and repose confidence in riches, it will John v. 44make us neglectful of God, and distrustful of his vidence: if our mind thirsts after, and fucks in gree- Mat. vi. 24. dily fenfual pleasures, we shall not relish spiritual delights, attending the practice of virtue and piety, or Rom. viii. 5. arifing from good confcience: adhering to, attending upon mafters of fo different, fo oppofite a quality is inconfiftent; they cannot abide peaceably together, they cannot both rule in our narrow breafts; we shall love and hold to the one, hate and defpife the other. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not 1 John ii. in him; the love of the world, as the prefent gueft, 15. fo occupies and fills the room, that it will not admit, cannot hold the love of God. But when the heart is discharged and emptied of these things; when we begin to defpife them as base and vain; to diftafte them as infipid and unfavoury; then naturally will fucceed a defire after other things promifing a more folid content; and defire will breed endeavour; and endeavour (furthered by God's affiftance always ready to back it) will yield such a glimpse and taste of things, as will fo comfort and fatiffy our minds, that thereby they will be drawn and engaged into a more earnest prosecution of them. When, I fay, driving on ambitious projects, heaping up wealth, providing for the flesh (by reflecting |