The Jesuit is right. Necessity, Fate and Nature are mere abstractions. The Stars keep their courses and regard not us. Between Man and his Maker nothing is interposed; nothing can be interposed between the Omnipresent Almighty and the creatures of His hand. Receive this truth into thy soul whoever thou be'est that readest, and it will work in thee a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness! And ye who tremble at the aweful thought, remember that though there be nothing between us and our Judge, we have a Mediator and Advocate with Him, who is the propitiation for our sins, and who is “able to save them to the uttermost that come to God through Him.”
CHAPTER CLXXI.
CONTAINING PART OF A SERMON, WHICH THE READER WILL FIND WORTH MORE THAN MOST WHOLE ONES THAT IT MAY BE HIS FORTUNE TO HEAR.
Je fais une grande provision de bon sens en prenant ce que les autres en ont.
MADAME DE MAINTENON.
Reader! I set some learning before you in the last chapter, and “however some may cry out that all endeavours at learning in a book like this, especially where it steps beyond their little, (or let me not wrong them) no brain at all, is superfluous, I am contented,” with great Ben, “that these fastidious stomachs should leave my full tables, and enjoy at home their clean empty trenchers.”
In pursuance of the same theme I shall set before you here some divine philosophy in the words of Dr. Scott, the author of the Christian Life. “The goods and evils that befall us here,” says that wise and excellent preacher, who being dead yet speaketh, and will continue to speak while there be any virtue and while there be any praise,—“the goods and evils, which befall us here, are not so truly to be estimated by themselves as by their effects and consequents. For the Divine Providence which runs through all things, hath disposed and connected them into such a series and order, that there is no single event or accident (but what is purely miraculous) but depends upon the whole system, and hath innumerable causes antecedent to it, and innumerable consequents attending it; and what the consequents will be, whether good or bad, singly and apart by itself, yet in conjunction with all those consequents that will most certainly attend it, the best event, for aught we know, may prove most mischievous, and the worst most beneficial to us. So that for us boldly to pronounce concerning the good or evil of events, before we see the train of consequents that follow them, is very rash and inconsiderate. As for instance, you see a good man oppressed with sorrows and afflictions, and a bad man crowned with pleasures and prosperities; and considering these things apart by themselves, you conclude that the one fares very ill, and the other very well: but did you at the same time see the consequents of the one's adversity and the other's prosperity, it's probable you would conclude the quite contrary, viz. that the good man's adversity was a blessing, and the bad man's prosperity a curse. For I dare boldly affirm that good men generally reap more substantial benefit from their afflictions, than bad men do from their prosperities. The one smarts indeed at present, but what follows? perhaps his mind is cured by it of some disease that is ten times worse to him than his outward affliction; of avarice and impatience, of envy or discontent, of pride or vanity of spirit; his riches are lessened but his virtues are improved by it; his body is impaired, but his mind is grown sound and hale by it, and what he hath lost in health, or wealth, or pleasure, or honour, he hath gained with vast advantage in wisdom and goodness, in tranquillity of mind and self-enjoyment, and methinks no man who believes he hath a soul should grudge to suffer any tolerable affliction for bettering of his mind, his will, and his conscience.