XXV. The Misery of' Man.

 

 THERE is nothing more capable of letting us into the knowledge of Human Misery, than an enquiry after the real cause of that perpetual Hurry and Confusion in which we pass our lives. The soul is sent into the body to be the sojourner of a few days. She knows that this is but a stop till she may embark for eternity, and that a small space is allowed her to prepare for the voyage. The main part of this space is ravished from her by the necessities of nature, and but a slender pittance left to her own disposal: and yet this moment which remains, does so strangely oppress and perplex her, that she only studies how to lose it: she feels an intolerable burden, in being obliged to live with herself, and think of herself; and therefore her principal care is to forget herself, and to let this short and precious moment pass away without reflection, by amusing herself with things which prevent her notice of its speed.

 

 This is the-ground of all the tumultuary business, of all the trifling diversions amongst men, in which our general aim is to make the time pass off our hands without feeling it, or rather without feeling ourselves; and, by getting rid of this small portion of life, to avoid that inward disgust and bitterness, which we should not fail to meet with, if we found leisure to descend into our own breasts. For it is undeniably certain, that the soul of man is here incapable of rest and satisfaction. And this obliges her to expand herself every way, and to seek how she may lose the thoughts of her own proper being in a settled application to the things about her. Her very happiness consists in this forgetfulness: and to make her exquisitely miserable, nothing more is required but the engaging her to look into herself, and to dwell at home.

 

 We charge persons, from their very infancy, with the care of their own fortunes and honors, and no less of their estates and dignities belonging to their kindred and friends. We burden them with the study of Languages, of Exercises, and of Arts. We enter them in Business, and persuade them that they can never be truly blessed, unless by their industry and caution they in some measure secure the interest and glory of themselves, their families, and their dependents, and that unavoidable unhappiness is entailed upon the failure of any one particular in this kind. Thus we teach them to wear out their strength, and to rob themselves of their rest. A strange method (you will say) of making them happy! What could be done with more effect towards the insuring them in misery Would you know what Why, only to release them from these cares, and to take off these burdens. For then their eyes and their thoughts must be turned inward; and that is the only hardship which they esteem insupportable. Hence, if they gain any relaxation from their labors, we find them eager to throw it away upon some sport or diversion, which takes up their whole activity, and pleasantly robs them of themselves.

 

 It is for this reason that, when I have set myself to consider the various agitations of human life, the toil and danger to which we expose ourselves, in the court, in the camp, in the pursuits of ambition, which give birth to so much passion and contention, to so many desperate and fatal adventures, I have often said, that the universal cause of men's misfortunes was their not being able to live quietly in a chamber. A person who has enough for the uses of this world, did he know the art of dwelling with himself, would never quit that repose and security for a voyage or a siege; nor would he take so much pains to hazard his life, had he no other aim than barely to live.

 

 But, upon stricter examination, I found, That this aversion to home, this roving and restless disposition, proceeded from a cause no less powerful than universal; from the native unhappiness of our frail and mortal state, which is incapable of all comfort, if we have nothing to divert our thoughts, and to call us out of ourselves.

 

 I speak of those alone who survey their own nature, without the views of Faith and Religion. It is indeed one of the Miracles of Christianity, that by reconciling Man to GOD, it restores him to his own good opinion; that it makes him able to bear the sight of himself; and in some cases renders solitude and silence more agreeable than all the intercourse and action of mankind. Nor is it by fixing man in his own Person, that. it produceth these wonderful effects; it is by carrying him to GOD, and by sup-porting him under the sense of his miseries with the hopes of an assured and complete deliverance in a better life.

 

But for those who do not act above the principles of mere Nature, it is impossible they should, without falling into an incurable chagrin and discontent, undergo the lingering torment of leisure. Man who loves nothing but his own person, hates nothing so much as to be confined to his own conversation. He seeks nothing but himself, and yet flies and avoids nothing more than himself; because when he is obliged to look within, he does not see himself such as he could wish; discovering only a hidden store of inevitable miseries, and a mighty void of all real and solid good, which it is beyond his ability to replenish.

 

Let a man choose his own condition, let him embellish it with all the goods and all the satisfactions he can possess or desire; yet if, in the midst of all this glory and pride, he is without business, and without diversion, and has time to contemplate his fortunes, his spirits must unavoidably sink beneath the languishing felicity. He will of necessity torment himself with the prospect of what is to come; and he that boasted to have brought home all the ingredients of happiness, must again be sent abroad, or condemned to domestic misery.

 

 Is Majesty itself so truly great and sufficient, as to support those whom it adorns and encircles, under the bare thought of their own grandeur 1 s it necessary that this thought should be here likewise diverted, as in the common herd of men A vulgar person will be happy, if he may ease himself of his secret troubles, by applying all his care to excel in the perfection of Dancing. But dare we say this of a King Or, will he be more charmed with so vain and petty amusements, than with the contemplation of his royal dignity and estate What nobler, what more sublime object than himself, to engage and to satisfy his spirit Might it not seem an envious lessening of his content, to interrupt his princely thought with the care of measuring his steps by an air of music, or of exactly ordering a ball, instead of leaving him to survey the glories of his throne, and to rejoice in the excellence of his power Let us presume to make the experiment: let us suppose a prince in solitude, without any entertainment of sense, any engagement of mind, any relief of conversation; and we shall find that a prince with his eyes upon himself, is a man full of miseries, and one who feels them with as quick and piercing a resentment as the lowest among his slaves. And therefore it has been a standing maxim, to banish these intruding and importunate reflections from Court, and to keep about the Royal Person those who shall constantly purvey for the amusement of their master, by laying a train of divertisements to succeed after business, and watching his hours of leisure, to pour in immediately.a fresh supply of mirth and sport, that no vacancy may be left in life; that is, the Court abounds with men who have a wonderful activity in taking care that His DIc jesty shall not be alone, well knowing that solitude is but another name for misery, and that the supreme pitch of worldly greatness is too nice and weak to bear the examination of thought.

 

The principal thing which supports men under great employments, otherwise so full of toil and trouble, is, that by this means they are called off from the penance of self-reflection.

 

 For pray consider, what is it else to be a Superintendent, a Chancellor, a Prime-President, but to have a number of persons flocking about them from all sides, who shall secure them, every hour in the day, from giving audience to their own mind If they chance to fall into disgrace, and to be banished to their Country-Seat, though they want neither fortune nor retinue, yet they seldom fail to commence unhappy; because they are no longer entertained with such a variety of new faces, and a succession of new business, as may make any thing, rather than themselves, the subject of their meditation.

 

 Whence comes it to pass that men arc transported to such a degree with gaming, hunting, or other diversions Not because there is any real and intrinsic good to be obtained by these pursuits: not because they imagine that true happiness is to be found in the money which they win at play, or in the beast which they run down in the chace: for should you present them before-hand with both these, to save their trouble, they would be unanimous in rejecting the proposal.. It is not the gentle and easy part which they are fond of, such as may give them leisure and space for thought; but it is the Heat and the Hurry which divert them from the mortification of thinking.

 

 On this account it is that men are so much in love with the noise and tumult of the world; that a prison is a seat of horror; and that few persons can bear the punishment of being confined to themselves.

 

 We have seen the utmost that human invention can do, in projecting for human happiness. Those who content themselves barely with demonstrating the vanity and littleness of common diversions, are indeed acquainted with one part of our miseries; for a considerable part it is, to be thus capable of taking pleasure in things so base and insignificant. But they apprehend not the principle which renders these miseries even necessary to us, so long as we remain uncured of that inward and natural infirmity of not being able to bear the sight of our own condition. The hare which men buy in the market cannot screen them from this view, but the field and the chase afford an approved relief. And therefore when we reproach them with their low and ignoble aim, and observe to them how little satisfaction there is in that which they follow with so much ardour, did they answer upon mature judgment, they would acknowledge the equity of our censure, and would ingenuously declare, that they pro-posed nothing in these pursuits but the bare violence of the motion, such as might keep them strangers to the secrets of their soul; and that therefore they made choice of objects which, however worthless soever in reality, yet were able to engross the activity of all their powers. And the reason why they do not answer in this manner is, the want of this acquaintance with their own bosom. A gentleman believes with all sincerity thy., there is somewhat great and noble in hunting, and will be sure to tell you that it is a royal sport. You may hear the like defense and encomium of any other exercise or employment which men affect or pursue. They imagine that there must needs be somewhat real and solid in the objects themselves. They are persuaded, that could they but gain such a point, they should then repose themselves with content and pleasure; and are under an insensibility of the insatiable nature of this desire. They believe themselves to be heartily engaged in the attainment of rest, while they are indeed employed in nothing else but the search of continual and successive drudgery.

 

 Men have a secret instinct, prompting then to seek employment or recreation, which proceeds from no other cause but the sense of their inward pain, and never-ceasing torment. They have another secret instinct, a relic of their primitive nature, which assures them, that the sum of their happiness consists in ease and repose. And upon these two opposite instincts they form one confused design, lurking in the recesses of their soul, which engages them to prosecute the latter by the intervention of the former, and constantly to persuade them-selves that the satisfaction they have hitherto wanted will infallibly attend them, if, by surmounting certain difficulties, which they now look in the face, they may open a safe passage to peace and tranquility.

 

 Thus our life runs out. We seek rest by encountering such particular impediments, which if we are able to remove, the consequence is, that the rest which we have obtained becomes itself a grievance: for we are ruminating every moment, either on the miseries we feel, or on those we fear. And even when we seem on all sides to be placed under shelter, the affections, which are so naturally rooted in us, fail not to regret their lost dominion, and to diffuse their melancholy poison through the soul.

 

 And therefore, when CINEAS so gravely admonished PYItRHUS, (who proposed to enjoy himself with his friends, after he should have conquered a good part of the world,) that he would do much better to anticipate his own happiness, by taking immediate possession of this case and quiet, without pursuing it through so much fatigue,--the counsel he gave was indeed full of difficulty, and scarcely more rational than the project of that young ambitious prince. Both the one and the other opinion supposed that which is false,—that a man can rest satisfied with himself, and his present possessions, without filling up the void space in his heart with imaginary expectations. PYRRHUS must inevitably have been unhappy, either without or with the conquest of the world; and perhaps that soft and peaceful life which his minister advised him to embrace, was less capable of giving him satisfaction, than the heat and tumult of so many expeditions, and so many battles, which he was then forming and fighting in his mind.

 

 Man, therefore, must be confessed to be so unfortunate, that without any external cause of trouble, he would ever regret and bemoan the very condition of his own nature; and yet to be at the same time so fantastical, that while he is full of a thousand inward and essential subjects of grief, the least outward trifle is sufficient to divert him. Insomuch that, upon impartial consideration, his case seems more to be lamented, in that he is capable of receiving pleasure from things so low and frivolous, than in that he is so immoderately afflicted with his own real miseries; and his diversion appears infinitely less reasonable than his disquiet.

 

Whence is it, think ye, that this Gentleman, who has lately buried his only Son, and who this very morning was so full of lamentation, at present seems to have quite forgotten his part Do not be surprised; the business is, that our friend is wholly taken up with looking what way the stag will turn, which his dogs have been in chase of some hours. Such an accident is enough to put a man beside his chagrin, though groaning under the heaviest calamity of life. As long as you can engage him in some divertisetnent, so long you make him happy; but it is with a false and imaginary happiness, not arising from the possession of any real and solid good, but from a levity of spirit, by which he loses the memory of his substantial woes, amidst the entertainments of mean and ridiculous objects, unworthy of his application, and more unworthy of his love. It is the joy of a man in a Fever or a Phrensy, resulting not from the regular motion, but from the distemper and discomposure of his mind. It is a mere sport of folly and delusion. Nor is there any thing more surprising in human life, than to observe the insignificancy of those things which divert and please us. It is true, by thus keeping our mind always employed, they shield it from the consideration of real evils, but then they make it utterly cheat itself, by doating on a fantastic object of delight.

 

 What do you take to be the aim and motive of those Youths, whom you see engaged at Tennis with such force of body and application of mind Why, the pleasure of boasting to-morrow, that they won so many sets of such a notable gamester. This is the real spring of so much action and toil. And it is but the very same which disposes others to drudge and sweat in their closets, for the sake of informing the learned world that they have resolved a Question in Algebra, hitherto reputed inexplicable. Many thousands more expose themselves to the greatest of dangers, for the glory of taking a town; in my judgment, no less ridiculously. To conclude: there are not wanting those who kill themselves purely with reading and observing all this application of others; not that they may grow wiser by’it, but that they may have the credit of apprehending its vanity. And these last are the most exquisitely foolish, because they are so willingly and wit-tingly; whereas it is reasonable to suppose of the rest, that were they alike sensible of their folly, they would want no admonition to desert it.

 

 " A man, that by Gaming every day for some little stake, passes away his life without uneasiness or melancholy, would yet be rendered unhappy, should you give him every morning the sum which he could possibly win all day, upon condition to forbear. It will be said, perhaps, that it is the Amusement of the play which he seeks, and not the Gain. Yet if he plays for nothing, his gaiety is over, and the spleen recovers full possession. Bare amusement therefore is not what he proposeth; a languishing amusement, without heat or passion, would but dispirit and fatigue him: he must be allowed to raise and chafe himself, by proposing a happiness in the gaining of that which he would despise, if given him not to venture, and by creating a fictitious object, which shall excite and employ his desire, his anger, his hope, and his fear.

 

 So that these diversions of men, which are found to constitute their happiness, are not only mean and vile, but they are false and deceitful; that is, we are in love with mere airy shapes and phantoms, such as must be incapable of possessing the heart of man, had he not lost the taste and perception of real good, and were he not filled with baseness, and levity, and pride, together with an infinite number of other vices, such as can no way relieve us under our present miseries, but by creating others, which are still more dangerous in being more substantial. For these are the things which chiefly bar us from our own thoughts, and which teach us to give new wings to time, and yet to remain insensible of its flight. without these we should indeed be under a continued weariness and perplexity, yet such as might prompt us to seek out a better method for its cure. Whereas these, which we call our diversions, do but amuse and beguile us; and, in conclusion, lead us down blindfold into our grave.

 

 Mankind having no infallible remedy against ignorance, misery, and death, imagine that some respite, some shelter, may at least be found, by agreeing to banish them from their meditation. This is the only comfort they have been able to invent under their numerous calamities. But a miserable comfort it proves, because it does not tend to the removal of these evils, but only to the concealment of them for a short season; and because, in thus concealing them, it hinders us from applying such proper means as should remove them. Thus, by a strange revolution in the nature of man, that grief or inward disquiet, which he dreads as the greatest of sensible evils, is in one respect his greatest good, because it might contribute, more than all things besides, to the putting him in a successful method of recovery. On the other hand, his re-creation, which he seems to prize as his sovereign good, is indeed his greatest evil, because it is of all things the most effectual in making him negligent under his distemper. And both the one and the ether are admirable proofs, as of man's misery and corruption, so of his greatness and dignity., For the reason why he grows sick and weary of every object, and engages in such a multitude of pursuits, is, because he still retains the idea of his lost happiness; which not finding within himself, he seeks it through the whole circle of external things; but always seeks without success, because it is indeed to be found not in ourselves, nor in the creatures, but in GOD alone.

 

XXVI. Thoughts upon Miracles.

 

 WERE there no Miracles ever joined to falsehood and error, they would be immediately convictive, without search or trial. But as the case is otherwise, had we no rule to search and try them by, they would be utterly in-effectual, and we should lose the chief ground and motive of our faith. MOSES has established one rule,—when the miracle per-formed shall lead men to idolatry; and our LORD has established another,—There is no man, says he, which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me: whence it follows, that whoever declares openly against JESUS CHRIST cannot perform miracles in his name, and miracles not performed in the name of CHRIST are to be rejected without credit or dependence. We see then the two only just exceptions against miracles; that in the Old Testament, when they turn us from GOD; and that in the New, when they turn us from JESUS CHRIST.

 

 So that immediately upon the sight of a miracle, we ought either to yield and submit to it, or to have some extraordinary token in bar to its pretensions; that is, we ought to be certain whether the person, who performs it, denies the only true Con, or our LORD JESUS CHRIST.

 

 Every religion is false, which, as to its Faith, does not prescribe the Worship of one Gun, as the great Author and Fountain of all things; and which, as to its Morals, does not prescribe the Love of one Con, as the Object and End of all things. Every religion, at this day, which does not acknowledge the LORD JESUS CHRIST, IS notoriously false, and even miracles are insufficient for its attestation. For our LORD himself declares, that his miracles rendered the JEWS without excuse. " If I had not done amongst them the Works which none other man did, they had not had sin."

 

 The consequence is, that He judged his Miracles to be infallible evidences of his Doctrine, and the JEWS to be under a necessary obligation of believing him. And in-deed his Miracles, especially, rendered the incredulity of the JEWS willful and criminal; for the testimonies drawn purely from Scripture did not, before our LORD's death, amount to a demonstration. For instance, MOSES had said, " A Prophet shall the LORD your GOD raise you up,"&c., but this did by no means evince. JESUS CHRIST to be that Prophet, and therefore left the main Question undecided yet this, with other the like passages, was sufficient to raise a presumption that He might possibly be the MESSIAS, or that Prophet; which presumption, with the reinforcement of his Miracles, ought to have confirmed the JEWS in an opinion that He was really so.

 

 The prophecies alone did not point out our LORD with the utmost certainty, during his life: so that, during this space, if his Miracles had not been decisive proofs, a man would have been excusable in disbelieving him. It is clear then, that Miracles performed are a sufficient evidence, when we have no contrary argument from doctrines delivered; and that they ought, in this case, to be relied upon with assurance and satisfaction. It was from our LORD'S Miracles that NICODEMUS concluded the Divinity of his Doctrine. He did not judge of the Miracles by the Doctrine; but of the Doctrine by the Miracles.

 

 If therefore a doctrine should even be suspicious, (as that of our LORD might possibly be to NICODEMUS, because it seemed to destroy the traditions of the Pharisees,) yet if there are plain and undeniable Miracles on the same side, the authority of a Miracle ought to overbalance any difficulty that can arise from a Doctrine: the reason of which is founded upon this immoveable principle, That GOD cannot lead men into error.

 

 There seems to be a reciprocal right (if we may so speak) between Go]) and man. " Come now, and let us reason together," says GOD by ISAIAH; and again, by the same prophet, " What could I have done more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it" GOD has this right with regard to Men, that they should embrace the Religion which He is pleased to send them: and men, by the Divine favor, seem to have this right in respect of GOD, that He should not lead them into error.

 

 But now they would unavoidably be led into error, if a Worker of Miracles should publish a false doctrine, unless either the doctrine itself visibly appeared to he false, or unless a Worker of much greater Miracles had given them an express caution against these which should follow. Let us put the case of a Division in the Church; and let us suppose the Arians (who pretended to build upon the authority of Scripture no less than the Catholics) to have performed Miracles, and the Catholics none. Here men must have laid under a necessity of being deceived: for as a man who shall pretend to reveal to us the Mysteries of Goss is not worthy to be credited on his own private testimony; so a man who, to justify his divine commission, shall raise the dead, foretel future events, remove mountains, or expel diseases which are by human means incurable, merits such a credit as cannot, without the guilt of impiety, be denied him; provided that he be not convicted of falsehood by some other person, who shall perform still greater Miracles.

 

 But is not GOD said to tempt and prove us and may He not tempt us by Miracles wrought in the Defense of Error.

 

I answer, to tempt, and to lead into error, are very different things: the former is consistent with the Divine perfections; the latter not. To tempt is only to present the occasion; which imposes no necessity on our belief: to lead into error is to put a man under a necessity of embracing that which is false. This is what GOD cannot do, and yet what must be done by him, should He, while the question of Doctrine remains obscure, lend a Miracle to strengthen the wrong side.

 

Hence we may conclude it to be impossible, that a person who conceals the false part of his doctrine, and publishes that which only is true, should work a Miracle, in order to the passing his erroneous opinion insensibly upon the world: and more impossible it is, that GOD, who knows the heart, should vouchsafe the power of Miracles to such a Deceiver.

 

 There is a wide distance between the' not being for our LORD JESUS CHRIST, and the pretending to be so. Some persons of the former character may possibly be permitted to work Miracles, but none of the latter; be-cause it is plain of those, that they work them against the truth, but not of these; and consequently the Miracles of the former are more clearly discerned, and more easily condemned.

 

 Miracles, therefore, are a standing test of all things which admit of doubt, between Pagans and JEWS, JEWS and Christians, Heretics and the Orthodox, between the accuser and the accused.

 

 This is what has been seen and exemplified in all the combats of the Champions of the Truth against those of Error; of ABEL against CAIN, of MosEs against the Magicians, of Eris against the false Prophets, of our LORD against the Pharisees, of St. PAUL against BAR-JESUS, of the Apostles against the Exorcists, of Christians against Infidels, of the Orthodox against Heretics: and this is what shall be seen in the final contention of EMAS and Elwell against Antichrist. In the trial by Miracle, Truth will always prevail.

 

 To conclude: through the whole process of the Cause of GOD, and of the true Religion, no one Miracle has been per-formed on the side of Error, but what has been vastly over-balanced by much greater Miracles on the side of Truth.

 

 Wherefore this rule evinceth the obligations which the JEWS had to believe in JESUS CHRIST. Our LoRD's Person was indeed suspected by them; but then the power of his Miracles was infinitely more apparent than the suspicions against his Person.

 

 MOSES prophesied of JESUS CHRIST, and commanded that He should be heard and obeyed. JESUS CHRIST has prophesied of Antichrist, and forbidden us to follow or regard him.

 

 The Miracles of JESUS CHRIST were not foretold by Antichrist, but the Miracles of Antichrist are foretold by JESUS CHRIST. Wherefore, if JESUS CHRIST had not been the Messias, he had properly led men into Error; into which no man can with reason be led by the Miracle& of Antichrist. And hence the Miracles of the latter cannot, in the least, prejudice the Miracles of the former; as none will say, that our LORD, when He warned us against, those of Antichrist, did conceive that He should hereby impair the authority of his own.

 

 As Miracles were the instruments of founding and establishing the Church, so shall they be the instruments of preserving it to the coming of Antichrist, and the Consummation of all Things.

 

 Wherefore GOD, to secure this evidence to his Church, has either confounded all false Miracles, or has foretold them as such; and, as well by one means as the other, has not only raised Himself above all that which is super-natural in respect of us, but in some sort has raised us up above it too.

 

For Miracles are of so prodigious a force and influence, that notwithstanding all the conviction which we have of the Divine Existence and Perfections, it is still necessary that GOD should warn us not to credit them, when they make against Himself; without which caution, they might he able to perplex and mislead us.

 

So that the several passages in Dent. 13:, prohibiting all belief or attention to those who should work Miracles, in order to pervert men from the worship of the true GOD, as also that caution in St. MARK, " There shall arise false CHRISTs and false Prophets, who shall do many notable signs, so as to seduce, if possible, the very elect," with many texts of the like import, are so far from lessening the authority of true Miracles, that they are the highest confirmation of their force and efficacy.

 

 When I am considering what may be the reason that men afford credit to so many cheats in Physic, and even put their lives into their hands, it appears to me to be no other than this, that there are such things in the world as true and real Medicines; because otherwise it would be impossible, that these which are false and feigned should so much abound, or be so much depended on. For were there no such things, and were all distempers indeed incurable, either no person would be so extravagant as to think himself master of these remedies, or much less would so many others be deluded by his pre-tensions. As if a man should give out that he has an infallible antidote against dying, it is not likely his practice should grow considerable, till he could produce a visible instance of its success. But in as much as there is certainly a great number of remedies, which have been approved by the knowledge and experience of the wisest men, this gives a ply to human belief; and because the thing cannot be denied in general, on account of particular effects, the multitude being unable to distinguish which of these particular effects are true, swallows them all in gross. As the reason why men ascribe so many false effects to the Moon, is because she has indeed some real influences, as in the ebbing and flowing of the Sea.

 

 In the same manner, and with the like evidence, I conclude, that there could never have been so many pre-tended Miracles, Revelations, Lots, &c., but on account of others which were real; nor so many false Religions, but with regard to one which is the true. For were there nothing in this whole matter, it had been impossible for some to have entertained such conceits, and more impossible for others to credit what these should have conceived. But because there had been very signal events of the like nature, which were undoubtedly genuine, and acknow - ledged as such by the wisest and greatest amongst men, it was this impression which rendered the whole world so capable of admitting those that were spurious. And therefore, instead of arguing from the false miracles against the true, we ought, on the contrary, to infer these from those, and to assure ourselves, that Forgery and Falsehood are the Shadows which have ever followed Truth and Reality. And all this depends upon one natural principle, that the soul of man having been once brought to such a tendency and inclination by that which is just and solid, becomes ever after susceptible of what is specious and counterfeit.

 

 There are so very few to whom GOD makes Himself known by these amazing strokes of his power, that men are in the highest manner obliged to make use of so extraordinary occasions. For the reason why He is pleased thus to come out of the awful retirements of his nature, is only that He may increase our faith, and may engage us to serve Him still with the more ardour, as we know Him with the more certainty.

 

 Should GOD continually reveal Himself to men by visible discoveries, Faith would cease to be a virtue; and should He afford them no such discoveries, it would almost cease to be: and therefore we find, that as for the most part He dwells in secret, so He discloses Himself on some rare occasions, when He would more strictly engage men in his service. This wonderful mystery, impenetrable to any mortal eye, under which GOD is pleased to shade his glories, may excite us powerfully to a love of solitude and silence, and of retirement from the view of the world, Before the Incarnation, GOD remained hidden in the recesses of the Divinity; and after it He became, in some respects, more hidden, by putting on the veil of our humanity. It had been easier to have known Him while invisible, than when He conversed in a visible shape: and at length, designing to accomplish the promise which He made to his Apostles, of continuing with the Church till his second coming, He chose a concealment more strange and obscure than either of the former, under the species of the Eucharist. [note]

 

[The judicious Reader will easily trace, in some parts of this Paragraph, the peculiarities of that school of Raman-Catholic-Theology to which the excel-lent Author belonged; and will exercise a suitable discrimination]

 

 We may add to these considerations the secret of GOD'S HOLY SPIRIT, as concealed in the Scriptures. For whereas there are two entire senses, a literal and a mystical, the JEWS resting in the former, never so much as think that there is another, nor apply themselves to search after it. In the same manner wicked and impious persons, beholding the variety of natural effects, referred them to Nature only, without confessing the AUTHOR of both: so likewise * the JEWS, observing only the Human Nature in CHRIST, did not seek for another. " We thought not that it was he," says ISAIAH, in their name. There is nothing in the world but what covers and contains some Mystery. The whole Creation is but the Veil of the CREATOR. Christians ought, in every appearance, to see and acknowledge Him. Temporal afflictions overshadow those eternal goods to which they lead: temporal enjoyments cover and disguise those eternal evils which they procure. Let us pray GOD that He would grant us the power of knowing Him in all things; and let us render Him infinite thanks, that being in every object hidden from so many others, He should vouchsafe under every object, and by every method, to disclose Himself to us.

 

XXVII. Christian Thoughts.

 

 THE Dignity of Man, under his primitive innocence, consisted in governing and using the Creatures; but, under his present corruption, it consists in retiring from them, or in submitting to them, and to his own necessities and infirmities.

 

 Grace and Nature will ever maintain their contention in the world. There will be always Pelagians, and there will be always the Orthodox; because the first birth constitutes the one, and the second birth the other.

 

 This shall be one amongst the horrors and confusions of the wicked in another life, to see themselves condemned by their own Reason, by which they pretended to condemn the Christian Religion.

 

 When St. PETER and the other Apostles consulted about the abolishment of circumcision, where the point in debate was the acting contrary to the Law of GOD, they did not refer themselves to the Prophets, but considered barely the Gift of the HOLY GHOST poured out on persons uncircumcised. They judged it more certain, that GOD approved of those whom He filled with his SPIRIT, than that He required in all instances an exact and literal observation of the Law. They knew the very end of the Law to be no other than the SPIRIT, and concluded, that since men were capable of the latter without circumcision, they wanted not the preparation of the former.

 

 Two plain Laws might be more effectual in regulating the whole Christian Community, than all political Institutions,—the Love of GOD, and that of our Neighbor.

 

 Those whom God has inspired with the Grace of Religion in their hearts and affections, are most entirely convinced, and most completely blessed. But as for those who have not yet attained it, we have no way of recommending it to them but by Reason and Argument; waiting till GOD shall please to imprint an inward feeling of it on their hearts, without which, all faith, as it is only the conviction of the understanding, is unprofitable to salvation.

 

 Is What can be more shocking, than to feel all our possessions continually sliding through our hands, and yet to acquiesce in this wretched poverty, and to entertain no desire of securing a more fixed and durable treasure

 

 An Atheist ought to offer nothing but what is perfectly clear and evident. But a man must have lost all his senses, before he can affirm it to be perfectly clear and evident that the soul is mortal. I freely disown the necessity of diving into COPERNICUS'S system: but I maintain, that it concerns us more than our life is worth to enquire whether the soul is mortal or immortal.

 

 A person discovering the Proofs of the Christian Religion, is like an Heir finding the Deeds and Evidences of his Estate. Shall he officiously condemn them as counterfeit, or cast them aside without examination

 

 I see no greater difficulty that there is in the Resurrection of the Dead, or the Conception of the Virgin, than in the Creation of the World. Is not the re-production of human bodies as easy as the first production Or, supposing us to be ignorant of the natural method of generation, should we think it more strange to see a child from a woman only, than from a man and a woman

 

 What is here said must be understood as referring only to the rites pre-scribed by the Carcinomat Law. To the rules of the Moral Law such ohserva dons are altogether inapplicable. 

 

 There are two Maxims of Faith equally fixed and unalterable; the one, that man, in his state of Creation, (or in that of Grace,) is raised above all visible nature; made like unto GOD, and a partaker of the Divinity: the other, that man in his -state of Corruption and Sin is fallen from this pitch of greatness into a resemblance of the beasts. These two propositions are alike firm and certain: the Holy Scripture’bears a positive testimony to both. For, in some places we read, "My delight is with the sons of men: I will pour out my SPIRIT upon all flesh: 1 have said ye are gods," &c.; but in others, " All flesh is grass: Man is like the beasts that perish: I said in my heart, concerning the estate of the sons of men, that GOD might manifest them, and that they themselves are beasts."

 

 We should strive to bring ourselves to such a temper as not to be troubled at any occurrence, but to take every event for the best. I apprehend this to be a necessary duty, and the neglect of it to be properly a sin. For the reason why we term any thing sinful, is taken from its repugnancy to the Will of Con. If then the very essence of sin consists in cherishing a will which we know to be contrary o that of Con, it seems clear to me, that when He is -pleased to discover his Will to us by events, we are justly reputed sinners, if we conform not ourselves by a ready.compliance and submission.

 

 When truth is deserted and persecuted, this seems to be the time at which the service which we yield to GOD in its defense is peculiarly acceptable. He permits us to judge of Grace by the comparisons of Nature. And as a Prince dethroned by his own subjects, retains a most tender affection for those who continue faithful to him in the public revolt; so we may presume to conceive that GOD will ever regard those with peculiar goodness who maintain the purity of Religion, when it is, on all sides, attacked or oppressed. But here is the difference between the Kings of the earth, and the KING OF KINGS; that the Princes of this World do not make their subjects loyal, but find them so; whereas GOD never finds men otherwise than disloyal and unfaithful, without the succors of his grace, and is therefore Himself the Author of all their constancy and truth. So that while temporal Monarchs are wont to own an obligation to those who persist resolutely in their allegiance and duty; those, on the contrary, who persevere in the service of GOD, are under infinite obligations to Him for the very power of their perseverance.

 

 Not the most rigorous austerities of Body, nor the most profound exercises of Mind, are able to support the pains and grievances of both, but only the good affections of the Heart and Spirit. For in short, the two great instruments of sanctification are pains and pleasures. St. PAUL informs us, that "all those who will live godly in the LORD JESUS CHRIST, must suffer persecution." Now this ought to comfort as many as feel these disquiets, and encounter these difficulties, in a course of holy living; because, being assured that the path to heaven, which they seek, is full of them, they have reason to rejoice at their finding so many marks of the true way. So that these pains are not without their pleasures, by which alone they can be balanced. For as those who forsake GOD, to return to the world, do it because they find more complacency in earthly delights, than in the satisfaction of being united to the Divine Nature, and because this fatal charm, drawing them after it as its captives, obliges them to relinquish their first love, and renders them, as TERTULLIAN speaks, "the penitents of the devil;" in like manner, there would be none found who should abandon the enjoyments of the world, to embrace the cross of JESUS CHRIST, did they not feel a more real sweetness in contempt, in poverty, in nakedness, and in the scorn and rejection of men, than in all the delicacies and pleasures of sin. And therefore, as the same Father observes, " We injure the Christian Life, if we suppose it to be a life of sadness and sorrow; because we never quit our engagements to any one pleasure, without being invited and bribed by a greater." " Pray without ceasing," (says St. PAUL;) "in every thing give thanks: rejoice evermore." It is the joy of finding GOD which is the spring of our sorrow for having forsaken HIM, and of our whole change in life and action. He that has found a treasure in the field, (according to the Parable of our Lonn,) is so transported as to " go and sell all that he has, and buy that field." Worldly men have their share of sorrow, but then they are utterly excluded from true joy, that which the world can neither give nor take away. On the other hand, the saints in heaven possess their joy without sorrowing. And good men on earth partake of the same joy, not without a mixture and allay of sorrow for having followed other joys, and for fear of losing the former in the latter, which incessantly solicit and engage their affections. We should therefore, with unintermitted pains and care, endeavor to preserve this sorrow ever fresh and lively in our breasts, as that alone which can secure and moderate our joy; and as often as we find our-selves carried too far towards the one, should sway and incline ourselves towards the other, that we may maintain the balance, and keep ourselves upright. It is agreeable to the advice of Scripture, that we should remember our rejoicings in the day of affliction, and our afflictions in the days of rejoicing; till the promise which our LORD has given us of making his joy perfect in us be happily accomplished. In the mean while, let us not suffer our-selves to be swallowed up of over-much sorrow, nor imagine that piety consists in bitterness without consolation. True piety is yet so full of satisfaction and delight, as to overflow its beginning, its progress, and its crown. It is a light so resplendent as to dart some rays of brightness through its whole compass and sphere. If, in its rise especially, it be shaded with some intermixture of grief, this proceeds from the persons, not from the virtue; and must be looked on, not as the first-fruits of that piety which is now forming in us, but as the relics of that impiety which is not yet destroyed. Could we root out the impiety, the joy would flourish and thrive. 

 

 Let us therefore ascribe the origin of our sadness not to religion, but to ourselves; and let us seek our comfort in our own correction. What is past ought to give us no uneasiness, except that of `repentance for our faults. And what is to come ought much less to affect us; because, with regard to us and our concerns, it is riot, and perhaps will never be. The present is the only time which is properly ours; and this we ought to use in conformity to the will of Him that gives it. Here therefore our thoughts and studies should principally be engaged: yet the world is generally of so restless a disposition, that men scarce ever fix upon the present, nor think of the minutes which they are now living, but of those which they are to live. Thus we are always in the Disposition of Life, but never in the ACT. Our LORD has cautioned us, that our forecast should not extend beyond the compass of a day.- These are the limits which we ought to observe, as for the sake of our spiritual welfare, so even for that of our natural quiet and repose.

 

 The reformation of ourselves is often more effectually assisted by the sight of evil, than by the example of good. The art of profiting by evil must be of admirable use, because the occasions of it are so frequent and numerous; whereas the subjects of virtuous imitation are so few in number, and do so rarely occur.

 

 When I have been going to set down my thought, it has sometimes escaped me in the very writing. But this accident, reminding me of my weakness, which I am continually inclined to forget, is a lesson as instructive to me as the lost thought could have proved; because the whole aim of my study is to discover my own feebleness, and vanity, and nothingness.

 

 '' In dealing with those who have at present an aversion to Religion, we ought to begin with sheaving them, that it is by no means contrary to reason; in the next place, we should convince them, that it is great and venerable, and inspire them with reverence towards it; after this,we should describe it as highly charming and lovely, to engage their wishes for its truth; and then we may proceed to demonstrate, by irrefragable proofs, that it is true; we may evince its antiquity and holiness from its awful majesty and sublime elevation; and, lastly, make it appear to be truly amiable, in that it promises our only good and happiness.

 

 The Duties of Religion are the greatest Pains of a life which is merely secular, and the greatest Pleasures of a life which is holy and divine. Nothing is so natural and agreeable whilst we live in conformity to the world, as to be possessed of high dignities and ample revenues; nothing is so laborious and difficult, while we live according to the Will of GOD, as to possess these advantages, with-out an irregular taste, and an unwarrantable satisfaction.

 

 Two persons coming from Confession, one of them told me that he was full of joy and satisfaction; the other, that he was full of trouble and fear. Upon which I remember myself to have passed this reflection, that these two men put together would make one good one; and that each was so far defective, in that he had not the sentiments of the other.

 

 We could not but feel a very peculiar pleasure in being tossed by a tempest, while the vessel was infallibly secured from sinking. Such a vessel is the Church, such tempests are its Persecutions.

 

 As the two great sources of all sin are Pride and Negligence, so GOD has been pleased to disclose two of his Attributes for their cure, his Mercy and his Justice. The office and effect of His Justice is to abase and mortify our Pride; and the office and effect of his Mercy is to prevail on our negligence, and excite us to good works. "The goodness of GOD leadeth to repentance." " Let us repent," (say the Ninevites,) " and see if He will not have mercy on us." Thus the consideration of the divine mercy is so far from being an encouragement to sdoes and remissness, that it is the greatest spur to industry and action: and instead of saying, " If our

 

God were not a merciful GOD, we ought to bend our utmost endeavors towards the fulfilling of his commands;" it is rational to say, "Because we serve a GOD of mercy and pity, therefore we ought to labor with all our strength, to yield Him an acceptable service."

 

 All that is in the world, is " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes," or "the pride of life." Miserable is that accursed earth, which these three rivers of fire do not refresh, but burn! Happy those who remain upon these rivers in immoveable safety, without being overwhelmed, or carried away with the stream; not standing erect, but sitting on a sure and humble seat, whence they rise not till " the day spring from on high," when, having rested in peace, they stretch forth their hands to Him who will lift them up, and cause them to stand upright in the porches of the heavenly Jerusalem, where they shall be for ever secure from the assaults of pride! And yet are these happy saints at present in tears; not to see all these perishable things vanishing and passiug away, but at the remembrance of their dear country, the Jerusalem which is above, after which they sigh incessantly, while the days of their pilgrimage are prolonged.

 

 The Heart has its arguments and motives, with which the Reason is not acquainted. We feel this in a thousand instances. It is the Heart, and not the Reason, which has properly the perception of Gan: Gat' sensible to the heart, is the most compendious description of true and perfect Faith.

 

 The nature of Man is so framed, that not only by often hearing himself called a Fool, he believes it; but by often calling himself a Fool, he enters into the same opinion. Every person holds an inward and secret conversation with his own breast, and such as it highly concerns him well to regulate, because, even in this sense, "Evil communications corrupt good manners." To study silence as much as possible, and to converse with Gm' alone, is the true Art of Persuasion, in respect of ourselves.

 

 Our own Will, though it should obtain its largest wish, would always keep us in uneasiness. But the very instant that we abandon our own Will, we grow easy. We can never be satisfied with it, nor ever dissatisfied without it.

 

 It is very unjust that persons should build so much on our familiarity, though they do it with real inclination and delight. We deceive all those whom we encourage in such a dependence; because we are not, at last, the persons they suppose, and can by no means be able to satisfy their expectations. Do not we stand ou the brink of the grave and must not the object, of which they are so much enamoured, be lost and buried with us As it would not cease to be criminal in us to propagate a falsity, though we might recommend it with eloquence, and others embrace it with pleasure; so are we in the like degree blameable, if we labor to charm men's affections, and to draw them into an undue confidence and reliance. We ought to caution persons whom we find disposed to credit a fiction, whatever advantage we might reap by their mistake. In the same manner ought we to warn those who are courting our favor, against engaging themselves in so vain a patronage and protection; because their whole life ought really to be spent either in seeking GOD, or in studying to please Him.

 

 To trust in Forms and Ceremonies, is Superstition; but not to comply with them, is Pride.

 

 There are three means of believing; by Inspiration, by Reason, and by Custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its Sons who do not believe by Inspiration. Nor does it injure Reason or Custom, or debar them of their proper force: on the contrary, it directs us to open our mind by the proofs of the former, and to confirm our mind by the authority of the latter. But then it chiefly engages us to offer ourselves, with all humility, to the succors of Inspired Grace, which alone can produce the true and salutary effect; "lest the cross of CHRIST should be made of none effect."

 

 A man never does evil with so much complacency, so full purpose and resolution, as when he does it upon t; mistaken principle of Conscience.

 

 Shall we call it Courage in a dying man, that he dares, under his weakness and agony, to affront an Omni-potent and Eternal GOD

 

 There is a Virtuous Fear, which is the effect of Faith; and there is a Vicious Fear, which is the product of Doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on GOD, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on GOD, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose GOD; persons of the other character fear to find Him.

 

 SOLOMON and JOB judged the best, and spoke the most truly of human Misery; the former the most happy, the latter the most unfortunate of mankind; the one acquainted, by long experience, with the Vanity of Pleasure, the other with the Reality of Affliction and Pain.

 

 The whole World may be divided into these three ranks and orders of men; those who, having found GOD, resign themselves up to his service; those who, having not yet found Him, do indefatigably search after Him; and lastly, those who have neither found Him nor seek Him. The first are Happy and Wise; the third are Unhappy and Fools; the second must be owned to be Wise, as they own themselves to be Unhappy.

 

 Reason proceeds so slowly, and upon so many maxims and views, which it must always keep present before it, that every moment it either stumbles or goes astray, for want of seeing all things at once. The case is quite otherwise with Sense. This, as it acts in an instant, so it is always prepared for action. When our Reason, there-fore, has brought us acquainted with the truth, we should endeavor to imprint our faith on the inward Sense of our heart, without which it will be ever wavering and uncertain.

 

XXVIII. Moral Thoughts.

 

 KNOWLEDGE has two extremities, which meet and touch each other. The first of them is pure natural ignorance, such as attends every man at his birth; the other is the perfection attained by great souls, who having run through the circle of all that mankind can know, find at length that they know nothing, and are contented to return to that ignorance from which they set out. Ignorance that thus knows itself is a wise and learned ignorance. Those persons who he between these extremities, who have got beyond natural ignorance, but cannot arrrive at that ignorance which is the effect of wisdom, have a tincture of science which swells them with vanity and sufficiency. These are the men that trouble the world, and that make the falsest judgments of all things in it. The vulgar, and the truly knowing, compose the ordinary train of men: those of the middle character despise all, and in return are despised by all.

 

 A Christian loves himself as a member of that body of which JESUS CHRIST is the Head; and he loves JESUS CHRIST as the head of that body of which he is himself a member. Both these motions centre and conspire in the same affection. If the feet or the hands were endued with a separate Will, they could never preserve their natural order and employment, otherwise than by submitting this private Will to that general and superior Will, which has the government of the whole body without such a resignation, they would have a liberty only of confusion and ruin; whereas in serving the good of the Body, they most effectually consult their own.

 

 Whence comes it to pass that we have so much patience with those who are maimed in body, and so little with those who are defective in mind It is because the Cripple acknowledges that we have the use of our legs; whereas the Fool obstinately maintains that we are the persons who halt in understanding. without this difference in the case, neither object would move our resentment, but our compassion. It is a great advantage of Quality, that a man at eighteen, or twenty, shall be allowed the same esteem and deference which another purchaseth by his merit at fifty. Here are thirty years gained at a stroke.

 

 There are a sort of men who, to demonstrate the great injustice of our disregard, never fail to urge precedents of such and such great persons, who prize them after an extraordinary manner. The answer I would give to this argument is, Do but produce the Merit which gained you the esteem of these admirers, and I am ready to add myself to the number.

 

 While we continue in good health, we can by no means apprehend how we should be able to bear the severity of a distemper. Yet when we are sick, we cheerfully take whatever is prescribed, and grow resolute upon our misfortune. We then no longer covet these opportunities of walking and diversion which we enjoyed in health, but which are incompatible with the necessities of our disease. Nature ever supplies us with a new set of passions and desires agreeable to our present state. It is not our nature, therefore, but our vain fear, which troubles us, by joining to the condition in which we are the passions of that condition in which we are not.

 

 We are full of doubling, deceit, and contradiction. We love to wear a disguise, even within, and are afraid of being detected by ourselves.

 

 It is but a mean character of a man, that he says a great many fine things.

 

 I do not admire a man who possesseth any one virtue in its utmost perfection, if he does not, at the same time, possess the opposite virtue in an equal degree. This was the accomplished character of EPAMINONDAS, that he had the greatest valor, in conjunction with the greatest humanity. To appear otherwise is not to rise, but fall. A man never shows true greatness in being fixed at one end of the line; but he shows it to admiration, if he toucheth both extremities at once, and fills and illustrates all between. Perhaps the soul may still reside in a single point, and by such acts as these may shoot itself, by a sudden glance, from one boundary to the other. Yet this is enough to demonstrate the agility of the soul, if not its compass and reach.

 

 When I began my studies, I spent a considerable time in the pursuit of remoter knowledge; and the small number of those with whom I could converse in this way, discouraged me from proceeding farther. When I afterwards applied myself to study Man, I discovered, that those abstracted sciences are by no means the proper entertainments of his nature; and that I had strayed farther from my proper condition, by sounding their depths, than others by remaining ignorant of them, whose neglect I could therefore easily forgive. I hoped at least to find more companions in my new enquiry, because this was the proper employment and exercise of mankind. But I was again disappointed, and found, on the whole matter, that those few who study Geometry are still more than those who study themselves.

 

 If we would reprove with success, and effectually chew another that he is in the wrong, we ought to observe which way he looks on the object, (because, viewed in that way, it is generally such as he apprehends it,) and to acknowledge that he is so far in the right. He will be satisfied with this method, as intimating that he was not mistaken, but only wanted to have surveyed the thing on all sides. The former imputation is apt to work on our shame and resentment; but the latter gives us no disturbance: the reason of which possibly may be, that the understanding, as well as the sense, can never be deceived in that part of a thing which it actually has under its view.

 

 A man's virtue is not to be measured by some extra-ordinary efforts and sallies, but by a constant and uniform series of actions.

 

 We are, for the most part, more easily persuaded by reasons of our own finding out, than by any which owe their original to the wit of others.

 

 The example of ALEXANDER'S continence has not made so many converts to chastity, as that of his drunkenness has to intemperance. Men apprehend no shame in being less perfect than he, and judge it very excusable to be more detective. We are apt to think ourselves much above the corruptions of the vulgar, when we fall into the vices of these great and renowned persons; not considering that their vices do really bring them down to the vulgar level. We are proud of joining ourselves to them by the same common term which joins them to the multitude. How lofty soever their condition may be, there is some hold or other about them, by which they are linked to the rest of mankind. They do not hang in the air, or subsist absolutely separate from human society. If they are above us, it is because their head is higher; their feet are always as low as ours. They all touch the same line, and tread the same ground; and in this respect are not superior to us, nor to children, nor even to beasts.

 

 Men of irregular lives are wont to boast that they exactly follow Nature, and that those who walk by rule and order arc the persons who really deviate from her; as men in a ship fancy those to move who stand on the shore. Both sides affirm the very same of each other; and we must be placed at some one precise point ere we can judge between them. The distance of the vessel from the haven is a clear decision of the latter controversy; but who can ever find the like mark to deter-mine the former

 

 To lament the case of the unfortunate, is by no means a check upon our natural concupiscence, which may still reign with full power, though it gives us leave to show this expression of humanity, and to acquire the reputation of pity and tenderness. Whence we arc to infer, that such a reputation can be of no considerable value.

 

 The Platonists, and even the Stoics, while they believed that GOD alone was an object so worthy as to justify our Love, did yet desire themselves to be beloved and admired by men. They had no manner of sense of their natural corruption. Had they been really disposed to the Love and Adoration of GOD, and felt the most ravishing joy from so divine an exercise, they might fairly have called themselves as good and great as they had pleased. But if they found their hearts under an utter aversion and repugnancy to these duties; if they had no manner of inclination but to establish themselves In the opinion of men; and if their whole perfection consisted in being able to make others propose a happiness in loving and esteeming them;—such a perfection ought to be abhorred. For this was their case: they possessed, in some degree, the knowledge of GOD, and yet courted only the love of men. They were desirous that men should place their hope and confidence in them, and should make them the sole objects of their choice and delight.

 

 How wisely has it been ordained to distinguish men rather by the exterior skew, than by the interior endowments! Here another person and I are disputing the way. Who shall have the preference in this case Why, the better man of the two. But I am as good a man as he: so that if. no expedient be found, he must beat me, or I must beat him. Well, but all this while, he has four footmen at his back, and I have but one. This is a visible advantage: we heed only tell noses to discover it. It is my part therefore to yield, and l am a blockhead if I contest the point. See here an easy method of peace, the great safeguard and supreme happiness of this world.

 

 '' Time puts the surest end to troubles and complaints; because the world continually changeth, and persons and things become indifferent. Neither the aggriever nor the party aggrieved are long in the same circumstances. It is as if we should have personally affronted and eras berated those of a certain nation, and should be able to visit that nation again two generations hence. We should find the same French, for instance, but not the same Men.

 

 It is infallibly certain that the soul is either mortal or immortal. This ought to make an entire change in morality. And yet so fatal was the blindness of the Philosophers, that they framed their whole moral system without the least dependence on such an enquiry.

 

 The last act of life is always tragical, how pleasantly soever the comedy may have run through all the rest. A little earth, cast upon our cold head, for ever determines our hopes and our condition.

 

XXIX. THOUGHTS UPON DEATH

 

Being an Extract from a Letter of M. PASCAL, occasioned by the Death of his Father.

 

 WHEN we arc under affliction and trouble for the death of a person who was dear to us, or for any misfortune which we are capable of suffering, we ought not to seek our consolation in ourselves, or in others, or in any part of the creation, but in GOD alone. And the reason seems to be evident; inasmuch as no created being is the first cause and mover of those accidents which the world calls evil.' Since therefore they are all to be referred to GOD as their real Author, and sovereign Disposer, it is visibly our duty to repair to this original Source, and to expect thence the only solid comfort. If we observe these directions; if we look on the death, for instance, which we are lamenting, not as the effect of mere chance, nor as a fatal necessity of nature, nor as the sport of those elements and particles which constitute our frame, (for Go') never abandons his servants to so capricious events,) but as the inevitable, the most holy, and most just effect of a providential decree, now executed in its time; if we consider that whatever has now happened was from everlasting present to GOD, and ordained by His wisdom;—if, I say, by a noble transport of divine grace, we survey the accident which is before us, not in itself, and abstractedly from its Author, but out of itself, and in its supreme Author's Will, as its true cause, with respect both to the matter and the manner, we shall adore, in humble silence, his unsearchable judgments, his impenetrable secrets; we shall reverence the holiness of his decrees; we shall bless the guidance of his providence; and uniting our will to the Will of Con Himself, we shall choose with Him, in Him, and for Him, the very same events which He, in us, and for us, has chosen from all eternity.

 

 There can be no comfort but in truth. It is most certain that SOCRATES and SENECA have nothing which may persuade and convince, may ease and relieve us on these occasions. They were both under the original error which blindeth mankind. They looked on death as really natural to us; and all the discourses which they have built on this false foundation have so much vanity, and so little solidity, as to serve for no other use but to demonstrate the general weakness of the human race, since the most elevated productions of the wisest amongst men are so childish and contemptible.

 

 It is not so that we learn JESUS C11E1sr; it is not thus that we read the canonical books of Scripture. It is here alone that we succeed in our search of truth; and truth is no less infallibly joined to comfort, than it is infallibly separated from error. Let us then take a view of death, by those lights which the Home' Sulalr has given us. And by those we have the advantage of discovering that death is no other than a punishment imposed on man. We are hence instructed, that JESUS CHRIST came into the world as a Victim and Propitiation, and as such offered himself to GOD; that his Birth, his Life, his Death, his Resurrection, his Ascension, and his Session at the right hand of the FATHER, all belong to one and the same Sacrifice. To conclude, we are informed, that what was accomplished in JESUS CHRIST, must be accomplished also in his members.

 

 Let us then consider life as a sacrifice; and let the accidents of life make no other impression on us than as, in proportion, the accomplishment of this sacrifice is either interrupted or promoted by them. Let us styli nothing ill, but what turns the sacrifice of GOD into the sacrifice of the devil; and let us honor all such things with the name of good, as render that which was a sacrifice to the devil in ADAM, a sacrifice to GOD in JESUS CHRIST. Let us examine the notion of death by this rule and principle.

 

 In order to which design, it is necessary to have recourse to the Person of JESUS CHRIST: for as GOD regards not men, but through Him as a Mediator, so neither ought we to regard ourselves, or others, but with respect to the same Mediation. If we look not through this medium, we shall discern nothing but either real pains, or detestable pleasures: but if we see all things as in JESUS CHRIST, all will conspire for our consolation, satisfaction, and edification.

 

 Let us reflect on death as in JESUS CHRIST, not as without JESUS CHRIST. without JESUS CHRIST it is dreadful, it is detestable, it is the terror of nature. In JESUS CHRIST it is fair and amiable, it is good and holy, it is the joy of the saints. All events being rendered Sweet in JESUS CHRIST, death itself has a share in the influence. To sanctify death and sufferings to us, was the reason for which He suffered and died; who, as He was GOD and Man in one Person, comprised, at once, what-ever was great and illustrious, whatever was humble and obscure; that He might sanctify all things in Himself, sin only excepted, and might be the standing Model of all characters and conditions.

 

 Would we know what death is, what it is in JESUS CHRIST, we must examine the regard which it bears to his continual, uninterrupted Sacrifice. And we may observe, that in sacrifices the principal part is the Death of the Victim. The Oblation and Sanctification, which precede, are indeed the dispositions, but Death is still the completion; in which, by renouncing its very Life and Being, the creature pays to GOD the utmost homage ok which it is capable; thus humbling, and, as it were, annihilating itself before the eyes of his Majesty, and adoring His supreme existence, who alone essentially exists. There was indeed another part to be performed after the death of the sacrifice, without which it was vain and in-effectual, namely, the Acceptance of it by GOD. But this, though it crowned the sacrifice, was rather an action of GOD towards the creature, than of the creature towards GOD; and did not hinder, but that the last act of the creature was still determined by its Death.

 

 We find each of these circumstances fulfilled in our LORD, upon his coming into the world. " Through the eternal SPIRIT, He offered up Himself to GoD. When He cometh into the world, He says, Sacrifice and offerings You wouldst not: then said I, Lo I come to do thy Will, O God. Thy law is within my heart." We have here his Oblation, and his Sanctification immediately followed. His Sacrifice continued through his Life, and was finished by his Death. It was needful for Him "to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory. Though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered. In the days of his flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, He was heard in that He feared." Finally, GOD raised Him again by his glorious power, (of which the fire which fell from heaven on the sacrifices was a type,) to burn and consume, as it were, his mortal body, and to exalt and restore Him to a life of glory,

 

 The Sacrifice of JESUS CHRIST being thus perfected, as to the action, by his Death, and, as to the subject, by his Resurrection, (when the image of the body of sin was absorbed in glory,) He had performed all that was requisite on his part; and there remained nothing but that the Sacrifice should be accepted of GOD; and that, as incense, it should ascend, and carry up its odor to the throne of the Divine Majesty. In pursuance of which, our LORD was perfectly offered, lifted up, and received at Gov's throne, at his Ascension; which He effected, partly by his own proper force, and partly by the assistance of the HOLY SPUIrr, with which He was every way encompassed and replenished. He was carried up as the odour of the sacrifices by the air which sup-ported it; the former of which prefigured Himself, and the latter represented the HOLY SPIRIT. And the Acts of the Apostles expressly report, that he was received into Heaven, to give us an assurance that this holy Sacrifice, accomplished on earth, was received and accepted in the bosom of the FATHER.

 

Let us not be sorry, as Gentiles without hope, for our departed Christian friends. Our loss of them is not to be dated from the hour of their death. To speak properly, we then lost them when they were admitted into the Church by Baptism. Ever since that admission, they were not ours, but Gov's; their life was devoted and consecrated to Gov; their actions bore no regard to the things of this world, but for the sake of Gov. By their death they are at length entirely disengaged from earth; and it is at this moment that they are accepted by GOD, and that their sacrifice receives its accomplishment and crown.

 

They have now performed what they vowed; they have finished the work which GOD gave them to do; they have discharged that which was the only end of their creation. The Will of GOD is perfected in them; and their will is swallowed up in the Divine. " What therefore GOD Math joined together, let not us put asunder;" but, by a true judgment, let us suppress, or at least moderate, the sentiments of corrupt and mistaken nature, which exhibits nothing but false images, and whose illusions disturb the sanctity of those thoughts, which from the instruction of Christian truth we ought to have derived.

 

 Let us form our ideas of human dissolution, not on the Pagan, but on the Christian Model; that is, let them, as St. PAUL enjoins, be built on Hope, the great gift and privilege of Christians. Let us look on the remains of a deceased friend, not as a noisome and infectious carcass, according to the fallacious portrait of Nature; but, according to the assurance of Faith, as the eternal and inviolable temple of the HOLY GHOST.

 

 Let us not consider the faithful, who are departed in the grace of GOD, as having ceased to live, which is the false suggestion of Nature; but as now beginning to live, which is the infallible testimony of Truth. Let us look on their souls not as annihilated and lost, but as quickened and enlivened, and united to the Sovereign Life. And, by attending to these sound doctrines, let us correct the prejudices of error, which are so firmly rooted in our mind, and the apprehensions of fear, which are so strongly imprinted on our sense.

 

 I GOD created man under a double passion, one for his Creator, the other for himself; but on this condition, that the Love of his Creator should be infinite, that is, should have no other end but GOD, and that the love of himself should be finite, with a constant regard and reserve to his Creator.

 

Man, in this state, not only loved himself without sin; but had sinned, could he possibly have ceased to love himself.

 

By the entrance of sin into the world, man was deprived of the former of these affections; and his soul, which was still great, and still capable even of an infinite passion, retaining only the latter, this immediately diffused itself, and overflowed all the mighty space which had been evacuated by the Love of Gov. And thus we came to love only ourselves, and to love ourselves infinitely; that is, to love all things with respect only to ourselves.

 

 Behold the origin of self-love! It was natural to ADAM: it was, during his innocence, regular and just, but became immoderate and criminal upon his fall.

 

Behold the genuine source of this love, together with the unhappy cause of its viciousness and excess!

 

 The same will hold true of our desire of dominion, of our aversion to business, and of many natural motions of a similar kind. And this whole doctrine may be easily applied to our present subject. The fear of death to ADAM, in innocence, was not only natural, but just; because human life being then not disagreeable to GOD, ought to have been agreeable to man; and death, for the same reason, ought to have been an object of horror, as threatening to cut off a life which was conformable to the Divine Will. But upon man's transgression, his life was debased and corrupted; his soul and body were set at variance one with another, and both with GOD.

 

 When this fatal change had infected and impaired the holiness of life, the love of life continued still; and the fear of death remaining with no less vigor, that which was just in ADAM was rendered unjust in us. This is a true account of the fear of death; whence it sprung, and by what means it was tainted and vitiated.

 

While we admit then that love which ADAM had for his life of innocence, and which even our Lord JESUS CHRIST retained for His; let us be resolute in hating such a life as is contrary to that which was loved by JESUS CHRIST; and let us be concerned at such a death only as affected our LORD Himself with some sort of apprehensions, a death happening to a body pure and spotless in the sight of GOD: but let us not fear a death which punishes a sinful and purges an impure body, and which therefore ought to inspire us with quite opposite sentiments, were we in any degree possessed of those noble endowments, faith, hope, and charity.

 

It is one of the most acknowledged principles of Christianity, that whatever happened to JESUS CHRIST is like-wise to be transacted in the soul and in the body of every Christian. So that as our LORD suffered in this life of infirmity and mortality, as He was raised to a new life, and at length carried up into the heavens, where He now sits at GOD's right hand; in the same manner, both the soul and body are to suffer and die, to be raised again, and to ascend into heaven.

 

All these particulars are accomplished in the soul during this life; though not in the body.

 

 The soul suffers and dies to sin. The soul is raised to a new life. The soul relinquisheth this earth, and soars towards heaven in leading a heavenly life on earth, The like changes are not accomplished in the body during this present life, but shall be accomplished after it. For, at our decease, the body dies to this mortal life: at the Judgment, it shall rise to a new life: after the Judgment, it shall be exalted to heaven, and there reside for ever.

 

 Thus the very same things happen to soul and body, though at different periods; and the revolutions of the body do not take place till those of the soul are completed; that is, not till after death. Insomuch that death, which is the end and crown of the soul's happiness, is but the prelude of happiness to the body.

 

 It is not reasonable that we should continue absolutely unmoved and unaffected at the misfortunes and evils which befal us, like Angels, who have no sentiments or inclinations of our nature; nor is there more reason that we should sorrow without hope, like Heathens, who have no feeling, no apprehension of grace. But reason and justice allow, that we should mourn like Christians, and be comforted like Christians, and that the consolations of grace should overcome the affections of nature: so that grace may not only dwell in us, but may be victorious and triumphant in us; that by our thus hallowing the Name of our Father, his Will may become ours, and His grace may reign over our nature; that our afflictions may be the matter and subject of a sacrifice, which his grace will perfect in us, to His glory; and that these particular sacrifices may be so many assurances of the entire and universal sacrifice, in which our whole nature shall be purified and perfected by the power of JESUS CHRIST.

 

 Thus shall we make advantage of our own infirmities, while they furnish matter for this whole burnt-offering. And to profit by failings and imperfections is the great aim of Christians, who know that "all things work together" for the elect. If we observe these things with a closer view, and as they really are in themselves, we shall not fail to draw from them great improvement. For it being most certain, that the death of the body is but the type and image of that of the soul; if we have reason to hope for the salvation of our friends, while we lament their decease, though re may, not be able to stop the current of our sadness, yet we cannot but reap the benefit of this lesson, that since bodily death is so terrible as to create these disorders in us, the death of the soul is a subject which ought to give us far more inconsolable regret. GOD having been pleased to deliver to the first those for whom we mourn, we may believe that He has graciously rescued them from the second. Let us contemplate the greatness of our happiness, in the greatness of our misery; and then, even the excesses of our grief can be but the just standard of our joy.

 

 One of the most solid and useful charities towards the dead, is to perform that which they would enjoin us to do, were they still in the world, and to put ourselves, for their sakes, into that condition in which they wish us to be at present. By this means we shall make them, in some sort, revive in ourselves; while it is by their counsels and instructions that we live and act. And, as the authors of heresies are punished in another life for the sins to which they have moved their followers, in whom their poison still operates after their death; so good men are recompensed in a better state, not only for their own virtues, but for the virtues of those whom they have engaged by their precepts, and influenced by their examples.

 

XXX. Miscellaneous Thoughts.

 

 The greater degree of parts and sagacity any one is master of, the more Originals he will discern in the characters of mankind. Persons of ordinary endowments are utter strangers to this difference amongst men. A man may have good sense, and yet not be able to apply it alike successfully to all subjects; for there are those who judge exactly within one certain order of things, and yet are quite lost and confounded in another. Some are excellent in drawing consequences from a few principles, others from many. Some, for instance, have an admirable understanding of Hydrostatics, where the principles are few, but the consequences so fine and delicate, as not to be reached without the greatest penetration. And these persons would perhaps be no extraordinary Geometricians; because the principles of Geometry are vastly numerous, and because a genius may be so formed as, with ease, to search a few principles to the bottom, and yet not to comprehend things with the same accuracy, where the principles are diffused to a larger compass.

 

 There are two sorts of geniuses therefore; the one disposed for a deep and vigorous penetration into the consequences of principles, and this is a genius properly true and just; the other fit to comprehend a great number of principles without confusion, and this is the genius for Geometry. The one consists in the force and exactness, the other in the extent and capacity of thought. Nor is this distinction without ground; because a genius may be vigorous, and yet contracted, or it may have, on the contrary, a great reach, and little strength.

 

 There seems to be a wide difference between a genius for the Mathematics, and a genius for business or policy. In those Sciences the principles are gross and palpable, yet so far removed from vulgar use, that a man is at a loss to turn his head that way for want of practice; but upon the least application he sees them all at their full, and must have a very untoward judgment if he draw wrong inferences from principles, which are too big to be over-looked, and too distinct to be confounded.

 

 But in business and policy, the principles are taken from daily custom, and from the actions of the whole world. There is no need here of giving the head a new ply, or of committing violence on ourselves. The only point is, to have a good discernment: because these principles are so numerous and so independent, that it is hardly possible but some of them should escape us. And yet the omission of any one principle breaks the whole thread, and betrays us into error. A man, in this cased must be clear and capacious, that he may comprehend the whole set of principles; and he must likewise be just and solid, that from known principles he may not deduce false conclusions.

 

 Every Geometrician would therefore be a man of business, if he were not too short-sighted; for he seldom argues wrong, when he is thoroughly acquainted with his principles. And every man of business might be a Geometician, if he could once turn his thought to the less obvious principles of Geometry.

 

The reason then, why some persons of management and subtlety are not equally qualified to excel in Mathematics, is, because they cannot bend the whole stress of their mind to principles which he so far out of the road; and the reason why some persons, admirably successful in the study of the Mathematics, are less happy in civil business, is, because they are purblind in the things which he just before them. For these latter having been accustomed to principles which are full and distinct, and having never reasoned, even from these principles, till they have viewed them a considerable time, and have handled them after their own way, they cannot but lose themselves in matters of political address. Here the principles will not submit to be thus treated and managed; they are not to be discerned without difficulty; the mind rather sees than feels them; and it would require almost an infinite labor to work a perception of them in those who have it not by their own natural sagacity. These things are so nice and so numerous, that a man must have the clearest and finest understanding to apprehend them: and, if apprehended, it is very seldom that they can be so regularly demonstrated as the subject of Geometry; because no one can pretend to have so firm a hold of their principles and necessary foundations, this being a task next to impossible. We must see them at one immediate view, without the train and progress of reason; at least the intuitive know-ledge of them must be extended to such a degree, ere the rational can proceed. Thus it rarely happens that either of these geniuses can advance many steps in the province of the other. The masters of Geometry sometimes make themselves ridiculous, by endeavoring to confine the subjects of business to their own method, and by retaining the way of definitions and maxims, a process which this kind of reasoning will not bear: not but that the mind does the very same thing which they propose to do by their rules; but then the mind does it silently and naturally, without art or show, and in a way above the capacity of most men to conceive, and of all to express.

 

On the other side, the politick heads, having been used to judge of things in the way of intuition, are so amazed when we offer them problems which they apprehend nothing of, and such as they cannot enter into, but through a series of definitions and barren maxims, that these find them soon disheartened, and inclined to give over the pursuit. But then it is certain, between both, that a false genius will neither make a Geometry-Professor, nor a Privy Counsellor.

 

Men who have a genius only for Mathematics, will be true and exact in thinking, provided all things are explained to them in their own formal manner; otherwise their judgment will be erroneous and insupportable, be-cause they never proceed right, but upon principles of which they have a perfect view. Again, those who have a genius only for business, are seldom patient enough to descend into the first principles of speculative and abstracted things, which they have not encountered in common life and action.

 

 It is easier to die without the thought of death, than to think of death without the apprehension of danger.

 

We ordinarily presume that all men have the same apprehension and sense of the same object, when presented to them: But we presume thus much upon a pre-carious title, and without real proof. I know very well, that men apply the same words to the same occasions; as when two persons look on the snow, both the one and the other expresseth the appearance of this object by the same term of White. From this conformity of speech we draw a strong conjecture for the like conformity of idea; which, though highly probable, yet is not absolutely demonstrative.

 

 Those who judge of any work by rule are, in respect of others, like a man who has a Watch, when the rest of the company have not. One friend says, we have been two hours together; another affirms it to have been but three quarters of an hour since we met. Here I privately look upon my watch, and tell one that he is melancholy, and the other that he is merry, because we have been together precisely an hour and an half; and I despise those that tell me, time passes as I please to make it, and pretend that I judge of it by my fancy, not knowing that I judge of it by my watch.

 

 The understanding naturally believes, and the will naturally loves; so that if either of them be not directed to true objects, it must necessarily take up with false.

 

 Many things which are true have been contradicted; many which are false, pass without contradiction. To be contradicted is no more a mark of falsehood, than not to be contradicted is a mark of truth.

 

 The sense we have of the falseness of those pleasures which are present, and the ignorance we are under as to the vanity of those pleasures which are absent, are the two great sources of all our levity and inconstancy. If we dreamed the same thing every night, it might perhaps affect us no less than the objects which we en-counter by day. And if an Artisan should be sure of dreaming, as often as he went to bed, that he was a King, I think he would be as happy as a King, who should dream constantly, for the same space, that he was an Artisan. Should we every night dream that we were pursued by our enemies, so as continually to he under the fright of these troublesome phantoms, or that we are engaged in a succession of labor, as in traveling, we should suffer almost as much, as if the things were real; and should be as much afraid of sleeping, as we are now afraid of being awake, when we apprehend ourselves to be entering upon these misfortunes or difficulties. And the consequence of the reality could scarcely be more fatal than that of the imagination. But because our dreams are ever varying from themselves, what they pre-sent us with strikes us more faintly than what we behold with open eyes, which is for the most part uniform, equal, and consistent. Not but that this latter way has also its changes, though not with such frequency, or so great abruptness, but in the manner of an easy journey. And hence came the phrase of our being in a dream: for life is indeed but a dream, though of as less inconstant and irregular kind.

 

 Those mighty efforts and sallies to which the mind sometimes attains, are things of which it cannot keep posession: it wins them by a vigorous flight, and loses them by as sudden a fall.

 

 Provided we know the ruling passion in any man, we assure ourselves of being able to please him. And yet every man has his peculiar fancy and humor, contrary to his real good, even in the idea which he forms of good: and this diversity breaks and disconcerts the measures of those who are studious of winning upon the affections of others.

 

 The same means by which we corrupt our judgment, we employ to corrupt our sense. Now both our sense and judgment are chiefly formed upon conversation; so that good or ill company may make or mar them. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance to choose our company well, that we may confirm, and not debauch our powers: and yet it is hardly possible to make this good choice, unless they are already confirmed and not debauched. Thus the whole matter runs in a circle; which, without a very particular happiness, we shall never get out of.

 

 We naturally suppose ourselves more capable of diving to the centre of things, than of embracing the circumference. The visible extent of the world plainly surpasses us and our faculties. But because we ourselves do likewise surpass, with a great disproportion, the minuter parts of nature, we fancy that these must necessarily fall under the command of our mind. And yet it requires the same (that is, an infinite) perfection and capacity to descend to nothing, as to extend to all. And I am persuaded, that if a man could penetrate into the first elements of things, he might, by the same strength, arrive at the comprehension of infinity. Each labor depends on the other; each conducts to the other. These vast extremities, the farther they reach, the more surely they meet and touch, re-uniting, at length, in Gott, and in GOD alone.

 

 If a man did but begin with the study of himself, he would soon find how incapable he was of proceeding farther. For what possibility is there, that the part should contain the whole It seems, however, more reasonable that we should at least aspire to the knowledge of the other parts, to which we bear some proportion and resemblance. But then the parts of the world are so nicely interwoven, so exquisitely linked and encased one within the other, that I look upon it as impossible to understand one without another, or even one without all.

 

 To instance in ourselves. Man has really some dependence on every thing that he knows. He has need of place, to contain him; of time, to lengthen out his duration; of elements, to compose his frame; of motion, to pre-serve his life; of heat and food, for nourishment; of air, for respiration. He sees the light which shines upon him; he feels the bodies which encircle him; in short, he con-tracts an alliance with the whole world.

 

 In order, therefore; to an exact knowledge of man, we roust know whence it conies to pass, that air, for example, should be necessary for his subsistence: and to apprehend the nature of air, we should know by what particular means it has such an influence on the life of man. Again: flame cannot subsist without air; therefore, the philosophy of the one depends on that of the other.

 

 All things then being in different regards, effects, and causes, near and remote, holding communication with each other by a natural, though imperceptible line, which unites the most distant in place, and most repugnant in kind; I see no possibility either of knowing the parts without the whole, or of knowing the whole without a distinct apprehension of the parts.

 

 And what seems to fix and complete our utter inability for the knowledge of things, is, that they are all, in their own nature, simple; whereas we are composed of two opposite natures, Spirit and Body. For it is impossible that our reasoning part should be other than spiritual. And as for the extravagance of those who will allow them-selves to consist of nothing but body, this excludes them still more forcibly from all acquaintance with the objects about them; it being a most inconceivable paradox to affirm, that matter is capable of reflection or thought.

 

 It is this composition of Body and Spirit which has made the Philosophers, almost universally, confound the ideas of things; ascribing to body the properties of spirit, and to spirit the affections of body. Thus they tell us, with good assurance, that bodies have a tendency down-wards; that they aspire to their proper centre; that they shun their own destruction; that they have their peculiar inclinations, sympathies, and antipathies: all of which belong purely to spirit. But on the other hand, if spirits are the subject of their discourse, they consider these as circumscribed in place, as endued with local motion, &c., which ought, in justice, to be applied to the body only.

 

 Instead of receiving into our mind the true and genuine ideas of things, we strike a tincture of our own compound being on all the simple objects which we contemplate. While we make no scruple to compose the whole world of Spirit and Body, might it not seem natural to infer, that we really apprehend this composition And yet this is what, of all things, we are most at a loss to apprehend. Every man is to himself the most prodigious object in the extent of nature; for as he knows little of body, and less of spirit, so he knows least of all, how body should be united to spirit. This is the very complication of all his difficulties: and yet this is no other than his own proper being.

 

 This dog is mine, says the poor child: this is my place in the sun. From so petty a beginning may we trace the tyranny and usurpation of the whole earth.

 

 The common idea which we form of PLATO or ARISTOTLE, represents them in their garb of Professors, and as persons of composed seriousness and immoveable gravity. Whereas they were really honest gentlemen who could laugh and jest with a friend, as well as ourselves. And it was in this vein of mirth and humor that they framed their laws, and systems of polity. The time they spent upon these projects was the most unphilosophical part of their whole life. When they pleased to be philosophers in earnest, they had no other care or thought than how to live with privacy and tranquility.

 

A

 

PRAYER

 

OF

 

MONSIEUR PASCAL,

 

COMPOSED IN SICKNESS.

 

 I. O LORD, whose SPIRIT 1S SO good and gracious in all things, and who art so infinitely merciful, that not the prosperities alone, but even the distresses, which happen to thy chosen, are the effects of thy mercy, grant that I may not bring a Pagan mind to my present afflictions; but that, like a true Christian, I may in all events acknowledge thy justice, and thy providence: for the altering of my condition can in no way affect or influence thine. You art ever immutable, though I am ever subject to change; You art the same GOD, no less in afflicting and punishing, than in the midst of thy indulgences, and plentiful consolations.

 

 II. You gayest me health to be spent in serving Thee, and I perverted it to a use altogether profane. Now you have sent a sickness for my correction: O suffer me not to use this likewise, as a means of provoking Thee by my impatience! I abused thy gift of health, and you have justly punished me for my neglect; O keep me from abusing thy very punishment! And because the corruption of my nature is such, that it renders thy favors pernicious to me; grant, O GOD, that thy all-powerful Grace may render thy chastisements wholesome and beneficial. If I had a heart filled with affection for the world, while I enjoyed any degree of strength and vigor, destroy that vigor, for my soul's health; and, whether by weakening my body, or by inflaming and exalting my charity, render me incapable of delighting in the world, that my delight may be only in Thy Name.

 

 III. O GOD, before whom I shall be obliged to give an exact account of my actions at the end of my life, and the end of the world; O GOD, who permittest the world, and all things in it, to subsist, only for the probation of the good, and for the punishment of the wicked; O GOD,. who leavest hardened sinners to enjoy the world, with a delicious, but criminal use; O GOD, who appointest our body to die, and who, at the hour of death, removest our soul from all that it doated upon here; O GOD, who at the last moment of my life wilt forcibly separate me from all things that have engaged my thoughts, and taken up. my heart; O GOD, who wilt consume the heavens and the earth at the last day, and all the creatures they contain, to convince men that nothing subsists but by thy Hand, and that nothing besides Thee deserves our love, because, besides Thee, nothing is fixed and perinanent; O GOD, who wilt destroy all these vain idols, all these fatal objects of our affections; I praise Thee, O GOD, and I will bless Thee while I have my being, for that you have been pleased, of thy favor towards me, already to anticipate the dreadful day, by already destroying all things to my taste and thought, under this weakness which 1:suffer from thy Providence. I praise Thee, that You have given me this divorce from the sweetness of health, and from the pleasures of the world; and that You bast, in some sort, consumed these vain idols, which You wilt effectually consume in the day of thy wrath. Grant, O LORD, that I may judge myself after this seeming destruction, which You hest made in my behalf; so that after the final destruction which You wilt make of my life, and of the world, I may escape when judged by Thee. Iknow, O LORD, that at the instant of my death, I shall find myself entirely separated from the world, stripped naked of all things, standing alone before Thee, to answer to thy justice concerning the motions of my thoughts and spirit; grant that I may look on myself as dead already, separated from the world, stripped of all the objects of my passion, placed alone in thy presence, to implore thy mercy for the conversion of my heart; and that I may gather hence matter of exceeding comfort, that You should be pleased first to send this image of death, as the subject of thy mercy, before You sendest a real dissolution, to exercise thy justice. As You seemest to have prevented the time of my death, so let me prevent the rigor of thy sentence; and let me so examine myself before thy judgment, that in thy judgment I may find mercy.

 

 IV. Grant, O LORD, that I may, with an obedient silence, adore the methods of thy Divine Wisdom in the disposals of my life; that thy rod may comfort me; and that having lived in bitterness of my sins, while I enjoyed the good things of my peaceable condition, I may taste the heavenly sweetness of thy grace, during these salutary evils. But I am sensible, O my GOD, that my heart is so hardened, so full of worldly engagements, solicitudes, and disquiets, that neither health, nor sickness, nor discourses, nor books, (not even thy Sacred Word,) nor thy most holy Mysteries, nor alms, nor fastings, nor mortifications, nor miracles, nor the use of any Sacraments, nor all my endeavors, nor the endeavors of the whole world together, can effect any thing toward the beginning of my conversion, if You blessest not all these means with the extraordinary succors of thy grace. I address my prayer unto Thee, Almighty LORD, to intreat from thy bounty a gift, which the joint concurrence of created things can never procure or bestow. I should not have the boldness to direct my cries to Thee, were there besides any that could hear, and could relieve then'. But, O my GOD, since the conversion, which I now beg of thy Grace, is a work exceeding all the powers of nature, to whom can I apply,, but to the Almighty Master of my heart, and of nature itself To whom, O LORD, should I cry, to whom should I flee for succor, unless unto Thee Nothing that is not GOD can fix my confidence, or fill my desires. It is GOD alone whom I ask and seek; it is You alone, O my GOD, whom I implore, for the obtaining of Thyself. O LORD, open my heart; enter this rebellious place, possessed by my vices and my sins. They at present hold it in subjection; do You enter, as into the "strong man's house;" first bind the strong and powerful enemy who is master of it, and then spoil it of the treasures which it now conceals. Rescue and retrieve my affections, of. which the world has robbed me; spoil You the world of this treasure,. or rather resume it as thy own, for to Thee it is but a just tribute, because thy own image was stamped upon it. You alone vast able at first to create my soul; You alone art able to create it anew You alone couldst imprint on it thy image; You alone can revive and refresh that defaced image, even JESUS CHRIST, the express image of thy substance.

 

 V. O my GOD, how happy is the soul which can love so charming an object;, where the affection is so honorable, the alliance so full of benefit and safety! I perceive I cannot be enamored of the world without incurring thy displeasure, without prejudicing, and even degrading myself; and yet the world is still the mark of my desire! O my GOD, how happy are the souls which have fixed their desire on Thee; because this is an affection. to which they give themselves wholly up, not only without scruple, but with commendation! How firm and lasting is their happiness, whose expectation can never be defeated; because You failest not, and because neither life nor death can separate them from this Divine Object of delight! For the same moment which shall involve the wicked, together with their idols, in a common ruin, shall unite the just to Thee in a common glory; while, as the former perish with the perishing objects to which they had ensnared their affections, the latter subsist eternally, in that self-subsisting object to which they were allied. O the happiness of those, who with an absolute choice, and with an invincible bent of inclination, are able to love perfectly and freely, what they are engaged to love out of duty and necessity.

 

 VI. Perfect, O my GOD, the good motions You have wrought in me. Be You their end, as You art their beginning. Crown thy own gifts; for thy gifts I acknowledge them to be. I acknowledge them, O GOD, and am so far from presuming on any such merit in my prayers, as should oblige Thee to a necessary grant, that I likewise most humbly acknowledge, that having given up to the creatures this heart which You formedst purely for thy own service, not for the world, nor for myself, I can expect no means of favor but from thy Mercy; because I have nothing in me that can engage thy assistance; and because all the natural movements of my heart, being directed either towards the creatures, or towards myself, can have no force with regard to Thee, but that of incensing and provoking Thee. I thank thee, therefore, O my Con, for the good motions You have inspired; and for this amongst the rest, the Grace of thanking Thee for them.

 

 VII. Strike my heart with true repentance for my faults; because without this grief of mind, the evils with which You have stricken my body will only procure me a new occasion to sin. Make me rightly to understand, that the evils of the body are nothing else but the punishment, and at the same time the figure, of those which happen to the soul: But, O LORD, make them to prove likewise their remedy, by making me consider, in the bodily pains I feel, those in my soul which I feel not, though my soul, as well as my body, is overspread with sickness and sores. For my greatest evil of soul is this insensibility, and this extreme weakness, which disable it from all apprehension of its own miseries. Give me a lively sense of these miseries, and of my past offences; and grant that the residue of my life may be one continued penitence.

 

 VIII. O LORD, although my life has been hitherto free from more grievous crimes, (the occasions of which You have been pleased in mercy- to remove,) yet it must needs have been exceedingly hateful to Thee, by reason of my habitual neglect, my contempt of thy Word and Inspirations, the idleness and unprofitableness of all my actions and thoughts, and the entire loss of all that time, which You have given me for no other employment but that of worshipping Thee, of seeking in all my business and applications the means of doing thy pleasure, and of becoming truly penitent for my daily trespasses.

 

 IX. Hitherto, O LORD, I have ever been deaf to thy Inspirations; I have despised thy Oracles; I have judged contrary to what You judgest; I have crossed those holy maxims which You broughest into the world from the bosom of the Eternal FATHER, and according to which You wilt judge the world at thy second coming. You have said, "Blessed are those that mourn, and woe unto those who have received their consolation." My language was directly opposite:—Woe unto those who mourn; happy those who abound in consolations and enjoyments, those who - possess a plentiful fortune, an uninterrupted health, and unbroken vigor. And for what reason could I make these advantages the standards of happiness, but because they furnished their owners with a more large capacity of enjoying the creatures; that is, of offending Thee. Thus, as to health in particular, I confess, O LORD, that I esteemed it a good, not because it supplied more easy means of profiting in a course of holiness, and of exhausting more cares and more watchings in thy service, or in the assistance of my neighbors; but because under its protection I might abandon myself with less restraint to the delicacies of life, and receive aquicker relish of pernicious and fatal pleasures. Grant, O LORD, that I may reform my corrupted reason, and rectify my sentiments by thine; that I may judge myself happy in afflictions; that, under this my disability as to external actions, You may so purify my thoughts and intention, as to reconcile them to thy own; and that I may thus find Thee within myself, while my weakness incapacitates me from seeking Thee without. For, O LORD, thy kingdom is in the hearts of the faithful; nor shall my heart be debarred from perceiving and enjoying it in itself, if it maybe replenished with Thy SPIRIT, and with thy wisdom.

 

 X. But, O LORD, by what means shall I engage Thee to pour down thy SPIRIT upon this miserable soul All that I have, all that I am, is odious to Thee; nor can I discover in myself the least foundation of union and agreement. I see nothing, O LORD, but my sufferings, which have a resemblance with thine. Look therefore on the evils I now labor under, and those which threaten me with their approach. Behold, with an eye of pity, the wounds which Thy Hand has made. O my SAVIOR, who lovedst thy own sufferings, even to death; O GOD, who for no other cause becamest Man, but that You mightes,t suffer more than mere Man could undergo, for human salvation; O GOD, who wast therefore incarnate since the fall of man by sin, and didst assume our body, that You might feel all the evils which sin had deserved; O GOD, who so loves bodies exercised with sufferings, as to have chosen for Thyself a body loaded with the most grievous sufferings this world can exhibit; be pleased favorably to accept of my body, not for its own sake, nor for all that it contains, for all deserves thy wrath; but may my sufferings be pleasing to Thee, and my afflictions invite Thee to visit me. But to complete the preparation for thy reception and stay, grant, O my SAVIOR, that as my body has this in common with thine,—to suffer for sin, so my mind may have this likewise in common with thy mind,—to be sorrowful for sin; and that thus I may suffer with Thee, and like Thee, both in body and mind, for nay numberless transgressions.

 

 XI. Grant me, O LORD, the grace of joining thy consolations to my sufferings, that I may suffer like a Christian. I pray not to be exempted from pain; for this is the glorious recompence of saints: but I pray that I may not be abandoned to the pains of nature without the comforts of thy SPIRIT; for this is the curse of JEWS and Pagans. I pray not to enjoy a perfectfulness of comfort, without any alloy of sufferings, for that is the noble prerogative of a life of glory; neither pray I for a perfectfulness of sufferings without any mixture of comfort, for that is a state of Jewish darkness and misery: but I pray, O LORD, that I may feel at once, both the pains of nature for my sins, and the consolations of grace by thy SPIRIT; for that is the true state of Christianity. O! may I never feel pain without comfort! but may I so feel them together, as at length to feel thy comforts only, without my pains! For so, O LORD, You didst leave the whole world to languish under natural sufferings till the coming of thy SoN; but now you comfortest and sweetenest the sufferings of thy servants by his Grace, and fillest thy saints with pure beatitude in his Glory. These are the three wonderful steps by which You have been pleased to guide and exalt the works of thy Providence: You have raised me from the first; O conduct me to the second, that I may attain the third! Thy grace, O LORD, is sufficient for me.

 

 XII. Suffer me not, O LORD, to continue under such an estrangement from Thee, as to be able to reflect on thy Soul, which was sorrowful even to death, and thy Body which was oppressed and., overcome by death, for my sins, without rejoicing, if I may be counted worthy to suffer in my body and in my soul. For what can be more shameful, and yet what is more usual with Christians, and even with myself, than that whilst You, in thy Agony, didst sweat drops of blood for the expiation of our offences, we should make it our whole study to live in delicacy and ease!—that Christians, who profess a dependence on Thee; that those who, at their baptism, renounced the world to become thy followers; that those who, in the face of the church, have engaged themselves by a solemn oath to live and die in thy service; that those who pretend a belief, that the world persecuted and crucified Thee; that those who acknowledge Thee to have been exposed to the wrath of GOD, and to the cruelty of men, to purchase their redemption; that those who make a daily confession of all this, who consider thy Body as the Sacrifice which was offered for their salvation, who look on the pleasures and sins of the world as the only cause of thy sufferings, and on the world itself as thy murderer; should yet seek to gratify their bodies with the same pleasures and sins in the same world!—and that those who could not without horror behold a person caressing the murderer of his father, by whose voluntary death the son is ransomed and lives, should be able to find delight, as I have done, in the world which I know to be the murderer of Him whom I own for my Father and my GOD, who was delivered for my releasement and safety, and who in his own person sustained the punishment due to my sins! It was most just, O LoRD, that You should interrupt so criminal a joy as this, with which I solaced myself under the very shadow of death.

 

XIII. Take from me, O Lord, that sorrow which the love of myself may raise in me from my sufferings, and from my unsuccessful hopes and designs in the world, while regardless of thy glory. Create in me a sorrow resembling thy own. Let my pains prove the happy occasion of my conversion and my salvation. Let me not hereafter wish for health or life, but with the prospect of spending both in Thee, with Thee, and for Thee. I pray not that You wouldst give me either health, or sickness, life, or death; but that You wouldst dispose of my health, my sickness, my life, and my death, for thy glory, for my eternal welfare, for the use of the Church, and the benefit of thy faithful servants, into the number of whom I hope to be admitted by thy grace. You alone knows what is expedient for me; You art my Sovereign Master and Lord; guide and govern me at thy Pleasure. Give to me, or take from me, as shall seem best to thy Providence; but in all things conform my will to thine; and grant that with an humble and perfect submission, and a holy confidence, I may dispose myself to receive the orders of thy eternal wisdom, and may equally reverence and adore the most different events which You shall please to accomplish in me.

 

 XIV. Let me with a constant evenness of spirit em-brace all thy disposals; forasmuch as we know not what we ought to ask, and cannot wish one event rather than another without presumption, and without making our-selves the judges of that train of future things which thy wisdom has so justly concealed from our view. I know, O LORD, that my whole knowledge may be reduced to this one point, That it is good to obey Thee, and evil to offend Thee. After this, I know not what is the best, or the worst, amongst all things. I know not which is more profitable for me, health or sickness, riches or poverty, any condition, any circumstances of this world. For such a judgment surpassed' the sagacity of men, and lies hidden among the secrets of thy Providence, which I reverence and adore, but will never attempt to penetrate.

 

 XV. Grant, O LORD, that in every condition, I may conform myself to thy Will, and in my present sickness glorify Thee by my pains. without these it is impossible I should attain to thy Glory, since You thyself avast not " made perfect," but a through sufferings." It was by the marks of thy sufferings that You vast known to thy disciples; and it is by their sufferings that You knows who are thy disciples. Receive me into that blessed company, by means of these evils which I endure in body and mind for my past transgressions. And because no sacrifice is acceptable to the FATHER, unless presented by Thee, unite my will to thine, and my torments to those which You didst not disdain to undergo. Let my suffer-ings be interpreted as thine own. Unite me to Thyself, replenish me with Thyself, and with thy Horst SPIRIT. Enter into my heart and soul, there to sustain my afflictions, and continue to endure in me what is behind of thy passion, which You still sufferest in thy members; so that being inspired and acted by Thee, it may be no longer I who live or suffer, but You, O my SAVIOR, who live and sufferest in me; and that having thus borne some share in thy sufferings, You may admit me to a participation of those glories which You have acquired by them, and in which, with the FATHER and the HOLY GHOST, You live and reignest for ever. Amen.