and the tortures of envy and impatience. But I confider that those who drink on ftill when their thirst is quenched, or eat after they have well dined, are forced to vomit not only their fuperfluity, but even that which at first was neceffary: fo thofe that covet more than they can temperately use, are oftentimes forced to part even with that patrimony which would have fupported their perfons in freedom and honour, and have fatisfied all their reasonable defires. 4. Contentedness is therefore health, because Covetoutnets is a direct fickness: and it was well faid of A riftippus, (as Plutarch reports him,) If any man after much eating and drinking be ftill unfatisfied, he hath no need of more meat or more drink, but of a Phyfician; he more needs to be purged than to be filled : and therefore fince Covetoufnels cannot be fatisfied, it must be cured by emptiness and evacuation. The Man is without remedy, unless he be reduced to the fcantling of nature, and the measures of his perfonal neceffity. Give to a poor man a House and a few Cows, pay his little debt, and fet him on work, and he is provided for and quiet : but when a man enlarges beyond a fair poffeffion, and defires another Lordfhip, you fpite him if you let him have it for by that he is one degree the farther off from reft in his defires and fatisfaction; and now he fees himfelt in a bigger capacity to a larger fortune; and he fhall never find his period, till you begin to take away fome thing of what he hath; for then he will begin to be glad to keep that which is left: but reduce him to nature's measures, and there he fhall be fure to find reft: far there no man can defire beyond his bellyfull, and when he wants that, any one friend or charitable man can cure his Poverty; but all the World cannot fatisfie his Covetoufness. 5. Covetousness is the most phantaftical and contradictory difeafe in the whole World: it muft therefore be incurable, because it ftrives against its own cure. No man therefore abftains from meat, because he is hungry; nor from wine, because he loves it and needs it: but the covetous man does fo; for he defires it paf fionately nately, because he fays he needs it; and when he hath it, he will need it ftill, because he dares not use it. He gets cloths because he cannot be without them; but when he hath them then he can : as if he needed corn for his granary, and cloths for his wardrobe, more than for his back and belly. For Covetoufnels pretends to heap much together for fear of want; and yet after all his pains and purchase, he fuffers that really which at firft he feared vainly ; and by not ufing what he gets, he makes that fuffering to be aAtual, prefent and neceflary, which in his loweft condition was but future, contingent and poffible. It ftirs up the defire, and takes away the pleafure of being fatisfied. It encreases the appetite, and will not content it. It fwells the principal to no purpose, and leffens the #fe to all purpofes; difturbing the order of nature, and the defigns of God; making money not to be the inftrument of exchange or charity, nor corn to feed himself or the poor, nor wool to cloath himself or his brother, nor wine to refresh the fadness of the afflicted, nor his oil to make his own countenance chearful; but all thefe to look upon, and to tell over, and to take accounts by, and make himself confiderable, and wonder'd at by fools, that while he lives he may be called rich, and when he dies may be accounted miferable, and, like the difh-makers of China, may leave a greater heap of dirt for his Nephews, while he himself hath a new lot fallen to him in the portion of Dives. But thus the Afs carried wood and sweet herbs to the Baths, but was never washed or perfumed himself: he heaped up fweets for others, while himself was filthy with fmoak and afhes. And yet it is confiderable; if the Man can be content to feed hardly, and labour extreamly, and watch carefully, and fuffer affronts and difgrace, that he may get mo ney more than he ufes in his temperance and just needs, with how much eafe might this man be happy? and with how great uneafinefs and trouble does he make himself milerable? For he takes pains to get content, and when he might have it, he lets it go. He might better be content with a vertuous and quiet poverty, poverty, than with an artificial, troublesome and vicious. The fame diet and a lefs labour would at first make him happy, and for ever after rewardable. 6. The fum of all is that which the Apostle fays, Covetoufnefs is Idolatry; that is, it is an admiring money for it felf, not for its ufe; it relies upon money, and loves it more than it loves God and Religion. And it is the root of all evil; it teaches men to be cruel and crafty, induftrious and evil, full of care and malice; it devours young heirs, and grinds the face of the poor, and undoes thofe who fpecially belong to God's protection, helpless, craftless and innocent people; it inquires into our parents age, and longs for the death of our friends; it makes friendship an art of rapine, and changes a Partner into a Vulture, and a Companion into a Thief: and after all this it is for no good to it felt, for it dares not spend those heaps of treasure which it fnatched and men hate Serpents and Bafilisks worfe than Lions and Bears; for these kill because they need the prey, but they fting to death and eat not. * And if they pretend all this care and heap for their heirs, (like the Mice of Africa hiding the golden ore in their bowels, and refufing to give back the indigested gold till their guts be out) they may remember that what was unneceffary for themselves, is as unneceffary for their Sons; and why cannot they be without it as well as their Fathers, who did not use it ; And it often happens that to the Sons it becomes the inftrument to ferve fome Luft or other; that as the gold was ufelefs to their Fathers, fo may the Sons be to the publick, fools or prodigals, loads to their Countrey, and the curfe and punishment of their Father's avarice: and yet all that wealth is fhort of one bleffing; but it is a load coming with a curfe, and defcending from the family of a * Η φιλοχρημοσύνη μήτης κακότη απάσης. long-derived fin. However the Father transmits it to the Son, and it may be the Son to one more, till a Tyrant, or an Oppreffour, or a War, or change of Government, or the Ufurer, or Folly, or an expensive Vice makes holes in the bottom of the bag, and the wealth runs out like water, and flies away like a Bird from the hand of a Child. Provocet at fegnes animos, rerúmque re Ingeniofa vias paulatim exploret egeftas. Claudian 7. Add to these the confideration of the advantages of poverty; that it is a ftate freer from temptation, fecure in dangers, but of one trouble, fafe under the Divine Providence, cared for in Heaven by a daily miniftration, and for whole fupport God makes every day a new decree; a ftate of which Chrift was pleased to make open profeffion, and many wife men daily make vows: that a rich a man is but like a pool, to whom the poor run,and first trouble it, and then draw it dry: that he enjoys no more of it than according to the few and limited needs of a man; he cannot eat like a Wolf or an Elephant: that variety of dainty fare minifters but to fin and fickneffes that the poor man feasts oftner than the rich, because every little enlargement is a feaft to the poor, but he that feafts every day feafts no day, there being nothing left to which he may beyond his Ordinary extend his appetite: that the rich man fleeps not to foundly as the poor labourer; that his fears are more and his needs are greater, (for who is poorer, he that needs 5.1. or he that needs 5000?) the poor man hath enough to fill his belly, and the rich hath not enough to fill his eye that the poor man's wants are eafie to be relieved by a common charity, but the needs of rich men cannot be fupplied but by Prin ces; and they are left to the temptation of great vices to make reparation of their needs; and the ambitious labours of men to get great estates is but like the felling of a Fountain to buy a Fever, a parting with content to buy neceffity, a purchase of an unhandsome condition at the price of infelicity: that Princes, and they that enjoy moft of the World, have moft of it but in title and fupream rights and referved privileges, pepper-corns, homages, triffing fervices and acknowledgments, the real use descending to others to more fubftantial purposes. These confiderations may be useful to the curing of Covetoufnefs, that the grace of mercifulness enlarging the heart of a man, his hand may not be contracted, but reached out to the poor in Alms. SECT. IX. Of Repentance. Repentance of all things in the World makes the greatest change; it changes things in Heaven and Earth: for it changes the whole Man from fin to grace, from vicious habits to holy customs, from unchafte bodies to Angelical Souls, from Swine to Philofophers, from drunkennefs to fober counfels: and God himself, with whom is no variableness or fhadow of change, is pleafed, by defcending to our weak understandings, to say that he changes alfo upon Man's Repentance, that he alters his decrees, revokes his fentence, cancels the Bills of acculation, throws the Records of fhame and forrow from the Court of Heaven, and lifts up the Sinner from the grave to life, from his prifon to a throne, from Hell and the guilt of eternal torture, to Heaven and to a title to never-ceafing felicities. If we be bound on Earth, we shall be bound in Heaven; if we be abfolved here, we fhall be loosed there; it we repent, God will repent, and not fend the evil upon us which we had deferved. But Repentance is a conjugation and fociety of many |