causes him to begin to bud again, unrolls his wrapped-up beauty, and by little and little, if not at once, recollects his decayed strength of the apprehension of God's Spirit; so sets him in the way to joy and renewed courses. Repentance is Penelope's night, which undoes that which the day of sin did weave. It is indeed the only aqua vitæ to fetch again the fainting soul. And it might justly therefore cause the emperor Theodosius to wonder at the effect. That living man should die, he saw was ordinary and familiar. But it was from God alone, that man, being dead in sin, should live again by repentance.

But lastly, faith appears, and perfects what repentance begun and could not finish. She cheers up his drooping hopes, brings him again to his wonted solace, spreads out his leaves, envigors his shrunk nerves, and to a bright flame blows his dying fire; that, like the moon in her full glory, he becomes endued with a plenteous fruition of the presence of the Almighty. Thus, while he sins, he wanes himself to darkness and obscurity; when he repents, he begins to recover light; and when his faith shines clear, he then appears at full. Yet in all these, while he lives here, he is not only charged with some spots, but is subject to the vicissitudes of change. Sometimes he is frol

icked with a feast within him; sometimes he is shrinking in a starved condition, and sometimes dull with darkness of desertion. Yet, in all, he lives; though in some weakly, and in some insensibly, yet never without one sound consolalation in the worst of these sad variations.

As the planet Mercury, though erratic and unfixed, yet never wanders far from the sun; or as the moon, when she is least visible, is as well a moon as when we see her in her full proportion; only the sun looks not on her with so large an aspect, and she reflects no more than she receives from him; so a Christian, in his lowest ebb of sorrow, is an heir of salvation, as well as when he is in the highest flow of comfort; only the Sun of Righteousness darts not the beams of his love so plentifully, and he shows no more, than God by shining gives him. When the Holy Spirit holds in his beams, frail man then needs must languish. It is deprivation that creates a hell; for where God is not, there it is that hell is. Whenever this tide runs out, there is nought but mud and weeds that is left behind. When God shall hide his face, in vain elsewhere we seek for a subsistence. He is the air, without which is no life. His withdrawings are our miseries; his presence is joy and revivement. It is only sin that can eclipse this light. It is the interposure of

this gross, opacous body, that blacks the else bright soul. This is that Great Alexander, which keeps the light from this poor Diogenes in his tub of mortality; and this, sometimes, must be expected while we are here below. Even time consists of night and day; the year, of various seasons. He that expects a constancy here, does look for that which this world cannot give. It is only above the sun, that there is no moon to change.

OF IDLE BOOKS.

IDLE books are the licentiate follies of the age, that, like a corrupt air, infect wheresoever they come. Some are simple; and these, besides making the author ridiculous, seldom hurt the reader with more than loss of time. For if he have any sense, he will grow wiser by the folly that is presented him; as drunkards are often cured by seeing the beastliness of others that are so. He hath extreme il luck, that takes pains to be laughed at, when he might at once both have spared his labor and preserved his credit. But he that hath not judgment to censure his own, will hardly come to be mended by admonition. And, besides,

the least caution is to be given of these; for a man will no more dwell in one of these, than a traveller of quality will lodge in an alehouse or booth. It was Cicero's "Lectionem sine ullâ delectatione negligo." He hated reading where no pleasure dwelt. As cobwebs these by them that are neat will be swept away; and if they hang still, they catch but only flies. Another sort are wanton and lascivious; and these, like rank flesh unsalted, when they should prove wholesome food, they carry a taint that poisons; so in the end they enliven only vermin, and do beget but stench. It is true, wit is naturally readier at this than any other theme; yet the best is never obscene. As the dry light is the purest, so is wit, when it is terse and spruce, without the fulsomeness of ungentle language. The old law forbade the touch of any thing that was unclean. A man may know that hand to have need of washing, from betwixt whose fingers the ink that drops is foul. Vicious or a clown is his character at best; but for the most part illbred persons are the most debauched. Civility is the correction of manners. And though if such works should be quaint in language, yet are they but as unsavory breaths perfumed ; there is only a more precious stink, which certainly shows either what the conversation hath

been, or what the inclination is; for, more than speech, is the pen the mind's interpreter. As the breaking out of itch and blains show the body is not clear, so loose and unrinsed expressions are the purulent and spurcitious exhalations of a corrupted mind, stained with the unseasonedness of the flesh.

Yet doubtless if we respect human society, writings that are scandalous are worse than these. It is a kind of barbarousness in death unto the dead; for though both be alive at the publishing, yet printing is a kind of perpetuity, and carrieth to future ages both the author's malice and the party's infamy that is traduced. A book, that brands a person with indignities, is his Lot's wife in a pillar of salt. It remains a monument of disgrace. The malicious writer is like the bee, "animam in vulnere ponit; he puts his soul into the wound he makes, and drowns himself for ever after for the venom, which he vents himself, lazies his reputation with others. "Multi cum aliis maledicunt, sibi ipsis convicium faciunt," was an observation of Seneca's. It is unnoble to traduce the absent, though provoked by passion; but to display a man's malice in writing is deliberate wickedness, to which, with his own disgrace, he sets his hand and seal, and does an injury, for which he cannot make amends sufficient.