On the Shortness of Life

It has been a long time my thought to turn SENECA into English; but whether as a _translation_ or an _abstract_, was the question. A _translation_, I perceive, it must not be, at last, for several reasons. First, it is a thing already done to my hand, and of above sixty years’ standing; though with as little _credit_, perhaps, to the Author, as _satisfaction_ to the Reader. Secondly, There is a great deal in him, that is wholly foreign to my business: as his philosophical treatises of _Meteors_, _Earthquakes_, the Original of _Rivers_, several frivolous disputes betwixt the Epicureans and the Stoics, etc., to say nothing of his frequent repetitions of the same thing again in other words, (wherein he very handsomely excuses himself, by saying, “That he does but inculcate over and over the same counsels to those that over and over commit the same faults.”)Thirdly, His excellency consists rather in a rhapsody of divine and extraordinary _hints_ and _notions_, than in any regulated method of discourse; so that to take him as he lies, and so to go through with him, were utterly inconsistent with the order and brevity which I propound; my principal design, being only to digest, and commonplace his _Morals_, in such sort, that any man, upon occasion, may know where to find them. And I have kept myself so close to this proposition, that I have reduced all his scattered Ethics to their _proper heads_, without any additions of my own, more than of absolute necessity for the tacking of them together. Some other man in my place would perhaps make you twenty apologies for his want of skill and address, in governing this affair; but these are formal and pedantic fooleries, as if any man that first takes himself for a coxcomb in his own heart, would afterwards make himself one in print too. This _Abstract_, such as it is, you are extremely welcome to; and I am sorry it is no better, both for your sakes and my own, for if it were written up to the spirit of the original, it would be one of the most valuable presents that ever any private man bestowed upon the public; and this, too, even in the judgment of both parties, as well Christian as Heathen, of which in its due place.

Next to my choice of the _Author_ and of the _subject_, together with the manner of handling it, I have likewise had some regard, in this publication, to the _timing_ of it, and to the preference of this topic of _Benefits_ above all others, for the groundwork of my _first essay_. We are fallen into an age of _vain philosophy_ (as the holy apostle calls it) and so desperately overrun with Drolls and Sceptics, that there is hardly any thing so certain or so sacred, that is not exposed to question and contempt, insomuch, that betwixt the hypocrite and the Atheist, the very foundations of religion and good manners are shaken, and the two tables of the _Decalogue_ dashed to pieces the one against the other; the laws of government are subjected to the fancies of the vulgar; public authority to the private passions and opinions of the people; and the supernatural motions of grace confounded with the common dictates of nature. In this state of corruption, who so fit as a good honest Christian Pagan for a moderator among Pagan Christians?

To pass now from the general scope of the whole work to the particular argument of the first part of it, I pitched upon the theme of _Benefits_, _Gratitude_, and _Ingratitude_, to begin withal, as an earnest of the rest, and a lecture expressly calculated for the unthankfulness of these times; the foulest undoubtedly, and the most execrable of all others, since the very apostasy of the angels: nay, if I durst but suppose a possibility of mercy for those damned spirits, and that they might ever be taken into favor again, my charity would hope even better for them than we have found from some of our revolters, and that they would so behave themselves as not to incur a second forfeiture. And to carry the resemblance yet one point farther, they do both of them agree in an implacable malice against those of their fellows that keep their stations. But, alas! what could _Ingratitude_ do without _Hypocrisy_, the inseparable companion of it, and, in effect, the bolder and blacker devil of the two? for Lucifer himself never had the face to lift up his eyes to heaven, and talk to the ALMIGHTY at the familiar rate of our pretended patriots and zealots, and at the same time to make him party to a cheat. It is not for nothing that the Holy Ghost has denounced so many woes, and redoubled so many cautions against _hypocrites_; plainly intimating at once how dangerous a snare they are to mankind, and no less odious to God himself; which is sufficiently denoted in the force of that dreadful expression, _And your portion shall be with hypocrites_. You will find in the holy scriptures (as I have formerly observed) that God has given the grace of repentance to _persecutors_, _idolaters_, _murderers_, _adulterers_, etc., but I am mistaken if the whole Bible affords you any one instance of a _converted hypocrite_.