will perversely cast them away, that unworthy contempt pays no scores; for we still stand answerable in God's account for the good he designed, and we might have had by it; and we become liable to a new charge, for our ingratitude in thus "despising the chastisement of the Lord” (Heb. xii. 5).

15. And now, if all these benefits of afflictions (which are yet but imperfectly recited) may be thought worth considering, it cannot but reconcile us to the sharpest of God's methods, unless we will own ourselves such mere animals as to have no other apprehensions than what our bodily senses convey to us. For sure, he that has reason enough to understand that he has an immortal soul, cannot but assent that its interests should be served, though with the displacency of his flesh. Yet, even in regard of that, our murmurings are oft very unjust; for we do many times ignorantly prejudge God's design towards us even in temporals, who frequently makes a little transient uneasiness the passage to secular felicities. Moses, when he fled out of Egypt, probably little thought that he should return thither a "god unto Pharaoh” (Ex. iv. 16); and as little did Joseph, when he was brought thither a slave, that he was to be a ruler there; yet as distant as those states were, the divine Providence had so connected them, that the one depends upon the other. And certainly we may often observe the like over-ruling hand in our own distresses, that those events which we have entertained with the

greatest regret have in the consequences been very beneficial to us.

16. To conclude: we have certainly, both from speculation and experience, abundant matter to calm all our disquiets, to satisfy our distrusts, and to fix in us an entire resignation to God's disposals, who has designs which we cannot penetrate, but none which we need fear, unless we ourselves pervert them. We have our Saviour's word for it, that "he will not give us a stone when we ask bread, nor a scorpion when we ask a fish" (Matt. vii. 9). Nay, his love secures us yet farther from the errors of our own wild choice, and does not give us those stones and scorpions which we importune for. Let us, then, leave our concerns to Him who best knows them, and make it our sole care to entertain his dispensations with as much submission and duty, as he dispenses them with love and wisdom. And if we can but do so, we may dare all the power of earth, and hell too, to make us miserable; for be our afflictions what they can, we are sure they are but what we, in some respect or other, need; be they privative or positive, the want of what we wish, or the suffering of what we wish not, they are the disposals of Him who cannot err; and we shall finally have cause to say with the psalmist, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted" (Ps. cxix. 71).

CHAPTER IX.

OF OUR MISFORTUNES COMPARED WITH OTHER MEN'S.

E come now to impress an equally just and useful consideration,-the comparing our misfortunes with those of other men; and he that does that will certainly see so little cause to think himself singular, that he will not find himself superlative in calamity; for there is no man living that can with reason affirm himself to be the very unhappiest man, there being innumerable distresses of others which he knows not of, and consequently cannot bring them in balance with his own. A multitude of men there are whose persons he knows not, and even of those he does, he may be much a stranger to their distresses; many sorrows may lie at the heart of him who carries a smiling face, and many a man has been an object of envy to those who look but on the surface of his state, who yet, to those who know his private griefs, appears more worthy of compassion. And sure this confused uncertain estimate of other men's afflictions may

divert us from all loud outcries of our own. Solon, seeing a friend much oppressed with grief, carried him up to a tower that overlooked the city of Athens; and shewing him all the buildings, said to him, "Consider how many sorrows have, do, and shall in future ages inhabit under all those roofs, and do not vex thyself with those inconveniences which are common to mortality, as if they were only yours." And sure it was good advice; for suffering is almost as inseparable an adjunct of our nature as dying is. Yet we do not see men very apt to embitter their whole lives by the foresight that they must die; but seeing it a thing as universal as inevitable, they are more forward to take up the epicure's resolution, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die" (1 Cor. xv. 32). And why should we not look upon afflictions also as the common lot of humanity; and as we take the advantages, so be content to bear the encumbrances of that state?

2. But besides that implicit allowance that is thus to be made for the unknown calamities of others, if we survey but those that lie open and visible to us, the most of us shall find enough to discountenance our complaints. Who is there that, when he has most studiously recollected his miseries, may not find some or other that apparently equals, if not exceeds, him? He that stomachs his own, being contemned and slighted, may see another persecuted and oppressed; he that groans under

some sharp pain, may see another afflicted with sharper; and even he that has the most acute torments in his body, may see another more sadly cruciated by the agonies of his mind. So that if we would but look about us, we should see so many foreign occasions of our pity, that we should be ashamed to confine it wholly to ourselves.

3. It will perhaps be said, that this cannot be universally true, for that there must in comparative degrees be some lowest state of misery. I grant it; but still that state consists not in such an indivisible point, that any one person can have the enclosure; or if it do, it will be so hard for any to discern who that one person is, that I need desire no fairer a composition, than to have every man suspend his repinings till he can evince his title. But, alas, there are but few that can make any approaches to such a pretence; for though, if we advert to men's complaints, we should think all degrees of comparison were confounded, and every man were equally the greatest sufferer, yet certainly, in the truth of things, it is nothing so; for (not to repeat what was before mentioned, that probably no man is miserable in any proportion to the utmost degree of possibility,) the remarkably unhappy are very far the less number. And how passionately soever men exaggerate their calamities, yet perhaps in their sober mood they will scarce change states with those whom they profess to think more happy than themselves. It was the saying of Socrates, that if there