whom God hath set aside to so fearful a damnation. They are here mixed with the flock, their colour differs nothing from the sheep; or if we do discern them by their rougher coat and odious scent, we sever ourselves from them. But the time shall come, when he will sever them from us, who hath appointed our innocency to the fold, and their offensiveness to an everlasting slaughter. Onwards, if they climb higher than we, and feed upon those craggy cliffs which we dare only reach with our eyes; their boldness is not greater than their danger, nor is their ascent more perilous than their ruin is certain.

The Blind and the Lame.

The

HERE is a true natural commerce of senses. blind man hath legs, the lame man hath eyes; the lame man lends his eyes to the blind, the blind lends his legs to the lame; and now both of them move, where otherwise both must sit still and perish. It is hard to say which is most beholden to the other; the one gives strength, the other direction; and both of them are equally necessary to motion.

Though it be not in other cases so sensible, yet it is by this interchange of faculties that we live. The world could not subsist without it: one man lends brains, another an arm; one a tongue, another a hand. He that knows wherefore he made them all, hath taken care to adapt every part to the benefit of the whole. What do I wish that is not useful? And if there be any thing in me that may serve to the good of others, it is not mine, but the church's. I cannot live but by others; it were injurious if others should not likewise share with me.

A Map of the World.

WHAT a poor little spot is a whole country! A man may hide with his thumb the great territories of those who would be accounted monarchs. In vain should the great Mogul, or Prester John, seek here for his court; it is well if he can find his kingdom, amongst these subdivisions. And if we take all together, these shreds of

islands and these patches of continent, what a mere indivisible point they are, in comparison of that vast circle of the heavens, with which they are encompassed.

It is not easy for a man to be known to the whole land wherein he lives; yet if he could be so famous, the next country perhaps never hears of his name. And if he should happen to be talked of there, the remoter parts take no notice of any such thing; and if they all spoke of nothing else, yet what were he the better? Oh the narrow bounds of earthly glory; the vain affectation of human applause! Only that man is happily famous, who is known and recorded in heaven.

Hemlock.

No creature is of itself evil: misapplication may make the best so, and there is a good use to be made of the worst. This weed, which is too well proved to be poisonous, yet to the goat it is medicinal, serving by its coldness to temper the feverish heat of that animal. So we see the monkey eating of spiders, both for pleasure and

cure.

Our ignorance must not bring a scandal upon God's workmanship; or if it do, his wisdom knows how to make a good use even of our errors. The very venom of creatures may be for excellent purposes: how much more their beneficial qualities. If ought hurt us, the fault is ours, in mistaking the evil for good. In the mean time we owe praise to the Maker, and to the creature a just and thankful allowance.

The Flower-de-luce.

THIS flower has an unpleasant and fulsome scent, yet the root of it is so fragrant that ladies are glad to put it into their scented bags. The rose tree, on the contrary, hath a sweet flower, but a savourless root: and the saffron yields an odoriferous and cordial spire, while both the flower and the root are unpleasant. It is with vegetables, as it is with metals.

God never meant to have his best always in view, nor all that is eminent concealed. He would have us to know him to be both secretly rich, and openly bountiful. If we do not use every favour in its own kind, God loses the thanks, and we the benefit.

The sight of two Trees.

THOSE trees that shoot up in height are seldom broad, while on the contrary, those that are spreading are seldom tall; it would be too much ambition in that plant to be both ways eminent.

Thus it is with men. The covetous man who affects to spread in wealth, seldom cares to aspire to the height of honour. The proud man, whose heart is set upon preferment, regards not in comparison the growth of his wealth. There is a poor shrub in a valley that is neither tall nor broad, nor cares to be either, which speeds better than they both. The tall tree is cut down for timber, the broad one is lopped for fire-wood. The tempest also hath power on them both: whereas the low shrub is neither envied by the wind, nor threatened by the axe; but fostered rather, for that little shelter which it affords the shepherd. If there be glory in greatness, meanness hath security. Let me never envy their diet, who would rather be unsafe than inglorious.

A Drunken Man.

REASON is an excellent faculty, and is that alone which distinguishes us from brutes. Without it, what is man but a two-legged animal. And as all precious things are tender, and subject to miscarriage; so is this above others. The want of sleep, the violence of a fever, or one cup too much, puts it into utter disorder. What can we make of this thing? Man, I cannot call him. He hath shape; so hath a dead corpse as well as he. He hath life; so hath a beast as well as he. Reason indeed, for the time he hath not; or if he have it, he hath so depraved and marred its exercise, that mere brutishness

is less unseemly. Natural bestiality is so much less odious than what is moral, as there is of difference in the causes of both that is of God's making, this is of our own. It is no shame to the beast that God hath made him so; it is a just shame to a man, that he hath made himself a beast.

The Whetting of a Scythe.

RECREATION is that to the mind, which whetting is to the scythe; it sharpens the edge, which otherwise would grow dull and blunt. He therefore that spends his whole time in recreation, is ever whetting, never mowing: his grass may grow, and his steed starve. On the contrary, he that always toils and never recreates, is ever mowing, never whetting; labouring much to little pur-pose, and as good have no scythe as no edge. Then only doth the work go forward, when the scythe is so seasonably and moderately whetted that it may cut; and so cuts, that it may have the help of sharpening. I would so interchange my employment as neither to be dull with work, nor idle and wanton with recreation.

A Looking-glass.

WHEN I look in another man's face, I see that man; and that man sees me, as I do him. But when I look in my glass, I do not see myself: I see only an image or representation of myself: it is like me, yet it is not I. It is for an ignorant child to look behind the glass, to find out the babe that he seeth: I know it is not there, and that the resemblance varies, according to the dimness or different fashion of the glass.

At best we do but thus see God here below. One sees him more clearly, another more obscurely; but all in a glass. Hereafter we shall see him, not as he appears, but as he is. We shall see him face to face, as he sees us : our glorified spirits shall see the glorious face of him, who is the God of spirits. In the mean time, the proudest dame shall not more ply her glass to look upon her face, which she thinks beautiful; than I shall gaze upon the

clearest glass of my thoughts, to see that face of God which I know to be infinitely fair and glorious.

The Shining of Rotten Wood.

How bright this piece of wood shines. When it is in the fire, it will not beam forth as it doth in this cold darkness. What an emblem is here of our future state! This piece, while it grew in the tree, shone not at all: now that it is putrefied, it casts forth this pleasing lustre.

Thus it is with us. While we live here, we neither are nor seem to be otherwise than miserable. When we are dead, then begins our glory; then the soul shines in the brightness of heavenly glory; then our good name shines upon earth, in those beams which envy had either withheld or overcast. Why are we so over desirous of our growth, when we may be thus benefited by our rotten

ness.

The Ivy tree.

BEHOLD a true emblem of false love. Here are kind embraces, but deadly. How close this weed clings to that oak, and seems to hug and shade it: but in the mean time it draws away the sap, and at last kills it.

Such is a harlot's love, such is a parasite's. Give me that love and friendship which is between the vine and the elm; by which the elm is none the worse, and the vine is much the better. That wholesome and noble plant doth not so closely wind itself about the tree that upholds it as to injure the bark, or to suck away the moisture; while the elm yields a beneficial support to that weak, though generous plant. God and wise men know how to measure love, not by profession and compliment, which is commonly most high and vehement in the falsest, but by the reality of performance. He is no enemy that hurts me not: I am not his friend whom I desire not to benefit.