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eth the ways of men. Him I heartily beseech, that the thing which he hath thus ordered by his providence, may through his gracious goodness turn unto your comfort.

Our nature coveteth for preservation from things hurtful. Hurtful things being present, do breed heaviness; being future, do cause fear. Our Saviour, to abate the one, speaketh thus unto his disciples, "Let not your hearts be troubled;" and to moderate the other, addeth, Fear not. Grief and heaviness in the presence of sensible evils, cannot but trouble the minds of men. It may therefore seem that Christ required a thing impossible. Be not troubled. Why, how could they chuse? But we must note this being natural, and therefore simply not reprovable, is u us good or bad, according to the causes for which we are grieved, or the measure of our grief. It is not my meaning to speak so largely of this affection, or to go over all the particulars whereby men do one way or other offend in it; but to teach it so far only, as it may cause the very apostles' equal to swerve. Our grief and heaviness therefore is reprovable, sometime in respect of the cause from whence sometime in regard of the measure whereunto it groweth.

When Christ, the life of the world, was led unto cruel death, there followed a number of people and women, which women bewailed much his heavy case. It was a natural compassion which caused them, where they saw undeserved miseries, there to pour forth unrestrained tears. Nor was this reproved. But in such readiness to lament where they less needed, their blindness in not discerning that for which they ought much rather to have mourned; this our Saviour a little toucheth, putting them in mind that the tears which were wasted for him, might better have been spent upon themselves; "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, weep for yourselves and for your children." It is not, as the stoics have imagined, a thing unseemly for a wise man to be touched with grief of mind: but to be sorrowful when we least should, and where we should lament, there to laugh, this argueth our small wisdom. Again, when the prophet David confesseth this of himself, "I grieved to see the great prosperity of godless men, how they flourish and go untouched." Psal. Ixxiii. Himself hereby open. eth both our common, and his peculiar imperfection, whom this cause should not have made so pensive. To grieve at this, is to grieve where we should not, because this grief doth rise from We err, when we grieve at wicked men's impunity and prosperity; because, their estate being rightly discerned, they neither prosper nor go unpunished. It may seem a paradox, it is truth, that no wicked man's estate is prosperous, fortunate or

error.

happy. For what though they bless themselves, and think their happiness great: have not frantic persons many times a great opinion of their own wisdom? It may be that such as they think themselves, others also do account them. But what others? Surely such as themselves are. Truth and reason discerneth far otherwise of them. Unto whom the Jews wish all prosperity, unto them the phrase of their speech is to wish peace. Seeing then the name of peace containeth in it all parts of true happiness, when the prophet saith plainly, "That the wicked have no peace;" how can we think them to have any part of other than vainlyimagined felicity? What wise man did ever account fools happy? If wicked men were wise, they would cease to be wicked. Their iniquity therefore proving their folly, how can we stand in doubt of their misery? They abound in those things which all men desire. A poor happiness, to have good things in possession, "A man to whom God hath given riches, and treasures, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul, of all that it desireth, but yet God giveth him not the power to eat thereof;" (Eccles. vi. 2.) such a felicity Solomon esteemeth but as vanity, a thing of nothing. If such things add nothing to men's happiness, where they are not used, surely wicked men, that use them ill, the more they have, the more wretched. Of their prosperity therefore, we see what we are to think. Touching their impunity, the same is likewise but supposed. They are oftener plagued than we are aware of. The pangs they feel, are not always written in their forehead. Though wickedness be sugar in their mouths, and wantonness as oil to make them look with cheerful countenances; nevertheless, if their hearts were disclosed, perhaps their glittering state would not greatly be envied. The voices that have broken out from some of them, O that God had given me a heart senseless, like the flints in the rocks of stone! which as it can taste no pleasure, so it feeleth no woe: these and the like speeches, are surely tokens of the curse which Zophar, in the Book of Job, poureth upon the head of the impious man, "He shall suck the gall of asps, and the viper's tongue shall slay him." If this seem light, because it is secret, shall we think they go unpunished, because no apparent plague is presently seen upon them? The judgments of God do not always follow crimes, as thunder doth lightning; but sometimes the space of many ages coming between. When the sun hath shined fair the space of six hours upon their tabernacle, we know not what clouds the seventh may bring. And when their punishment doth come, let them make their account in the greatness of their suffering, to pay the interest of that respite which hath been given them. Or if they chance to escape clearly

in this world, which they seldom do; in the day when the heavens shall shrivel as a scroll, and the mountains move as frighted men out of their places, what cave shall receive them? What mountain or rock shall they get by entreaty to fall upon them? What covert to hide them from that wrath, which they shall neither be able to abide or avoid? No man's misery therefore being greater than theirs whose impiety is most fortunate; much more cause there is for them to bewail their own infelicity, than for others to be troubled with their prosperous and happy estate, as if the hand of the Almighty did not, or would not, touch them. For these causes, and the like unto these, therefore be not troubled.

Now, though the cause of our heaviness be just, yet may not your affections herein be yielded unto with too much indulgency and favour. The grief of compassion, whereby we are touched with the feeling of other men's woes, is of all other least dangerous: yet this is a let unto sundry duties; by this we are apt to spare sometimes where we ought to strike. The grief which our own sufferings do bring, what temptations have not risen from it? What great advantage Satan hath taken even by the godly grief of hearty contrition for sins committed against God, the near approaching of so many afflicted souls, whom the conscience of sin hath brought unto the very brink of extreme despair, doth but too abundantly shew. These things, wheresoever they fall, cannot but trouble and molest the mind. Whether we be therefore moved vainly with that which seemeth hurtful, and is not; or have just cause of grief, being pressed indeed with those things which are grievous, our Saviour's lesson is touching the one be not troubled, nor overtroubled for the other: for, though to have no feeling of that which merely concerneth us were stupidity, nevertheless, seeing that the author of our salvation was himself consecrated by affliction, so the way which we are to follow him by, is not strewed with rushes, but set with thorns; be it never so hard to learn, we must learn to suffer with patience, even that which seemeth almost impossible to be suffered; that in the hour when God shall call us unto our trial, and turn his honey of peace and pleasure, wherewith we swell, into that gall and bitterness which flesh doth shrink to taste of, nothing may cause us in the troubles of our souls to storm, and grudge, and repine at God; but every heart be enabled with Divinely-inspired courage to inculcate unto itself, be not troubled; and in those last and greatest conflicts to remember, that nothing may be so sharp and bitter to be suffered, but that still we ourselves may give ourselves this encouragement, even learn also patience, O my soul.

Naming patience, I name that virtue which only hath power to stay our souls from being over-excessively troubled. A virtue, wherein if ever any, surely that soul had good experience, which extremity of pains having chased out of the tabernacle of this flesh, angels, I nothing doubt, have carried into the bosom of her father Abraham. The death of the saints of God is precious in his sight. And shall it seem unto us superfluous at such times as these are, to hear in what manner they have ended their lives? The Lord himself hath not disdained so exactly to register in the book of life, after what sort his servants have closed up their days on earth, that he descendeth even to their very meanest actions; what meat they have longed for in their sickness, what they have spoken unto their children, kinsfolks and friends, where they have willed their dead carcasses to be laid, how they have framed their wills and testaments; yea, the very turning of their faces to this side or that, the setting of their eyes, the degrees whereby their natural health hath departed from them, their cries, their groans, their pantings, breathings, and last gaspings he hath most solemnly commended unto the memory of all generations. The care of the living both to live and die well must needs be somewhat increased, when they know that their departure shall not be folded up in silence, but the ears of many be made acquainted with it. Again, when they hear how mercifully God hath dealt with others in the hour of their last need, besides the praise which they give to God, and the joy which they have, or should have, by reason of their fellowship and communion of saints, is not their hope also much confirmed against the day of their dissolution? Finally, the sound of these things doth not so pass the ears of them that are most loose and dissolute of life, but it causeth them sometime or other to wish in their hearts, "Oh, that we might die the death of the righteous, and that our end might be like his!" Howbeit, because to spend herein many words, would be to strike even as many wounds into their minds, whom I rather wish to comfort: therefore concerning this virtuous gentlewoman only this little I speak, and that of knowledge, she lived a dove, and died a lamb. And if amongst so many virtues, hearty devotion towards God, towards poverty tender compassion, motherly affection towards servants, towards friends even serviceable kindness, mild behaviour, and harmless meaning towards all; if, where so many virtues were eminent, any be worthy of special mention, I wish her dearest friends of that sex, to be her nearest followers in two things; silence, saving only where duty did exact speech; and patience, even then when extremity of pains did enforce grief. "Blessed

are they that die in the Lord." And concerning the dead which are blessed, let not the hearts of any living be overcharged, with grief over-troubled.

Touching the latter affection of fear, which respecteth evil to come, as the other which we have spoken of doth present evils; first, in the nature thereof it is plain, that we are not of every future evil afraid. Perceive we not how they, whose tenderness shrinketh at the least rase of a needle's point, to kiss the sword that pierceth their souls quite through? If every evil did cause fear, sin, because it is sin, would be feared; whereas properly sin is not feared as sin, but only as having some kind of harm annexed. To teach men to avoid, sin, it had been sufficient for the apostle to say, Fly it: but, to make them afraid of committing sin, because the naming of sin sufficed not, therefore he addeth further, that it is a "serpent which stingeth the soul." Again, be it that some nocive or hurtful thing be towards us, must fear of necessity follow hereupon? Not except that hurtful thing do threaten us either with destruction or vexation, and that such, as we have neither a conceit of ability to resist, nor of utter impossibility to avoid. That which we know ourselves able to withstand, we fear not; and that which we know we are unable to defer or diminish, or any way avoid, we cease to fear; we give ourselves over to bear and sustain it. The evil therefore which is feared, must be in our persuasion unable to be resisted when it cometh, yet not utterly impossible for a time in whole or in part to be shunned. Neither do we much fear such evils, except they be imminent andn ear at hand; nor if they be near, except we have an opinion that they be so. When we have once conceived an opinion, or apprehended an imagination of such evils prest, and ready to invade us; because they are hurtful unto our nature, we feel in ourselves a kind of abhorring; because they are thought near, yet not present, our nature seeketh forthwith how to shift and provide for itself; because they are evils which cannot be resisted, therefore she doth not provide to withstand, but to shun and avoid. Hence it is, that in extreme fear, the mother of life contracting herself, avoiding as much as may be the reach of evil, and drawing the heat together with the spirits of the body to her, leaveth the outward parts cold, pale, weak, feeble, unapt to perform the functions of life; as we see in the fear of Belshazzar king of Babylon. By this it appeareth, that fear is nothing else but a perturbation of the mind, through an opinion of some imminent evil, threatening the destruction or great annoyance of our nature, which to shun it doth contract and deject itself.

Now because, not in this place only, but otherwise often we

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