Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable CXL
Fab. CXL.
A Flea and Hercules.
THere was a Fellow, that upon a Flea-Biting call'd out to Hercules for Help. The Flea gets away, and the Man Expostulates upon the Matter. Well! Hercules; (says he) You that would not take My Part against a Sorry Flea, will never stand by me in a Time of Need, against a more Powerful Enemy.
The Moral.
REFLEXION.
'Tis an Ill Habit to turn Offices and Duties of Piety into Matters and Words only of Course; and to Squander away our Wishes and our Prayers upon Paltry Fooleries, when the Great Concerns of Life and Death, Heaven and Hell, lye all at stake. Who but a Mad man, that has so many Necessary and Capital Duties of Christianity to Think of, would ever have made a Deliverance from a Flea-Biting a Part of his Litany? It makes our Devotions Ridiculous, to be so Unfeeling on the One side, and so Over-sensible, and Sollicicous on the Other, By this Foolish and Impertinent Way of our Proceeding toward the Almighty, Men Slide by little and little into some sort of Doubt, if not a Direct Disbelief and Contempt of his Power. And then with the Country Fellow here, if we cannot Obtain Every Vain Thing we Ask, our next Bus’ness is to take Pet at the Refusal, and so in Revenge to give over Praying for Good and All; and so to Renounce Heaven for a Flea-Biting.