Indies to his principalities; yet this could not allay the infelicity of his family, and the unhandsomeness of his condition, in having a proud, and indiscreet, and a vicious young prince, likely to inherit all his greatness.

And if nothing appears in the face of such a fortune, to tell all the world that it is spotted and imperfect; yet there is in all conditions of the world such weariness, and tediousness of spirits, that a man is ever more pleased with hopes of going off from the present, than in dwelling upon that condition, which, it may be, others admire and think beauteous, but none knoweth the smart of it, but he that drank off the little pleasure, and felt the ill relish of the appendage. How many kings have groaned under the burthen of their crowns, and have sunk down and died? How many have. quitted their pompous cares, and retired into private lives, there to enjoy the pleasures of philosophy and religion, which their thrones denied?

SELECTION

FROM THE WORKS

OF

JOHN LOCKE.

AN ESSAY

FOR THE UNDERSTANDING.

OF

ST PAUL'S EPISTLES.
By John SveRe

To go about to explain any of St Paul's Epistles, after so great a train of expositors and commentators, might seem an attempt of vanity, censurable for its needlessness, did not the daily and approved examples of pious and learned men justify it. This may be some excuse for me to the public, if ever these following papers should chance to come abroad; but to myself, for whose use this work was undertaken, I need make no apology. Though I had been conversant in these Epistles, as well as in other parts of sacred Scripture, yet I found that I understood them not; I mean, the doctrinal and discursive parts of them; though the practical directions, which are usually dropped in the latter part of each Epistle, appeared to me very plain, intelligible, and instructive.

I did not, when 1 reflected on it, very much wonder that this part of sacred Scripture had difficulties in it;

many causes of obscurity did really occur to me. The nature of epistolary writings, in general, disposes the writer to pass by the mentioning of many things, as well known to him to whom his letter is addressed, which are necessary to be laid open to a stranger, to make him comprehend what is said; and it not seldom falls out, that a well penned letter, which is very easy and intelligible to the receiver, is very obscure to a stranger, who hardly knows what to make of it. The matters that St Paul writ about, were certainly things. well known to those he writ to, and which they had some peculiar concern in ; which made them easily apprehend his meaning, and see the tendency and force of his discourse. But we having now, at this distance, no information of the occasion of his writing, little or no knowledge of the temper and circumstances of those he writ to were in, but what is to be gathered out of the Epistles themselves, it is not strange that many things in them lie concealed to us, which, no doubt, they who were concerned in the letter, understood at first sight. Add to this, that in many places, it is manifest, he answers letters sent, and questions proposed to him; which, if we had, would much better clear those passages that relate to them, than all the learned notes of critics and commentators, who in aftertimes fill us with their conjectures; for very often, as to the matter in hand, they are nothing else.

The language wherein these Epistles are writ, is another, and that no small occasion of their obscurity