meditate and ruminate well, upon the Effects of Anger, how it troubles Man's Life. And the best Time to do this, is, to look back upon Anger, when the Fit is thoroughly over. Seneca faith well; That Anger is like Ruin, which breaks itself, upon that it falls. The Scripture exhorteth us; To possess our Souls in Patience. Whofoever is out of Patience, is out of Poffeffion of his Soul. Men must not turn Bees;

Animafque in vulnere ponunt.

Anger is certainly a kind of Baseness: As it appears well, in the Weakness of those Subjects, in whom it reigns: Children, Women, Old Folks, Sick Folks. Only Men must beware, that they carry their Anger rather with Scorn, than with Fear: So that they may seem rather to be above the Injury, than below it: which is a Thing easily done, if a Man will give Law to himself in it.

For the second Point; the Causes and Motives of Anger, are chiefly three. First, to be too Senfible of Hurt: For no Man is angry, that feels not himself hurt: And therefore tender and delicate Persons must needs be oft angry: They have fo many Things to trouble them; which more robuft Natures have little Senfe of. The next is, the Apprehenfion and Construction, of the Injury offered, to be, in the Circumftances thereof, full of Contempt. For Contempt is that which putteth an edge upon Anger, as much, or more, than the Hurt itself. And therefore, when Men are ingenious in picking out Circumstances of Contempt, they do

kindle their Anger much. Laftly, Opinion of the Touch of a Man's Reputation, doth multiply and sharpen Anger. Wherein the Remedy is, that a Man fhould have, as Confalvo was wont to fay, Telam Honoris craffiorem. But in all refrainings of Anger, it is the best Remedy to win Time; and to make a Man's felf believe, that the Opportunity of his Revenge is not yet come: But that he forefees a Time for it; and so to still himself in the mean Time, and reserve it.

To contain Anger from Mischief, though it take hold of a Man, there be two Things, whereof you must have special Caution. The one, of extreme Bitterness of Words; especially if they be aculeate, and proper: For communia Maledicta are nothing fo much: And again, that in Anger, a Man reveal no Secrets: For that makes him not fit for Society. The other, that you do not peremptorily break off, in any Business in a Fit of Anger: But howfoever you shew Bitterness, do not act anything that is not revocable.

For raifing and appeasing Anger in another; It is done chiefly, by choofing of Times, when Men are frowardeft and worft difpofed, to incense them. Again, by gathering (as was touched before) all that you can find out, to aggravate the Contempt. And the two Remedies are by the Contraries. The Former, to take good Times, when first to relate to a Man, an angry Bufinefs: For the first Impreffion is much; and the other is, to fever, as much as may be, the Construction of the Injury, from the Point of Contempt: Imputing it to Mif understanding, Fear, Paffion, or what you will,

LVIII. Of Viciffitude of

Things.

OLOMON faith; There is no new Thing upon the Earth. So that as Plato had an Imagination; that all Knowledge was but Remembrance: So Solomon giveth his Sentence; that all Novelty is but Oblivion. Whereby you may fee, that the River of Lethe runneth as well above Ground, as below. There is an abftrufe Aftrologer that faith; If it were not for two things, that are conftant; (the one is, that the Fixed Stars ever ftand at like diftance, one from another, and never come nearer together, nor go further afunder; the other, that the Diurnal Motion perpetually keepeth Time :) no Individual would last one Moment. Certain it is, that the Matter, is in a perpetual Flux, and never at a Stay. The great Winding-fheets, that bury all Things in Oblivion, are two; Deluges, and Earthquakes. As for Conflagrations, and great Droughts, they do not merely difpeople, and deftroy. Phaeton's Car went but a day. And the Three Years' Drought, in the time of Elias, was but particular, and left People alive. As for the great Burnings by Lightnings, which are often in the Weft Indies, they are but narrow. But in the other two Deftructions, by Deluge, and Earthquake, it is further to be

noted, that the Remnant of People, which hap to be reserved, are commonly ignorant and mountainous People, that can give no Account of the Time paft: So that the Oblivion is all one, as if none had been left. If you consider well, of the People of the West Indies, it is very probable that they are a newer, or a younger People, than the People of the Old World. And it is much more likely, that the Destruction, that hath heretofore been there, was not by Earthquakes, (as the Egyptian Prieft told Solon, concerning the Island of Atlantis; That it was fwallowed by an Earthquake ;) but rather, that it was desolated by a particular Deluge. For Earthquakes are seldom in those Parts. But on the other fide, they have fuch pouring Rivers, as the Rivers of Afia, and Africa, and Europe, are but brooks to them. Their Andes likewise, or Mountains, are far higher than those with us; whereby it seems, that the Remnants of Generation of Men, were, in fuch a particular Deluge, faved. As for the Obfervation, that Machiavel hath, that the Jealousy of Sects, doth much extinguish the Memory of Things; traducing Gregory the Great, that he did, what in him lay, to extinguish all Heathen Antiquities; I do not find, that those Zeals do any great Effects, nor last long: As it appeared in the Succeffion of Sabinian, who did revive the former Antiquities.

The Viciffitude or Mutations, in the Superior Globe, are no fit Matter, for this present Argument. It may be, Plato's great Year, if the World should last so long, would have some Effect; not

in renewing the State of like Individuals (for that is the Fume of those, that conceive the Celestial Bodies have more accurate Influences, upon thefe Things below, than indeed they have) but in grofs. Comets, out of queftion, have likewise Power and Effect, over the Grofs and Mafs of Things: But they are rather gazed upon, and waited upon in their Journey, than wifely observed in their Effects; specially in their respective Effects; that is, what Kind of Comet, for Magnitude, Colour, Verfion of the Beams, placing in the Region of Heaven, or Lafting, produceth what Kind of Effects.

There is a Toy, which I have heard, and I would not have it given over, but waited upon a little. They fay, it is observed, in the Low Countries (I know not in what Part) that every Five and Thirty Years, the fame kind and fuit of Years and Weathers, comes about again: As great Frofts, great Wet, great Droughts, warm Winters, Summers with little Heat, and the like: And they call it the Prime. It is a Thing, I do the rather mention, because computing backwards, I have found fome Concurrence.

But to leave these Points of Nature, and to come to Men. The greatest Viciffitude of Things amongst Men, is the Viciffitude of Sects, and Religions. For those Orbs rule in Men's Minds moft. The true Religion is built upon the Rock; the Rest are toft upon the Waves of Time. To speak therefore, of the Caufes of new Sects; and to give fome Counsel concerning them; as far, as the