from another? You talk of Heaven, and he minds nothing but Earth. You propose the calm healing Thought of the divine Approbation, with the Pleasure and Honour of God's Favour, to a Man who fays unto God, Depart from us; we defire not the Knowledge of thy Ways. You preach the Confolations of God, which are not fmall, to one who knows no Confolation but in Corn, and Wine, and Oil. What Comfort to a Man from the Thoughts of the Shortness of human Life, whose greatest Trouble is that it is so short, or elfe is apprehenfive that the End of these Troubles will begin thofe which fhall never end? He has no more Title to this true Comfort, than he has has a Fitness for it, the good Man only being qualified for, and capable of this. Chriftian Confolations belong only to Chriftians: They are of no Ufe to others, who have neither Part, nor Lot in this Matter, no more than in that Heaven from whence they are derived. They fuppofe a Difpofition capable of them, as the Rudiments of any Science are previous to the Operations of that Science; but the promifcuous Application of these Comforts to all forts of Characters, is mere Quacking in Divinity, instead of approved Remedies and fair Practice. The Secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, because he hath fhewn unto them his Covenant. Others must go to Cicero, Seneca, or Plutarch de Confo Confolatione; and try what their Flourishes and general Reasoning will do. The Aids of ancient Philosophy, how dry, how infufficient they are, will appear from a few Paffages, which I take leave to borrow from Archbishop Tillotson, one of the best of Writers upon the best of Subjects, The Excellency of the Chriftian Religión. "Some pretended to doubt whe"ther there was any fuch Thing as “Sense or Pain; and yet when any "great Evil was upon them, they "would certainly figh and groan as "pitifully, and cry out as loud as "other Men. "Others have fought to ease "themselves by maintaining that "Afflictions were no real Evils, and "there 17 "therefore wife Men ought not to "be troubled at them: But he must "be a very wife Man indeed that can "forbear being troubled at Things "which are very troublesome; and yet thus Poffidonius diftinguished, << as Cicero tells us. He could not “ deny Pain to be very troublesome, "but he was refolved never to acknowledge it to be an Evil. But "fure it is a very flender Comfort "that relies on this nice Diftinction, "between Things being trouble"fome, and being Evils; when all "the Evil of Affliction lies in the "Trouble it creates to us. And "when the best that can be is made "of this Argument, it is good for nothing but to be thrown away as a stupid Paradox, and against "the common Sense of Mankind. "Others have endeavoured to "elude their Trouble by a graver Way of Reasoning: That these "Things are fatal and neceffary; "and that we ought not to be "troubled at what we cannot help. "But this only proves the Trouble "( to be as fatal as the Calamity that "occafions it. And, perhaps, that r a Thing cannot be helped, is one "of the juftest Causes of Trouble to a wife Man; as Auguftus fmartly replied, to one who adminiftred "this Comfort to him on the Fa"tality of Things: This was fo far "from giving any Ease to his Mind, “that, |