from the present standing, and thrust it forward toward to-morrow's event, you are in a restless condition: it is like refusing to quench your present thirst by fearing you shall want drink the next day. If it be well to-day, it is madness to make the present miserable by fearing it may be ill to-morrow; when your belly is full of to-day's dinner, to fear you shall want the next day's supper: for it may be you shall not, and then to what purpose was this day's affliction? But if to-morrow you shall want, your sorrow will come time enough, though you do not hasten it: let your trouble tarry, till its own day comes. But if it chance to be ill to-day, do not increase it by the care of to-morrow. Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them, and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly: for this day is only ours, we are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow. He therefore that enjoys the present, if it be good, enjoys as much as is possible: and if only that day's trouble leans upon him, it is singular and finite. "Sufficient to the day (said Christ) is the evil thereof." Sufficient, but not intolerable. But if we look abroad and bring into one day's thoughts the evil of many, certain and uncertain, what will be, and what will never be, our load will be as intolerable as it is unreasonable. Miserable is he, who thrusts his passions forwards towards future events, and suffers all that he may enjoy to be lost and devoured by folly and inconsideration, thinking nothing fit to be enjoyed but that which is not, or cannot be had. Just so, many young persons are loath to die, and therefore desire to live to old age, and when they are come thither, are troubled that they are come to that state of life, to which, before they were come, they were hugely afraid they should never come.

5. Let us prepare our minds against changes, always expecting them, that we be not surprised when they come: For nothing is so great an enemy to tranquillity and a contented spirit, as the amazement and

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confusions of unreadiness and inconsideration: and when our fortunes are violently changed, our spirits are unchanged, if they always stood in the suburbs and expectation of sorrows. "O death, how bitter art thou to a man that is at rest in his possessions !" And to the rich man who had promised to himself ease and fulness for many years, it was a sad arrest, that his soul was surprised the first night: but the apostles, who every day knocked at the gate of death, and looked upon it continually, went to their martyrdom in peace and evenness.

6. Let us often frame to ourselves and represent to our considerations the images of those blessings we have, just as we usually understand them when we want them. Consider how desirable health is to a sick man, or liberty to a prisoner; and if but a fit of the tooth-ache seizes us with violence, all those troubles which in our heart afflicted us, disband instantly and seem inconsiderable. He that in his health is troubled that he is in debt, and spends sleepless nights, and refuses meat because of his infelicity, let him fall into a fit of the stone or a high fever, he despises the arrest of all his first troubles, and is as a man unconcerned. Remember then, that God hath given thee a blessing, the want of which is infinitely more trouble than thy present debt or poverty or loss; and therefore is now more to be valued in the possession, and ought to outweigh thy trouble. The very privative blessings, the blessings of immunity, safeguard, liberty and integrity which we commonly enjoy, deserve the thanksgiving of a whole life. If God should send a cancer upon thy face, or a wolf' into thy side, if he should spread a crust of leprosy upon thy skin, what wouldst thou give to be but as now thou art? Wouldst thou not on that condition be as poor as I am, or as the meanest of thy brethren ?

1 "The wolf" is the name of a species of ulcer, which eats away the skin.

Would you not choose your present loss or affliction as a thing extremely eligible, and a redemption to thee, if thou mightest exchange the other for this? Thou art quit from a thousand calamities, every one of which, if it were upon thee, would make thee insensible of thy present sorrow: and therefore let thy joy (which should be as great for thy freedom from them, as is thy sadness when thou feelest any of them) do the same cure upon thy discontent. For if we be not extremely foolish or vain, thankless or senseless, a great joy is more apt to cure sorrow and discontent than a great trouble is. I have known an affectionate wife, when she had been in fear of parting with her beloved husband, heartily desire of God his life or society upon any conditions that were not sinful; and choose to beg with him, rather than to feast without him and the same person hath upon that consideration born poverty nobly, when God hath heard her prayer in the other matter. What wise man in the world is there, who does not prefer a small fortune with peace, before a great one with contention, and war and violence? and then he is no longer wise, if he alters his opinion, when he hath his wish.

7. If you will secure a contented spirit, you must measure your desires by your fortune and condition, not your fortunes by your desires: that is, be governed by your needs, not by your fancy; by nature, not by evil customs and ambitious principles. Is that beast better that hath two or three mountains to graze on, than a little bee that feeds on dew or manna, and lives upon what falls every morning from the storehouses of heaven, clouds and providence? Can a man quench his thirst better out of a river than a full urn; or drink better from the fountain when it is finely paved with marble, than when it swells over the green turf? Pride and artificial gluttonies do but adulterate nature, making our diet healthless, our appetites impatient and unsatisfiable, and the taste mixed, fantastic, and meretricious. But that which we

miscall poverty, is indeed nature: and its proportions are the just measures of a man, and the best instruments of content. But when we create needs, that God or nature never made, we have erected to ourselves an infinite stock of trouble that can have no period. He that propounds to his fancy things greater than himself or his needs, and is discontent and troubled, when he fails of such purchases, ought not to accuse providence, or blame his fortune, but his folly. God and nature made no more needs than they mean to satisfy; and he that will make more, must look for satisfaction where he can.

8. In all troubles and sadder accidents let us take sanctuary in religion, and by innocence cast out anchors for our souls, to keep them from shipwreck, though they be not kept from storm. For what philosophy shall comfort a villain that is haled to the rack for murdering his prince, or that is broken upon the wheel for sacrilege? His cup is full of pure and unmingled sorrow: his body is rent with torment, his name with ignominy, his soul with shame and sorrow which are to last eternally. But when a man suffers in a good cause, or is afflicted, and yet walks not perversely with his God; then St. Paul's character is engraven in the forehead of our fortune; "We are troubled on every side, but not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed '." "And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good"?" For indeed every thing in the world is indifferent, but sin: and all the scorchings of the sun are very tolerable in respect of the burnings of a fever or a calenture 3. The greatest evils are from within us, and from ourselves also we must look for our greatest good; for God is the fountain of it, but

1 2 Cor. 4. 8, 9. 2 1 Pet. 3. 13; & 4. 15, 16.

3 "The calenture" is the name of a fever to which persons at sea are supposed to be subject.

reaches it to us by our own hands and when all things look sadly round about us, then only we shall find, how excellent a fortune it is to have God to our friend; and of all friendships that only is created to support us in our needs.

Let us not therefore be governed by external, and present, and seeming things; nor let us make the same judgment of things that common and weak understandings do; nor make other men, and they not the wisest, to be judges of our felicity, so that we be happy or miserable as they please to think us: but let reason, and experience, and religion, and hope, relying upon the Divine promises, be the measure of our judgment. No wise man did ever describe felicity without virtue; and no good man did ever think virtue could depend upon the variety of a good or bad fortune. It is no evil to be poor, but to be vicious and impatient.

Means to obtain content by way of consideration.

To these exercises and spiritual instruments if we add the following considerations concerning the nature and circumstance of human chance, we may better secure our peace. For as to children, who are afraid of vain images, we use to persuade confidence by making them to handle and look near such things, that when in such a familiarity they perceive them innocent, they may overcome their fears: so must timorous, fantastical, sad and discontented persons be treated; they must be made to consider, and on all sides to look upon the accident, and to take all its dimensions, and consider its consequences, and to behold the purpose of God, and the common mistakes of men, and their evil sentences they usually pass upon them. For then we shall perceive, that like colts and unmanaged horses we start at dead bones and lifeless blocks, things that are unactive as they are innocent. But if we secure our hopes and our fears, and make them moderate