they might be saved.) Let us learn of them to despise those temptations of the world, which perplex and distract, and obstruct our journey to heaven. Let us imitate their courage and their constancy, in adhering to what is right and to what is just, to which their examples should encourage us, and those primitive times did yield us many such examples worthy of our imitation; though I must still say, it was not the purity of the times, but the integrity of some persons; the times were at least as wicked as any which have followed, and none have followed so bad in which there have not been some persons eminent for virtue and piety, who would mend the very times if their examples had been imitated; nor have we reason to believe, that the very time in which we live is destitute of such persons, but that it abounds as plentifully in such as any age that hath been before it, though they are never so much as talked of whilst they are alive, and it may be there is not so much care taken to preserve the memory of them when they are dead, as there hath been heretofore. It is great pity that there is not some collection made of the lives and actions of heroical and virtuous men in several ages, and of several qualities and qualifications, that there might be as well monuments of the virtue and piety of all ages, as there will infallibly be of their

folly and their vice; and then it may be there would be as many true histories of very extraordinary men of the latter and even of the present age, which would inflame others to imitate them, as there are fabulous narrations of those excellent men who lived in the primitive times, of whom we know of very few whose lives were not writ till many hundred years after their decease. And it may be justly wondered at, that both Greece and Rome, in their flourishing time, took more care to derive to posterity the lives of such glorious pagans who lived amongst them, and who, by the lively representation and transmission of them, still live amongst us, and who, it may be, have improved many Christians by the wisdom and virtue they have learned from them; and that there hath been so great a negligence since Christianity hath been received, in transmitting the particular lives of great and meritorious men in that manner, as to inflame. others to follow and imitate their examples. And of all histories which have been yet writ, those of ecclesiastical affairs are much the worst, and yield least credible information, and least pleasure to the reader, in the importance of the subject, or in the acuteness of the delivery; which may reasonably be looked upon as a defect in former ages, and very worthy to be reformed and repaired in this.

It would be a good spur to raise our industry, if

we did believe that God doth expect a greater perfection from the present age, in learning, in virtue, in wisdom, and in piety, from the benefit and observation which he hath afforded us in all the precedent ages: from their defects we have argument to be wary, and to reform; and from what they did well, we have their counsel and assistance, and may the more easily improve what they did; and we have all the obligations upon us to mend the patterns we have received, and leave them with more lustre to our posterity, who are bound to exceed us again in knowledge and all degrees of perfection: whereas a looking back, and prescribing rules to ourselves from antiquity, retards and lessens even our appetite to that which we might easily attain; we may as well resort to old men, to teach us to run, and to throw the bar; if our bodily strength grows and increases when theirs decays, the vigour of our mind doth as much exceed theirs; and since we set out after they rest, we ought to travel farther than they have done, when we carry all the land-marks with us. It is a caution near as old as Christianity, Nihil magis præstandum est, quam ne pecorum ritu, sequamur antecedentium gregem pergentes non qua eundum est, sed qua itur; it hath always been a disease in the world, too much to adore those who have gone before, and like sheep to tread in their steps, whether

Seneca

the way they went were the best or not. thought that nothing involved men in more errors, quam quod ad rumorem componimur, nec ad rationem sed ad similitudinem vivimus; that we consider more. what other men have thought or done, than whether they did think or do reasonably. Nor is it out of modesty that we have this resignation, that we do in truth think those who have gone before us to be wiser than ourselves; we are as proud and as peevish as any of our progenitors; but it is out of laziness; we will rather take their words, than take the pains to examine the reason they governed themselves by. But there is hope the present age will buoy itself up from this abyss of servitude, and by their avowed endeavours to know more than the former have done, will teach the next to labour that they may know more than we do; which virtuous emulation should continue and

grow to the end of the world. It may be, the common proverbial saying, that "the world grows every day worse and worse," prevails with many to believe that we have a good title to be so, and that it is in vain to strive against our fate; nay, some men think that there is prescription enough in the scripture, as if there was such a general decay, that the last age shall be worse than any that have gone before; in which, I conceive, men are very much mistaken. It is very true, that both St Paul and St Peter have foretold, that

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"in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their ownselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemous, &c. without natural affections, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, despisers of those who are good, &c." yet they do not tell us, that these men, which have made a great party in the world in every age, shall prevail and corrupt the rest; nay, they say the contrary," they shall proceed no farther, for their folly shall be manifest to all men." So that we may hope and endeavour to accomplish this prophecy, that the graver and the modester, the humble, the pious, and the chaste part, shall be able to discountenance, to suppress, to convert, or to extirpate the other. We may as warrantably take a measure of those times from that declaration of St Peter, in the 2d of the Acts; "It shall come to pass in the last days, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." Here is no decay attends this fulness of time; no resort to antiquity, to chalk us out the way to knowledge and understanding. We are not sure that those last days to which both those prophecies refer, are not already past, but we may be sure that if we spend that time which God shall vouchsafe to give us in this world, in that manner as he expects we should, and as he hath enabled us to do if we will, we shall