scene of laughter or derision,-and all for the reward of forgetfulness and madness? for there are in immoderate drinking no other pleasures. I end with the saying of a wise man ;-" He is fit to sit at the table of the Lord, and to feast with saints, who moderately uses the creatures which God hath given him; but he that despises even lawful pleasures, shall not only sit and feast with God, but reign together with him, and partake of his glorious kingdom." THE SACRAMENT. We sometimes espy a bright cloud formed into an irregular figure; when it is observed by unskilful and fantastic travellers, it looks like a Centaur to some, and as a castle to others; some tell that they saw an army with banners, and it signifies war: but another, wiser than his fellow, says, it looks for all the world like a flock of sheep, and foretells plenty and all the while it is nothing but a shining cloud, by its own mobility, and the activity of a wind, cast into a contingent and inartificial shape. So it is in this great mystery of our religion, in which some espy strange things which God intended not, and others see not what God hath plainly told; some call that part of it a mystery which is none; and others think all of it nothing but a mere ceremony, and a sign; some say it signifies, and some say it effects; some say it is a sacrifice, and others call it a sacrament; some schools of learning make it the instrument in the hand of God: others say that it is God himself in that instrument of grace.' * Since all the societies of Christians pretend to the greatest extreme of this, above all the rites or external parts and ministeries of religion, it cannot be otherwise but that they will all speak honorable things of it, and suppose holy things to be in it, and great blessings one way or other to come by it; and it is contemptible only among the profane and the atheistical; all the innumerable differences which are in the discourses, and consequent practices relating to it, proceed from some common truths, * Worthy Communicant, p. 6. and universal notions, and mysterious or inexplicable words, and tend all to reverential thoughts, and pious treatment of these rites and holy offices; and therefore it will not be impossible to find honey or wholesome dews upon all this variety of plants.* RETURN OF KINDNESS. NOTHING makes societies so fair and lasting as the mutual endearment of each other by good offices; and never any man did a good turn to his brother, but one time or other himself did eat the fruit of it. The good man in the Greek epigram, that found a dead man's skull unburied, in kindness digging a grave for it, opened the inclosures of a treasure; and we read in the Annals of France, that when Gontran king of Burgundy was sleeping by the murmurs of a little brook, his servant espied a lizard coming from his master's head, and essaying to pass the water, but seeming troubled because it could not, he laid his sword over the brook, and made an iron bridge for the little beast, who passing, entered into the earth, and speedily returned back to the king, and disturbed him (as it is supposed), into a dream, in which he saw an iron bridge, which landed him at the foot of the mountain, where if he did dig, he should find a great heap of gold. The servant expounded his master's dream, and showed him the iron bridge; and they digged where the lizard had entered, where they found indeed a treasure; and that the servant's piety was rewarded upon his lord's head, and procured wealth to one, and honor to the other. There is in human nature a strange kind of nobleness and love to return and exchange good offices; but because there are some dogs who bite your hand when you reach them bread, God by the ministry of his little creatures tells, that if we do not, yet he will certainly recompense every act of piety and charity we do one to another.† * Worthy Communicant, p. 8. † Ibid., p. 191. REAL AND APPARENT HAPPINESS. If we should look under the skirt of the prosperous and prevailing tyrant, we should find even in the days of his joys, such allays and abatements of his pleasures, as may serve to represent him presently miserable, besides his final infelicities. For I have seen a young and healthful person warm and ruddy under a poor and a thin garment, when at the same time an old rich person hath been cold and paralytic under a load of sables, and the skins of foxes. It is the body that makes the clothes warm, not the clothes the body ;* and the spirit of a man makes felicity and content, not any spoils of a rich fortune wrapt about a sickly and an uneasy soul. Apollodorus was a traitor and a tyrant, and the world wondered to see a bad man have so good a fortune; but knew not that he nourished scorpions in his breast, and that his liver and his heart were eaten up with spectres and images of death; his thoughts were full of interruptions, his dreams of illusions:† his fancy was abused with real troubles and fantastic images, imagining that he saw the Scythians flaying him alive, his daughters like pillars of fire, dancing round about a cauldron in which himself was boiling, and that his heart accused itself to be the cause of all these evils. * See Darwin's Zoonomia, Diseases of Volition, 8vo, edition, vol. iv., 68, and see the anecdote in Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads. She prayed, her withered hand uprearing, While Harry held her by the arm- O may he never more be warm ?" And icy cold he turned away. † See Dr. Franklin's letter upon the art of procuring pleasant dreams, which thus concludes,―These are the rules of the art that, though they generally prove effectual in producing the end intended, there is a case in which the most punctual observance of them will be totally fruitless. I need not mention the case to you, my dear friend: but my account of the art would be imperfect without it. The case is, when the person who desires to have pleasant dreams has not taken care to preserve, what is necessary above all things-A good conscience. Does he not drink more sweetly that takes his beverage in an earthen vessel, than he that looks and searches into his golden chalices, for fear of poison, and looks pale at every sudden noise, and sleeps in armor, and trusts nobody, and does not trust God for his safety. Can a man bind a thought with chains, or carry imaginations in the palm of his hand? can the beauty of the peacock's train, or the ostrich plume, be delicious to the palate and the throat? does the hand intermeddle with the joys of the heart? or darkness, that hides the naked, make him warm? does the body live, as does the spirit? or can the body of Christ be like to common food? indeed the sun shines upon the good and bad; and the vines give wine to the drunkard, as well as to the sober man; pirates have fair winds, and a calm sea, at the same time when the just and peaceful merchant-man hath them. But although the things of this world are common to good and bad, yet sacraments and spiritual joys, the food of the soul, and the blessing of Christ, are the peculiar right of saints. ON SUPERSTITION. I HAVE seen a harmless dove made dark with an artificial night, and her eyes sealed and locked up with a little quill, soaring upward and flying with amazement, fear, and an undiscerning wing; she made towards heaven, but knew not that she was made a train and an instrument, to teach her enemy to prevail upon her and all her defenceless kindred. So is a superstitious man, jealous and blind, forward and mistaken; he runs towards heaven as he thinks, but he chooses foolish paths, and out of fear takes anything that he is told; or fancies and guesses concerning God, by measures taken from his own diseases and imperfections.* * Sermon on Godly Fear: Serm. ix., part 3. ADVERSITY.* ALL is well as long as the sun shines, and the fair breath of heaven gently wafts us to our own purposes. But if you will try the excellency, and feel the work of faith, place the man in a persecution; let him ride in a storm, let his bones be broken with sorrow, and his eyes loosened with sickness, let his bread be dipped with tears, and all the daughters of music be brought low; let us come to sit upon the margent of our grave, and let a tyrant lean hard upon our fortunes, and dwell upon our wrong; let the storm arise, and the keels toss till the cordage crack, or that all our hopes bulge under us, and descend into the hollowness of sad misfortunes. ON THE MISERIES OF MAN'S LIFE. How few men in the world are prosperous! What an infinite number of slaves and beggars, of persecuted and oppressed people, fill all corners of the earth with groans, and heaven itself with weeping, prayers and sad remembrances! How many provinces .....In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth, Upon her patient breast, making their way But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage The gentle Thetis, and anon, behold The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cuts, Like Perseus' horse; where's then the saucy boat, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. See Bacon's beautiful Essay on Adversity, where he says"But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, Adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols." |