Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/307

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286
A Diſcourſe
Book II.

hence; do you see Italy? It is not yet thirty years since it rested from sharp and cruel warrs on every side. See you the spacious Germany? The dangerous sparks of a Civil discord were there but of late, which threaten to break forth afresh (and if I am not deceived) into a more destructive flame. Do you see Brittain? Warrs and slaughters are perpetually in it, and that peace which it now awhile enjoyes; it owes to the government of the middle Sex. See you France? Behold and pitty it. Even now the Gangrene of a bloody warr, creeps into all the Joints of it: Nor is it otherwise in all the rest of the World. Think upon these things Lipsius, and let this communion in miseries help to alleviate those of yours. And as they used to place a slave behind the Triumpher, who in the midst of all the joyes of the triumph, was often to cry out to him; thou art yet but a Man: So let this Monitour alwayes stand by to remember you, that

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