ing to my care of this, is my blessing on the rest. I show your lordship what I would do, and what I ought; I commit my desires to the imitation of the weak; my actions to the censures of the wise and holy; my weaknesses to the pardon and redress of my merciful God. OLD AGE. OUR infancy is full of folly: youth, of disorder and toil; age, of infirmity. Each time hath his burden; and that which may justly work our weariness: yet infancy longeth after youth; and youth after more age; and he, that is very old, as he is a child for simplicity, so he would be for years. I account old age the best of the three; partly, for that it hath passed through the folly and disorder of the others; partly, for that the inconveniences of this are but bodily, with a bettered estate of the mind; and partly for that it is nearest to dissolution. There is nothing more miserable, than an old man that would be young again. It was an answer worthy the commendations of Petrarch: and that, which argued a mind truly philosophical of him, who, when his friend bemoaned his age appearing in his white temples, telling him he was sorry to see him look so old, replied, "Nay, be sorry rather, that ever I was young, to be a fool," EVENING.-Cast up the accounts of the day. If aught amiss, beg pardon. Gather resolution of more vigilance. If well, bless the mercy and grace of God that hath supported thee. Locke, in his Conduct of the Understanding, says, "Besides his particular calling for the support of his life, every one has a concern in a future life, which he is bound to look after. This engages his thoughts in religion; and here it mightily lies upon him to understand and reason right. Men therefore cannot be excused from understanding the word, and framing the general notions relating to religion right. The one day of seven, besides other days of rest, allows in the Christian world time enough for this (had they no other idle hours) if they would but make use of these vacancies from their daily labors, and apply themselves to an improvement of knowledge, with as much diligence as they often do to a great many other things that are useless. SECTION VI. DR. BARROW. Ir a man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God, who giveth freely. Therefore, O everlasting wisdom, the maker, redeemer, and governor of all things, let some comfortable beams from thy great body of heavenly light descend upon us, to illumine our dark minds and quicken our dead hearts; to inflame us with ardent love unto thee, and to direct our steps in obedience to thy laws through the gloomy shades of this world into that region of eternal light and bliss where thou reignest in perfect glory and majesty, one God ever-blessed, world without end. Amen. WISDOM of itself is delectable and satisfactory, as it implies a revelation of truth and a detection of error to us. "Tis like light, pleasant to behold, casting a sprightly lustre, and diffusing a benign influence all about; presenting a goodly prospect of things to the eyes of our minds; displaying objects in their due shapes, postures, magnitudes, and colors; quickening our spirits with a comfortable warmth, and disposing our minds to a cheerful activity; dispelling the darkness of ignorance, scattering the mists of doubt, driving away the spectres of delusive fancy; mitigating the cold of sullen melancholy; discovering obstacles, securing progress, and making the passages of life clear, open, and pleasant. We are all naturally endowed with a strong appetite to know, to see, to pursue truth; and with a bashful abhorrency from being deceived and entangled in mistake. And as success in inquiry after truth affords matter of joy and triumph; so being conscious of error and miscarriage therein, is attended with shame and sorrow. These desires wisdom in the most perfect manner satisfies, not by entertaining us with dry, empty, fruitless theories * Serm. i., p. 1. upon mean and vulgar subjects; but by enriching our minds with excellent and useful knowledge, directed to the noblest objects, and serviceable to the highest ends.* WISDOM SELECTS TRUE PLEASURES. WISDOM is exceedingly pleasant and peaceable; in general, by disposing us to acquire and to enjoy all the good delight and happiness we are capable of; and by freeing us from all the inconvenience, mischiefs, and infelicities our condition is subject to. For whatever good from clear understanding, deliberate advice, sagacious foresight, stable resolution, dexterous address, right intention, and orderly proceeding doth naturally result, wisdom confers: whatever evil blind ignorance, false presumption, unwary * Bacon, in enumerating the advantages of knowledge, says, 1. It relieves man's afflictions. 2. It promotes public virtue and order. 3. It promotes private virtues, by humanizing, humbling, nullifying vain admiration, improving. 3. It is power. 4. The pleasure of knowledge far exceedeth all other pleasures; for, shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the senses, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner; and must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections? We see in all other pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth; which showeth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable; and therefore appeareth to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or accident. Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the mind of man, which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly, : "Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis," &c. "It is a view of delight," saith he, "to stand or walk upon the shore side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea: or to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain; but it is a pleasure incomparable, for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of truth, and from thence to descry and behold the errors, perturbations, labors, and wanderings up and down of other men." "So always, that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth." 1 credulity, precipitate rashness, unsteady purpose, ill contrivance, backwardness, inability, unwieldiness and confusion of thought beget, wisdom prevents. From a thousand snares and treacherous allurements, from innumerable rocks and dangerous surprises, from exceedingly many needless incumbrances and vexatious toils of fruitless endeavors she redeems and secures us. Wisdom instructs us to examine, compare, and rightly to value the objects that court our affections and challenge our care! and thereby regulates our passions and moderates our endeavors, which begets a pleasant serenity and peaceable tranquillity of mind. For when being deluded with false shows, and relying upon ill-grounded presumptions, we highly esteem, passionately affect, and eagerly pursue things of little worth in themselves or concernment to us; as we unhandsomely prostitute our affections, and prodigally misspend our time, and vainly lose our labor, so the event not answering our expectation, our minds thereby are confounded, disturbed, and distempered. But, when guided by right reason, we conceive great esteem of, and zealously are enamored with, and vigorously strive to attain things of excellent worth and weighty consequence, the conscience of having well placed our affections and well employed our pains, and the experience of fruits corresponding to our hopes, ravishes our minds with unexpressible content. And so it is present appearance and vulgar conceit ordinarily impose upon our fancies, disguising things with a deceitful varnish, and representing those that are vainest with the greatest advantage; whilst the noblest objects, being of a more subtle and spiritual nature, like fairest jewels enclosed in a homely box, avoid the notice of gross sense, and pass undiscerned by us. But the light of wisdom, as it unmasks specious imposture and bereaves it of its false colors, so it penetrates into the retirements of true excellency and reveals its genuine lustre.* * Wisdom doth balance in her scales those true and false pleasures which do equally invite the senses: and rejecting all such as have no solid value rlasting refreshment, doth select and take to her bosom those delights that, proving immortal, do seem to smell and taste of that paradise from which they sprung. Like the wise husbandman who, taking the rough grain which carries in its heart the bread to sustain life, doth trample under foot the gay and idle flowers which many times destroy it.-A. M. KNOWLEDGE AVOIDS THE MISERY TO WHICH IGNORANCE IS EXPOSED. * WISDOM makes all the troubles, griefs, and pains incident to life, whether casual adversities, or natural afflictions, easy and supportable, by rightly valuing the importance and moderating the influence of them. It suffers not busy fancy to alter the nature, amplify the degree, or extend the duration of them, by representing them more sad, heavy, and remediless than they truly are. It allows them no force beyond what naturally and necessarily they have, nor contributes nourishment to their increase. It keeps them at a due distance, not permitting them to encroach upon the soul, or to propagate their influence beyond their proper sphere.† *Serm. i., p. 2. † Ignorance can shake strong sinews with idle thoughts, and sink brave hearts with light sorrows, and doth lead innocent feet to impure dens, and haunts the simple rustic with credulous fears, and the swart Indian with that more potent magic, under which spell he pines and dies. And by ignorance is a man fast bound from childhood to the grave, till knowledge, which is the revelation of good and evil, doth set him free.-A. M. Knowledge mitigates the fear of death and adverse fortune; for, if a man be deeply imbued with the contemplation of mortality and the corruptible nature of all things, he will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken; and went forth the next day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead and thereupon said, "Heri vidi fragilem frangi; hodie vidi mortalem mori." And therefore Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes and the conquest of all fears as concomitant: Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, BACON. Near to the Hartz Mountains, in Germany, a gigantic figure has from time immemorial occasionally appeared in the heavens. It is indistinct, but always resembles the form of a human being Its appearance has ever been a certain indication of approaching misfortune. It is called the Spectre of the Broken. It has been seen by many travellers. In speaking of it, Monsieur Jordan says, "in the course of my repeated tours through the Hartz Mountains, I often, but in vain, ascended the Broken, that I might see the spectre. At length, on a serene morning, as the sun was just appearing above the horizon, it stood before me, at a great distance, towards |