all things for man, that he hath not made them at all for himself, and possibly for many other uses than we can imagine; for we much overvalue ourselves, if we think them to be only for us; and we diminish the wisdom of God, in restraining it to one end: but the chief and principal end of many things is the use and service of man; and in reference to this end, you shall find that God hath made abundant and wise provision.

More particularly we will consider man, in his natural capacity as a part of the world. How many things are there in the world for the service and pleasure, for the use and delight of man, which, if man were not in the world, would be of little use? Man is by nature a contemplative creature, and God has furnished him with many objects to exercise his understanding upon, which would be so far useless and lost, if man were not. Who should observe the motions of the stars, and the courses of those heavenly bodies, and all the wonders of nature? Who should pry into the secret virtues of plants, and other natural things, if there were not in the world a creature endowed with reason and understanding? Would the beasts of the field study astronomy, or turn chymists, and try experiments in nature?

What variety of beautiful plants and flowers is there! which can be imagined to be of little other use but for the pleasure of man. And if man had not been, they would have lost their grace, and been trod down by the beasts of the field, without pity or observation; they would not have made them into garlands and nosegays. How many sorts of fruits are there which grow upon high trees out of the reach of beasts! and, indeed, they take no pleasure in them. What would all the vast bodies of trees have served for, if man had not been to build with them,

and make dwellings of them? Of what use would all the mines of metal have been, and of coal, and the quarries of stone? would the mole have admired the fine gold? would the beasts of the forest have built themselves palaces, or would they have made fires in their dens?-Sermon, The Wisdom of God in the Creation of the World.

3. The Souls of Beasts.

BUT there is one difficulty in this: for it may be said, if sensitive perception be an argument of the soul's immateriality, and consequently immortality, then the souls. of beasts will be immortal, as well as the souls of men. For answer to this, I shall say these things.

That the most general and common philosophy of the world, hath always acknowledged something in beasts besides their bodies, and that the faculty of sense and perception which is in them, is founded in a principle of a higher nature than matter. And as this was always the common philosophy of the world, so we find it to be a supposition of scripture, which frequently attributes souls to beasts as well as to men, though of a much inferior nature. And therefore those particular philosophers, who have denied any immaterial principle, or a soul to beasts, have also denied them to have sense, any more than a clock, or watch, or any other engine; and have imagined them to be nothing else but a finer and more complicated kind of engines, which by reason of the curiosity and tenderness of their frame, are more easily susceptible of all kind of motions and impressions from without, which impressions are the cause of all those actions that resemble those sensations which we men find in our selves: which is to say, that birds, and beasts, and fishes, are nothing

else but a more curious sort of puppets, which by certain secret and hidden weights and springs do move up and down, and counterfeit the actions of life and sense. This I confess seems to me to be an odd kind of philosophy; and it hath this vehement prejudice against it, that if this were true, every man would have great cause to question the reality of his own perceptions, for to all appearance the sensations of beasts are as real as ours, and in many things their senses much more exquisite than ours; and if nothing can be a sufficient argument to a man, that he is really endowed with sense, besides his own consciousness of it, then every man hath reason to doubt whether all men in the world besides himself be not mere engines; for no man hath any other evidence, that another man is really endowed with sense, than he hath that brute creatures are so; for they appear to us to see, and hear, and feel, and smell, and taste things as truly and as exactly as any man in the world does.-Sermon, Of the Immortality of the Soul.

4. The Providence of God.

WE are, indeed, liable to many things in this world, which have a great deal of evil and affliction in them, to poverty, and pain, and reproach, and restraint, and the loss of our friends and near relations; and these are great afflictions, and very cross and distasteful to us; and therefore, when we are in danger of any of these, and apprehend them to be making towards us, we are apt to be anxious, and full of trouble; and when they befall us, we are prone to censure the providence of God, and to judge rashly concerning it, as if all things were not ordered by it for the best: but we should consider, that we are very ignorant and short-sighted creatures, and see but a little way before us, are not able to

penetrate into the designs of God, and to look to the end of his providence. We cannot (as Solomon expresseth it) see the work of God from the beginning to the end; whereas, if we saw the whole design of providence together, we should strangely admire the beauty and proportion of it, and should see it to be very wise and good. And that which, upon the whole matter, and in the last issue and result of things, is most for our good, is certainly best, how grievous soever it may seem for the present. Sickness caused by physic is, many times, more troublesome for the present, than the disease we take it for; but every wise man composeth himself to bear it as well as he can, because it is in order to his health: the evils and afflictions of this life are the physic, and means of cure, which the providence of God is often necessitated to make use of; and if we did trust ourselves in the hands of this great physician, we should quietly submit to all the severities of his providence, in confidence that they would all work together for our good.

When children are under the government of parents, or the discipline of their teachers, they are apt to murmur at them, and think it very hard to be denied so many things which they desire, and to be constrained by severities to a great many things which are grievous and tedious to them: but the parent and the master know very well, that it is their ignorance and inconsiderateness which makes them to think so, and that when they come to years, and to understand themselves better, then they will acknowledge, that all that which gave them so much discontent, was really for their good, and that it was their childishness and folly, which made them to think otherwise, and that they had, in all probability, been undone, had they been indulged in their humour, and permitted in everything to have their own will; they had not wit and consideration enough to trust the dis

cretion of their parents and governors, and to believe that even those things which were so displeasing to them, would at last tend to their good.

There is a far greater distance between the wisdom of God and men, and we are infinitely more ignorant and childish in respect of God, than our children are in respect of us; and being persuaded of this, we ought to reckon, that while we are in this world, under God's care and discipline, it is necessary for our good, that we be restrained in many things, which we eagerly desire: and suffer many things that are grievous to us; and that when we come to heaven, and are grown up to be men, and have put away childish thoughts, and are come to understand things as they truly are, and not in a riddle, and darkness, as we now do; then the judgment of God will break forth as the light, and the righteousness of all his dealings as the noon-day; then all the riddles of providence will be clearly expounded to us, and we shall see a plain reason for all those dispensations which were so much stumbled at, and acknowledge the great wisdom and goodness of them.-Sermon, The Wisdom of God in his Providence.

5. Public and Private Life.

ONE would be apt to wonder, that Nehemiah (Chap. v. Ver. 16, 17, 18.) should reckon a huge bill of fare and a vast number of promiscuous guests amongst his virtues and good deeds, for which he desires God to remember him. But upon better consideration, besides the bounty, and sometimes charity, of a great table, (provided there be nothing of vanity or ostentation in it) there may be exercised two very considerable virtues; one is, temperance, and the other self-denial, in a man's being contented for the sake of the public, to deny himself so much, as to sit down every