Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“
[ocr errors]

with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first original causes from whence they have sprung, be unknown, as to the greatest part of men they

are.

Since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of his law upon the world, heaven and earth have hearkened unto his voice, and their labour hath been to do his will. "He made a law for the rain;" he gave his "decree unto the sea, that the waters should not pass his commandment." Now if nature should intermit her course, and leave, altogether, though it were for awhile, the observation of her own laws, if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads, should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it may happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now, as a giant, doth run his unwearied course, should as it were through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away, as children at the withered breasts of their mother no longer able to yield them relief; what would become of man himself,

whom these things do now all serve? See we not plainly, that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world ?*

Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is in the bosom of God; her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power. Both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.†

ON TEMPERANCE.

FROM SERMON ENTITLED

THE HOUSE OF

FEASTING.'

'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
1 Cor. xv. 32.

1. Plenty, and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of felicity.

2. Intemperance is a certain enemy to felicity. 1st. It is an enemy to health.

2ndly. Intemperance is an impure fountain of vice, and a direct nurse of uncleanness. 3rdly. Intemperance is a destruction of wisdom.

*Ecclesiastical Polity, book i. sect. 3.

+ Ibid. book i. sect. 16.

Sermon xv. and xvi.

4thly. Intemperance is a dishonour and disreputation to the person and the nature of the

man.

3. The rules and measures of temperance.

PLENTY AND THE PLEASURES OF THE WORLD ARE NO PROPER INSTRUMENTS OF FELICITY.

HE that cannot be satisfied with common provision, hath a bigger need than he that can; it is harder and more contingent, and more difficult, and more troublesome, for him to be satisfied. Epicurus said, 'I feed sweetly upon bread and water, those sweet and easy provisions of the body, and I defy the pleasures of costly provisions.' And the man was so confident that he had the advantage over wealthy tables, that he thought himself happy as the immortal gods; for these provisions are easy, they are to be gotten without amazing cares. No man needs to flatter, if he can live as nature did intend;

66

magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter." He need not swell his accounts, and intricate his spirit with arts of subtilty and contrivance; he can be free from fears, and the chances of the world cannot concern him.

All our trouble is from within us; and if a dish of lettuce, and a clear fountain can cool all my heats, so that I shall have neither thirst nor pride, lust nor revenge, envy nor ambition, I am lodged in the bosom of felicity.

INTEMPERANCE IS AN ENEMY TO HEALTH.

HEALTH is the opportunity of wisdom, the fairest scene of religion, the advantages of the glorifications of God, the charitable ministries to men. It is a state of joy and thanksgiving, and in every of its periods feels a pleasure from the blessed emanations of a merciful providence. The world does not minister-does not feel a greater pleasure, than to be newly delivered from the racks of the gratings of the stone, and the torments and convulsions of a sharp cholic; and no organs, no harp, no lute, can sound out the praises of the Almighty Father so sprightfully as the man that rises from his bed of sorrows, and considers what an excelJent difference he feels from the groans and intolerable accents of yesterday.†

When Cyrus had espied Astyages and his fellows coming drunk from a banquet, loaden with variety of follies and filthiness, their legs failing

+ See the wretch that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length regain his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again.

The meanest flow'ret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.

GRAY.

Enfin, il y a des Plaisirs fondés sur des Peines. Lorsqu'on a souffert, la cessation ou la diminution de la douleur est un plaisir, et souvent très-vif. On peut les appeler Plaisirs du Soulagement ou de la Délivrance. Ils sont susceptibles de la même variété que les peines.-BENTHAM.

them, their eyes red and staring, cozened with a moist cloud, and abused by a doubled object, their tongues full of sponges, and their heads no wiser, he thought they were poisoned: and he had reason; for what malignant quality can be more venomous and hurtful to a man than the effect of an intemperate goblet and a full stomach? It poisons both the soul and body. He that tempts me to drink beyond my pleasure civilly invites me to a fever, * and to lay aside my reason, as the Persian women did their garments and their modesty at the end of feasts; and all the question then will be, which is the worst evil, to refuse your uncivil kindness, or to suffer a violent head-ache, or to lay up heaps big enough for an English surfeit. Creon, in the tragedy, said well :—

[ocr errors]

It is better for me to grieve thee, O stranger, or to be affronted by thee, than to be tormented by thy kindness the next day and the morrow after.'

A drunkard and a glutton feels the torments of a restless night, although he hath not killed a man : that is, just like murderers and persons of an affrighting conscience. So wakes the glutton, so broken and sick and disorderly are the slumbers of the drunkard but for the honour of his banquet he hath some ministers attending that he did not dream of, and in the midst of his loud laughter, "Pallor et genæ pendulæ, oculorum ulcera, tremulæ manus, furiales somni, inquies nocturna," as Pliny reckons them; Paleness and hanging cheeks, ulcers of the eyes, and trembling hands, dead or distracted sleeps: these speak aloud that to-day you eat and

« AnkstesnisTęsti »