QUARREL not rashly with Adversities not yet understood; and overlook not the Mercies often bound up in them.
For we consider not sufficiently the good of Evils, nor fairly compute the Mercies of Providence in things afflictive at first hand. The famous Andreas Doria being invited to a Feast by Aloysio Fieschi with design to Kill him, just the night before, fell mercifully into a fit of the Gout and so escaped that mischief. When Cato intended to Kill himself, from a blow which he gave his servant, who would not reach his Sword unto him, his Hand so swell'd that he had much ado to Effect his design. Hereby any one but a resolved Stoick might have taken a fair hint of consideration, and that some mercifull Genius would have contrived his preservation. To be sagacious in such intercurrences is not Superstition, but wary and pious Discretion, and to contemn such hints were to be deaf unto the speaking hand of God, wherein Socrates & Cardan would hardly have been mistaken.
