SERM. treme poverty and disgrace, restored to be in wealth XL. and honour twice greater than the greatest men of Job xlii. 10. the East: Daniel, out of captivity and persecution,

i. 3.

xviii. 36.

become president of the greatest monarchy on earth: David, raised out of great meanness to highest dignity, restored out of extreme straits into a most prosperous state; according to those words of adPsal. Ixxi. miration and acknowledgment: O what great trou18. Ixix.29. bles and adversities hast thou shewed me; and yet didst thou turn and refresh me, yea and broughtest me from the deep of the earth again: thou hast brought me to great honour, and comforted me on every side. Thus hath God eminently done with divers; thus we may be assured that he will do competently with us, if with the like faith and patience we do, as they did, rely and wait upon him.

6. But further, imagine or suppose that our condition (so irksome to us at present) will certainly hold on to the utmost; yet consider also that it soon will cease, and change of itself: since we are mortal, our evils cannot be perpetual, we cannot long be infested with them.

As it may debase and imbitter all the prosperity in the world, to consider that it is very fading and

short-lived; that its splendour is but a blaze, its Eccl. vii. 6. pleasure but a flash, its joy but as the crackling of thorns; so it should abate and sweeten any adversity, to remember that it is passing away, and suddenly will be gone. Put, I say, the worst case that can be that it were certainly determined, and we did as certainly know it, that those things which cause our displeasure should continue through our

e (Psal. xxvii. 13.) I had fainted, if I had not believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

I

XL.

xxix. 15.

39.

Isa. xliv. 6.

5.

via tolera

debent,

etiamsi

Cic. Læl.

I

whole life; yet since our life itself will soon be spun SERM. out, and with it all our worldly evils will vanish, why are we troubled? What is said of ourselves must in consequence be truly applied to them: They Chron. flee like a shadow, and continue not; they are winds Ps. Ixxviii. passing and coming not again; they are vapours Jam. iv. 14. appearing for a little time, and then vanishing away; they wither like grass, and fade away as a Ps. xc. 5. leaf; they may die before us, they cannot outlive xl. 6. us; our life is but a handbreadth and can then Ps. xxxix. our evils have any vast bulk? Our age is as no- Omnia brething, and can any crosses therein be then any great bilia esse matter? How can any thing so very short be very easi intolerable? It is but λiyov äρti λuηlévτes, being, as magna. St. Peter speaketh, a little while yet aggrieved; it 1 Pet. i. 6. is but μpov σovov, a small quantity, whatever it be, of time, as the apostle to the Hebrews saith, that we need patience ; it is but τὸ παραυτίκα ἐλαφρὸν τῆς Heb. x. 36, Oxnews, an affliction for a present moment; and Cor.iv.17. therefore, as St. Paul intimateth, light and inconsiderable, that we are to undergo. We have but a very narrow strait of time to pass over, but we shall land on the firm and vast continent of eternity; when we shall be freed from all the troublesome agitations, from all the perilous storms, from all the nauseous qualms of this navigation; death (which may be very near, which cannot be far off) is a sure haven from all the tempests of life, a safe refuge from all the persecutions of the world, an infallible medicine of all the diseases of our mind and of our state: it will enlarge us from all restraints, it will discharge all our debts, it will ease us from all our toils, it will stifle all our cares, it will veil all our disgraces; it will still all our complaints, and bury all our disquiets; it will wipe

2

XL.

SERM. all tears from our eyes, and banish all sorrow from our hearts it perfectly will level all conditions, setting the high and low, the rich and poor, the wise and ignorant, all together upon even ground; smothering all the pomp and glories, swallowing all the wealth and treasures of the world.

1 John ii.

27.

It is therefore but holding out a while, and all our molestation, of its own accord, will expire: time certainly will cure us; but it is better that we should owe that benefit to reason, and let it presently comfort us: it is better, by rational consideration, to work content in ourselves, using the brevity and frailty of our life as an argument to sustain us in our adversity, than only to find the end thereof as a natural and necessary means of evasion from it.

Serious reflection upon our mortality is indeed, upon many accounts, a powerful antidote against discontent; being apt to extirpate the most radical causes thereof.

Is it because we much admire these worldly things that we so much grieve for the want of them? this will quell that admiration; for how can we admire them, if we consider how in regard to us they are so very transitory and evanid? How can we deem them much worth the having, when we can for so little time enjoy them, must so very soon quite part from them?

How can we dote on the world, seeing the world,

† Ἴσος χῶρος ἅπασι, πένησι τε καὶ βασιλεῦσι.

Πάντες ἴσοι νέκυες. Phocyl.

5 Κρείττον

Ο μέλλεις τῷ χρόνῳ χαρίζεσθαι, τοῦτο χαρίζεσθαι τῷ λόγῳ. Plut. ad Apoll.

as St. John saith, passeth away, and the desire SER M. thereof.

XL.

all 1 Cor. vii. the Eccl.i. 3,

31.

&c.

How can we value any worldly glory, since the glory of men is, as St. Peter telleth us, as flower of the grass; since, as the Psalmist saith, 1 Pet. ii. 24. man in honour abideth not, but is like the beasts that perish.

Psalm xlix. 12. lxxxii.

6.

How can we set our heart on riches, considering Prov. xxvii. that riches are not for ever, nor can, as the Wise 24. xi. 4. Man saith, deliver from death; that, as St. James admonisheth, The rich man fadeth in his ways; Jamesi. 11. that it may be said to any rich man, as it was to him in the gospel, Thou fool, this night thy life Luke xii. shall be required of thee, and what thou hast prepared to whom shall it fall? How can we fancy pleasure, seeing it is but apóσkalpos ámóλavois, a very Heb. xi. 25. temporary fruition; seeing, however we do eat, or 1 Cor. xv. drink, or play, it followeth, the morrow we shall 32. die?

How can we even admire any secular wisdom and knowledge, seeing that it is, as the Psalmist telleth

20.

us, true of every man, that his breath goeth forth, Ps. xlvi. 4. he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish; particularly it is seen that wise Ps. xlix. 10. men die no otherwise than as the foolish and brutish person perisheth; that, as Solomon with regret observed, There is no work, nor device, nor Eccl.ix. 10. knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither we are going.

Do we admire the condition of those, who upon the stage do appear in the state of kings, do act the part of wealthy men, do talk gravely and wisely like judges or philosophers for an hour or two? If we do

ii. 14.

SERM. not admire those shadows and mockeries of state, XL. why do we admire any appearances upon this theatre of the world, which are scarce a whit less deceitful or more durable than they?

I, 2.

Is it an envious or disdainful regret at the advantages of others before us (of others perhaps that are unworthy and unfit, or that are, as we conceit, no more worthy and capable than ourselves) that gnaweth our heart? is it that such persons are more wealthy, more honourable, in greater favour or repute than we, that vexeth us? The consideration how little time those slender preeminences will last, may (if better remedies want due efficacy) serve toward rooting out that disease: the Psalmist doth sePs. xxxvii. veral times prescribe it: Fret not thyself, saith he, against evil doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity; for they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb: Ps. xlix. 17. and again, Be not afraid when one is made rich, and when the glory of his house is increased; for when he dieth he shall carry nothing away, his glory shall not descend after him and he, being fallen into this scurvy distemper, did follow his own Ps. lxxiii. prescription, I was, saith he, envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked-until I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I their end; surely thou didst set them in slippery places How are they brought into desolation as in a moment! So likewise doth Solomon preProv. xxiii. scribe: Let not, saith he, thine heart envy sinners: why not? because surely there is an end, and thine expectation shall not be cut off: there will be a close of his undeserved prosperity, and a good suc

8, 17.

17, 18.