mong the herdfinen of Tekoah, Mofes from keeping Jethro's fheep, and Gideon from the threshing-floor, &c. God never encourages idleness, and defpifes not perfons in the meanest employments.

899. It is a moft unpardonable vanity and wickedness to triumph over a woman's virtue, and then to trample upon her reputation.

900.

In the Papism we find many ftrange mixtures; in the pope, a prelate and a prince; in the canon, scripture and tradition; in the mafs, a facrament and a facrifice; in converfion of a finner, grace and free will; in juftification, faith and works; in falvation, mercy and merit; in interceffion, Chrift and the virgin Mary, &c.

901. Though our reformation be as late as Luther, our religion is as antient as christianity itfelf; for when the additions which the church of Rome has made to the antient christian faith, and their innovations in practice are pared off, that which remains of their religion is ours. We would fain hope, because they retain the effentials of christianity, and profess to believe all the articles of the christian faith, that, notwithstanding their corruptions, they may still be accounted the true effence of a church; as a man may really and truly be a man, though he have the plague upon him, and for that reason be fit to be avoided by all that wish well to themselves.

902. The grounds on which religion are founded are either true or false; if falfe, the religious man, and the ftrictest observer of all precepts of felf-denial, ventures no more than just the loss of threescore years, which I will allow to be foolishly bestowed; but if true, the vi

.

cious man is, of all others, the most miferable, and I tremble at the very thoughts of what unutterable and incomprehenfible torments I fee him daily heaping on him

felf.

903. Moderation can never have the honour of contending with ambition, and fubduing it, because they never meet together: moderation is the weakness and floth of the foul, whereas ambition is the ardour and activity of it.

904. The pursuits of ambition, though not so general, yet are as endless as those of riches, and as extravagant too, fince none ever yet thought he had power or empire enough; for what prince foever seems to be so great, as to live and reign without any further defires or fears, falls into the life of a private man, and enjoys but thofe pleafures and entertainments, which a great many feveral degrees of private fortune will allow, and as much, indeed, as human nature is capable of enjoying.

905. Abfence is to love, what fafting is to the body; a little may make it more active and brisk, but a long abstinence will destroy nature. So, fhort feparations, and feldom, may render love more lively and vigorous, but long and frequent must bring a confumption upon it.

906. I cannot call riches better than the baggage of virtue; for as the baggage is to an army, fo is riches to virtue.

907. A covetous man renders himself the most miserable of men, wrongs many, and obliges none but when he dies.

908. Prayer, compared to praife, is but a fuliginous fmoke, iffuing from a sense of fin, and human infirmity.

Praises are the clear fparks of piety, and fooner fly up

wards.

909. To study, is a good way to learn; to hear, is a better; but to teach, the best of all. St Austin fays, the office of diftributing gives us merit to receive, and the office of teaching ferves us for a foundation of learning. 910. Our bodies are like a lamp, to which the natural heat is instead of fire, and the radical moisture, of oil.

911. To be always praying, and doing of nothing, is like lazy beggars, that are ever complaining and asking, but will do nothing to help themselves; if we expect God's grace and affiftance, we must work out our falvation, as well as pray for it.

912. I am not of opinion that we are to retire from human fociety to feek God in the horrors of folitude, neither do I believe it neceffary to disengage from a civil life, and break off all reafonable correfpondence to be united to divinity; and am averse to those folitary humours, which infenfibly infuse in the mind a hatred of the world, and an antipathy to pleasure. I may be devout without fuperftition, enthusiasm, or melancholy; and hope to find God among men, where his goodness is moft active, and his providence appears to be more worthily employed; and there I will endeavour, by his affiftance, to enlighten my reason, perfect my manners, and regulate my conduct, - both as to the care of my falvation, and the duties of life.

913. A folitary life, fays Ariftotle, is either brutal or divine, above, or below a man; but that is a cowardly fort of content, which is got by running away from whatever displeases us; fhould all good men take that whim of

leaving

leaving the world, what would become of it? It is not to be denied but that fociety has more temptations and trouble in it, than folitude, the greatest trial of virtue being in the scene of action; but the more difficult, the more honourable.

914. The man who is not contented with what is in itself fufficient for his condition, neither is rich, or ever will be fo, because there can be no other real limits to his defires, but that of fufficiency; whatever is beyond this, being boundless and infinite.

915. The commonwealth is a ring, the church a colleted diamond; both, well fet together, receive and return luftre to each other.

916. The difference between a soft and a meck man is, the one has no gall, the other bridles it.

917. Mecanas's advice to Auguftus was, never to be concerned at what was spoken against him. For, added he, if their accufations be true, he ought rather to correct himself than reftrain others; if falfe, the contempt of such discourses would destroy the belief of them, but concern would argue the truth of them, and put it in the power of the vileft perfon to disturb his repofe.

918. Covetoufnefs is enough to make the master of the world as poor as he that has just nothing; for a man may be brought to a morfel of bread by griping, as well as by profuseness. It is a madness for a man that has enough already, to hazard all for the getting of more, and then, upon the miscarriage, to leave himself nothing.

919. It is the infatuation of mifers to take gold and

filver

filver for things really good, whereas they are only fome of the means by which good things are procured.

920. That man is rich who receives more than he lays out; and, on the contrary, that man is to be accounted poor, whofe expence exceeds his revenue.

921. A man at forty thinks himself fuperannuated for a new friendship, yet will marry at fourscore.

922. We fhould

manage ourselves with our fortune, as we do with our health; enjoy it, when good; bear it patiently, when ill; and never use desperate remedies, but upon defperate occafions.

923. Few will tell you the truth but friends, and they will not always tell you your failings.

924. The fick amufe their melancholy, and alleviate their illness by speaking of it; the attention we give them comforts, and in fome fort mitigates, the acuteness of their pain.

925. He is the happier owner who has a wife wife enough to hide the real horns of her husband, than the that, being innocent, does, by her light ridiculous carriage, make the base symptoms appear in the eye of the world.

926. Humility, with an alloy of frailties and failings, is doubtless much more acceptable to God, than virtuous actions, puffed up with vain glory, and spiritual pride.

927. Learned men, to whom the reft of the world are infants, have the fame affection of nourishing minds, as the pelican in feeding her young, which is at the expence of the very substance of life.

928. It