laws of Jesus. And for a good man some will even dare to die;' and a sweet and charitable disposition is received with fondness, and all the endearments of the neighbourhood. He that observes how many families are ruined by contention, and how many spirits are broken by the care, and contumely, and fear, and spite, which are entertained as advocates to promote a suit of law, will soon confess that a great loss and peaceable quitting of a considerable interest is a purchase and a gain, in respect of a long suit and a vexatious quarrel. And still if the proportion rises higher, the reason swells, and grows more necessary and determinate for if we would live according to the discipline of Christian religion, one of the great plagues which vex the world would be no more. That there should be no wars, was one of the designs of Christianity: and the living according to that institution which is able to prevent all wars, and to establish an universal and eternal peace, when it is obeyed, is the using an infallible instrument towards that part of our political happiness which consists in peace. This world would be an image of heaven, if all men were charitable, peaceable, just, and loving. To this excellency all those precepts of Christ which consist in forbearance and forgiveness do co-operate.

9. But the next instance of the reward of holy obedience and conformity to Christ's laws is itself a duty, and needs no more but a mere repetition of it. We must be content in every state; and be

1 James, iii. 16.

2

· Αυτάρκεια το βίω φιλοσοφία αὐτοδίδακτος.-Poli. Dixit M. Cato apud Aul. Gel. lib. xiii. c. 22. "True content is a self-taught philosophy."

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cause Christianity teaches us this lesson, it teaches us to be happy: for nothing from without can make us miserable, unless we join our consents to it, and apprehend it such, and entertain it in our sad and melancholic retirements. A prison is but a retireement, and opportunity of serious thoughts, to a person whose spirit is confined, and apt to sit still, and desires no enlargement beyond the cancels of the body, till the state of separation calls it forth into a fair liberty; but every retirement is a prison to a loose and wandering fancy, for whose wildness no precepts are restraint, no band of duty is confinement; who, when he hath broken the first hedge of duty, can never after endure any enclosure so much as in a symbol. But this precept is so necessary, that it is not more a duty than a rule of prudence, and in many accidents of our lives it is the only cure of sadness. For it is certain that no providence less than divine can prevent evil and cross accidents: but that is an excellent remedy to the evil, that receives the accident within its power, and takes out the sting, paring the nails, and drawing the teeth of the wild beast, that it may be tame, or harmless, and medicinal. For all content consists in the proportion of the object to the appetite and because external accidents are not in our power, and it were nothing excellent that things happened to us according to our first desires, God hath by his grace put it into our power to make the happiness, by making our desires descend to the event, and comply with the chance, and combine with all the issues of divine providence. And then we are noble persons, when we borrow not our content from things below us, but make our satisfactions from within. And it may be con

sidered, that every little care may disquiet us, and may increase itself by reflection upon its own acts, and every discontent may discompose our spirits, and put an edge, and make afflictions poignant, but cannot take off one from us, but makes every one to be two. But content removes not the accident, but complies with it, takes away the sharpness and displeasure of it, and, by stooping down makes the lowest equal, proportionable, and commensurate. Impatience makes an ague to be a fever, and every fever to be a calenture, and that calenture may expire in madness; but a quiet spirit is a great disposition to health, and for the present does alleviate the sickness. And this also is notorious in the instance of covetousness. The love of money is the root of all evil, which while some have coveted after, they have pierced themselves with many sorrows.' 1 Vice makes poor, and

does ill endure it.

10. For he that in the school of Christ hath learned to determine his desires when his needs are served, and to judge of his needs by the proportions of nature, hath nothing wanting towards riches. Virtue makes poverty become rich, and no riches can satisfy a covetous mind, or rescue him from the affliction of the worst kind of poverty. He only wants that is not satisfied. And there is a great infelicity in a family where poverty dwells with discontent: there the husband and wife quarrel for want of a full table and a rich wardrobe; and their love, that was built upon false arches, sinks when such temporary supporters are removed: they are like two millstones, which set the mill on

1 Tim. vi. 10.

fire when they want corn: and then their combinations and society were unions of lust, or not supported with religious love. But we may easily suppose St. Joseph and the holy virgin-mother in Egypt, poor as hunger, forsaken as banishment, disconsolate as strangers; and yet their present lot gave them no affliction, because the angel fed them with a necessary hospitality, and their desires were no larger than their tables, and their eyes looked only upwards, and they were careless of the future and careful of their duty, and so made their life pleasant by the measures and discourses of divine philosophy. When Elisha stretched upon the body of the child, and laid hands to hands, and applied mouth to mouth, and so shrunk himself into the posture of commensuration with the child, he brought life into the dead trunk; and so may we, by applying our spirits to the proportions of a narrow fortune, bring life and vivacity into our dead and lost condition, and make it live till it grows bigger, or else returns to health and salutary

uses.

11. And besides this philosophical extraction of gold from stones, and riches from the dungeon of poverty, a holy life does most probably procure such a proportion of riches which can be useful to us, or consistent with our felicity. For besides that the holy Jesus hath promised all things which our heavenly Father knows we need, (provided we do our duty,) and that we find great securities and rest from care when we have once cast our cares upon God, and placed our hopes in his bosom; besides all this, the temperance, sobriety, and prudence of a Christian is a great income, and by not despising it, a small revenue combines its parts till

it grows to a heap big enough for the emissions of charity, and all the offices of justice, and the supplies of all necessities; whilst vice is unwary, prodigal, and indiscreet, throwing away great revenues as tributes to intemperance and vanity, and suffering dissolution and forfeiture of estates, as a punishment and curse. Some sins are direct im

providence and ill husbandry. I reckon in this number intemperance, lust, litigiousness, ambition, bribery, prodigality, gaming, pride, sacrilege; which is the greatest spender of them all, and makes a fair estate evaporate like camphor, turning it into nothing, no man knows which way. But what the Roman gave as an estimate of a rich man, saying, "He that can maintain an army is rich," was but a short account; for he that can maintain an army may be beggared by one vice, and it is a vast revenue that will pay the debt-books of intemperance or lust.

12. To these, if we add that virtue is honourable, and a great advantage to a fair reputation; that it is praised by them that love it not; that it is honoured by the followers and family of vice; that it forces glory out of shame, honour from contempt; that it reconciles men to the fountain of honourthe almighty God, who will honour them that honour him there are but a few more excellencies in the world to make up the rosary of temporal felicity. And it is so certain that religion serves even our temporal ends, that no great end of state can well be served without it; not ambition, not de

Virtus laudatur et alget. Juven.-"Virtue is praised

and mourns."

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Præcipuam imperatoriæ majestatis curam esse prospicimus,