The Art of Contentment, Section 9
SECT. IX.
Of our Misfortunes compared with other mens.
1. WE come now to impress an equally just and useful consideration, the comparing our misfortunes with those of other mens: & he that do's that, will certainly see so little cause to think himself singular, that he will not find himself superlative in calamity; for there is no man living that can with reason affirm himself to be the very unhappiest man, there being innumerable distresses of others which he knows not of, and consequently cannot bring them in balance with his own. A multitude of men there are whose persons he knows not, and even of those he do's, he may be much a stranger to their distresses; many sorrows may lie at the heart of him who carries a smiling face, and many a man has bin an object of envy to those who look but on the surface of his state, who yet to those who know his private griefs appears more worthy of compassion. And sure this confused uncertain estimate of other mens afflictions, may divert us from all loud out-cries of our own. Solon seeing a friend much opprest with grief, carried him up to a town that over-lookt the City of Athens, and shewing him all the buildings, said to him, consider how many sorrows have, do, and shall in future ages inhabit under all those roofs, and doe not vex thy self with those inconveniencies which are common to mortality, as if they were only yours. And sure twas good advice: for suffering is almost as inseparable an adjunct of our nature, as dying is: yet we do not see men very apt to imbitter their whole lives by the fore-sight that they must die, but seeing it a thing as universal as inevitable, they are more forward to take up the Epicures resolution, Let us eat and drink, for to morrow we die, 1 Cor. 15. 32. And why should we not look upon afflictions also as the common lot of humanity, and as we take the advantages, so be content to bear the incumbrances of that state?
2. BUT besides that implicite allowance that is thus to be made for the unknown calamities of others, if we survey but those that lie open and visible to us, the most of us shall find enough to discountenance our complaints. Who is there that when he has most studiously recollected his miseries, may not find some or other that apparently equals, if not exceeds him? He that stomacs his own being contemn'd and slighted, may see another persecuted and opprest. He that groans under some sharp pain, may see another afflicted with sharper: and even he that has the most acute torments in his body, may see another more sadly cruciated by the agonies of his mind. So that if we would but look about us, we should see so many forreign occasions of our pity, that we should be asham'd to confine it wholly to our selves.
3. IT will perhaps be said that this cannot be universally true, for that there must in comparative degrees be some lowest state of misery: I grant it, but still that state consists not in such an indivisible point, that any one person can have the inclosure; or if it do, twill be so hard for any to discern who that one person is; that I need desire no fairer a composition, then to have every man suspend his repinings, till he can evince his title. But alas there are but few that can make any approches to such a pretenec: for tho if we advert to mens complaints, we should think all degrees of comparison were confounded, and every man were equally the greatest sufferer; yet certainly in the truth of things tis nothing so: for (not to repete what was before mention'd, that probably no man is miserable in any proportion to the utmost degree of possibility) the remarkably unhappy are very far the lesse number. And how passionatly soever men exaggerate their calamities, yet perhaps in their sober mood, they will scarce change states with those whom they profess to think more happy then themselves. It was the saying of Socrates, that if there were a common bank made of all mens troubles, most men would rather chuse to take those they brought, then to venter upon a new dividend. And indeed he had reason for his supposition; for considering how great a part of many mens afflictions are of their own making, fictitious and imaginary, they may justly fear least they should exchange feathers for lead, their own emty shadows for the real and pressing calamities of others, and cannot but think it best to sit down with their own, which serves their declamations as well, and their ease much better. We oft see men at a little mis-shaping of a garment, a scarce discernable error in their cook, or their shortest interruption in their sports, in such transports of trouble, as if they were the most unfortunate men in the world; yet for all that you shall hardly perswade them to change with him whose course clothings supersedes all care of the fashion, whose appetite was never disappointed for want of sawce, and whose perpetual toil makes him insensible what the defeat of sport signifies.
4. NAY even where the exchange seems more equal, where the afflictions are on both sides solid and substantial, yet a prudent man would scarce venture upon the barter. Tis no small advantage to know what we have to contest with, to have experimented the worst of its attaques, by which we become better able to guard our selves: but a new evil comes with the force of a surprise, and finds us open and disarmed. It is indeed almost a miraculous power that custom has in reconciling us to things otherwise displeasing; all our senses are taught to remit of their aversion by familiarity with ungrateful objects: that ugly form which at first makes us start, by use devests its terror, and we reconcile our selves to harsh-sounds & ill relishes by long custom. And sure it has the very same effect upon our minds, the most fierce calamities do by acquaintance grow more tractable; so that he that exchanges an old one for a new, do's but bring a wild Lion into his house instead of a tame: it may for ought he knows immediatly tear him in pieces, but at least must cost him a great deal of pains to render it gentle and familiar, and certainly no wise man would wish to make such a bargain.
5. BY all this it appears that how extravagantly soever we aggravate our own calamities and extenuate other mens, we dare not upon recollection stand to our own estimate, and what can be said more in prejudice of our discontents? Tis a granted maxim that every man must have afflictions, man that is born of a woman, saies Iob, is of few years, and full of trouble Job. 14. 4. and we must reverse Gods fundamental law, before we can hope for a total exemption. All that any man can aspire to, is to have but an equal share with others, and the generality of men have so, at least none can prove he has not so; and till he can, his murmurs will sure be very unjustifiable, especially when they have this convincing circumstance against them, that he dares not upon sober thoughts change his afflictions with most of his neighbors. He is an ill member of a community, who in public assesments would shuffle off all paiments: and he is no better who in this common tax God has laid upon our nature, is not content to bear his share.
6. AND truly would we but consider that in all our sufferings nothing befals us but what is common to our kind, nay which is extremely exceeded by many within the verge of our own observation, we must be senselessily partial to be impatient. The Apostle thought it a competent consolation for the first Christians that there had no temtation befallen them but what was common to men, 1 Cor. 10. 13. and we betray very extravagant opinions of our selves if it be not so to us. Indeed twas scarce possible for us to be so unsatisfied, as the greatest part of us are, did we in the comparing our selves with others, proceed with any tolerable ingenuity.
7. BUT alas we are very fallacious and deceitful in the point, we do not compare the good of others with our good, not their evil with our evil; but with an envious curiosity we amass together all the desireable circumstances of our neighbors condition, and with as prying discontent we ransack all our grievances, and confront to them. This is so insincere a way of proceeding, as the most ordinary understanding can detect. If I should wager that my arm were longer then another mans, and for tryall mesure my arm with his finger, he must be stupidly silly, that should award for me; and yet this were not a grosser cheat, then that which we put upon our selves, in our comparisons with others. And tis a little strange to observe unto what various purposes we can apply this one thin piece of Sophistry, for when we compare our neighbors and our selves in point of morality, we do but reverse the fallacy, and presently make his vices as much exceed ours, as our calamities did his in the other instance. They are indeed both great violences to reason and justice, yet the later is sure the pleasanter kind of deceit. A man has some joy in thinking himself less wicked then his neighbor, but what imaginable comfort can he take in thinking himself more miserable? certainly he that would submit to a cousenage, had much better shift the scene, and think his sufferings less then they are, rather then more; for since opinion is the thing that usually sets an edg upon our calamities, it might be a profitable deceit that could steal that from us.
8. BUT we need not blindfold our selves if we would but use our eies aright, and see things in their true shapes; and if we did thus, what a strange turn would there be in the common estimates of the world? How many of the gilded troubles of greatness, which men at a distance look on with so much admiration and desire, would then be as much contemned as now they are courted? A competency would then get the better of abundance, and the now envied pomp of princes, when balanced with the cares and hazards annext, would be so far from a bait, that men like Saul 1 Sam 10. 22. would hide themselves from the preferment; and he that understood the weight, would rather choose to weild a Flayle then a Scepter: yet so childishly are we besotted with the glittering appearance of things, that we conclude felicity must needs dwell where there is a magnificent Portico, and being possest with this fancy we over-look her in our own humbler Cottages, where she would more constantly reside, if she could but find us at home: but we are commonly engag'd in a rambling pursuit of her where she is seldomest to be found, and in the interim misse of her at our own doors.
9. INDEED there is scarce a greater folly or unhappiness incident to mans nature, then this fond admiration of other mens enjoiments, and contemt of our own. And whilst we have that humour, it will supplant not only our present, but all possibilities of our future content: for tho we could draw to our selves all those things for which we envy others, we should have no sooner made them our own, then they will grow despicable and nauseous to us. This is a speculation which has bin attested by innumerable experiments, there being nothing more frequent, then to see men with impatient eagerness, nay often with extreme hazards pursue those acquests, which when they have them, they are immediatly sick of. There is scarce any man that may not give himself instances of this in his own particular: and yet so fatally stupid are we, that no defeats will discipline us, or take us off from these false estimates of other mens happinesses. And truly while we state our comparisons so unequally, they are as mischievous as the common proverb speaks them odious: but if we would begin at the right end, and look with as much compassion on the adversities of our brethren, as we do with envy on their prosperities, every man would find cause to sit down contentedly with his own burden, and confess that he bears but the proportionable share of his common nature, unless perhaps it be where some extraordinary demerits of his own have added to the weight; and in that case he has more reason to admire his afflictions are so few, then so many. And certainly every man knows so many more ills by himself, then it is possible for him to do by another, that he that really sees himself exceed others in his sufferings, will find cause enough to think he do's in sins also.
10. BUT if we stretch the comparison beyond our contemporaries, and look back to the generations of old, we shall have yet farther cause to acknowledge Gods great indulgence to us. Abraham tho the friend of God was not exemted from severe trials; he was first made to wander from his Country, and betake himself to a kind of vagrant life, was a long time suspended from the blessing of his desired off-spring, and when at last his beloved Isaac was obtained, it caused a domestic jarre, which he was fain to compose by the expulsion of Ishmael tho his son also. But what a contest may we think there was in his own bowels when that rigorous task was imposed on him of sacrificing his Isaac? and tho his faith gloriously triumpht over it, yet sure there could not be a greater pressure upon human nature. David the man after Gods own heart is no less signal for his afflictions then for his piety, he was for a great while an exile from his Countrey, and (which he most bewailed) from the Sanctuary by the persecutions of Saul: and after he was setled in that throne to which Gods immediate assignation had intitled him, what a succession of calamities had he in his own family? the incestuous rape of his Daughter, the retaliation of that by the as unnatural murder of Amnon, and that seconded by another no less barbarous conspiracy of Absolom against himself, his expulsion from Ierusalem, the base revilings of Shimei, and finally the losse of that dearling son in the act of his sin. A cluster of afflictions in comparison whereof the most of ours are but like the gleanings (as the Prophet speaks) after the vintage is don. It were indeed endless to instance in all the several Fore-fathers of our Faith before Christs incarnation, the Apostle gives us a brief, but very comprehensive compendium of their sufferings, They had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings; yea moreover, of bonds and imprisonments: they were stoned, were sawn asunder, were temted, were slain with the sword: they wandred about in sheep-skins, and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented: they wandred in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and caves of the earth, Heb. 11. 36. 37. 38. And if we look on the Primitive Christians, we shall see them perfectly the counrerpart to them, their privileges consisted not in any immunities from calamities; for their whole lives were scenes of sufferings. St. Paul gives us an account of his own, in labors more abundant, in stripes above mesure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft: of the Iews five times received I fourty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffer'd shipwrack, a night and a day have I bin in the deep, in journying often, &c. 2 Cor. 11. 23. and if his single hardships rose thus high, what may we think the whole sum of all his fellow-laborers amounted to together, with that noble Army of martyrs who sealed their faith with their blood; of whose sufferings Ecclesiastic history gives us such astonishing relations?
11. AND now being compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, the Apostles inference is very irrefragable, let us run with patience the race which is set before us, Heb. 12. 1, 2. But yet it is more so, if we proceed on to that consideration he adjoins, Looking unto Iesus the Author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endur'd the cross, despising the shame, verse 3. Indeed if we contemplate him in the whole course of his life, we shall find him rightly stiled by the Prophet a man of sorrows, Isai. 51. And as if he had charged himself with all our griefs as well as our sins, there is scarce any human calamity which we may not find exemplified in him. Do's any complain of the lowness and poverty of his condition? Alas his whole life was a state of indigence: he was forc'd to be an inmate with the beasts, be laid in a stable at his birth, and after himself professes that he had not where to lay his head, Luk. 9. 58. Is any opprest with infamy and reproch? he may see his Savior accus'd as a glutton and a wine-bibber, Luke 7. 34. a Blasphemer, Joh. 10. 33. a sorcerer, Mat. 12. 24. a perverter of the nation, Luk. 23. 2. yea to such a sordid lowness had they sunk his repute, that a seditious thief and murderer was thought the more eligible person, not this man but Barabbas, Joh. 18. 40. And finally all this scene of indignities clos'd with the spightful pageantry of mockery acted by the soldiers, Mat. 27. 28. and the yet more barbarous insultings of Priests and Scribes, verse 41. Is any man despised or deserted by his friends? he was contemned by his country-men, thought frantic by his friends, betraied by one of his disciples, abandon'd by all, unless that one who followed him longest, to renounce him the most shamefully by a threefold abjuration. Nay what is infinitly more then all this, he seem'd deserted by God also, as is witnessed by that doleful exclamation, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Mar. 27. 64. Is any dissatisfied with the hard-ships or laboriousness of his life? let him remember his Saviors was not a life of delicacy or ease, he was never enter'd in those Academies of luxury, where men are gorgeously apparel'd and live delicately, Luk. 7. 25. but he was brought under the mean roof of a Carpenter, and consequently subjected to all the lowness of such an education. His initiation to his Prophetic office was with the miraculous severity of a 40. daies fast, and in his discharge of it, we find him in perpetual labors, going about doing good, Act. 10. 38. and that not in triumph (like a prince bestowing his largesses) but in weary peregrinations, never riding but once, and that only upon a borrow'd beast, and to fulfil a prophecy, Mat. 24. Do's any man groan under sharp and acute pains? let him consider what his redeemer endur'd, how in his infancy at his circumcision he offer'd the first fruits, as an earnest of that bloody vintage when he trod the wine-press alone Isai. 63. 3. Let him attend him through all the stages of his direful passion, and behold his arms pinion'd with rough cords, his head smote with a reed, and torn with his crown of thorns, his back ploughed with those long furrows (Psal. 120. 3.) the scourges had made, his macerated feeble body opprest with the weight of his cross, and at last rackt and extended on it; his hands and feet, those nervous and consequently most sensible parts transfixt with nailes, his whole body fastned to that accursed tree, and exposed naked to the air in a cold season; his throat parched with thirst and yet more afflicted with that vinegar and gall wherewith they pretended to relieve him; and finally his life expiring amidst the full sense of these accurate torments. Lastly do's any man labor under the bitterest of all sorrows, importunate temtations to, or a wounded spirit for sin? even here also he may find that he has an high Priest who hath bin touched with the sense of his infirmities, Heb. 4. 15. He was violently assaulted with a succession of temtations, Mat. 4. and we cannot doubt but Satan would on him imploy the utmost of his skill. Nor was he less opprest with the burden of sin, (ours I mean tho not his own.) What may we think were his apprehensions in the Garden, when he so earnestly deprecated that which was his whole errand into the world? What a dreadful pressure was that which wrung from him that bloody sweat? and cast him into that inexplicable agony, the horror whereof was beyond the comprehensions of any, but his who felt it? and finally how amazing was the sense of divine wrath, which extorted that stupendious complaint, that strong cry on the cross, Heb. 5. 7. the sharp accent whereof, if it do aright sound in our hearts, must certainly quite overwhelm our loudest groans? And now certainly I may say with Pilate, Ecce homo behold the man, or rather with a more divine Author, Behold if ever there were sorrows like unto his sorrows, Lam. 1. 12.
12. AND sure it were but a reasonable inference, that which we find made by Christ himself, if these things be don in a green tree, what shall be don in the dry? Luk. 23. 31. If an imputative guilt could nurish so scorching a flame, pull down so severe a wrath, what can we expect who are merely made up of combustible matter; whose proper personal sins cry for vengeance? Sure were we to judg by human mesures, we should reckon to have more then a double portion of our Saviors sufferings entail'd upon us: yet such is the efficacy of his, that they have commuted for ours, and have left us only such a share, as may evidence our relation to our crucified Lord: such as may serve only for badges and cognizances to whom we retain. For alas, let the most afflicted of us weigh our sorrows with his, how absurdly unequal will the comparison appear? And therefore as the best expedient to baffle our mutinies, to shame us out of our repinings, let us often draw this uneven parallel, confront our petty uneasinesses with his unspeakable torments; and sure tis impossible but our admiration and gratitude must supplant our impatiencies.
13. THIS is indeed the method to which the Apostle directs us, Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be weary and faint in your minds: ye have not yet resisted unto blood, Heb. 12. 34. Was he contradicted, and shall we expect to be humor'd and compli'd with? Did he resist to blood, and shall we think those pressures intolerable, which force only a few tears from us? This is such an unmanly niceness, as utterly makes us unfit to follow the Captain of our Salvation. What a soldier is he like to make, that will take no share of the hazards and hardships of His General? Honest Uriah would not take the lawful solaces of his own house upon the consideration that his Lord Ioab (tho but his fellow subject) lay incamped in the open fields, 2 Sam. 11. 11. yea tho he was sent by him from the Camp. And shall we basely forsake ours in pursuit of our ease? He is of a degenerous spirit, whom the example of his superior will not animate. Plutarch tells us that Cato marching thro the desarts, was so distrest for water, that a small quantity was brought to him in a helmet as a great prize, which he refusing because he could not help his soldiers to the like, they were so transported with that generosity, that it extinguisht the sense of their thirst, and they were ashamed to complain of what their Leader voluntarily endured for their sakes. And surely we extremely discredit our institution, if we cannot equal their ingenuity, and follow ours with as great alacrity thro all the difficulties he has traced before us, and for us.
14. NOR let us think to excuse our selves upon the impotency of our flesh, which wants the assistance which his divinity gave him: for that plea is superseded by the fore-mention'd examples of the Saints, men of like passions with us, who not only patiently, but joifully endur'd all tribulations, by which it appears it is not impossible to our nature, with those aids of grace which are common to us with them: for certainly the difference between them and us, is not so much in the degrees of the aids, as in the diligence of imploying them. Let us therefore, as the Apostle advises, lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, Heb. 12. 12. and with a noble emulation follow those heroic patterns they have set us: and since we see that even those Favorites of heaven, have smarted so severely, let us never dream of an immunity, but whenever we find our selves inclining to any such flattering hope, let every one of us upbraid our selves in those terms the Jews did our Savior, Art thou greater then Abraham, and the Prophets, whom makest thou thy self? Joh. 8. 52. Nay we may descend lower and take in not only all the inferior Saints of former times, but all those our contemporaries in sufferings, which are most within our view, and may ask the Apostles question, what then are we better then they? Rom. 3. 9. If we think we are, tis certain we are so much worse by that insolence; and if we confess we are not, upon what score can we pretend to be better treated? To conclude, let us not pore only upon our peculiar evils, but attentively look about us, and consider what others endure: and since in frolics we can sport our selves with many uneasinesses for company sake, let us not be more pusillanimous in our soberer moods, but every man cheerfully take his turn in bearing the common burden of mortality, till we put off both it and its appendages together, when this mortal shall put on immortality, 1 Cor. 15. 54.