All men love to live in posterity. Barrenness is a curse, and makes men unwilling to die. Men, rather than they will want ensuing memory, will be spoken by the handed statue, or by the long lasting of some insensate monument. When bragging Cambyses would compare himself with his father Cyrus, and some of his flatterers told him he did excel him: "Stay," says Croesus, you are not his equal, for he left a son behind him :" as if he were an imperfect prince that leaveth an unhelmed state. When Philip viewed his young son Alexander, he said he could then be content to die. Conceit of a surviving name sweetens death's aloed potion. It is for this we so love those that are to preserve us in extended successions. There was something more in it than the naked jeer, when Cæsar, seeing strangers at Rome with whelps and monkeys in their indulgent laps, asked, if they were the children that the women of those lands brought forth ; for he thought such respectful love was due to. none but a self-extracted offspring.

the

Nor is this only in the baser part of man, body, but even in the sagacious soul. The first act God requires of a convert is, "Be fruitful." The good man's goodness lies not hid in himself alone; he is still strengthening of his weaker brother. How soon would the world

and Christianity fail, if there were not propa gation both of it and man! Good works an good instructions are the generative acts of th soul, out of which spring new posterity to th church and gospel. And I am persuaded, t be a means of bringing more to heaven is a inseparable desire of a soul that is rightl stated. Good men wish all that they convers withal, in goodness to be like themselves How ungratefully he slinks away, that dies and does nothing to reflect a glory to heaven! How barren a tree he is, that lives and spreads and cumbers the ground, yet leaves not one seed not one good work to generate another after him! I know all cannot leave alike; yet all may leave something answering their propor tion, their kinds. They be dead and withered grains of corn, out of which there will not one ear spring. The physician, that hath a sovereign receipt and dieth unrevealing it, robs the world of many blessings, which might multiply after his death; leaving this collection, a truth to all survivors, that he did good to others but to do himself a greater; which, how contrary it is to Christianity and the nature of explicative love, I appeal to those minds where grace hath sown more charity.

Virtue is distributive, and had rather pleasure many with a self-injury, than bury bene

fits that might pleasure a multitude. I doubt whether ever he will find the way to heaven, that desires to go thither alone. They are envious favorites, that wish their kings to have no loyal subjects but themselves. All heavenly hearts are charitable. Enlightened souls cannot but disperse their rays. I will, if I can, do something for others and heaven, not to deserve by it, but to express myself and my thanks. Though I cannot do what I would, I will labor to do what I can.

OF WOMEN.

SOME are so uncharitable, as to think all women bad; and others are so credulous, as they believe they all are good. Sure, though every man speaks as he finds, there is reason to direct our opinion, without experience of the whole sex; which, in a strict examination, makes more for their honor than most men have acknowledged. At first she was created his equal; only the difference was in the sex; otherwise they both were man. If we argue from the text, that male and female made man, so the man being put first, was worthier; I an

swer, so the evening and the morning was

the first day; yet few will think the night th better. That man is made her governor, an so above her, I believe rather the punishme of her sin, than the prerogative of his wort Had they both stood, it may be thought she ha never been in that subjection; for then it ha been no curse, but a continuance of her forme estate, which had nothing but blessedness i it. Peter Martyr indeed is of opinion, tha man, before the fall, had priority. But Chrys ostom, he says, does doubt it.

All will grant her body more admirable more beautiful than man's; fuller of curiositie and noble nature's wonder, both for conception and fostering the producted birth. And ca

we think God would put a worse soul into better body? When man was created, it i said, God made man; but when woman, it i said, God builded her; as if he had then beer about a frame of rarer rooms and more exac composition. And, without doubt, in her body she is much more wonderful; and by this we may think her so in her mind. Philosophy tells us, though the soul be not caused by the body, yet in the general it follows the temperament of it; so the comeliest outsides are naturally, for the most part, virtuous within. If place can be any privilege, we shall find her built in paradise, when man was made without it.

It is certain they are by constitution colder than the boiling man; so by this, more temperate. It is heat that transports man to immoderation and fury; it is that which hurries him to a savage and libidinous violence. Women are naturally the more modest, and modesty is the seat and dwelling-place of virtue. Whence proceed the most abhorred villanies, but from a masculine, unblushing impudence? What a deal of sweetness do we find in a mild disposition! When a woman grows bold and daring, we dislike her, and say, she is too like a man ; yet in ourselves we magnify what we condemn in her. Is not this injustice? Every man is so much the better, by how much he comes nearer to God. Man in nothing is more like him, than in being merciful. Yet woman is far more merciful than man; it being a sex wherein pity and compassion have dispersed far brighter rays. God is said to be love; and I am sure every where woman is spoken of for transcending in that quality. It was never found, but in two men only, that their love exceeded that of the feminine sex; and if you observe them, you shall find they were both of melting dispositions.

I know, when they prove bad, they are a sort of the vilest creatures; yet still the same reason gives it; for "Optima corrupta pessima: "