hath told another, and one night hath certified another of all that it hath seen or heard, than they who scarce outlived the morning; and by this computation we may be thought older than our forefathers, and having observed more, may contribute somewhat to that they could not know so well: and to this augmentation your tribe of contemplative men can bring in little contribution.

We are come now to the last survey; what condition of life is like best to assist us towards the attaining our own salvation; which is our first and our last work, and which if we cannot obtain, it had been much better for us that we had never been born. God forbid, that every honest man, how unactive soever, who means well, and is no otherwise guilty than of not being able to do all the good he desires to do, should not be in a state and assured hope of salvation; yet salvation being comprehended within a palace of the noblest and the largest extent that the imagination of man can conceive, and where there is room for as many as shall be admitted, and we may lawfully believe, as the whole Christian church did for the space of fifteen hundred years, though some learned men have since disclaimed that opinion, that there are several degrees of happiness in that station of beatitude: and then it is more than probable, that they who have been more signal and more successful in do

ing well themselves, and in persuading and instructing others to do so too, shall receive greater rewards, than they who have only performed their own task, though they have thereby procured a reception for themselves. If there be in that house of eternity many mansions, it is but congruous to believe that they shall have the best places in Heaven who have been the best men upon earth, and whose precepts and examples have sent and carried most souls thither. It is true, we know little of the state and condition of angels and saints, and have too much reason to fear that too many have mistaken their way thither, who have procured some testimony that they are there; yet we know that there are arch-angels, who are of a classis superior to the other, and have employments and trusts committed to them accordingly. The prayers of a devout general while upon his knees, and when his army is fighting, may procure victory for that army, without his contributing more to it; yet because men pray and fight together, princes have rarely rewarded, at least not equally, the piety of such a general as they have done the courage of inferior officers; and we may lawfully believe, without doing ourselves any harm, or him any dishonour, that God doth observe that method. There is a rivalship in virtue that provokes a holy ambition; and it would do little less mischief in the world if men were gene

rally taught to believe that the most vehement pursuit of obedience to all God's commandments, and the prevailing upon the affections of other men to do the same, doth not improve the state of that man above his who hath only forborn maliciously to transgress any of them, than the too common opinion, that whatsoever a man doth or leaves undone, his lot will still fall out to be the same. Kings and princes, as such, can make no claim of precedence in Heaven; nay, they are in danger of having many sins of commission and emision laid to their charges, which shall not be objected to inferior delinquents; yet good kings and princes, who have expelled and banished all uncleanness and profaneness out of their courts, and thereby prepared the hearts of their servants for the reception of that awe and reverence for God Almighty that will make them tremble to offend him; who govern their subjects with that candour and affec tion, as they do their children, and with that fatherly rigour, that compels them to do their duties, when they have no mind to be innocent; such princes and great men shall have a precedence in Heaven itself; and it is a joy worthy of that region, to see a train sent thither by their directions, or come thither by following their example; and it will well become persons of that exalted condition, to prepare such an equipage for their last journey,

both for their harbingers and retinue, by which they would travel at less charge, and enjoy rest with more ease. There cannot be a worse character given of an emperor, or of a gentleman, than Tacitus gives of Galba, Ipsi medium ingenium, magis extra vitia, quam cum virtutibus: he scarce lives a sensitive life, (for trees naturally grow and improve themselves, and bring benefit to their owners, plants flourish, and seeds produce profit to those that sow them) who only lives, and doth no good; and he is not so rational as he ought to be, that so lives to himself, and for himself, that he labours not to do good to others. I am not sure that the son of Syrach was not then thinking of our sullen contemplative man, when he says, "There is one that laboureth and taketh pains, and maketh haste, and is so much the more behind." It is not the pains a man takes, but the skill he hath in doing the work, which merits the wages. Mere labourers earn little; and a blind man who is shut up in a great room, may take great pains, and labour himself to weariness, and yet not be able to find the door.

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They who seem to believe that all souls are alike that the soul in the wisest man and in the greatest scholar is no more disposed to wisdom and learning than the soul that is infused into a fool and the most illiterate person, do yet confess that it is po

lished by education and conversation, to that perfection, that it produces those effects which distinguish the wise from the foolish, and makes all other distinctions between the several faculties of mankind; which is enough to oblige us to give so precious an inmate and companion, that can make us so good a recompence, the best entertainment we can; to allow it the best diet, and prescribe it the best exercise, that may nourish it to that vigour, as may make us gracious to God and man. Whether its virtue proceeds from its own original, or whether it be purely from our contribution, it is the same to us; for what perfection is in our own power to attain unto, is a debt due to ourselves, which we are in conscience bound to pay; and he who will not do all he can to make himself wise highly deserves to undergo the fortune and the fate of a fool; and he is literally felo-de-se, who deprives and robs himself of that which nobody but himself can rob him of; nor need he require any other evidence than his own, to know whether he hath paid this debt, whether he hath done all to mend this soul of his that he ought to have done. If he finds some inclinations in it to do well, or no importunities or aversions from it, and knows that no industry, cogitation, or reflection of his hath contributed to those motions, he may conclude, that it is not a soul of his own making, but that it owes all