apt instruments: and so is he that runs after his content with appetites not springing from natural needs, but from artificial, fantastical, and violent necessities. These are not to be satisfied; or if they were, a man hath chosen an evil instrument towards his content: nature did not intend rest to a man by filling of such desires. Is that beast better that hath two or three mountains to graze on, than a little bee that feeds on dew or manna, aud lives upon what falls every morning from the store-houses of heaven, clouds, and providence? Can a man quench his thirst better out of a river than a full urn; or drink better from the fountain when it is finely paved with marble, than when it swells over the green turf? Pride and artificial gluttonies do but adulterate nature, making our diet healthless, our appetites impatient and unsatisfiable, and the taste mixed, fantastic, and meretricious*. But that which we miscall poverty, is indeed nature: and its proportions are the just measures of a man, and the best instruments of content. But when we create needs that God or nature never

Numen aquæ viridi si margine clauderet undas

Herba, nee ingenuum violarent marmora tophum!

Me pascunt olivæ,

Me cichoreæ, levésque malvæ,

Frui paratis et valido mihi,

Latoe, dones.

Horat. 1. 1. Od. 31.

Amabo levem cupressum,

Omissis Crete pascuis:

Terræ mihi datum est parùm,

Careo interim doloribus.

Pindar.

made, we have erected to ourselves an infinite stock of trouble that can have no period. Sempronius complained of want of clothes, and was much troubled for a new suit, being ashamed to appear in the theatre with his gown a little thread-bare; but when he got it, and gave his old clothes to Codrus, the poor man was ravished with joy, and went and gave God thanks for his new purchase; and Codrus was made richly fine and cheerfully warm by that which Sempronius was ashamed to wear; and yet their natural needs were both alike: the difference only was that Sempronius had some artificial and fantastical necessities super-induced, which Codrus had not; and was harder to be relieved, and could not have joy at so cheap a rate: because he only lived according to nature, the other by pride and ill customs, and measures taken by other men's eyes and tongues, and artificial needs. He that propounds to his fancy things greater than himself or his needs, and is discontent and troubled when he fails of such purchases, ought not to accuse providence, or blame his fortune, but his folly. God and nature made no more needs than they mean to satisfy; and he that will make more must look for satisfaction, where he can.

8. In all troubles and sadder accidents let us take sanctuary in religion, and by innocence cast out anchors for our souls, to keep them from shipwreck, though they be not kept from storm*. For what philosophy shall comfort a villain that is hauled to the

* Vacare culpâ in calamitatibus maximum solatium,

and

rack for murthering his prince, or that is broken upon the wheel for sacrilege? His cup is full of pure unmingled sorrow: his body is rent with torment, his name with ignominy, his soul with shame and sorrow which are to last eternally. But when a man suffers in a good cause, or is afflicted and yet walks not perversely with his God, then Anytus and Melitus kill me, may but they cannot hurt me; (2 Cor. iv. 8, 9.) then St. Paul's character is engraven in the forehead of our fortune: We are troubled on every side, but not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? (1 Pet. iii. 13, and iv. 15, 16.) For indeed every thing in the world is indifferent, but sin: and all the scorchings of the sun are very tolerable in respect of the burnings of a fever or a calenture. The greatest evils are from within us, and from ourselves also we must look for our greatest good; for God is the fountain of it, but reaches it to us by our own hands: and when all things look sadly round about us, then only we shall find how excellent a fortune it is to have God to our friend; and of all friendships, that only is created to support us in our needs. For it is sin that turns an ague into a fever, and a fever to the plague, fear into despair, anger into rage, and loss into madness, and sorrow to amazement and confusion: but if either we were innocent, or else by the sadness are made penitent, we are put to school, or into the theatre, either to learn how, or

else actually to combat for a crown; the accident may serve an end of mercy, but is not a messenger of wrath.

Let us not therefore be governed by external, and present, and seeming things: nor let us make the same judgment of things that common and weak understandings do; nor make other men, and they not the wisest, to be judges of our felicity, so that we be happy or miserable as they please to think us: but let reason, and experience, and religion, and hope, relying upon the Divine promises, be the measure of our judgment. No wise man did ever describe felicity without virtue*; and no good man did ever think virtue could depend upon the variety of a good or bad fortune. It is no evil to be poor, but to be vicious and impatient,

Means to obtain Content by way of Consideration.

To these exercises and spiritual instruments, if we add the following considerations concerning the nature and circumstance of human chance, we may better secure our peace. For as to children, who are afraid of vain images, we use to persuade confidence by making them to handle and look near such things, that when in such a familiarity they perceive them innocent, they may overcome their fears: so must timorous, fantastical, sad and discontented persons be treated; they must be made to consider, and on all * Beatitudo pendet à rectis consiliis in affectionem animi constantem desinentibus, Plut.

sides to look, upon the accident, and to take all its dimensions, and consider its consequences, and to behold the purpose of God, and the common mistakes of men, and their evil sentences they usually pass upon them. them. For then we shall perceive that, like colts of unmanaged horses, we start at dead bones and lifeless blocks, things that are inactive as they are innocent. But if we secure our hopes and our fears, and make them moderate and within government, we may the sooner overcome the evil of the accident; for nothing that we feel is so bad as what we fear..

1. Consider that the universal providence of God hath so ordered it, that the good things of nature and fortune are divided, that we may know how to bear our own, and relieve each other's wants and imperfections. It is not for a man, but for God, to have all excellencies, and all felicities. He supports my poverty with his wealth; I counsel and instruct him with my learning and experience. He hath many friends, I many children: he hath no heir, I have no inheritance and any one great blessing together with the common portions of nature and necessity is a fair fortune, if it be but health or strength, or the swiftness of Ahimaaz*. For it is an unreasonable discontent to be troubled that I have not so good cocks, or dogs, or horses as my neighbour, being more troubled that I want one thing that I need

*Non te ad omnia læta genuit, O Agamemnon, Atreus. Opus est te gaudere, et mærere: Mortalis enim natus es, et, hut haud relis, Superi sic constituerunt.