transplanted into Egypt? Had Daniel and his three companions of the captivity ever attained to that honour, in their native land? How many have we known, that have found that health in a change of air, which they could not meet with at home! In Africk, the south wind clears up; and the north is rainy. Look thou up still to that hand, which hath translated thee await his good pleasure: be thou no stranger to thy God it matters not who are strangers unto thee.

:

SECT. 5.

The right that we have in any country, and in God.

THOU art a banished man :- How canst thou be so, when thou treadest upon thy Father's ground? The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness of it. In his right, wherever thou art, thou mayest challenge a spiritual interest: All things, saith the Apostle, are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's; 1 Cor. iii. 21, 22, 23. No man can challenge thee for a stranger, that is not thy Father's child.

Thine exile separates thee from thy friends :-This were no small affliction, if it might not be abundantly remedied. That was a true word of Laurentius, that "where two faithful friends are met, God makes up a third." But it is no less true, that where one faithful spirit is, there God makes up a second. One God can more than supply a thousand friends.

SECT. 6.

The practice of voluntary travel.

THY banishment bereaves thee of the comfort of thy wonted companions :-Would not a voluntary travel do as much? Dost thou not see thousands, that do willingly, for many years, change their country for foreign regions; taking long farewells of their dear friends and comrades: some, out of curiosity; some, out of a thirst after knowledge; some, out of a covetous desire of gain? What difference is there, betwixt thee and them; but that their exile is voluntary, thy travel constrained? And who are then these, whom thou art so sorry to forego? Dost thou not remember what Crates, the Philosopher, said to a young man, that was beset with parasitical friends?" Young man," said he, "I pity thy solitude." Perhaps, thou mayest be more alone in such society, than in the wilderness; such conversation is better lost, than continued. If thou canst but get to be well acquainted with thyself, thou shalt be sorry that thou wert no sooner solitary.

SECT. 7.

All are pilgrims.

THOU art out of thy country :-Who is not so? We are all Pilgrims together with thee; 1 Pet. ii. 11. Heb. xi. 13. While we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; 2 Cor. v. 6. Miserable are we, if our true home be not above. That is the better country which we seek, even a heavenly; Heb. xi. 16: and thither thou mayest equally direct thy course, in whatsoever region. This centre of earth is equidistant from the glorious circumference of heaven: if we may once meet there, what need we make such difference in the way.

CHAP. XI.

COMFORTS AGAINST THE LOSS OF OUR SENSES OF SIGHT AND HEARING.

SECT. 1.

The two inward lights, of Reason and Faith.

THOU hast lost thine eyes: a loss, which all the world is uncapable to repair. Thou art hereby condemned to a perpetual darkness: for, The light of the body is the eye; and if the light that is in thee be darkness, how greut is that darkness! Matt. vi. 22, 23:

Couldst thou have foreseen this evil, thou hadst anticipated this loss, by weeping out those eyes for grief, which thou must forego.

There are but two ways, by which any outward comfort can have access to thy soul; the eye, and the ear: one of them is now foreclosed for ever.

Yet know, my son, thou hast two other inward eyes, that can abundantly supply the want of these of thy body; the eye of Reason, and the eye of Faith: the one, as a Man; the other, as a Christian.

Answerable whereunto, there is a double light apprehended by them; rational, and divine: Solomon tells thee of the one; The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly; Prov. xx. 27: the Beloved Disciple tells thee of the other; God is light; and we walk in the light, as he is in the light; 1 John i. 5, 7.

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Now these two lights are no less above that outward and visible light whereof thou art bereaved, than that light is above darkness. If, therefore, by the eye of Reason thou shalt attain to the clear sight of intelligible things, and by the eye of Faith to the sight of things supernatural and divine, the improvement of these better eyes shall make a large amends for the lack of thy bodily sight.

SECT. 2.

The supply of better eyes.

THY sight is lost:-Let me tell thee what Anthony, the Hermit, whom Ruffinus doubts not to style Blessed', said to learned, though blind, Didymus of Alexandria: "Let it not trouble thee, O Didymus, that thou art bereft of carnal eyes; for thou lackest only those eyes, which mice, and flies, and lizards have but rejoice, that thou hast those eyes, which the angels have; whereby they see God; and by which thou art enlightened with a great measure of knowledge." Make this good of thyself; and thou shalt not be too much discomforted with the absence of thy bodily eyes.

SECT. 3.

The better object of our inward sight.

THINE eyes are lost :-The chief comfort of thy life is gone with them: The light is sweet, saith Solomon; and a pleasant thing it is, for the eyes to behold the sun; Eccl. xi. 7. Hath not God done this purposely, that he might set thee off from all earthly objects, that thou mightest so much the more intentively fix thyself upon him; and seek after those spiritual comforts, which are to be found in a better light?

Behold, the sun is the most glorious thing, that the bodily eyes can possibly see: thy spiritual eyes may see him, that made that goodly and glorious creature, and therefore must needs be infinitely more glorious than what he made. If thou canst now see him the more, how hast thou but gained by thy loss!

SECT. 4.

The ill offices done by the eyes.

THOU art become blind:-Certainly, it is a sore affliction. The men of Jabesh-Gilead offered to comply with the tyrant

r Ruffinus Hist. l. ii. c. 7.

of the Ammonites, so far as to serve him; but, when he required the loss of their right eyes, as a condition of their peace, they will rather hazard their lives in an unequal war; 1 Sam. xi. 1-3. as if servitude and death were a less mischief, than one eye's loss.

How much more of both! for, though one eye be but testis singularis; yet the evidence of that is as true as that of both; yea, in some cases more: for, when we would take a perfect aim, we shut one eye, as rather a hindrance to an accurate information. Yet, for ordinary use, so do we esteem each of these lights, that there is no wise man but would rather lose a limb than an eye.

Although I could tell thee of a certain man, not less religious than witty, who, when his friends bewailed the loss of one of his eyes, asked them, whether they wept for the eye which he had lost, or the eye which remained. "Weep rather," said he, "for the enemy which stays behind, than for the enemy that is gones."

Lo, this man looked upon his eyes, with eyes different from other men's: he saw them as enemies, which others see as officious servants, as good friends, as dear favourites. Indeed, they are any or all of these, according as they are used: good servants, if they go faithfully on the errands we send them, and return us true intelligence: good friends, if they advise and invite us to holy thoughts: enemies, if they suggest and allure us to evil.

If thine eyes have been employed in these evil offices to thy soul, God hath done that for thee, which he hath, in a figurative sense enjoined thee, to do to thyself. If thy right eye of fend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is better for thee, that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell; Matt. v. 29.

SECT. 5.

Freedom from temptations by the eyes, and from many

sorrows.

THOU hast lost thine eyes; and, together with them, much earthly contentment:-But, withal, thou art hereby freed of many temptations. Those eyes were the inlets of sin; yea, not only the mere passages by which it entered, but busy agents in the admission of it; the very panders of lust for the debauching of the soul. How many thousands are there, who, on their death-beds, upon the sad recalling of their guilty thoughts, have wished they had been born blind! So as, if now thou hast

Brom. V. Sensus.

less joy, thou shalt sin less: neither shall any vain objects call away thy thoughts, from the serious and sad meditation of spiritual things.

Before, it was no otherwise with thee, than the Prophet Jeremiah reports it to have been with the Jews, that death is come up by the windows; Jer. ix. 21. So it was with our great grandmother Eve: She saw the tree was pleasant to the eyes; and, thereupon, took of the fruit; Gen. iii. 6. So it hath been, ever since, with all the fruit of her womb, both in the old and latter world; The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose; Gen. vi. 2. Insomuch as not filthy lusts only, but even adulteries take up their lodgings in the eye: there the blessed Apostle finds them: Having eyes, saith he, full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; 2 Pet. ii. 14.

While therefore thy heart walked after thine eyes, as Job speaks, Job xxxi. 7. it could do no other; but carry thee down to the chambers of death; Prov. vii. 27. Thou art now delivered from that danger of so deadly a misguidance.

Hath not the loss of thine eyes, withal, freed thee of a world of sorrows? The old word is, "What the eye views not, the heart rues not." Hadst thou but seen what others are forced to behold, those fearful conflagrations, those piles of murdered carcases, those streams of Christian blood, those savage violences, those merciless rapines, those sacrilegious outrages, thy heart could not choose but bleed within thee: now, thou art affected with them only aloof off; as receiving them by the perfect intelligence of thine ear, from the unfeeling relation of others.

SECT. 6.

The cheerfulness of some blind men.

THINE eyes are lost:-What need thy heart to go with them? I have known a blind man more cheerful than I could be with both mine eyes.

Old Isaac was dark-sighted when he gave the blessing, contrary to his own intentions, to his son Jacob: yet it seems he lived forty years after; and could be pleased then, to have good cheer made him with wine and venison: Gen. xxvii. 25.

Our life doth not lie in our eyes: The spirit of man is that, which upholds his infirmities; Prov. xviii. 14. Labour to raise that to a cheerful disposition; even in thy bodily darkness, there shall be light and joy to thy soul; Esth. viii. 16.