the very dross and dregs of all the elements: water somewhat more pure than it; yet also more feculent than the air above it: the lower air less pure than his uppermost regions; and yet they as far inferior, to the lowest heavens: which again are more exceeded by the glorious and empyreal seat of God, which is the heaven of the just): yet these brutish men take up their rest, and place their felicity, in the lowest and worst of all God's workmanship; not regarding that, which, with its own glory, can make them happy. Heaven is the proper place of my soul: I will send it up thither continually in my thoughts, while it sojourns with me, before it go to dwell there for ever.

LXXXVII.

A man need not to care for more knowledge than to know himself: he needs no more pleasure than to content himself; no more victory, than to overcome himself; no more riches, than to enjoy himself. What fools are they, that seek to know all other things, and are strangers in themselves! that seek altogether to satisfy others' humours, with their own displeasure! that seek to vanquish kingdoms and countries, when they are not masters of themselves! that have no hold of their own hearts; yet seek to be possessed of all outward commodities! Go home to thyself, first, vain heart: and, when thou hast made sure work there, in knowing, contenting, overcoming, enjoying thyself, spend all the superfluity of thy time and labour upon others.

LXXXVIII.

It was an excellent rule that fell from Epicure (whose name is odious to us, for the father of looseness;) That if a man would be rich, honourable, aged, he should not strive so much to add to his wealth, reputation, years, as to detract from his desires. For, certainly, in these things, which stand most upon conceit, he hath the most, that desireth least. A poor man, that hath little and desires no more, is, in truth, richer than the greatest monarch; that thinks he hath not what he should, or what he might; or that grieves there is no more to have. It is not necessity, but ambition, that sets men's hearts on the rack. If I have meat, drink, apparel, I will learn therewith to be content. If I had the world full of wealth beside, I could enjoy no more than I use: the rest could please me no otherwise, but by looking on. And why can I not thus solace myself, while it is others'?

LXXXIX.

An inconstant and wavering mind, as it makes a man unfit for society (for that there can be no assurance of his words or purposes; neither can we build on them, without deceit): so,

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besides that it makes a man ridiculous, it hinders him from ever attaining any perfection in himself (for a rolling stone gathers no moss; and the mind, whilst it would be every thing, proves nothing. Oft changes cannot be without loss): yea, it keeps him from enjoying that, which he hath attained. For, it keeps him ever in work: building, pulling down, selling, changing, buying, commanding, forbidding. So, while he can be no other man's friend, he is the least his own. It is the safest course for a man's profit, credit, and ease, to deliberate long, to resolve surely; hardly to alter; not to enter upon that whose end he foresees not answerable; and, when he is once entered, not to surcease till he have attained the end he foresaw. So may he, to good purpose, begin a new work, when he hath well finished the old.

XC.

The way to heaven is like that, which Jonathan and his armour-bearer passed, betwixt two rocks; one Bozez, the other Seneh; that is foul, and thorny: whereto we must make shift to climb, on our hands and knees; but, when we are come up, there is victory and triumph. God's children have three suits of apparel; whereof two are worn daily on earth, the third laid up for them in the wardrobe of heaven: they are ever either in black, mourning; in red, persecuted; or in white, glorious. Any way shall be pleasant to me, that leads unto such an end. It matters not, what rags, or what colours I wear with men; so I may walk with my Saviour in white, and reign with him in glory.

XCI.

There is nothing more easy, than to say divinity by rote; and to discourse of spiritual matters from the tongue or pen of others but to hear God speak it to the soul, and to feel the power of religion in ourselves, and to express it out of the truth of experience within, is both rare and hard. All, that we feel not in the matters of God, is but hypocrisy; and, therefore, the more we profess, the more we sin. It will never be well with me, till, in these greatest things, I be careless of others' censures, fearful only of God's and my own; till sound experience have really catechized my heart, and made me know God and my Saviour otherwise than by words. I will never be quiet, till I can see, and feel, and taste God: my hearing I will account as only serving to effect this, and my speech only to express it.

XCII.

There is no enemy can hurt us, but by our own hands. Satan could not hurt us, if our own corruption betrayed us

not: afflictions cannot hurt us, without our own impatience : temptations cannot hurt us, without our own yieldance: death could not hurt us, without the sting of our own sins: sin could not hurt us, without our own impenitence: How might I defy all things, if I could obtain not to be my own enemy! I love myself too much, and yet not enough. O God, teach me to wish myself but so well as thou wishest me, and I am safe.

XCIII.

It grieves me to see all other creatures so officious to their Maker, in their kind: that both winds, and sea, and heaven, and earth obey him, with all readiness: that each of these hears other, and all of them their Creator; though to the destruction of themselves: and man only is rebellious; imitating herein the evil spirits, who, in the receipt of a more excellent kind of reason, are yet more perverse. Hence it is, that the prophets are ofttimes fain to turn their speech to the earth, void of all sense and life; from this living earth, informed with reason that only, which should make us more pliable, stiffeneth us. God could force us, if he pleased; but he would rather incline us by gentleness. I must stoop to his power, why do I not stoop to his will? It is a vain thing to resist his voice, whose hand we cannot resist.

XCIV.

As all natural bodies are mixed; so must all our moral dispositions. No simple passion doth well. If our joy be not allayed with sorrow, it is madness; and if our sorrow be not tempered with some mixture of joy, it is hellish and desperate. If, in these earthly things, we hope without all doubt, or fear without all hope, we offend on both sides; if we labour without all recreation, we grow dull and heartless; if we sport ourselves. without all labour, we grow wild and unprofitable. These compositions are wholesome, as for the body, so for the mind; which, though it be not of a compounded substance as the body, yet hath much variety of qualities and affections, and those contrary to each other. I care not how simple my heavenly affections are; which, the more free they are from composition, are the nearer to God: nor how compounded my earthly; which are easily subject to extremities. If joy come alone, I will ask him for his fellow; and evermore, in spite of him, couple him with his contrary: that so, while each are enemies to other, both may be friends to me.

XCV.

Joy and sorrow are hard to conceal; as from the countenance, so from the tongue. There is so much correspondence betwixt the heart and tongue, that they will move at once:

every man, therefore, speaks of his own pleasure and care; the hunter and falconer, of his games; the ploughman, of his team; the soldier, of his march and colours. If the heart were as full of God, the tongue could not refrain to talk of him: the rareness of Christian communication argues the common poverty of grace. If Christ be not in our hearts, we are godless if he be there without our joy, we are senseless if we rejoice in him and speak not of him, we are shamefully unthankful. Every man taketh, yea raiseth occasion, to bring in speech of what he liketh. As I will think of thee always, O Lord; so it shall be my joy, to speak of thee often: and, if I find not opportunity, I will make it.

XCVI.

When I see my Saviour hanging in so forlorn a fashion upon the Cross: his head drooping down; his temples bleeding with thorns, his hands and feet with the nails, and his side with the spear; his enemies round about him, mocking at his shame, and insulting over his impotence: how should I think any otherwise of him, than, as himself complaineth, forsaken of his Father? But, when again I turn mine eyes, and see the sun darkened, the earth quaking, the rocks rent, the graves opened, the thief confessing, to give witness to his Deity; and when I see so strong a guard of Providence over him, that all his malicious enemies are not able so much as to break one bone of that body, which seemed carelessly neglected: I cannot but wonder at his glory and safety. God is ever near, though oft unseen; and, if he wink at our distress, he sleepeth not. The sense of others must not be judges of his presence and care; but our faith. What care I, if the world give me up for miserable, while I am under his secret protection? O Lord, since thou art strong in our weakness, and present in our senselessness; give me but as much comfort in my sorrow, as thou givest me security, and at my worst I shall be well.

XCVII.

In sins, and afflictions, our course must be contrary: we must begin to detest the greatest sin first, and descend to the hatred of the least; we must first begin to suffer small afflictions with patience, that we may ascend to the endurance of the greatest: then alone shall I be happy, when, by this holy method, I have drawn my soul to make conscience of the least evil of sin, and not to shrink at the greatest evil of affliction.

XCVIII.

Prescription is no plea against the king: much less can long custom plead for error, against that our Supreme Lord, to whom a thousand years are but as yesterday. Yea, Time,

which pleads voluntarily for continuance of things lawful, will take no fee, not to speak against an evil use. Hath an ill custom lasted long? It is more than time it were abrogated: age is an aggravation to sin. Heresy or abuse, if it be grey-headed, deserves sharper opposition. To say "I will do ill because I have done so," is perilous and impious presumption. Continuance can no more make any wickedness safe, than the author of sin, no devil. If I have once sinned, it is too much if oft, woe be to me; if the iteration of my offence cause boldness, and not rather more sorrow, more detestation: woe be to me and my sin, if I be not the better because I have sinned.

XCIX.

It is strange to see the varieties and proportion of spiritual and bodily diets. There be some creatures, that are fatted and delighted with poisons: others live by nothing but air; and some, they say, by fire; others will taste no water, but muddy: others feed on their fellows, or perhaps on part of themselves; others, on the excretions of nobler creatures: some search into the earth for sustenance, or dive into the waters; others content themselves with what the upper earth yields them, without violence. All these, and more, are answered in the palate of the soul: there be some, yea the most, to whom sin, which of a most venemous nature, is both food and dainties; others, that think it the only life, to feed on the popular air of applause; others, that are never well out of the fire of contentions, and that wilfully trouble all waters with their private humours and opinions; others, whose cruelty delights in oppression and blood, yea whose envy gnaws upon their own hearts; others, that take pleasure to revive the wicked and foul heresies of the greater wits of the former times; others, whose worldly minds root altogether in earthly cares, or who not content with the ordinary provision of doctrine affect obscure subtleties unknown to wiser men; others, whose too indifferent minds feed on whatever opinion comes next to hand, without any careful disquisition of truth: so, some feed foul; others, but few, clean and wholesome. As there is no beast upon earth, which hath not his like in the sea, and which perhaps is not in some sort paralleled in the plants of the earth; so there is no bestial disposition, which is not answerably found in some men: mankind, therefore, hath within itself his Goats, Chameleons, Salamanders, Camels, Wolves, Dogs, Swine, Moles, and whatever sorts of beasts: there are but a few men, amongst men. To a wise man, the shape is not so much as the qualities. If I be not a man within; in my choices, affections, inclinations; it had been better for me to have been a beast without a beast is but like itself; but an evil man is half a beast, and half a devil.