behave themselves, as not to incur a second forfeiture. And to carry the resemblance yet one point farther, they do both of them agree in an implacable malice against those of their fellows that keep their stations. But, alas! what could ingratitude do without hypocrisy, the inseparable companion of it; and, in effect, the bolder and the blacker devil of the two? For Lucifer himself never had the face to lift up his eyes to heaven, and talk to the Almighty, at the familiar rate of our pretended patriots and zealots, and at the same time to make him party to a cheat. It is not for nothing, that the Holy Ghost has denounced so many woes, and redoubled so many cautions against hypocrites, plainly intimating, at once, how dangerous a snare they are to mankind, and no less odious to God himself: which is sufficiently denoted in the force of that dreadful expression-" And your portion shall be with hypocrites." You will find, in the Holy Scriptures, (as I have formerly observed) that God has given the grace of repentance to persecutors, idolators, murderers, adulterers, &c. but I am mistaken, if the whole Bible affords you any one instance of a converted hypocrite.

To descend now from truth itself, to our own experience, have we not seen, even in our days, a most pious (and almost faultless) prince brought to the scaffold by his own subjects? the most glorious constitution upon the face of the earth, both ecclesiastical and civil, torn to pieces and dissolved? the happiest people under the sun enslaved? our temples sacrilegiously profaned, and a licence given to all sorts of heresy and outrage? And by whom, but by a race of hypocrites, who had nothing in their mouths all this while, but the purity of the gospel, the honour of the king and the liberty of the people; assisted underhand with defamatory papers, which were levelled at the king himself, through the sides of his most faithful ministers? This project succeeded so well against one government, that it is now again set on foot against another; and by some of the very actors too in that tragedy, and after a most gracious pardon also, when Providence had laid their necks and their fortunes at his

majesty's feet. It is a wonderful thing, that libels and libellers, the most infamous of practices and of men, the most unmanly sneaking methods and instruments of mischief, the very bane of human society, and the plague of all governments, it is a wonderful thing (I say) that these engines and engineers should ever find credit enough in the world to engage a party: but it would be still more wonderful, if the same trick should pass twice upon the same people, in the same age, and from the very same impostors. This contemplation has carried me a little out of my way, but it has at length brought me to my text again; for there is in the bottom of it the highest opposition imaginable, of ingratitude and obligation.

The reader will, in some measure, be able to judge by this taste, what he is farther to expect; that is to say, as to the cast of my design and the simplicity of the style and dress; for that will still be the same, only accompanied with variety of matter. Whether it pleases the world, or no, the care is taken and yet, I could wish that it might be as delightful to others, upon the perusal, as it has been to me in the speculation. Next to the gospel itself, I do look upon it as the most sovereign remedy against the miseries of human nature, and I have ever found it so, in all the injuries and distresses of an unfortunate life. You may read more of him, if you please, in the Appendix, which I have here subjoined to this Preface, concerning the authority of his writings, and the circumstances of his life, as I have extracted them out of Lipsius.

OF

SENECA'S WRITINGS.

It appears that our author had, among the ancients, three professed enemies. In the first place, Caligula, who called his writings— sand without lime; alluding to the starts of his fancy, and the incoherence of his sentences. But Seneca was never the worse for the censure of a person that propounded even the suppression of Homer bimself; and of casting Virgil and Livy out of all public libraries. The next was Fabius, who tasks him for being too bold with the eloquence of former times, and failing in that point himself; and likewise for being too quaint and finical in his expressions: which Tacitus imputes, in part, to the freedom of his own particular inclination, and partly to the humour of the times. He is also charged by Fabius as no profound philosopher: but with all this, he allows him to be a man very studious and learned, of great wit and invention, and well read in all sorts of literature, a severe reprover of vice, most divinely sententious, and well worth the reading, if it were only for his morals; adding, that if his judgment had been answerable to his wit, it had been much the more for his reputation, but he wrote whatever came next: so that I would advise the reader, says he, to distinguish where he himself did not; for there are many things in him, not only to be approved, but admired, and it was great pity, that he that could do what he would, should not always make the best choice. His third adversary is Agellius, who falls upon him for his style, and a kind of tinkling in his sentence, but yet commends him for his piety and good counsels. On the other side, Columella calls him a man of excellent wit and learning; Pliny, the prince of erudition; Tacitus gives him the character of a wise man, and a fit tutor for a prince; Dio reports him to have been the greatest man of his age.

Of those pieces of his that are extant, we shall not need to give any particular account, and of those that are lost, we cannot, any further

X

than by lights to them from other authors; as we find them cited much to his honour, and we may reasonably compute them to be the greater part of his works. That he wrote several Poems in his banishment, may be gathered partly from himself, but more expressly out of Tacitus, who says-" that he was reproached with his applying himself to poetry, after he saw that Nero took pleasure in it, out of a design to curry favour." St. Jerome refers to a Discourse of his con cerning Matrimony. Lactantius takes notice of his History and his books of Moralities. St. Augustine quotes some passages of his out of a book of Superstition; some references we meet with to his books of Exhortations. Fabius makes mention of his Dialogues: and he himself speaks of a Treatise of his own, concerning Earthquakes, which he wrote in his youth. But the opinion of an Epistolary Correspondence that he had with St. Paul, does not seem to have much colour for it.

Some few fragments, however, of those books of his that are wanting, are yet preserved in the writings of other eminent authors; sufficient to shew the world how great a treasure they have lost, by the excellency of that little that is left.

Seneca, says Lactantius*, that was the sharpest of all the Stoics, how great a veneration has he for the Almighty! as for instance, discoursing of a violent death-" Do you not understand," says he," the majesty and the authority of your Judge, he is the supreme Governor of heaven and earth, and the God of all your gods; and it is upon him that all those powers depend which we worship for deities." Moreover, in his exhortations-"This God," says he, "when he laid the foundations of the universe, and entered upon the greatest and the best work in nature, in the ordering of the government of the world, though he was himself all in all, yet he substituted other subordinate ministers, as the servants of his commands." And how many other things does this heathen speak of God, like one of us?

Which the acute Seneca (says Lactantius † again) saw in his Exhortations-"We," says he," have our dependence elsewhere, and should look up to that power, to which we are indebted for all we can pretend to that is good."

And again ‡, Seneca says very well in his Morals-"They worship the images of the gods," says he, "kneel to them, and adore them; they are hardly ever from them, either plying them with offerings, or sacrifices, and yet after all this reverence to the image, they have no regard at all to the workman that made it."

*Divin. Inst. lib. 1. cap. 1.

+ Cap. 2.

Lib. 21. cap. 2.

Lactantius again. "An invective," says Seneca, in his Exhortations, "is the master-piece of most of our philosophers; and if they fall upon the subject of avarice, lust, ambition, they lash out into such excess of bitterness, as if railing were a mark of their profession. They make me think of gallypots in an apothecary's shop, and have remedies without and poison within."

Lactantius+ still. He that would know all things, let him read Seneca, the most lively describer of public vices and manners, and the smartest reprehender of them.

And again, as Seneca has it in the books of Moral Philosophy"He is the brave man, whose splendour and authority is the least part of his greatness; that cau look death in the face without trouble, or surprise; who, if his body were to be broken upon the wheel, or melted lead to be poured down his throat, would be less concerned for the pain itself, than for the dignity of bearing it."

"Let no man," says Lactantius ||, "think himself the safer in his wickedness for want of a witness, for God is omniscient, and to him nothing can be a secret." It is an admirable sentence that Seneca concludes his Exhortation withal.-"God," says he, "is a great, (I know not what) an incomprehensible power; it is to him that we live, and to him that we must approve ourselves. What does it avail us, that our consciences are hidden from men, when our souls lie open to God?" What could a Christian have spoken more to the purpose in this case than this divine Pagan? And in the beginning of the same work, says Seneca "What is it that we do? to what end is it to stand contriving, and to hide ourselves? We are under a guard and there is no escaping from our keeper. One man may be parted from another by travel, death, sickness; but there is no dividing us from ourselves. It is to no purpose to creep into a corner, where nobody shall see us. Ridiculous madness! Make it the case that no mortal eye could find us out; he that has a conscience, gives evidence against himself."

It is truly and excellently spoken of Seneca, says Lactantius § once again." Consider," says he," the majesty, the goodness, and the venerable mercies of the Almighty; a friend that is always at hand. What delight can it be to him, the slaughter of innocent creatures, or the worship of bloody sacrifices? let us purge our minds, and lead virtuous and honest lives. His pleasure lies not in the magnificence of temples made with stones, but in the piety and devotion of consecrated hearts."

* Lib. 3. cap. 15. † Lib. 3. cap. 9.

Lib. 6. cap. 17. | Lib. 6. cap. 14.

Lib. 6. cap. 25.