keep it, or to keep the just esteem or reputation of it. On the other side, humility and lowliness of mind is the best temper to improve thy faculties, to add a grace to thy learning, and to keep thee master of it. It cools and qualifies thy spirits, blood, and humours, and renders thee fit to retain what thou hast attained, and to acquire more. SIR MATTHEW HALE. IF thou thinkest thou art a pretty proficient in philosophy, compare thyself with Aristotle, with Plato, Averroes, Themistius, or Alexander Aphrodisaus, or any great luminaries in philosophy. If thou thinkest thou art a pretty proficient in school learning, compare thyself with Aquinas, Scotus, Suarez. If thou thinkest thou excellest in the mathematics, compare thyself with Euclid, Archimedes, Tycko, &c. and then thou wilt find thyself to be like a little candle to a star. The most of the learning that this age glories of, is but an extract or collection of what we find in these men of greater parts; only we think we have done great matters, if we digest it into some other method, and prick in here and there a small pittance of our own, or quarrel at something that the ancients delivered, in some odd particulars. And yet even in this essay, self-love plays such a part, that unless there be a great excess and admirable advantage of others that are above us, in any learning or knowledge, we are ready to exalt ourselves above our standard, and seem in our own eyes to be at least equal to those that exceed us, or by envy and detraction to bring down others below ourselves, especially if we hit upon some little capriccio that we think they saw not. SIR MATTHEW HALE. REMEMBER how pitiful and inconsiderable a thing the body of man is; how soon is the strength of it turned to faintness and weakness, the beauty of it to ugliness and deformity, the consistency of it to putrefaction and rottenness; and then remember how foolish a thing it is to be proud of such a carcase, to spend all, or the greatest part of our time in trimming and adorning it, in studying new fashions, and new postures, and new devices to set it out, in spending our time and provisions in pampering it, in pleasing the appetite; and yet this is the chief business of most young men of this age. Learn therefore humility and lowliness, learn to furnish thy noble and immortal part, thy soul, with religion, grace, knowledge, virtue, goodness, for that will retain it to eternity. How miserable is that man's condition, that, while sickness hath made his body a deformed, weak, loathsome thing, sin hath made his soul as ugly and deformed? The grave will heal or cover the deformity of the former, but the soul will carry its ulcers and deformity (without repentance) into the next world. Learn and remember, therefore, to have thy greatest care for thy noblest part; furnish it with piety, grace, knowledge, the fear and love of God, faith in Christ: and as for thy body, use it decently, soberly, and comely, that it may be a fit instrument for thy soul to use in this life, but be not proud of it, nor make it thy chiefest care and business to adorn, much less defile it. SIR MATTHEW HALE. PROVIDENCE. Heav'n from human sense Has hid the secret paths of providence. DRYDEN. AS the mind of man seeth by the organ of the eye, heareth by the ears, and maketh choice by the will, and therefore we attribute sight to the eye, and hearing to the ears, &c.; and yet it is the mind only that giveth ability, life, and motion, to all these his instruments and organs: so God worketh by angels, by the sun, by the stars, by nature, or infused properties, and by men, as by several organs, several effects; all second causes whatsoever being but instruments, conduits, and pipes, which carry and dispense what they have received from the head and fountain of the universal. SIR WALTER RALEGH. THERE is not the smallest accident which may seem unto man as falling out by chance and of no consequence, but that the same is caused by God, to effect somewhat else by: yea, and oftentimes to effect things of the greatest worldly importance, either presently, or in many years after, when the occasions are either not considered, or forgotten. IBID. IN Deuteronomy the 19th, the slipping of an axe from the helve, whereby another was slain, was the work of God himself. We in our phrase attribute this accident to chance or fortune. And in Proverbs the 16th, "The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposition thereof is of the "Lord." So as that which seemeth most casual and subject to fortune, is yet disposed by the ordinance of God, as all things else. IBID. THE father provideth for his children; beasts and birds, and all living things, for their young ones. If providence be found in second fathers, much more in the first and universal; and if there be a natural loving care in men and beasts, much more in God, who hath formed this nature, and X whose divine love was the beginning, and is the bond of the universal. SIR WALTER RALEGH. DANGEROUS it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High, whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of his name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is, neither can know him; and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confess, without confession, that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few. HOOKER. NATURE is nothing else but God's instrument. In the course whereof, Dionysius perceiving some sudden disturbance, is said to have cried out, Aut Deus naturæ patitur, aut mundi machina dissolvitur: "Either God doth suffer impediment, and is by a greater than himself hindered; or if that be impossible, then hath he determined to make a present dissolution of the world, the execution of that law beginning now to stand still, without which the world cannot stand." This workman, whose servitor nature is, being in truth but only one, the heathens imagining to be more, gave him, in the sky, the name of Jupiter; in the air, the name of |