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them to show their superiors respect without adoration, and civility without servitude.

Again, there are some who have a certain ill-natured stiffness (forsooth) in their tongue, so as not to be able to applaud and keep pace with. this or that selfadmiring, vain-glorious Thraso, while he is pluming and praising himself, and telling fulsome stories in his own commendation for three or four hours by the clock, and at the same time reviling and throwing dirt upon all mankind besides.

There is also a sort of odd ill-natured men, whom neither hopes nor fears, frowns nor favours, can prevail upon to have any of the cast, beggarly, forlorn nieces or kinswomen of any lord or grandee, spiritual or temporal, trumped upon them.

To which we may add another sort of obstinate illnatured persons, who are not to be brought by any one's guilt or greatness to speak or write, or to swear or lie, as they are bidden, or to give up their own consciences in a compliment to those who have none themselves.

And lastly, there are some so extremely ill-natured, as to think it very lawful and allowable for them to be sensible, when they are injured and oppressed, when they are slandered in their own good names, and wronged in their just interests; and, withal, to dare to own what they find and feel, without being such beasts of burden as to bear tamely whatsoever is cast upon them; or such spaniels as to lick the foot which kicks them, or to thank the goodly great one for doing them all these back-favours. Now, these and the like particulars are some of the chief instances of that ill

nature which men are more properly said to be guilty of towards their superiors.

But there is a sort of ill-nature, also, that uses to be practised towards equals or inferiors, such as perhaps a man's refusing. to lend money to such as he knows will never repay him, and so to straiten and incommode himself, only to gratify a shark. Or possibly the man may prefer his duty and his business before company, and the bettering himself before the humouring of others. Or he may not be willing to spend his time, his health, and his estate, upon a crew of idle, spunging, ungrateful sots, and so to play the prodigal amongst a herd of swine. With several other such unpardonable faults in conversation (as some will have them), for which the fore-mentioned cattle, finding themselves disappointed, will be sure to go grumbling and grunting away, and not fail to proclaim him a morose, ill-conditioned, ill-natured person, in all clubs and companies whatsoever; and so that man's work is done, and his name lies grovelling upon the ground, in all the taverns, brandy-shops, and coffeehouses about the town.

And thus having given you some tolerable account of what the world calls ill-nature, and that both towards superiors and towards equals and inferiors (as it is easy and natural to know one contrary by the other), we may from hence take a true measure of what the world is observed to mean by the contrary character of good-nature, as it is generally bestowed.

And first, when great ones vouchsafe this endearing eulogy to those below them, a good-natured man generally denotes some slavish, glavering, flattering parasite, or hanger-on: one who is a mere tool or instrument: a fellow fit to be sent upon any malicious

errand; a setter, or informer, made to creep into all companies; a wretch employed under a pretence of friendship or acqaintance, to fetch and carry, and to come to men's tables to play the Judas there; and, in a word, to do all those mean, vile, and degenerous offices which men of greatness and malice use to engage men of baseness and treachery in.

But then, on the other hand, when this word passes between equals, commonly by a good-natured man is meant either some easy, soft-headed piece of simplicity, who suffers himself to be led by the nose, and wiped of his conveniences by a company of sharping, worthless sycophants, who will be sure to despise, laugh, and droll at him, as a weak empty fellow, for all his ill-placed cost and kindness. And the truth is, if such vermin do not find him empty, it is odds but in a little time they will make him so. And this is one branch of that which some call good-nature (and goodnature let it be); indeed so good, that according to the wise Italian proverb, it is even good for nothing.

Or, in the next place, by a good-natured man is usually meant neither more nor less than a good fellow, a painful, able, and laborious soaker.

But he

who owes all his good-nature to the pot and the pipe, to the jollity and compliances of merry company, may possibly go to bed with a wonderful stock of good nature over-night, but then he will sleep it all away again before the morning.

PEARSON.

(1613-1686.)

[DR. JOHN PEARSON published an Exposition of the Creed, which is considered in the English Church a standard work on that subject. The following is an extract from it.]

The Resurrection.

Beside the principles of which we consist, and the actions which flow from us, the consideration of the things without us, and the natural course of variations in the creature, will render the resurrection yet more highly probable. Every space of twenty-four hours teacheth thus much, in which there is always a revolution amounting to a resurrection. The day dies into a night, and is buried in silence aud in darkness; in the next morning it appeareth again and reviveth, opening the grave of darkness, rising from the dead of night; this is a diurnal resurrection. As the day dies into night, so doth the summer into winter; the sap is said to descend into the root, and there it lies buried in the ground; the earth is covered with snow, or crusted with frost, and becomes a general sepulchre; when the spring appeareth, all begin to rise; the plants and flowers peep out of their graves, revive and grow, and flourish; this is the annual resurrection. The corn by which we live, and for want of which we perish with famine, is notwithstanding cast upon the earth, and buried in the ground, with a design that it

may corrupt, and being corrupted, may revive and multiply; our bodies are fed by this constant experi ment, and we continue this present life by succession of resurrections.

Thus all things are repaired by corrupting, are preserved by perishing, and revive by dying; and can we think that man, the lord of all these things, which thus die and revive for him, should be detained in death as never to live again? Is it imaginable that God should thus restore all things to man, and not restore man to himself? If there were no other consideration, but of the principles of human nature, of the liberty and remunerability of human actions, and of the natural revolutions and resurrections of other creatures, it were abundantly sufficient to render the resurrection of our bodies highly probable.

We must not rest in this school of nature, nor settle our persuasions upon likelihoods; but as we passed from an apparent possibility into a high presumption and probability, so must we pass from thence unto a full assurance of an infallible certainty. And of this, indeed, we cannot be assured but by the revelation of the will of God; upon his power we must conclude that we may, from his will that we shall, rise from the dead. Now, the power of God is known unto all men, and therefore all men may infer from thence a possibility; but the will of God is not revealed unto all men, and therefore all have not an infallible certainty of the resurrection. For the grounding of which assurance I shall show that God hath revealed the determination of his will to raise the dead, and that he hath not only delivered that intention in his Word, but hath also several ways confirmed the same.

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