free inwardly from the galling stroaks of a self-accusing Conscience here is no remurmuring of the heart for guilty subornations no checks for the secret contrivances of publique villanies no heart-breaking for the failings of bloudy designes or late remorse for their successe but quiet harmlesse thoughts of seasonable frugality of honest recreation with an un-interrupted freedome of recourse to Heaven And if at any time by either hostile or casuall means he be berest of his little he smiles in the face of a theef and is no whit astonished to see his thatch on a flame as knowing how easie a supply will repair his losse And when he shall come to his last close his heart is not so glewed to the world that he should be loth to part his soul is not tyed up in bags but flies out freely to her everlasting Rest Oh the secret vertue and happinesse of Poverty which none but the right disposed minde knows how to value It was not for nothing that so many great Saints have embraced it rather then the rich proffers of the vvorld That so many great Princes have exchanged their Thrones for quiet Cels Who so cannot be thankful for a little upon these conditions I wish he may be punished with abundance SECT XIII Considering how little will suffice Nature NEither will it a little avail to the furtherance of our Contentation to consider how little will suffice Nature and that all the rest is but matter of Opinion It is the Apostles charge Having food and raiment let us be therewith content Indeed what use is there of more then what may nourish us within and cover us without If that be wholsome and agreeable to our bodily disposition whether it be fine or course Nature passes not it is meerly Will that is guilty of this wanton and fastidious choice It is fit that Civilitie should make difference of clothings and that vveaknesse of body or eminence of Estate should make differences of diets Else why not Russet as well as Scarlet Beef as Phesant the Grashopper feeds on dew the Chameleon on air what care they for other Viands Our Books tell us that those Anachorets of old that went aside into Wildernesses and sustained themselves with the most spare diet such as those deserts could afford out-lived the date of other mens lives in whom Nature is commonly stifled with a gluttonous variety How strong and vigorous above their neighbour Grecians were the Lacedemonians held of old who by the Ordinance of their Law-giver held themselves to their black broth which when Dionysius would needs taste of his Cook truly told him that if he would relish that fare he must exercise strongly as they did and wash in Eurotas Who knows not that our Island doth not afford more able Bodies then they that eat and drink Oats And whom have wee seene more healthfull and active then the children of poor men trayned up hardly in their Cottages with fare as little as course Doe I see a poor Indian husbanding one tree to all his houshold uses finding in that one Plant Timber Thatch Meat Medicine Wine Honey Oyle Sawce Drink Utensils Ships Cables Sayles and doe I rove over all the latitude of Nature for contentment Our appetite is truly unreasonable neither will know any bounds We begin with necessaries as Pliny justly observes and from thence we rise to excesse punishing our selves with our owne wilde desires whereas if wee were wise we might finde mediocrity an ease Either extream is a like deadly he that over-afflicts his body kils a Subject he that pampers it nourishes an Enemy Too much abstinence turns vice and too much ingurgitation is one of the seven and at once destroys both Nature and Grace The best measure of having or desiring is not what we would but what we ought Neither is he rich that hath much but he that desires not much A discreet frugality is fittest to moderate both our wishes and expences which if we want wee prove dangerously prodigall in both if we have we doe happily improve our stock to the advantage of our selves and others SECT XIV Considering the inconveniences and miseries of discontentment THe next inducement to Contentation shall be the serious consideration of the miserable inconveniences of the contrary disposition Discontentment is a mixture of anger and of grief both which are wont to raise up fearfull tempests in the soul Hee teareth himself in his anger saith Bildad concerning that mirrour of patience And the sorrow of the world worketh death saith the chosen Vessell so as the Malecontent whether he be angry or sad mischieves himself both ways There cannot be a truer word then that of wise Solomon Anger resteth in the bosome of fools What can be more foolish then for a man because he thinks God hath made him miserable by crosses to make himself more miserable by his own distempers If the clay had sense what a mad thing were it for it to struggle with the Potter and if a man wil spurn against strong Iron-pikes what can he hope to carry away but wounds How witless a thing it is for a man to torment himself with the thoughts of those evils that are past all remedy What wise beholder would not have smiled with pity and scorn to have seen great Augustus after the defeat of some choice Troops to knock his head against the wall and to hear him passionately cry out O Varus restore me my lost Legions Who would not have been angry with that cholerick Prophet to hear him so furiously contest with his Maker for a withered Gourd What an affliction was it to good Jacob more then the sterility of a beloved wife to hear Rachel say Give mee children or else I die yea how ill did it sound in the mouth of the Father of the faithfull Lord God what wilt thou give mee seeing I goe childelesse Yet thus froward and techy is nature in the best if we may not have all we would have all that we have is nothing if wee bee not perfectly humoured we are wilfully unthankfull All Israel is nothing worth to Ahab if he may not have one poor Vineyard How must this needs irritate a munificent God to see his bounty contemned out of a childish pettishnesse How can he forbeare to take away from us his sleighted mercies How can he hold his hand from plaguing so ingratefull disrespects of his favours As for that other passion of grief what wofull work doth it make in ungoverned mindes How many have we knowne that out of thought for unrecoverable losses have lost themselves how many have runne from their wits how many from their lives Yea how many that out of an impatience to stay the leisure of vengeance have made their own hands their hasty executioners And even where this extremity prevails not look about and yee shall see men that are not able matches to their passions wofully macerating thēselves with
bottome of this divine love wherewith God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life None oh none can comprehend this mercy but he that wrought it Lord what a transcendent what an infinite love is this what an object was this for thee to love A world of sinners Impotent wretched creatures that had despighted thee that had no motive for thy favour but deformity misery professed enmity It had been mercy enough in thee that thou didst not damn the world but that thou shouldst love it is more then mercy It was thy great goodness to forbear the acts of just vengeance to the sinfull world of man but to give unto it tokens of thy love is a favour beyond all expression The least gift from thee had been more then the world could hope for but that thou shouldst not stick to give thine onely begotten Son the Son of thy love the Son of thine essence thy coequall coeternall Son who was more then ten thousand worlds to redeem this one forlorn world of sinners is love above all comprehension of men and Angels What diminution had it been to thee and thine essentiall glory O thou great God of heaven that the souls that sinned should have died and perished everlastingly yet so infinite was thy loving mercy that thou wouldest rather give thy onely Son out of thy bosome then that there should not be a redemption for beleevers Yet O God hadst thou sent down thy Son to this lower region of earth upon such terms as that he might have brought down heaven with him that he might have come in the port and Majesty of a God cloathed with celestiall glory to have dazeled our eyes and to have drawn all hearts unto him this might have seemed in some measure to have sorted with his divine magnificence But thou wouldst have him to appear in the wretched condition of our humanity Yet even thus hadst thou sent him into the world in the highest estate and pomp of royalty that earth could afford that all the Kings and Monarchs of the world should have been commanded to follow his train and to glitter in his Court and that the knees of all the Potentates of the earth should have bowed to his Soveraign Majesty and their lips have kissed his dust this might have carried some kind of appearance of a state next to divine greatnesse but thou wouldst have him come in the despised form of a servant And thou O blessed Jesu wast accordingly willing for our sakes to submit thy self to nakednesse hunger thirst wearinesse temptation contempt betraying agonies scorn buffeting scourgings distention crucifixion death O love above measure without example beyond admiration Greater love thou saiest hath no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friends But oh what is it then that thou who wert God and man shouldst lay down thy life more precious then many worlds for thine enemies Yet had it been but the laying down of a life in a fair and gentle way there might have been some mitigatiō of the sorrow of a dissolution there is not more difference betwixt life and death then there may be betwixt some one kind of death and another Thine O dear Saviour was the painfull shameful cursed death of the crosse wherein yet all that man could doe unto thee was nothing to that inward torment which in our stead thou enduredst from thy Fathers wrath when in the bitternesse of thine anguished soul thou cryedst out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Even thus wast thou content to be forsaken that we wretched sinners might be received to mercy O love stronger then death which thou vanquishedst more high then that hell is deep from which thou hast rescued us SECT XVI THe sense of this infinite love of God cannot choose but ravish the soul and cause it to goe out of it self into that Saviour who hath wrought so mercifully for it so as it may be nothing in it self but what it hath or is may be Christs By the sweet powers therefore of Faith and Love the soul findes it self united unto Christ feelingly effectually indivisibly so as that it is not to be distinguished betwixt the acts of both To me to live is Christ saith the blessed Apostle and elsewhere I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which now I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himselfe for me My beloved is mine and I am his saith the Spouse of Christ in her Bridall song O blessed union next to the hypostaticall whereby the humane nature of the Son of God is taken into the participation of the eternall Godhead SECT XVII OUt of the sense of this happy union ariseth an unspeakable complacency and delight of the soul in that God and Saviour who is thus inseparably ours and by whose union we are blessed and an high appreciation of him above all the world and a contemptuous under valuation of all earthly things in comparison of him And this is no other then an heavenly reflection of that sweet contentment which the God of mercies takes in the faithfull soul Thou hast ravisht my heart my sister my Spouse thou hast ravisht my heart with one of mine eyes Thou art beautifull O my Love as Tirzah comely as Jerusalem Turne away thine eyes from me for they have overcome me How fair is thy love my sister my Spouse How much better is thy love then wine and the smell of thine ointments better then all spices And the soul answers him again in the same language of spirituall dearnesse My beloved is white and ruddy the chiefest among ten thousand Set me as a seal upon thine heart as a seal upon thine arm for love is as strong as death And as in an ecstaticall qualm of passionate affection Stay me with flaggons and comfort me with apples for I am sick of love SECT XVIII VPon this gracious complacency will follow an absolute self-resignation or giving up our selves to the hands of that good God whose we are who is ours and an humble contentednesse with his good pleasure in all things looking upon God with the same face whether he smile upon us in his favours or chastise us with his loving corrections If he speak good unto us Behold the servant of the Lord be it unto me according to thy word If evill It is the Lord let him doe whatsoever he will Here is therefore a cheerfull acquiescence in God and an hearty reliance and casting our selves upon the mercy of so bountifull a God who having given us his Son can in and with him deny us nothing SECT XIX VPon this subacted disposition of heart wil follow a familiar yet awfull compellation of God and an emptying of our soules before him in all our necessities For that God
made thee faithfull to the death hath now given thee a crown of life and immortalitie and left thee a noble pattern of Christian fortitude so much more remarkable as lesse frequently followed Whether I look into the former or the present times I finde the world full of shrinking professors Amongst the first Christians persecution easily discovered four sorts of cowardly Renegadoes The first and worst whom they justly styled Idolaters that yeelded to all the publike forms of worship to those false Gods The second Sacrificers who condescended so far as to some kind of immolation unto those fained deities or at least to a tasting of those things which were thus offered The third Incensers such as with Marcellinus himself came on so far as to cast some grains of incense into the Idols fire The last were their Libellaticks such as privately by themselves or by some allowed proxey denyed the faith yet with their mony bought out this ignominy sin of any publique Act of Idolatry Not to speak of those many thousands which fell down before Solyman the second and held up their finger to fignifie their conversion to his Mahometisme for ease of their taxations how many doe we hear of daily of all nations and some which I shame and grieve to say of our own who yeild to receive circumcision and to renounce their Saviour Oh the lamentable condition of those distressed Christians If constant to their professio they live in a perpetual purgatory of torment If revolting they run into the danger of an everlasting damnation in hel Even this gentle restraint puts me into the meditatioÌ„ of their insupportable durance Why doe not all Christian hearts bleed with the sense of their deplorable estate why is not our compassion heightned according to the depth of their perill and misery What are our bowels made of if they yearn not at their unexpressible calamity Ye rich Merchants under whose imployment many of these poor souls have thus unhappily miscarried how can you blesse your selves in your bags whiles you see the members of Christ your Saviour thus torn from him for want of a petty ransome Ye eminent persons whom God hath advanced to power and greatness how can you sleep quietly upon your pillows whiles you think of the cold and hard lodgings the hungry bellies the naked and waled backs of miserable Christians Lastly what fervent prayers should we all that professe the dear name of Christ powre out unto the God of heaven for the strengthning of the faith and patience of these afflicted souls against the assaults of violence and for their happy and speedy deliverance out of their wofull captivity SECT XI THese prisoners are worthy of our deep compassion as those who are too sensible of their own misery Others there are who are so much more worthy of greater pity by how much they are lesse apprehensive of their need of it plausible prisoners under a spirituall tyranny whose very wils are so captived to the powers of darkness that to choose they would be no other then bondmen pleasing themselves in those chains whose weight is enough to sink their souls into hell such are they who have yeelded themselves over to bee enthralled by any known sin No men under heaven doe so much applaud themselves in the conceit of their liberty none so great slaves as they If the very Stoick Philosophers had not enough evinced this truth Divinity should Indeed the world is a worse kind of Algier full of miserable captives Here lies one so fettered in lust that he rots again there another so laden with drunken excesse that he can neither goe norstand and in very deed is not his own man Here one so pinched with golden fetters that he can neither eat nor sleep nor at all enjoy himself there another so pined with envy that he is forced to feed on his own heart Here one so tormented with anger that he is stark mad for the time and cares not how he mischieves himself in a furious desire to hurt others there another so racked with ambition that he is stretched beyond his own length and lives in the pain of a perpetuall self-extention These and all others of this kinde are most miserable prisoners chained up for everlasting darknesse So much more worthy of our pity as they are lesse capable of their own Spend your compassion if you please upon these deplorable subjects But for me wish me if you wil as free from any imputation of evill as I was and am from the thought of it wish me in your free champian where I may have no hedge so much as to confine my eye wish me happy in the society of so dear and and noble a Friend but in the mean while think of me no otherwise then as a Free prisoner And Yours thankfully devoted in all faithfull observance I. N. THE REMEDY OF DISCONTENTMENT OR A TREATISE OF CONTENTATION in whatsoever condition Fit for these sad and troubled Times By Jos. HALL D. D. and B. of N. Phil. 4. 1◠〈…〉 have learned in whatsoever estate I am therewith to be content 12. I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound Every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to abound and to want LONDON Printed by M. F. for Nat. Butter 1646. I Have perused this Treatise entituled The Remedy of Discontentment and judging it to be very pious profitable and necessary for these sad and distracted times I license it to be printed and published and should much commend it to the Christian Reader if the very name of the Authour were not in it self sufficient without any further testimony JOHN DOVVâ—AMâ— TO THE CHRISTIAN READER Grace and Peace WHat can be more seasonable then when all the world is sick of Discontentment to give counsels and Receits of Contentation Perhaps the Patient will think it a time is chosen for physick in the midst of a Fit But in this case we must doe as we may I confesse I had rather have stayed till the Paroxys me were happily over that so the humors being somewhat setled I might hope for the more kindly operation of this wholsome medicine But partly my age and weaknesse despairing to out-live the publique distemper and partly my judgement crossing the vulgar opinion for the season of some kinde of Receits have â—â—w 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon this safe and 〈…〉 â—nscription God is 〈…〉 that I wrote this 〈…〉 of mine own afflictions the particulars whereof it were unseasonable to trouble the world withall as one that meant to make my selfe my own Patient by enjoyning my self that course of remedies that I prescribe to others and as one who by the powerfull working of Gods Spirit within me labour to finde my heart framed to those holy dispositions which I wish and recommend to every Christian soul If there be no remedy but the worst of outward troubles must afflict us it shall be happy
as they are brittle yet vvhat comfort could they yeeld for the soul to rest in Alas their efficacy is too short to reach unto a true Contentation yea if the best of them vvere perpetuated unto us upon the fairest conditions that this Earth can allow hovv intolerable tedious would it prove in the fruition Say that God were pleased to protract my life to the length of the age of the first founders of Mankinde and should in this state of body adde hundreds of years to the days of my pilgrimage Woe is me how vveary should I be of my self and of the World I that now complain of the load of seventy one yeers how should I be tyred out ere I could arrive at the age of Parre but before I could climb up to the third Century of Johannes de Temporibus hovv often should I call for death not to take up but to take off my burthen and with it my self But if any or all these earthly blessings could be freed from those grievances wherewith they are commonly tempered yet how little satisfaction could the soul finde in them What are these outward things but very luggage which may load our backs but cannot lighten our hearts Great and vvise Solomon that had the full command of them all cries out Vanity of Vanities and a greater Monarch then hee shuts up the Scene with I have been all things and am never the better All these are of too narrow an extent to fill the capacious soul of Man the desires vvhereof are enlarged with enjoying so as the more it hath the lesse it is satisfyed neither indeed can it bee otherwise The Eye and the Eare are but the Purveyours for the Heart if therefore the eye be not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing how shall the heart say It is enough Now vvho vvould suffer himself to be too much disquieted vvith the losse of that vvhich may vex him but cannot content him We doe justly smile at the folly of that vain Lord of vvhom Petrarch speakes who vvhen an Horse vvhich hee dearely loved was sick laid that Steed of his on a silken bed vvith a vvrought pillovv under his head and caused himselfe then afflicted vvith the Gout to be carried on his servants shoulders to visit that dear patient and upon his decease mourned solemnly for him as if it had been his Son We have laught at the fashion of the Girles of Holland vvho having made to themselves gay and large Babies and laid them in a curious cradle fain them to sicken and dye and celebrate their funerall vvith much passion So fond are we if having framed to our selves imaginary contentments here in the World vve give vvay to immoderate grief in their miscarriage SECT VII The danger of the love of these earthly comforts NEither are these earthlie comforts more defective in yeelding full satisfaction to the soul then dangerous in their over-dear fruition For too much delight in them robs us of more solid contentments The World is a cheating gamester suffering us to win at the first that at last he may goe away with all Our very Table may be made our snare and those things vvhich should have been for our vvealth may bee unto us an occasion of falling Leo the fourth Emperour of Constantinople delighted extreamly in precious stones with these he embellishes his Crown which being worn close to his Temples strikes such a cold into his head that causeth his bane yea how many vvith the too much love of these outward things have lost not their lives onely but their souls No man can be at once the Favourite of God and the World as that Father said truly or as our Saviour in fuller tearms No man can serve two Masters GOD and Mammon Shortly the World may be a dangerous enemy a sure friend it cannot bee If therefore we shall like wise men value things at their due prices since we are convinced in our selves that all these earthly comforts are so transitory in their nature so unsatisfying in their use and so dangerous in their enjoying hovv little reason have we to be too much affected with forgoing them Our bloud is dear to us as that wherein our life is yet if we finde that it is either infected or distempered vve doe willingly part vvith it in hope of better health How much more vvith those things which are farther from us and lesse concerning us SECT VIII Consideration of the Divine Providence ordering all events THe second Consideration is of that All-wise Providence which ordereth all events both in Heaven and Earth allotting to every Creature his due proportion so over-ruling all things to the best that we could not want if he knew it better for us to abound This Station he hath set us in this measure he hath shared out to us whose will is the rule of good what we have therefore cannot but be best for us The World is a large Chesse-board every man hath his place assigned him one is a King another a Knight another a Pawn and each hath his severall motion vvithout this variety there could be no game played A skilfull Player will not stirre one of these Chips but vvith intention of an advantage neither should any of his men either stand or move if in any other part of that Checker it might bee in more hope to win There is no estate in this World vvhich can be universally good for all one mans meat may be another mans medicine and a third mans poyson A Turk findes health and temper in that Opium vvhich would put one of us into our last sleep Should the Plow-man be set to the Gentlemans fare this Chicken that Partridge or Phesant would as over-slight food bee too soon turned over and leave his empty stomach to quarrell for stronger provision Beef is for his diet and if any sawce needs besides his hunger Garlick Every man hath as a body so a minde of his own vvhat one loves is abhorred of another the great House-keeper of the world knows how to fit every palate with that which either is or should be agreeable to it for salubrity if not for pleasure Lay before a Childe a Knife and a Rod and bid him take his choice his hand will be straight upon that edge tool especially if it be a little guilded and glittering but the Parent knows the Rod to be more safe for him and more beneficiall We are ill carvers for our selves he that made us knows what is fit for us either for time or measure without his Providence not an hair can fall from our heads We would have bodily health I cannot blame us what is the vvorld to us without it He whose wee are knows sicknesse to bee for the health of the soul whether should we in true judgement desire We vvish to live who can blame us life is sweet but if our Maker have ordained that nothing but Death can render us glorious what madnesse
is it to stick at the condition Oh our grosse infidelity if we doe not beleeve that great Arbiter of the World infinitely wise to know what is best for us infinitely mercifull to vvill what hee knows best infinitely powerfull to doe what he will And if we be thus perswaded hovv can we but in matter of good say with blessed Mary Behold thy Servant be it unto me according to thy Word And in matter of evill with good Eli It is the Lord let him doe what hee will SECT IX Consideration of the worse condition of others IN the third place it will be requisite for us to cast our eyes upon the vvorse condition of others perhaps better deserving then our selves for if we shall vvhine and complain of that weight which others do run away chearfully withall the fault vvill appear to be not in the heavinesse of the load but in the weaknesse of the bearer If I bee discontented vvith a mean dwelling another man lives merrily in a low thatched Cottage If I dislike my plain fare the four captive children feed fair and fat vvith pulse and water If I be plundred of my rich suits I see a more chearfull heart under a russet Coat then great Princes have under purple Robes If I doe gently languish upon my sick bed I see others patient under the torments of the Colick or Stone or Strangury If I be clapt up within four wals I hear Petronius professe he had rather be in prison with Cato then at liberty with Caesar I hear Paul and Silas sing like Nightingales in their cages Am I sad because I am childlesse I hear many a parent wish himself so Am I banished from my home I meet with many of vvhom the vvorld vvas not vvorthy vvandring about in Sheeps-skins in Goat-skins in deserts and in mountains and in dens and in caves of the earth What am I that I should speed better then the miserablest of these patients What had they done that they should fare worse then I If I have little others have lesse If I feel pain some others torture If their sufferings be just my forbearances are mercifull my provisions to theirs liberall It is no ill counsell therefore and not a little conducing to a contented want that great persons should sometimes step aside into the homely Cottages of the poor and see their mean stuffe course fare hard lodgings worthlesse utensils miserable shifts and to compare it with their own delicate and nauseating superfluities Our great and learned King Alfred was the better all his life after for his hidden retirednesse in a poor Neat-heards Cabbin where he was sheltred and sometimes also chidden by that homely Dame Neither vvas it an ill vvish of that vvise man that all great Princes might first have had some little taste what it is to want that so their own experience might render them more sensible of the complaints of others Man though he be absolute in himself and stand upon his own bottom yet is he not a little wrought upon by examples and comparisons with others for in them he sees what he is or may be since no events are so confined to some speciall subjects as that they may not bee incident to other men Merits are a poor plea for any mans exemption whiles our sinfull infirmities lay us all open to the rod of divine Justice and if these dispensations be meerly out of favour why doe I rather grudge at a lesser misery then blesse God for my freedome from a greater judgement Those therefore that suffer more then I have cause of more humbling and I that suffer lesse then they have cause of more thankfulnesse even mitigations of punishment are new mercies so as others torments doe no other then heighten my obligations Let me not therefore repine to be favourably miserable SECT X. Consideration of the inconveniences of great estates and first of their cares that they expose us to envy and then macerate us with cares THe fourth Consideration shall be of the inconveniences which doe oftentimes attend a fulnesse of estate such and so many as may vvell make us sit down content with a little whereof let the first be envy a mischief not to be avoided of the great This shadow follows that body inseparably All the curs in the street are ready to fall upon that dogge that goes away with the bone and every man hath a Cudgell to fling at a well-loaded Tree whereas a mean condition is no eye-sore to any beholder Low shrubs are not wont to bee stricken with Lightning but tall Oaks and Cedars feel their flames Whiles David kept his fathers sheep at home he might sing sweetly to his Harp in the fields without any disturbance But when he once comes to the Court and findes applause and greatnesse creep upon him now emulation despight and malice dog him close at the heels wheresoever he goes Let him leave the Court and flee into the Wildernesse there these bloud-hounds follow him in hot suit Let him run into the Land of the Philistims there they finde him out and chase him to Ziklag and if at the last he hath climbed up to his just Throne and there hopes to breath him after his tedious pursuit even there he meets vvith more unquietnesse then in his desert and notwithstanding all his Royalty at last cries out Lord remember David and all his troubles How many have wee known whom their wealth hath betraid and made innocent malefactors who might have slept securely upon a hard bolster and in a poor estate out-lived both their Judges and accusers Besides on even ground a fall may be harmlesse but he that fals from on high cannot escape bruising He therefore that can think the benefits of Eminence can countervail the dangers which haunt greatness let him affect to over-top others for me let me rather be safely low then high with perill After others envy the next attendant upon greatnesse is our own cares how doe these disquiet the Beds and sawce the Tables of the wealthy breaking their sleeps galling their sides embittering their pleasures shortning their days How bitterly doe vve finde the holiest men complaining of those distractions vvhich have attended their earthly promotions Nazianzen cries out of them as no other then the bane of the soul and that other Gregory whom we are wont to call the last of the best Bishops of Rome and the first of the bad passionately bewails this clogge of his high preferment I confesse saith he that whiles I am outwardly advanced I am inwardly fallen lower this burdensome honour depresses me and innumerable cares disquiet me on all sides my minde grown almost stupid with those temporall cares which are ever barking in mine ears is forced upon earthly things thus he There are indeed cares which as they may be used may help us on towards Heaven such as Melancthon owns to his Camerarius My cares saith he send me to my prayers