quaintance, friends; of friends, familiars: after probation, admit them; and, after admittance, change them not: age commendeth friendship. Do not always your best: it is neither wise nor safe, for a man ever to stand upon the top of his strength. If you would be above the expectation of others, be ever below yourself. Expend after your purse; not after your mind. Take not, where you may deny; except upon conscience of desert, or hope to requite. Either frequent suits, or complaints, are wearisome to a friend: rather smother your griefs and wants, as you may; than be either querulous or importunate. Let not your face belie your heart; nor always tell tales out of it: he is fit to live amongst friends or enemies, that can be ingenuously close. Give freely; sell thriftily. Change seldom your place; never, your state. Either amend inconveniences, or swallow them, rather than you should run from yourself to avoid them. In all your reckonings for the world, cast up some crosses that appear not either those will come, or may. Let your suspicions be charitable; your trust, fearful; your censures, sure. way, to the anger of the great: : the thunder and cannon will abide no fence. As in throngs, we are afraid of loss; so, while the world comes upon you, look well to your soul: there is more danger in good, than in evil.

:

Give

I fear the number of these my rules; for precepts are wont, as nails, to drive out one another; but these, I intended to scatter amongst many and I was loth that any guest should complain of a niggardly hand. Dainty dishes are wont to be sparingly served out: homely ones supply, in their bigness, what they want in their worth.

A

CONSOLATORY LETTER,

ΤΟ

ONE UNDER CENSURE.

SIR,-It is not for me, to examine the grounds of your affliction: which, as they shall come to be scanned by greater judgments; so, in the mean time, have doubtless received both a verdict and sentence from your own heart. And, if this act were in my power, I can much better suffer with my friend, than judge him. But, however either partial or rigorous the conceits of others may be, be sure, I beseech you, that you receive from your own bosom a free and just doom on all your actions after all the censures of others, thence must proceed either your peace or torment.

But what do I undertake to teach him, that is already in the school of God; and, under that divine ferule, hath learned more than by all the theorical counsels of prosperity? Surely, I cannot but profess, that I know not, whether I were more sorry for the desert of your durance, or glad of such fruit thereof as mine eyes and ears witnessed from you.

But one sabbath is past, since my meditations were occasioned to fix themselves upon the gain, which God's children make of their sins: the practice whereof I rejoiced to see concur in you with my speculation.

And, indeed, it is one of the wonders of God's mercy and providence, that those wounds, wherewith Satan hopes to kill the soul, through the wise and gracious ordination of God, serve to heal it. We, faint soldiers, should never fight so valiantly, if it were not for the indignation at our foil. There are corruptions, that may lurk secretly in a corner of the soul, unknown, unseen; till the shame of a notorious evil send us to search and ransack. If but a spot light upon our cloak, we regard it not; but if, through our neglect or the violence of a blast, it fall into the mire, then we wash and scour it.

As we use, therefore, to say, there cannot be better physic to a choleric body, than a seasonable ague; so may I say safely,

there can be nothing so advantageous to a secure heart, as to be sin-sick for, hereby, he, who before fell in overpleasing himself, begins to displease himself at his fall. Fire never ascends so high, as when it is beaten back with a cool blast. Water, that runs in a smooth level with an insensible declination, though a heavy body; yet, if it fall low, it rises high again. Much forgiven causeth much love: neither had the penitent made an ewer of her eyes, and a towel of her hair for Christ's feet, if she had not found herself more faulty than her neighbours. Had not Peter thrice denied, he had not been graced with that threefold question of his Saviour's love.

It is a harsh, but a true word, God's children have cause to bless him for nothing, more than for their sins. If that allwise providence have thought good to raise up even your forgotten sins, in your face, to shame you before men, there cannot be a greater argument of his mercy. This blushing shall avoid eternal confusion. Envy not at the felicity of the closely or gloriously guilty; who have, at once, firm foreheads and foul bosoms: vaunting therefore of their innocence, because they can have no accusers; like wicked harlots, who, because they were delivered without a midwife, and have made away their stolen birth, go current still for maids. Nothing can be more miserable, than a sinner's prosperity: this argues him bound over, in God's just decree, to an everlasting vengeance: Woe be to them, that laugh here; for they shall weep and gnash: Happy is that shame, that shall end in glory.

And, if the wisdom of that Just Judge of the World shall think fit to strip you of your worldly wealth and outward estate, acknowledge his mercy, and your gain in this loss. He saw this camel's bunch kept you out of the needle's eye. He saw these bells too heavy for that high flight, to which he intended you. Now shall you begin to be truly rich, when you can enjoy the Possessor of Heaven and Earth: when these base rivals are shut out of doors, God shall have your whole heart; who were not himself, if he were not all-sufficient.

Neither let it lie too heavy upon your heart, that your hopeful sons shall inherit nothing from you, but shame and dishonour. Why are you injurious to yourself, and those you love: your repentance shall feoff upon them, more blessings than your sin hath lost. Let posterity say they were the sons of a penitent father; this stain is washed off with your tears and their virtue. And, for their provision, if the worst fall, The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof, imagine them born to nothing. We, that are more rich in children than estate, hope well of those vessels, whom we can put forth well rigged and well balasted, though not wealthily laden. How sensibly do you now find, that wealth doth not consist in getting much, but well; and that contentment doth not lie in the coffer, but

in the breast; lastly, that all treasures are dross, to a good conscience!

For yourself; if you be pent up within four walls, and barred both of sun and men; make God yours, and you cannot complain of restraint or solitude. No prison is too strait for his presence. Heaven itself would be a prison without him. Your serious repentance may win that society, which makes the very angels blessed. This is the way to make Him your comforter, your companion, in whose presence is the fulness of joy.

Shortly, let your thoughts be altogether such as may beseem a man, not unwillingly weaned from this world; and careful only, to speed happily in another. We, your poor friends, can answer the kind respects of your prosperity, no otherwise, than with our prayers, for the best use of your affliction; which shall not be wanting, from your true and sorrowful well-willer,

JOSEPH HALL.

LETTER OF ANSWER

TO AN

UNKNOWN COMPLAINANT,

CONCERNING THE

FREQUENT INJECTING OF TEMPTATIONS.

THE case, whereof you complain, is not more worthy of secrecy, than of pity: and yet, in true judgment, not so heinous as you conceive it. Evil motions are cast into you, which yet you entertain not with consent. Let me assure you, these are not your sins; but his, that injects them. You may be, as you are, troubled with their importunity; but you are not tainted with their evil, while you dislike and hate them, and are grieved with their suggestion. That bold and subtle enemy of ours durst cast temptations into the Son of God himself; in whom yet he could find nothing. It were woe with us, if lewd motions, though repelled, should be imputed unto us: it is only our consent, that brings them home to us, and makes them our sins. Were then these thoughts, as you suppose them, blasphemies; yet, while your heart goes not with them, but abhors them and strives against them, they may afflict you, they cannot hurt you. As Luther said, in the like case, birds may fly over our heads, whether we will or no; but they cannot nestle in our hair, unless we permit them. Take heart, therefore, to yourself; and be not too much dejected, with the wicked solicitations of a known enemy: for the redress whereof, as I have not been unacquainted with the like causes of complaints, let me prescribe you a double remedy; Resolution and prayer.

In the first place, take up strong Resolutions, not to give heed or ear to these unreasonable motions. Resolve, rather, to scorn and contemn them, upon their first intimation; as not worthy of a particular answer: for, certainly, holding chat with them and sad agitations, and arguing of them as thoughts meet to receive a satisfaction, draws on their more troublesome importunity; whereas, if they were slighted and disdainfully turned off upon their first glimpse, they would go away ashamed. Whensoever, therefore, any such suggestions offer themselves