“cum hac spe ad aeternos labores et bella descendunt!"[16] I confess that it is a great comfort to our friends, to have it said, that we ended well; for we all desire (as Balaam did) “to die the death of the righteous.”  But what shall we call a disesteeming, an opposing, or (indeed) a mocking of God:  if those men do not oppose Him, disesteem Him, and mock Him, that think it enough for God, to ask Him forgiveness at leisure, with the remainder and last drawing of a malicious breath?  For what do they otherwise, that die this kind of well-dying, but say unto God as followeth?  “We beseech Thee, O God, that all the falsehoods, forswearings, and treacheries of our lives past, may be pleasing unto Thee; that Thou wilt for our sakes (that have had no leisure to do anything for Thine) change Thy nature (though impossible,) and forget to be a just God; that Thou wilt love injuries and oppressions, call ambition wisdom, and charity foolishness.  For I shall prejudice my son (which I am resolved not to do) if I make restitution; and confess myself to have been unjust (which I am too proud to do) if I deliver the oppressed.”  Certainly, these wise worldlings have either found out a new God, or made one:  and in all likelihood such a leaden one, as Louis the Eleventh wore in his cap; which when he had caused any that he feared, or hated, to be killed, he would take it from his head and kiss it:  beseeching it to pardon him this one evil act more, and it should be the last; which (as at other times) he did, when by the practice of a cardinal and a falsified sacrament, he caused the Earl of Armagnac to be stabbed to death:  mockeries indeed fit to be used towards a leaden, but not towards the ever-living God.  But of this composition are all devout lovers of the world, that they fear all that is dureless[17] and ridiculous:  they fear the plots and practises of their opposites,[18] and their very whisperings:  they fear the opinions of men, which beat but upon shadows:  they flatter and forsake the prosperous and unprosperous, be they friends or kings:  yea they dive under water, like ducks, at every pebblestone, that is but thrown toward them by a powerful hand:  and on the contrary, they show an obstinate and giant-like valor, against the terrible judgments of the all-powerful God, yea they show themselves gods against God, and slaves towards men; towards men whose bodies and consciences are alike rotten.

Now for the rest:  If we truly examine the difference of both conditions; to wit, of the rich and mighty, whom we call fortunate; and of the poor and oppressed, whom we account wretched we shall find the happiness of the one, and the miserable estate of the other, so tied by God to the very instant, and both so subject to interchange (witness the sudden downfall of the greatest princes, and the speedy uprising of the meanest persons) as the one hath nothing so certain, whereof to boast; nor the other so uncertain, whereof to bewail itself.  For there is no man so assured of his