my care of this, is my blessing on the rest. I show your lordship what I would do, and what I ought; I commit my desires to the imitation of the weak; my actions to the censures of the wise and holy; my weaknesses to the pardon and redress of my merciful God.

OLD AGE.

youth, of disorder Each time hath his

OUR infancy is full of folly and toil; age, of infirmity. burden; and that which may justly work our weariness: yet infancy longeth after youth; and youth after more age; and he, that is very old, as he is a child for simplicity, so he would be for years. I account old age the best of the three; partly, for that it hath passed through the folly and disorder of the others; partly, for that the inconveniences of this are but bodily, with a bettered estate of the mind; and partly, for that it is nearest to dissolution. There is nothing more miserable, than an old man that would be young again. It was an answer worthy the commendations of Petrarch : and that, which argued a mind truly philosophical of him, who, when his friend bemoaned his age appearing in his white temples, telling him he was sorry to see him look so old, replied, "Nay, be sorry rather, that ever I was young, to be a fool."

SECTION VI.

DR. BARROW.

If a man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God, who giveth freely. Therefore, O everlasting wisdom, the maker, redeemer, and governor of all things, let some comfortable beams from thy great body of heavenly light descend upon us, to illuminate our dark minds and quicken our dead hearts; to inflame us with ardent love unto thee, and to direct our steps in obedience to thy laws through the gloomy shades of this world into that region of eternal light and bliss where thou reignest in perfect glory and majesty, one God everblessed, world without end. Amen.

KNOWLEDGE IS A SOURCE OF DELIGHT.*

WISDOM of itself is delectable and satisfactory, as it implies a revelation of truth and a detection of error to us. 'Tis like light, pleasant to behold, casting a sprightly lustre, and diffusing a benign influence all about; presenting a goodly prospect of things to the eyes of our mind; displaying objects in their due shapes, postures, magnitudes, and colours; quickening our spirits with a comfortable warmth, and disposing our minds to a cheerful activity; dispelling the darkness of ignorance, scattering the mists of doubt, driving away the spectres of delusive fancy; mitigating the cold of sullen

Sermon i. p. 1.

melancholy; discovering obstacles, securing progress, and making the passages of life clear, open, and pleasant. We are all naturally endowed with a strong appetite to know, to see, to pursue truth; and with a bashful abhorrency from being deceived and entangled in mistake. And as success in enquiry after truth affords matter of joy and triumph; so being conscious of error and miscarriage therein, is attended with shame and sorrow. These desires wisdom in the most perfect manner satisfies, not by entertaining us with dry, empty, fruitless theories upon mean and vulgar subjects; but by enriching our minds with excellent and useful knowledge, directed to the noblest objects, and serviceable to the highest ends. *

* Bacon, in enumerating the advantages of knowledge, says, 1. It relieves man's afflictions. 2, It promotes public virtue and order. 3. It promotes private virtues, by humanizing, humbling, nullifying vain admiration, improving. 3. It is power. 4. The pleasure of knowledge far exceedeth all other pleasures; for, shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the senses, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner; and must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections? We see in all other pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth; which sheweth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality; and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable; and therefore appeareth to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or accident. Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy

WISDOM SELECTS TRUE PLEASURES.

WISDOM is exceedingly pleasant and peaceable; in general, by disposing us to acquire and to enjoy all the good delight and happiness we are capable of; and by freeing us from all the inconveniences, mischiefs, and infelicities our condition is subject to. For whatever good from clear understanding, deliberate advice, sagacious foresight, stable resolution, dexterous address, right intention, and orderly proceeding doth naturally result, wisdom confers : whatever evil blind ignorance, false presumption, unwary credulity, precipitate rashness, unsteady purpose, ill contrivance, backwardness, inability, unwieldiness and confusion of thought beget, wisdom prevents. From a thousand snares and treacherous allurements, from innumerable rocks and dangerous surprises, from exceedingly

and contentment to the mind of man, which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly,

"Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis," &c.

"It is a view of delight," saith he, "to stand or walk upon the shore side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea: or to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain; but it is a pleasure incomparable, for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of truth, and from thence to descry and behold the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up and down of other men." “ So always, that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth."

many needless incumbrances and vexatious toils of fruitless endeavours she redeems and secures us. Wisdom instructs us to examine, compare, and rightly to value the objects that court our affections and challenge our care! and thereby regulates our passions and moderates our endeavours, which begets a pleasant serenity and peaceable tranquillity of mind. For when being deluded with false shows, and relying upon ill-grounded presumptions, we highly esteem, passionately affect, and eagerly pursue things of little worth in themselves or concernment to us; as we unhandsomely prostitute our affections, and prodigally misspend our time, and vainly lose our labour, so the event not answering our expectation, our minds thereby are confounded, disturbed, and distempered. But, when guided by right reason, we conceive great esteem of, and zealously are enamoured with, and vigorously strive to attain things of excellent worth and weighty consequence, the conscience of having well placed our affections and well employed our pains, and the experience of fruits corresponding to our hopes, ravishes our minds with unexpressible content. And so it is: present appearance and vulgar conceit ordinarily impose upon our fancies, disguising things with a deceitful varnish, and representing those that are vainest with the greatest advantage; whilst the noblest objects, being of a more subtle and spiritual nature, like fairest jewels enclosed in a homely box, avoid the notice of gross sense, and pass undiscerned by us. But the light of wisdom, as it