THE DUE CONTEMPLATION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE IS THE CERTAIN CURE OF ALL
MISFORTUNES.
Whoever observes the world, and the order of it, will find all the
motions in it to be only vicissitudes of falling and rising; nothing
extinguished, and even those things which seem to us to perish are in
truth but changed. The seasons go and return, day and night follow in
their courses, the heavens roll, and Nature goes on with her work: all
things succeed in their turns, storms and calms; the law of Nature
will have it so, which we must follow and obey, accounting all things
that are done to be well done; so that what we cannot mend we must
suffer, and wait upon Providence without repining. It is the part of
a cowardly soldier to follow his commander groaning: but a generous
man delivers himself up to God without struggling; and it is only
for a narrow mind to condemn the order of the world, and to propound
rather the mending of Nature than of himself. No man has any cause
of complaint against Providence, if that which is right pleases him.
Those glories that appear fair to the eye, their lustre is but false
and superficial; and they are only vanity and delusion: they are rather
the goods of a dream than a substantial possession: they may cozen us
at a distance, but bring them once to the touch, they are rotten and
counterfeit. There are no greater wretches in the world than many of
those which the people take to be happy. Those are the only true and
incorruptible comforts that will abide all trials, and the more we turn
and examine them, the more valuable we find them; and the greatest
felicity of all is, not to stand in need of any. What is _poverty_? No
man lives so poor as he was born. What is _pain_? It will either have
an end itself, or make an end of us. In short, Fortune has no weapon
that reaches the mind: but the bounties of Providence are certain and
permanent blessings; and they are the greater and the better, the
longer we consider them; that is to say, “the power of contemning
things terrible, and despising what the common people covet.” In the
very methods of Nature we cannot but observe the regard that Providence
had to the good of mankind, even in the disposition of the world, in
providing so amply for our maintenance and satisfaction. It is not
possible for us to comprehend what the Power is which has made all
things: some few sparks of that Divinity are discovered, but infinitely
the greater part of it lies hid. We are all of us, however, thus far
agreed, first, in the acknowledgement and belief of that almighty
Being; and, secondly, that we are to ascribe to it all majesty and
goodness.
“If there be a Providence,” say some, “how comes it to pass that
good men labor under affliction and adversity, and wicked men enjoy
themselves in ease and plenty?” My answer is, that God deals by us as a
good father does by his children; he tries us, he hardens us, and fits
us for himself. He keeps a strict hand over those that he loves; and by
the rest he does as we do by our slaves; he lets them go on in license
and boldness.
As the master gives his most hopeful scholars the hardest lessons, so
does God deal with the most generous spirits; and the cross encounters
of fortune we are not to look upon as a cruelty, but as a contest: the
familiarity of dangers brings us to the contempt of them, and that part
is strongest which is most exercised: the seaman’s hand is callous, the
soldier’s arm is strong, and the tree that is most exposed to the wind
takes the best root: there are people that live in a perpetual winter,
in extremity of frost and penury, where a cave, a lock of straw, or a
few leaves, is all their covering, and wild beasts their nourishment;
all this by custom is not only made tolerable, but when it is once
taken up upon necessity, by little and little, it becomes pleasant to
them. Why should we then count that condition of life a calamity which
is the lot of many nations? There is no state of life so miserable
but that there are in it remissions, diversions, nay, and delights
too; such is the benignity of Nature towards us, even in the severest
accidents of human life. There were no living if adversity should hold
on as it begins, and keep up the force of the first impression. We are
apt to murmur at many things as great evils, that have nothing at all
of evil in them besides the complaint, which we should more reasonably
take up against ourselves. If I be sick, it is part of my fate; and
for other calamities, they are usual things; they ought to be; nay,
which is more, they must be, for they come by divine appointment. So
that we should not only submit to God, but assent to him, and obey him
out of _duty_, even if there were no _necessity_. All those terrible
appearances that make us groan and tremble are but the tribute of life;
we are neither to wish, nor to ask, nor to hope to escape them; for
it is a kind of dishonesty to pay a tribute unwillingly. Am I troubled
with the stone, or afflicted with continual losses? nay, is my body in
danger? All this is no more than what I prayed for when I prayed for
old age. All these things are as familiar in a long life, as dust and
dirt in a long way. Life is a warfare; and what brave man would not
rather choose to be in a tent than in shambles? Fortune does like a
swordsman, she scorns to encounter a fearful man: there is no honor in
the victory where there is no danger in the way to it; she tries Mucius
by _fire_; Rutilius by _exile_; Socrates by _poison_; Cato by _death_.
It is only in adverse fortune, and in bad times, that we find great
examples. Mucius thought himself happier with his hand in the flame,
than if it had been in the bosom of his mistress. Fabricius took more
pleasure in eating the roots of his own planting than in all the
delicacies of luxury and expense. Shall we call Rutilius miserable,
whom his very enemies have adored? who, upon a glorious and a public
principle, chose rather to lose his country than to return from
banishment? the only man that denied any thing to Sylla the dictator,
who recalled him. Nor did he only refuse to come, but drew himself
further off: “Let them,” says he, “that think banishment a misfortune,
live slaves at Rome, under the imperial cruelties of Sylla: he that
sets a price upon the heads of senators; and after a law of his own
institution against cut-throats, becomes the greatest himself.” Is it
not better for a man to live in exile abroad than to be massacred at
home? In suffering for virtue, it is not the torment but the cause,
that we are to consider; and the more pain, the more renown. When any
hardship befalls us, we must look upon it as an act of Providence,
which many times suffers particulars to be wounded for the conservation
of the whole: beside that, God chastises some people under an
appearance of blessing them, turning their prosperity to their ruin as
a punishment for abusing his goodness. And we are further to consider,
that many a good man is afflicted, only to teach others to suffer; for
we are born for example; and likewise that where men are contumacious
and refractory, it pleases God many times to cure greater evils by
less, and to turn our miseries to our advantage.
How many casualties and difficulties are there that we dread as
insupportable mischiefs, which, upon farther thoughts, we find to
be mercies and benefits? as banishment, poverty, loss of relations,
sickness, disgrace. Some are cured by the lance; by fire, hunger,
thirst; taking out of bones, lopping off limbs, and the like: nor do
we only fear things that are many times beneficial to us; but, on the
other side, we hanker after and pursue things that are deadly and
pernicious: we are poisoned in the very pleasure of our luxury, and
betrayed to a thousand diseases by the indulging of our palate. To lose
a child or a limb, is only to part with what we have received, and
Nature may do what she pleases with her own. We are frail ourselves,
and we have received things transitory—that which was given us may be
taken away—calamity tries virtue as the fire does gold, nay, he that
lives most at ease is only delayed, not dismissed, and his portion is
to come. When we are visited with sickness or other afflictions we are
not to murmur as if we were ill used—it is a mark of the general’s
esteem when he puts us upon a post of danger: we do not say “My
captain uses me ill,” but “he does me honor;” and so should we say that
are commanded to encounter difficulties, for this is our case with God
Almighty.
What was Regulus the worse, because Fortune made choice of him for
an eminent instance both of faith and patience? He was thrown into a
case of wood stuck with pointed nails, so that which way soever he
turned his body, it rested upon his wounds; his eyelids were cut off
to keep him waking; and yet Mecænas was not happier upon his _bed_
than Regulus upon his _torments_. Nay, the world is not yet grown so
wicked as not to prefer Regulus before Mecænas: and can any man take
that to be an evil of which Providence accounted this brave man worthy?
“It has pleased God,” says he, “to single me out for an experiment of
the force of human nature.” No man knows his own strength or value but
by being put to the proof. The pilot is tried in a storm; the soldier
in a battle; the rich man knows not how to behave himself in poverty:
he that has lived in popularity and applause, knows not how he would
bear infamy and reproach: nor he that never had children how he would
bear the loss of them. Calamity is the occasion of virtue, and a spur
to a great mind. The very apprehension of a wound startles a man when
he first bears arms; but an old soldier bleeds boldly, because he
knows that a man may lose blood, and yet win the day. Nay, many times
a calamity turns to our advantage; and great ruins have but made way
to greater glories. The crying out of _fire_ has many times quieted
a fray, and the interposing of a wild beast has parted the thief and
the traveller; for we are not at leisure for less mischiefs while we
are under the apprehensions of greater. One man’s life is saved by a
disease: another is arrested, and taken out of the way, just when his
house was falling upon his head.
To show now that the favors or the crosses of fortune, and the
accidents of sickness and of health, are neither good nor evil, God
permits them indifferently both to good and evil men. “It is hard,” you
will say, “for a virtuous man to suffer all sorts of misery, and for
a wicked man not only to go free, but to enjoy himself at pleasure.”
And is it not the same thing for men of prostituted impudence and
wickedness to sleep in a whole skin, when men of honor and honesty
bear arms; lie in the trenches, and receive wounds? or for the vestal
virgins to rise in the night to their prayers, when common strumpets
lie stretching themselves in their beds? We should rather say with
Demetrius, “If I had known the will of Heaven before I was called to
it, I would have offered myself.” If it be the pleasure of God to take
my children, I have brought them up to that end: if my fortune, any
part of my body, or my life, I would rather present it than yield it
up: I am ready to part with all, and to suffer all; for I know that
nothing comes to pass but what God appoints: our fate is decreed, and
things do not so much happen, as in their due time proceed, and every
man’s portion of joy and sorrow is predetermined.
There is nothing falls amiss to a good man that can be charged upon
Providence; for wicked actions, lewd thoughts, ambitious projects,
blind lusts, and insatiable avarice—against all these he is armed by
the benefit of reason: and do we expect now that God should look to
our luggage too? (I mean our bodies.) Demetrius discharged himself of
his treasure as the clog and burden of his mind: shall we wonder then
if God suffers that to befall a good man which a good man sometimes
does to himself? I lose a son, and why not, when it may sometimes so
fall out that I myself may kill him? Suppose he be banished by an order
of state, is it not the same thing with a man’s voluntarily leaving
his country never to return? Many afflictions may befall a good man,
but no evil, for contraries will never incorporate—all the rivers in
the world are never able to change the taste or quality of the sea.
Prudence and religion are above accidents, and draw good out of every
thing—affliction keeps a man in use, and makes him strong, patient, and
hardy. Providence treats us like a generous father, and brings us up
to labors, toils, and dangers; whereas the indulgence of a fond mother
makes us weak and spiritless.
God loves us with a masculine love, and turns us loose to injuries
and indignities: he takes delight to see a brave and a good man
wrestling with evil fortune, and yet keeping himself upon his legs,
when the whole world is in disorder about him. And are not we ourselves
delighted, to see a bold fellow press with his lance upon a boar or
lion? and the constancy and resolution of the action is the grace and
dignity of the spectacle. No man can be happy that does not stand firm
against all contingencies; and say to himself in all extremities, “I
should have been content, if it might have been so or so, but since it
is otherwise determined, God will provide better.” The more we struggle
with our necessities, we draw the knot the harder, and the worse it
is with us: and the more a bird flaps and flutters in the snare, the
surer she is caught: so that the best way is to submit and lie still,
under this double consideration, that “the proceedings of God are
unquestionable, and his decrees are not to be resisted.”