Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/131

110 Which last words are so piously spoken, that even Calumny it self, is not able to calumniate them. Nor did that great writer (unto Alexander the Great) in this at all dissent from the Stoicks. I conceive (saith he) that Necessity, ought not to be call'd any thing else than God, as an unchangeable Nature: And so also Fate it self; because it knits together all things, and is moved and carryed on, without any impediment. Which Speeches though possibly they may have something in them which is not so advised: Yet they contain nothing that is impious; and by modest interpreters will be thought not farr distant from that true Fate, which I am about to assert. The truth is, I do heartily applaud the Stoicks in this: That there is not any Sect, which hath more studiously asserted the Majesty, and Providence of God; or more earnestly endeavoured to incline the Minds of Rh