men; which also hath not a little, though an inferior, contentment. For, how pleasant is it to these senses, by which we men are wont to be led, to see and be seen; to speak to our friends, and hear them speak to us; to touch and kiss the dear hands of our parents, and with them at last to have our eyes closed! Either this shall befal you; or what hopes, what pains (I add no more) hath this your careful friend lost! and we, what wishes, what consultations! It shall be, I dare hope, yea believe it.

Only thou, our good God, give such end, as thou hast done entrance into this business; and so dispose of these likely endeavours, that whom we love and honour absent, we may at last in presence see and embrace.

EPISTLE VIII.

TO MY FATHER IN LAW,
MR. GEORGE WENYFFE.

Exciting to Christian Cheerfulness.

You complain of dulness: a common disease; and incident to the best minds, and such as can most contemn vanities.

For, the true worldling hunts after nothing but mirth; neither cares how lawless his sport be, so it be pleasant: he feigns to him self false delights, when he wants; and, if he can pass the time, and chase away melancholy, he thinks his day spent happily. And thus it must needs be: while the world is his God, his devo tion can be but his pleasure: whereas the mortified soul hath learned to scorn these frivolous and sinful joys; and affects either solid delights, or none; and would rather be dull for want of mirth, than transported with wanton pleasures. When the world, like an importunate minstrel, thrusts itself into his chamber, and offers him music, unsought; if he vouchsafe it the hearing, it is the highest favour he dare or can yield. He rewards it not; he commends it not; yea, he secretly loaths those harsh and jarring notes, and rejects them: for he finds a better concert within, betwixt God and himself, when he hath a little tuned his heart with meditation.

To speak fully, the world is like an ill fool in a play: the Christian is a judicious spectator, which thinks those jests too gross to be laughed at; and therefore entertains that with scorn, which others with applause.

Yet, in truth, we sin, if we rejoice not. There is not more error in false mirth, than in unjust heaviness. If worldlings offend, that they laugh, when they should mourn; we shall offend no less, if we droop, in cause of cheerfulness. Shall we envy, or scorn, to see one joy in red and white dross; another, in a vain title: one,

in a dainty dish; another, in a jest: one, in a book; another, in a friend one, in a kite; another, in a dog: while we enjoy the God of Heaven, and are sorrowful? What dull metal is this, we are made of? We have the fountain of joy, and yet complain of heaviness. Is there any joy, without God? Certainly, if joy be good, and all goodness be from him; whence should joy arise, but from him? And, if he be the Author of Joy; how are we Christians, and rejoice not? What! do we freeze in the fire, and starve at a feast? Have we a good conscience, and yet pine and hang down the head? When God hath made us happy, do we make ourselves miserable?

When I ask my heart David's question, I know not whether I be more angry, or ashamed at the answer; Why art thou sad, my soul? My body, my purse, my fame, my friends; or, perhaps, none of these: only I am sad, because I am. And what if all these; what if more? when I come to my better wits, Have I a Father, an Advocate, a Comforter, a mansion in heaven? if both earth and hell conspired to afflict me, my sorrow cannot countervail the causes of my joy. Now I can challenge all adversaries; and either defy all miseries, or bid all crosses, yea death itself, welcome.

Yet God doth not abridge us of these earthly solaces, which dare weigh with our discontentments, and sometimes depress the balance. His greater light doth not extinguish the less. If God had not thought them blessings, he had not bestowed them and how are they blessings, if they delight us not? Books, friends, wine, oil, health, reputation, competency, may give occasions, but not bounds to our rejoicings. We may not make them God's rivals, but his spokesmen. In themselves, they are nothing; but, in God, worth our joy. These may be used; yet so, as they may be absent without distraction. Let these go: so God alone be present with us, it is enough: he were not God, if he were not All-sufficient. We have him, I speak boldly; we have him in feeling, in faith, in pledges, and earnest; yea, in possession. Why do we not enjoy him? Why do we not shake off that senseless drowsiness, which makes our lives unpleasant and leave over all heaviness, to those, that want God; to those, that either know him not, or know him displeased?

EPISTLE IX.

TO MR. W. R.

DEDICATED TO MR. THOMAS BURLZ.

Consolations of Immoderate Grief for the Death of Friends. WHILE the stream of sorrow runs full, I know how vain it is to oppose counsel. Passions must have leisure to digest. Wisdom doth not more moderate them, than time.

At first, it was best to mourn with you, and to mitigate your sorrow, by bearing part; wherein, would God my burden could be your ease! Every thing else is less, when it is divided; and then is best, after tears, to give counsel.

Yet, in these thoughts I am not a little straited. Before you have digested grief, advice comes too early; too late, when you have digested it before, it was unseasonable; after, would be superfluous before, it could not benefit you; after, it may hurt you, by rubbing up a skinned sore afresh. It is as hard to choose the season for counsel, as to give it: and that season is, after the first digestion of sorrow; before the last.

If my letters then meet with the best opportunity, they shall please me, and profit you; if not, yet I deserve pardon, that I wished so.

You had but two jewels, which you held precious; a Wife, and a Son: one was yourself divided; the other, yourself multiplied: you have lost both, and well-near at once. The loss of one caused the other, and both of them your just grief. Such losses, when they come single, afflict us; but, when double, astonish us: and, though they give advantage of respite, would almost overwhelm the best patient.

Lo, now is the trial of your manhood; yea, of your Christianity. You are now in the lists, set upon by two of God's fierce afflictions: shew now, what patience you have, what fortitude. Wherefore have you gathered and laid up, all this time, but for this brunt? Now, bring forth all your holy store to light, and to use; and approve to us, in this difficulty, that you have, all this while, been a Christian in earnest.

I know, these events have not surprised you on a sudden: you have suspected they might come; you have put cases, if they should come things, that are hazardous, may be doubted; but, certain things are, and must be, expected: providence abates grief, and discountenances a cross.

Or, if your affection were so strong, that you durst not forethink your loss; take it equally but as it falls. A wise man and a Christian, knows death so fatal to nature, so ordinary in event, so gainful in the issue, that I wonder he can for this, either fear or grieve. Doth God only lend us one another; and do we grudge, when he calls for his own? So I have seen ill debtors, that borrow with prayers, keep with thanks, repay with enmity. We mistake our tenure: we take that for gift, which God intends for loan: we are tenants-at-will, and think ourselves owners. Your wife and child are dead: well; they have done that, for which they came. If they could not have died, it had been worthy of wonder; not at all, that they are dead. If this condition were proper only to our families and friends, or yet to our climate alone; how unhappy should we seem to our neighbours, to ourselves! Now it is common, let us mourn that we are men.

Lo, all princes and monarchs dance with us in the same ring: yea, what speak I of earth? The God of Nature, the Saviour of

Men, hath trod the same steps of death: and do we think much to follow him? How many servants have we known, that have thrust themselves betwixt their master and death; which have died, that their master might not die! and shall we repine to die with ours? How truly may we say of this our David, Thou art worth ten thou sand of us; yea, worth a world of angels! yet he died, and died for us. Who would live, that knows his Saviour died? Who can be a Christian, and would not be like him? Who can be like him, that would not die after him? Think of this; and judge, whether all the world can hire us not to die.

I need not ask you, whether you loved those, whom you have lost could you love them, and not wish they might be happy? Could they be happy, and not die? In truth, nature knows not what she would have. We can neither abide our friends miserable in their stay, nor happy in their departure. We love ourselves so well, that we cannot be content they should gain by our loss.

The excuse of your sorrow is, that you mourn for yourself: true; but, compare these two, and see whether your loss or their gainbe greater. For, if their advantage exceed your loss; take heed, lest, while you bewray your love in mourning for them, it appear that you love but yourself in them. They are gone to their preferment; and you lament: your love is injurious. If they were vanished to nothing, I could not blame you, though you took up Rachael's lamentation: but now, you know they are in surer hands than your own: you know, that he hath taken them, which hath undertaken to keep them, to bring them again: you know, it is but a sleep, which is miscalled Death; and that they shall, they must awake, as sure as they lie down; and wake more fresh, more glorious, than when you shut their eyes. What do we with Christianity, if we believe not this? and, if we do believe it, why do we mourn as the hopeless?

But the matter, perhaps, is not so heavy as the circumstance. Your crosses came sudden, and thick: you could not breathe from your first loss, ere you felt a worse.

As if he knew not this, that sent both: as if he did it not, on purpose. His proceedings seem harsh; are most wise, most just. It is our fault, that they seem otherwise than they are. Do we think, we could carve better for ourselves? Oh, the mad insolence of nature, that dares controul, where she should wonder! Presumptuous clay! that will be checking the potter. Is his wisdom, himself? Is he, in himself, infinite? Is his decree out of his wisdom; and do we murmur? Do we, foolish worms, turn again, when he treads upon us? What! do you repine at that, which was good for you; yea, best? That is best for us, which God seeth best: and that he sees best, which he doth. This is God's doing. Kiss his rod in silence; and give glory to the hand, that rules it. His will is the rule of his actions; and his goodness, of his will. Things are good to us, because he wills them: he wills them, because they are good to himself.

It is your glory, that he intends, in your so great affliction. It

is no praise, to wade over a shallow ford; but, to cut the swelling waves of the deep, commends both our strength and skill. It is no victory, to conquer an easy and weak cross. These main evils have crowns answerable to their difficulty. Wrestle now, and go away with a blessing. Be patient, in this loss; and you shall once triumph, in your gain. Let God have them, with cheerfulness; and you shall enjoy God, with them, in glory.

EPISTLE X.

TO MR. I. A. MERCHANT.

Against Sorrow for Worldly Losses.

It is fitter for me to begin with chiding, than with advice. What means this weak distrust? Go on; and I shall doubt whether I write to a Christian. You have lost your heart, together with your wealth: how can I but fear, lest this Mammon was your God? Hence, was God's jealousy, in removing it; and hence, your immoderate tears, for losing it. If thus; God had not loved you, if he had not made you poor.

To some, it is an advantage to lose: you could not have been, at once, thus rich and good. Now, heaven is open to you, which was shut before; and could never have given you entrance, with that load of iniquity. If you be wise in managing your affliction, you have changed the world for God; a little dross, for heaven. Let me ever lose thus; and smart, when I complain.

But, you might have, at once, retained both. The stomach, that is purged, must be content to part with some good nourishment, that it may deliver itself of more evil humours. God saw, that knows it, you could not hold him so strongly, while one of your hands was so fastened upon the world. You see, many make themselves wilfully poor: why cannot you be content God should impoverish you? If God had willed their poverty, he would have commanded it: if he had not willed yours, he would not have effected it.

It is a shame for a Christian, to see a Heathen Philosopher laugh at his own shipwreck; while himself howls out, as if all his felicity were embarked with his substance. How should we scorn, to think that a heathen man should laugh, either at our ignorance or impotence! ignorance, if we thought too highly of earthly things; impotence, if we over-loved them.

The fear of some evils is worse than the sense. To speak ingenuously; I could never see, wherein poverty deserved so hard a conceit. It takes away the delicacy of fare, softness of lodging, gayness of attire; and, perhaps, brings with it contempt: this is