EXTRACTS

 

FROM THE

 

SERMONS

 

OF

 

DR. SOUTH.

 

VOL. 26

 

SERMON 1

 

ON WISDOM. PREACHED AT COURT, &c. PROV. 3: 17. Her ways are ways of pleasantness.

 

 THE text relating to something going before, must carry our eye back to the thirteenth verse, where we shall find, that the thing, of which these words are affirmed, is Wisdom: A name by which the SPIRIT of GOD was here pleased to express to us religion, and thereby to tell the world, what before it was not aware of, and perhaps will not yet believe, that those two great things that so engross the desires and designs of both the nobler and ignobler sort of mankind, are to be found in religion; namely, wisdom and pleasure; and that the former is the direct way to the latter, as religion is to both.

 

 That pleasure is man's chiefest good, (because, indeed, it is the perception of good that is properly pleasure.) is an assertion most certainly true, though under the common acceptance of it, not only false, but odious: For, according to this, pleasure and sensuality pass for terms equivalent; and, therefore, he that takes it in this sense, alters the subject of the discourse. Sensuality is, indeed, a part, or rather one kind of pleasure, such an one as it is: For pleasure in general is the consequent apprehension of a suitable object, suitably applied to a rightly disposed faculty; and so must be conversant both about the faculties of the body, and of the soul respectively, as being the result of the fruitions belonging to both.

 

 Now, amongst those many arguments, used to press upon men the exercise of religion, I know none that are like to be so successful as those that answer and remove the prejudices that generally possess and bar up the hearts of men against it: Amongst which, there is none so prevalent in truth, though so little owned in pretence, as that it is an enemy to men's pleasures, that it bereaves them of all the sweets of converse, dooms them to an absurd and perpetual melancholy, designing to make the world nothing else but a great monastery. With which notion of religion, nature and reason seem to have great cause to be dissatisfied. For since GOD never created any faculty, either in soul or body, but withal prepared for it a suitable object, and that in order to its gratification; can we think that religion was designed only for a contradiction to nature And with the greatest and most irrational tyranny in the world to tantalize and tie men up from enjoyment, in the midst of all the opportunities of enjoyment To place men with the furious affections of hunger and thirst, in the very bosom of plenty, and then to tell them, that the envy of Providence has sealed up every thing that is suitable under the character of " unlawful" For, certainly, first to frame appetites fit to receive pleasure, and then to interdict them with a " touch not, taste not," can be nothing else than only to give them occasion to devour and prey upon themselves, and so to keep men under the perpetual torment of an unsatisfied desire; a thing hugely contrary to the natural felicity of the creature, and consequently to the wisdom and goodness of the great Creator.

 

 He, therefore, that would persuade men to religion, both with art and efficacy, must found the persuasion of it upon this, that it interferes not with any rational pleasure, that it bids nobody quit the enjoyment of any one thing that his reason can prove to him ought to be enjoyed. It is confessed, when through the cross circumstances of a man's temper or condition, the enjoyment of a pleasure would certainly expose him to a greater inconvenience, then religion bids him quit it; that is, it bids him prefer the endurance of a lesser evil before a greater; and nature itself does no less. Religion, therefore, intrenches upon none of our privileges, invades none of our pleasures; it may, indeed, sometimes command us to change, but never totally to abjure them.

 

 But it is easily foreseen, that this discourse will, in the beginning of it, be encountered by an argument from experience, and therefore not more obvious than strong; namely, that it cannot but be the greatest trouble in the world for a man thus (as it were) even to shake off himself, and to. defy his nature, by a perpetual thwarting of his innate appetites and desires; which yet is absolutely necessary to a severe and impartial prosecution of a course of piety: Nay, and we have this asserted also, by the verdict of CHRIST himself, who still makes the disciplines of selfdenial and the cross, those terrible blows to flesh and blood, the indispensable requisites to the being of his disciples. All which being so, would not he that should be so hardy as to attempt to persuade men to piety from the pleasures of it, be liable to that invective taunt from all mankind, that the Israelites gave to MOSES: " Wilt you put out the eyes of this people" Wilt you persuade us out of our first notions Wilt you demonstrate, that there is any delight in a cross, any comfort in violent abridgments, and, which is the greatest paradox of all, that the highest pleasure is to abstain from it

 

 For answer to which, it must be confessed, that all arguments whatsoever against experience are fallacious; and therefore, in order to the clearing of the assertion laid down, I shall premise these two considerations:

 

 1. That pleasure is, in the nature of it, a relative thing, and so imports a peculiar relation and correspondence to the state and condition of the person to whom it is a pleasure. For as those who discourse of atoms, affirm, that there are atoms of all forms, some round, some triangular, some square, and the like; all which are continually in motion, and never settle till they fall into a fit circumscription, or place of the same figure: So there are the like great diversities of minds and objects. Whence it is, that this object, striking upon a mind thus or thus disposed, flies off, and rebounds without making any impression; but the same luckily happening upon another of a disposition as it were framed for it, is presently catched at, and greedily clasped into the nearest unions and embraces.

 

 2. The other thing to be considered is this: That the estate of all men by nature is more or less different from that estate, into which the same persons do, or may pass, by the exercise of that which the philosophers called virtue, and into which men are much more effectually and sublimely translated by that which we call grace; that is, by the supernatural overpowering operation of GOD'S SPIRIT. The difference of which two estates consists in this; that in the former the sensitive appetites rule and domineer; in the latter the supreme faculty of the soul, called reason, sways the sceptre, and acts the whole man above the irregular demands of appetite and affection.

 

 That the distinction between these two is not a mere figment, framed only to serve an hypothesis in divinity; and that there is no man but is really under one, before he is under the other, I shall prove, by showing a reason why it is so, or rather indeed why it cannot but be so. And it is this: Because every man, in the beginning of his life, for several years, is capable only of exercising his sensitive faculties and desires, the use of reason not showing itself till about the seventh year of his age; and then, at length, but (as it were) dawning in very imperfect essays and discoveries. Now it being undeniably evident, that every faculty and power grows stronger and stronger by exercise; is it any wonder at all, when a man, for the space of his first six years, and those the years of ductility and impression, has been wholly ruled by the propensions of sense, at that age very eager and impetuous; that then, after all, his reason, beginning to put forth itself, finds the man prepossessed, and under another power So that it has much ado, by many little steps and gradual conquests, to recover its prerogative from the usurpations of

 

appetite, and so to subject the whole man to its dictates: The difficulty of which is not conquered by some men all their days. Arid this is one true ground of the difference of a state of nature, and a state of grace, which some are pleased to scoff at in divinity, who think that they confute all they laugh at, not knowing that it may be solidly evinced by mere reason and philosophy.

 

 These two considerations being premised, namely, that pleasure implies a proportion and agreement to the respective states and conditions of men; and that the state of men by nature is vastly different from the estate into which grace or virtue transplants them; all that objection levelled against the foregoing assertion is very easily resolvable.

 

 For there is no doubt, but a man, while he resigns himself up to the brutish guidance of sense and appetite, has no relish at all for the spiritual refined delights of a soul clarified by grace and virtue. The pleasures of an angel can never be the pleasures of a bog. But this is the thing that we contend for; that a man, having once advanced himself to a state of superiority over the control of his inferior appetites, finds an infinitely more solid and sublime pleasure in the delights proper to his reason, than the same person had ever conveyed to him by the bare ministry of his senses. His taste is absolutely changed, and therefore that which pleased him formerly, becomes flat and insipid to his appetite, now grown, more masculine and severe. For as age and maturity pass a real and a marvelous change upon the diet and the recreations of the same person, so that no man, at the years and vigor of thirty, is either fond of sugar plumbs or rattles; in. like manner, when reason, by the assistance of grace, has prevailed over and outgrown the encroachments of sense, the delights of sensuality are to such an one but as an hobbyhorse would be to a counsellor of state; or as tasteless, as a bundle of hay to an hungry lion. Every alteration of a man's condition infallibly infers an alteration of his pleasures.

 

 The Athenians laughed the physiognomist to scorn, who, pretending to read men's minds in their foreheads, described SOCRATES for a crabbed, lustful, proud, ill-natured person; they knowing how directly contrary. he was to that dirty character. But SOCRATES bid them forbear laughing at the man, for that he had given them a most exact account of his nature; but what they saw in him so contrary at the present, was from the conquest that he had got over his natural disposition by philosophy. And now let any one consider, whether that anger, that revenge, that wantonness and ambition, that were the proper pleasures Of SOCRATES, under his natural temper of crabbed, lustful, and proud, could have at all affected or enamored the mind of the same SOCRATES, made gentle, chaste, and humble, by philosophy

 

 ARISTOTLE says, " that were it possible to put a young man's eye into an old man's head, he would see as plainly and clearly as the other;" so, could we infuse the inclinations and principles of a virtuous person into him that prosecutes his debauches with the greatest keenness of desire, and sense of delight, he would loathe and reject them, Las heartily as he now pursues them. DIOCENES being asked at a feast, Why he did not continue eating as the rest did, answered him that asked him with another question,’ Pray, why do you eat'‘ Why,' says he,’ for my pleasure.'‘ Why, so,' says DIOGENES,’ do I abstain for my pleasure.' And therefore the vain, the vicious, and luxurious person argues at an high rate of inconsequence, when he makes his particular desires the general measure of other men's delights. But the case is so plain, that I shall not upbraid any man's understanding, by endeavoring to give it any farther illustration. But still, after all, I must not deny that the change and passage from a state of nature to a state of virtue is laborious, and consequently irksome and unpleasant: And to this it is, that all the forementioned expressions of our SAVIOR do allude. But surely the baseness of one condition, and the generous excellency of the other, is a sufficient argument to induce any one to a change. For as no man would think it a desirable thing, to preserve the itch upon himself, only for the pleasure of scratching, that attends that loathsome distemper: So neither can any man, that would be faithful to his reason, yield his ear to be bored through by his domineering appetites, and so choose to serve them for ever, only for those poor, thin gratifications of sensuality that they are able to reward him with. The ascent up the hill is hard and tedious, but the serenity and fair prospect at the top is sufficient to incite the labor of undertaking it, and to reward it being undertook. But the difference of these two conditions of men, as the foundation of their different pleasures, being thus made out, to press men with arguments to pass from one to the other, is not directly in the way or design of this discourse.

 

 Yet before I come to declare positively the pleasures that are to be found in the ways of religion, one of the grand duties of which is stated upon repentance; a thing expressed to us by the grim names of mortification, crucifixion, and the like And that I may not proceed only upon absolute negations, without some concessions; we will see, whether this so harsh, dismal, and affrighting duty of repentance is so entirely gall, as to admit of no mixture, no allay of sweetness, to reconcile it to the apprehensions of reason and nature.

 

Now repentance consists properly of two things: l. Sorrow for sin. 2. Change of life. A world briefly of them both.

 

 1. And First., Of sorrow for sin. Usually the sting of sorrow is this, that it neither removes nor alters the thing we sorrow for; and so is but a kind of reproach to our reason, which will be sure to accost us with this dilemma. Either the thing we sorrow for, is to be remedied, or it is not: If it is, why then do we spend the time in mourning, which should be spent in an active applying of remedies But if it is not, then is our sorrow vain and superfluous, as tending to no real effect. For no man can weep his father or his friend out of the grave, or mourn himself out of a bankrupt condition. But this spiritual sorrow is effectual to one of the greatest and highest purposes, that mankind can be concerned in. It is a means to avert an impendent wrath, to disarm an offended omnipotence, and even to fetch a soul out of the very jaws of hell. So that the end and consequence of this sorrow, sweetens the sorrow itself: And, as SOLOMON says, " in the midst of laughter, the heart is sorrowful;" so in the midst of sorrow here, the heart may rejoice: For while it mourns, it reads, that " those that mourn shall be comforted;" and so while the penitent weeps with one eye, he views his deliverance with the other. But then for the external expressions, and vent of sorrow, we know that there is a certain pleasure in weeping; it is the discharge of a big and swelling grief, of a full and strangling discontent; and therefore, he that never had such a burden upon his heart, as to give him opportunity thus to ease it, has one pleasure in this world yet to come.

 

 2. As for the other part of repentance, which is change of life; this indeed may be troublesome in the entrance, yet it is but the first bold onset, the first resolute violence and invasion upon a vicious habit, that is so sharp and afflicting. Every impression of the lancet cuts, but it is the first only that smarts. Besides, it is an argument hugely unreasonable, to plead the pain of passing from a vicious estate, unless it were proved, that there was none in the continuance under it: But surely when we read of the " service," the " bondage," and the " captivity" of " sinners," we are not entertained only with the air of words and metaphors; and instead of truth, put off with similitudes. Let him that says it is a trouble to refrain from a debauch, convince us, that it is not a greater to undergo one; and that the confessor did not impose a shrewd penance upon the drunken man, by bidding him go and be drunk again; and that lisping, raging, redness of eyes, and what is not fit to be named in such an audience, is not more toilsome, than to be clean, and quiet, and discreet, and respected for being so. All the trouble that is in it, is the trouble of being sound, being cured, and being recovered. But if there be great arguments for health, then certainly

 

there are the same for the obtaining of it; and so keeping a due proportion between spirituals and temporals, we neither have nor pretend to greater arguments for repentance.

 

 Having thus now cleared off all that by way of objection can he against the truth asserted, by showing the proper qualification of the subject, to whom only " the ways of wisdom" can be " ways of pleasantness;" for the farther prosecution of the matter in hand, I shall show what are those properties that so peculiarly set off and enhance the excellency of this pleasure.

 

 1. The first is, that it is the proper pleasure of that part of man, which is the largest and most comprehensive of pleasure, and that is his mind: A substance of a boundless comprehension. The mind of man is an image, not only of GOD’sspirituality, but of his infinity. It is not like any of the senses, limited to this or that kind of object As the sight intermeddles not with that which affects the smell; but with an universal superintendance, it arbitrates upon, and takes in them all. It is (as I may so say) an ocean, into which all the little rivulets of sensation, both external and internal, discharge themselves. It is framed by GOD to receive all, and more than nature can afford it; and so to be its own motive to seek for something above nature. Now this is that part of man, to which the pleasures of religion properly belong; and that in a double respect.

 

 (1.) In reference to speculation, as it sustains the name of understanding.

 

 (a.) In reference to the practice, as it sustains the name of conscience.

 

 (1.) And first for speculation: The pleasures of which have been sometimes so great, so intense, so engrossing of all the powers of the soul, that there has been no room left for any other pleasure. It has so called together all the spirits to that one work, that there has been no supply to carry on the inferior operations of nature. Contemplation feels no hunger, nor is sensible of any thirst, but of that after knowledge. How frequent and exalted a pleasure did DAVID find from his meditation in the Divine law “the day long" it was the theme of his thoughts. The affairs of the state, the government of his kingdom, might indeed employ, but it was this only that refreshed his mind.

 

 How short of this are the delights of the epicure! How vastly disproportionate are the pleasures of the eating, and of the thinking man! Indeed as different as the silence of an ARCHIMEDES in the study of a problem, and the stillness of a sow at her wash. Nothing is comparable to the pleasure of an active and prevailing thought: A thought prevailing over the difficulty and obscurity of the object, and refreshing the soul with new discoveries and images of things; and thereby extending the bounds of apprehension, and (as it were) enlarging the territories of reason. Now the pleasure of the speculation of divine things, is advanced upon a double account;

 

 [1.] The greatness.

 

 [2] The newness of the object.

 

 [1.] And first for the greatness of it. It is no less than the great GOD himself, and that both in his nature and his works. For the eye of reason, like that of an eagle, directs itself chiefly to the sun, to a glory that neither admits of a superior, nor any equal. Religion carries the soul to the study of every divine attribute.

 

It poses it with the amazing thoughts of Omnipotence; of a power able to fetch up such a glorious fabric, as this of the world, out of the abyss of vanity and nothing, and able to throw it back into the same original nothing. It drowns us in the speculation of the Divine Omniscience; that can maintain a steady infallible comprehension of all events in themselves contingent and accidental; and certainly know that which does not certainly exist. It confounds the greatest subtleties of speculation with the riddles of GOD'S Omnipresence'; that can spread a single individual substance through all spaces; and yet without any commensuration of parts to any, or circumscription within any, though totally in every one. And then for his eternity; which non plusses the strongest and clearest conception, to comprehend how one single act of duration should measure all periods and portions of time, without any of the distinguishing parts of succession. Likewise for his justice; which shall prey upon the sinner for ever, satisfying itself by a perpetual miracle, rendering the creature immortal in the midst of flames; always consuming but never consumed. With the like wonders we may entertain our speculations from his mercy; his beloved, his triumphant attribute, if it were possible, something more than infinite; for even his justice is so, and his mercy transcends that. Lastly, We may contemplate his supernatural, astonishing works; particularly in the resurrection, and reparation of the same numerical body, by a reunion of all the scattered parts, to be at length disposed of into an estate of eternal woe or bliss; as also the greatness and strangeness of the beatific vision; how a created eye should be so fortified, as to bear all those glories that stream from the fountain of untreated light, the meanest expression of which light is, that it is unexpressible. Now what great and high objects are these, for a rational contemplation to busy itself upon! Heights that scorn the reach of our prospect; and depths in which the tallest reason will never touch the bottom: Yet surely the pleasure arising from thence is great and noble; forasmuch as they afford perpetual matter and employment to the inquisitiveness of human reason; and so are large enough for it to take its full scope and range in: Which when it has sucked and drained the utmost of an object, naturally lays it aside, and neglects it as a dry and empty thing.

 

 [2.] As the things belonging to religion entertain our speculation with great objects, so they entertain it also with new: And novelty we know is the great parent of pleasure; upon which account it is that men are so much pleased with variety, and variety is nothing else but a continued novelty. The Athenians, who were the professed and most diligent improvers of their reason, made it their whole business " to hear or tell some new thing:" For the truth is, newness, especially in great matters, was a worthy entertainment for a searching mind; it was (as I may so say) an high taste, fit for the relish of an Athenian reason. And thereupon, the mere unheardof strangeness of JESUS and the resurrection, made them desirous to hear it discoursed of to them again. (Acts 17: 23.) But how would it have employed their searching faculties, had the mystery of the Trinity, and the incarnation of the SON of GOD, and the whole economy of man's redemption, been explained to them! For how could it ever enter into the thoughts of reason, that a satisfaction could be paid to an infinite justice Or, that two natures so inconceivably different, as the human and divine, could unite into one person The knowledge of these things could derive from nothing else but pure revelation, and consequently must be purely new to the highest discourses of mere nature. Now that the newness of an object so exceedingly pleases and strikes the mind, appears from this one consideration; that every thing pleases more in expectation than fruition; and expectation supposes a thing as yet new, the hoped for discovery of which is the pleasure that entertains the expecting and inquiring mind: Whereas actual discovery (as it were) rifles and deflowers the newness and freshness of the object, and so for the most part makes it cheap, familiar, and contemptible.

 

 It is clear, therefore, that, if there be any pleasure to the mind from speculation, and if this pleasure of speculation be advanced by the greatness and newness of the things contemplated, all this is to be found in the ways of religion.

 

 (2.) In the next place, religion is a pleasure to the mind, as it respects practice, and so sustains the name of conscience. And conscience undoubtedly is the great repository and magazine of all those pleasures that can afford any solid refreshment to the soul. For when this is calm and serene, then properly a man enjoys all things, and what is more, himself; for that he must do, before he can enjoy any thing else. But it is only a pious life, led exactly by the rules of religion, that can authorize a man's conscience to speak comfortably to him: It is this that must word the sentence, before the conscience can pronounce it, and then it will do it with majesty and authority: It will not whisper, but proclaim a jubilee to the mind; it will not drop, but pour in oil upon the wounded heart. And is there any pleasure comparable to that which springs from hence The pleasure of conscience is not only greater than all other pleasures, but may also serve instead of them: For they only please and affect the mind in transit, in the pitiful narrow compass of actual fruition; whereas that of conscience entertains and feeds it a long time after with durable lasting reflections. And thus much for the first ennobling property of the pleasure belonging to religion; namely, that it is the pleasure of the mind, and that both as it relates to speculation, and is called the understanding, and as it relates to practice, and is called the conscience.

 

 2. The second ennobling property of it is, that it is such' a pleasure as never satiates or wearies; for it properly affects the spirit, and a spirit feels no weariness, as being privileged from the causes of it. But can the Epicure say so of any of the pleasures that he so much doats upon Do they not expire, while they satisfy And after a few minutes' refreshment, determine in loathing and unquietness How short is the interval between a pleasure and a burden! How undiscernible the transition from one to the other! Pleasure dwells no longer upon the appetite, than the necessities of nature, which are quickly and easily provided for; and then all that follows is a load and oppression. Every morsel to a satisfied hunger is only a new labor to a tired digestion. Every draught to him that has quenched his thirst, is but a farther quenching of nature, a provision for rheum and diseases, a drowning of the quickness and activity of the spirits.

 

 He that prolongs his meals, and sacrifices his time, a well as his other conveniences, to his luxury, how quickly does he outsit his pleasure! And then, how is all the following time bestowed upon ceremony and surfeit! Till at length, after a long fatigue of eating, and drinking, and babbling, he concludes the great work of dining genteelly, and so makes a shift to rise from table, that he may he down upon his bed; where, after he has slept himself into some use of himself, by much ado he staggers to his table again, and there acts over the same brutish scene: So that he passes his whole life in a dozed condition, between sleeping and waking, with a kind of drowsiness and confusion upon his senses; which, what pleasure it can be, is hard to conceive; all that is of it dwells upon the tip of his tongue, and within the compass of his palate: A worthy prize for a man to purchase with the loss of his time, his reason, and himself. Nor is that man less deceived, that thinks to maintain a constant tenor of pleasure, by a continual pursuit of sports and recreations.

 

 The most voluptuous and loose person breathing, were he but tied to follow his hawks, and. his hounds, his dice, and his courtships every day, would find it the greatest torment and calamity that could befall him; he would fly to the mines and the galleys for his recreation, and to the spade and the mattock for a diversion from the misery of a continual unintermitted pleasure.

 

 But, on the contrary, the providence of God has so ordered the course of things, that there is no action, the usefulness of which has made it the matter of duty, and of a profession, but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it, without loathing and satiety. The same shop and trade that employ a man in his youth, employ him also in his age. Every morning he rises fresh to his hammer and his anvil; he passes the day singing; custom has naturalized his labor to him •, his shop is his element, and he cannot, with any enjoyment of himself, live out of it Whereas no custom can make the painfulness of a debauch easy, or pleasing to a man; since nothing can be pleasant that is unnatural. But now, if GOD has interwoven such a pleasure with the works of our ordinary calling, how much superior and more refined must that be, that arises from the survey of a pious and well governed life! Surely, as much as Christianity is nobler than a trade.

 

 And then, for the constant freshness of it; it is such a pleasure as can never cloy or overwork the mind: For, surely no man was ever weary of thinking, much less that he had done well or virtuously, that he had conquered such and such a temptation, or offered violence to any of his exorbitant desires. This is a delight that grows and improves under thought and reflection: And while it exercises, does also endear itself to the mind; at the same time, employing and inflaming the meditations. All pleasures that affect the body must needs weary, because they transport; and all transportation is a violence, and no violence can be lasting, but determines upon the falling of the spirits, which are not able to keep up that height of motion that the pleasure of the senses raises them to: And therefore how inevitably does an immoderate laughter end in a sigh! which is only nature's recovering itself after a force done to it. But the religious pleasure of a well disposed mind moves gently, and therefore constantly: It does not affect by rapture and ecstacy; but is like the pleasure of health, which is still and sober, yet greater and stronger than those that call uy the senses and grosser and more affecting impressions. God has given no man a body as strong as his appetites; but has corrected the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires, by stinting his strength, and contracting his capacities.

 

 But to look upon those pleasures also, that have an higher object than the body; as those that spring from honor and grandeur of condition; yet we shall find, that even these are not so fresh and constant, but the mind can nauseate them, and quickly feel the thinness of a popular breath. Those that are so fond of applause while they pursue it, how little do they taste it when they have it! Like lightning, it only flashes upon the face, and is gone, and it is well if it does not hurt the man. But for greatness of place, though it is fit and necessary, that sonic persons in the world should be in love with a splendid servitude; yet, certainly, they must be much beholden to their own fancy, that they can be pleased at it: For he that rises up early, and goes to bed late, only to receive addresses, to read and answer petitions, is really as much tied and abridged in his freedom, as he that waits all that time to present one. And what pleasure can it be to be incumbered with dependencies, thronged and surrounded with petitioners And those, perhaps, sometimes all suitors for the same thing; whereupon all but one will be sure to depart grumbling, because they miss of what they think their due; and even that one scarce thankful, because he thinks he has no more than his due. In a word, if it is a pleasure to be envied and shot at, to be maligned standing, and to be despised, falling, to endeavor that which is impossible, which is to please all, and to suffer for not doing it; then is it a pleasure to be great, and to be able to dispose of men's fortunes and preferments.

 

 But farther, to proceed from hence to yet an higher degree of pleasure, indeed, the highest on this side that of religion, which is the pleasure of friendship and conversation. Friendship must confessedly be allowed the top, the flower, and crown of all temporal enjoyments. Yet has not this also its flaws and its dark side For is not my friend a man; and is not friendship subject to the same mortality and change that men are And in case a man loves, and is not loved again, does he not think that he has cause to hate as heartily, and ten times more eagerly, than ever he loved And then to be an enemy, and once to have been a friend, does it not embitter the rupture, and aggravate the calamity But admitting that my friend continues so to the end; yet, in the mean time, is he all perfection, all virtue, all discretion Has he no humors to be endured, as well as kindnesses to be enjoyed And am I sure to smell the rose, without sometimes feeling the thorn

 

And then, Lastly, For company; though it may reprieve a man from his melancholy, yet it cannot secure him from his conscience, nor from sometimes being alone. And what is all that a man enjoys from a week's, a month's, or a year's converse, comparable to what he feels for one hour, when his conscience shall take him aside, and rate him by himself

 

 In short, run over the whole circle of all earthly pleasures, and I dare affirm, that had not GOD secured a man a solid pleasure from his own actions, after he had rolled from one to another, and enjoyed them all, he would be forced to complain, that either they were not indeed pleasures, or that pleasure was not satisfaction..

 

 3. The third ennobling property of the pleasure that accrues to a man from religion, is, that it is such an one as is in nobody's power, but only in his that has it; so that be who has the property, may be also sure of the perpetuity. And tell me so of any outward enjoyment,. that mortality is, capable of. We are generally at the mercy of men's rapine,. avarice, and violence, whether we shall be happy or no.. For if I build my felicity upon my estate or reputation, I am happy as long as the tyrant or the railer will give me leave to be so. But when my concernment takes up no more room or compass than myself, then so long as I know where to breathe, and to exist, I know also where to be happy:. For I know I may be so in my own breast, in the court of my own conscience; where, if I can but prevail. with myself to be innocent, I need bribe neither judge nor officer to be pronounced so. The pleasure of the religious man, is an easy and portable pleasure, such an one as he carries about in his bosom, without alarming either the eye or envy of the world. A man putting all his pleasures into this one, is like a traveler's putting all his goods into one jewel; the value is the same, and the convenience greater.

 

 There is nothing that can raise a man to that generous absoluteness of condition, as neither to cringe, to fawn, nor to depend meanly; but that which gives him that happiness within himself, for which men depend upon others. For surely I need salute no great man's threshold, sneak, to none of his friends or servants to speak a good word for me to my conscience. It is a noble and a sure defiance of a great malice, backed with a great interest; which yet can have no advantage of a man, but from his own expectations of something that is without himself. But if I can make my duty my delight; if I can feast, and please, and caress my mind with the pleasures of worthy speculations, or virtuous practices; let greatness and malice vex and abridge me if they can: My pleasures are as free as my will; no more to be controlled than my choice, or the unlimited range of my thoughts and my desires.

 

 Nor is this kind of pleasure only out of the reach of any outward violence, but even those things also that make a much closer impression upon us, which are the irresistible decays of nature, have yet no influence at all upon this. For when age itself, which of all things in the world will not be baffled or defied, shall begin to arrest, seize, and remind us of our mortality, by pains, aches, deadness of limbs and dullness of senses; yet then the pleasure of the mind shall be in its full youth, vigor, and freshness. A palsy may as well shake an oak, or a fever dry up a fountain, as either of them shake, dry up, or impair the delight of conscience. For it lies within, it centres in the heart, it grows into the very substance of the soul, so that it accompanies a man to his grave; he never outlives it, and that for this cause only, because he cannot outlive himself.

 

 And thus I have endeavored to describe the excellency of that pleasure that is to be found in the ways of a religious wisdom, by those excellent properties that attend it; which whether they reach the description that has been given then, or no, every man may convince himself, by the best of demonstrations, which is his own trial.

 

 Now, from all this discourse, this I am sure is a most natural and direct consequence, that if the ways of religion are " ways of pleasantness," then such as are not " ways of pleasantness," are not truly and properly ways of religion. Upon which ground it is easy to see what judgment is to be passed upon all those affected, uncommanded, absurd austerities, so much prized and exercised by some of the Romish profession. Pilgrimages, going barefoot, hair shirts, and whips, with other such gospel artillery, arc their only helps to devotion: Things never enjoined, either by the Prophets under the Jewish, or by the Apostles under the Christian economy; who yet surely understood the proper and the most efficacious instruments of piety, as well as any Confessor or Friar of all the order of ST. FRANCIS, or any casuist whatsoever.

 

 It seems, that, with them, a man sometimes cannot be a penitent, unless he also turns vagabond, and foots it to Jerusalem, or wanders over this or that part of the world to visit the shrine of such or such a pretended saint, though perhaps in his life ten times more ridiculous than themselves Thus that which was CAIN'S curse is become their religion. He that thinks to expiate a sin by going barefoot, only makes one folly the atonement for another. PAUL indeed. was scourged and beaten by the Jews, but we never read that he beat or scourged himself: And if they think that his a keeping under his body" imports so much, they must first prove that the body cannot be kept under by a virtuous mind, and that the mind cannot be made virtuous but by a scourge; and consequently, that thongs and whipcord are means of grace and things necessary to salvation. The truth is, if men's religion lies no deeper than their skin, it is possible that they may scourge themselves into very great improvements.

 

 But they will find that a bodily exercise" touches not the soul; and that neither pride, nor lust, nor covetousness, nor any other vice was ever mortified by corporal disciplines. It is not the back, but the heart, that must bleed for sin And consequently, that in this whole course they are like men out of their way; let them lash on ever so fast, they are not at all the nearer to their journey's end: And how soever they deceive themselves and others, they may as well expect to bring a cart, as a soul to heaven by such means. What arguments they have to beguile poor, simple, unstable souls with, I know not; but surely the practical, casuistical, that is, the principal part of their religion savors very little of spirituality.

 

 And now upon the result of all, I suppose, that to exhort men to be religious, is only in other words to exhort them to take their pleasure. A pleasure high, rational, and angelic; a pleasure embased with no appendent sting, no consequent loathing, no remorses or bitter farewells But such an one, as being honey in the mouth, never turns to gall or gravel in the belly. A pleasure made for the soul, and the soul for that; suitable to its spirituality, and equal to their capacities_ Such an one as grows fresher upon enjoyment, and though continually fed upon, yet is never devoured. A pleasure that a man may call as properly his own, as his soul and his conscience; neither liable to accident, nor exposed to injury. It is the foretaste of heaven, and the earnest of eternity. In a word, it is such an one, as being begun in grace, passes into glory, blessedness, and immortality, and those pleasures 11 that neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive."

 

SERMON 2.

 

OF THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

 

GEN. 1: 27

 

So God created man in his own image, in the image of GOD created he him.

 

 How hard it is for natural reason to discover a creation before revealed, or being revealed to believe it, the strange opinions of the old philosophers, and the infidelity of modern atheists, are too sad a demonstration. To run the world back to its first original and infancy, and (as it were) to view nature in its cradle, and trace the outgoings of the Ancient of days in the first instance of his creative power, is a research too great for any mortal inquiry: And we might continue our scrutiny to the end of the world, before natural reason would be able to find out when it began.

 

 Epicurus his discourse concerning the original of the world is so ridiculous, that we may well judge the design of his philosophy to have been pleasure, and not instruction. ARISTOTLE held that it streamed by natural result from GOD, the infinite and eternal mind, as the light issues from the sun; so that there was no instance of duration assignable of GOD's eternal existence, in which the world did not also coexist.

 

 Others held a fortuitous concourse of atoms; but all seem jointly to explode a creation; still beating upon this ground, that the producing something out of nothing is impossible and incomprehensible: Incomprehensible indeed I grant, but not therefore impossible. There is not the least transaction of sense and motion in the whole man, but philosophers are at a loss to comprehend, I am sure they are to explain it. Wherefore it is not always rational to measure the truth of an assertion by the standard of our apprehension.

 

 But to bring things even to the bare perceptions of reason, I appeal to any one, who shall impartially reflect upon the conceptions of his own mind, whether he does not find it as easy and suitable to his natural notions, to conceive that all infinite Almighty power might produce a thing out of nothing, and make that to exist before; as to conceive the world to have had no beginning, but to have existed from eternity: Which, were it so proper for this place, I could easily demonstrate to be attended with no small train of absurdities.

 

 In this chapter, we have GOD surveying the works of the creation, and leaving this general impress upon them, that they were exceeding good. What an Omnipotence wrought, we have an Omniscience to approve. But as it is reasonable to imagine that there is more of design, and consequently more perfection, in the last work, we have GOD here giving his last stroke, and summing up all into man, the universe into an individual: So that whereas in other creatures we have but the trace of his footsteps, in man we have the draught of his hand. In him were united all the scattered perfections of the creature, all the graces and ornaments; all the airs and features of being were abridged into this small, yet full system of nature and divinity: As we might well imagine that the great Artificer would be more than ordinarily exact in drawing his own picture.

 

 The work that I shall undertake from these words, shall be to show what this image of God in man is, and wherein it does consist. Which I shall do these two ways:1. Negatively, by showing wherein it does not consist. 2. Positively, by showing wherein it ides.

 

 I. For the. first of these, we are to remove the erroneous opinion of the Socinians. They deny that the image of God consisted in any habitual perfections that adorned the soul of ADAM:. But as to his understanding, bring him in void of all notion, a rude unwritten blank; making him to be created as much an infant as others are born; sent into the world only to read and spell out a Gnu in the works of creation, to 1arn by degrees, till at length his understanding grew up to the stature of his body. Also without any habits of virtue in his will; thus divesting him of all, and stripping him to his bare essence: So that all the perfection they allowed his understanding was aptness and docility; and all that they attributed to his will was a possibility to be virtuous.

 

 But wherein then according to their opinion did this image of God consist ’Why, in that power and dominion that God gave ADAM over the creatures: In that he was vouched his immediate deputy upon earth, the Viceroy of the creation, and Lord lieutenant of the world. But that this power and dominion is not adequately the image of GOD, but only apart of it, is clear from hence; because then he that had most of this, would have most of GOD's image And consequently NIMROD had more of it than NOAH, SAUL than SAMUEL, the persecutors than the martyrs, and C:ESA1t than CHRIST himself, which to assert is a blasphemous paradox. And if the image of GOD, is only grandeur, power, and sovereignty, certainly we have been hitherto much mistaken in our duty: And hereafter are by all means to beware of making ourselves unlike GOD, by too much self denial and humility. 

 

 2. We are in the next place to lay down positively what this image of GOD in man is. It is, in short, that universal rectitude of all the faculties of the soul, by which they stand apt and disposed to their respective offices and operations: Which will be more fully set forth, by taking a distinct survey of it, in the several faculties belonging to the soul.

 

 I. In the Understanding. 2: In the Will. 3: In the Passions or Affections.

 

 I. And first for its noblest faculty, the Understanding: It was then sublime, clear, and aspiring, and, as it were, the soul's upper region, lofty and serene, free from the vapors and disturbances of the inferior affections. It was the leading, controlling faculty; all the passions wore the colors of reason. Discourse was then almost as quick as intuition; it was nimble in proposing, firm in concluding; it could sooner determine than now it can dispute. Like the sun it had both light and agility; it knew no rest, but in motion; no quiet, but in activity. It did not so properly apprehend, as irradiate the object; not so much find, as make things intelligible. It did arbitrate upon the several reports of sense, and all the varieties of imagination; not like a drowsy judge, only hearing, but also directing their verdict. In sum, it was vegete, quick, and lively; open as the day, untainted as the morning, full of the innocency and sprightliness of youth; it gave the soul a bright and a full view into all things; and was not only a window, but itself the prospect.

 

 Now as there are two great functions of the soul, contemplation and practice, according to that general division of objects, some of which only entertain our speculation, others also employ our actions; so the understanding with relation to these, not because of any distinction in the faculty itself, is accordingly divided into speculative and practical; in both of which the image of GOD was then apparent.

 

 I. For the Understanding Speculative. There are some general maxims in the mind of man, which are the rules of discourse, and the basis of all philosophy: As that the same thing cannot at the same time be, and not be: That the whole is bigger than a part. Now it was ADAM's happiness in the state of innocence to have these clear and unsullied. He came into the world a philosopher, which sufficiently appeared by his writing the nature of things upon their names; he could view essences in themselves, and read forms without the comment of their respective properties: He could see consequents, yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet unborn and in the womb of their causes; his understanding could almost pierce into future contingents; his conjectures improving even into prophesy, or the certainties of prediction; till his fall he was ignorant of nothing but of sin; or at least it rested in the notion, without the smart of the experiment. Could any difficulty have been proposed, the resolution would have been as early as the proposal; it could not have had time to settle into doubt. The issue of all his inquiries was the offspring of his brain, without the sweat of his brow. Study was not then a duty, night watchings were needless; the light of reason wanted not the assistance of a candle. This is the doom of fallen man, to labor in the fire, to seek in profundo, to exhaust his time and impair his health, and perhaps to spin out his days and himself into one pitiful controverted conclusion. There was then no poring, no struggling with memory, no straining for invention: His faculties were quick and expedite; they answered without knocking, they were_ ready upon the first summons, there was freedom and firmness in all their operations. I confess, it is as difficult for us, who date our ignorance from our first being, and were still bred up with the same infirmities about us, with which we were born, to raise our thoughts to those intellectual perfections that attend our nature in the time of innocence, as it is for a peasant, bred up in the obscurities of a cottage, to fancy in his mind the unseen splendors of a court. But we may collect the excellency of the understanding then, by the glorious remainders of it now, and guess at the stateliness of the building, by the magnificence of its ruins. All those arts, rarities, and inventions, which vulgar minds gaze at, the ingenious pursue, and all admire, are but the relics of an intellect defaced with sin and time. We admire it now, only as antiquaries do a piece of old coin, for the stamp it once bore, and not for those vanishing lineaments and disappearing draughts that remain upon it at present. And certainly, that must needs have been very glorious, the decays of which are so admirable. He that is comely, when old and decrepit, surely was very beautiful when he was young. An ARISTOTLE was but the rubbish of an ADAM, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.

 

 2. The image of GOD was no less resplendent in that, which we call man's Practical Understanding; namely, that storehouse of the soul, in which arc treasured up the rules of action, and the seeds of morality. Now of this sort are these maxims: That God is to be worshipped: That parents are to be honored: That a man's word is to be kept, and the like; which, being of universal influence, as to the regulation of the behavior and converse of mankind, are the ground of all virtue and civility, and the foundation of religion.

 

 It was the privilege of ADAM innocent, to have these notions also firm and untainted, to carry his monitor in his bosom, his law in his heart, and to have such a conscience as might be its own casuist: And certainly those actions must needs be regular, where there is an identity between the rule and the faculty. His own mind taught him a due dependence upon GOD, and chalked out to him the just proportions and measures of, behavior to his fellowcreatures. He had no catechism but the creation, needed to study but reflection, read no book but the volume of the world, and that too, not for rules to work by, but for the objects to work upon. The decalogue of MOSES was but a transcript, not an original. All the laws of nations and wise decrees of states, the statutes of SOLON and the twelve tables, were but a paraphrase upon this standing rectitude of nature, this fruitful principle of justice, that was ready to run out and enlarge itself into suitable determinations, upon all emergent objects and occasions. Justice then was neither blind to discern, nor lame to execute. It was not subject to be imposed upon by a deluded fancy, nor yet to be bribed by a glozing appetite, to turn the balance to a false or dishonest sentence. In all its directions of the inferior faculties, it conveyed its suggestions with clearness, and enjoined them with power; it had the passions in per feet subjection; and though its command over them was but suasive, yet it had the force of absolute. It was not then as it is now, where the conscience has only power to disapprove, and to protest against the exorbitances of the passions; and rather to wish than make them otherwise.

 

 The voice of conscience now as low and weak, chastising the passions, as old ELI did his domineering sons: “Not so, my sons, not so:" But the voice of conscience then, was not, This should, or this ought to be done; but, This must, this shall be done. It spoke like a Legislator; the thing spoken was a law, and the manner of speaking it, a new obligation. In short, there was as great a disparity between the practical dictates of the understanding then, and now, as there is between empire and advice, counsel and command, between a companion and a governor. And thus much for the image of God as it shone in man's Understanding.

 

 II. Let us in the next place take a view of it, as it was stamped upon the Will. And doubtless the will of man, in the state of innocence, had an entire freedom, a perfect equipendency and indifference to either part of the contradiction, to stand or not to stand, to accept or not accept, the temptation. I will grant the will of man now to be as much a slave as any one will have it, and to be only free to sin; that is, instead of a liberty, to have only a licentiousness; yet certainly this is not nature. We are not made crooked; we learnt these windings and turnings of the serpent: And therefore it cannot but be a blasphemous piece of ingratitude to ascribe them to GOD, and to make the plague of our nature the condition of our creation.

 

 The will was then ductile and pliant to all the motions of right reason; it met the dictates of a clarified understanding half way. And the active informations of the intellect, filling the passive reception of the will, like form closing with matter, grew into a third and distinct perfection of practice: The understanding and will never disagreed; for the proposals of the one never thwarted the inclinations of the other. Yet neither did the will servilely attend upon the understanding, but as a favorite does upon his Prince, where the service is privilege and preferment; or as SOLOMON'S servants waited upon him, it admired its wisdom, and heard its prudent dictates and counsels, both the direction and the reward of its obedience. It is indeed the nature of this, faculty to follow a superior guide, to be

 

drawn by the intellect; but then it was drawn, as a triumphant chariot, which at the same time both follows and' triumphs; while it obeyed this, it commanded the other faculties. It was subordinate, not enslaved, to the understanding; not as a servant to a master, but as a Queen to a King, who both. acknowledges a superiority and yet retains a Majesty.

 

 III. Pass we downward from man's Intellect and Will to the Passions. That these are not evil in themselves, appears hence, that our Savior CHRIST, who took upon him all our natural infirmities, but none of our sinful, has been seen to weep, to be sorrowful, to pity, and to be angry Which shows that there might be gall in a dove, passion without sin, fire without smoke, and motion without disturbance. For it is not bare agitation, but the sediment at the bottom, that troubles and defiles the water: And when we see it windy and dusty, the wind does not (as we use to say) make, but only raise a dust. I shall consider only the principal passions, from whence we may take an estimate of the rest.

 

 And First, For the grand leading affection, which is Love. This is the great instrument and engine of nature, the bond and cement of society, the spring and spirit of the universe. Love is such an affection, as cannot so properly be said to be in the soul, as the soul to be in that. It is the whole man wrapt up into one desire; all the powers, vigor, and faculties of the soul abridged into one inclination, And it is of that active, restless nature, that it must of necessity exert itself; and like the fire, to which it is so often compared, it is not a free agent, to choose whether it will heat or no, but it streams forth by natural results, and unavoidable emanations. So that it will fasten upon an inferior, unsuitable object, rather than none at all. The soul may sooner leave off to subsist, than to love; and, like the vine, it withers and dies, if it has nothing to embrace. Now this affection in the state of innocence was happily pitched upon its right object; it flamed up in direct fervours of devotion to GOD, and in collateral emissions of charity to its neighbor. It was not then only another and more cleanly name for lust. It had none of those impure heats, that both represent and deserve hell. It was a vestal and a virgin fire, and differed as much from that, which usually passes by this name now, as the vital heat from the burning of a fever.

 

 Then, for the contrary passion of Hatred. This, we know, is the passion of defiance, and there is a kind of aversation and hostility included in its very essence. But then (if there could have been hatred in the world, when there was scarce any thing odious) it would have acted within the compass of its proper object: Like aloes, bitter indeed, but wholesome. There would have been no rancor, no hatred of our brother: An innocent nature could hate nothing that was innocent. In a word, so great is the commutation, that the soul then hated only that which now only it loves, that is, sin.

 

 And if we may bring Anger under this head, as being, according to some, a transient hatred, or at least very like it: This also, as unruly as now it is, yet then vented itself by the measures of reason. There were no such things as the transports of malice, or the violences of revenge: No rendering evil for evil, when evil was truly a nonentity, and no where to be found. Anger then was like the sword of justice, keen, but innocent and righteous: It did not act like fury, then call itself zeal. It always espoused GOD'S honor, and never kindled upon any thing but in order to a sacrifice. It sparkled like the coal upon the altar, with the fervors of piety, the heats of devotion, the sallies and vibrations of an harmless activity. In the next place, for the lightsome passion of Joy. It was not that, which now often usurps this name; that trivial, vanishing, superficial thing, that only gilds the apprehension, and plays upon the surface of the soul. It was not the mere crackling of thorns,

 

a sudden blaze of the spirits, the exultation of a tickled fancy, or a pleased appetite. Joy was then a masculine and a severe thing; the recreation of the judgment, the

 

jubilee of reason. It was the result of a real good suitably applied. It commenced upon the solidities of truth, and the substance of fruition. It did not run out in voice, or indecent eruptions, but filled the soul, as GOD does the universe, silently and without noise. It was refreshing, but composed; like the pleasantness of youth tempered with the gravity of age; or the mirth of a festival managed with the silence of contemplation.

 

 And, on the other side, for Sorrow. Had any loss or disaster made but room for grief, it would have moved according to the severe allowances of prudence, and the proportions of the provocation. It would not have sallied out into complaint or loudness, nor spread itself upon the face, and writ sad stories upon the forehead. No wringing of the hands, knocking the breast, or wishing one's self unborn; all which are but the ceremonies of sorrow, the pomp and ostentation of an effeminate grief: Which speak riot so much the greatness of the misery, as the smallness of the mind. Tears may spoil the eyes, but not wash away the affliction. Sighs may exhaust the man, but not eject the burden. Sorrow then would have been as silent as thought, as severe as philosophy. It would have rested in inward senses, tacit dislikes: And the whole scene of it been trans, acted in sad and silent reflections.

 

 Then again for Hope. Though indeed the fullness and affluence of man's enjoyments in the state of innocence, might seem to leave no place for hope, in respect of any farther addition, but only of the continuance of what already he possessed: Yet doubtless, GOD, who made no faculty, but also provided it with a proper object, did then exercise man's hopes with the expectations of a better paradise, or a more intimate admission to himself. For it is not imaginable, that ADAM could fix upon such poor, thin enjoyments, as riches, pleasure, and the gaieties of an animal life. hope indeed was always the anchor of the soul, yet certainly it was not to catch or fasten upon such mud. And if, as the Apostle says, no man hopes for that which he sees, much less could ADAM then hope for such things as he saw through.

 

 And Lastly, For the affection of Fear. It was then the instrument of caution, not of anxiety; a guard, and not a torment, to the breast that had it. It is now indeed an unhappiness, the disease of the soul: It flies from a shadow, and makes more dangers than it avoids: It weakens the judgment, and betrays the succors of reason: So hard is it to tremble, and not to err, and to hit the mark with a shaking hand. Then it fixed upon him who is only to be feared, Gon: And yet with a filial fear, which at the sametime both fears and loves, It was awe without amazement, dread without distraction. There was then beauty even in this very paleness. It was the color of devotion, giving a lustre to reverence, and a gloss to humanity.

 

 Thus did the passions then act without any of their present jars, combats, or repugnances; all moving with the beauty of uniformity, and the stillness of composure. Like a wellgoverned army, not for' fighting, but for rank and order. I confess the Scripture does not expressly attribute these several endowments to ADAM in his first estate. But all that I have said, and much more, may be drawn out of that short aphorism, 'God made man upright." (Eccles. vii, 29.) And since the opposite weaknesses now infest the nature of man fallen, if we will be true to the rule of contraries, we must conclude, that those perfections were the lot of man innocent.

 

 Now from this so exact and regular composure of the faculties, all moving in their due place, each striking in its proper time, there arose, by natural consequence, the crowning perfection of all, a good conscience. For, as in the body, when the principal parts, as the heart and liver, do their offices, and all the smaller vessels, act orderly and duly, there arises a sweet enjoyment upon the whole, which we call health: So in the soul, when the supreme faculties of the will and understanding move regularly, the inferior passions and affections following, there arises a serenity and complacency upon the whole soul, infinitely beyond the greatest bodily pleasures, the highest quintessence of worldly delights. There is in this case a kind of fragrancy, and spiritual perfume upon the conscience; much like what ISAAC spoke of his son's garments: " That the scent of them was like the smell of a field which the LORD had blessed." Such a freshness and flavor is there upon the soul, when daily watered with the actions of a virtuous life. Whatsoever is pure, is also pleasant.

 

 Having thus surveyed the image of GOD in the soul of man, we are not to omit now those characters of majesty that GOD imprinted upon the body. He drew some traces of his image upon this also; as much as a spiritual substance could be pictured upon a corporeal. As for the sect of the Anthropomorphites, who from hence ascribe to GOD the figure of a man, eyes, hands, feet, and the like, they are too ridiculous to deserve a confutation. They would seem to draw this impiety from the letter of the Scripture sometimes speaking of GOD in this manner. Absurdly; as if the mercy of Scripture expressions ought to warrant the blasphemy of our opinions: And not rather show us, that GOD condescends to us, only to draw us to himself; and clothes himself in our likeness, only to win us to his own. The practice of the Papists is much of the same nature, in their absurd and impious picturing of GOD ALMIGHTY: But the wonder in them is the less, since the image of a Deity may be a proper object for that, which is but the image of a religion. But to the purpose: ADAM was then no less glorious in his externals; he had a beautiful body, as well as an immortal soul. The whole compound was like a wellbuilt temple, stately without, and sacred within. The elements were at perfect union and agreement in his body; and their contrary qualities served not for the dissolution of the compound, but the variety of the composure. GALEN, who had no more divinity than what his physic taught him, barely upon the consideration of this so exact frame of the body, challenges any one, upon an hundred years' study, to find how any the least fiber, or most minute particle, might be more commodiously placed, either for use or comeliness.

 

 His stature erect, and tending upwards to his centre; his countenance majestic and comely, with the lustre of a native beauty, that scorned the poor assistance of art; his body of so much quickness and agility, that it did not only contain, but also represent the soul: For we might well suppose, that where GOD did deposit so rich a jewel, he would suitably adorn the case. It was a fit workhouse for spritely vivid faculties to exercise and exert themselves in. A fit tabernacle for an immortal soul, not only to dwell in, but to contemplate upon Where it might see the world without travel;, it being a lesser scheme of the creation, nature contracted, a little cosmography or map of the universe. Neither was the body then subject to distempers, to die by piecemeal, and languish under coughs, catarrhs, or consumptions. ADAM knew no disease, so long as temperance from the forbidden fruit secured him. Nature was his physician; and innocence and abstinence would have kept him healthful to immortality.

 

 Now, the use of this point might be various; but, at present, it shall be only this; to remind us of the irreparable loss that we sustained in our first parents, to show us of how fair a portion ADAM disinherited his whole posterity. Take the picture of a man in the vivacity of his youth, and in the declensions of his drooping years, and you will scarce know it to belong to the same person There would be more art to discern, than at first to draw it. The same and greater is the difference between man innocent and fallen. He is, as it were, a new species; the plague of sin has even altered his nature, and eaten into his very essentials. The image of GoD is wiped out, the creatures have shook off his yoke, and revolted from his dominion. Diseases have shattered the excellent frame of his body; and, by a new dispensation, " immortality is swallowed up of mortality." The same disaster and decay also has invaded his spirituals: The passions rebel, every faculty would usurp and rule; and there are so many governors, that there can be no government. The light within us is become darkness; and the understanding, that should be eyes to the blind faculty of the will, is blind itself, and so brings all the inconveniences that attend a blind follower under the conduct of a blind guide. He that would have a clear ocular demonstration of this, let him reflect upon that numerous litter of strange, senseless, absurd opinions that crawl about the world, to the disgrace of reason, and the unanswerable reproach of a broken intellect.

 

 The two great perfections, that both adorn and exercise man's understanding, are philosophy and religion: For the first of these; take it even amongst the professors of it, where it most flourished, and we shall find the very first notions of common sense debauched by them. For there have been such as have asserted,’ that there is no such thing in the world as motion: That contradictions may be true.' There has not been wanting one, that has denied snow to be whiie. Such a stupidity or wantonness had seized upon the most raised wits, that it might be doubted, whether the philosophers, or the owls of Athens, were the quicker sighted. But then for religion; what prodigious, monstrous, misshapen births has the reason of fallen men produced 1 It is now almost six thousand years, that far the greatest part of the world has had no other religion but idolatry: And idolatry certainly is the firstborn of folly; nay, the very abridgment and sum total of all absurdities. For is it riot strange, that a rational man should worship an ox, nay, the image of an ox That he should fawn upon his dog, bow himself before a cat, adore leeks and garlic, and shed penitential tears at the smell of a deified onion Yet so did the Egyptians, once the famed masters of all arts and learning. And to go a little farther; we have yet a strange instance in Isa. xliv. 14: " A man hews him down a tree in the wood, and part of it he burns;" in ver. 16, and in ver. 17, " with the residue thereof he maketh a god." With one part he furnishes his chimney, with the other his chapel. A strange thing, that the fire must first consume this part, and then burn incense to that. As if there was more divinity in one end of the stick than in the other; or, as if it could be graved and painted omnipotent, or the nails and the hammer could give it an apotheosis. Briefly, so great is the change, so deplorable the degradation of our nature, that, whereas before we bore the image of GOD, we now retain only the image of men.

 

 In the last place, we learn from hence the excellency of Christian religion, in that it is the great and only means that GOD has sanctified and designed to repair the breaches of humanity, to set fallen man upon his legs again, to clarify his reason, to rectify his will, and to compose and regulate his affections. The whole business of our redemption is, in short, only to rub over the defaced copy of the creation, to reprint GOD’simage upon the soul, and (as it were) to set forth nature in a second and fairer edition.

 

 The recovery of which lost image, as it is GOD’spleasure to command, and our duty to endeavor, so it is in his power only to effect.

 

To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

 

SERMON 3

 

ON THE EXTENT OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE. PREACHED AT WESTMINSTERABBEY, FEE. 22, 16845.

 

PROV. 16:33. The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing of it is

 

of the LORD.

 

 I CANNOT think myself engaged from these words to, discourse of lots, as to their nature, use, and allowable ness; but I shall fix only upon the design of the words, which seems to be a declaration of a Divine perfection by a single instance; a proof of the exactness and universality of GOD's providence from its influence upon a thing, of all others the most casual and fortuitous, such as is the casting of lots. A lot is properly a casual event, purposely applied to the determination of some doubtful thing.

 

 Some there are who utterly proscribe the name of chance, as a word of impious and profane signification; and, indeed, if it be taken by us in that sense, in which it was used by the Heathen, so as to make any thing casual in respect of GOD himself, their exception ought justly to be admitted. But to say a thing is a chance, as it relates to second causes, is not profaneness,, but a great truth; as, signifying no more, than that there are some events, beside the knowledge, purpose, expectation, and power of second agents. And for this very reason, because they are so, it is the royal prerogative of GOD himself to have all these loose, uneven, fickle uncertainties under his disposal.

 

 The subject, therefore, that from hence we are naturally carried to the consideration of, is, the admirable extent of the divine providence in managing the most contingent passages of human affairs; which, that we may the better treat of, we will consider the result of a lot: I. In reference to men.II. In reference to GOD.

 

 I. For the first of these, if we consider it as relating to men, who suspend the decision of some dubious case upon it, so we shall find that it naturally implies these two things:]. Something future. 2. Something contingent. From which two qualifications, these two things also follow:(I.) That it is absolutely out of the reach of man's knowledge.(2.) That it is equally out of his power. This is most clear; for otherwise, why are men in such cases doubtful what the issue and result should be For no man doubts of what he sees and knows, nor is solicitous about the event of that which he has in his power.

 

 The light of man's understanding is but a short, diminutive, contracted light, and looks not beyond the present He knows nothing future, but as it has some kind of presence in the constant manner of operation belonging to its cause; by virtue of which, we know, that if the fire continues for twenty years, it will certainly burn so long; and that there will be summer, winter, and harvest, in their respective seasons: But whether GOD will continue the world till tomorrow or no, we cannot know by any certain argument, either from the nature of GOD, or of the world.

 

 But when we look upon such things as relate to their immediate causes, with a perfect indifference, so that, in respect of them, they equally may, or may not be; human reason can then, at the best, but conjecture what will be. And in some things, as here in the casting of lots, a man cannot, upon any ground of reason, bring the event of them so much as under conjecture.

 

 The choice of man's will is indeed uncertain, because in many things free; but yet there are certain habits and principles in the soul, that have some kind of sway upon it, apt to bias it more one way than another; so that, upon the proposal of an agreeable object, it may rationally be conjectured, that a man's choice will rather incline him to• accept than to refuse it. But when lots are shuffled together in a lap, urn, or pitcher, or a man blindfold casts a dye, what reason in the world can he have to presume that he shall draw a white stone rather than a black, or throw an ace rather than a size Now, if these things are thus out of the compass of a man's knowledge, it will unavoidably follow, that they are also out of his power. For no man can govern or command that which he cannot possibly know; since to dispose of a thing, implies both a knowledge of a thing to be disposed of, and of the end that it is to be disposed of to. And thus we have seen how a contingent event baffles man's knowledge, and evades his power

 

 II. Let us now consider the same in respect of GOD, and so we shall find that it falls under1. A certain knowledge. And, 2. A determining Providence.

 

 1. First of all, then, the most casual event of things, as it stands related to GOD, is comprehended by a certain knowledge. GOD, by reason of his eternal, infinite, and indivisible nature, is, by one single act of duration, present to all the successive portions of time, and consequently to all things successively existing in them: Which eternal indivisible act of his existence makes all futures actually present to him.

 

 But I shall not insist upon these speculations; which, when they are most refined, serve only to show, how impossible it is for us to have a clear and explicit notion of that which is infinite. Let it suffice us in general, to acknowledge and adore the vast compass of GOD'S omniscience, that it is a light shining into every dark corner, ripping up all secrets, and steadfastly grasping the greatest and most slippery uncertainties. As when we see the sun shine upon a river, though the waves of it move and roll this way and that way by the wind, yet, for all their unsettledness, the sun strikes them with a direct and certain beam. Look upon things of the most accidental and mutable nature, accidental in their production, and mutable in their continuance; yet GOD's prescience of them is as certain Hi him, as the memory of them is or can be in us. He knows which way the lot and the dye shall fall, as perfectly as if they were already cast. All futurities are naked before that allseeing eye, the sight of which is no more hindered by distance of time, than the sight of an angel can be determined by distance of place.

 

 2. As all contingencies are comprehended by a certain divine knowledge, so they are governed by as certain and steady a providence.

 

There is no wandering out of the reach of this, no slipping through the hands of Omnipotence. GoD's hand is as steady as his eye; and, certainly, thus to reduce contingency to method, instability and chance itself to an unfailing rule and order, argue such a mind as is fit to govern the world; and, I am sure, nothing less than such an one can.

 

 Now, GOD may be said to bring the greatest casualties under his providence, upon a twofold account. (1.) That he directs them to a certain end. (2.) Often to very weighty and great ends. (1.) And first of all, he directs them to a certain end. Providence never shoots at rovers. There is an arrow that flies by night as well as by day, and God is the person that shoots it, who can aim them as well as in the day. There is not the least thing that falls within the cognizance of man, but is directed by the counsel of God. " Not an hair can fall from our head, nor a sparrow to the ground, without the will of our heavenly FATHER." Such an universal superintendency has the eye and hand of Providence, over all, even the most minute and inconsiderable things.

 

 Nay, and sinful actions too are overruled to a certain issue; even that horrid villainy of the crucifixion of our SAVIOR, was not a thing left to the disposal of chance and uncertainty; but in Acts 2: 23, it is said of him, that he was delivered to the wicked hands of his murderers by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of GOD:" For surely the Son of GOD could not die by chance, nor the greatest thing that ever came to pass in nature, be left to an undeterminate event.

 

 In a word, if we allow GOD to be the Governor of the world, we cannot but grant, that he orders and disposes of all inferior events; and if we allow him to be a wise and a rational Governor, he cannot but direct them to a certain end.

 

 (2.) In the next place, he directs all these appearing casualties, not only to certain, but also to very great ends. He that created something out of nothing, surely can raise great things out of small, and bring all the scattered and disordered passages of affairs into a great, beautiful, and exact frame. Now, this overruling, directing power of GOD may be considered, First, In reference to the societies or united bodies of men. Secondly, In reference to particular persons.

 

First. And first for societies. GOD and nature do not principally concern themselves in the preservation of particulars, but of kinds and companies. Accordingly, we must allow Providence to be more intent and solicitous about nations and governments, than about any private interest whatsoever. Upon which account, it must needs have a peculiar influence upon the erection, continuance, and dissolution of every society. Which great effects it is strange to consider, by what small inconsiderable means they are often brought about, and those so wholly undesigned by such as are the immediate visible actors in them. Examples of this we have both in Holy Writ, and also in other stories. And first for those of the former sort.

 

 Let us reflect upon that strange and unparalleled story of JOSEPH and his brethren; a story that seems to be made up of nothing else but chances and little contingencies, all directed to mighty ends. For was it not a mere chance that his father JACOB should send him, to visit his brethren, just at that time that the Ishmaelites were to pass by that way, and so his unnatural brethren take occasion to sell him to them, and they to carry him into Egypt

 

And then that he should be cast into prison, and thereby brought at length to the knowledge of PHAROAH in that unlikely manner that he was Yet by a joint connection of every one of these casual events, Providence served itself in the preservation of a kingdom from famine, and of the church, then circumscribed within the family of JACOB. Likewise by their sojourning in Egypt, he made way for their bondage there, and their bondage for a glorious deliverance through those prodigious manifestations of the divine power, in the several plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians.

 

 And then for examples out of other histories, to hint a few of them. Perhaps, there is none more remarkable than that passage about ALEXANDER the Great, in his famed expedition against DARIUS. When in his march towards him, chancing to hase himself in the river Cydnus, through the excessive coldness of those waters, he fell sick, near unto death, for three days; during which short space, the Persian army had advanced into the strait passages of Cilicia; by which means ALEXANDER with his small army was able to equal them under those disadvantages, and to fight and conquer them. Whereas, had not this stop been given by that accidental sickness, his great courage would, beyond all doubt, have carried him directly forward to the enemy, till he had met him in the vast open plains of Persia, where his small numbers would have been contemptible, and the Persian multitudes formidable, and, in all likelihood of reason, victorious. So that this one little accident of that Prince's taking a fancy to hase himself at that time, caused the interruption of his march, and that interruption gave occasion to that great victory that founded the third monarchy of the world. In like manner, how much of casualty was there in the preservation of ROMULUS, as soon as born exposed by his uncle, and taken up and nourished by a shepherd! (For the story of the shewolf is a fable.) And yet in that one accident was laid down the foundation of the fourth universal monarchy.

 

 How doubtful a case was it, whether HANNIBAL, after the battle of Cannes, should march directly to Rome or Campania! Certain it is, that there was more reason for the former; and he was a person that had sometimes the command of reason, as well as regiments: Yet his. reason deserted his conduct at that time, and by not going to Rome, he gave occasion to those recruits of the Roman strength, that prevailed to the conquest of his country, and at length to the destruction of Carthage itself, one of the most puissant cities in the world.

 

 And to descend to occurrences within our own nation. How many strange accidents concurred in the whole business of King HENRY the Eighth's divorce! Yet we see Providence directed it and them to an entire change of the affairs and state of the whole kingdom. And surely,there could not be a greater chance than that which brought to light the Powder treason, when Providence (as it were) snatched a King and kingdom out of the jaws of death, only by the mistake of a word in the direction of a letter.

 

 But of all cases, in which little casualties produce great and strange effects, the chief is in war, upon the issues of which hangs the fortune of states and kingdoms. CAESAR, I am sure, whose great sagacity and conduct put his success as much out of the power of chance, as human reason could well do; yet upon occasion of a notable experiment that had like to have lost him his whole army at Dyrrachium, tells us the power of it in the third book of his Commentaries, De Bello Civili:’ Fortuna quce plurimum potest, calm in aliis rebus, tum prcscipue in bellis, in parvis momentis magnas rerum mutationes effecit.' Nay, and a greater than CIESAR, even the SPIRIT of GOD himself, in Eccles. 6: 11, expressly declares, a that the battle is not always to the strong." So that, upon this account, every warrior may, in some sense, be said to be a soldier of fortune; and the best commanders to have a kind of lottery for their work, as, amongst us, they have for a reward. For how often have whole armies been routed by a little mistake, or a sudden fear raised in the soldiers' minds, upon some trivial ground or occasion

 

Sometimes the misunderstanding of a word has scattered and destroyed those who have been even in possession of victory, and wholly turned the fortune of the day. A spark of fire,or an unexpected gust of wind, may ruin a navy. And sometimes a false senseless report has spread so far, and, sunk so deep into the people's minds, as to cause a tumult, and that tumult a rebellion, and that rebellion has ended in the subversion of a government.

 

 And in the late war between the King and some of his rebelsubjects, has it not sometimes been at an even cast, whether his army should march this way, or that way Whereas, had it taken that way, which actually it did not, things afterwards so fell out, that, in very high probability, it must have met with such success, as would have put an happy issue to that wretched war, and thereby have continued the crown upon that Prince's head, and his head upon his shoulders.

 

Many passages happen in the world, much like that’~ little cloud," (1 Kings xviii,) that appeared at first to ELIJAH's servant, no bigger than, a man's hand," but presently after grew and spread, and blackened the face of the whole heaven, and then discharged itself in thunder and rain and a mighty tempest. So these accidents, when they first happen, seem but small and contemptible; but by degrees they branch out, and widen themselves into such a numerous train of mischievous consequences, one drawing after it another, by a continued dependence and multiplication, that the plague becomes victorious and universal, and personal miscarriage determines in a national calamity.

 

 For who, that should view the small despicable beginnings of some things and persons at first, could imagine or prognosticate those vast and stupendous increases of fortune, that have afterwards followed them Who, that has looked upon AGATHOCLES first handling the clay, and making pots under his father, and afterwards turning robber, could have thought, that from such a condition, he should come to be King of Sicily!

 

 Who, that had seen MASIANELLO, a poor fisherman, with his red cap and his angle, could have reckoned it possible to see such a pitiful thing, within a week after, shining in his does of gold, and, with a word or a nod, absolutely commanding the whole city of Naples!

 

 It is, as it were, the sport of the ALMIGHTY thus to baffle and confound the sons of men by such events, as both cross the methods of their actings, and surpass the measure of their expectations. For, according to both these, men still suppose a gradual natural progress of things; as that from great things and persons should grow greater, till at length, by many steps and ascents, they come to be at the greatest; not considering, that when Providence designs strange and mighty changes, it gives men wings instead of legs; and instead of climbing leisurely, makes them at once fly to the top and height of greatness and power. So that the world about them, (looking up to those illustrious upstarts,) scarce knows who, or whence they were, nor they themselves where they are.

 

 It were infinite to insist upon particular instances; histories are full of them, and experience seals the truth of history. In the next place let us consider to what great purposes GOD directs these little casualties, with reference to particular persons; and those either public or private.

 

 1. And first for public persons, as Princes. Was it not a mere accident, that PHARAOH'S daughter met with MOSES Yet it was a means to bring him up in the Egyptian court, then the school of all arts and policy, and so to fit him for that great and arduous employment that GOD designed him to. For see upon what little hinges that great affair turned; for had either the child been cast out, or PHARAOH'S daughter came down the river but an hour sooner or later; or had that little vessel not been cast by the parents, or carried by the water into that very place, where it was, in all likelihood the child must have undergone the common lot of other Hebrew children, and been either starved or drowned. That OCTAVIUS CAESAR should shift his tent (which he had never used to do before) just that very night that it happened to be taken by the enemy, was a mere casualty; yet such an one as preserved a person who lived to establish a total alteration of government in the imperial city of the world.

 

 But we need not go far for a Prince preserved by as strange a series of little contingencies, as ever were managed by the art of Providence to so great a purpose. There was but an hair's breadth between him and certain destruction, for the space of many days. For had the rebel forces gone one way, rather than another, or come but a little sooner to his hiding place, or but mistrusted something which they passed over, (all which things might very easily have happened,) we had not seen this face of things at this day.

 

 On the contrary, when Providence designs judgment, or destruction to a Prince, nobody knows by what little, unusual, unregarded means the fatal blow shall reach him. If ARAB be designed for death, though a soldier in the enemy's army draw a bow at a venture; yet the sure unerring directions of Providence shall carry it in a direct course to his heart, and there lodge the revenge of heaven.

 

 An old woman shall cast down a stone from a wall, and GOD shall send it to the head of ABIMELECH, and so sacrifice a King in the very head of his army. How many warnings had JULIUS CAESAR of the fatal Ides of March!Whereupon sometimes he resolved not to go to the Senate, and sometimes again he would go; and when at length he did go, in his passage thither, one put into his hand a note of the whole conspiracy against him, together with the names of the conspirators, desiring him to read it forthwith. But continual salutes and addresses entertaining him all the way, kept him from saving so great a life, but with one glance of his eye upon the paper; till he came to the fatal place where he was stabbed, and died with the very means of preventing death in his hand.

 

HENRY the Second of France, by a splinter, unhappily thrust into his eye at a solemn justing, was dispatched and sent out of the world, by a sad, but very accidental death.

 

 In a word, GOD has many ways to reap down the Grandees of the earth; an arrow, a bullet, a tile, a stone from an house, is enough to do it: And beside all these ways, sometimes, when he intends to bereave the world of a Prince or an illustrious person, he may cast him upon a bold, selfopinioned Physician, worse than his distemper, who shall dose and bleed, and kill him secundunn artema, and make a shift to cure him into his grave.

 

 In the last place, we will consider this directing influence of GOD, with reference to private persons; and that as touching things of nearest concernment to them. As, 1. Their lives: 2. Their health: 3. Their reputation: 4. Their friendships: 5. And lastly, their employments, or preferments. 1. And first, for men's lives. Though these are things for which nature knows no price or ransom; yet I appeal to universal experience, whether they have not, in many men, hung often upon a very slender thread, and the distance between them and death been very nice, and the escape wonderful. There have been some who, upon a slight and perhaps groundless occasion, have gone out of a ship or house, and the ship has sunk, and the house has fallen immediately after their departure.

 

 He that, in a great wind, suspecting the strength of his house, betook himself to his orchard, and walking there, was knocked upon the head by a tree, falling through the fury of a sudden gust, wanted but the advance of one or, two steps, to have put him out of the way of that mortal blow.

 

He that, being subject to an apoplexy, used still to carry his remedy about him; but upon a time shifting his clothes, and not taking that with him, chanced, upon that very day, to be surprised in a fit, and to die in it, certainly owed his death to a mere accident, to a little inadvertency and failure of memory. But not to recount too many particulars: May not every soldier, that comes alive out of the battle, pass for a living monument of a benign chance, and an happy Providence For was he not in the nearest neighborhood to death And might not the bullet, that perhaps razed his cheek, have as easily gone into his head And the sword that glanced upon his arm, with a little diversion have found the way to his heart But the workings of Providence are marvelous, and the methods secret, and untraceable, by which it disposes of the lives of men.

 

 2. In like manner for men's Health, it is no less wonderful to consider to what strange casualties many sick persons often owe their recovery. Perhaps an unusual draught, or morsel, or some accidental violence of motion, has removed that malady, that for many years has baffled the skill of all Physicians. So that, in effect, he is the best Physician, that has the best luck; he prescribes, but it is chance that cures.

 

That person that (being provoked by excessive pain) thrust his dagger into his body, and thereby, instead of reaching his vitals, opened an imposthume, the unknown cause of all his pain, and so stabbed himself into perfect health and ease, surely had great reason to acknowledge chance for his Surgeon, and Providence for the Guider of his hand.

 

 3. And then also for men's Reputation; and that either in point of Wisdom, or of Wit. There is hardly any thing, which (for the most part) falls under a greater chance. If a man succeeds in any attempt, though undertaken with never so much folly and rashness, his success shall vouch him a politician: For give any one fortune, and he shall be thought a wise man, in spite of his heart; nay, and of his head too. On the contrary, be a design never so artificially laid, and spun in the finest thread of policy, if it chances to be defeated by some cross accident, the man is then run down by an universal vogue; his counsels are derided, his prudence questioned, and his person despised.

 

 AHITOPHEL was as great an oracle, and gave as good counsel to ABSALOM, as ever he had given to DAVID; but not having the good luck to be believed, and thereupon losing his former repute, he thought it high time to hang himself. And on the other side, there have been some, who for several years have been fools with tolerable good reputation, and never discovered themselves to be so, till at length they attempted to be knaves also, but wanted art and dexterity.

 

And as the repute, of Wisdom, so that of Wit also, is very casual. Sometimes a lucky saying, or a pertinent reply, has procured an esteem of wit, to persons otherwise very shallow, and no ways accustomed to utter such things by any standing ability of mind; so that if such an one should have the ill hap at any time to strike a man dead with a smart saying, it ought, in all reason and conscience, to be judged but a chancemedley; the poor man being no way guilty of any design of wit.

 

 Nay, even where there is a large stock of wit, yet the wittiest sayings and sentences will be found in a great measure the issues of chance, and nothing else but so many lucky hits of a roving fancy. Moreover, sometimes a man's reputation rises or falls, as his memory serves him in a performance; and yet there is nothing more fickle, slippery, and less under command, than this faculty. So that many having used their utmost diligence to secure a faithful retention of the things or words committed to it, yet after all cannot certainly know where it will trip, and fail them. Any sudden diversion of the spirits, or the justling in of a transient thought, is able to deface those little images of things, and so breaking the train that was laid in the mind, to leave a man in the lurch: And for the other part of memory, called reminiscence; which is the retrieving of a thing at present forgotten, or but confusedly remembered, by setting the mind to hunt over all its notions, and to ransack every little cell of the brain: While it is thus busied, how accidentally often does the thing sought for, offer itself to the mind! And by what small hints

 

the mind does catch hold of, and recover a vanishing notion! In short, though wit and learning are certain and habitual perfections of the mind, yet the declaration of them (which alone brings the repute) is subject to a thousand hazards. So that every wit runs something the same risk with the astrologer, who, if his predictions come to pass, is cried up to the stars from whence he pretends to draw them; but if not, the astrologer himself grows more out of date than his almanac.

 

 4. And then in the fourth place, for the Friendships or Enmities that a man contracts in the world; than which surely there is nothing that has a more direct and potent influence upon the whole course of a man's life, whether as to happiness or misery; yet chance has the ruling stroke in them all. A man by mere peradventure lights into company, possibly is driven into an house by a shower of rain for present shelter, and there begins an acquaintance with a person; which acquaintance and endearment grow and continue even when relations fail, and perhaps proves the support of his mind, and of his fortunes to his dying day.

 

And the like holds in Enmities, which come much more easily than the other. A word unadvisedly spoken on the one side, or misunderstood on the other; any the least surmise of neglect; sometimes a bare gesture; nay, the very unsuitableness of one man's aspect to another man's fancy, has raised such an aversion to him, as in time has produced a perfect hatred of him, and that so strong and so tenacious, that it has never left vexing and troubling him, till, perhaps at length it has worried him to his grave; yea, and after death too, has pursued him in his surviving shadow, exercising the same tyranny upon his very name and memory.

 

It is hard to please men of some tempers, who indeed hardly know what will please themselves; and yet if a man does not please them, which it is ten thousand to one if he does, if they can but have power equal to their malice, (as sometimes, to plague the world GOD, lets them have,) such an one must expect all the mischief that power and spite, lighting upon a base mind, can possibly do him.

 

 5. In the last place. As for men's employments and preferments, every man that sets forth into the world, comes into a great lottery, and draws some one certain profession to act and live by, but knows not the fortune that will attend him in it. One man perhaps proves miserable in the study of the law, which might have flourished in that of physic or divinity. Another proves a very dull and heavy philosopher, who possibly would have made a good mechanic, and have done well enough at the useful philosophy of the spade or the anvil.

 

 Now, let this man reflect upon the time when all these several callings and professions were equally offered to his choice, and consider how indifferent it was once for him to have fixed upon any one of them, and what little accidents and considerations cast the balance of his choice, rather one way than the other; and he will find how easily chance may throw a man upon a profession, which all his diligence cannot make him fit for.

 

 And then for the Preferments of the world, he that would reckon up all the accidents that they depend upon, may as well undertake to count the sands, or to sum up infinity; so that greatness, as well as an estate, may, upon this account, be properly called a man's fortune, forasmuch as no man can state either the acquisition or preservation of it upon any certain rules; every man, as well as the merchant, being here truly an adventurer. For the ways by which it is obtained, are various, and frequently contrary: One man, by sneaking and flattering, comes to riches and honor, (where it is in the power of fools to bestow them,) upon observation whereof, another presently thinks to arrive to the same greatness, by the very same means; but striving, like the ass, to court his master; just as the spaniel had done before him, instead of being stroked and made much of, he is only rated off and cudgelled for all his courtship.

 

 The source of men's preferments is most commonly the will, humor and fancy of persons in power; whereupon, when a Prince or Grandee manifests a liking to such a thing, such an art, or such a pleasure, men generally set about to make themselves considerable for such things, and thereby through his favor to advance themselves, and at length, when they have spent their whole time in them, and so are become fit for nothing else, that Prince or Grandee perhaps dies, and another succeeds him, quite of a different disposition, and inclining him to be pleased with quite different things. Whereupon these men's hopes, studies and expectations are wholly at an end. And besides, though the Grandee whom they build upon, should not die, or quit the stage, yet the same person does not always like the same things. For age may alter his constitution, humor, or appetite; or the circumstances of his affairs may put him upon different courses and counsels; every one of which accidents wholly alters the road to preferment. So that those who travel that road must be (like highwaymen) very dexterous in shifting the way upon every turn; and yet their very doing so sometimes proves the means of their being found out, understood, and _abhorred; and for this very cause, that they are ready to do any thing, are justly thought fit to be preferred to nothing.

 

 CAESAR BORGIA (base son to Pope ALEXANDER 6:) used to boast to his friend MACHIAVEL, that he had contrived his affairs and greatness into such a posture of firmness, that whether his holy, father lived or died, they could not but be secure. If he lived, there could be no doubt of them; and if he died, he laid his interest so, as to overrule the next election, as he pleased. But all this while, the politician never thought, or considered, that he might in the mean time fall dangerously sick, and that sickness necessitate his removal from the court, and during that his absence, his father die, and so his interest decay, and his mortal enemy be chosen to the Papacy, as indeed it fell out. So that for all his exact plot, down was he cast from all his greatness, and forced to end his days in a mean condition: As it is pity but all such politic opiniators should.

 

 So much has chance the casting voice in the disposal of all the great things of the world. That which men call merit, is a mere nothing. For even when persons of the greatest worth and merit are preferred, it is not their merit, but their fortune that prefers them. And then, for that other so much admired thing called policy, it is but little better: For when men have busied themselves, and beat their brains never so much, the whole result both of their counsels, and their fortunes, is still at the mercy of an accident. And therefore, whosoever that man was, that said, that he had rather have a grain of fortune, than a pound of wisdom, as to the things of this life, he spoke nothing but the voice of wisdom and great experience.

 

 I am far from affirming,, that I have recounted all, or indeed the hundredth part of those casualties of human life, that may display the full compass of Divine Providence but surely, I have reckoned up so many, as sufficiently enforce the necessity of our reliance upon it, and that in opposition to two extremes that men are usually apt to fall into.

 

 1. Too much confidence and presumption, in a prosperous estate. DAVID, after his deliverances from SAUL, and his victories over all his enemies round about him, in Psalm 30: 7, 8, confesses that his prosperity had raised him to such a pitch of confidence, as to make him say, " that he should never be moved, GOD of his favor had made his hill so strong:" But presently he adds, almost in the very salve breath, " You didst hide thy face, and I was troubled."

 

 The sun shines in his full brightness, but the very moment before he passes under a cloud. Who knows what a day what an hour, yea, what a minute may bring forth! He who builds upon the present, builds upon the narrow compass of a point; and where the foundation is so narrow, the superstructure cannot be high and strong too.

 

 Is a man confident of his present health and strength Why, an unwholesome blast of air, a cold, or a surfeit taken by chance, may shake in pieces his hardy fabric, and (in spite of all his youth and vigor) send him, in the very flower of his years, pining and drooping to his long home. Nay, he cannot, with any assurance, so much as step out of his doors, but (unless GOD commissions his protecting angel to bear him up in his hands) he may dash his foot against a stone, and fall, and in that fall breathe his last.

 

 Or is a man confident of his estate, wealth, and power Why, let him read of those strange unexpected dissolutions of the great monarchies and governments of the world Governments that once made such a noise, and looked so big in the eyes of mankind, as being founded upon the deepest counsels and the strongest force; and yet, by some slight miscarriage or cross accident, (which let in ruin and desolation upon them at first,) are now so utterly extinct, that nothing remains of them but a name, nor are there the least signs or traces of them to be found, but only in story. When' (I say) he shall have well reflected upon this, let him see what security he can promise himself in his own little personal domestic concerns, which at the best have but the protection of the laws to guard and defend them, which are far from being able to defend themselves.

 

 No man can rationally account himself secure, unless he could command all the chances of the world: But how should he command them, when he cannot so much as number them Possibilities are as infinite as GOD's power, and whatsoever may come to pass, no man can certainly conclude shall not come to pass.

 

People forget how little it is that they know, and how much less it is that they can do, when they grow confident upon any present state of things.

 

There is no one enjoyment that a man pleases himself in, but is liable to be lost by ten thousand accidents wholly out of all mortal power, either to foresee or to prevent. Reason allows none to be confident, but him only who governs the world, who knows all things, and can do all things, and therefore can neither be surprised nor overpowered.

 

 2. The other extreme, which these considerations should arm the heart of man against, is, utter despondency of mind in a time of pressing adversity.

 

As he who presumes, steps into the throne of GOD; so he that despairs, limits an infinite power to a finite apprehension, and measures providence by his own little, contracted model. But the contrivances of Heaven are as much above our politics, as beyond our arithmetic.

 

 Of those many millions of casualties which we are not aware of, there is hardly one but GOD can make an instrument of our deliverance. And most men, who are at length delivered from any great distress indeed, find that they are so, by ways that they never thought of, ways above or beside their imagination.

 

And therefore let no man, who owns the belief of a Providence, grow desperate or forlorn under any calamity or strait whatsoever"; but compose the anguish of his thoughts, and rest his amazed spirits upon this one consideration, that he knows not which way the lot may fall, or what may happen to him; he comprehends not those strange unaccountable methods, by which Providence may dispose of him.

 

 In a word: To sum up all the foregoing discourse Since the interest of governments and nations, of Princes and private persons, and that both as to life and health, reputation and honor, friendships and enmities, employments and preferments, (notwithstanding all the contrivance and power that human nature can exert above them,) remain so wholly contingent as to us; surely all the reason of mankind cannot suggest any solid ground of satisfaction, but in making that GOD our Friend, who is the sole and absolute Disposer of all these things: And in carrying a conscience so clear towards him, as may encourage us with confidence to cast ourselves upon him; and in all casualties still to promise ourselves the best events from his providence, to whom nothing is casual; who constantly wills the truest happiness to those that trust in him, and works all things according to the counsel of that blessed will.