bow; another pleases himself in the patient pastime of his angle. For, surely if all men affected one and the same trade of life, or pleasure of recreation, it were not possible that they could live one by another: neither could there be any use of commerce, whereby man's life is maintained: neither could it be avoided, but that the envy of the inevitable rivality would cut each other's throats. It is good reason, we should make a right use of this gracious and provident dispensation of the Almighty and, therefore, that we should improve our several dispositions and faculties to the advancing of the common stock; and, withal, that we should neither encroach upon each others' profession, nor be apt to censure each others' recreation.

XCIV.

He were very quick-sighted, that could perceive the growing of the grass, or the moving of the shadow upon the dial: yet, when those are done, every eye doth easily discern them. It is no otherwise in the progress of grace: which how it increaseth in the soul and by what degrees, we cannot hope to perceive; but, being grown, we may see it. It is the fault of many Christians, that they depend too much upon sense, and make that the judge of their spiritual estate; being too much dejected, when they do not sensibly feel the proofs of their proficiency, and the present proceedings of their regeneration: why do they not as well question the growth of their stature, because they do not see every day how much they are thriven? Surely, it must needs be, that spiritual things are less perceptible than bodily: much more, therefore, must we in these, wait upon time for necessary conviction; and well may it suffice us, if, upon an impartial comparing of the present measure of our knowledge, faith, obedience, with the former, we can perceive ourselves any whit sensibly advanced.

XCV.

The wise Christian hath learned to value every thing, according to its own worth. If we be too glad of these earthly things, it is the way to be too much afflicted with their loss; and, while we have them, to be transported into pride and wantonness: if we esteem them too little, it is the way to an unthankful disrespect of the giver. Christianity carries the heart in a just equipoise: when they come, they are welcomed without too much joy; and, when they go, they part without tears. We may smile at these earthly favours; not laugh out: we may like them; but we must take heed of being in love with them. For love, of what kind soever it be, is not without the power of assimilation: if we love the world, we cannot but be worldlyminded; They, that are after the flesh, do mind the things of

the flesh; and, to be carnally minded, is death; Rom. viii. 5, 6: contrarily, if we love God, we are made partakers of the divine nature; and we are such as we affect. If we be Christians in earnest, certainly the inner rooms of our hearts, which are the Holy of Holies, are reserved for the Almighty: the outer courts may be for the common resort of lawful cares and desires; they may come and go; but our God shall have his fixed habitation here for ever.

XCVI.

;

Nature is sly and cunning: neither is it possible to take her without a shift: the light hussy wipes her mouth, and it was not she; Prov. xxx. 10. Rachel hath stolen her father's teraphim; and the custom of women is upon her: Saul reserves all the fat cattle of the Amalekites; it is for a sacrifice of the Lord thy God. Neither is it so only in excusing an evil done, but in waving a good to be done: I am not eloquent, saith Moses send by him, by whom thou shouldest send; Pharaoh will kill me: There is a lion in the way; saith the sluggard: I have married a wife, I cannot come; saith the sensual guest: "If I give, I shall want:" "If I make a strict profession, I shall be censured." Whereas true grace is, on the one side, downright and ingenuous in its confessions; not sparing to take shame to itself, that it may give glory to God: on the other side, resolutely constant to its holy purposes: I and my house will serve the Lord: If I perish, I perish: I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord Jesus. It is not hard, therefore, for us to know what mistress we serve: if our care and endeavour be, by witty evasions to shuffle off both evil and good, we are the vassals of nature; but if we shall with an humble penitence acknowledge our evil, and set ourselves with firm resolutions upon the tasks of good, we are under grace, in a way to glory.

XCVII.

It is good for a man, not always to keep his eyes at home; but sometimes, to look abroad at his neighbours, and to compare his own condition with the worse estate of others. I know I deserve no more than the meanest, no better than the worst of men: yet how many do I see and hear, to lie groaning upon their sick beds, in great extremity of torment; whereas I walk up and down in a competency of health! How many do I see, ready to famish, and forced to either beg or starve; whereas I eat my own bread! How many lie rotting in gaols and dungeons, or are driven to wander in unknown deserts, or amongst people whose language they understand not; whereas I enjoy home and liberty! How many are shrieking under scourges and racks; whereas I sit at ease! And if I shall

cast mine eyes upon my spiritual condition, alas, how many do I see sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death; whereas the Sun of Righteousness hath risen to me with healing in his wings! Mal. iv. 2. How many lie in a woeful bondage under sin and Satan; whereas my Saviour hath freed me from those hellish chains, and brought me to the glorious liberty of the sons of God! How many are miserably misled into the dangerous by-paths of error; whereas he hath graciously kept me in the plain and sure way of his saving truth! If we do not sometimes make these, not proud, but thankful comparisons; and look upon ourselves, not with direct beams, but by reflection upon others; we shall never be sensible enough of our own mercies.

XCVIII.

The true Christian is in a very happy condition; for no man will envy him, and he can envy no body. None will envy him; for the world cannot know how happy he is: how happy, in the favour of a God; how happy, in the enjoying of that favour. Those secret delights, that he finds in the presence of his God; those comfortable pledges of love and mutual interchanges of blessed interest, which pass between them; are not for worldly hearts to conceive: and no man will envy an unknown happiness. On the other side, he cannot envy the world's greatest favourite under heaven; for he well knows how fickle and uncertain that man's felicity is: he sees him walking upon ice, and perceives every foot of his sliding, and threatening a fall; and hears that brittle pavement, at every step, crackling under him, and ready to give way to his swallowing up; and, withal, finds, if those pleasures of his could be constant and permanent, how poor and unsatisfying they are, and how utterly unable to yield true contentment to the soul. The Christian, therefore, while others look upon him with pity and scorn, laughs secretly to himself in his bosom; as well knowing, there is none but he truly happy.

XCIX.

It was a high and honourable embassy, whereon the angel Gabriel was sent down to the Blessed Virgin; that she should be the Mother of her Saviour: neither was that inferior, of the glorious angel, that brought the joyful tidings of the incarnation and birth of the Son of God, to the shepherds of Bethlehem: but a far more happy errand was that, which the Lord Jesus, after his resurrection, committed to the Marys; Go to my brethren, and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God, and your God; John xx. 17. Lo, he says not, "I am risen;" but, I ascend: as if he had forgot the earth, whence he arose; and thought only on that heaven,

whither he was going: upon his Easter, his mind is on his Ascension-day. As there had been nothing but discomfort in death, without a resurrection; so there had been little comfort in a resurrection, without an ascension to glory. There is a contentment in the very act, I ascend: even nature is ambitious; and we do all affect to mount higher, as to come down is a death. But this height is, like the ascendant, infinite, I ascend to my Father: there was the glory, which he put off in his humble incarnation; there was the glory which he was now to resume, and possess to all eternity. And, as if nature and adoption could give a like interest, he puts both together: My Father, and your Father: my God, and your God. His mercy vouchsafes to style us Brethren: yet the distance is unmeasureable; betwixt him, the Son of his eternal Essence; and us, the naturally-wretched Sons of his gracious Election: yet, as if both he and we should be coheirs of the same blessedness, though not in the same measure, he says, My Father and your Father: first, my Father; then yours; and, indeed, therefore ours, because his: it is in him, that we are elected, that we are adopted; without him, God were not only a stranger, but an enemy: it is the Son, that must make us free; it is the Son, that must make us sons: if we be his, the Father cannot but be ours. O the unspeakable comfort and happiness of a Christian, in respect of his bodily nature! He cannot but say, with Job, to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister; Job xvii. 14: in his spiritual right, God the Son hath here authorized him to say to the Almighty, Thou art my Father; and, in nature, in regard of our frail and dying condition, willingly say, "I descend to the grave." Faith makes abundant amends in him, and can as cheerfully say, I ascend to my Father. And what son, that is not altogether graceless, would not be glad to go to his father, though it were to a meaner house than his own; and therefore is ready to say, "I will descend to my Father?" How much more, when his many mansions are infinitely glorious, and when all our happiness consists in his blessed presence, must we needs say, with a joy unspeakable and glorious, I ascend to my Father!

C.

God made man the Lord of his creatures: he made him not a tyrant he gave the creatures to man, for his lawful use; not, for his wanton cruelty. Man may therefore exercise his just sovereignty over the beasts of the field, and fowls of the air, and fishes of the sea; not his lawless will, to their needless destruction, or torment. Had man made the creature, he could but challenge an absolute dominion over that work of his hands; but, now that he is only a fellow-creature to the meanest worm, what an insolent usurpation is this, so licentiously to

domineer over his fellow-dust! Yea, that great God, who gave a being to the creature, and therefore hath a full and illimited power over his own workmanship, takes no pleasure to make use of that power to the unnecessary vexation and torture of what he hath made. That all-wise and bountiful Creator, who hath put into the hands of man the subordinate dominion over all the store of these inferior elements, hath made the limit of his command, not necessity only, but convenience too: but, if man shall go beyond these bounds, and will destroy the creature only because he will, and put it to pain because it is his pleasure; he abuseth his sovereignty to a sinful imperiousness, and shall be accountable for his cruelty. When the Apostle, upon occasion of the law for not muzzling the mouth of the ox, asks, Doth God take care for oxen? 1 Cor. ix. 9: can we think he meant to question the regard, that God hath to so useful a creature? Do we not hear the Psalmist say, He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens that cry? Psalm cxlvii. 9. Do we not hear our Saviour say, That not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Heavenly Father? Matt. x. 29. And, of how much more value is an ox than many thousands of sparrows! Is not the speech therefore, both comparative and typical? Is the main care, that God takes in that law, for provision to be made for the beast? and doth he not rather, under that figure, give order for the maintenance of those spiritual oxen, that labour in the husbandry of the Almighty? Doubtless, as even the savage creatures, The young lions seek their meat from God; so they find it from him in due season: He openeth his hand, and filleth every creature with good; Psalm civ. 21, 27, 28. Is God so careful for preserving, and shall man be so licentious in destroying them? A righteous man, saith Solomon, regardeth the life of his beast; Prov. xii. 10: he is no better, therefore, than a wicked man, that regardeth it not. To offer violence to, and to take away the life from, our fellow-creatures, without a cause, is no less than tyranny. Surely, no other measure should a man offer to his beast, than that, which if his beast, with Balaam's, could expostulate with him, he could well justify to it; no other, than that man, if he had been made a beast, would have been content should have been offered by man to him; no other, than he shall make account to answer to a common Creator. Justly do we smile at the niceness of the foolish Manichees", who made scruple to pull a herb or flower, and were ready to preface apologies and excuses for the reaping their corn and grinding the grain they fed upon; as

Who held, among other tenets equally absurd, the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of the souls of men into the bodies of other animals, and even of plants and herbs.-CATTERMOLE.