and in the justice that is paid to his memory. If these flowers grow in the garden of contemplation, they are of the nature of those flowers which prosper only in the night, and disappear and close their leaves at the rising of the sun. We have very little testimony, very few records, of any notable fruit gathered from this dry tree of solitude; that their counsels have contributed much to that wisdom, which is necessary for the virtuous conduct of the affairs of this world; and the speculations which some of those pious men have produced towards our journey to the next, a wise preparation for which is the most necessary business of this life; without the least purpose to undervalue the pains they have taken, and for which they deserve great thanks, we may say, that even in that exercise, and to the purposes they design, the prescriptions for living well and profitably for ourselves and others, and of dying well for our own salvation and the example of others, the clear resolutions of weighty doubts, and the folly of those doubts which arise from the impotence of the understanding; the advice and determinations which we have received from the piety and industry of those who have been very conversant in the world, and much entangled in the affairs and transactions thereof, have another kind of sap and nourishment, carry in them another kind of conviction of the under

standing, and find another kind of irresistibleness from the affections and from the will, than the laboured conceptions of those collegiate and monastic persons; from whom we may as reasonably expect to receive the news of the court, as the most refined notions of any science; which can only spring, as to use and application, from frequent experience and solid observation, and from finding ourselves often deceived; which is a part of learning the other classis of men are very rarely versed in.

It cannot be denied, that they who are embarked in the agitations of the world, obliged to attend and be present in the throngs and crowds of courts, to sustain the burthens of great offices and employments, or the envy and murmurs of being without them, or seeing other men possessed of them, who they think are in merit inferior to themselves, which make them complain of the justice of princes, and of the providence of God himself: I say, these men, and all who would be in the rank of these men, who have a wider prospect of good and evil, see the pleasant baits and temptations, and the grosser traps and gins that are laid to catch and surprise the several affections and appetites of idle and dissolute men; and therefore probably more of them may be seized upon and corrupted by such allure ments, than can be debauched in cloisters and inclo

sures, which are without such prospects. But it is a very great error to conclude from hence, that this exorbitancy in their inclinations, this depravedness of their judgment, or corruption of their manners with what vice soever, is the product of that course of life which they have addicted themselves to: whereas the course of life they have chosen is innocent and honourable, and only can be effectually prosecuted by excellent, at least well-qualified persons; and the vices which commonly first or last make them unsuccessful in it, proceed from the corruption and wickedness in their own nature, and which would break out with equal venom in any condition of life or in any profession; the malignity is in the man, brought with him, not found by him in the air in which he lives. He who is of licentious manners in a court, would with less cleanliness practise the like or as bad excesses in a convent; and he who is corrupt upon the bench, and receives bribes in cases of judicatory, would be as dishonest if he were a friar: he would corrupt women in his chair of confession; and give absolution in the greatest crimes, that he might be instructed in the most secret practices and mysteries of iniquity if he be a great man, and inclined to rebellion, had he been a monk, he would have become an heretic, and disturbed the peace of his country with those uproars. And on the other:

side, that poor Capuchin, who without shoes or shirt, and upon less meat than nature and health requires for its sustentation, contracts and directs all his thoughts to the glory of God, and to the enquiry into the joys of heaven, and in a conversation so remote from understanding, and in quarters so sterile and barren of all knowledge, can preserve any moderate vigour of spirit by the variety of his own devotions; this man, upon his being in better company, and his observation of the thoughts and actions of men, and his discovery of the vast distance that is usually between them, would arrive at such a piercing faculty, that no enormous sin should find a lurking place in the darkest breast, to conceal itself from him: he would possess himself of the hearts of princes, by the force and violence of his attractive reason and virtue, and would raise such monuments and erect such land-marks for piety and devotion, that would convince and reform the world together. So great a difference there is between the influence and inspiration of the sun in that sphere where it moves so powerfully upon noble and active employments, and the twinkling light of the moon-shine that hath a faint influence upon groves and cloisters.

It is time now to drive this discourse to that point, that can only put an end to it; that is, the true and exact consideration of God's purpose and

expectation from and in his creation of man, as far as he hath communicated it to us himself: which may be, and usually is, reduced to three short heads, though either of them may be extended into great variety of reflections. 1. For his own service. 2. For the benefit of the world and good of mankind. 3. For the salvation of our own souls; which is rather our duty from our creation, than the cause of it; and both the last de pend upon the well discharging the first obligation. And from the view of every one of them in order, we shall be best able to judge which condition and designation of our lives is most like to comply with his purpose and expectation, and to enable us to bear that fruit that is necessary with reference to all the particulars. To begin then with what relates to God's service; and a man may as reasonably believe that he can dress himself as well in the night as in the day, when it is dark as when it is light, as that he can be enabled to do it as well without counsel and without conversation, as by the most pious motives and the brightest examples that can be given by the uprightest and most devout man. There is no prison so straight and narrow, in which the poorest man may not serve God very effectually, and it may be the more ef fectually, from the misery of his restraint; but he that would chuse to be cast, or cast himself into a