et concordiam; sponsa est, studete amari; oves sunt, intendite pastui," "The Church is a spouse; "the universal Church is Christ's spouse, but your own diocese is yours; "behave yourselves, so that ye be beloved. Your people are as sheep, and they must be fed, and guided, and preserved, and healed, and brought home. "The Church is a city," and you are the watchmen; "take care that the city be kept at unity in itself;" be sure to make peace amongst your people; suffer no hatreds, no quarrels, no suits at law amongst the citizens, which you can avoid ; make peace in your dioceses by all the ways of prudence, piety, and authority, that you can; and let not your own corrections of criminals be to any purpose but for their amendment, for the cure of offenders as long as there is hope, and for the security of those who are sound and whole. Preach often, and pray continually; let your discipline be with charity, and your censures slow; let not excommunications pass for trifles, and drive not away the fly from your brother's forehead with a hatchet; give counsel frequently, and dispensations seldom, but never without necessity or great charity; let every place in your diocese say, "Invenerunt me vigiles,-The watchmen have found me out," "hassoverim"; they that walk the city round have sought me out, and found me. "Let every one of us," as St. Paul's expression is, "show himself a workman that shall not be ashamed"; operarium inconfusibilem," mark that: "such a labourer shall not be put to shame” for his illness or his unskilfulness, his falseness and unfaithfulness, in that day when the great Bishop of souls shall make his last and dreadful visitation; for, be sure, there is not a carcass nor a skin, not a lock of wool nor a drop of milk of the whole flock, but God shall for it call the idle shepherd to a severe account. And how, think you, will his anger burn, when he shall see so many goats standing at his left hand, and so few sheep at his right? and, upon inquiry, shall find that his ministering shepherds were wolves in sheep's clothing? and that, by their ill example or pernicious doctrines, their care of money and carelessness of their flocks, so many souls perish, who, if they had been carefully and tenderly, wisely and conscientiously handled, might have shined as bright as angels? And it is a sad consideration to remember, how many souls are pitifully handled in this world, and carelessly dismissed out of this world; they are left to live at their own rate, and when they are sick, they are bidden to be of good comfort, and then all is well; who,

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when they are dead, find themselves cheated of their precious and invaluable eternity. Oh, how will those souls, in their eternal prisons, for ever curse those evil and false guides ! And how will those evil guides themselves abide in judgment, when the angels of wrath snatch their abused people into everlasting torments? For will God bless them, or pardon them, by whom so many souls perish? Shall they reign with Christ, who evacuate the death of Christ, and make it useless to dear souls? Shall they partake of Christ's glories, by whom it comes to pass that there is less joy in heaven itself, even because sinners are not converted, and God is not glorified, and the people is not instructed, and the kingdom of God is not filled? Oh, no; the curses of a false prophet will fall upon them, and the reward of the evil steward will be their portion; and they who destroyed the sheep, or neglected them, shall have their portion with goats for ever and ever, in everlasting burnings, in which it is impossible for a man to dwell.

(From a Consecration Sermon preached at Dublin.)

OF CONTENTEDNESS IN ALL ESTATES AND

ACCIDENTS

VIRTUES and discourses are like friends, necessary in all fortunes; but those are the best, which are friends in our sadnesses, and support us in our sorrows and sad accidents: and, in this sense, no man that is virtuous can be friendless; nor hath any man reason to complain of the Divine Providence, or accuse the public disorder of things, or his own infelicity, since God hath appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world, and that is a contented spirit for this alone makes a man pass through fire, and not be scorched; through seas, and not be drowned; through hunger and nakedness, and want nothing. For since all the evil in the world consists in the disagreeing between the object and the appetite, as when a man hath what he desires not, or desires what he hath not, or desires amiss; he that composes his spirit to the present accident, hath variety of instances for his virtue, but none to trouble him; because his desires enlarge not beyond his present fortune and a wise man is placed in the variety of chances, like the nave or centre of a wheel in the midst of all the

circumvolutions and changes of posture, without violence or change, save that it turns gently in compliance with its changed parts, and is indifferent which part is up and which is down; for there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens ; either patience or thanksgiving, love or fear, moderation or humility, charity or contentedness; and they are every one of them equally in order to his great end and immortal felicity: and beauty is not made by white or red, by black eyes and a round face, by a straight body and a smooth skin; but by a proportion to the fancy. No rules can make amiability, our minds and apprehensions make that: and so is our felicity: and we may be reconciled to poverty and a low fortune, if we suffer contentedness and the grace of God to make the proportions. (For no man is poor, that does not think himself so: but if, in à full fortune, with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition. But, because this grace of Contentedness was the sum of all the old moral philosophy, and a great duty in Christianity, and of most universal use in the whole course of our lives, and the only instrument to ease the burdens of the world and the enmities of sad chances, it will not be amiss to press it by the proper arguments by which God hath bound it upon our spirits it being fastened by reason and religion, by duty and interest, by necessity and conveniency, by example, and by the proposition of excellent rewards, no less than peace and felicity.

(Contentedness in all estates is a duty of religion; it is the great reasonableness of complying with the Divine Providence which governs all the world, and hath so ordered us in the administration of His great family. He were a strange fool, that should be angry because dogs and sheep need no shoes, and yet himself is full of care to get some. God hath supplied those needs to them by natural provisions, and to thee by an artificial: for He hath given thee reason to learn a trade, or some means to make or buy them; so that it only differs in the manner of our provision: and which had you rather want, shoes or reason? And my patron that hath given me a farm is freer to me than if he gives a loaf ready baked. But, however, all these gifts come from Him, and therefore it is fit He should dispense them as He pleases; and if we murmur here, we may at the next melancholy be troubled that God did not make us to be angels or stars. For, if that which we are or have do not content us, we may be troubled

for every thing in the world which is besides our being or our possessions.

t;)

God is the master of the scenes; we must not choose which part we shall act ;) it concerns us only to be careful that we do it well, always saying, if this please God, let it be as it is: and we, who pray that God's will may be done in earth as it is in heaven, must remember that the angels do whatsoever is commanded them, and go wherever they are sent, and refuse no circumstances: and if their employment be crossed by a higher decree, they sit down in peace and rejoice in the event; and, when the Angel of Judæa could not prevail in behalf of the people committed to his charge, because the Angel of Persia opposed it; he only told the story at the command of God, and was as content, and worshipped with as great an extasy in his proportion as the prevailing Spirit. Do thou so likewise: keep the station where God hath placed you, and you shall never long for things without, but sit at home feasting upon the Divine Providence and thy own reason, by which we are taught that it is necessary and reasonable to submit to God.

For, is not all the world God's family? Are not we His creatures? Are we not as clay in the hand of the potter? Do not we live upon His meat, and move by His strength, and do our work by His light? Are we any thing but what we are from Him? And shall there be a mutiny among the flocks and herds, because their Lord or their Shepherd chooses their pastures, and suffers them not to wander into deserts and unknown ways? If we choose, we do it so foolishly that we cannot like it long, and most commonly not at all: but God, who can do what He please, is wise to choose safely for us, affectionate to comply with our needs, and powerful to execute all His wise decrees. Here therefore is the wisdom of the contented man, to let God choose for him for when we have given up our wills to Him, and stand in that station of the battle where our great General hath placed us, our spirits must needs rest while our conditions have for their security the power, the wisdom, and the charity of God.

Contentedness in all accidents brings great peace of spirit, and is the great and only instrument of temporal felicity. It removes the sting from the accident, and makes a man not to depend upon chance and the uncertain dispositions of men for his wellbeing, but only on God and his own spirit. We ourselves make our own fortunes good or bad; and when God lets loose a tyrant

upon us, or a sickness, or scorn, or a lessened fortune, if we fear to die, or know not to be patient, or are proud, or covetous, then the calamity sits heavy on us. But if we know how to manage a noble principle, and fear not death so much as a dishonest action, and think impatience a worse evil than a fever, and pride to be the biggest disgrace, and poverty to be infinitely desirable before the torments of covetousness; then we who now think vice to be so easy, and make it so familiar, and think the cure so impossible, shall quickly be of another mind, and reckon these accidents amongst things eligible.

But no man can be happy that hath great hopes and great fears of things without, and events depending upon other men, or upon the chances of fortune. The rewards of virtue are certain, and our provisions for our natural support are certain; or, if we want meat till we die, then we die of that disease, and there are many worse than to die with an atrophy or consumption, or unapt and coarser nourishment. But he that suffers a transporting passion concerning things within the power of others, is free from sorrow and amazement no longer than his enemy shall give him leave; and it is ten to one but he shall be smitten then and there where it shall most trouble him: for so the adder teaches us where to strike, by her curious and fearful defending of her head. The old Stoics when you told them of a sad story, would still answer: "Ti рòs μé; What is that to me?” "Yes, for the tyrant hath sentenced you also to prison." "Well, what is that? He will put a chain upon my leg, but he cannot bind my soul." "No: but he will kill you." "Then I'll die. If presently, let me go, that I may presently be freer than himself: but if not till anon or to-morrow, I will dine first, or sleep, or do what reason and nature calls for, as at other times." This in Gentile philosophy is the same with the discourse of S. Paul, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both how to be full and how to be hungry, both to abound and suffer need.

We are in the world like men playing at tables; the chance is not in our power, but to play it is; and when it is fallen we must manage it as we can; and let nothing trouble us, but when we do a base action, or speak like a fool, or think wickedly: these things God hath put into our powers; but concerning those things which are wholly in the choice of another, they cannot fall under