Death a good man had better never have been born V. No man entettains Death so chearfully as he that has been a long time preparing himself for it for frequent Meditation makes it familiar and easie to us I had almost said and welcome It is not the number of days and years that makes a long Life but a well composed mind A Soul that rejoyces to think of leaving the Body and returning to him that gave it He that dies well has liv'd long enough and no man can fail of dying well that has liv'd well He that would die in peace must wean himself from all the satisfactions of this World before-hand What has he to fear that has already stript himself of more than Death could have taken from him If we would make Life pleasant we must cast off all care of that too and then let Death come in any shape and welcome whether we are dispatch'd by a Sword or a Fever it is the same thing No man is so happy both in Life and Death as he that can every day say to himself I have lived for all that follows is another Life to him in surplusage He that would live comfortably must die daily CHAP. XXIX Of Magnanimity The Description of a Magnanimous man I. MAgnanimity is an Heroical Vertue of an indefatigable force and undaunted courage and never without some glorious design There is somewhat extraordinary methinks in the very sound of it If it were not for this Vertue most of the rest would fall short of their ends for want of Resolution to grapple with the difficulties they are to encounter This is it that inspires us with great and generous Inclinations that animates and supports us in all hazards and Extremities and with God's assistance breaks through all oppositions till it has placed us in the possession of what we desire He that would make himself considerable must offer at something that is so The more Danger the more Honour Man when he is truly himself can do more than we think for II. Great minds are always intent upon great matters Not what the common people call great for that they look upon as despicable Their care is to do things that are Honourable in the sight of their own Consciences but whether the World gives or refuses them the Honour they deserve it matters not unless in case where duty or the glory of God requires the contrary Their business is Vertue nor Ostentation and the reward of well-doing they find in the Action it self without depending upon the voice of the people They are Eminent above others and Invincible and unalterably steady in all Fortunes no Intruders into high places but content in their own Stations They are above Submissions and entreaties to other people for they need nothing but what they find in themselves They know neither Fear nor Flattery and when they put themselves forward to be taken notice of it is not for Vanity sake but to justifie the cause of Religion and Vertue And yet in all this height of Spirit and Resolution toward men they are to God-ward the humblest and the meekest of all Mortals To him it is that they ascribe all from whom they have received all acknowledging that of themselves they have nothing they can do nothing they are nothing Provided that a man thinks soberly and humbly of himself he may be allowed to take some delight with modesty in the good opinion of other people It is not well to hunt or court Applause but if it follows us neither are we to reject it III A great Mind presses to his end thorow the thickest of his Enemies and upon the very points of their Weapons without any stop or hesitation His behaviour toward his Equals or Inferiors is Temperate and Modest. Towards his Superiors he is neither slavish nor insolent He never passes the bounds of Decency and Respect but on the other side he is not to be trampled upon Where he Loves or Hates he owns it publickly and takes the same freedom in his Actions and Discourses for there is nothing in this World that he either hopes for or fears He does many things that other people do but not the same way and therefore he 's upon the Reserve with the Multitude for he takes no pleasure at all in their acquaintance He does not willingly remember Injuries and where they cannot be avoided bears them without any complaints or submissions There are not many that he commends nor many that he would be commended by but his care is nevertheless to do things that are worthy of Commendation No man has him at his beck but his Friend or his Superiour He wonders at nothing and the reason is he meets not with any thing which appears to him either Great or New In case of Accidents he is safe within himself and so the event of things never troubles him In his motion spirit and stile he is grave slow steady and composed He that has but little to do may do it at leisure and there is no place for much earnestness where a man is content within himself CHAP. XXX Of Patience The Occasions and Effects of it The Signs of it An Exhortation to it with Instructions how to behave our selves in Adversity The necessity of Perseverance I. PAtience is a Vertue that enables us to bear Adversity with Equality of mind but because there are several sorts of Adversities there are likewise several Names given to Patience answerable to the variety of evils which it is to be exercised upon Patience properly so called is the gift of bearing Injuries without perturbation and with courage When it relates to the loss of Goods and Fortune it is called AEquanimity And that which keeps up the heart in the delays and disappointments of some expected Good we call Longanimity But the Vertue which fortifies us to all other purposes and supports us in all Afflictions and Calamities Foreign or Domestick Publick or Private is known by the name of Constancy the Vertue of all others that we have most occasion for It is not for nothing that the Life of man is called a Warfare considering how we are beset with Adversaries and what troops of mischiefs break in daily upon us Not a moment passes without an Assault without a Combat and if we had no Enemies abroad we should yet find work enough to do with those in our own bosoms We breed and we harbour Enemies within our selves that crucifie and torment us We come weeping into the World and so we live in it and so we leave it It is the first thing we learn and we can find tears when we are capable of nothing else We have heard of divers that never laugh'd but not of any man yet that never wept It concerns us therefore to arm our selves with Patience without which we can neither be resolute nor perfect No man knows the value of it till he reads it that is to say till he falls into
of doing it that avails us IV. Our days are upon the wing Time flies away and there is no recalling of what 's past Our life depends upon the Future and is still looking forward and we consume it in mere Preparation till Old Age and Death it self over-take us unprovided for it It is in our Lives as upon the way in good Company The time passes away in Chat and Discourse and we are at the end of our Journey before we are aware For sleeping or waking we still keep on our pace and pass insensibly to our last end even before we think on 't What is it then that we trifle for why do we linger and dally Time must be laid hold on immediately or it is gone for ever The value of a day nay of an hour is inestimable and the loss of it irreparable If a man comes to enter upon our Estates or there falls out any dispute about a Land-mark we must presently to Law and Arms. But our time and our life is open for any man to take that pleases so Prodigal are we in the only case where we may be honestly covetous We are not to compute Life by the number of Years but by the well employing of them and let the oldest man alive discount for the time he has spent in Sleep Luxury Quarrels Visits Lazy sauntrings up and down in doing just nothing at all or at best nothing to the purpose without so much as minding what he did and he shall find that at the end of a hundred years he dies a Child We are apt enough to lament the loss of our Time-past and yet we lose more still in the Lamentation Why do we not rather improve the present while we have it to prevent a late Repentance why do we lose this instant which is our own and pretend to dispose of the Future which is out of our power In effect Life is but a moment and delay is absolute loss He that puts off to day comes too late to morrow V. It is to Almighty God that we are to direct all our Thoughts Words and Deeds to the exclusion of any other Object applying our selves wholly to his blessed will He that takes God for his Guide shall be sure never to miss his way Nor shall he miscarry in any of his affairs who directs all to Gods glory and lives as in his holy presence Neither is it possible for any man to avoid his All-seeing eye which reaches not only to our Words and Actions but pries into the Thoughts of our Hearts And He 's in a great mistake that when the Door is bolted and the Curtains drawn reckons himself to be alone for there is no place so dark or so retired as to exclude the Omni-presence of God in whom we Live Move and have our Being Whether we Eat or Drink Walk or Discourse our thoughts are to be always upon him we are to do our utmost to tender our selves worthy of the favour of his Countenance and not to do those things in the sight of an All-seeing God which even before a Temporal Judge we would be ashamed of Every man should live as if there were only God and himself in the World and chearfully imbrace the lot which Providence hath set out for him whether Prosperity or Adversity We are to seek God and whether we find him by this or that way it matters not provided that we find him at last CHAP. XX. Of the good of Solitude Ill Company to be avoided The Vices of the World and what they are Vertue the study of a Proficient How to know when we have attained it 1. IT is a great Argument of a clear and well composed Mind when a man is at Unity with himself for he approaches in some degree to the Felicity of God himself who in himself is blessed for evermore Neither can he be said properly ever to be alone that is never separated from Christ. If so it be that we cannot hold our Tongues we may talk to our felves but let us be sure then that we talk to honest men If you would know now what a man should say to himself why truly the same things that he is used to say to others of his Neighbours Let him speak ill of himself to himself let him call himself to an account for all his sins and punish himself for whatsoever he finds amiss and he 'll never want matter to work upon Let him retire and give himself leisure for Contemplation but let him then conceal his very Retirement He that makes Proclamation of his Solitude retires only to be more publick which is a kind of slothful Ambition Now there must be a Retirement of the Mind too as well as of the Body to make it Beneficial and Comfortable We must withdraw our selves from all vain Employments and not only from Company but from all things too which do not concern us we must not admit so much as any Creature no nor the very Image or Idea of any creature into our thoughts we must blot out of our minds all the toys and fooleries of this World and in the most secret recess of our Souls address our selves to God alone In this Privacy of mind in this Oblivion of all idle and impertinent things we shall gain peace of Heart true Tranquillity and Repose Let this be our retreat then and this our business For we shall certainly find God there where the Creature is abandon'd II. It is rarely seen that any man is good himself who keeps ill Company For there is nothing so destructive of good Manners as to Herd with the Multitude who do commonly leave a man worse than they found him It is not for a tender and unsettled mind to resist the force of ill examples that break in upon a man with a kind of Authority and Credit for men are apt to run over to the stronger side The man of the Gusto gains upon us by degrees and takes us by the Palate A rich Neighbour strikes us with Envy or Avarice and many a man has been undone by an ill example Our very Parents our Companions our Servants draw us some way or other into mischiefs The whole World is full of snares and hazzards and we are no sooner out of our Mothers belly but we are encompast with dangers as if we were dropt into the Quarters of an Enemy There is not any man living hardly that does not either recommend some Wickedness to us or imprint it upon us or at least infect us with some evil disposition before we are aware O the delicious sweetness of those blessed hours that a man spends in his Private Family or Study apart from the noise and business of the People How calm How gentle not so much as a Cloud or a Breath of Wind to disturb the Serenity of his Mind But by and by some body calls him out away he goes gets more Company makes up a Club and never fails of
Fortune is a great Slavery and Thrones are but uneasie Seats and so they find them that possess them let the Multitude conceive of them what they please That Felicity cannot but be troublesome to the Ruler that makes him burthensome to his People And when it comes to that once how sick they grow of that Splendor which charmed and dazled them before What Contemplations and Philosophising upon the Blessings of Privacy and Freedom and the Vanity of Earthly things They look then with Terror upon Death and the Last Judgment And all the Greatness that they have purchas'd with so much Sweat and Blood shrinks to nothing at the very thought Let us therefore so live that we may appear with Comfort before the Great Tribunal He that humbles himself now shall be exalted hereafter IV. He that thinks he shall be safe and quiet when he is great is directly out of his wits Many Liberties may be taken in a private Condition that are dangerous in a Publick The higher we are raised the more eminent are our Infirmities There 's no concealing of any thing upon the top of the House We have lost even the Tranquility that we had before There 's not a day not an hour that we can call our own And then the Fall is in a manner from Heaven to Hell How can we then expect Peace and Repose in a Station where all that ever went before us have encountered Hazards and Trouble if not Death it self How many Princes have been poysoned at their very Tabls betray'd in the Arms of their Mistresses Caesar was murthered in the Senate-house He that stands high upon a slippery place and the brink of a Precipice God have mercy upon him But the man that stands below upon the firm Ground needs not fear falling In our Greatnesses we are to consider that every man that admires and flatters us envies us too in his heart What with our open and our secret Enemies we are never secure We are betray'd by our Servants our Friends our Relations But these are the sins and miseries of Courts not of Cottages He that lies close lives quiet He fears no body of whom no body is afraid V. A man could hardly forbear laughing to see a Horse or a Dog take upon himself an Authority over the rest of his kind And is it not more ridiculous for a Man to do it because he has more Money perhaps or more Power Proud Dust and Ashes to exalt himself upon his own Bottom when he has nothing good in him but what he has received from above We can call nothing our own but our sins Let us render Glory then for what we have received unto him that gave it Do we prefer one Horse before another because he has more Meat or gayer Trappings No by no means but we reckon him to be the better that 's the fleeter No more is a Man to be esteemed for any thing apart from himself But I am a Person of Quality says one and the best man in the Company The very saying of such a thing is a Forfeiture of the Honour he pretends to for no man is truly Honourable but a Good man with whom this Titulor Honour is of no Accompt True Nobility does not advance it self and the great Ornament of an Illustricus Life is Modesty Humility goes a great way in the Character even of the most Glorious Prince VI. If we would but take a measure of our little Bodies and make a Search into our Infirmities we should find much to humble us and very little or nothing to brag of The Philosophers tell us that the World is but a Point And yet we must be dividing even of this Point into Kingdoms and Dominions The Earth we trample upon shall ere long be laid upon us and of all our Possessions we shall have only so much left as will serve to cover a cold and rotten Carcase And is not here a goodly Foundation think ye for all our great and mighty Projects This Consideration methinks should put a Check to our furious and insolent Passions There 's no designing of Conquests and ranging of Armies in the Grave When the mad Humour is over we shall come then though too late I fear to understand the Emptiness of Names and Titles and that they are like Glass the Brighter the Britler and the more they shine the sooner they are broken The Oak that has been an Age a growing is cut down in an hour VII He that withdraws himself from Company has cut off one dangerous Temptation For Pride shews it self more or less in proportion to the number of Spectators People dress and trick up themselves to be seen Are not all the excesses of Luxury and Magnificence for Ostentation Did ever any man expose the Pomp of his Vanity and Riot in a Desert Ambition loves to shew it self in the Face of the World and is never so well pleased as with a Popular Applause When the Bee has made her Honey the Horse finish'd his Course the Tree brought forth its Fruit their Business is at an End But the Man that is struck with Vain-Glory accounts all the rest as nothing without making himself the Idol of the Multitude and to be adored flattered and pointed at by the Rabble But certainly did we but daily consider who they are that commend us we should hardly think them worth our Courtship They are a vain and fickle sort of men the dregs of Mankind and made up of Phrensie and Contradiction They are short-liv'd both the Bestowers and Receivers of these Applauses The Earth it self is but a Point and this is done but in a corner even of that Point There were divers Dissenters too and scarce a man of all the rest that knows his own Mind But 't is a brave thing for a Man to make himself famous to Posterity that is to say to those whom we never did see nor ever shall Why are we not as well troubled that no body talk'd of us before we came into the World as delighted to think how we shall be spoken of after we are gone out of it Nay let us give it for granted that our Memories shall be perpetuated and our Names live for ever What then what shall we be the better for this when we are dead Or to come nearer what are we the better for this same thing called Fame even while we are living A man is many times commended where he is not and tormented where he is The Value of every thing is in it self and it self and it is neither the better for a good word nor the worse for wanting it The Sun would be every jot as glorious without Spectators as with them The Rose is never the sweeter nor the pleasanter the Diamond is never the brighter for an Encomium It is a strong proof of a generous Mind for a man to be content with himself and not to depend upon the Breath of the Common People for his
one to the Mind than the other is to the Body He that lives in Hope has not one moment of quiet so long as the Will wants the thing it hopes for II. We should never cast an eye upon any thing either without us or about us but with this Consideration It is all transitory and frail How strangely do we forget our selves Are we not born Mortal And this day nay this very hour what assurance have we of it Do we not live upon Trust and is not Death at the very heel of us It is by Gods Power and Mercy that we live and have a Being From him we have received all and when he calls to him it is that we are to render all without repining He 's an ungrateful Debtor that speaks ill of his Creditor There is not any thing under Heaven that we ought to hope for And Heaven it self is the only warrantable Subject of our Hope III. Despair proceeds from a sluggish Abjection of Mind too great an Apprehension of Difficulties a criminal Distrust of our selves and a Defect both of Resolution and Industry This weakness may be overcome by suggesting Encouragements drawn from the Examples of those that have extricated themselves out of greater Straits Let us begin then and press forward for God will assist our Endeavours and all Difficulties will be made easie to us so soon as we shall have relinquish'd the false Opinions that have misled us There is not any thing befalls us but what was allotted us from Eternity and it is either tolerable or otherwise If it may be born we are not to despair but to endure it If not it will make a quick end both of it self and of us too and we are not to despair there neither If we cannot endure it 't is short if we can 't is light It is in our own power to make many things tolerable by balancing them with the benefit and convenience that attends them Affliction is the occasion of Virtue CHAP. XVII Of Fear The Vanity of it and how to master it Rashness to be avoided and something more of Anger I. I Have known many people without any visible or so much as probable danger run raving up and down as if they were stark mad upon the bare Apprehension of some Imaginary Mischief to befal them The Torment they endure is unspeakable what betwixt the Impression of a present and the Apprehension of a mischief to come There are many Misfortunes which we create and have a Being only in the Imagination There are others which threaten us indeed but a far off and they 'll come soon enough of themselves without being drawn on before their time There are some so weak as to govern themselves by Dreams and idle Phansies without any reasonable ground of Conjecture at all and to be startled at every foolish Rumor A word mistaken is enough to break their sleep and the Apprehension of a Great Mans Displeasure puts them directly out of their Wits not so much for the Displeasure it self as for the Consequences of it But these are vain Thoughts and the vainer the more Troublesome For Truth has its Measure and Limits but Imagination is boundless And the main Difference I find betwixt the Sufferance of a Misfortune and the Expectation of it is this The Grief for what hath befaln us will over but the fear of what may befal us hath no end II. He that would deliver himself from the Tyranny of Fear let him take for granted that what he fears will come to pass and then enter into a Computation upon the whole matter Upon this Deliberation he will certainly find that the things he fears are nothing so terrible in themselves as in the false Opinion of them 'T is a hard case for a man to be banished or laid in Irons 'T is a terrible pain to be burnt alive And yet we have many instances not only of Christians but Infidels also that have Despised and Triumphed over all this and more indeed than this amounts to Stephen suffered death with a quiet Constancy of mind and pray'd for his Persecutors Laurence rejoyces upon the Gridiron and braves the Tyrant The Virgin Appollonia leaps into the Fire Anaxarchus is chearful in the Morter under the very stroak of the Hammer Socrates takes off his Cup of Poyson as if it had been a Frolick and drinks the Health to Critias What is there now so terrible in the Faggot or the Gibbet or in the train of Executioners and Officers of Justice that attend it under this Pomp and Formality which serves only to fright Fools there lies Death That which so many thousands of Men Women and Children have not only Welcom'd but Courted Set aside the noise the hurry and the disguise in these Cases and let every thing appear in its own shape we shall find there is nothing terrible in the matter but the mere Apprehension of it And that it fares with us great Boys as it does with little ones our very Nurses and our Play-fellows if they be but drest up with a white Sheet or a Vizard are enough to put us out of our Senses Nay and we are the sillier Children of the two for we are struck with a Panique Terrour not only at the Counterfeit of a Reality but the very Counterfeit of a Counterfeit torments us III. Bring it now from a particular to a common Cause and let every man say to himself I have a frail and mortal Body liable to distempers sickness and in the conclusion to death it self All this I have known from a Child and the many ill Accidents that threaten me What have I now to fear Bodily sickness My Soul will be the better for 't Poverty My Life will be the safer and the sweeter for 't Loss of Fortune Why then farewel all the Cares and Dangers that accompany it Loss of Credit If I suffer deservedly I shall detest the Cause but approve the Justice If wrongfully my Conscience will be my Comforter Shall I fear a Repulse or a Disappointment there never was any man but wanted something or other that he desired Banishment I 'll Travel and Banish my self Loss of my Eyes It will deliver me from many Temptations What if men speak evil of me It is but what they are us'd to do and what I deserve Shall I fear Death It is the very condition I came into the World upon Well! But to dye in a strange Country All Countries are alike to him that has no abiding-place here But for a man to die before his time As if a man should complain of having his Shackles knock't off and being discharged of a Prison before his time We are not to look upon Death or Banishment as causes of Mourning as Punishments but only as Tributes of Mortality It is a senseless thing to fear what we cannot shun IV. Let us take heed of being over-confident and venturing at things beyond our strength for no man is more