in your own discretion, when prayer shall overflow like Jordan in the time of harvest. 5. MARRIAGE.—(“GOLDEN GROVE SERMONS." THE MARRIAGE RING.) Life or death, felicity or a lasting sorrow, are in the power of marriage. A woman indeed ventures most, for she hath no sanctuary to retire to from an evil husband; she must dwell upon her sorrow, and hatch the eggs which her own folly or infelicity hath produced; and she is more under it, because her tormentor hath a warrant of prerogative, and the woman may complain to God as subjects do of tyrant princes, but otherwise she hath no appeal in the causes of unkindness. And though the man can run from many hours of his sadness, yet he must return to it again, and when he sits among his neighbours, he remembers the objection that lies in his bosom, and he sighs deeply. It is the unhappy chance of many men, finding many inconveniences upon the mountains of single life, they descend into the valleys of marriage to refresh their troubles, and there they enter into fetters, and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a man's or woman's peevishness; and the worst of the evil is, they are to thank their own follies, for they fell into the snare by entering an improper way; Christ and the Church were no ingredients in their choice; but as the Indian women enter into folly for the price of an elephant, and think their crime warrantable, so do men and women change their liberty for a rich fortune, and show themselves to be less than money, by overvaluing that to all the content and wise felicity of their lives; and when they have counted the money and their sorrows together, how willingly would they buy, with the loss of all that money, modesty, or sweet nature to their relative! the odd thousand pounds would gladly be allowed in good nature and fair manners. As very a fool is he that chooses for beauty principally; it is an ill band of affections to tie two hearts together by a little thread of red and white. And they can love no longer but until the next ague comes; and they are fond of each other but at the chance of fancy, or the small-pox, or care, or time, or anything that can destroy a pretty flower. There is nothing can please a man without love; and if a man be weary of the wise discourses of the apostles, and of the innocency of an even and a private fortune, or hates peace or a fruitful year, he hath reaped thorns and thistles from the choicest flowers of paradise; for nothing can sweeten felicity itself but love; but when a man dwells in love, then the breasts of his wife are pleasant as the droppings upon the hill of Hermon, her eyes are fair as the light of heaven, she is a fountain sealed, and he can quench his thirst, and ease his cares, and lay his sorrow down upon her lap, and can retire home as to his sanctuary and refectory, and his gardens of sweetness and chaste refreshments. No man can tell but he that loves his children, how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society; but he that loves not his wife and children, feeds a lioness at home, and broods a nest of sorrows, and blessing itself cannot make him happy. 6. FOLLY OF SIN.- (FROM APPLES OF SODOM." GOLDEN GROVE SERMONS, XIX.) It were easy to make a catalogue of sins, every one of which is a disease, a trouble in its very constitution and nature; such are loathing of spiritual things, bitterness of spirit, rage, greediness, confusion of mind, and irresolution, cruelty and despite, slothfulness and distrust, unquietness and anger, effeminacy and niceness, prating and sloth, ignorance and inconstancy, incogitancy and cursing, malignity and fear, forgetfulness and rashness, pusillanimity and despair, rancour and superstition: if a man were to curse his enemy, he could not wish him a greater evil than these; and yet these are several kinds of sin which men choose, and give all their hopes of heaven in exchange for one of these diseases. Is it not a fearful consideration that a man should rather choose eternally to perish than to say his prayers heartily and affectionately? But so it is with very many men. They are driven to their devotions by custom, and shame, and reputation, and evil compliances; they sigh and look sour when they are called to it, and abide there as a man under the chirurgeon's1 hands, smarting and fretting all the while; or else he passes the time with incogitancy, and hates the employment, and suffers the torment of prayers, which he loves not; and all this, although for so doing it is certain he may perish. What fruit, what deliciousness, can he fancy in being weary of his prayers? There is no pretence or colour for these things. Can any imagine a greater evil to the body and soul of a man than madness, and furious eyes, and a distracted look; paleness with passion, and trembling hands and knees, and furiousness and folly in the heart and head? And yet this is the pleasure of anger; and for this pleasure men choose damnation. But it is a great truth that there are but very few sins that pretend to pleasure; although a man be weak and soon deceived, and the devil is crafty, and sin is false and impudent, and pretences are too many, yet most kinds of sin are real and prime troubles to the very body, without all manner of deliciousness, even to the sensual, natural, and carnal part; and a man must put on something of a devil before he can choose such sins, and he must love mischief because it is a sin; for in most instances there is no other reason in the world. As for the pleasures of intemperance, they are nothing but the relics and images of pleasure after that nature hath been 1 i. e., surgeon's. A GOOD MAN THE ONLY TRUE FRIEND. 129 feasted; for so long as she needs—that is, so long as temperance waits so long pleasure also stands there; but as temperance begins to go away, having done the ministries of nature, every morsel, and every new goblet, is still less delicious, and cannot be endured but as men force nature by violence to stay longer than she would. How have some men rejoiced when they have escaped a cup ! and when they cannot escape, they pour it in and receive it with as much pleasure as the old women have in the Lapland dances; they dance the round, but there is a horror and a harshness in the music, and they call it pleasure because men bid them do so; but there is a devil in the company, and such as is his pleasure, such is theirs he rejoices in the thriving sin, and the swelling fortune of his darling drunkenness, but his joys are the joys of him that knows and always remembers that he shall infallibly have the biggest damnation; and then let it be considered how forced a joy that is that is at the end of an intemperate feast! Intemperance takes but nature's leavings; when the belly is full, and nature calls to take away, the pleasure that comes in afterwards is next to loathing; it is like the relish and taste of meats at the end of the third course, or sweetness of honey to him that hath eaten till he can endure to take no more; and all his pleasure is nothing but the sting of a serpent; it wounds the heart, and he dies with a tarantula,' dancing and singing till he bows his neck and kisses his bosom with the fatal noddings and declensions of death. 7. A GOOD MAN THE ONLY TRUE FRIEND.-(" MEASURES OF FRIENDSHIP.") A good man is the best friend, and therefore soonest to be chosen, longer to be retained, and, indeed, never to be parted with, unless he cease to be that for which he was chosen. The good man is a profitable, useful person; and that is the band of an effective friendship. For I do not think that friendships are metaphysical nothings, created for contemplation, or that men or women should stare upon each other's faces, and make dialogues of news and prettinesses, and look babies in one another's eyes. Friendship is the allay of our sorrows, the ease of our passions, the discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our calamities, the counsellor of our doubts, the clarity of our minds, the emission of our thoughts, the exercise and improvement of what we meditate. And although I love my friend because he is worthy, yet he is not worthy if he can do no good. I do not speak of accidental hindrances and misfortunes, by which the bravest man may become unable to help his child, but of the natural and artificial capacities of the man. He only is fit to be chosen for a friend who can do those offices for which friendship is excellent; he only is fit to be chosen for a friend who can give counsel, or defend my A venomous spider, whose bite, according to popular opinion, could only be cured by music and violent dancing; hence the dance known as the " tarantella receives its name. cause, or guide me right, or relieve my need, or can and will, when I need it, do me good. Only this I add into the heaps of doing good, I will reckon loving me; for it is a pleasure to be beloved; but when his love signifies nothing but kissing my cheek, or talking kindly, and can go no further, it is a prostitution of the bravery of friendship to spend it upon impertinent people, who are, it may be, loads to their families, but can never ease my loads but my friend is a worthy person when he can become to me a guide or a support, an eye or a hand, a staff or a rule. There must be in friendship something to distinguish it from a companion and a countryman, from a schoolfellow or a gossip, from a sweetheart or a fellow-traveller. Friendship may look in at any one of these doors; but it stays not anywhere till it come to be the best thing in the world. And when we consider that one man is not better than another, neither towards God nor towards man, but by doing better and braver things, we shall also see that that which is most beneficent is also most excellent; and therefore those friendships must needs be most perfect where the friends can be most useful. For men cannot be useful but by worthinesses in the several instances; a fool cannot be relied upon for counsel, nor a vicious person for the advantages of virtue, nor a beggar for relief, nor a stranger for conduct, nor a tattler to keep a secret, nor a pitiless person trusted with my complaint, nor a covetous man with my child's fortune, nor a false person without a witness, nor a suspicious person with a private design, nor him that I fear with the treasures of my love; but he that is wise and virtuous, rich and at hand, close and merciful, free of his money, and tenacious of a secret, open and ingenuous, true and honest, is of himself an excellent man, and therefore fit to be loved; and he can do good to me in all capacities where I can need him, and therefore is fit to be a friend. I confess we are forced, in our friendships, to abate some of these ingredients; but full measures of friendship would have full measures of worthiness; and according as any defect is in the foundation, in the relation also there may be imperfection: and indeed I shall not blame the friendship so it be worthy, though it be not perfect; not only because friendship is charity, which cannot be perfect here, but because there is not in the world a perfect cause of perfect friendship. Can any wise or good man be angry if I say, I choose this man to be my friend because he is able to give me counsel, to restrain my wanderings, to comfort me in my sorrows; he is pleasant to me in private, and useful in public; he will make my joys double, and divide my grief between himself and me? For what else should I choose? For being a fool and useless? For a pretty face and a smooth skin? True and brave friendships are between worthy persons; and there is in mankind no degree of worthiness but is also a degree of usefulness; and by everything by which a man is excellent I may be profited; and because those are the bravest friends which can best serve the ends of friendships, either we must suppose that friendships are not the greatest comforts in the world, or else we must say he chooses his friend best that chooses such a one by whom he can receive the greatest comforts and assistances. X. THOMAS FULLER. THOMAS FULLER was born at Aldwinkle in Northamptonshire in 1608. He was educated at Cambridge, where he afterwards became incumbent of one of the town's churches, and acquired great popularity as a pulpit orator. His reputation procured him rapid church preferment, which, as in so many other instances at that time, was suddenly stopped by the outbreak of the political disturbances in the reign of Charles I. Fuller was moderate in his sentiments; still, like most other men of moderate principles, he felt that the maintenance of some measure of royal authority was essential to the existence of a free constitution, and this view he did not hesitate to express in a sermon in Westminster Abbey, preached on the anniversary of the king's accession. He thus gave great offence to the more violent popular leaders, who deprived him of some of his ecclesiastical dignities, and obliged him to find shelter in the royal camp. When the heat of parties subsided, Fuller returned to London, where his popular style of preaching readily secured for him an attentive flock. On the Restoration he was reinstated in his former dignity, became one of the royal chaplains, and, but for his death in 1661, would probably have been advanced to the episcopal bench. 66 66 Of his numerous works, the best known are his "History of the Holy War," Church History of Britain," The Worthies of England." "Pisgah View of Palestine," and "The Holy and Profane State." His historical works, especially his Worthies," contain much curious information not now procurable from other sources, but his writings are chiefly remarkable from the extreme quaintness of the style. Fuller abounds in puns, quibbles, and humorous comparisons, generally striking, and always pleasing, for his humour is evidently genuine and natural, not merely assumed for the occasion. His writings yield an unfailing supply to those periodicals which set apart a corner for what are styled "Gems of the Old Authors." The following extracts are taken from his "Holy and Profane State," a work similar in character to Hall's Characters of the Virtues and Vices," from which specimens have been already given, and a species of writing very popular in Fuller's age. 1. THE GOOD YEOMAN.—(“ HOLY STATE,” BOOK II., CHAP. XVIII.) The good yeoman is a gentleman in ore, whom the next age may see refined, and is the wax capable of a genteel impression, when the prince shall stamp it. Wise Solon, who accounted Tellus the Athenian the most happy man, for living privately on his own lands, would surely have pronounced the English yeomanry fortunate condition," living in the temperate zone between greatness and want, an estate of people almost peculiar to England. France 66 a |