plimental and circumstantial pieces of felicity, and un-
dervalue those perfections and essential points of happi-
ness, wherein we resemble our Maker. To wiser desires
it is satisfaction enough to deserve, though not to enjoy,
the favours of fortune. Let providence provide for fools:
'tis not partiality, but equity, in God, who deals with us
but as our natural parents. Those that are able of body
and mind he leaves to their deserts; to those of weaker
merits he imparts a larger portion; and pieces out the
defect of one by the excess of the other. Thus have we
no just quarrel with nature for leaving us naked; or to
envy the horns, hoofs, skins, and furs of other creatures;
being provided with reason, that can supply them all.
We need not labour, with so many arguments, to con-
fute judicial astrology; for, if there be a truth therein,
it doth not injure divinity. If to be born under Mer-
cury disposeth us to be witty; under Jupiter to be
wealthy; I do not owe a knee unto these, but unto
that merciful hand that hath ordered my indifferent
and uncertain nativity unto such benevolous aspects.
Those that hold that all things are governed by fortune,
had not erred, had they not persisted there. The
Romans, that erected a temple to Fortune, acknow-
ledged therein, though in a blinder way, somewhat of
divinity; for, in a wise supputation,<22> all things begin
and end in the Almighty. There is a nearer way to
heaven than Homer's chain;<23> an easy logick may con-
join a heaven and earth in one argument, and, with less
than a sorites,<24> resolve all things to God. For though
we christen effects by their most sensible and nearest