persuaded men meekly, they entreated them humbly, they convinced them powerfully; they watched for their good, but meddled not with their interest; and this is the Christian zeal, the zeal of meekness, the zeal of charity, the zeal of patience.

The Jews tell, that Adam having seen the beauties, and tasted the delicacies of paradise, repented and mourned upon the Indian mountains for three hundred years together: and we who have a great share in the cause of his sorrows, can by nothing be invited to a persevering, a great, a passionate religion, more than by remembering what he lost, and what is laid up for them whose hearts are burning lamps, and are all on fire with divine love, whose flames are fanned with the wings of the holy dove, and whose spirits shine and burn with that fire, which the holy Jesus came to enkindle upon the earth.

THE EPICURE'S FEAST.

"Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die." This is the epicure's proverb, begun upon a weak mistake, started by chance from

the discourses of drink, and thought witty by the undiscerning company, and prevailed infinitely, because it struck their fancy luckily, and maintained the merry-meeting; but, as it happens commonly to such discourses, so this also, when it comes to be examined by the consultations of the morning, and the sober hours of the day, it seems the most witless and the most unreasonable in the world. When Seneca describes the spare diet of Epicurus and Metrodorus, he uses this expression; "Liberaliora sunt alimenta carceris; sepositos ad capitale supplicium, non tam angustè, qui occisurus est, pascit," The prison keeps a better table, and he that is to kill the criminal to-morrow morning, gives him a better supper over night. By this he intended to represent his meal to be very short; for as dying persons have but little stomach to feast high, so they that mean to cut their throat will think it a vain expense to please it with delicacies, which after the first alteration must be poured upon the ground, 'and looked upon as the worst part of the accursed thing. And there is also the same proportion of unreasonableness, that because men shall die tomorrow, and by the sentence and unalterable decree of God they are now descending to their graves, that therefore they should first destroy their reason, and then force dull time

to run faster, that they may die sottish as beasts, and speedily as a fly. But they thought there was no life after this; or if there were, it was without pleasure, and every soul thrust into a hole, and a dorture of a span's length allowed for his rest, and for his walk; and in the shades below no numbering of healths by the numeral letters of Philenium's name, no fat mullets, no oysters of Lucrinus, no Lesbian or Chian wines. Therefore now enjoy the delicacies of nature, and feel the descending wines distilled through the limbeck of thy tongue and larynx, and suck the delicious juice of fishes, the marrow of the laborious ox, and the tender lard of Apulian swine, and the condited bellies of the scarus; but lose no time, for the sun drives hard, and the shadow is long, and the days of mourning are at hand, but the number of the days of darkness and the grave cannot be told.

Thus they thought they discoursed wisely, and their wisdom was turned into folly; for all their arts of providence, and witty securities of pleasure, were nothing but unmanly prologues to death, fear and folly, sensuality and beastly pleasures. But they are to be excused rather than we. They placed themselves in the order of beasts and birds, and esteemed their bodies nothing but receptacles of flesh

and wine, larders and pantries; and their soul the fine instrument of pleasure and brisk reception, of relishes and gusts, reflections and duplications of delight; and therefore they treated themselves accordingly. But then why we should do the same things, who are led by other principles, and a more severe institution, and better notices of immortality, who understand what shall happen to a soul hereafter, and know that this time is but a passage to eternity, this body but a servant to the soul, this soul a minister to the spirit, and the whole man in order to God and to felicity; this, I say, is more unreasonable, than to eat aconite to preserve our health, and to enter into the flood that we may die a dry death; this is a perfect contradiction to the state of good things, whither we are designed, and to all the principles of a wise philosophy, whereby we are instructed that we may become wise unto salvation.

66

Plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of felicity. It is necessary that a man have some violence done to himself, before he can receive them : for nature's bounds are, non esurire, non sitire, non algere," to be quit from hunger, and thirst, and cold, that is, to have nothing upon us that puts us to pain; against which she hath made provisions by the fleece of the sheep,

and the skins of the beasts, by the waters of the fountain, and the herbs of the field; and of these no good man is destitute, for that share that he can need to fill those appetites and necessities he cannot otherwise avoid. For it is unimaginable that nature should be a mother, natural and indulgent to the beasts of the forest, and the spawn of fishes, to every plant and fungus, to cats and owls, to moles and bats, making her storehouses always to stand open to them; and that, for the Lord of all these, even to the noblest of her productions, she should have made no provisions, and only produced in us appetites sharp as the stomach of wolves, troublesome as the tiger's hunger, and then run away, leaving art and chance, violence and study, to feed us and to clothe us. This is so far from truth, that we are certainly more provided for by nature than all the world besides; for every thing can minister to us; and we can pass into none of nature's cabinets, but we can find our table spread: so that what David said to God, "Whither shall I go from thy presence? If I go to heaven, thou art there; if I descend to the deep, thou art there also; if I take the wings of the morning, and flee into the uttermost parts of the wilderness, even there thou wilt find me out, and thy right hand shall uphold me," we may say it concerning our