though unneceffary, God does ufually relieve fuch neceffities; and he does not only, upon our prayers, grant us more than he promised of temporal things, but also he gives many times more than we ask. This is no object of our faith, but ground enough for a temporal and prudent hope: and if we fail in the particular, God will turn it to a bigger mercy, if we fubmit to his difpenfation, and adore him in the denial. But if it be a matter of neceffity, let not any man, by way of impatience, cry out, that God will not work a miracle; for God, by miracle, did give meat and drink to his People in the wilderness, of which he had made no particular promise in any Covenant: and if all natural means fail, it is certain that God will rather work a miracle than break his word; He can do that, he cannot do this. Only we must remember, that our portion of temporal things is but food and raiment: God hath not promifed us coaches and horfes, rich houfes and jewels, Tyrian filks and Perfian carpets; neither hath he promised to minifter to our needs in fuch circumstances as we fhall appoint, but fuch as himself shall chufe. God will enable thee either to pay the debt, (if thou beggeft it of him) or else he will pay it for thee, i. e. take thy defire as a discharge of thy duty, and pay it to thy Creditour in bleffings, or in fome fecret of his providence. It may be he hath laid up the corn that fhall feed thee in the granary of thy Brother; or will cloath thee with his wool. He enabled St. Peter to pay his Gabel by the miniftry of a fifh; and Elias to be waited on by a crow, who was both his minifter and his fteward for provifions; and his only Son rode in triumph upon an Afs that grazed in another man's paftures: And if God gives to him the dominion, and referves the ufe to thee, thou haft the better half of the two: but the charitable man ferves God and ferves thy need: and both join to provide for thee, and God bleffes both. But if he takes away the flesh-pots from thee, he can alfo alter the appetite, and he hath given thee power and commandment to reftrain it: and if he leffens the revenue, he will also fhrink the neceffi

K 3

neceffity; or if he gives but a very little, he will make it go a great way; or if he fends thee but a coarfe diet, he will blefs it and make it healthful, and can cure all the anguifh of thy poverty by giving thee patience, and the grace of Contentedness. For the Grace of God fecures you of provifions, and yet the Grace of God feeds and fupports the fpirit in the want of provifions: and if a thin table be apt to enfeeble the fpirits of one ufed to feed better; yet the chearfulness of a spirit that is bleffed will make a thin table become a delicacy, if the man was as well taught as he was fed, and learned his duty when he received the bleffing. Poverty therefore is in fome fences eligible, and to be preferred before Riches, but in all fences it is very tolerable.

Death of Children, or nearest Relatives and
Friends.

*

There are fome perfons who have been noted for excellent in their lives and paffions, rarely innocent, and yet hugely penitent for indifcretions and harmlefs infirmities: fuch as was Paulina, one of the ghostly children of St. Hierom: and yet when any of her children died, the was arrested with a forrow fo great as brought her to the margin of her grave. And the more tender our fpirits are made by Religion, the more ea❤ fic we are to let in grief, if the caufe be innocent, and be but in any fence twifted with piety and due affections. To cure which we may confider that all the world muft die, and therefore to be impatient at the death of a perfon, concerning whom it was certain and known that he muft die, is to mourn because thy friend or child was not born an Angel; and when thou haft a while made thy felf miferable by an importunate and ufelefs grief, it may be thou thalt die thy felf, and leave others to their choice whether they will mourn for thee or no: but by that time it will appear how impertinent that grief was which ferved no end of life, and ended in thy own funeral. But what

great

great matter is it if fparks fly upward, or a ftone falls into a pit? if that which was combustible be burned, or that which was liquid be melted, or that which is mortal do die? It is no more than a man does every day; for every night death hath gotten poffeffion of that day, and we fhall never live that day over again; and when the laft day is come, there are no more days left for us to die. And what is fleeping and waking, but living and dying? What is fpring and autumu, youth and old age, morning and evening, but real images of life and death, and really the fame to many confiderable effects and changes?

Untimely Death

But it is not mere dying that is pretended by fome as the cause of their impatient mourning, but that the child died young, before he knew good and evil, his right hand from his left, and fo loft all his portion of this World, and they know not of what excellency his portion in the next fhall be. *If he died young, he loft but little, for he understood but little, and had not capacities of great pleafures or great cares: but yet he died innocent, and before the fweetnefs of his Soul was defloured and ravifhed from him by the flames and follies of a froward age: He went out from the dining-room hefore he had fallen into errour by the intemperance of his meat, or the deluge of drink: and he hath obtained this favour of God, that his Sout buth suffered a lefs imprisonment, and her load was fooner taken off, that he might with leffer delays go and converfe with immortal spirits: and the babe is taken into Paradife before he knows good and evil. (For that knowledge threw our great father out, and this ignorance returns the Child thither.) *But (as concerning thy own particular) remove thy thoughts back to thofe days in which thy Child was not born, and you are now but as then you were, and there is no difference, but that you had a Son born; and if you reckon that for evil, you are thankful for the bleffing; if it be good, it is better that you had

Itidem fi puer parvulus occidat, quo animo ferendum putant; fi verò in cunis, ne querendum quidem arqui hoc acerbius exegit natura quod dederit. At id quiden in cæteris rebus melius putatur, aliquam partem quam nullam at tingere, Seneca,

the bleffing for a while than not at all; and yet if he had never been born, this forrow had not been at all. But be not more difpleafed at God for gi

ving you a bleffing for a while, than you would have been if he had not given it at all; and reckon that intervening bleffing for a gain, but account it not an evil; and if it be a good, turn it not into forrow and fadness. But if we have great reafon to complain of the calamities and evils of our life, then we have the lefs reafon to grieve that those whom we loved have fo small a portion of evil affigned to them. And it is no fmall advantage that our children dying young receive: For their condition of a bleffed immortality is rendred to them fecure, by being fnatch'd from the dangers of an evil choice, and carried to their little cells of felicity, where they can weep no more. And this the wifeft of the Gentiles understood well, when they forbad any offering or libations to be made for dead Infants, as was ufual for their other dead; as believing they were entred into a fecure poffeffion, to which they went with no other condition, but that they paffed into it through the way of mortality, and for a few months wore an uneafie garment. And let weeping parents fay, if they do not think, that the evils their little babes have fuffered are fufficient: If they be, why are they troubled that they were taken from thofe many and greater, which in fucceeding years are great enough to try all the Reafon and Religion which Art and Nature and the Grace of God hath produced in us, to enable us for fuch fad contentions? And poffibly we may doubt concerning Men and Women, but we cannot fufpect that Iufants death can be fuch an evil, but that it brings to them much more good than it takes from them in this life.

Death

Death unfeafonable.

tam quem

But others can well bear the death of Infants: but when they have spent fome years of childhood or youth, and are entred into arts and fociety, when they are hopeful and provided for, when the parents are to reap the comfort of all their fears and cares, then it breaks the spirit to lose them. This is true in many; but this is not love to the dead, but to themfelves; for they mifs what they had flattered themfelves into by hope and opinion: and if it were kindnefs to the dead, they may confider, that fince we hope he is gone to God, and to reft, it is an ill expreffion of our love to them, that we weep for their good fortune. For that life is not beft which is longeft: and Juvenis rewhen they are defcended into the grave, it fhall not linquit vi be enquired how long they have lived, but how Dii diligunt, well: and yet this fhortning of their days is an evil Menand. wholly depending upon opinion. For if men did naturally live but twenty years, then we fhould be fatisfied if they died about fixteen or eighteen; and yet eighteen years now are as long as eighteen years would be then: and if a man were but of a day's life, it is well if he lafts till Even-fong, and then fays his Compline an hour before the time: and we are pleafed and call not that death immature if he lives till feventy; and yet this age is as fhort of the old periods before and fince the flood, as this youth's age (for whom you mourn) is of the prefent fulness. Suppose therefore a decree paffed upon this perfon, (as there have been many upon all mankind) and God hath fet him a fhorter period; and then we may as well bear the immature death of the young man, as the death of the oldest men: for they alfo are immature and unfeasonable, in refpect of the old periods of many generations. And why are we troubled that he had arts and fciences before he died? or are we troubled that he does not live to make use of them? The firft is cause of joy, they are excellent in order to certain ends: And the fecond cannot be cause of

for