have enough to keep you alive, and to keep up and to improve your hopes of heaven. If I be overthrown in my suitat law, yet my house is left me still and my land; or I have a virtuous wife, or hopeful children, or kind friends, or good hopes. If I have lost one child, it may be I have two or three still left me. Or else reckon the blessings, which already you have received, and therefore be pleased, in the change and variety of affairs, to receive evil from the hand of God as well as good. Antipater of Tarsus used this art to support his sorrows on his death-bed, and reckoned the good things of his past life, not forgetting to recount it as a blessing, an argument that God took care of him, that he had a prosperous journey from Cilicia to Athens. Or else please thyself with hopes of the future?: for we were born with this sadness upon us; and it was a change, that brought us into it, and a change may bring us out again. Harvest will come, and then every farmer is rich, at least for a month or two. It may be thou art entered into the cloud, which will bring a gentle shower to refresh thy sorrows. Now suppose thyself in as great a sadness as ever did load thy spirit, wouldest thou not bear it cheerfully and nobly, if thou wert sure that, within a certain space, some strange excellent fortune would relieve thee, and enrich thee, and recompense thee so as to overflow all thy hopes and thy desires and capacities? Now then, when a sadness lies heavy upon thee, remember that thou art a Christian designed to the inheritance of Jesus: and what dost thou think concerning thy great fortune, thy lot and portion of eternity? Dost thou think, thou shalt be saved or damned? Indeed if thou thinkest thou shalt perish, I cannot blame thee to be sad, till thy heart-strings crack: but then why art thou troubled at the loss of thy money? What should a damned man do with money, which in so great a sadness it is impossible for him to enjoy? Did ever any man upon the rack afflict himself, because he had received a cross answer from his mistress? or call for the particulars of a purchase upon the gallows? If thou dost really believe thou shalt be damned, I do not say, it will cure the sadness of thy poverty, but it VOL. IV. P La speranza è il pan de poveri. I Hor. ii. 10. will swallow it up. But if thou believest thou shalt be saved, consider, how great is that joy, how infinite is that change, how unspeakable is the glory, how excellent is the recompence, for all the sufferings in the world, if they were all laden upon the spirit? So that let thy condition be what it will, if thou considerest thy own present condition, and comparest it to thy future possibility, thou canst not feel the present smart of a cross fortune to any great degree, either because thou hast a far bigger sorrow, or a far bigger joy. Here thou art but a stranger travelling to thy country, where the glories of a kingdom are prepared for thee; it is therefore a huge folly to be much afflicted, because thou hast a less convenient inn to lodge in by the way. But these arts of looking forwards and backwards, are more than enough to support the spirit of aChristian: there is no man, but hath blessings enough in present possession to outweigh the evils of a great affliction. Tell the joints of thy body, and do not accuse the universal Providence for a lame leg, or the want of a finger, when all the rest is perfect, and you have a noble soul, a particle of divinity, the image of God himself: and, by the want of a finger, you may the better know how to estimate the remaining parts, and to account for every degree of the surviving blessings. Aristippus, in a great suit at law, lost a farm, and to a gentleman, who in civility pitied and deplored his loss, he answered, "I have two farms left still, and that is more than I have lost, and more than you have by one." If you miss an office, for which you stood candidate, then, besides that you are quit of the cares and the envy of it, you still have all those excellences, which rendered you capable to receive it, and they are better than the best office in the commonwealth. If your estate be lessened, you need the less to care who governs the province, whether he be rude or gentle. I am crossed in my journey, and yet I 'scaped robbers; and I consider, that if I had been set upon by villains, I would have redeemed that evil by this, which I now suffer, and have counted it a deliverance: or if I did fall into the hands of thieves, yet they did not steal my land. Or I am fallen into the hands of publicans and sequestrators, and they have taken all from me: what now? let me look about me. They have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me, and I can still discourse; and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience: they still have left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate, I can walk in my neighbour's pleasant fields, and see the varieties of natural beauties, and delight in all that, in which God delights, that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God himself. And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. Such a person is fit to bear Nero company in his funeral sorrow for the loss of one of Poppea's hairs, or help to mourn for Lesbia's sparrow: and because he loves it, he deserves to starve in the midst of plenty, and to want comfort, while he is encircled with blessings. 4. Enjoy the present, whatsoever it be, and be not solicitous for the future: for if you take your foot from the present standing, and thrust it forward towards 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 tomorrow 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. To reprove this instrument of discontent, the ancients feigned, that in hell stood a man twisting a rope of hay; and still he twisted on, suffering an ass to eat up all that was finished: so 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 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 health 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 wouldest thou give to be but as now thou art? Wouldest thou not, on that condition, be as poor as I am, or as the meanest of thy brethren? Would you not choose your present loss and 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 hath 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, borne 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, |