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DOUBT.

Doubt had a double face:

The one forward looking, the other backward bent;
Therein resembling Janus ancient,

Which hath in charge the in-gate of the year,
And evermore his eyes about him went,

As of some proved peril he did fear,

Or did misdoubt some ill, whose cause did not appear.

Spenser.

PROSFERITY.

Nothing shall more effectually betray the heart into a love of sin and a loathing of holiness, than an ill-managed prosperity. It is like some meats, the more luscious, so much the more dangerous. Prosperity and ease upon an unsanctified and impure heart, is like the sunbeams upon a dunghill; it raises many filthy, noisome exhalations. The same soldiers who in hard service, and in the battle, arc in perfect subjection to their leaders, in peace and luxury are apt to mutiny and rebel. That corrupt affection which has lain, as it were, dead and frozen in the midst of distracting businesses, or under adversity, when the sun of prosperity has shined upon it, then, like a snake, it presently recovers its former strength and venom. Vice must be caressed and smiled upon, that it may thrive and sting. It is starved by poverty. It droops under the frowns of fortune, and pines away upon bread and water. But when the channels of plenty run high, and every appetite is plied with abundance and

variety, so that SATISFACTION is but a weary word to express its enjoyment, then the inbred corruption of the heart shows itself pampered and insolent, too unruly for discipline, and too big for correction.

South.

DECREES AND DUTIES.

Is't not God's deed, whatever thing is done
In heaven and earth? Did not he all create,
To die again? All ends that was begun:
Their times in his eternal books of fate

Are written sure, and have their certain date.
Who then can strive with strong necessity,
That holds the world in his still-changing state,
Or shun the death ordain'd by destiny?

When hour of death is come, let none ask whence or why.

Spenser.

DOUBT AND DELAY.

On the one side doubt, on the other sat delay,
Behind the gate, that none might her espy,
Whose manner won all passengers to stay,
And entertain with her occasions sly,
Through which some lost great hope unheedily,
Which never they recover might again:
And others quite excluded forth did lie,
Long languishing there, in unpitied pain,
And seeking often entrance afterward in vain.

Spenser.