Great Fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the pusle[1] of businesse, they have no time to tend their Health either of Body or Minde. Illi Mors gravis incubat, qui, notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi[2]. In Place, There is License to doe Good and Evill; wherof the latter is a Curse; For in Evill the best condition is not to will, The Second, not to Can[3]. But Power to doe good is the true and lawfull End of Aspiring. For good Thoughts (though God accept them,) yet towards men are little better then good Dreames, Except they be put in Act; And that cannot be without Power and Place, As the Vantage and Commanding Ground. Merit and good Works is the End of Man's Motion[4]; And Conscience[5] of the same is the Accomplishment of Man's Rest. For if a Man can be Partaker of God's Theater[6], he shall likewise be Partaker of God's Rest. Et conversus Deus, ut aspiceret Opera quæ fecerunt manus suæ, vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis[7]; And then the Sabbath[8].
In the Discharge of thy Place, set before thee the best Examples; For Imitation is a Globe[9] of Precepts. And after a time, set before thee thine owne Example; And examine thy selfe strictly, whether thou didst not best at first. Neglect not also the Examples of those that have carried themselves ill in the same Place; Not to set off thy selfe by taxing[10] their Memory, but to direct thy selfe what to avoid. Reforme, therfore, without Braverie[11] or Scandall[12] of former Times and Persons; but yet set it downe[13] to thy selfe, as well to create good Precedents as to follow them. Reduce[14] things to the first Institution, and
- ↑ entanglement
- ↑ Death comes heavily upon him who dies known only too well to everybody else, but a stranger to himself.
- ↑ be able
- ↑ the object of man's action
- ↑ consciousness
- ↑ For if a man can contemplate, as God did, the spectacle of good works done by himself
- ↑ And God turned to behold the works which His hands had made, and He saw the they were all very good
- ↑ i.e. rest
- ↑ compact collection
- ↑ censuring
- ↑ ostentation
- ↑ defamation
- ↑ propose
- ↑ Trace up
