Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667):
Enjoy the present, whatsoever it be, and be not solicitous for the future; for if you take your foot from the present standing, and thrust it forward towards to-morrow's event, you are in a restless condition: it is like refusing to quench your present thirst by fearing you shall want drink the next day. If it be well today, it is madness to make the present miserable by fearing it may be ill tomorrow. Let your trouble tarry till its own day comes. Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them, and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly; for this day is only ours; we are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow. He therefore that enjoys the present if it be good, enjoys as much as is possible. 'Sufficient to the day' (said Christ) 'is the evil thereof': sufficient, but not intolerable. Miserable is he who thrusts his passions forwards, towards future events, and suffers all that he may enjoy to be lost, thinking nothing fit to be enjoyed but that which is not or cannot be had.Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living, 1650.
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