Devotions vpon emergent occasions and seuerall steps in my sicknes digested into I. Meditations vpon our humane condition, 2. Expostulations, and debatements with God, 3. Prayers, vpon the seuerall occasions, to Him / by Iohn Donne ...

14. MEDITATION.

I Would not make Man worse then hee

is, Nor his Condition more miserable then it is. But could I though I would? As a Man can∣not flatter God, nor oue•• prayse him, so a Man cannot iniure Man, no•• vnderualue him. Thus much must necessarily be presented to his re∣membrance, that those false Happinesses, which he hath in this World, haue their times, & their seasons, and their Critical d••yes, & they are Iudged, and Denominated accor∣ding to the times, when

they befall vs. What poore Elements are our happinesses made off, if Tyme, Tyme which wee can scarce consider to be any thing, be an ess••n∣tial part of our h••pines? All things are done in some place; but if we consider place to be no more, but the next hol∣low Superficies of the Ayre, Alas, how thinne, & fluid a thing is Ayre, and how thinne a filme is a Superficies, and a Su∣perficies of Ayre? All things are done in time

too; but if we consider Tyme to be but the Mea∣sure of Motion, and how∣soeuer it may seeme to haue three stations, past, present, and future, yet the first and last of these are not (one is not, now, & the other is not yet) And that which you call present, is not now the same that it wa••, when you began to call it so in this Line, (before you sound that word, present, or that Monosyl∣lable, now, the present, & the Now is past,) if this

Imaginary halfe-nothing, Tyme be of the Essence of our Happinesses, how can they be thought du∣rable? Tyme is not so; How can they bee thought to be? Tyme is not so; not so, conside∣red in any of the parts thereof. If we consider Eternity, into that, Tyme neuer Entred; Eternity is not an euerlasting flux of Tyme; but Tyme is as a short parenthesis in a longe period; and Eter∣nity had bin the same, as it is, though time had

neuer beene; If we con∣sider, not Eternity, bu•• Perpetuity, not that which had no tyme to beginne in, but whic•• shall out-liue Tyme an•• be, when Tyme shall be•• no more, wh••t A Minu•••• is the life of the Dura∣blest Creature, compare•• to that? And what •• Minute is Mans life i•• respect of the Sunnes, o•• of a tree? and yet how little of our life is Occasi∣on•• opportunity to receyu•• good in; and how litle of that occasion, doe wee

apprehend, and lay hold of? How busie, and per∣plexed a Cobweb, is the Happinesse of Man here, that must bee made vp with a Watchfulnesse, to lay hold vpon Occasion, which is but a little peece of that, which is Nothing, Tyme? And yet the best things are No∣thing without that. Ho∣nors, Pleasures, Possessi∣ons, presented to vs, out of time, in our decrepit, and distasted, & vnap∣prehensiue Age, loose

their office, & loose their Name; They are not Ho∣nors to vs, that shall ne∣uer appeare, nor come abroad into the Eyes of the people, to receiue Honor, from them who giue it: Nor pleasures to vs, who haue lost our sense to taste them•• nor possessions to vs, who are departing from the pos∣session of them. Youth is their Criticall Day; that Iudges them, that Denominates them, that inanimates, and informes them, and makes them

Honors, and pleasures, and possessions, & when they come in an vnap∣prehensiue Age, they come as a Cordiall when the bell rings out, as a Pardon, when the Head is off. We reioyce in the Comfort of fire, but does any Man cleaue to it at Midsomer; Wee are glad of the freshnesse, & coolenes of a Vault, but does any Man keepe his Christmas there; or are the pleasures of the Spring acceptable in Au∣tumne? If happinesse be

in the season, or in the Clymate, how much happier then are Birdes then Men, who can change the Climate, and accompanie, and enioy the same season euer.