upon us, or a sickness, or scorn, or a lessened fortune, if we fear to die, or know not to be patient, or are proud, or covetous, then the calamity sits heavy on us. But if we know how to manage a noble principle, and fear not death so much as a dishonest action, and think impatience a worse evil than a fever, and pride to be the biggest disgrace, and poverty to be infinitely desirable before the torments of covetousness; then we who now think vice to be so easy, and make it so familiar, and think the cure so impossible, shall quickly be of another mind, and reckon these accidents amongst things eligible.

But no man can be happy that hath great hopes and great fears of things without, and events depending upon other men, or upon the chances of fortune. The rewards of virtue are certain, and our provisions for our natural support are certain; or, if we want meat till we die, then we die of that disease, and there are many worse than to die with an atrophy or consumption, or unapt and coarser nourishment. But he that suffers a transporting passion concerning things within the power of others, is free from sorrow and amazement no longer than his enemy shall give him leave; and it is ten to one but he shall be smitten then and there where it shall most trouble him: for so the adder teaches us where to strike, by her curious and fearful defending of her head. The old Stoics when you told them of a sad story, would still answer: "Tί πρòs μé; What is that to me?" "Yes, for the tyrant hath sentenced you also to prison." "Well, what is that? He will put a chain upon my leg, but he cannot bind my soul." "No: but he will kill you." "Then I'll die. If presently, let me go, that I may presently be freer than himself: but if not till anon or to-morrow, I will dine first, or sleep, or do what reason and nature calls for, as at other times." This in Gentile philosophy is the same with the discourse of S. Paul, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both how to be full and how to be hungry, both to abound and suffer need.

We are in the world like men playing at tables; the chance is not in our power, but to play it is; and when it is fallen we must manage it as we can; and let nothing trouble us, but when we do a base action, or speak like a fool, or think wickedly: these things God hath put into our powers; but concerning those things which are wholly in the choice of another, they cannot fall under

our deliberation, and therefore neither are they fit for our passions. My fear may make me miserable, but it cannot prevent what another hath in his power and purpose: and prosperities can only be enjoyed by them who fear not at all to lose them; since the amazement and passion concerning the future takes off all the pleasure of the present possession. Therefore if thou hast lost thy land, do not also lose thy constancy: and if thou must die a little sooner, yet do not die impatiently. For no chance is evil to him that is content, and to a man nothing miserable, unless it be unreasonable. No man can make another man to be his slave, unless he hath first enslaved himself to life and death, to pleasure or pain, to hope or fear: command these passions, and you are freer than the Parthian kings. (From Holy Living.)

OF THE PRACTICE OF PATIENCE

Now we suppose the man entering upon his scene of sorrows and passive graces. It may be he went yesterday to a wedding, merry and brisk, and there he felt his sentence, that he must return home and die (for men very commonly enter into the snare singing, and consider not whither their fate leads them); nor feared that then the angel was to strike his stroke, till his knees kissed the earth, and his head trembled with the weight of the rod which God put into the hand of an exterminating angel. But, whatsoever the ingress was, when the man feels his blood boil or his bones weary, or his flesh diseased with a load of a dispersed and disordered humour, or his head to ache, or his faculties discomposed; then he must consider that all those discourses he hath heard concerning patience and resignation, and conformity to Christ's sufferings, and the melancholic lectures of the Cross, must all of them now be reduced to practice, and pass from an ineffective contemplation to such an exercise as will really try whether we were true disciples of the Cross, or only believed the doctrines of religion when we were at ease, and that they never passed through the ear to the heart, and dwelt not in our spirits. But every man should consider God does nothing in vain; that He would not to no purpose send us preachers, and give us rules, and furnish us with discourse, and lend us books, and provide sermons, and make examples, and promise His Spirit, and describe the

blessedness of holy sufferings, and prepare us with daily alarms, if He did not really purpose to order our affairs so that we should need all this, and use it all. There were no such thing as the grace of Patience, if we were not to feel a sickness, or enter into a state of sufferings." (From Holy Dying.)

ON SET FORMS OF LITURGY

AND here I consider that the true state of the question is only this, Whether it is better to pray to God with consideration, or without? Whether is the wiser man of the two, he who thinks and deliberates what to say, or he that utters his mind as fast as it comes? Whether is the better man, he who, out of reverence to God, is most careful and curious that he offend not in his tongue, and, therefore, he himself deliberates, and takes the best guides he can; or he who, out of the confidence of his own abilities or other exterior assistances, ὅμοιος ἂν εἶναι δόξαιμι τοῖς εἰκῆ, καὶ φορτικῶς, καὶ χύδην,—ὅ,τι ἂν ἐπέλθῃ, λέγουσιν, speaks whatever comes uppermost.

And here I waive the advice and counsel of a very wise man, no less than Solomon, "Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven and thou upon earth; therefore, let thy words be few.” The consideration of the vast distance between God and us, heaven and earth, should create such apprehensions in us, that the very best and choicest of our offertories are not acceptable but by God's gracious vouchsafing and condescension; and, therefore, since we are so much indebted to God for accepting our best, it is not safe ventured to present Him with a dough-baked sacrifice, and put Him off with that which, in nature and human consideration, is absolutely the worst; for such is all the crude and imperfect utterance of our more imperfect conceptions: "Hoc non probo in philosopho, cujus oratio, sicut vita, debet esse composita," said Seneca; "A wise man's speech should be like his life and actions, composed, studied, and considered." And if ever inconsideration be the cause of sin and vanity, it is in our words, and, therefore, is, with greatest care, to be avoided in our prayers, we being, most of all, concerned that God may have no quarrel against them, for folly or impiety.

But, abstracting from the reason, let us consider who keeps the precept best, he that deliberates, or he that considers not when he speaks? What man in the world is hasty to offer anything unto God; if he be not, who prays extempore? And then add to it but the weight of Solomon's reason, and let any man answer me, if he thinks it can well stand with that reverence we owe to the immense, the infinite, and to the eternal God, the God of wisdom, to offer Him a sacrifice which we durst not present to a prince or a prudent governor, "in re seriâ,” such as our prayers ought to be.

And that this may not be dashed with a pretence it is carnal reasoning, I desire it may be remembered that it is the argument God Himself uses against lame, maimed, and imperfect sacrifices, "Go, and offer this to thy prince," see if he will accept it; implying that the best person is to have the best present, and what the prince will slight as truly unworthy of him, much more is it unfit for God. For God accepts not of anything we give or do, as if He were bettered by it; for, therefore, its estimate is not taken by its relation or natural complacency to Him, for, in itself, it is to Him as nothing; but God accepts it by its proportion and commensuration to us. That which we call our best, and is truly so in human estimate, that pleases God; for it declares that if we had better we would give it Him. But to reserve the best says too plainly that we think anything is good enough for Him. And, therefore, God, in the law, would not be served by that which was imperfect "in genere naturæ› so neither now nor ever will that please Him which is imperfect, "in genere morum," or "materiâ intellectuali," when we can give a better.

And, therefore, the wisest nations and the most sober persons prepared their verses and prayers in set forms, with as much religion as they dressed their sacrifices, and observed the rites of festivals and burials. Amongst the Romans, it belonged to the care of the priests to worship in prescribed and determined words. "In omni precatione qui vota effundit sacerdos, Vestam et Janum aliosque deos præscriptis verbis et composito carmine advocare solet." The Greeks did so too, receiving their prayers by dictate, word for word. 66 Itaque sua carmina suæque precationes singulis diis institutæ sunt; quas plerumque, ne quid præposterè dicatur, aliquis ex præscripto præire et ad verbum referre solebat. Their hymns and prayers were ordained peculiar to every god, which, lest anything should be said preposterously, were usually

pronounced, word for word, after the priest, and out of written copies ;" and the magi among the Persians were as considerate in their devotions: 66 Magos et Persas primo semper diluculo canere diis hymnos et laudes, meditato et solenni precationis carmine; "The Persians sang hymns to their gods by the morning twilight, in a premeditate, solemn, and metrical form of prayer," said the same author. For, since in all the actions and discourses of men, that which is the least considered is likely to be the worst, and is certainly of the greatest disreputation, it were a strange cheapness of opinion towards God and religion, to be the most incurious of what we say to Him; and in our religious offices it is strange that everything should be considered but our prayers. It is spoken by Eunapius, to the honour of Proæresius's scholars, that when the proconsul asked their judgments in a question of philosophy, they were προσενεγκόντες τὰ ̓Αριστείδου μετὰ πολλῆς σκέψεως καὶ πόνου, ὥς οὐκ εἰσὶ τῶν ἐμούντων, ἀλλὰ Tŵν άкρiẞоÚνTwv-" they, with much consideration and care, gave in answer those words of Aristides, "That they were not of the number of those that used to vomit out answers, but of those that considered every word they were to speak." "Nihil enim ordinatum est quod præcipitatur et properat," said Seneca ; "Nothing can be regular and orderly that is hasty and precipitate;" and, therefore, unless religion be the most imprudent, trifling, and inconsiderable thing, and that the work of the Lord is done well enough when it is done negligently, or that the sanctuary hath the greatest beauty when it hath the least order, it will concern us highly to think our prayers and religious offices are actions fit for wise men, and, therefore, to be done as the actions of wise men use to be, that is, deliberately, prudently, and with greatest consideration.

66

(From An Apology for authorized and set Forms of Liturgy.)

ON DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

BUT men are, nowadays, and indeed always have been, since the expiration of the first blessed ages of Christianity, so in love with their own fancies and opinions, as to think faith and all Christendom is concerned in their support and maintenance; and whoever is not so fond, and does not dandle them like themselves,