from; what we cannot, let us allay and mitigate: And in croffes, univerfally let this be our rule, To make ourselves none; to efcape fome; bear the reft; and leffen all.

Our apprehenfion concerning them gives life to croffes; and if fome be real, moft are as they are taken. There have been many, who, when God hath meant no hurt to them, have framed to themselves croffes out of their own imagination; and have found that infupportable for weight, which in truth never was, neither had ever any but a fancied being. Others have laughed out heavy afflictions, for which they were bemoaned of the beholders. One receives a deadly wound, and looks not fo much as pale at the fmart; another hears of many loffes, and goes to his reft, not breaking an hour's fleep for that, which would break the heart of fome others. There can be no remedy for imaginary croffes, but wifdom; which fhall teach us to esteem of all events as they are; like a true glass representing all things to our minds in their due proportion: fo as thofe may not feem to be croffes which are not,

and that little and gentle ones may not feem great and intolerable. Let us attend to the counfels of prudence, and these fantaftical evils fhall vanish away.

As to those which are real, it would be impertinent advice to counsel men to avoid them. Nature hath taught even the brute creatures fo much by instinct. And our felf-love, making the best advantage of reason, will easily make us fo wife and careful. It is more worth our labour, fince our life is fo open to calamities, and our nature to impatience, to teach men to bear what evils they cannot avoid, and how by a well-difpofednefs of mind we may correct the iniquity of all hard events. Wherein it is hardly credible, how much good arts and precepts of refolution may avail us.

One remedy is, to expect them before they come. A mind refolved beforehand, can do, and fuffer much. Evils will come never the fooner because we looked for them, but they will come much the easier. It is a labour well loft, if they come not;

and well employed, if they do. We are

fure the worst may come, why should we be fecure that it will not? Suddennefs finds weak minds fecure, makes them miferable, and leaves them defperate. The best way therefore is, to make things prefent in imagination before they come, that they may be half past in their violence when they do come.

Neither doth it a little blunt the edge of evils, to confider that they come from divine hand, whofe almighty power is guided by a moft wife providence, and tempered with a fatherly love. He ftrikes us, that made us, and that governs the world; why do we ftruggle and contend with him? Shall we make ourselves fools, or rebels; fools, if we be ignorant whence our croffes come; rebels, if we know it, and be impatient? Our fufferings are from God, from our God; who hath appointed how much we shall abide, and where our miseries shall be ftinted. We muft therefore either blafpheme God in our hearts, detracting from his infinite juftice, wifdom, power, and mercy, which all shall stand inviolable, when millions of fuch

worms

worms as we are shall be gone to be duft; or elfe confess that we ought to be patient.

But neither is it enough to be patient in croffes, if we be not also thankful. Good things challenge more than bare contentment. Croffes, (unjuftly termed evils), as they are sent by him that is all goodness, fo they are fent for good, and his end cannot be frustrate. What greater good can be to the diseased man, than fit and proper phyfick to cure him? Croffes are the only medicines of fick minds. Our found body carries with it a fick foul: we feel it not perhaps; fo much the more are we fick, and so much more dangerously. Perhaps we may labour under too great a fulness of pride, of fome dropfy of covetousness, or fome fever of luxury, or confumption of envy, or perhaps of the lethargy of idleness, or of the phrenfy of anger: It is an extraordinary foul indeed that hath not some disease; and only croffes are the remedy. What if they be unpleasant? they are phyfick: It is enough if they be wholesome. It is not the pleasant taste, but the fecret virtue, that recommends medicines.

E 4

cines. When we complain of a bodily dif eafe, we fend to the phyfician, that he may fend us not favoury, but wholesome potions: we receive them in fpite of our abhorring ftomach, and withal both thank and reward the phyfician. Our foul is fick our heavenly phyfician fees it, and pities us before we pity ourselves; and unapplied to, fends us not a plaufible, but a fovereign remedy; and inftead of thanks, we repine at, and revile our phyfician. How comes it that we love ourselves fo little, as that we had rather undergo death than pain, chufing rather wilful fickness, than an harsh remedy?

Laftly, This confideration is powerful, against the laft and greatest of all terrible things, even death itself; which justly derides all the vain human precepts of tranquility, terrifying the most refolute, and vexing the most chearful minds. When this great adverfary infults over frail mortality, the true Chriftian dares boldly to encounter him, and returning victoriously, can fing in triumph, O death, where is thy fing? How advantageous is that death,