reflections, which we cannot avoid in sickness, and which in that season may as naturally produce despair as repentance, are much more seasonable, much more advantageous in health, when our memory can much more deliberately reproach us, and all our faculties can perform their offices- towards such a repentance, as may in some degree repair the ill we have done, as well as acknowledge it, and confirm us in such a firm habit of virtues, as no temptation may have strength enough to corrupt us. A man may as reasonably expect, by one week's good husbandry, to repair the breaches and wastes which he hath made in his fortune by seven years licence and excess, as to repair and satisfy for the enormities and transgressions of his life in sickness, that is the forerunner of death, and always most intolerable to them who have put off all thoughts till then, and which at that time crowd in upon him rather to oppress than inform him. The truth is, men ought to have no other business to do in sickness than to die; which, when the thoughts are least disturbed, sickness only makes them willing to do..

XVII. OF PATIENCE.

Montpellier, 1670.

PATIENCE is a Christian virtue, a habit of the mind that doth not only bear and suffer contumelies, reproach, and oppression, but extracts all the venom out of them, and compounds a cordial out of the ingredients, that preserves the health, and even restores the cheerfulness of the countenance, and works miracles in many respects; and under this notion we have in another place taken a view of it: we will consider it now, only as it is a moral virtue, a temper of mind that controls or resists all the brutish effects of choler, anger, and rage; and in this regard it works miracles too; it prevents the inconveniences and indecencies which anger would produce, and diverts the outrages which choler and rage would commit: if it be not sharp-sighted enough to prevent danger, it is composed and resolute enough to resist and repel the assault; and, by keeping all the faculties awake, is very rarely surprised, and quickly discerns any advantages which are offered, because its reason is never disturbed, much less confounded. There is no question but where this excel

lent blessed temper is the effect of deliberation, and the observation of the folly and madness of sudden passion, it must constitute the greatest perfection of wisdom; but it hath in itself so much of virtue and advantage, that when it proceeds from the heaviness of the constitution, and from some defect in the faculties, it is not wholly without use and benefit; it may possibly not do so much good as more sprightly and active men use to perform, but then it never does the harm that quick and hasty men are commonly guilty of; and as fire is much easier and sooner kindled than it is extinguished, we、 frequently find dull and phlegmatic persons attain to a warmth and maturity of judgment, and to a wonderful discerning of what ought or ought not to be done, than men of quicker and more subtle parts of nature, who seldom bear cogitandi laborem: whereas the other, by continual thinking, repair the defects of nature, and with industry supply themselves with that which nature refused to give them. All men observe, in the litigation of the schools, that the calm and undisturbed disputants maintain their point and pursue their end much more efficaciously than their angry and vehement adversaries, whose passions lead them into absurd con29

VOL. V.

cessions and undiscerned contradictions; all the ambitious designs for honour and preferment, all the violent pursuits of pleasure and profit, are but disputations and contentions to maintain their theses, to compass that which men have a mind to obtain; and though the boldest men do sometimes possess themselves of the prize, it is but sometimes, and when it is not warily guarded: the dispassionate candidates are not so often disappointed, nor so easily discouraged; they are intent and advancing, when the others have given over; and then they enjoy what they get with much more satisfaction, because they pursued with less greediness. Angry and choleric men are as ungrateful and unsociable as thunder and lightning, being in themselves all storm and tempests; but quiet and easy natures are like fair weather, welcome to all, and acceptable to all men; they gather together what the other disperses, and reconcile all whom the other incenses; as they have the good will and the good wishes of all other men, so they have the full possession of themselves, have all their own thoughts at peace, and enjoy quiet and ease in their own fortunes how strait soever; whereas the other neither love, nor are beloved, and make war the more faintly upon

others, because they have no peace within themselves; and though they are very ill company to every body else, they are worst of all to themselves, which is a punishment that nature hath provided for them who delight in being vexatious and uneasy to oth

ers.

XVIII. OF REPENTANCE.

Sept. 8, 1669.

REPENTANCE is the greatest business we have to do in this world, and the only harbinger we can send before us to provide for our accommodation in the next; it is the only token we can carry with us thither of our being Christians, which is the only title and claim we can make to be admitted into heaven. It was the only doctrine the prophets preached to prepare the world for the reception of our Saviour; and we may justly believe that his coming was the longer deferred, by the little growth that doctrine had in the hearts of men; and it was the principal doctrine he chose to preach himself after he was come, to make his coming effectual, and to make way for Christianity, of which they were otherwise incapable. There is