BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR. 1613-1667.

I.

BUT these arts of looking backwards and forwards are more than enough to support the spirit of a Christian; there is no man, but hath blessings enough in present possession to outweigh the evils of a great affliction. Tell the joints of thy body, and do not accuse the universal providence for a lame leg, or the want of a finger, when all the rest is perfect, and you have a noble soul, a particle of divinity, the image of God himself; and, by the want of a finger, you may better know how to estimate the remaining parts, and to account for every degree of the surviving blessings. Aristippus, in a great suit at law, lost a farm, and to a gentleman, who in civility pitied, and deplored his loss, he answered, “I have two farms left still, and that is more than I have lost, and more than you have by one." If you miss an office, for which you stood candidate, then, besides that you are quit of the cares and the envy of it, you still have all those excellences, which rendered you capable to receive it, and they are better than the best office in the commonwealth. If your estate be lessened, you need the less to care who governs the province, whether he be rude or gentle. I am crossed in my journey, yet I escaped robbers; and I consider, that if I had been set upon by villains, I would have redeemed that evil by this, which I now suffer, and have counted it a deliverance; or if I did fall into the hands of thieves, yet they did not steal my land. Or I am fallen into the hands of publicans and sequestrators, and they have taken all from me : what now? Let me look about me. They have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me; and I can still discourse; and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful spirit, and a good.

conscience they still have left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate, I can walk in my neighbour's pleasant fields, and see the varieties of natural beauties, and delight in all that in which God delights; that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God himself. And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. Such a person is fit to bear Nero company in his funeral sorrow for the loss of one of Poppea's hairs, or help to mourn for Lesbia's sparrow and because he loves it, he deserves to starve in the midst of plenty, and to want comfort, while he is encircled with blessings.

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Holy Living.

II.

It was well observed by the Persian ambassador of old; when he was telling the king a sad story of the overthrow of all his army by the Athenians, he adds this of his own; that the day before the fight, the young Persian gallants, being confident they should destroy their enemies, were drinking drunk, and railing at the timorousness and fears of religion, and against all their gods, saying, there were no such things, and that all things came by chance and industry, nothing by the providence of the Supreme Power. But the next day, when they had fought unprosperously, and, flying from their enemies, who were eager in their pursuit, they came to the river Strymon, which was so frozen that their boats could not launch, and yet it began to thaw, so that they feared the ice would not bear them; then you should see the bold gallants, that the day before said there was no God, most timorously and superstitiously fall upon their faces, and beg of God, that the river Strymon would bear them over from their enemies.

Sermons, xiii.

III.

But so I have seen the sun kiss the frozen earth, which was bound up with the images of death, and the colder breath of the north; and then the waters break from their enclosures, and melt with joy, and run in useful channels; and the flies do rise again from their little graves in walls, and dance awhile in the air, to tell that there is joy within, and that the great mother of creatures will open the stock of her new refreshment, become useful to mankind, and sing praises to her Redeemer so is the heart of a sorrowful man under the discourses of a wise comforter; he blesses God, and he blesses thee, and he feels his life returning; for to be miserable is death, but nothing is life but to be comforted; and God is pleased with no music from below so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows, of supported orphans, of rejoicing and comforted, and thankful persons.

Sermons, xxv.

IV.

Thus he behaved himself to all his superior relatives; to his equals and dependants he was also just, and kind, and loving. He was an excellent friend, laying out his own interest to serve theirs; sparing not himself, that he might serve them as knowing society to be the advantage of man's nature; and friendship the ornament of society, and usefulness the ornament of friendship; and in this he was well known to be very worthy. He was tender and careful of his children, and so provident and so wise, so loving and obliging to his whole family, that he justly had that love and regard, that duty and observance from them, which his kindness and his care had merited. He was a provident and careful conductor of his estate; but far from covetousness, as he appeared toward the evening of his life, in which that vice does usually

prevail among old men, who are more greedy when they have least need, and load their sumpters so much the more, by how much nearer they are to their journey's end; but he made a demonstration of the contrary; for he washed his hands and heart of the world, gave up his estate long before his death or sickness, to be managed by his only son, whom he left since, but then first made and saw him his heir; he emptied his hands of secular employment; meddled not with money, but for the uses of the poor, for piety, justice, and religion. Funeral Sermon on Sir George Dalston.

V.

And we see the contrary events prove truer than this groundless and unlearned promise-for Theodosius and Valentinian were prosperous princes, and have, to all ages, a precious memory, and the reputation of a great piety; but they were so far from doing what Nestorius suggested, that they restrained him from his violence and immanity; and Theodosius did highly commend the good Bishop Proclus, for his sweetness of deportment towards erring persons, far above the cruelty of his predecessor Atticus. And the experience which Christendom hath had in this last age, is argument enough that toleration of different opinions is so far from disturbing the public peace, or destroying the interest of princes and commonwealths, that it does advantage to the public, it secures peace, because there is not so much as the pretence of religion left to such persons to contend for it, being already indulged to them. When France fought against the Huguenots, the spilling of her own blood was argument enough of the imprudence of that way of promoting religion; but since she hath given permission to them, the world is witness how prosperous she hath been ever since. But the great instance is in the differing temper, government, and success, which Margaret of Parma and the Duke of Alva had. The clemency of

the first had almost extinguished the flame; but when she was removed, D'Alva succeeded, and managed the matter of religion with fire and sword; he made the flame so great, that his religion and his prince too have both been almost quite turned out of the country. "Tolli è medio sapientiam, quoties vi geritur res," said Ennius: and therefore the best of men, and the most glorious of princes, were always ready to give toleration, but never to make executions for matters disputable.

Dedication to Liberty of Prophesying.

ABRAHAM COWLEY. 1618-1667.

I.

I CALL him (said I) a tyrant, who either intrudes himself forcibly into the government of his fellow citizens without any legal authority over them, or who having a just title to the government of a people, abuses it to the destruction and tormenting of them. So that all tyrants are at the same time usurpers, either of the whole, or at least of a part of that power which they assume to themselves, and no less are they to be accounted rebels, since no man can usurp authority over others, but by rebelling against them who had it before, or at least against those laws which were his superiors; and in all these senses no history can afford us a more evident example of tyranny, or more out of all possibility of excuse, or palliation, than that of the person whom you are pleased to defend, whether we consider his reiterated rebellions against all his superiors, or his usurpation of the supreme power to himself, or his tyranny in the exercise of and if lawful princes have been esteemed tyrants, by not containing themselves within the bounds of those laws which have been left them as the sphere of their authority by their

it;