walk about and perform the business of hell. To speak more strictly, our corrupted hearts are the factories of the devil, which may be at work without his presence. For when that circumventing spirit hath drawn malice, envy, and all unrighteousness, unto well-rooted habits in his disciples, iniquity then goes on upon its own legs, and if the gate of hell were shut up for a time, vice would still be fertile and produce the fruits of hell. Thus when God forsakes us, Satan also leaves us; for such offenders he looks upon as sure and sealed up, and his temptations then needless unto them.

XXI. Annihilate not the mercies of God by the oblivion of ingratitude. For oblivion is a kind of annihilation, and for things to be as though they had not been, is like unto never being. Make not thy head a grave, but a repository of God's mercies. Though thou hadst the memory of Seneca, or Simonides, and conscience, the punctual memorist within us, yet trust not to thy remembrance in things which need phylacteries. Register not only strange, but merciful occurrences; let ephemerides not olympiads give thee account of his mercies. Let thy diaries stand thick with dutiful mementoes and asterisks of acknowledgment. And to be com

plete and forget nothing, date not his mercy from thy nativity; look beyond the world, and before the era of Adam.

XXII. Paint not the sepulchre of thyself, and strive not to beautify thy corruption. Be not an advocate for thy vices, nor call for many hourglasses to justify thy imperfections. Think not that always good which thou thinkest thou canst always make good, nor that concealed which the sun doth not behold. That which the sun doth not now see, will be visible when the sun is out and the stars are fallen from heaven. Meanwhile there is no darkness unto conscience, which can see without light, and in the deepest obscurity give a clear draught of things which the cloud of dissimulation hath concealed from all eyes. There is a natural standing court within us, examining, acquitting, and condemning at the tribunal of ourselves, wherein iniquities have their natural thetas, and no nocent is absolved by the verdict of himself. And therefore although our transgressions shall be tried at the last bar, the process need not be long; for the Judge of all knoweth all, and every man will nakedly know himself. And when so few are like to plead not guilty, the asssize must soon have an end.

XXIII. Comply with some humours, bear with others, but serve none. Civil complacency consists with decent honesty; flattery is a juggler, and no kin unto sincerity. But while thou maintainest the plain path, and scornest to flatter others, fall not into self-adulation, and become not thine own parasite. Be deaf unto thyself, and be not betrayed at home. Self-credulity, pride, and levity lead unto self-idolatry. There is no Damocles like unto self-opinion, nor any Siren to our own fawning conceptions. To magnify our minor things, or hug ourselves in our apparitions; to afford a credulous ear unto the clawing suggestions of fancy; to pass our days in painted mistakes of ourselves; and though we behold our own blood, to think ourselves the sons of Jupiter,* are blandishments of self-love worse than outward delusion. By this imposture wise men sometimes are mistaken in their elevation, and look above themselves. And fools, which are antipodes unto the wise, conceive themselves to be but their perioci, and in the same parallel with them.

XXIV. Be not a Hercules furens abroad, and a poltron within thyself. To chase our enemies

* As Alexander the Great did.

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out of the field, and be led captive by our vices; to beat down our foes, and fall down to our concupiscences; are solecisms in moral schools, and no laurel attends them. To well manage our affections, and wild horses of Plato, are the highest Circenses; and the noblest digladiation is in the theatre of ourselves; for therein our inward antagonists, not only like common gladiators, with ordinary weapons and downright blows make at us, but also like retiary and laqueary combatants, with nets, frauds, and entanglements, fall upon us. Weapons for such combats are not to be forged at Lipara; Vulcan's art doth nothing in this internal militia; wherein not the armour of Achilles, but the armature of St. Paul, gives the glorious day, and triumphs not leading up into capitols, but up into the highest heavens. And therefore while so many think it the only valour to command and master others, study thou the dominion of thyself, and quiet thine own commotions. Let right reason be thy Lycurgus, and lift up thy hand unto the law of it; move by the intelligences of the superiour faculties, not by the rapt of passion, nor merely by that of temper and constitution. They who are merely carried on by the wheel of such inclinations,

without the hand and guidance of sovereign reason, are but the automatous part of mankind, rather lived than living, or at least underliving themselves.

XXV. Let not fortune, which hath no name in Scripture, have any in thy divinity. Let Providence, not chance, have the honour of thy acknowledgments, and be thy Edipus in contingencies. Mark well the paths and winding ways thereof; but be not too wise in the construction, or sudden in the application. The hand of Providence writes often by abbreviatures, hieroglyphicks, or short characters, which, like the laconism on the wall, are not to be made out but by a hint or key from that Spirit which indited them. Leave future occurrences to their uncertainties, think that which is present thy own; and since 'tis easier to foretel an eclipse, than a foul day at some distance, look for little regular below. Attend with patience the uncertainty of things, and what lieth yet unexerted in the chaos of futurity. The uncertainty and ignorance of things to come makes the world new unto us by unexpected emergencies; whereby we pass not our days in the trite road of affairs affording no novity; for the novellizing spirit of man lives by variety, and the new faces of things,