He that erst marched like Xerxes with innumerable armies, as rich as Croesus, now shifts for himself in a poor cock-boat, is bound in iron chains, with Bajazet the Turk, and a footstool with Aurelian, for a tyrannizing Conqueror to trample on. So many casualties there are, that as Seneca said of a City consumed with fire, Una dies interest inter maximam civitatem & nullam, one day betwixt a great city, and none: so many grievances from outward accidents, and from ourselves, our own indiscretion, inordinate appetite, one day betwixt a man and no man. And which is worse, as if discontents and miseries would not come fast enough upon us; homo homini demon, we maul, persecute, and study how to sting, gaul, and vex one another with mutual hatred, abuses, injuries; preying upon, and devouring as so many "ravenous birds; and as juglers, panders, bawds, cousening one another; or raging as wolves, tigers, and devils, we take a delight to torment one another; men are evil, wicked, malicious, trecherous, and P naught, not loving one another, or loving themselves, not hospitable, charitable, nor sociable as they ought to be, but counterfeit, dissemblers, ambodexters, all for their own ends, hard-hearted, merciless, pitiless, and to benefit themselves, they care not what mischief they procure to others. Praxinoe and Gorgo in the Poet, when they had got in to see those costly sights, they then cryed benè est, and would thrust out all the rest when they are rich themselves, in honor, preferred, full, and have even that they would, they debar others of those pleasures which youth requires, and they formerly have enjoyed. He sits at table in a soft chair at ease, but he doth remember in the mean time, that a tired waiter stands behind him, "an hungry fellow ministers to him full, he is athirst that gives him drink (saith Epictetus) and is silent whiles he speaks his pleasure; pensive, sad, when he laughs." Pleno se proluit auro; He feasts, revels, and profusely spends, hath variety of robes, sweet musick, ease, and all the pleasure the world can afford, whilst many an hunger-starved poor creature pines in the street, wants clothes to cover him, labours hard all day long, runs, rides for a trifle, fights peradventure from Sun to Sun, sick and ill, weary, full of pain and grief, is in great distress and sorrow of heart. He loathes and scornes Omnes hic aut captantur, aut captant: aut cadavera quæ lacerantur, aut corvi qui lacerant Petron. Homo omne monstrum est, ille nam susperat feras, luposque & ursos pectore obscuro tegit. Hens. Quod Paterculus de populo Romano, durante bello Punico per annos 115. aut bellum inter eos, aut belli, præparatio, aut infida pax, idem ego de mundi accolis. critus Edyll. 15. Qui sedet in mensa, non meminit sibi otioso ministrare negotioscs, edenti esurientes, bibenti sitientes, &c. • Theo his inferior, hates or emulates his equal, envies his superior, insults over all such as are under him, as if he were of another Species, a demi-god, not subject to any fall, or humane infirmities. Generally they love not, are not beloved again: they tire out others bodies with continual labour, they themselves living at ease, caring for none else, sibi nati; and are so far many times from putting to their helping hand, that they seek all meanes to depress, even most worthy and well deserving, better than themselves, those whom they are by the lawes of nature bound to relieve and help, as much as in them lies, they will let them cater-waul, starve, beg, and hang, before they will any wayes (though it be in their power) assist or ease: so unnatural are they for the most part, so unregardful: so hard-hearted, so churlish, proud, insolent, so dogged, of so bad a disposition. And being so brutish, so devilishly bent one towards another, how is it possible, but that we should be discontent of all sides, full of cares, woes, and miseries? If this be not a sufficient proof of their discontent and misery, examine every condition and calling apart. Kings, Princes, Monarchs, and Magistrates seem to be most happy, but look into their estate, you shall find them to be most encumbered with cares, in perpetual fear, agony, suspition, jealousie: that as "he said of a Crown, if they knew but the discontents that accompany it, they would not stoop to take it up. Quem mihi regem dabis (saith Chrysostome) non curis plenum? What King canst thou shew me, not full of cares? "Look not on his crown, but consider his afflictions: attend not his number of servants, but multitude of crosses." Nihil aliud potestas culminis, quam tempestas mentis, as Gregory seconds him; Soveraignty is a tempest of the Soul: Sylla like they have brave titles, but terrible fits: splendorem titulo, cruciatum animo: which made * Demosthenes vow, si vel ad tribunal, vel ad interitum duceretur: if to be a Judge, or to be condemned, were put to his choice, he would be condemned. Rich men are in the same predicament: what their pains are, stulti nesciunt, ipsi sentiunt: they feel, fooles perceive not, as I shall prove elsewhere, and their wealth is brittle, like childrens' rattles: they come and go, there is no cer tainty in them; those whom they elevate, they do as suddenly depress, and leave in a vale of raisery. The middle sort of ม Quando in adolescentia sua ipsi vixerint, lautius & liberius voluptates suas expleverint, illi gnatis impenunt duriores continentiæ leges. Lugubris Ate luctuq; fero Regum tumidas obsidet arces. Res est inquieta fælicitas, Plus aloes quam mellis habet. Non humi jacentem tolleres. Valer. 1. 7. c. 5. * Non diadema aspic as, sed vitam afflictione refertam, non catervas satellitum, ged curarum multitudinem. As Plutarch relatech. men men are as so many asses to bear burdens; or if they be free, and live at ease, they spend themselves, and consume their bodies and fortunes with luxury and riot, contention, emulation, &c. The poor I reserve for another place, and their dis contents. y For particular professions, I hold as of the rest, there's no content or security in any; On what course will you pitch, how resolve? To be a Divine 'tis contemptible in the world's esteem: To be a Lawyer 'tis to be a wrangler: To be a Physitian, pudet lotij, 'tis loathed: A Philosopher, a mad man: an Alchymist, a beggar: a Poet, esurit, an hungry Jack: A Musitian, a player: A School-master, a drudge: An Husbandman, an Emmet: A Merchant, his gains are uncertaine: A Mechanitian, base: A Chyrurgian, fulsome, A Trades-man, a lyar: A Taylor, a Thief: A Serving-man, a slave: A Souldier, a butcher: A Smith, or a Metalman, the pot's never from's nose: A Courtier, a parasite: as he could finde no tree in the wood to hang himself, I can shew no state of life to give content. The like you may say of all ages: children live in a perpetual slavery, still under that tyrannical government of Masters young men, and of riper years, subject to labor, and a thousand cares of the world, to treachery, falshood, and old are ful of aches in their bones, cramps and convulsions, silicernia, dull of hearing, weak sighted, hoary, wrinkled, harsh, so much altered as that they cannot know their own face in a glass, a burden to themselves and others, after 70. years, "all is sorrow" (as David hath it) they do not live but linger. If they be sound, they fear diseases; if sick, weary of their lives: Non est vivere, sed valere vita. One complaines of want, a second of servitude, another of a secret or incurable disease: of some deformity of body, of some loss, danger, death of friends, shipwrack, persecution, imprisonment, disgrace, repulse, contumely, calumny, abuse, injury, contempt, ingratitude, unkindness, scoffes, flouts, unfortunate mariage, single life, too many children, no children, false servants, unhappy children, bar e d Omitto ægros, exu Sect. 2. memb. 4. subsect. 6. 2 Stercus & urina, medicorü fercula prima. a Nihil lucrantur, nisi admodum mentiendo. Tull. Offic. Hor. 1. 9. od. 1. • Rarus felix idemque senex. Seneca in Her. ateo. les, mendicos, quos nemo audet felices dicere. Card. lib. 8. c. 46. de rer. var. Sprezæque injuria formæ. renness, renness, banishment, oppression, frustrate hopes and ill success, &c. "Talia de genere hoc adeo sunt multa, loquacem ut Delassare valent Fabium.-" Talking Fabius will be tyred before he can tell half of them; they are the subject of whole Volumes, and shall (some of them) be more opportunely dilated elsewhere. In the meane time thus much I may say of them, that generally they crucifie the soul of man, & attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, rivel them up like old apples, make them as so many Anatomies, ("ossa atque pellis est totus, ita curis macet) they cause tempus fædum & squalidum, cumbersome dayes, ingrataque tempora, slow, dull, and heavy times; make us howle, roar, and tear our haires, as Sorrow did in Cebes table, and groan for the very anguish of our souls. Our hearts faile us, as David's did, Psal. 40. 12. "for innumerable troubles that compassed him; and we are ready to confess with Hezekiah, Isay 58. 17. " behold, for felicity I had bitter grief:" to weep with Heraclitus, to curse the day of our birth with Jeremy, 20. 14. and our stars with Job: to hold that axiome of Silenus, "better never to have been born, and the best next of all, to dye quickly:" or if we must live, to abandon the world, as Timon did, creep into caves and holes, as our Anchorites; cast all into the Sea, as Crates Thebanus: or as Theombrotus Ambrociato's 400 auditors, precipitate our selves to be rid of these miseries. SUBSEC. XI. Concupiscible Appetite, as Desires, Ambition, Causes. THESE HESE Concupiscible and Irascible Appetites are as the two twists of a rope, mutually mixt one with the other, and both twining about the Heart: both good, as Austin holds 1.14. c.9. de civ. Dei, "if they be moderate: both pernitious if they be exorbitant. This Concupiscible appetite, howsoever it may seem to carry with it a shew of pleasure and delight, and our concupiscences most part affect us with content and a pleasing object, yet if they be in extreames, they rack and wring us on the other side. A true saying it is, "Desire hath no rest" is infinite in it self, endless: and as f Hor. Attenuant vigiles corpus miserabile curæ. one cals it, a h Plautus. aut cito mori. Tho. Buovic. perpetual T perpetual rack," or horse-mill, according to Austin, still going round as in a ring. They are not so continual, as divers, feciliùs atomos denumerare possem, saith Bernard, quàm motus cordis; nunc hæc, nunc illa cogito, you may as well reckon up the motes in the Sun, as them. PIt extends itself to every thing," as Guianerius will have it," that is superfluously sought after:" or to any fervent desire, as Fernelius interprets it; be it in what kinde soever, it tortures if immoderate, and is (according to Plater and others) an especial cause of Melancholy. Multuosis concupiscentiis dilaniantur cogitationes meæ, S Austin confessed, that he was torne a pieces with his manifold desires: and so doth Bernard complain, "that he could not rest for them a minute of an houre: this I would have, and that, and then I desire to be such and such. 'Tis a hard matter therefore to confine them, being they are so various and many, unpossible to apprehend all. I will only insist upon some few of the chief, and most noxious in their kind, as that exorbitant Appetite and desire of Honor, which we commonly call Ambition: Love of money, which is Covetousness, and that greedy desire of gain: self-love, pride, and inordinate desire of Vain-glory or applause, Love of study in excess: Love of women, (which will require a just volume of it self) of the other I will briefly speak, and in their order. Ambition, a proud covetousness, or a dry thirst of Honor, a great torture of the minde, composed of envy, pride, and covetousness, a gallant madness, one " defines it a pleasant poison, Ambrose, "a canker of the soul, an hidden plague: * Bernard, "a secret poyson, the father of livor, and mother of hypocrisie, the moth of holiness, and cause of madness, crucifying and, disquieting all that it takes hold of.” y Seneca cals it, rem solicitam, timidam, vanam, ventosam, a windy thing, a vain, solicitous, and fearful thing. For commonly they that, like Sysiphus, role this restless stone of Ambition, are in a perpetuall agony, still perplexed, semper taciti, tristesque recedunt, (Lucretius) doubtful, timorous, suspitious, loath to of fend in word or deed, still cogging and collogueing, embracing, capping, cringing, applauding, flattering, fleering, visiting, waiting at men's doors, with all affability, counterfeit honesty n Molam asinariam. • Tract. de Inter. c. 92. P Circa qualibet rem mundi hæc passio fieri potest, quæ superflue diligatur. Tract. 15 c. 17. Ferventius desiderium. Imprimis verò Appetitus, &c. 3. de alien. ment. Conf. 1. c. 29. Per diversa loca vagor, nullo temporis momento quiesco, talis & talis esse cupio, illud atque illud habere desidero. "Ambros. 1. 3. super Lucam. ærugo animæ. * Nihil animũ cruciat, nihil molestiùs inquietat, secretum virus, pestis occulta, &c. epist. 126. y Ep. 88. Nihil infelicius his, quantus iis timor, quanta dubitatio, quantus conatus, quanta sollicitudo, nulla illis à molestis vacua hora. and |