hyself as it were unto these few
names; and if thou canst abide in them, or be constant in the practice
and possession of them, continue there as glad and joyful as one that
were translated unto some such place of bliss and happiness as that
which by Hesiod and Plato is called the Islands of the Blessed, by
others called the Elysian Fields. And whensoever thou findest thyself;
that thou art in danger of a relapse, and that thou art not able to
master and overcome those difficulties and temptations that present
themselves in thy present station: get thee into any private corner,
where thou mayst be better able. Or if that will not serve forsake
even thy life rather. But so that it be not in passion but in a plain
voluntary modest way: this being the only commendable action of thy
whole life that thus thou art departed, or this having been the main
work and business of thy whole life, that thou mightest thus depart. Now
for the better remembrance of those names that we have spoken of, thou
shalt find it a very good help, to remember the Gods as often as may be:
and that, the thing which they require at our hands of as many of us,
as are by nature reasonable creation is not that with fair words, and
outward show of piety and devotion we should flatter them, but that we
should become like unto them: and that as all other natural creatures,
the fig tree for example; the dog the bee: both do, all of them, and
apply themselves unto that which by their natural constitution, is
proper unto them; so man likewise should do that, which by his nature,
as he is a man, belongs unto him.

IX. Toys and fooleries at home, wars abroad: sometimes terror, sometimes
torpor, or stupid sloth: this is thy daily slavery. By little and
little, if thou doest not better look to it, those sacred dogmata will
be blotted out of thy mind. How many things be there, which when as
a mere naturalist, thou hast barely considered of according to their
nature, thou doest let pass without any further use? Whereas thou
shouldst in all things so join action and contemplation, that thou
mightest both at the same time attend all present occasions, to perform
everything duly and carefully and yet so intend the contemplative part
too, that no part of that delight and pleasure, which the contemplative
knowledge of everything according to its true nature doth of itself
afford, might be lost. Or, that the true and contemnplative knowledge
of everything according to its